Grrl Power #650 – When god closes a wormhole…
This is the situation good commanders fear the most. Leaving one of your people behind in a different arm of the galaxy. With nearly no training. I mean, Sydney doesn’t even have the number to Archon HQ memorized. She does have her phone charger in her utility belt though, along with a sheet of gold stars and stick on googly eyes, so she may not be in as bad a position as it might first seem.
I think Dabbler went up about three cup sizes when she got back to Earth. Yikes. Okay not really, but they are supposed to be literally hypnotically distracting. The funny thing is, I actually usually draw breasts too small in most cases. Well, that’s maybe not true. I draw heads too big a lot of the time. I used a photo reference to get the pose right in the first panel, albeit of a woman with pretty big boobs, so… this is probably the right size for her. Granted she’s perma-glamoured, so everyone sees her a little bit differently. Somewhat ironically, Maxima sees Dabbler with larger boobs than Sydney does, for instance, because Max subconsciously assumes that a sex demoness should look more like a male fantasy slash blow up doll, ignoring the fact that she herself is quite endowed. Of course, Max doesn’t judge women for the way their bodies are shaped, at least she tries not to. Her opinions of women who get breast enlargements are a little more complex, but to her, how a woman presents herself is more important than the shape of her body, and Dabbler usually looks like she’s one hiccup away from bursting out of her clothes.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
Wow – serious stuff.
Dabbler’s boobs are bigger because they’re being used as impromptu soul containers.
Maybe Earth has lower gravity than Sciona’s planet?
Boobs, like flesh in general, is mostly, which always fills its container.
WATER. mostly water. I should stay off the computer before coffee.
Okay, water. Her cup(s) overfloweth.
Yes, they seem to be overflowing in that first panel. Maybe they actually change size dynamically depending on her mood, like the stripes were supposed to before Dave gave up on it?
Well, Dabbler did mention that she was enjoying the trip being carried by Max…Albeit the circumstances at the time included “fleeing for your life.”
Please don’t tell me that you think Dabbler’s breasts work in the same way as the female version of this horror-movie alien.
Boobs that are bigger on the outside, but smaller on the inside? Well, at least the Doctor won’t be in pursuit for stolen technology!
Dr.Who: oh, i see, never seen a size TARDIS bra before. carry on.
Hypnotic and possessed. That can’t be good.
Isn’t that a reversal of the traditional role though? Aren’t demons the ones who traditionally do the possessing?
How long of a range does the Comm ball have? Considering she can teleport using it, I think it’s likely to be Sydney’s way back home.
Though there is the issue that it might show a beeline straight to Earth if she does manage to use it for that, since iirc it sends a small yellow ball out when she first makes her hologram.
Wait a minute… beeline, light bee… I don’t know if that was intentional but it has a certain buzz to it!
well, if LightBee transports its duplicate instantly to anyplace that Sydney knows, she may just teleport home or to her room at ARCHON before they get Achilles unburried
Yes, it TeleHoloCation’s instantly, butt it still has to physically travel to the destination under normal speed
So, now Sydney merely has to find a way to get it up to ‘ludicrous speed’.
In Spaceballs they were able to view a copy of the movie they were in, so if Sydney manages to get to the current Grrlpower comic page on her phone then she will know that they are trying to rescue her.
Wifi service on Alari Prime may be a little spotty though, considering the recent ‘renovations’.
P.S.
Dave said ‘She does have her phone charger in her utility belt’.
That is all well and good, but the nearest wall outlet is around 700 light years away.
Maybe she has an extension cord in there, too.
But actually getting the cord for her charger to reach the nearest outlet, Sydney will have to go there herself first, wouldn’t she? Sort of defeats the purpose for having a long cord in the first place.
Logistics, man…LOGISTICS!
;)
You are just too many levels of meta for me, man.
Maybe it’s a hand crank charger. I have one.
It’s a joke. He also talks about her art supplies to reinforce the fact that her entire utility belt is most likely useless in this situation.
Well she probably has the Atari 2600 controller in there.
I would honestly find it hilarious if that is the tech being used to pilot the craft AND Syd put it in there for a laugh and to remind herself to economise.
Did Syd bring her 1-8üñ phone card with her?
Sooo…
We are all set up to find out what the last orb does. My money is on communications/auto translate.
I’m thinking navigation tbh, like some form of map or something, maybe even warp travel.
If the super advanced aliens are so smart, let THEM have a translator gadget.
Ahh, I miss translator microbes from Farscape.
If there were a translator function, wouldn’t it be on the comm ball?
Honestly i think communications for the creators may be already discovered.
Apparently octopi can communicate by changing the colors on their skin. so having light B sending a holo duplication of what the holder is showing … may be how the creators talk. Makes sense that Truesight is also a setting for this “communications” ball.
Now, Dabbler is the only one with experience in space travel. Time to use that superhuman intelligence for something else than searching problems and figuring out why some things are impossible.
Nah, Dabbler may like Sydney but knows thats more valuable to Max… she has to take something out of the deal
:)~~~~
What would do a good comander for his men?
Yeah… no frickin’ way is Dabbler going to demand a bribe in order to do something like that. The “something” she gets is going to be knowing she did her best to save her teammate and friend. And hopefully a nice bonus in knowing she succeeded.
This is Dabbler we’re talking about, not Deus. She would get Sydney back for the sake of getting Sydney back.
Yes validation. It has been proven that Sydney did save her team-mates with her quick action and thinking.
So, it’s time to announce the new spin-off comic? “Halo’s Wacky Adventures in Spaaaaaaaaaaaaace!!!! Don’t lose our first number, where our wacky heroine crashes into a planet of furries.”
Hmm, Kzinti?
Better than a planet of tribbles.
At least, sydney’s not made of grain nor a klingon :)
A planet of Furries, you say? I think Dabbler might be able to find her, in that case…
Wouldn’t Achilles suffocate under all that rock?
Given his total invlunerability, I’m pretty sure that’s one of the many, many things he doesn’t actually care about. It might feel kind of funny to not be able to breathe or to breathe in oxygen-poor air, but given that he can’t be damaged he wouldn’t suffer any ill effects of suffocation. He might comment on how weird it felt after the fact though.
Gravel has a very poor ‘mouth feel’.
