Grrl Power #647 – No healthpack needed
Imagine that red section of Sydney’s shield is actually blinking red, if you will. It would be more visually interesting in the animated version of this story, but I didn’t want to spend page real estate with a bunch of panels trying to illustrate that.
Maxima looked at the crater and was like “Okay, that was a respectable opening move. And if I wasn’t worried about my team… BANG! ZOOM! Literally to the MOON!”
Of course, whatever these things’ interest in the orbs are, you’ve got to respect something you can fit in your pocket that can take a hit like that. You’ve got to figure they either want them, or want to make sure no one has them. Or it’s like a weird game of tag. They’re aliens, who knows how they think?
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Given the crater that was no nuke. That was Abadoon Scaler wave super weapon – ref: Battle Angel Alita first series)
I infer the scaler weapon, because it was a remote transfer of energy and there was no ‘warhead’. Also the effects as it uberheated the ground under them similar to a microwave does water – pure energy transfer. Further a surface blast(nuclear)/meteor strike does not produce the kind of hole left behind. Nuclear/meteor type of events tend to produce a wide shallow bowl. From that I infer that most of the energy was focused at a point underground (from the depth of the hole). As most of the blast was focused UP and not OUT
I was trying to get and idea of just how big that was.
A crater of roughly 100m is roughly the size of the Tunguska comet/meteor eg about 185 times the scale of the first atomic bombs or about 2.96E6 tons of TNT and a 5PSI overpressure blast wave
A 12mt nuke made a 1.9km crater. It wasn’t as deep relative to diameter but it was bigger.
Better than Tunguska (air burst) is to use Operation Plowshare to estimate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare
I’m guessing that this was in the 15-20kt range. Sciona having walked away far enough to survive the blast helps reinforce this.
Don’t forget that the team were running and flying in the opposite direction to her, so could have covered a considerable distance. Especially as Sydney was indicating ‘must go faster, must go faster’.
Their slowest member, once Dabbler had been picked up, was Super Hiro. Who is only one category of flight speed lower than Sydney. Given that her top speed is Mach 4, they were therefore still likely to be flying at supersonic speeds. And we have no point of reference to say how long that pursuit continued for (beyond not getting any clues that it was too protracted).
Let us be conservative and say they went at Mach 1 for a couple of minutes:
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=mach+1+for+two+minutes
So potentially over 40 km (25 miles).
But Hiro can’t normally go over mach one (or even that close at a level tragectory (with the ground))
I could not recall anything which set his top speed, so worked down from Sydney’s to guess. But trying to figure out how you knew that, I recall Dave giving us the numbers. Doh!
*sigh*
I’ve been having a real rough day. That is my excuse, and I’m sticking to it! All quite a downer.
For a while it was looking like my lift back to the UK wasn’t going to happen. So I was facing the prospect of having to put down my kitties, as they are dependent on me, and would not survive the harsh conditions here, without me. Either that or figuring out how to hitch across Europe with three cats!
Hopefully all sorted now though. Hit me hard though, as my family had to put down our pet dog and cat, when I was a kid, when we left South Africa. And these kitties have provided company and helped to fight off depression, through a really rough year. Could not contemplate loosing them. So just trying to get myself back to a balanced state Which chatting in this community helps a bunch. Then need to make up for the lost time.
So, yea, that should be modified way down to about 3 or 4 miles.
I am assuming he is faster than 100 mph since gravity assist alone wouldnt bring him up to mach 1, which I think is around 768 mph. He is probably closer to 600-700 mph, with a MINIMUM of 400 mph, given how he went from Archon HQ to the testing grounds, which was at least 400 miles away according to Maxima…. carrying a bus of reporters and non flying arcswat members and support/administration (ie, Ariana) in under 1 hour. Again based on what Maxima said to Sydney.
I think his harem based speed limit (the best kind of speed limit) is restricted by Harems safety, rather than by raw thrust.
…
Okay, that turned out a little innuendo-ie :p
Dammit why did you have to say that last sentence. I would have had a perfect snarky comeback.
Hope things work out for you and your furred family
Thanks bud.
Things just had another depressing downturn though. :-(
Just had a car attempt to run me over, in another intimidation attempt! They swerved at the last moment, fortunately. Same guys who warned me off testifying against their various crimes. They were laughing though, so I think it was more gloating at having gotten away with it. But it was on a bridge, which has dry sand (on tarmac) all over the approach. So they could easily have slid, and at the speeds they were doing it would have crushed me against the barrier. This is not going to help either my depression or my concentration. :-/
But I do have a way to cheer myself up, without bringing folks here down! Although it does mention politics, fortunately though only in a non-controversial way, so I don’t feel it is a problem. Don’t click, to reveal, if you want to avoid such however.
Number 10 Downing Street had previously invited me to submit my proposal to them. However they chose to go with the minority coalition, at that time. Which I had warned them would not leave them in a strong enough position to implement the changes my proposals would require.
If they tried to make the alterations, but failed to do a good job (inevitable without any political clout) it would ruin the credibility of the concept. The new system could benefit far too many countries other than just Britain. So I declined to submit it.
But the latest political developments, with Boris Johnson and others resigning, and indicating that the country would be worse off, means I have the opportunity to resume the negotiations. If they all have serous doubts about the current path, then they may be willing to set up a feasibility study or perhaps even endorsing public debate on my concept, as a fall-back for if EU negotiations fail. 11th hour though it is.
Probably politically unwise of me to mention all this. But I am putting it all in the public arena within the week anyhow. And eff it, I could die tomorrow! Nattering to y’all perks me up, which I seriously need. Plus the hope that I may actually be on to something, which can help vastly improve democracy, might perk some of y’all up too. :-)
Oh, by the way, I felt really guilty about mentioning my stuff before. So ran it by DaveB, and he said he wasn’t bothered about that. But you need not worry, I don’t intend to keep wittering on about this. I just needed some outlet today.
Holy crud, Yorp. You are having an interesting time here — in the sense of the Chinese curse as well as the literal sense. I have missed all of the backstory; I don’t want to bring you down by making you think about unhappy things, but I would really enjoy hearing it if you want to ‘witter on’, and I’m itchingly curious about what this proposal is. Failing that, is it on a blog somewhere?
Oh I love talking about it. And it is really encouraging any time I hear someone enthusiastic to hear about it! Going into the details of it though would, of necessity, involve politics. And not only that some of the most sensitive politics going. Given that the flaws in democracy is causing some of the major injustices in the world.
Even saying that you can see how touchy people might get talking about how best to implement the changes. Or more likely saying ‘it is not possible to do this because of X’ (with X being one of the problems caused by democracy, which my solution would actually fix).*
So this really would not be an appropriate venue for me to give details, given that contemporary politics is the one thing we have a ban on, in this forum.
However I felt happy talking about the general proposal, in abstract, given that it is future politics, rather than contemporary politics.
*wags tail cunningly*
So you can find the background here (and a couple of posts after that). Barring any more nightmare days, I should have the basic concept published within the week. And the crowdfunding as soon as a I can after that. All bare bones stuff, as I have neither the time nor the resources to do anything fancy like a video.
But won’t be promoting it here, as that is unfair. However I will pop a website link in my name, when I have something ready, for anyone who’s interest may be piqued.
* The biggest issue is that people have become so cynical, and convinced that nothing can be done to fix things. Because they cannot under the current paradigm. So I have no illusions that it will take a long struggle to convince enough people, to actually make change. Although that will not stop me from trying, as it is heartbreaking to see news reports every day, which I know this could reduce.
My greatest anti-depressant is my certainty that (with or without my help) society will eventually evolve along these lines. It is the logical development of democracy. My biggest depressant is having failed to get it into the hands of people who can actually do something with it!
Interesting. I don’t see where you’re going with it — unless it’s simply “countries should fragment” — but I’d definitely like to know more. When you get your funding source set up, let me know.
It is not obvious, otherwise the solutions would have been found before. Interestingly attempts have been made which go in the same direction, but, because they omitted an important step, they either only partially solved the problems in the countries involved, or made them a lot worse.
However it is because we keep trying to improve democracy, and the attempts are learning from the mistakes of the past (sometimes) that I am confident the solution would be reached eventually, even with the trial-and-error processes of evolution.
Mind you it shows how ‘out of it’ I was yesterday. To lay so many problems at democracy’s door, yet not clarify my point!
My fixes can be applied to just about any type of government (it won’t work if in a state of anarchy), not just democracies. I focus on democracy though because democracies/ republics (in various forms) are the prevailing type of government on the planet.
So it is democracy’s job to fix the problems that are occurring, but it does not have the political tools to do so successfully. Those same tools though will work for any government, which chooses to make use of them.
The other reason why I focus on democracy though is because it is simpler to explain in a democratic context, given that it can be shown to be a natural progression along the principles that democracy represents.
Mind you similar arguments can probably be made for any government type, which was developed to make life better for the populace.
Finally “Democracy 2.0” is a much catchier title than “Government Optimisation”.
:-D
Hmm…. part of me is VERY leery when people want to sell a big idea without “spoiling” said idea first. Ideas don’t work like that. Copyright or Patent only comes into play when you have a finished product that is in a sellable condition.
A theory about politics doesn’t qualify. A completed BOOK about said idea would. A Kickstarter to publish said book in hardcover/softcover with optional autographs also counts.
And if your theory is valid, and works with human nature in ALL the varied cultures you listed in that earlier post… you should be able to come up with an elevator pitch that makes listeners go “huh… that would be nice if it worked”. An enthusiastic agreement is also an option – but you generally get that from the longer, more detailed explanation. The trick would be to come up with a descriptive set of words that do not have tons of misleading baggage from other political theories. That is why words like “communism” and “socialism” get invented. (And those words didn’t have bad press at first)
Kin that is precisely why I am going to publish the basic concept. People need to see the idea, to be able to assess it.
Plus I need a LOT of people to see it. I know that all too many people just find the prospect of major change impossible to contemplate. Even before I have actually described the concept, people tell me ‘you cannot change the system’. So I have no illusions that many people will write it off, out of paw.
