Grrl Power #660 – Armored on the inside
To be fair to whoever made the orbs, this is a pretty unusual situation to account for.
I’m not… too sure what else to say about this page. I didn’t plan on having her glasses break, admittedly a detail that’s easy to miss on this page, but now I get to draw broken glasses on her for the next however many pages. She could take them off. She really only needs them for reading, but it kind of doesn’t quite look like Sydney when I forget them. I guess I’ll have to decide if I want to stick with the big round ones when she gets her next pair. I’ll experiment with that maybe when she goes shopping next.
Panel three I straight up didn’t draw clearly. It’s supposed to be building across the street from Sydney blowing up. Like the beam went over the top of the one Sydney is hiding behind and blew the top off of it. Instead I drew an explosion and a wall.
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She went with flight speed, so that’s almost definitely gonna be her way home… Time to find out how the Navorb works.
Also, looks like ARC Light was right about unlocking that grayed-out path.
That, or she gets a weaponized sonic boom.
She went with flight orb. What she gets out of the point is yet to be determined.
Well, after 5 richochets it didn’t have that much momentum left. Still, I guess it’s time to see if any of her orbs can heal her.
Depends how hard the inside shielding is. Really hard and unmoveable doesn’t take out much energy.
Let’s hope the new upgrade does at least that.
She upgraded the flight orb (blue), not the shield orb (cold purple).
Oh right.
But my argument still stands. It just isn’t new.
The shield is impervious, but the fragment is just a random piece of debris. It’s going to get damaged by every bounce, losing a little mass and a little integrity every time.
Also, if the shield is inelastic, the fragment is going to lose velocity with every collision and direction change.
The sand wasn’t that dangerous, and there was way more of it. It slowed itself down though.
Unless the bullets are also nearly indestructible, witch is unlikely, as bullets are disposable, 6 nearly 180° turns is going to turn the bullet into a squished mess and dissipate most of its momentum.
I dont think it was a bullet so much as it was a piece of shrapnel projected from the close explosion
yes, it was just shrapnel, but still, Lymbo is right. even if those turns were possible (due to shapes of both the shield and that shrapnel) it would most likely damage that shrapnel (that point looks sharp.. if it was stone, it would crumble and if it was metal, unless it was super strong, it would at least flatten the point a little )… and because of that shape, it would most likely impact the shield, slide to its side, and THEN bounce off… with unpredictable trajectory, and if it hit Sydney in the chest area, it would probably be with side, not the point.. unless that shield has physics defying upgrade :D
Well, time to see if the Arc Tailor’s suit is as bullet resistant as he claims. And see how that translates to a sharp shard to the gut.
I was just coming to say that. Hopefully that non-euclidean fluid pack took the brunt.
Don’t you mean, non-newtonian?
I don’tthink wearing anything non-euclidean would be safe for your general geometry.
It actually sounds like wonderful sci-fi armour that causes things that would hit you to re-appear somewhere else.
What flubber does is take the kinetic energy and focuses it back directly along the line of flight so bullets bounce off and fly back at the shooter at a faster rate of speed! You don’t feel anything since it never reaches you. It would make for quite a battle suit. And since it is using repulsive force it changes the physics books and is a unique kind of material. And the energy can be of any type even radiation. Though you would want some kind of neutral material between you and your flubber suit or your body heat would reflect back and fry you in your own skin. How about that for SF armor?
In the near future the Holy American Empire will rule all Non-Euclidean geometry as “of the Devil and Satan’s geometry”. (And that goes with the discovery of r-states and the Colour, and most of all arcane sciences.) Makes exotic matter just seem ordinary…
Non-Newtonian fluid.
Non-Euclidean fluid would be what you store in a Klein bottle.
If she got Dabbler to make something like that, it’d be amazing armor – if it didn’t kill you – and suck incoming ordinance into a pocket dimension. Would need a bomb squad to dispose of it after a single use though, before the container got broken.
The handy thing about Klein based armour. You don’t have to put it on, you are already inside it.
Here’s hoping Ashley knows his $h!t.
Oh, that’s not good.
It’s ok she has the ooblec packets in her suit, remember?
Correct, just because she forgot to list the Kevlar 2.0 duds on her list of assets doesn’t mean she didn’t have then. I’m betting she’s glad about that right now…Not happy I’m sure as it will still hurt a ton but still glad.
As I recall, she was ordered to wear them by Anvil prior to departure for this particular op.