Texture! Say texture dammit! *strangle*
+1
To paraphrase Exiern:
– I’m indestructible, you know. Strangling me doesn’t hurt me.
– I will MAKE it hurt! NOW SAY IT!!
– *sigh* “Texture”…
— Krona! Turn off his invulnerability!
– -…Can she do that?
— Let’s find out.
He may not be able to do much without oxygen (or covered in tonnes of rock), but he suffers no damage either. As noted by Peggy, he has been buried in rubble before.
The techies should build Achilles some sort of handheld sonic earth-moving device so that he can start digging *himself* out of these things. Out of titanium, or something.
Or Achilles could hide the super digging device inside his invulnerable body. Let’s not go into further detail about that.
No this kind of thing happens to Achilles all the time. He is probably having a chat with hallucinations from sense deprivation right now.
“Hey Achilles, missed us?”
“Hi Adam and Bruce, about time you showed up. Is Claire late today?”
“Give it time, she usually only show up after you talking to yourself for a day or two.”
You know, considering Achilles was in front of the portal when Sciona and her spectral buddies came tearing through, he might be having a bunch of actual conversations in his head and when he finally gets dug out, everyone else might think they ARE sensory deprived hallucinations.
Then again, Sciona trapped in Achilles’ head? Possibly a fate worse than undeath.
Possession may be the one thing Achilles is not immune to. He may already have loads of lost souls trapped in his invulnerable body from his long life of adventuring.
Or perhaps he’s actually a colony of spiders, and has been impersonating a human for the last 100 years.
+1 for the throwback comment, brichins.
My god, it’s full of… spiders?
Whenever they are about to go into battle Archon needs to give Achilles one of those trackers they have for skiers in case of avalanche. That way they can find him quicker after the inevitable happens.
Since this is not his first time his com-collar may have that function built in.
Assuming it didn’t get destroyed.
Considering that he was nudified (as usual) I doubt that his com collar survived.
His original bio stated Achilles couldn’t be suffocated (or poisoned, burned etc.) so he’s fine, just buried. Makes me wonder if he needs to breathe at all.
I miss those bios…
This one? (Thank you archive.org)
https://web.archive.org/web/20161019185813/https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/cast
Or https://grrl-power.wikia.com/wiki/Cast if you want one that loads faster. Less interactive but all the information is there.
Aaah! Another some guy! You monster ;)
Ahh, we know you have the moral high ground though, as his is a lower case.
Ah, two of them…Oh well, might as well throw in another “some guy,” I guess…
Don’t give up hope yet Dabbler, it’s Sydney we’re talking about. Maybe she’ll convince the nice eldritch horrors to let her hitch a ride back to earth on their way to cleanse it of life.
Also, y’know….almost the whole comic has been an extended flashback to Halo’s early days. she makes it back to earth eventually… Maybe not for three years our time,. but at some point she needs to play not-Champions with the half-sibling cousins and get a promotion.
Well yes there’s that too, but Sydney being such a spaz she confuses mecha-cthulhu into helping her is more fun.
Well, now we will find out how good the orbs are compared to a starship.
Okay I did not expect that Sydney actually saved all those lives Dabbler mentioned, i.e. that none of them had a means of their own to protect themselves. In a comedy comic like this I never really thought about fatalities, because even during the Vehemence battle it was mostly funny what with For Whom The Death Tolls getting muppet eyes or Sydney going into full ADHD mode to figure out how to defeat Vehemence.
I know that the attack only happened because of Sydney’s balls, but if it had happened for some other reason and Sydney hadn’t been there then there would’ve been fatalities.
I also like it when the main character goes on a journey in the absence of all the rest of the main cast, mostly to grow stronger. It happens especially in Anime, e.g. Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto and Bleach. I bet that the ship is going to port Sydney on board and then she will learn a bunch of neat stuff and annoy everyone around her.
Did you forget the spurting arse-artery in Toll House Cookies’ arse and the big-arse knife sticking out of it? Or that guy Math kicked a different knife between his front two teeth? Or the impervious Preston Nails stabbing himself with his nails-that-can-cut-anything?
I thought his name was Periwinkle Butt-Sniffer or something like that.
I’m not sure about the first one, but I remember the others, though I don’t understand what you want to tell me.
As for “Periwinkle Butt-Sniffer”: Wasn’t that the name Sydney threatened him with? XD For some reason I don’t think that that name is gonna make it on TV.
On the page with the defeated Toll House, you see him facedown with a knife in his arse with a spurt of blood and everyone is just standing around laughing
The point was, any of those could have been fatal
Dabbler’s four arms look like they’re combined into two bigger arms. ^^
She’s probably used to that pose since she often glamours up as someone with two arms.
*Invisible grope*
Bet on Achilleus still holding the artefact so Dabbler will be able to open a portal!
If they find the scickle to open the portal, i am pretty sure the (literal) reality hacker (who’se name i forgot) should be able to pin down her location. only she isn’t on the scene currently…
Crona. :D
Krona
Dabbler: Hmm, [ holds her lower-left hand up to her mouth, with her fingers spread out. ] Call Krona.
[ Ring tone ]
Krona: [ Coming from Dabbler’s palm] Your quarter. Start talking.
Dabbler: Hey, Krona. It’s Dabbler from Arc-Swat. Can you come to our location?
Krona: Let’s see. [ 3 second pause ] You in southern New Jersey?
Dabbler: Yeah.
Krona: [Still on the palm-phone ] Sure, I can get there [ Suddenly standing beside Dabbler ] quickly. What’s up?
Dabbler: [ Closes her hand, which also closes her call ] I am wondering if you can help us get a missing team-mate.
Krona: Missing? How?
Maxima: We just came through an unstable wormhole to another planet. Sydney got left behind.
Krona: Hmm. [ References her floating diagrams ] You weren’t kidding about unstable. That thing zig-zags all over the place with intermittent time-space bubbles; you do not want to be there when one of those collapses. [ Traces a path with her finger ] How did it tie into a knot? Oh, that’s a pair of black holes in orbit of each other. Damn, that really messes up the trace. Uh, if I was a collapsing wormhole path, where would I be? Gotcha! Ok, it looks like it ends up in an asteroid belt. Hmm, not a very complete one; it only covers about 10 degrees of arc in the star’s orbit. Right in the Goldilocks zone though.