Therefore I have to expose it to many people, to ensure that enough of the ones who are open minded get to read it too. Not all of whom would necessarily agree with it, of course. And only a proportion of those who are enthusiastic about it (I have several already) will be in a position to actually do anything with it, or to help.
Sadly there is a problem. It is a concept. Once people know the concept they do not actually need anything more. If they agree it is a good idea they can just make use of it.
Theoretically I could try patenting it, I guess? Although that is set up for devices, rather than concepts. But I have investigated the costs, for other unrelated projects, in the past.
You need thousands of dollars/pounds/etc just to patent it in a single country. Effectively you have to apply for a patent in every country in the world (although there are schemes which allow you to do so as a block, you still have to pay for each).
I guess it would take something like a million pounds to get a full world-wide patent? Not a practical option for someone who is trying to avoid ending up on a park bench, in the near future!
Plus I would not go that route, even if I had the money. I do not want to put any obstacles in the way of countries implementing my proposals. If a country actually wanted to put it in place, I would feel guilty as Hell, if there was any delay in processing a use of patent application.
I have tried a bunch of different ways to either get the support of media groups (solving both getting me some revenue and providing the publicity I need) and simply contacting key politicians directly. With only the one notable success, I mentioned above. And that suffering from the bad turn of events detailed.
Trouble is I lack credibility from two angles. One being the things I offer sound too grandiose to be plausible. The other that I am a nobody, out in the middle of nowhere, essentially having to cold-call. And you can guess how well that goes down! At best I tend to get stock replies, designed to fob off members of the public.
Finally I have run out of time. I have used every last resource I could, just to keep the electricity on (and failing at times) and the kitties fed (always). So I have to get it out into the world. Without publicity it is unlikely to get any eyeballs on it though.
So I shall just have to hope that my last-ditch schemes bear fruit.
I disagree. The longest job I ever had was private security officer. Yes that was the actual title.
Anyway, the diesels speeding at me, not wanting to deal with the stupid guard and just get to their destination, helped me. Either I stood my ground and kept my job (and in the meantime stared down a 100 ton vehicle with a psychopath driver speeding at me intentionally) or I got out of the way, survived, and would be fired.
Worthless people like to show down their betters. Like the alcoholic that pretends he’s a drummer (real drummers have multiple rhythms, not just a single set of 5 notes repeated for 13+ months in a row). He has no furniture, goes out of his way to get none. Won’t let anyone help him get any; he finally the other month got a couch but it doesn’t have cushions. He gets drunk with all the money he doesn’t spend on rent, and yells sexist/derogatory stuff at any female within 50 feet (sorry I’m American… divide that by 3 and it’s yards) of his apartment.
The other day, while I was working on my comic in the complex courtyard, there was a girl barbecuing with her friends. He kept yelling about how nice her butt was, and kept trying to get me to ogle her and say similar things to himself. I wouldn’t, I was working on my comic and care about respecting others and presenting myself in a dignified way* (offline only).
He was very drunk, continuing to drink (big surprise). He said I am too serious, and think too much. No argument. Also that I’m a piece of **** and I can go **** myself, because I’m a piece of ****. I thought of saying “Don’t worry, you didn’t offend me. For you to offend me, I’d first have to respect your opinion!” but that wouldn’t have helped anything.
THE POINT IS!
I felt good about myself. Why? This garbage person insults me and calls me out, but he can’t get any female attention, even if he pays for it (he tried and failed) and some of my followers are going to spend thousands of their own country’s currency units and travel thousands of distance units, just to be in my presence. One restaurant nearby invites me to work on my comic there, because they like talking to me and reading my work- they even said not to feel obligated to spend money when I’m there, since they like me anyway. I still buy stuff most the time. Sure, I’m a piece of **** in comparison. Gave me a good larf. (Yes that’s badly misspelled on purpose.)
TL;DR:
It’s about perspective. No matter what anyone does or says to you, YOU are in control of how you feel. Psychopath insults and threatens you? You know you’re better than s/he is and they recognize it too but aren’t willing to admit it. Feel good about that.
Very good advice, thank you.
I have an additional problem though. What I am working on involves trying to apply a solution to some of the worst problems in the world. Looking at them in detail, and trying to see the issues from the perspective of each group involved (notably including ones which sensitive folks would not wish to delve too deeply in).
This is important because I need to couch my advice in terms which will not alienate any faction. So I have to take the basic principles, compare them to each of the problems I am working on, and check that they work generically with each.
Clearly some aspects always have to be tailored to a country or problem’s specific needs though. So these I have separated out. But if I make a bad job of how I present my case, a whole segment of society could write off the concept as a bad idea. Making it that much harder for anyone who may try to implement my proposals, when ever that may eventually occur.
Which can give an extreme mental block. I trust my subconscious mind and if it is warning me ‘you are making mistakes here’, yet I am not able to improve it, I practically shut down!
When I am in a good state of mind I can look at the issues in a calmer, more objective way, and work my way through to a solution. Whilst compartmentalising all the tragic issues that I am having to examine. Likewise trying to lock away my fears that I could make things worse.
Which I can only do successfully, by confronting them, analysing them. Deciding if each aspect is likely to occur or not. Then once I have satisfied myself, putting them away, and locking the door. But I can always here them niggling, even once I have done that!
So that is one of the reasons you see me here so much. Either I’m depressed, and know that I need to chill out, to make any progress, or I have some issues that my conscious mind just cannot resolve. A great technique for the latter is to let my subconscious mind take over.
Even whilst I’m nattering here, I’m also resolving minor issues. As soon as I feel up to it I can then just apply them to the relevant document.
Yesterday I think I managed to edit about two paragraphs, all told! The depression of the work having a vicious feedback loop to the depression from my personal situation.
I’m feeling in a much better place though, having slept. And knowing how close I am to finishing this step. Not to mention the boost from moral support of kind folks like yourselves.
I know you’re working on that, and when I was still immature, I used to do the same thing. But don’t bother, because it won’t work.
Just realize the disgusting truth- nothing advances UNLESS the dictators directly wish for it, and you getting benefit is an unintentional side-effect and nothing more. Just concentrate on advancing yourself and ignore the world’s problems, because there’s nothing to be done.
That’s why we write. We build new worlds that reflect this one, but the hope contained is legitimate. This comic comment area is NOT the place to discuss these things; contact me elsewhere. I’m all over the net with the name Viirin, so find me somewhere else. Facebook, Discord, Royal Road Legends, Dragon Cave Forums, DeviantArt, all sorts of places. For your own dignity, don’t bring it up again here.
The 1% will always cling to the power they have. Fortunately the changes I propose do not threaten them. Rather they benefit the 49%, at the bottom, without detriment to the 50%+1% at the top. To the contrary making the 49% (relatively) content will be of benefit to them too!
So it is a win win improvement to society. Which I am quite happy to pursue regardless of any personal cost. It is a legacy worth indignity.
I will get in touch, once my conscience is clear that I have the ball rolling. Then I can turn to personal matters.
Regarding kitties:
If it comes down to having to make that choice, I think a few of us would be willing to do something help out — no one should ever have to go that route.
Thanks for the sentiments both.
How I go through life is considering, from an emotional standpoint, everyone (regardless of species) is already dead, so when they abandon me or die, it doesn’t affect me, as I grieved for them before we met. Maybe that will help you? I never once said I was healthy.
But you yet again make me think of something important, like you usually do, Yorp.
I think I will avoid using that approach myself. Although I can see how it would be a powerful defensive mechanism. If a very sad one.
My personal philosophy gives me a much more positive way of handling such things. But detailing it (and a pertinent complication) would be much too involved for me to go in to at this time.
Very cool thing: Asteroid Impact Calculator https://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEarth/ImpactEffects/
The local Harem is talking more coherently. Either she is getting used to her separation, or the brain wi-fi signal from Earth is stronger as they get closer to the portal.
Butt …
When they go through that portal, they better be inside the shield, as there is nothing but a lot of collapsed rock on the other side now.
Tough call on who to put on point (to survive such a problem) and who to bring up the rear, to shield them from another blast.
Wait a sec – didn’t someone say something about one end of the wormhole being “unanchored”? Might it open onto deep space, or high in the atmo, or the stage of a New Orleans drag burlesque, or inside a hardware store, etc?
Do any of those locations sound more dangerous than here?
I dunno. That new stage of a Orleans drag burlesque might be…
Really hate typing from my phone
I was under the impression the originating point (back on earth) was not anchored, and the place where they are now was (more) stable. So their return trip could have an expected ending.
Agreed. Well I’m kind of scatter-brained at the moment, so can’t recall how it all was phrased. But this end is whizzing around a lot. So there is a good reason for them to assume the other side might be too.*
But anywhere it opens up is likely to be better than here. All of the examples you gave, this team could cope with (even deep space).
Underground, in solid matter, could be a serious issue mind. However they could only hope that it would not allow them to exit if that was the case. Or that it would just appear like a flat rocky wall. Which is actually no problem for Maxima, as she can just burrow a cavity out, even through rock. And Sydney can supply the air to keep them safe, as they dig their way free.
* We know it was not mind, as we saw Achilles standing in front of it. However they don’t know that, so we should view their decisions on that basis.
Mind you Dabbler probably realised that it was anchored, on the other side (up until the explosion), because of her comment in the final panel above. The only way the explosion could have destroyed the sigil is if the portal still opened near to it.
Shouldn’t be an issue. Everyone is currently flying or be carried by someone who is flying. Presumably they can’t go through the portal unless there’s empty space on the other side, so even if there’s a hole right under the portal it’s no big deal.
Considering that Sydneys shield has so far been able to effortlessly take anything thrown at it so far, including by Maxima, I am willing to bet that the worldkillers weapon could probably seriously hurt even Maxima. Especially if its just an OPENING attack. They probably have more intensive attacks available as well. Not to mention this huge worldkiller thing is miniscule compared to the ship. So discretion and strategic retreat is probably a good idea here. :)
Yeah, at some point Maxima is going to run into something she can’t curb stomp. Otherwise where’s the drama?
Yup. Although Vehemence would have killed her. And Sciona was giving her a good run for her money too. So it is not all a breeze.
However bumping into something that is an order of magnitude stronger than her would be a significant difference.