Now, the question is how well they work against what seems to be a very sharp projectile. That is a very tiny point of impact.
A D.A.R.E. officer at my school let a kid wear his armor because he asked, then he stabbed the crap out of him (no penetration, just blunt force while armored). Apparently it still hurt. Neat thing to learn in 5th grade, eh?
How to apply for unemployment benefits.
That should be the lesson the D.A.R.E. officer took away from that little demonstration of reckless endangerment of a child.
I am so glad this is a flashback, do not have to worry about Sidney getting killed.
She already got killed by Sciona at the warehouse.
She got better…
Potentially killed. The reset trigger was for her to be in a moment of high stress.
wait, this is flashback? I don’t think it was stated or implied that it is… well, you don’t have to worry about her anyway.. not only she has her shield and that bullet-resistant clothing, she has also really strong plot armor :D
Page number 4 ends with “let me back up a few months”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/60
yea.. I forgot about that… also it is technically not a flashback.. those are relatively short.. technically it’s kind of narration
She could be a clone!
I have been wondering how many powers Sidney has that she doesn’t know about.
Maybe we will find out if healing is one of them?
Pretty sure that “thuk” was the shard sticking in one of her BDU’s oobleck packs and not something more vital.
Yeah, no blood… yet
Just… don’t do a “Starship Rooters” and pull the damn thing out before getting medical attention: if it is still sticking in, it’s preventing catastrophic blood loss, pull it out, and you just unplugged a spurter!!
Or taking your helmet off….
MEDDDDDIIICCCCCC!!!!!
Yeah, remember the fabric of her uniform is made out of a bullet resistant material that is furthermore reinforced by the tailor’s superpower. I think it’ll hurt like a bitch like a punch to the gut but i don’t think it pierced her skin. It should leave a nice bruise though.
…As if Sydney wasn’t already feeling discomfort in that area already…
Or if it’s been more than a week since then, she’s probably past that point by now.
Thank you for reminding me of the time Sydney Falcon Punched herself right in the ovaries.
They’re STILL on her List, ya know…
By my count that was about five days ago, so she should be good.
That was one of the in-universe speculations. If she gets a quiet moment she might try the last mystery orb to see if it does healing.
….. and then realize she has a bad power.
It appears as our bespectacled heroine is about to be buried.
it could work to her advantage if there is enough ruble to bury her. the alien was shooting blindly so he probably doesn`t know she`s there. she can hide there and either wait it out to plan a strategy, a surprise attack or wait for rescue( although I think she already assumes there won`t be a rescue)
That’s assuming that she is able to dig herself out. She’s got a few options on that:
* If the flight orb is strong enough she can just fly out, pushing the rubble aside
* If the
hentorblighthook is strong enough she can dig clear* Maybe she could PPO a way free, but that would draw attention and might have issues with causing more stuff to collapse on her. It also assumes that the PPO (which starts outside the shield) can form inside an object when there’s stuff pressing against the shield on all sides.
i don`t think her flight orb capacity has been tested yet so its up to debate.
the lighthook has a proven strength able to lift about 16 Tons. more than enough to clear rubble.
what`s more, she can retract her shield to reduce the surface she`d need to lift in order to reduce the Pressure per inch square that would be resting on her.
my point it, i believe it would be relatively easy for Sydney to get out of a pile of debris, especially since she already has he shield up.
Reducing the size of the shield bubble won’t change the pressure per area, but it will reduce the pressure times area for total weight to be moved.
Another tactic that might work would be enlarging and reducing the size of the bubble while trying to fly up to dislodge the debris. or just expand the bubble until it’s sitting on top of the debris pile.
I don’t think it has actually been established if Sydney can change the shield’s size while it is active, and she should know better than to turn it off while buried.
Wasn’t that established in front of the portal?
When mecha-squidward was targeting them, she re-shielded everyone to the sound-effects “off-embiggen-on”, if I recall correctly.
it was proven that she can change the size as she wants while it is active and inactive, she had to take it down momentarily to allow the others to be let in otherwise it just would have pushed them away.
also, thanks opus, that`s what I meant, there would be less mass to move if she reduces the size of her shield.
Hmmm, if true that brings up a few physics and continuity inconsistencies.