Hiro: [ Stands up after puking his guts out ] Asteroids? You mean the planet’s been destroyed?
Krona: Yeah, that’s usually what that would mean. Don’t see a Death Star in the area. Hmm….
Maxima: Okay, Sydney could pop up her shield and can generate air so she won’t suffocate. How long will it take to rescue her from there?
Krona: I would have to talk with some of the space-flight capable members of the council to find that out. Oh, wait. No, it would take forever to try to rescue her from there, because I don’t think there is there. The trace just gets very faint from there. Let’s see. Got it! A planet in the Goldilocks zone. Looks like a nuclear winter or maybe a big asteroid impact or something like happened recently.
Maxiam: That sounds like the right one.
Krona: Well, I can ask that a rescue mission be sent there. Don’t know how long it will take yet. Oh, maybe… No, the wormhole’s collapsed too far for me to be able to reopen it from here. In places, the instability has collapsed completely. Other places, the time-space bubbles are popping, causing all sorts of issues. We should be able to see some those in good telescopes in a few centuries. Besides, I do not want to go near those black holes. But at least I know where to go.
Krona: [ Whips out her cell flip-phone and pushes a button and puts it up to her face ] Well, good morning to you too, Vince. Can I talk to Yalmer? Thanks. Hey, Yalmer, you remember that Sydney girl from the last council meeting? No, not the gold one; the one with the 7 balls circling her head. [ Pause ] Yeah, that’s the one. Well, she is stuck on a planet about 215 parsecs away and needs a lift home. [ Pause ] Uh, let’s see. Ooh, it has a catalogue number. 241716 Dash 4. [ Pause ] [Loudly] What do you mean embargoed?! [Pause] Yeah, so? This is Sydney were talking about here. [ 15-second pause ] [ Turns to Max, calmly, with finality ] We can’t help.
Dabbler: Hmm, [ holds her lower-left hand up to her mouth, with her fingers spread out. ] Call Krona.
[ Ring tone ]
Krona: [ Coming from Dabbler’s palm] Your quarter. Start talking.
Dabbler: Hey, Krona. It’s Dabbler from Arc-Swat. Can you come to our location?
Krona: Let’s see. [ 3 second pause ] You in southern New Jersey?
Dabbler: Yeah.
Krona: [Still on the palm-phone] Sure, I can get there [ Suddenly standing beside Dabbler ] quickly. What’s up?
Dabbler: [ Closes her hand, which also closes her call ] I am wondering if you can help us get a missing team-mate.
Krona: Missing? How?
Maxima: We just came through an unstable wormhole to another planet. Sydney got left behind.
Krona: Hmm. [ References her floating diagrams ] You weren’t kidding about unstable. That thing zig-zags all over the place with intermittent time-space bubbles; you do not want to be there when one of those things collapses. [ Traces a path with her finger ] How did it tie into a knot? Oh, that’s a pair of black holes orbiting each other. Damn, that really messes up the trace. Uh, if I was a collapsing wormhole path, where would I be? Gotcha! Ok, it looks like it ends up in an asteroid belt. Hmm, not a very complete one; it only covers about 10 degrees of arc in the star’s orbit. Right in the Goldilocks zone though.
Hiro: [ Stands up after puking his guts out ] Asteroids? You mean the planet’s been destroyed?
Krona: Yeah, that’s usually what that would mean. Don’t see a Death Star in the area. Hmm….
Maxima: Okay, Sydney could pop up her shield and can generate air so she won’t suffocate. How long will it take to rescue her from there?
Krona: I would have to talk with some of the space-flight capable members of the council to find that out. Oh, wait. No, it would take forever to try to rescue her from there, because I don’t think she is there. The trace just gets very faint from there. Let’s see. Got it! A planet in the Goldilocks zone. Looks like a nuclear winter or maybe a big asteroid impact or something like happened recently.
Maxiam: That sounds like the right one.
Krona: Well, I can ask that a rescue mission be sent there. Don’t know how long it will take yet. Oh, maybe… No, the wormhole’s collapsed too far for me to be able to reopen it from here. In places, the instability has collapsed completely. Other places, the time-space bubbles are popping, causing all sorts of issues. We should be able to see some those in good telescopes in a few centuries. Besides, I do not want to go near those black holes. But at least I know where to go.
Krona: [ Whips out her cell flip-phone and pushes a button and puts it up to her face ] [Pause] Well, good morning to you too, Vince. Can I talk to Yalmer? [Pause] Thanks. [Longer Pause] Hey, Yalmer, you remember that Sydney girl from the last council meeting? No, not the gold one; the one with the 7 balls circling her head. [ Pause ] Yeah, that’s the one. Well, she is stuck on a planet about 215 parsecs away and needs a lift home. [ Pause ] Uh, let’s see. Ooh, it has a catalogue number. 241716 Dash 4. [ Pause ] [Loudly] What do you mean embargoed?! [Pause] Yeah, so? This is Sydney were talking about here. [ 15-second pause ] [ Turns to Max, calmly, with finality ] We can’t help.
See, this is why it is dangerous to get Krona involved. You could get stuck in a time loop.
Nice writeup! I think Krona is especially interested in studying Sydney and would put in some extra effort to help retrieve her.
nah, she only likes her for her balls.
I see what you did there. :p
The writer has a habit of stringing us along so I can see them doing this….ARRRRG! So Mad!
“one hiccup away from bursting out of her clothes” sounds like an amazing premise for something
Totally called it! Said (typed) that they would switch to Maxi saying they have to go back (or at least something that involved the word ‘back’) :D
Star Trekkin’ across the universe,
On the Starship Enterprise under Captain Kirk.
Star Trekkin’ across the universe,
Boldly going forward ’cause we can’t find reverse.
We come in peace! Shoot to kill, shoot to kill, shoot to kill!
We come in peace! Shoot to kill, shoot to kill, shoot to kill!
And in thought of that… is that the modus operandi of the aliens where Sydney is?
Either that, or
It’s life, Jim but not as we know it, not as we know it.
It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it, Captian.
Ah, heck with it…Might as well link it here & save everybody from any more trouble.
Theeeeeere’s Klingons on the starboard bow!
Starboard bow! Starboard bow!
There’s Klingons on the starboard bow!
Scrape ’em off, Jim!