Considering how upon detecting the orbs, and that the people in their vicinity weren’t the same race as Scion (I forgot the name already), their first reaction wasn’t to ask any kind of question but instead to fire a weapon at them that levels cities! I’m pretty sure that doesn’t qualify as an opening salvo or warning shot, it was meant to kill the big stuff and with prejudice!
Aliens may have motives we can’t understand, but battlefield tactics of that guy is trying to kill you are pretty universally understood when they make large sections of the landscape disintegrate ;)
They were the “Not Xeovarchy”.
As the Xeovarchy represent the bulk of the races in the Galactic community, that does narrow it down, but it does not get to a specific race.
Good arguments, by the way, for both yourself and Pander.
Remember there is no “overkill.” There is only “open fire” and “reload”.
Given the comparative small size of the creature compared to the ship (and yes I know the creature is huge, but still small compared to the ship) and considering it was the first blast, I do not see why you would assume that was its highest setting. Especislly since it was able to destroy an entire ultra-high tect+magic using world in a few days and reduce slmost everything to ash and rubble. Plus again, that thing seems to be just ONE occupant or weaponized creature on that ship.:)
It would be like making the first attack in a conventional war on Earth the firing of all your nukes in the first 3 minutes.
These folks can probably hurt Maxima if she just stands in their worst. Though Maxima did say she wasn’t going all out in testing the powers of Sydney’s artifacts so she can probably hurt them right back.
True that Maxima never went all out against the shield with her plasma attack, but even what she did do at the highest we have seen so far was, in Sydney’s words, “aint no thang.” And she didnt seem even remotely worried. We have also seen Sydneys shield rebuff stuff which did injure or knock back or knock down Maxima, like a punch from Vehemence (actually multiple punches) or the portal effect.
And Maxima laughed at the idea that what she did at the press conference was “full power”. She could have been bluffing but I don’t think so.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1157
Its not the first time in the earlier comics that Dave made sure to drop some foreshadowing that we ain’t seen nothing yet.
Maxima’s kind of tricky to judge since she shifts her power “mix” around actively all throughout the fight. She had to have her defense maxed to completely ignore V’s hits, her flight maxed to completely ignore his knock back or her strength near maxed to one shot him and so on. Since she is not reckless enough to try switching from maxed out to maxed out to maxed out in rapid succession and for the same reason has not enough experience doing so at V’s speeds we may never see a fight where everything she does is maxed and Sydney has certainly never seen it as one mistake at those levels and no more recruit…
It will be interesting if Maxima decides to put more effort into increasing how fast she can switch from one max to another or if she decides that path is just too dangerous to base a fighting style around.
Anyway, sorry for the tangent but basically since Maxima was meant to be the stronger than Sydney (don’t have a link but I’m pretty sure that Dave once said that was what he was going for with Sydney’s unique perspective on this slice of life super show ) and we haven’t seen anything to convince me otherwise yet I still vote that Maxima can take a lot more than Sydney’s current shield if she goes full defense. But of course if she does that then she can’t move very fast at all. Sydney’s thing is more versatility than being a power house at least when compared to Maxima. (Sydney can still do one more power at max power when her shield is up and Max can not do two things at max power.)
Their respective power rankings show Maxima to be the stronger, overall. They have the same rating for their defences though, so either could be higher within that band. However I imagine Maxima, on all-out-defence would be the tougher.
Dave has indicated that Sydney could well outstrip Maxima eventually. Bearing in mind that the ratings were set for the start of Halo’s career. So there was a heavy weighting for her inexperience. Plus it only factored in the powers she had access to at that time. So she is steadily narrowing the gap.
Ultimately, if Halo avoids dying, she should end up more powerful than Maxima, given that she has only presently unlocked a proportion of her skill tree. Whilst Maxima may be able to improve her existing powers,* such as through developing power stunts (maybe learning to project her force fields, for example), she is unlikely to gain completely new ones.
So Sydney has the much greater scope for improvement than Maxima.
* Maxima can mentally control her powers, by virtue of the fact that she can direct her force fields to make her fly, help her punch harder, and so on. As such, if she gains insight into how to make force fields operate more effectively (such as by results of studies on Halo’s shield), she should be able to direct them accordingly. With enough experimentation and practice.
I.e. Dave has a plausible angle should he want to increase Maxima’s pool powers’ strengths.
Maxima actually managed to get through Halo’s shield, at least a little bit. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1043 She clearly made a impact on the metal block.
I think it was already somewhat beat up when they got there – https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1039
Hard to tell for sure, but the side that Maxima was aiming at looked pretty pristine. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1041
hehe Large vehicles beep when backing up and her shield beeps when you need to be backing up.
:-D
Yeah, I thought something was going to explode, with the way it was beeping.
Oh, so the only reason the screwball ship is following and attacking them is because of Sydney’s orbs? It’s a good thing you’re telling us, because otherwise we’d have to guess. I mean, sure you did show us the scanning beams the thing sent out, but the orbs didn’t seem to be their only target, and being blocked from scanning anything might have triggered it, and both Sydney and Dabbler did that.
And while we’re on the target of “show don’t tell,” you don’t need multiple panels to show the force field flashing. And you don’t need to tell us in your author’s notes to make up for that lack. Try something like this:
Sydney: “Ok, so my shield probably isn’t totally invulnerable. I’ve never seen it flash red like that, not even when Maxima was testing it!”
The second comment is actually pretty good, but your first part is pretty meh. It’s okay to leave a few things mysterious in a story, and its obvious that the aliens have *some* interest in the orbs, because that is what triggered the scanner. Especially since it never bothered to continue scanning after seeing them.
It’s not the end of the world if you have to guess at the motivation of a mysterious alien, especially for only a few pages.
Aliens can be unfathomable. In this case though a number of us took it to be the orbs which had caught the scanning aliens attention. Whilst some folks were taking it other ways, Dave did give us (huge) hints. I think Some guy‘s conclusion is good about it not being necessary to spoon feed the readership.
Your proposed dialogue is good, in itself, as a solution to convey flashing. Although I do not feel that there is a particular need to know about that, in comic, as the graphics and sound effects are distinctive enough to allow us to recognise them in future.
However adding a little bit of mental animation is a nice bit of extra information for Dave to provide us. Rather like letting us know what character’s accents are (when they are not as marked as requiring different spelling, such as with Varia). The blog is giving us stuff that is not essential to the plot, but which is nice to know.
Most importantly though the dynamics of this page are to build up a rising sense of dread. Which the dialogue as stands is an integral part. Whilst the proposed alternative would leach some of that away.
So I think Dave made a good call on this one.
Oh, I meant to reposition that reply to Oberon‘s comment. And would swear that I had done so, before starting to write the reply.
Although the page did glitch a bit, when one of my cats trod on the keyboard. Maybe she hit a shortcut which undid the move?
The cat and keyboard defense never works. Nice ref to the dude arrested for child porn though. ;)
Sydney should keep flying her best speed and only drop the forcefield as they enter. Let inertia handle the rest.
I was unaware of the case, so can’t claim credit.
Clearly not credible though, extrapolating from your comment. Random mashing of the keyboard would not find your browser navigating to such a specific part of the dark web, unless you had a million monkeys working in parallel. For a long time.
Whereas mine was to undo a previous action. I is an innocent doggy! NOOOO!
The inertia thing would be too uncontrolable. Only one individual would go through the hole, at best. The others would end up flung past it, in a heap. Probably loosing them their only chance.
Their best bet is to do as Maxima says, because then she could either use bullet time to assist their progress (at the risk of lowering her own defence) or act as the rear-guard, to give them some cover (from secondary weapons which may not have the warning given by the primary attack).
Kudos for being critical in a constructive manner, but…seriously? The scanner hitting Sydney and the orbs a few strips back, followed by showing the alien/scanners PoV of Sydney and the orbs and it going aggro in the very next panel(s) wasn’t a big enough hint that the Orbs/Sydney are interesting to it somehow? Also, Sydney *didn’t* block it. Not quite in time anyways. The panel with the Alien PoV shows symbols on two of the orbs and red tags around all of them, *heavily* implying that Halo didn’t shield up in time to completely block the scan.
I’ll agree that the panel economy for the shield in this strip probably could’ve been a little better. I have to disagree with your dialogue though. That particular solution feels clunky and unnatural given their situation – at least to me. Not that I have any other/better suggestions, mind.
Its a pretty obvious guess actually. It was interested in the orbs snd cslled for the ship IMMEDIATELY after scanning the orbs and sydney. Which is another indication of the type of power being dealt with here. Beforenow, no scans whatsoever, including by Dabbler or Specs, have had given anyone any insight into the orbs. Even Krona, who is aliteral reality hacker, only noticed anything beyond what anyone else could see during thr skill point choice effect.
Geez, when I type on my phone, it makes me look really uneducated with all the typos.
If I have to do a typing test, on a computer which has the wiggly red line spelling option turned off, I think I wouldn’t fare too well either. :-)
j f g i
Such tests are purposely conducted in an environment where you do not have access to things like spellcheckers or browsers. They want to know how good your typing/spelling is. And even if you did manage to open a browser, your typing speed score would drop through the floor, whilst using it.
I am rather surprised that Maxima is willing to draw the Worldkiller’s attention to Earth like this.
They have sophisticated scanning critters patrolling the area. Checking through its data would easily uncover the presence of the wormhole.
So either way they would know that a wormhole had been here.
Plus it was Maxima’s stated intent to shut down the unstable wormhole. It is not just the Worldkiller which is a threat. That wormhole was teleporting chunks of Earth to the Alari homeworld. Let it go on too long and the Earth might be destroyed.
The serendipity of them accidentally contributing to it closing prematurely (due to the sigils being damaged in the blast), means that it will hopefully be shut before the enemy get to send a probe through, to find out where the wormhole leads.
So, yes, it is risky. But the alternatives were even worse.
Those probes were in standby mode till the orbs caught their attention.
Meaning that until they found out about the orbs they didn’t care about the wormhole.
But if the thing they do care about. IE the orbs. goes through that wormhole they will turn on their FTL drives and set course for the wormhole’s point of origin.
So yea, in military terms Maxima is being an idiot and leading the enemy right back to her base.