If she can make the shield grow and use it to (or be forced to) push away things, like her team mates, who didn’t happen to be inside at the time, then the air pressure should drop precipitously and possibly cause her some damage unless she quickly applied the air ball. And she didn’t know about the air ball when she and Maxima were at the firing range testing her shield, and the test site was basically a block of steel surrounded by an open plain. So Sydney would have had no particular reason to drop the shield before she embiggened it.
Also, the hentacle has a strength limit. Allowing the shield orb unlimited mass moving capabilities via the embiggening function seems inconsistent. If whomever created the orbs can have one of them able to move limitless mass, then making the one actually capable of some more finely controlled mass moving have a mass limit seems like a really poor design.
She literally asked at one time (parking lot fight I think?) explicitly why she didn’t have air pressure issues when expanding or shrinking the shield, and i think the response was that clearly the shield is advanced enough to take that into account and resolve the issue somehow. So basically they hung a lantern on the issue rather than it being an inconsistency.
She does have the teleport orb too.
To be completely fair to whoever made the orbs, this upgrade system is horrible. Sydney has leveled 3 times, and has had to rush through the upgrade process 2 of those times.
Of course, if humans had designed it it would be an unskippable update with an update progress bar, you’d be forced to reboot after every point, and it would still manage to accidentally reset all of your custom settings.
Maybe, but if you were an authorized user presumably you’d have the manual and know what all the upgrade options were and have your next one pre-planned so rushing wouldnt be an issue.
If you’re presuming that the user has read the manual, then you’re not designing the system to be used by humans.
Well, duh! ;-) The whole ‘only two hands to use seven orbs’ thing already gave that away – or maybe they were designed by Microsoft and they just didn’t give a f*ck?
VGer47, there is so much we don’t know about those orbs. would it even be possible to use more than two at once? (even if you had 4 or more arms).. we don’t know where that power comes from and it is possible that using more than 2 or 3 at once would overload them.. and look how powerful each orb is even when not fully upgraded.. imagine you had 6 hands, and knew exactly what each orb can do.. it would be very hard or maybe impossible to stop you… on the other hand, it is possible that one of the upgrades is ability to use orbs even without touching them (for example, if you look at it here https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1166 , you can see solitary “slot” coming from each orb.. maybe if she puts point in there, maybe she can use that orb without touching? but then again, air one has that one bought and it does not seem she can do that.. not that she tried :D )
and about that upgrade system.. there is probably a way how to bring that grid up even when you don’t have a point to spend, she just does not know how (yet)… and it is possible that all those upgrades are labeled.. some games have similar system (usually with some image) where you have to hover over upgrade or select it to bring up the information about it..
Then again, when she was underwater she reached for her rebreather that had gotten loose, and at that moment the Air Orb moved to her hand of its own accord.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2560
Since she didn’t even know what it could do, she didn’t call it herself, at least not consciously. So, maybe?
You are probably onto something there. Back when these squids first scanned Sydney, they only got a reaction from two orbs… the shield one which was in her hand, and the air orb which was floating. So the “thick” branch probably allows hands-free use, she just doesn’t know how.
I wouldnt say ‘hands free’ but rather “Tool assisted.”
The air orb is active and will dive into her hand if needed, but it needs to be in her hand to act.
Since that Orb makes air and we have only saw her underwater without shield once, nobody can say for sure.. Maybe if she already had both hands full and really needed air, it would make it even without her holding it. For all we know, that Orb could be making air, without hand activation, every time she gets winded :D
We know this isn’t happening because she was experiencing the effects of having used up the breathable parts of her air supply during the parking lot fight and had to drop and reraise her shield to refresh her air supply. Since she has not put any points into the air orb since then, its behavior then should indicate that it would not be capable of such a feat now.
That could be it, too, but it would be so underwhelming in comparison!
Or, as speculated back then, the single frame that we saw was an in-progress scan, which was promptly interrupted by the shield.
Yeah. The seven orbs pretty much guarantees that the makers and/or target users have eight manipulative limbs. Seven for the orbs, and one left free to scratch its nose.
Eventually the Orb developers acknowledge all the independent sites that have sprung up to help users during power slotting and reluctantly add labels.
:-)
Hi! I just wanted to plug my independent site. Thanks for giving me a nice segway!
Seriously though, I started working on the site on the 4’th.
Nice utility.
It needs a key/legend for the colors that doesn’t require clicking on a node to see the meaning for the color in the node details.
Thank you for being one of the first people to provide some constructive criticism, As requested there is now a key/legend on the side of the map.