It’s worse than that, He’s dead, Jim, dead, Jim, dead Jim
It’s worse than that, He’s dead, Jim, dead, Jim, dead!
It’s life, Jim but not as we know it, not as we know it, not as we know it.
It’s life, Jim but not as we know it, not as we know it, captain!
Ye cannae change the laws of physics, laws of physics, laws of physics;
ye cannae change the laws of physics, laws of physics, Jim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3yO4mu5pb4
I can picture him as an elf. I don’t know why. ;-)
I just have to think those gold stars and stick on googly eyes are going to come in handy for something. I can’t imagine what, but they have a Checkov’s Gun feel about them.
Adhesive gold stars? Currency.
Also….
About the Googly Eyes…
“Thank you, Stranger. Now the persons I speak with can tell where my face is.
How can I ever repay you?”
She could put the gold stars on her jacket and pretend to be a general. The aliens will be convinced that a general wielding such powerful weapons must have a even more powerful army behind her so it’s safest to return her to her planet unharmed.
I have the solution. Sydney has seven orbs. She just has to put 1 through 7 stars on the various orbs. Then she can call Shenron and wish herself home.
Given how long it takes to fo anything in DBZ it would be faster to wait for Maxima to find the sky ripper :)
Well we know there are quite a few aliens on earth and we know that ARC knows that, and they all got to earth somehow, so in theory they can probably pull a few strings somewhere and call someone to go get Sydney. The only issue is how long that takes and what happens with Sydney in the meantime.
I’m thinking that her spheres are evil alien tech and the eldritch horror ship fired at them not realising that they werent being used by a member of that species and things will calm down when it does realise Sydney isnt a member of that species. May be worth a ride home and a primer on that tech by way of apology. We shall see exactly how out to lunch I am! :)
Except, they were neither Alari nor the Space ‘Peace Force’ (who decided that blasting a civilisation back down to Stone Age is a good thing for ‘rambunctious’ species), which means they had no business being there while the planet was still burning
The ship overhead may be from a scavenger crew who follow the planet busters around and loot the remains of the civilizations that they ‘sanction with extreme prejudice’.
That wasn’t blasting a race back to the stone age that was out right genocide, someone was very unhappy with those people.
Technically it was more than genocide, as that is only defined as the systematic killing of an ethnic group (or distinct population of some sort). What happened was an extinction, which does not have a corresponding verb. So, unless “Alari” means something like “American” and there are other non-Alari, of the same species, who survive elsewhere, then we would need a turn of phrase such as:
“They committed extinctionification.”
Yes, was saying that the “Galactic Peace Force” does that, as a ‘peaceful’ solution, who ever these are were not them
Dabbler did not claim that it was a peaceful solution. If a race/nation is invading other planets, it is appropriate to use force to counter that, with force. Given that Dabbler indicated that the Alari were known for invading others, clearly there was even a period of negotiations and warnings.
So Dabbler was expecting that they would be knocked back to the stone age, as that is the normal method the Xenovarchy use to persistent menaces. We do not know what circumstances may justify increasing it beyond that. Presumably something worse than invading and enslaving multiple planets though.
And even then it is still up for debate as to whether or not it was the Xenovarchy (Dabbler’s initial guess) or this new (unknown) faction, who showed up after her pronouncement on who she thought did it.
Clearly the butler, with mass-drivers, in the mothership.
No, was me saying it was the ‘peaceful’ solution as opposed to the alternative
A rather large elephant in the room here, Sydney doesn’t have a clue as to where home is, within a thousand light years.
I have this theory that spending a few days/weeks/months/whatever on the alien death-world until she’s rescued will turn Sydney into a grizzled macho-badass survivalist type like all those training sequences in anime where the “mentor” dumps some kid in the winderness to fend for themselves.
Either that or the aliens show up on earth in a few days and swear to never invade if earth will in turn promise to confine Sydney to one Solar system. I’m putting 45% odds on each. The last 10% is the final unknown ball being the “teleport orb”.
Well Vale did not even last the length of a single elevator trip, with Sydney, before trying to escape. And she is seriously bad-ass! So you have a very high credibility rating.
Just a thought but I think Halo will be back soon. But then have to explain her arrival to the team in another flash back.
Because the eldritch thing on the planet recognized Halo’s orbs and called that ship. But it did not put out enough force to destroy her. Just enough to tag her shields. Meaning I think it was either getting ‘foreigners’ away from her. Or it was a warning shot. Now with her on her own it can check her out and see she is not the original wielder of the orbs. And it will want to go to earth to examine where she got the orbs in the first place. Maybe finding one of those ships in the water. . .
Feeling a bit suspicious of Dabbler at the moment. First the “accidental” activation of a blood mage’s spell by the unusually vicious attack and now she is curiously blasé about both the escape and Halo’s loss.
Activating the spell definitely seams like something she should have realised would happen.
She’s dangerously overconfident at times. Also an experienced adventurer who most likely experienced loss of party members before. Or she might already be thinking about ways to get Sydney back.
remember that Dabs is alien. One should not expect her to express -or even feel- the same emotions that humans do.
Hollywood sci fi makes me corrudgingly grenchy cuz their aliens are all just humans with rubber foreheads acting just like humans would. It’s really speciesist
Dabbles likes Sydney. My personal theory is that she likes Sydney a lot. There have been little hints through out the comic. Like, for example, when Sydney makes incidental contact, Dabbles gets anime eyes, Yeah,she’s a succubus, which she “likes” everybody. But Sydney is smart, quirky, and has genuinely surprised Dabbler on multiple occasions. I think Sydney pushes a lot of her personal buttons. And I’ve seen people who remain maddeningly calm during tragedy and crisis and continue to function as if things were normal because freaking out could get themselves and everyone else killed. You see that in the military and emergency services. People who are rock solid steady while the bullets are flying or the fires are blazing. Once the crisis is past, they find a quiet place and fall apart for a little while. One hint that this how Xureil is dealing with it is the use of past tense in referring to Sydney. She’s not being blase. She’s likely been through this before with other people she cares about. She’s in a better position than anyone else on Earth to know how hopeless Sydney’s situation is. Dabbler has pretty good idea where the Alari homeworld is, knows how far away it is, knows the impossibility of getting back to it, and knows the relative strength of the Alari Empire, which gives her a pretty good idea of just how powerful the forces that curb stomped them are. Her experience tells her Sydney is in a hopeless situation that she can’t possibly survive. Maxima is still animated, still looking for solutions. Dabbler’s body language in the last panel is of someone who has just realized how bad it is for someone she cares about. “She was pretty sharp,” Is someone acknowledging they’re never see someone they care about again.