So fly away from the wormhole, to lead it away from that, whilst the Earth is destroyed?
Then get trapped here, whenever the unstable wormhole eventually collapsed, with no way to get back to whatever bits of Earth survived?
And clearly they are outclassed here, so staying is only likely to get them killed and he orbs ending up in the tentacles of the enemy.
Just pointing out a few potentially very serious flaws in the alternatives.
Now if you can propose a different course of action, which negates all of those issues and which avoids revealing Earth’s location, I’m all ears?
Personally I think getting through it and shutting it down (which is already happening anyway) is the best way of minimising that risk.
Your supposition about the scanning critter does not make sense by the way. If it was ‘in standby mode’ (and thereby not scanning), then how did it become aware of the orbs?
It is a scout (of some sort) its job is to monitor the area. Unless it has the human frailty of needing to sleep the standby mode idea does not hold water.
Plus we saw it slithering around (whilst the wormhole was nearby). So clearly it was active even before starting to do the obvious scanning.
That all of course assumes that the alien is able to identify the other end of the wormhole, which may not be possible, and that anyone on the team knows why they’re being shot at in the first place, which may very well not be the case. Just because us the readers can see those scan red flags doesn’t mean the team can.
Here’s another thing to think about. The wormhole is also unstable, and that would likely make it that much harder to analyze quickly, if they even have that capability.
A bunch of interesting points.
One comic convention, which is worth mentioning, is that we almost always see the world the same way Sydney does (if not from her point of view, as we are usually looking at her).
We see things revealed with truesight (even though only Sydney can perceive them, as pointed out when nobody else could see X, until she lowered her invisibility). Likewise we could always see glyphs and sigils on the orbs, even though Dabbler could not. Even with all the scanning she used on them.
So, at a minimum, I would say that Sydney could see the results of that scan, exactly the same as we could. Which her extremely sickened expression and ongoing distress signals very clearly. Halo knows that these things are after her/her orbs.
While I agree that Sydney likely has some awareness of the nukey-nuker being setoff by her orbs, I’m not sure that I can agree that she has as much detail as we got.
I’d be surprised if the orbs weren’t feeding her consciousness somewhat directly with vital information, as they learn how she learns to work with them. Yes, I’m assuming that the leveling up is them unlocking specifically because they’re “confiden”t that she can handle more options, even if they’re not sapient or even sentient.
Technically, the probe was in standby mode until Sci walked over it
‘Stationary’, I would say, rather than leaping to ‘standby’.
A scout would be darned useless if it only noticed stuff that walked on it. It is far more likely that it was buried, but using passive sensors to monitor for interesting things (of which Sciona, the Alpha team and the Wormhole all qualify). Its orders/program would determine how long that would be maintained, until the decision is made to actively probe.
I do though agree, with Metallix, that the wormhole was considered a lower priority. And I can even speculate why. The structure they arrived in, with the sigils on the floor, looked to be the receiving end of a wormhole system. Dabbler’s comment about the sigil being destroyed (on the Earth end) giving extra credence to this speculation.
As such this scout had been set up next to a place that wormholes (or technomagical transport of some kind) would be expected to manifest.
Then it is just down to the priorities of the organisation which put it there. In this case they rate the individuals arriving as being the more important to investigate first.
I have little doubt that the wormhole would be on the list though, with or without the Alpha team’s involvement. The slithering thing just could not get here as fast as they flew.
.Those probes were in standby mode till the orbs caught their attention.
Meaning that until they found out about the orbs they didn’t care about the wormhole.
But if the thing they do care about. IE the orbs. goes through that wormhole they will turn on their FTL drives and set course for the wormhole’s point of origin.
So yea, in military terms Maxima is being an idiot and leading the enemy right back to her base
Hiro should carry Harem over his shoulder more often
If he was carrying Concretia over his shoulder… would we then have to call him an “Over-the-Shoulder-Boulder-Holder”?
:D
I maintain that the one path progression meter on the shield which had only one point to go is the next which should get a point.
Either it’s the size it can enlarge to… Or it’s the strength of the shield.
I can’t think of a greater asset to Sydney, that the orbs provide, beyond the shield. I tend to suspect it’s the major reason Maxima allows a recruit to accompany her on dangerous missions, for the simple fact she’s heavily protected from harm first and THEN the numerous advantages her other orb functions provide.
Now that she has found something which strains it, I concur.
I was thinking about this, over the weekend. wouldn’t enlarging the shield (by the traditional logic of these things) necessitate that it was weaker in that state? more spread out, like a bubblegum bubble that’s been over inflated, thinning the walls proportionally? admittedly, we can’t know if this is the case, since Syd’s orbs didn’t come with a User’s Guide, and the levelup grid (wheel? tree? Gordian knot?) is mostly incomprehensible to anyone not named Dabbler.
maybe there’s a pip that allows a skin-tight shield that concentrates the protection. that would make for a great surprise supermode. a tad selfish, from a squad tactics POV, but superhero stories are great for pushing characters into otherwise uncharacteristic behaviors.
perhaps the size of the projected shield has no effect upon the strength of protection. traditional logic probably has no place when dealing with objects already stated in universe to be immune to all but the most powerful observational powers; see Dabbler’s inability to scan them with her magic and tech, but Kroma’s near breakdown upon viewing the levelup matrix with her Universal Machine Code insight. are the orbs like the infinity stones, part of the essential foundation of the (uni? multi?)verse? are they from another layer of reality entirely? are they Lovecraftian non-Ecludian monstrosities obeying Sydney’s commands on a whim? any of these answers modifies the logic one must use in reference to them.
time (and DaveB) will tell. until then, we are free to engage upon our conjecture. for better or worse.
Good speculation.
The orbs do operate at a fundamental level. They can twiddle gravity/inertia around, at Halo’s whim (her hair hangs down, towards her feet, even when hovering upside down, as one example). Plus Krona indicated that their code operates at those kinds of levels.
When you have that degree of control, size becomes much less of an issue.
some more ramblings…
I would also like to think that you could ‘(un)lock’ an orbs settings at some point (some of the interlinked nodes)
BTW why would ‘red’ be the universal color for ‘AAAUUUUGGGGHHH TIME TO PANIC?’
That ‘crack’ could also have been by something extremely hard and or volitile that happened to hit and explode (maybe a large deposit of U-238)
As far as the initial attack, they could also have interrupted a stealth or illegal attack the ‘space cops’ would not approve of. in any case doing a *YIPE* *YIPE* *YIPE* bail could avoid further conflicts.
Mauve is the universal color.
> BTW why would ‘red’ be the universal color for ‘AAAUUUUGGGGHHH TIME TO PANIC?’
The orbs clearly have a telepathic element — e.g., the way the truesight orb feeds data to her brain, since no one except her can see what she sees — so it’s reasonable that it scanned her to determine what color would have the right connotations.
I’ve said this twice already, Sidney is going to use the Telepresence ball to port through that hole. Possible along with everyone else in the bubble. that would be one heck of a power-up, but we’re playing with bigger guns now.
If it closes too fast for them (or all of them) to make it through, then it is certainly worth a shot. Nothing to loose at that stage.
Trying it whilst the shield is still up? If it works fine. If not though, Halo will have wasted precious seconds, which would prevent them trying the more obvious path outlined already.
I hope Sydney obeys her orders. They were not phrased as a request or an option. Only if Halo is certain that that would work, should she even consider ignore her commanding officer’s orders. Given that we have nothing to indicate that it would definitely work, this is an instance where Sydney should trust Maxima’s judgement. She has many years combat experience over Sydney.
Achilles will keep the wormhole open, by just sticking his finger in it. The wormhole edges would cut any normal material, but not the Invulnerable One…
All praise his everlasting indestructibleness!
And if Les manages to plug the galactic dyke with his ‘finger’, how are they going to pass through? LightBee can not pass through solid matter
If he sticks his head through, then they can get home. Humans digestive systems are just a long tube after all.
So to keep the universes new hole wide open Achilles may have to use two fingers?
…and possibly some Oil of Etherealness (now comes in “warming” or “liquibeads” variations!)
Yes, it can. The one she holds projects a hologram and that went through a closed window and the floor of the factory a while ago. She could be the only way out….
The lightbee went through a gap in a boarded up window, and through the grate in the floor.
It is named after a similar device from Red Dwarf, which is actually a physical projector. So far we have not seen anything to indicate that the lightbee is itself holographic. To the contrary, the fact that its only sense is to tell if there is a clear pathway, does strongly imply that it needs such.
For info it (like the tentacle) can be found within its associated orb, when not in use. Likewise the corresponding features are absent, when they are out and being used.
how about this: she flies up to the portal, drops the shield long enough to reposition/resize the shield so that they are inside the shield WITH the portal, then they all go thru it… Hiro goes through first to hold up the roof, then Harem teleports?, maybe?… then Dabbler next and by this time the portal has closed significantly enough that Max would have a tough time fitting and is in the process of telling Sydney to go through first so she’d be the last one thru when Sydney brings up the Light-Bee and teleports through herself and Max finally gets through seconds before it closes… after that, they are left with the rubble of the hideout Sciona used….
Trying out a new power in the middle of battle is never a good idea.
That said, interesting tactic. I don’t think she has that capability, though it may be possible in the future. I believe I remember the chart of the abilities of the orbs that Halo chooses her next power-ups. Each orb had its own nodes, but between them were connection nodes I think those may allow her to combine orb powers like the mass teleportation via telepresence. Those nodes may also end up allowing Halo to use more than two orbs at a time.
the aliens have good force integration. If what is basically a scout can pull a capital ship up for fire support on such short notice, either the troops are well trained, they have an asymmetrical chain of command, or they have so much raw power that the ship that did that is merely their equivalent to an APC or CAS fighter.
I’m betting that Mechathulu’s race were the ones that Sciona was talking with (when she thought she was talking with her homeworld). Seems reasonable that they’d have the ability to impersonate the Alari – Mechathulu’s technology appears to be easily superior to the Alari’s and they have access to the remnants of the world. Corpse puppet, anyone?
That would handily explain why Mechathulu’s race left behind a tripwire system on a dead planet, and why they were close enough for (what appears to be) a signaling laser to beacon them to a location almost instantly.
Maybe they’re following Star Trek’s precedent, and having the ship’s captain lead the ‘away team’?
she learned something, every time she has learned something she gets a power point. this is a bad time to get a power point.
She and the shield managed to live so mostly its just a bad time to spend a power point. If you mean you think the balls will do their crazy dance and leave Sydney powerless, I think their hookup to her brain will stop them from informing her of the power up till after she feels safe.
Whoever designed the UX for the orb upgrade was clearly an office tech and not a field user. No other explanation for deciding that earning a point should a) block the use of all the orbs, b) automatically engage, and c) have no ‘cancel’ option until you spend the point.
Unless the way out of all those things is to stay calm and mentally will them to put the level up on hold.
She clearly controls them with thought to some extent already so its seems reasonable that all other features are controllable mentally and the “switches, toggles” and whatever controls that appear on the orbs to help Sydney control them are just their as training wheels to help her direct her will with biofeedback. Also possibly have a secondary purpose as a handicap accessibility feature.
*nods*
I approve of this side story, only if she has to get a ride from her parents
Whoops, supposed to be a reply to dabbler being able to get them home if they are stranded
With a hitchhiker beacon ring?
Oooo…, and risk Vogon poetry?
Considering the high probability of running into those red tape loving monstrosities, I think there is a non-zero chance that Dabbler has an a-er a spell for that. (or she could just apply her massive genius towards the correct sound proofing application of a towel!)
Now I’m curious…Which is more resilient, Sydney’s bubble, or Maxima in full defense spec? I’m guessing the shield still has room to grow (and maybe after this, Sydney may invest a skill point or two). But so far we haven’t seen Sydney take a hit that Max can’t, and as much as I feel some part of Max would love to test her limits on this thing…Now is not the time.
Sydney’s shield looks to be stronger than Max’s full defense. Sydney took on what appears to be a 5-20kt equivalent explosion unscathed (barely), where Max had her nose broken (at full defense) by a punch whose shockwaves didn’t extend past a medium-sized restaurant’s parking lot.
I’m not sure about that,
The punch’s energy was primarily kinetic, the shock-wave was a secondary effect caused by the power of the punch.
Whereas in this case the explosion was the primary effect.
You can’t use the shock-wave as a yardstick to compare against a similar effect without doing the math on the punch.
I’m not game to try doing the math on the kinetic force of the punch that’d be a question for the XKCD guy.
That said I’m not saying that the shield isn’t more powerful, just that the 2 comparisons aren’t fair.
Explosions ARE shockwaves. Some of them also have heat and other effects as well. Of course, any powerful shockwave will also heat up the medium it’s travelling through, usually the air, due to compression.
Most of our worlds explosions are caused by chemical reactions, until you go up to nuclear weapons, then it’s atomic reactions of either fission or fusion depending on the type. As you well know, nukes are also very radioactive and bright as well. Both chemical and nuclear also generate a lot of heat.
This is pretty much a basic explanation of a few things, of which I’m sure most readers were at least partly aware of. In the USAF I was a Munitions Systems Specialist, so I know a lot more about them, but it’s actually pretty boring to talk about. On the other hand, hit youtube and you can find some awesome slow motion explosions. On that line, look up the MOAB and you’ll find some videos where you can very clearly see the shockwave. And no, I’m not going to make that moronic statement of “I could tell you more, but then I’d have to kill you”. The people who say that tend to be jerks of limited intelligence.
Hey, it’s 3am. No wonder I’m rambling on. Night everyone, have fun :)
That wasn’t the point i was making, i was trying to point out that you can’t compare the punch (which is NOT primarily a shock-wave) and the blast (which is) and use the size of the blast as a point of comparison.
You absolutely can compare a punch to an explosion, both ultimately come down to a question of Joules. The end result of this is going to be, the explosion Sydney just shielded them from was an entirely different order of magnitude than the punch that broke Max’s nose (at full defense).
/* Super-long winded XKCD-like numbers juggling, but without the writing skill or humor of XKCD guy */
Let’s be super-generous to Vehemence with all of these numbers: so we’ll say that the space shuttle weight reference assumed the fully-fueled shuttle with boosters as it sat on the launchpad: 4.4 million pounds. Space-shuttle-weight-stalwart weighs 4.4 million pounds, takes a hit that budges him up (we’ll call it) a meter into the air.
4.4 million pounds is 1,995,806.428 Kg. Lifting that one meter translates to 19,958,064 joules in Vehemence’s punch.
Let’s also assume that he tripled in strength between punching Stalwart and Punching Maxima. We’ll just round up and say that the punch that broke Max’s nose was somewhere around 60,000,000 joules. Using 4,184 as our factor to convert, we get 14,340 grams of TNT equivilant. Let’s call it 15kg – this is a boring amount of TNT. So we’ll make Vehemence even stronger than – here’s what 100kg of TNT going off looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vai5S0mI9u0
Now we’ll intentionally under-estimate the explosion that went off under Sydney. We’ll say that the hole under them is only 170 ft (52 m) diameter, 80 ft (24 m) deep. Thus we steal the numbers from Project Plowshare’s initial detonation – 3.1 kilotons of TNT. This is equivalent to roughly 13,000,000,000,000 joules.
Of course, one of the hidden super powers of all super powers is that they give the author/artist flexibility (among other things: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1909 ). But all the same, we’ve got a pretty reasonable depiction of Max’s nose breaking and the punch throwing off a shockwave that we could generously argue is around 100kg of TNT equivalent. Sydney’s shield took a hit somewhere around 14 million times harder than what Vehemence was punching at.
I would LOVE to get a proper answer for this. The non-relationship between a punch in the face of thanos and heavy weaponry unloaded on him really annoyed me in infinity war. Either Tony stark loads his rockets with flash bangs or his fist packs more energy than a shaped charge. This happens all the time in superhero works and it needs to stop.
Not bad for the shield considering that it was a direct hit that it managed to transfer the energy around the shield to destroy the ground underneath it and yes it’s hard to see, but the shield bubble is in the middle of the crater, level with the portal seen just to the right of centre.
(I understand the flashing red with the beeps, possibly as animated .gif
but DaveB also has to account for any readers/viewers who would be affected by epileptic seizures.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSuStthQVRE
Hmmm. That’s odd. I can’t help but I noticed that shield bubble is floated in middle of crater (with no “floor” under people.) Is not they SHOULD to be fall down (Or got knock out of crater by explosion. Because Flight Ord are not in her hand. It is still above her head.
Secondly, What happen to floor rock inside of shield bubble? I noticed that floor is gone. If I remembered shield can cut the object if shield’s force thur the object. If so, Floor rock should be inside shield bubble.
Did I missed some information about orbs?
Given that we’ve never seen the ground under Sydney destroyed before, it’s a safe bet that the shield is effectively wrapped over the ground, rather than cutting a whole in it.
Or we go for hidden option C, which is that the shield is a far more complex force, since it seems to let through light but not laserbeams, sound but not shockwaves. warmth but not dangerous heat.
A shield of this much power that wraps around the ground would be a major weakness, since it would mean the user is vulnerable to attack from below.
I think it has a complex list of things to block and things not to block, and because these orbs have extreme control over the universe (as implied by Krona), it’s probably not that difficult for them to selectively block anything dangerous.
I meant the shield was between Halo and the ground, even when she appears to be standing on it. (Hence why I said wrapped *over* the ground).
I was suggesting your option C.
Correct. We saw recently that the shield forms a closed hemisphere, when they are standing on a flat surface. The force field actually goes underneath their feet (but above the ground). So no rock or platform would be included within the force field.
Once the ground below them has been destroyed, then it could revert to the full spherical shape, that the force field normally takes when Halo is flying with a group. Note that Halo, Maxima and Hiro are all flyers, so the lack of ground is not an issue to the current plan.
Oh, good old yorpie got me :). I’m glad I wasn’t totally unclear.
Except… Sydney is currently only holding Mr Buble’s ball
Let’s hope DaveB spots that, before gravity does!
Considering the fact that they were all FLYING because the two people that CAN’T fly were the slowest in the group, and they REALLY REALLY did NOT want to hang around their original location because of the portal moving AWAY from there, i don’t see continuity glitch in the ground NOT being inside her shield globe… to be honest, i would find it wrong if it WERE inside, given the stated fact that it was moving, and they needed to catch up with it, implying they needed to go faster than Dabbler/Harem could run therefore flying was the only logical option.
Just jumped back to check something from #644
Two things jumped out at me on review.
One is Worlaan has made a valid observation, the shield was indeed covering the floor under them when the shot hit so some of it should still be inside the shield with them.
Two is that shot wasn’t from Mechathulu, the four shots it fired seem to be more like marker flares or herding shots than actual attacks, scary as that sounds… it was an ORBITAL STRIKE. You see the contrails of the shot’s entry through the atmosphere above it.
Which makes me wonder about the location Sydney found the Orbs (off Mexico’s coast) and a certain event 65 million years ago in the same place… that just happened to kill off 95% of life on the planet… maybe whatever’s here managed to kill the original owner by hitting them with an extinction level event, but failed to retrieve the Orbs at the time, possibly presuming they were destroyed in the attack (given the amount of iridium in the atmosphere from the blast at the time, sensors would have had a serious issue getting any energy readings in the blast zone).
The scout definitely looked Very Very Angry to see them.
(Just a small self-correction: 80% of life on the planet)
That’s an intriguing suggestion…
Very intriguing. The more I think about this orb origin theory, the more I like it.
When standing on a flat surface, the shield forms a closed hemisphere. So they were standing on the flat part of the force field, with the ground underneath that. Hence no rock was inside the shield. The rock below them though was blown away (or fell down) when the rest of the crater formed beneath them. At that point the shield could revert to the bubble shape, which the Halomobile takes in the air.
Technically Sydney claimed that her scuba holiday (when she found the orbs) was in the Florida Keys, so off the U.S. coast. However Sydney was clearly being evasive at the time (this was before she joined and was still wary about Archon). Which was picked up by both Maxima and Zephan, as they exchanged significant looks.