+1. I think Max and Dabbs are both shifting into damage-control mode and will deal with personal feelings after making sure whatever can be done immediately has been done.
I think dabs is in a bit of shock that someone she has barely met saved her life. (from page #106) So a subdued non glamour Dabs seems about right. She is probably more in ‘figuring out a puzzle mode”
I know we are.
In that last panel, Max looks like she could just about punch that portal back open all by herself.
nah, that’s superman’s thing.
Please dont indult Maxima by comparing her to the awfulness which was Superboy Prime :)
I’m not the one sugesting punching holes in space.
I know. I’m kidding. Although it was Superboy Prime, not Superman :)
And that storyline WAS awful.
The real question should be is…Will Sydney be able to get back to her world?!?
Two words: Flash + Back
If this is indeed a ‘flashback’,then maybe Archon won’t replace Sydney just yet!?
They have a couple weeks (a month or two?) before they start considering that :D
Occurred to me, worst case scenario about the aliens they just encountered.
Builders.
As in a class of aliens that don’t declare war, don’t announce their intentions, make no attempt at contacting other species. They simply regard all other life as beneath them, but not in some egotistical *we are the master species of the universe* way, but in the same way humans don’t think about the feelings of ants or squirrels and such before bulldozing an area and building on it. Regarding anything (not them) as animals and possibly not even *able* to conceive the notion other species can be equal or even communicate with them, so just build over them.
In other words what we saw wasn’t an act of war, attempted genocide, a cleansing, removing a rival species, ect… as the concepts normally apply, it was bulldozing/clear cutting *possibly pyroforming the planet* so they could begin building on it. Their reaction to the team matches this, detected “pests” activated trap and extermination device.
Making such a species acknowledge you as an equal is nearly impossible, pose enough of a threat and they’ll acknowledge you in the same way people would acknowledge a bear running around the city. Just have to hope to be powerful enough to push them back enough that they leave you alone…or exterminate them as a threat to all life in your corner of the universe. *universe politics can be pretty grim when interacting with species like that*
Problem, if I bear started writing down binary sequences we would stop trying to kill it and start trying to study it. Aliens are likely to do the same.
Sure, they may be “super intelligent” but I bet a nickle you can’t substanciate that with a concrete definition of something that is actually out of reach of normal human intelligence.
Hard to say what an alien species would do if you started to toss binary sequences at them. They could very well interpret that as some form of attack growl from what they consider to be a non sentient animal. You cannot just assume an alien will react to a situation the way a human would.
Given that nothing in nature is just going to start making random straight lines in binary patterns (because we don’t live in a computer) it would be silly beyond belief for them to interpret that as anything other than intelligence (though it could be the case that they simply can’t percieve the marks you’re making, due to sensory differences. Different problem tho)
As Neil deGrasse Tyson pointed out: the difference between us and chimpanzees is about 3%. That’s the difference between cracking nuts with a rock and travelling between planets. just as chimps can’t imagine spaceflight, or even what a planet is, we can’t conceive what 3% greater intelligence than us would be like or the things understand. “Hey look, little Tommy’s invented calculus. He’s so bright, he’ll get into kindergarten a year early.”
Sorry, but with all due respect to Neil deGrasse Tyson (which is a lot, he’s great) he’s talking outside his field and is full of it.
Genetically we are less than 3% different from Chimpanzees. Intelligence wise we are not 3% different from them, we are 4 layers of emergent processes different from them. (Language, Culture, Math, Technology.)
Now it is possible an alien species could use different processes (like magic or psionics), or tack on another layer (like computer mediated telepathy) but the odds that they wouldn’t be able to able to see that we possess intelligence is unlikely. Even in Solaris both humans and the alien recognized intelligence, even if no meaningful interaction was possible.
But that’s not to say that we’re as different as all that. The issue is that the differences in brain structure lead to non-linear increases in capability; as far as we can tell, the differences from chimps to us are almost just ones of magnitude (we do some things more, we have more brain cells with more connectivity, we make vocal noises in a more meticulously controlled way, etc.) yet they enable us to do far more. So what would another species be like who was even more able that way? We can’t imagine it. It is simply beyond our current understanding precisely because the non-linearity means that it will be all sorts of unexpected things that are different. The one thing we can say for sure is that it would not just be simple more of the same; the universe doesn’t work that way.
I’m pretty sure we can’t even say for sure that it won’t be more of the same, but what we can do is use our intelligence to define what intelligence is and make preditions from that.
Although, for the most part, fanciful notions of the power of “higher intelligence” belong in the same category of
dualism and miracles. The kind of things you believe in spite of the total lack of evidence in support of them.
And then, of course, doubters are inevitably just (bad thing here) that can’t grasp how smart and righteous you are for fantasizing about magic.
No, we are just more complex in how we manifest those processes. Chimps are tool users so they have technology. They can teach other Chimps how to use those tools, so they have language. Those tool techniques are passed down through generations, they have culture.
But Humans want to build stuff where the chimps already live, so they convince themselves that there are vast differences.
+1
Precisely.
As a less extreme example I wrote a story (Dragon Life) from the perspective of a humanoid dragon being kept in a zoo; only some people acknowledged she was fully sapient, while most others convinced themselves she was parroting and just a clever animal.
Heck in real life, we know crows and ravens have language, remember faces, plan ahead, use tools, and figure out puzzles even faster than primates. But no one is even trying to stop people from hunting them.
Builder types would see other species and due to ideology not be able to even conceive let alone accept that other species can be as intelligent as them (even seeing space craft could be waved away in extreme case…heck if humans can dehumanize each other *Spanish conquerors ended up starting a myth about a forest demon that feeds on human fat, by…killing locals and using their fat as oil for lamps*. It has been hard fought…and still ongoing getting humans to view each other despite minor phonotypical differences and points of origin, imagine an alien race with such extreme ideologies and it looks nothing like a humanoid. Heck wouldn’t be surprised if they were convinced another race like themselves taught humans how to build spacecraft, or “these animals must have seen us and made crude copies of our stuff”…not unlike how so many people seem utterly convinced that people in ancient times had to be stupid and aliens built everything for them.