So I have considered the Chicxulub Crater as being a viable alternate location. And agree with your hypothesis as being entirely plausible, and, in fact, a very good contender. Interestingly that would put the previous wielder as either being an alien, a supernatural who was contemporary with the dinosaurs, or alternatively an undiscovered species of intelligent dinosaur. Mammals were only shrew-sized at the time, so even Bigfoot would be excluded from the list of possibilities.
If the hypothetical smart dinosaurs lived exclusively in or around the Chicxulub area, or along the coast of the Yakutan peninsular, then that would explain why we have never recovered any of their fossils. So just picture Clever Girl as the previous orb owner. ;-)
One final point though is that the blast itself could easily have hurled the orbs (with or without the orb wielder’s corpse) anywhere in the Caribbean region. I could picture some lighter debris, such as them, even being carried as far as the Florida Keys, if hurled up on the right (sub orbital) trajectory.
I was thinking a heptapod alien species as the original owner, like a sentient starfish.
Octopi have the limbs, are sentient and a pier-reviewed paper which suggests Octopi may have been aliens. That was heavily disputed, due to lacking substantive evidence, however it was submitted by 33 researchers. So it is not like it was just an isolated crank.
Looking at the biggest point of dispute is the fact that octopus DNA has been sequenced, and does fall within the range of biological life on Earth.
However, if we run with the panspermia hypothesis, we could all have come from alien sources originally. Mars being one candidate, from when it had a magnetic field, atmosphere and surface water. So it would be consistent for DNA to be compatible, in the first place.
Hence squid being infected with alien DNA, and getting upgraded to the superior octopi, would be a second wave of alien settlement.
Easily enough justification for making the claim in a super genre. And a lot more credible in the Grrlverse, given the preponderance of aliens in the Milky Way and on Earth. So there could have been active tinkering, by alien scientists on Earth, rather than it all being down to meteors blasting microbes off Mars, and the random chances involved throughout the process.
Octopi are a good option too, means they could use all the Orbs at once,
If you’ve ever seen the show The Future is Wild, the creature called the Squibbon as an alien owner of the Orbs.
Yay, Hivers rule (even if they have made you think that you actually do).
Then again, cerebrosaurs are an attractive idea too. It has always bothered me that we, apparently, have gone from our primitive forebears to where we are now whilst dinos had way more time and never even developed basic tool use or control of fire (although how do you tell if they did, from this far away in time)
Best bets for the cerebrosaur ancestor would be either a coastal living Troodon (as they were starting to show signs of cerebral evolution) or Deinonychus (The proper name of the Jurassic Park Velociraptor)…
*scampers away to her bolthole to think and research*
You may want to check out this series:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_of_Eden
For some reason I could not get into it, the first time I tried mind. It does feature intelligent dinosaurs though. Plus I like the author, so left it in my library. Hopefully I will get a chance to read it again someday.
Yeah, I read those many, many years ago. So far back that I can’t remember too much about the details in the story, but I must have enjoyed them because I still remember them; just haven’t seen a copy of them in decades.
Read that years and years ago (about two decades or more)
One thing to be aware of: the dino’s are into inter-species mating
Why not just change the text from “Beep Beep Beep Beep” to “Blink Beep Blink Beep”?
I have been looking and trying to figure this out too. 88,000m^3 of granite is about 236 808 short tons of material.
The first atomic nuke was 20Kt Trinity (Trinity (nuclear test) see wikipedia) It only generated a crater 5 feet (1.5 m) deep and 30 feet (9.1 m) wide. The test was air blast (above ground) at 30M above the surface of the desert. After more tests, a treaty was agreed upon to only do underground tests (no exo, air or water tests) before all testing was banned.
project sedan was a test to see if nukes could be used for excavation. it made a 100m deep crater 1200m in diameter. it was about 104 kilotons of TNT (435 terajoules) but it was buried in a hole 194 meters down, moved about 11,000,000 metric tons of rock pulverized to sabot sand consistency. Note here is the word ‘moved’ not also vaporized as well
still wrapping brain around this, since the crater also seems to have a ‘lava pool’ at the bottom?
Why can’t Harem teleport everyone through the portal with her copies?
Going through the portal has discombobulated this Harem quite a bit.
(The others are probably dizzied a bit as well, but with 4 bodies to spread it over they are likely still functional, if unhappy.)
But to directly address the question, she can’t carry very much weight even at her best. But irregardless, I doubt Maxima would trust her to jump even just herself through the rabbit-hole except as a last resort – who knows where she might end up…
Also, I’m pretty sure harem can’t normally teleport people.
Humans, anyhow, because (non-shrinking super) humans are above her weight limit. At her best she could only carry Peggy’s 50 cal sniper rifle.
She should be able to carry the pixie, who Sydney met in the council chambers.
Although Dave did um and arr about her having a ‘no living matter’ exclusion too. Which we have not found out about, one way or the other, since.
Yeah, about that: do you know anyone willing to be the guinea pig (yummy tasty guinea pig) to try it and risk being the alien pig from that “Galaxy Quest” documentary?
Well, we could take a leaf out of Deus’s book. No not that book, the other one!
A pot plant would be a good place to start. If that works then a worm. After that an actual guinea pig does sound like a good choice.
Beyond that it would have to be a shrinking super or a small supernatural. But as there are none in Archon (that we know of) there would be little incentive for any to volunteer. Unless a joint mission with the Twilight Council was on the cards, and a Pixie (for instance) turned out to be a semper vigilantes.
Although it would be very interesting to see how the Veil managed to get a Pixie to pass as a federal agent (given that all VI’s are such)!
Hopefully that things craterbuster move takes enough recharge time for Sydney to do all of that (assuming group chatter is a free action) or it can just keep filling everything with explodieness so they can’t ever drop the shield long enough to go through.
If the theory of exposure to powerful forces being the catalyst for levels is the case then things will get very interesting (Syd will put all her points in shield power)
It looks like Sydney only has the one point more in that line, on the skill tree. Which would be an excellent next pick, given this latest development!
However it did have five other skills available. Plus a faint line, implying that it may be possible to unlock another batch. So not just raw strength, but other interesting possibilities up for speculation. A couple of which are single nodes:
• Opacity (privacy mode)
• Night time mode (locks in place*)
Then there are the three skills in the ‘architectural arc’:
• Compartment (great for larder, TV room and brig) – opacity compatible with each separately
• Door (external or internal, and with or without lock, as required)
• External bubble (great for capturing foes or providing temporary accommodation for refugees)
* Relative to other stuff. So if on a planet it carries on spinning with it, on the same spot on the ground. If coasting through interstellar space it carries on with its current trajectory. It may require unlocking the flyball’s equivalent (auto-pilot) to allow it to remain hovering in mid-air.
*rescans the skill web*
The brown orb has three points in it… still considering it as a Defensive Countermeasures Orb.
And the Flight Orb and the Energy projection Orb have a point in the junction between them, hypothesis on it…. afterburner… warpdrive… FTL?
Considering it either recognized the orbs or apparently *really* don’t like things they can’t scan directly, I think it was less “opening shot” and more “alpha strike”.
Alpha=first, initial
Opening (in this context)=first, initial
Shot=attack
Strike=attack
Both mean the same thing
Ooh, I had not picked up on that meaning, but you are right.
In this context though, I think the intention is for the US military jargon, rather than the general English interpretation.
Using that, Marika Oniki‘s comment does denote a significant difference in the tactics. For that matter the overall statement, and conclusion, is good.
Yeah, need to look at the phrase(s)’ meaning rather than the literal meaning of the individual words
An ‘opening shot’ is more like either a ‘shot across the bows’ or a testing shot with the smallest calibre available
An ‘alpha strike’ is more like that crazy guy from the reboot “Star Trek”: “FIRE EVERYTHING!!”
Nope, still really off my game. I could have sworn I had put the link in!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_strike_(United_States_Navy)
While we are on “Show don’t tell” why don’t you show us how to make a better webcomic? Because as far as over all quality art+story+regularity, Grrlpower is in the same league as Girl Genius and Schlock Mercenary.
One of the techniques Dave uses is to concentrate on that output. So not leaving too much time to spare for side projects, like tutorials.
Believe Aboo‘s comment was meant to be a reply to Oberon
Oops. I had been working my way up from the bottom, at that point. So have not even reached that one yet. My bad, Aboo.
Always best to work down, the older threads start at the top :P
I often start at the top. But as I reply to a lot, the list of unread comments grows bigger and bigger, the further down I go. At a certain point it gets too boring scrolling down past things I have already read/replied to. So I switch to the end, and work my way up, until I reach the familiar parts again.
Although sometimes I am just in the mood to catch a comment that has not already picked up a bunch of replies. So may just skip straight to the end.
Understand your point
Why?
Do you think that a food critic must be a chef?
Do you think that a movie critic must be a director?
Do you think that a book critic must be an author?
Why should I have any need to demonstrate how to make a better webcomic, when all I’m doing is critiquing it? And in fact said critiques are indeed instructions on how to “do it better.” So, yeah.
Ever wanted to leave your mark on history? To create some monument which will withstand the tide of geological timeframes?
Write a catchy earworm song and teach it to Achilles.
Or compose a poignant poem, which would appeal to him, until the end of time.
Something about ‘mouthfeel’ maybe?
someone may have asked this in the comments already but.. if that bomb was like a nuke …… then that shield is HELLA complex isn’t it?
I mean it stopped the heat wave, the air pressure, the radiation (if any) and the crazy blinding light from such an explosion… the light part is what is interesting to me.. I mean does it let light in? or is it a solid shield with a holo projection of what is on the outside being put on the inside of the shield?
…
someone must have asked this already but I think you all will get what I’m asking here so plz just point me at where that conversation happened plz! :P
The shield is very sophisticated. But the basic principle is simple. It lets useful things pass, but blocks them if they reach harmful levels. Light is vital for Halo to find her way around, so that passes. Yet we saw a laser-like attack bouncing off the shield, in the Battle at the Steak House Car Park™.
We use similar principles in sun glasses. Enough light to see where you are going is let through, but the harmful levels are blocked. The orbs are just much more powerful so can block considerably more energy. And is not just restricted to such a specialist type.