We can teach chimps sign language, written language, even how to make fire, and have observed them teaching their young and others these skills, different troops have different dialects and even different tool use.
They are still kept in zoos and have no rights.
If we look at gaps in technological skills, some species may regard humans with electric wires, combustion engines, math, as just “clever animals” no more than one might a bird with a needle or the above examples with chimps.
But its not just a matter of intelligence. Brought up on a previous page about Sciona’s disregard for other species, species centric mindset, but the examples I gave didn’t fit Sciona very well; but DO fit these squid guys. They could even be put off seeing things that don’t look like them do things that “resemble” what they consider intelligent behavior (think of seeing an octopus figure out it can short out a light by spitting at it, vs seeing a monkey learn it can use a bucket to catch fish) and most reading that may have an idea of “form bias” when thinking about the intelligence of other species.
Although there is one landmark case, which shows that humanity is starting to approach becoming civilised.
Funny you mention ASL.
I had a deaf friend at work one time mention to me that tended to be very apt at ‘guessing’ sign language or ‘making it up’ as needed when talking with him and his family. I told him that I had resorted sometimes to doing pictionary type things to talk to him since it seemed to work better for me. Frankly it was a blast to learn yet another language and or a way to communicate.
It was more of communicating with visuals (eg hands/faces). I learned that while ASL is formalized, but ASL in English is different than say Cantonese. eg – the ‘words are different’ and sometimes it did work better to ‘wing it’ Also; ASL “education” levels are around grade 6 in the US (newspapers target articles to high school standard/general population.) So “Esoteric, technical or trade” associated words are not included, We were in both (programming and legal)
Sydney has in her current possession those tools too. The Stars and coloring pencils in her ‘kit’ Maxima mentioned it when she was in the council chambers. She is in the Anime biz, so I highly suspect she has done or is doing comic art (artistic ability unknown)
So, she HAS the ability to communicate with other races independent of spoken formal language. It’s why I think this will take a bit of space hitchhiking slant for a bit. Maybe we are seeing those ‘pages of comic art’ right now as this is still in ‘flashback time’
We have seen Sydney’s artistic ability. She drew her envisaged wedding to Wolverine.
I don’t think it is likely to be award-winning.
That said she did convey her intention well with it, so it could be adequate for the purposes you propose. And she does have the List, and her pen, in addition to the other stuff in her arts and crafts kit.
If my pigeon Bulgarian fails (if dealing with technological matters say) I will resort to sketching something. Which conveys intent fast. And my ability is no better than Sydney’s.
Trouble is that we rely on the shorthand tricks the human brain uses (it is not much use in communicating with other canines, for instance). It is an abstraction which we have not seen recognised, or understood, by any other species.
A caricature of the president, or any other familiar individual, is readily recognised by anyone. This is because the human brain will use tricks like ‘this is a average white face, but older, with a bit of a bulge here and there, orange hair, small hands’. So the cartoon is replicating those tricks.
Whilst we may dismiss that as being “animals aren’t smart enough”, it is actually down to our brain simplifying images, to make it easier for us to mentally process them. Humans are just not smart enough to handle the raw input and do all the other thinking processes necessary for day-to-day life.
It causes severe problems for autistic individuals who lack such mental shorthand capacity. The flood of raw sensory data is very hard to handle. So effort has to be made to limit it, to minimise the impact on them.
Now consider that an alien species may be much more advanced than us, and require no simplification of the sensory data. The pictures their children draw will be rendered photo-perfect. If their art uses abstraction, it may not use simplified techniques at all. Impressionism may either be unrecognisable to them, or be considered crude, and only likely to be produced by the mentally deficient.
Not to mention that their visual spectrum (assuming they rely primarily on sight) need not match that of humans. So Sydney’s blue ink may actually be invisible to them! Or, even if it is visible, they may not make the association that a blue stick figure, on a white background, is meant to represent Sydney. Those having nothing in common with the scene they are seeing.
What you said about most humans being able to recognize who a caricature is suppose to be is one of the things that makes humans ‘intelligent’
A lot of the time, you can ‘trick’ a family pet that has known you for their entire life simply by getting a haircut or wearing a hat
What separates from, and raises ‘man’ above, ‘lesser’ animals, is not self awareness butt other awareness (not just of our own species, butt different species), is not building for now or even tomorrow butt for the future beyond our immediate awareness, is not the ability to simply communicate butt communicate ideas, not just the ability to plan for our future butt for the future of generations yet to be
It’s how we went from being simple hunter-gatherers to being farmer-cultivators, from communicating in simple grunts and gestures to being able to invent entire new languages for fictitious species on planets in galaxies far, far away
My pussy cats recognise me no matter what outfit I wear. Hat, no hat. Makes no difference. Although I appreciate that may well happen with some. Dogs in particular rely much more on scent for identification, so will not react to ‘you’, until they have confirmed their visual impression. Although they will typically accept an audible identification as a suitable alternative.
But research on pigeons has shown that the can identify people just from their faces. Even when researchers swapped clothes the pigeons could still tell the nice ones (who fed them) from the ones who did not.
Mind you feathered dinosaurs do have many millions of years head-start on perfecting their brains. Whereas humans have only gotten their big brains in the last couple of hundred thousand years. So will have a lot of ‘snagging work’ to sort out yet.
As for planning, we can observe various species of birds and squirrels who will store nuts for winter. Thus displaying: predictive capability (winter will return), planning (storing for winter) and good memory (being able to find the locations again).
Of course attempts may be made to dismiss this, as just instinct. So tests have been conducted where food was provided, but taken away after a while. Pretty quickly the critters figured out that they needed to stash it out of sight.
For some while we have known about a variety of animals which make tools, on demand. From chimps through to crows. But, within the last year, there was one observed making a tool, at a remote location, then taking it to a place where there was food (but no convenient plant to turn into a tool to get at it).
Thus demonstrating memory of the latter problem, at some previous visit. Plus advance planning in harvesting a tool before travelling to that location.
Dangle a bunch of bananas in front of a Boeing 757, and I am sure a chimp will quickly figure out how to make it taxi forwards, to reach the food. ;-)
No, that just shows immediate future needs, if they were truly intelligent, they would find a way to store their nuts for more than just a single season
I know very many humans who’s budgeting does not extend beyond their next paycheck. Be that the next week or the next month. Does that put them below squirrel and bird intelligence, given that they plan an entire season ahead?
No, humans wouldnt stop and study the bear. As proof, look at chimpanzee and gorilla habitats, still getting bulldozed. Both chimps and gorilla are tool users and are self aware. Octopi are also shown to be highly intelligent and yet we still eat them. The Builders would just keep building, perhaps saving a few humans for the zoo.
But they are SOOOO tasty!
*cries*
I can add examples, most people will either think “clever animal” or be convinced what they are seeing is a trained animal and that they aren’t naturally smart, or an anomaly.
For instance look up videos of cows figuring out how to open their pens, pigs escaping, and such; but due to culture NO ONE *who aren’t also somewhat extreme* is fighting for their rights. People see these and are like “oh its just one smart one, not the ones we eat”.
Given that the massive, unprovoked attack was due to a sensor scanning Sidney and the Orbs, I think it’s safe to say that they don’t think EVERYTHING else out there are ants and squirrels. That was more of a “Crap, there’s a T-Rex in the compound” level of a reaction (maybe even a “DEFCON 5! Our most-hated enemy has arrived!” reaction; that was a BIG boom).
On a different note, Forecaster, it’d also be interesting if it was jus after said hiccup; out-of-place in the comic, but still interesting.
I’ve seen a number of Chinese Web novels where the protagonist disappears for a few years due to encountering something far too powerful, only to return powered up 5 or 6 levels.
Any links you’d like to share? Especially ones with English translations available. Thanks.
Dragon Ball for a start
Dragon Ball, Ocarina of Time, so many RPGs where the heroes village is destroyed and the hero can’t do anything so has to go off and train and come back much stronger to defeat the forces they couldn’t before, Red Sonja, Gandalf, ect…
in fact: here’s a tv tropes back on it.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CameBackStrong
Gandalf levels up, off screen with his Balrog fight.
I guess that Sydney will be back at page 664±2
Perhaps Dabbler doesn’t support the Look-At-Me! glamour whilst in dire situations, as her attention and energies are focused elsewhere.
Sooo this means if Sydney gets off that planet and gets home the long way, she going to be the representative of humanity for however long it takes for her to get back to earth. We as a civilization may be in trouble.
Naw, I think we might up as Holotv sitcom.
Oof, Max’s “Is!” in that last panel really gets me. :(
In Dabbler’s defense, I think “She was pretty sharp” was meant to mean “She was pretty sharp in that moment”, not “She was a pretty sharp person”. Or this might just be her imperfect English acting up again.
Sounded more to me like Dabbler had sized the situation up and is putting the emotions to the side until the crisis has passed and she can have a major breakdown over the loss of a surprisingly close friend.
Or perhaps her one hundred and eighty seven years, and exposure to races with mayfly lifespans, has allowed her to develop mechanisms to cope with their loss.
*wearing black foreleg band, and choking back a tear*
AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
Does Sydney have a few days of her meds in her Utility Belt???
The aliens will regret separating Sydney from her meds.
Or they will cure her so she doesn’t need the meds anymore.
Or she can use her arts and crafts kit, plus some gunk she finds laying around, to create a placebo.
Will it be an ADHD pill made of gold stars and smiley faces?
Hrm, she should have kept a fidget spinner in there, but right now she needs both hands for the orbs anyway.
Hmm,
what if putting googly eyes on a rock is enough to cause these aliens to go completely insane as they are beholding something so far outside their realm of consciousness and conception as *slightly mobile eye structures on inanimate object*
sounds silly, but good chances are when humans explain matricing to some aliens they’ll look at you like you’re crazy as they can’t see it…or televisions, or 3-D movies, ect…so many little things can be taken for granted and come across very differently to different species.
Reminds me of something in the ‘Humans are awesome’/’Humanity Yeah!’ trope of stories…
Humans will pet anything.
https://johnjohns1.fjcdn.com/hdgifs/Humans+will+pet+anything+trigger+medium+stats+under+the+sea_e3a633_6537847.mp4
Also this:
https://memestatic.fjcdn.com/pictures/Haw_9c0cb1_6256160.jpg
You don’t actually need ADD meds to survive, just focus when you are dealing with slow stuff like farming and bean counting. Hunter gather stuff you are better served being off the meds you notices everything. Just talking from experience here is all.
Yea, as corroborated by numerous ADD/ADHD readers, who have asserted the same thing.
Still Sydney needs to set aside some of her remaining supply, for those occasions when it is necessary. For instance, if she needs to infiltrate an enemy vessel, she will need to be able to concentrate on things like figuring out, and memorising, any deck plan she may see (as an example). Yet must not risk of hyper-focusing on it, and ignoring a patrol approaching her!
Well as for meds I am damn glad my mom protected me from that ‘drug em into submission’ docs had going at the time. I saw first hand what they did to a friend of the familys kid with that *ahem* stuff. He was that ‘walking dead’ fthat.
You can cope, and learn and adapt. That’s LIFE, live it!
Conditions and symptoms, for all sorts of conditions, vary from individual to individual. As do their responses to medication. What works well for one, may be very bad for another.
Personally I avoid using meds too, but only when I can find a way of coping. When I emigrated, to this country, the advice was to bring any brand name medicine you wanted, as they might not be available. And, in poorer countries, there is a higher risk of generic alternatives being substandard. So I popped one of each type of medicine (painkiller, laxative, cough medicine, etc) into a carrier bag.
One decade later someone asked me if I had any painkillers. I told them ‘only stuff years out of date’. But they were fine with that, so I got the bag. I had not opened a single item in it, during that entire time.
That said though I used to be on open-ended anti-depressant medication, at one point. Not something a doctor would normally do. However he knew my aversion to popping pills unnecessarily, and that I was particularly wary of addictive ones.
At that time I was overweight and in high-stress jobs and having to work with people who were ‘ethically challenged’ (i.e. criminal, but who were typically capable of escaping justice). Without that help I could not even sleep at night. And even doing routine tasks became a mountainous obstacle to overcome.