Sound and radio waves can pass through the shield, because they are needed for communication. But a sonic attack or radiation is stopped.
Heatwave could probably sneak an attack through that was just cold enough to pass through, say near infra red waves, that would eventually make her uncomfortably warm inside unless she dropped the shield, or activated greenball for fresh cold air.
That would certainly be within the tradition of supers finding ways past opponent’s powers. Sounds plausible.
air is not useful? ……. maybe its made for something that does not breath?
One dog’s air is another critter’s poison.
As the green orb specifically supplies air though, I think you have the right issue, but the wrong angle. The orbs are probably designed to operate in space, so making it air permeable would be a serious design flaw! Likewise for underwater work. Or in a corrosive/ poisonous atmosphere.
So the designers probably decided it was unnecessary to set up rules for what atmosphere should be allowed to pass, for which species. Instead opting to block it all, knowing that the user could have any air they needed, on demand, using the Air Ball.
okay so HELL COMPLEX confirmed…. somehow I would not be surprised of there was a little orb that Halo missed… the manual orb… nobody reads the manual orb.
Yup, but I don’t expect it to go fast.
Light probably can get to the “anoying if it shines right into your eyes” level but not much beyond it.
Vunrable at the low power end as well as the ultra high, but … well, sometimes a distracted halo might be all you need.
(oh, and I’m glad about the kitties and you making it)
Thank you kindly. Moral support is really helpful and perks me up no end.
*wags tail happily*
Well said.
Woohoo! I love me some good news.
1) use air all to pressurize the inside of the force field.
2) drop the forcefield…get blown through portal.
Nice idea. Trouble is there would be no mechanism to focus the pressure in the direction that they want to go. A bicycle pump, for instance just has the one hole, at the end, so the air is pushed out that way. When the force field collapses the air would escape in all directions.
So they would not end up going anywhere useful. Plus not very far either, as the pressure is acting in all directions at once, so not much is being applied to any one of them (most of it would just be wasted with escaping air).
I’m detecting a tactical error.
If that’s the opening salvo, and they have the ability to hit harder.
If they know what the orbs are, and are hostile to the orbs.
They should have hit harder first.
Unless the intention was to show that “we did exactly 1 hp less then what you could have survived, we did it without effort, surrender” or something similiar.
But if the point was victory against the orbs, they should have assumed use of the shield, and hit just slightly harder.
Or they hit as hard as they could and didn’t expect the shield to be that tough. Big scary aliens aren’t necessarily guaranteed to be more powerful than the shield orb.
Another possibility is that they planned on capturing the orbs (assuming that’s what they’re after) , not destroying them so they might have more powerful shots but held back because it would have destroyed the treasure they’re after. Fragile treasure in a very tough container isn’t a problem solved by bringing more firepower.
There may be a good reason why the Mecha-Cthulu’s power is comparable to the orb’s. If the orb was significantly more powerful then the signal would have been ‘FLEE!’ not ‘Come help’.
Whilst if it was the other way around, then there would not be the need for a knee-jerk kill-her-before-she-kills-us response. If the Mother Ship was confident it could handle the situation, without risk, then they could try to capture the orbs/user or negotiate with them.
Or simply wipe out the Alpha team, without blinking. But we know that the Xeovarchy take a dim view to unchecked aggression, and these guys are not members. So it would make sense to investigate a situation more thoroughly, if there was not an imperative to do otherwise.
One final thought. Clearly they have some kind of history with the orbs (or their previous owner/s). So they probably know the orbs become more powerful, over time. Therefore they would know that you must not spare anything in attempting to kill the user. If the orb user survives an attack, they will only gain experience and become even more powerful!
Further alternative: Maybe it CAN hit harder but it would have taken more time to charge up and they were about to escape through the portal. So it’s possibly a tactical move to lock her down, shock her or hope it’s enough to get her first time (which it VERY nearly was) before she could escape.
*nods*
And, in addition to your points, it could have taken out her allies, so reducing her options and seriously demoralising her too.
Ok, I’m very late to the party here, but I just finished reading through the archives and I’m curious about demons, aliens, and succubi.
Is magic common among alien species? The succubi are explicitly stated to be aliens, not extra-planar creatures like most people think of demons as being. So does galactic civilization use magic fairly often? Is that how FTL works? Is that what’s holding humans back from being an interstellar species, that our magic users are staying secret instead of working with scientists to build cool technomagic stuff?
Also, is Decollette as smart as Dabbler? Are all succubi that smart, or is Dabbler just a prodigy even among members of her species?
We have to extrapolate from what we have seen on Earth. Our first clue was Deus saying that Illusionists were rare on Earth. Implying that they might be common elsewhere.
Then we can see that the world-wide-magical web is as important to the supernatural races (including aliens living on Earth) as our technological equivalent is to us. What we do not know, for sure, is how easy it is to use magic or to become a mage.
Gwen is a self-taught apprentice, having found a spell book. So possibly anybody could learn spells. However it may be that only certain individuals can use such. Hence a hundred people may have handled the spell book, but only Gwen managed to make use of it, because she has what it takes.
So it could range from ‘practically all aliens can use magic’ if it is unrestricted, because there would be no particular reason not to learn it. Or it may be ‘only a few mages can’.
We do know though that most aliens do not actually need the Veil to conceal them. As there are devices readily available for galactic tourists. I don’t recall though if Dave indicated that they were devices or magical items.
Possibly magic is so common that the two are practically indistinguishable. Which Sciona is a good hint that that may be the case. Given her habitual mixing of technology with her blood magic. Possibly that is unique to her. Possibly her whole species could do that. But maybe all advanced races have shared both technology and magic.
Readers of Wereworld may know the answer to that, as events in that story are canon as regards the Grrlverse too. Fortunately we have avoided spoilers here, so anyone (like myself) who sticks to just Grrlpower have to speculate on that.
Dave has indicated that normally whizzing across the galaxy with a wormhole is beyond the capability of mages. Sciona needed the modified artefact to boost her enough to do that. Which narrows down one of the options anyhow.
It looks like the mothership we just saw used FTL travel of some sort. Given that the sky was empty, then it was there. Possibly it had been cloaked, of course. However Dave used no fade or other effect, that we might associate with decloaking. Plus the beam went far higher than the ship actually appeared.
Hence I’m putting my Yorpie Snack on it using FTL. Sadly there were no clues as to its nature. So it could be either technological or magical. Normally we would associate technology with space ships though. So that is as good a guess as I can manage, until we get more information.
Dabbler is unique. Decollette may be smart of course, but we don’t know enough about her yet to say. We have seen Dabbler boasting a few times (and putting down humans at others). None of which I can recall involved her indicating that succubi are way smarter than humans.
However, even if they are above human average, Dabbler has all sorts of abilities which will feed into her intelligence, to make her effective intelligence even higher than her baseline.
For example Dabbler can read minds (we saw her peeking into the General’s fantasies). One of her parents was a doppleganger. Assuming that they are akin to the D&D species (vampires, werewolves, drow and a few others are all familiar enough that this is a reasonable line to follow), then they have ESP so are the likely source of that power.
Then her cybernetics hook her into the internet, all the time (on Earth anyhow). Which can make anybody, with suitable base competence with searches, function as if they had a higher intelligence and education than they possess.
Plus she has divination spells and super technological equivalents, which can give her answers to things which would seem like implausible leaps of logic to others.
On top of which she is actually a genius. :-D
I wonder if Sydney made a ring out all the orbs she wasn’t holding if their seemingly indestructible nature would keep an open space in the middle of their ring clear for her Telepresence “light B” to slip through?
I mean the orbs themselves possibly survived whatever killed their original master and they don’t even register as existing so I imagine just being in there would keep it open cause they break reality harder than any wormhole could hope to do. I’m definitely in the faction of fans who earlier speculated that Sydney’s orbs THEMSELVES might be on of her strongest “powers” with the right thinking since they basically tell the universe as most current intelligent life knows it to go screw itself just by being there.
Sydney’s lucky that she gets shield gating, don’t even have that with Warframe…
The worry is that she may not, and that it was only luck. I.e. the damage could have been just below the shield’s threshold. Although the feature you suggested would be a good, because luck would then not be required.
If you check through the earlier threads you can find my speculation on why luck may not have been involved, in any event.
also, it’s *Halo’s* shield, ofc it makes that sound lol
Since I’ve no idea which particular orb in the skill tree is the Shield Orb just how many active and inactive pips did it have on it? Is it mostly upgraded or does it look like it might have another level of durability or other features that would otherwise make it more durable like more rapid regeneration if/when it’s actually damaged?
Each orb gets its own entry, under Halo, in the Who’s Who sidebar. Complete with a picture, to allow you to identify which is which. The shield is the purple one (not to be confused with the pink Lighthook/tentacle orb). The orbs are translucent though, so sometimes they can be a slightly different shade, on screen. So it is worth noting the interior details, to aid in identification.
The Flyball has nothing in its interior, so can easily be differentiated, in case the shades are similar, on a particular page. Meanwhile a miniature version of the tentacle can be found inside the Lighthook/tentacle orb, to help eliminate that one.
Meaning the one you are interested in is the dark purple orb, with a pale cloud floating in the middle.
Which, on the skill tree, you will see has ten skills listed. Of which four, all on a single branch, have been activated. It is worth noting that it also has another ghost line leading off a smaller branch.
The common speculation is that the four selected represent shield strength. If correct then there is another slot free, to upgrade that. Which looks to be an important priority now!
Likewise one of the others could well be enhanced shield regeneration, as you suggest.
An author-approved, cleaned-up version of the skill-tree, can be found here. With convenient labels, to ensure correct identification.
Thanks a lot for the help. I have trouble telling things apart by color as I’ve one of the rarer forms of color-blindness so for one thing it means I run into trouble telling some of the orbs apart due to that (it also made my career in electronics repair interesting), that and I haven’t put much of any effort into trying to memorize each individual orb’s appearance (I haven’t done that for the Infinity Gems either for similar reasons).
My pleasure. I know that my replies are often more information-heavy than strictly necessary. So it is lovely to know when it proves useful.