Which is not something that is compatible with maintaining a job. So I was on those for years.
The instant I got out of that line of work though, I was fine. Barring times when loneliness became overwhelming, I had no re-occurrence. So have not touched one since. Pets help cope with the loneliness. This last year has had a bunch of grim issues however, so I have had to do like you say and find ways to cope with its return.
Which work, but it does have a huge impact on my day-to-day life. I loose a huge amount of time trying to overcome it. However I am able to get myself into a well-adjusted state eventually. But could significantly reduce the problems, if I kept myself doped up with pills. It is just a matter of finding a balance.
I can get away without that, in my present situation, as I can keep to my own routine. But, in a regular work environment, I would need to put up with being in a zombie-like state again.
Hm, my intent may have come off a bit wrong. I am NOT condoning all drugs as useless., but you have to use them “with due consideration”
Makes more sense about ya’lls kittehs thou. Glad for you AND the furballs you did not have to go the the trauma you mentioned. Have some home groan wolf and catnip on me :)
I may not have furry friends running around … So I borrow them from time to time!
Outside of the stifulling confines of society ADHD needs no medication.
Just wanted to point out that your shading/Maxima’s reflectiveness is top-notch! It was the first thing I noticed viewing this page! *thumbs up*
I’m betting a time skip where a report eventually lands talking about Sydney’s … performance… with alien species.
And I’m guessing something like https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/416 ^_^
A time skip to the very end of Sydney’s return debriefing would be hilarious.
Syd- “… and then I flew back to base and went to LuftWaffles for breakfast. I was soooooo hungry after that.”
Max-“We are glad you are back Scoville. Report for training at 0600.”
Let me go on record for not liking panel 3.
There should have been a different way to show her thoughts:
“She’s gone… It’s my fault… Have to do something… But…
It might be hopeless…. “
I read panel three differently. That’s where she notices that the mountain has been blown away.
Yup, she was just about to say she could dig out the artifact, and then noticed the mountain was gone.
I think that’s a pretty standard reaction to ‘but there was a mountain there!’.
You’re right… That’s the “wasn’t there a mountain here?” look.
(Someone make a Donovan reference.)
Still don’t like the art choice there, although it’s a Manga convention.
And DaveB mixes in ‘Manga’ with the ‘traditional’ style; heck, Sydney is at least 90% Manga herself
He is kind of undercutting the drama here. I mean, what is this, a Marvel movie?
Seems to me, everyone sees Sydney using each device individually. Why can’t the one ball be a control center for all the balls? that way she could use all by just holding the one and then command what needs to be done.
just a side note the balls could be artifacts from the forerunners (see Norton ref. )
OK yeah, the thingamabob that opened the wormhole in the first place was on this side when we last saw it so maybe they can find it and reopen the wormhole. Then there’s the Twilight Council which has spacefaring races on it. Maybe they can help. But I can’t help but think of Trent, the alien(s) who was brought through a wormhole the first time we saw the thingamabob used. Was he just a one-off throwaway character or was Dave setting something up for later use?
Sciona is there too, albeit non-corporeally. And she is apparently seeking refugee status for her people, so she might offer to assist in return for aid.
+1
And good points about Trent, ai_vin.
About the only way Sydney would be able to find home would be to happen to have an image of the gold plaque on Pioneer 10 on her phone, remember the image, and find aliens who can figure out Earth’s location from the pulsar data on the plaque.
Which might be leading characters you don’t want to know about Earth to Earth.
What about the last of her orbs? Maybe it’s time for us to figure out what it does?
Poor Achilles probably lost all of his clothes, too.
He definitely did – https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2901
Just call that super rich geomancer in for a favor. I’m sure he could dig out Achilles and locate the artifact in an afternoon. He could probably get a tax break too for helping out the government.
I’m not certain he particularly cares about tax breaks at this point…
What country could even reasonably expect to tax his ‘earnings’, even as a levy on mineral rights? It’s 10 miles underground, no country would be able to prove it came from within their borders. He just needs to bring it into the market someplace with no state or country income taxes.
Now, when he spends it he’ll have to be a little more creative to avoid or reduce sales tax, tariffs, etc, but as Pedro points out, an extra 10% fee on a mega-yacht really isn’t more than a minor inconvenience for him in that he sometimes has to bring an extra bar out of his stash.
The guy had invited Archon to consult on his security concerns. Plus they have shown an enlightened attitude towards respecting his … um … offshore earnings. And importantly we know that he is socially conscious, as his stated intent was to avoid flooding the market or damaging the world economy. Only wishing to earn a modest amount, to cover his needs.
I think he would be happy to assist Archon, no strings attached. It is both the right thing to do and helps cement their goodwill.
This seems bad, but hardly “We’re out of options” from Max’s point of view. Earth is {apparently} packed with aliens. Even if we don’t have a second-hand cruiser tucked behind the moon, there is obviously commercial travel available, and the Alari are a known species, ergo their (and hence Sydney’s) location is known. I mean, getting there might be an epic travel movie style quest with diplomatic gaffes, sometimes horrific dinners, and the occasional flee-the-angry-mob scene, but it’s plausible.
My thoughts on Dabbler’s apparent pessimism is that she knows where the Alari are, knows their relative strengths as an interstellar empire compared to other species, and knows what it would take to curb stomp them. She she has a better idea of what sort of trouble Sydney is in better than anyone else.
The Alari have already been curb stomped so thoroughly that you need to call Ghostbusters as the clean up squad. Which does leave the problem of the guys who curb stomped the Alari. Hopefully someone in the Xenovarchy knows something about them.
Sydney just needs to hope Greets-with-Nukes will calm down a little now.
On your last point – I wonder if Sydney isn’t FAR better off now against that particular weapon. It depends on whether or not the heating-the-ground-effect was the source of the explosion or not. If it heated the ground and the ground is what exploded upwards, well, Sydney is now far up in the air and could quite easily head more upwards still. Would it be able to trigger a similarly sized explosion in the air?
Or are the beams it projects themselves the main brunt that the shield had to block? If that’s the case, she better hope that shield gets stronger when she’s got it sized to only herself and fly like a bat outta hell away.
Or even better it could turn out that it fired all its nuke-like weapons already. So the mothership may need to deploy another mecha-cthulu, if they want another salvo.