*wags tail enthusiastically*
Thinking about it wouldn’t lowering her shield be suicide now given the air has to have been superheated to a couple thousand degrees?
That does sound rather dangerous!
But the above conversation is taking place after the dust cloud has cleared completely, and they can see everything again. So presumably the worst of the heat will have dissipated already. We cannot see any signs of a heat haze, for example, which would be very evident, with such extremely hot air.
Clearly it will still be very hot though, but they do have the insulation of their own comfortable air surrounding them initially, then they will be into the wormhole. Which appeared to allow instantaneous transit before (we saw no transition panel, inside a tunnel, for example). As such the greater concern would be the conditions on the far side of the portal…
Called it. That explosion DID mess up the portal, this is why you try and fight an enemy BEFORE you run away I’m sure if Max did some damage to that ship it wouldn’t of been able to fire right on top of the portal. But nooo all they did was run, now its going to attack again before they can leave then they get stranded there.
You are citing very good tactics. It is important to realise the magnitude of what they are facing though. Dabbler is a super genius and has indicated, from the evidence they saw and her knowledge of galactic politics and similar interventions before, that global genocide has just been committed. So recently that the fires are still burning. Meaning that it is very likely that they are still in the vicinity.
Now there do appear to be two factions involved. The Xenovarchy (who did that) and this lot who are attacking the heroes.
Whoever these guys are though they are unconcerned about the Xenovarchy, to the extent that they flew in a mothership and are now letting off explosions powerful enough to guarantee attracting attention around the globe. Even our primitive seismic sensors can pick up an explosion like that, on the far side of the world!
Given the situation could be allied with the Xenovarchy, or have a non-interference agreement, or be enemies.
If it is the former then turning to fight them would be pitting Earth forces against not just this mothership and its landing force, but also against the combined galactic police force! The worst case scenario would be winning such an engagement, as Humans could be labelled a rogue race and be slated for extermination!
Whereas if they are enemies, then this current force considers itself more than a match for a planet-destroying fleet of Xenovarchy ships! I think Maxima could be way out of her league.
With the third option though, if there is a non-interference agreement, then your tactic may be sound. The heroes would only need to defeat this mother ship and nuke tossing behemoth. And their power level need not be gauged against the Xenovarchy, as they are present by means of a political agreement.
It is a serious gamble though. We saw a lesser explosion than this take out Maxima’s outer force field (the one protecting her clothes), when the big construct was destroyed, at the Mars warehouse. Whilst the outer forcefield is somewhat weaker than the inner one, they are actually drawn from the same source. So Maxima was approaching her limits there.
We can compare the two by the size of the crater left. This one is vastly bigger. Now the big caveat with Maxima is her variable powers. So she may not have had her force field set to maximum defence previously. However if she does need to do that here, just to survive the attack from a one-behemoth landing party, that does not bode well for her ability to fight back! Her flight speed, strength and reaction speed would all be at their minimums.
On top of which that ship probably has a lot more than just the one behemoth! And it was summoned in the blink of an eye. So if sees that Maxima is a threat, it may be able to summon an entire fleet of mother ships!
Maxima is wise not to take the risk.
Fine I’ll back off from this but I still say that this enemy force attacking without provocation is just saying they are going to cause trouble else where, I mean what the hell is to stop that damn thing from sending a drone after them through the portal then it sends a signal to indicate where Earth is? I also HIGHLY doubt the Xenovarchy would CARE what happened to Earth or if they fight back or not though given they didn’t show up to try and take on the nuke tossing mecha freak themselves, UNLESS I see some evidence at the Xenovarchy reacting to any of this at all I’m going to assume they don’t care about affairs that they are not involved in.
Oh you are right, on pretty much all points there. A probe though is something that this team should have a lot more chance to deal with than the big stuff throwing nukes at them.
But your principle is right. That mothership is fixated on Halo and her orbs and will doubtless do something to track them down, even if the team can stop a probe.
The biggest problem being that it did successfully scan Sydney. So they know she is human. Which pretty much narrows down where she is likely to have come from.
Whatever they did there will be serious consequences. They just found themselves in a nightmare situation and had to do whatever they could to minimise the risks.
Running away may not be text-book super heroics, but there are times when it is the most sensible thing to do.
Also you are saying the Xenovarchy would care if they fought back but would not care at all if they are constantly attacked and do nothing but running away? Really what kind of leadership is running those guys? Whoever is running the Xenovarchy better get on their knees in apology for not showing up sooner to help out sooner and just letting them get constantly attacked, so there should be some sort of indication they know what is going on and not just sit around with their thumbs up their bums and watch them get killed or constantly harassed.
It all depends on the rules they operate under. It sounds like a moderate amount of invading is either tolerated (if it is nowhere important to any of the big players) or that their bureaucracy is just inefficient (or has difficulty resolving conflicting interests) and takes a long time to decide to take action.
Both of which feature, to one extent or another, in real world peacekeeping decision making.
Whether the Xeovarchy’s mandate extends down to traditional policing roles, or not, we do not know. I suspect not. It sounds like they only intervene if there is a rogue species/empire making a nuisance of themselves at a level where the galactic civilisations feel concerned.
Hence why I included ‘non-interference’ in the list of options above. They might not care about what a non-rogue organisation/race might get up to, with a handful of individuals.
But if the roles are reversed and a handful of individuals start blowing up massive motherships , then Xenovarchy currently sitting in their own ships, might view that pretty much like any government on our world would do. If it looks like a terrorist action (or pirate action) then the first response may be to support the known (and non-belligerent) shipping.
Asking questions is not something that warships tend to do when they (or allies / neutral shipping) are under fire.
This explosion will have caught their attention, but (as far as we know) they did not have any units scanning the situation.
Now if Maxima’s plan works, then the good guys can get a complaint filed to the Twilight Council fast. Clearly they can get in touch with the Xenovarchy through their diplomatic channels.
At which point Archon can make it clear that they were attacked without warning, and will be able to provide the footage being recorded by Sydney’s pip boy, and their chokers, as evidence. Meaning that they will have the moral high ground, and should get a sympathetic hearing from the Xenovarchy.
Not so though if they have the blood of thousands of crew on their hands. Then the investigation will be focused on how one (or a handful of individuals) could have done that. Which will probably then bias any further investigations, if they are scared about that. Every piece of evidence would be viewed in the worst possible light.
Obviously there is a huge amount of guessing involved. But one rule of dew-claw, for any first contact situation, is it will likely proceed better if you do not go around blowing up space ships. Even when there is massive provocation.
Especially if you consider that these attackers may very well have a perfectly legitimate and acceptable reason for attacking and destroying the orbs. One which may well be viewed sympathetically across the galaxy.
Just consider if that was a Klingon warship and Sydney was running round with seven tribbles on her head!
Or if the major religions of the galaxy had prophesied that the galactic apocalypse would be caused by the Dark Old Ones’ servant, who can be identified by the seven coloured orbs circling her!
That is the dumbest excuse I’ve EVER heard, police officers would of gotten involved WITH or WITHOUT orders from the higher ups if they can stop a hostile from attacking civilians if they can help it. From what I can see the mecha freak would care not about if the Xenovarchy have evidence against them or not they will attack anyway and it would only end if the Xenovarchy or the mecha freak are blown to bits to the point there is NOTHING left. So far from what I can see they are not involved at all, for all I know they were wiped out BEFORE hand so there better be some loud and clear indications that they are around. If you want to convince me they are around then you got to provide better evidence then THAT. And REALLY a freaking space religion? Mechanoids and religion?! That is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.
Breaking up your comment, into smaller paragraphs, would make it a bit easier to read.
And what police officers do you know who commit planetary genocide?
They are aliens. They represent the interests of whole civilisations. Each of whom likely have vastly different mind-sets to us. Assuming that they will react the same way as a human beat cop is not wise.
Possibly. Possibly not. Would you be willing to stake your life on the answer? Literally. Get it wrong and be killed. In real life.
Because that is what you are asking the characters to do. Make a wild assumption, and live or die, on the hope that it is right.
Now you are ignoring the expert judgement of the only character in the scene who does actually know intergalactic politics. Dabbler assessed that the destruction they witnessed earlier was due to them. As for when it occurred, Sciona called up shortly before travelling and everything was OK. When they all got propelled through the wormhole all the fires were still burning.
Whilst there are explanations which have been floated which could place the ‘time of genocide’ as having been some time before, they are all rather contrived.
Using Occam’s Razor, the simplest explanation is that the planet really was fine when Sciona called. Then the Xenovarchy arrived and wiped them out. Shortly after that was when the heroes and Sciona arrived.
There are plenty of good reasons for the Xenovarchy still being around, such as simply mopping up survivors or intercepting returnees (like Sciona). Whereas I can only think of contrived reasons why they might have had to leave already. Which is to say I consider that very unlikely.
Dear me, you don’t get out much then do you?
First off you are assuming that this is a robot. It may not be. The only thing implying that was a gag caption. Of course it does look like it could be. However it would look no different if there was a pilot. Or a large crew, for that matter. And the mother ship could certainly have a very large crew, of suitably fleshy individuals, All of whom may fit your mental criteria of those who are fit to have religion.
Secondly we have seen that the Twilight Council has sentient members who are not living beings. Icon leads a whole faction of sentient armour and constructs.
Just because you believe that they (or alien mechanoids) should not be allowed to have religion does not mean that they agree with you!
Thirdly I was talking about religious beliefs across the galaxy. These Mecha may just be tools carrying out the orders of one or more races, or civilisations, who have such. So the validity of my argument does not hinge on whether Mecha can or cannot have faith.
Oh my god! Just realised! Her name is Halo and she has a shield and it uses the sound effect from the Halo games when the shield recharges? Hehe, nice!
It could be that the shield changed to warn her not to drop it do to it being to hot to drop. Not that it was going to fail.
A sensible thought.
And examining the graphics I can’t see any indicator why you might not be right. We would expect it to be hot everywhere, then gradually cooling off. But the pictures are not inconsistent with that interpretation (when allowing for artistic licence and an attempt to convey exactly what you are suggesting).
Plus it is still going to be darned hot out there, even though enough time has elapsed for the dust cloud to have dissipated (along with the worst of the heat).