This is actually one of my more fun projects.
Hey Jcc10. You’re a true/hardcore fan for adding this! *bows to your superior fandomness* Seriously, how much work did this take? It looks exactly like the original! Would you be willing to open it up to other fans adding their own theories about the purpose of the various nodes? I know I have tons of ideas!
Thanks for adding the legend.
Two more:
The ‘note’ in the legend, do they relate to the “Skill Tree Design Notes” near the bottom of the page? It isn’t clear to me that their is any relation.
Using the up and down arrows (the set of 4 directional arrows which are on most keyboards to the right of the main keys and the num pad) only scrolls the skill tree, even if some text on the main page is selected. This is annoying*. The same applies to the left and right arrows, but since the page fits fully in the left-right orientation on a normal size browser this isn’t as much of an issue. If you shrink the browsers left-right size down however the issue does apply to the left and right keys as well.
* For an example of this where selecting text applies the arrow keys to the main page instead of a windowed sub-section of the page, open up YouTube. Select any video. Click on the video itself to start play. At this point using the up and down arrows will change the volume of the video. If you select some text outside the video the use of the arrows will then scroll the page up and down.
But what about the experience/progress bar – it’s there, clear as day, in vivid ultra-violet!
Hahaha. The labels might be there after all, if you include all of the wavelengths Dabbler can’t see. Or what if the label waves are mechanical instead of electromagnetic?
we actually don`t know if it`s an experience bar Per-se. it could be an overall completion progress Bar for all we know. after all, what`s the point of an experience Bar that you can`t access and check at will( as far as we know).
I guess we’ll see how bullet resistant her uniform is.
Ouch…
SYDNEY!
And now we find out if the remaining unknown orb has healing abilities.
She has already tried that, remember, paper-cuts make her cringe
I don`t think it is healing, or at least not automatic, otherwise she could have tried it when she got some “Unmaker’ in her eye.
Well… perfect time to check if the last orb is MedBay! If it is not – she better not pull the spike out.
Her field dress is quite tough, and if she has the oobleck packs in the shard shouldn’t penetrate (unless it finds a gap.) Probably will give her another (significant) bruise to add to her collection though.
Shrapnel < Bullet based on everything I know and have seen.
unless the shrapnel is bigger than a softball and shaped like a flint handaxe.
lol, shrapnel armor has been around for a while, Flak vest are an example, great for shrapnel and debris, but will not in anyway stop a bullet except as a ricochet . not saying the impact won’t hurt… but that body armor should prevent any lethal injury.
hell, even standard chainmail and such works for smaller shrapnel (though that depends on speed and proximity to blast, of course)
So are we going to get randomly chosen power ups?
At least until she figures out how to activate labeling, or gets Krona (reality hacker) to take a look and prepare some notes. She can probably analyse them given enough time even when not in “level up” mode.
But right now it is important that Sydney does not have that information, from a plot perspective.
The Greatest American Hero was most interesting and fun when the dude didn’t know a damn thing about how to operate the suit.
God help the universe if Halo discovers that taking damage also fills up the XP bar.
I mean, its not exactly random that she picked 1.) the one she was asked to by maxima and arc-light 2.) the one she was specifically debating purchasing to help her get home anyway
I meant now that her glasses broke.
She CAN see well enough without them to aim her orb effectively in combat (restaurant fight “no one is THAT blind” etc), so can probably still tell which is which and find the glowing, five dot line that is immediately next to where her next point should go.
She is wearing highly bullet-resistant gear, so lets see if the shrapnel gets past its damage reduction.
Also: this would be a great time to discover the regenerative properties of the still “unknown” Orbs.
Does this count as the part in the anime battle where the protagonist is injured and/or practically beaten, only to make a quib or dramatic line and get a second wind/power surge?
I honestly was expecting her to be startled by something, grabbing both the orb she wants to upgrade and the Shield ob at the same time, triggering the connecting point to be filled (like with the shield and pew-pew orb, which supposedly lets her fire through the shield).
[speculative babbling] flight and shield combo… shield taking on a sharp edge during flying, being able to slice through things at high flight speed? Codename “Flying Cleaver”.
Yeah, Sydney is definitely one of those characters that is limited by knowledge of her own abilities (and ADD, but that is an inconsistent drawback at best, and can be mitigated)
She is definitely OP, but so are all the higher level threats… Power Creep.
Her non-Newtonian super Kevlar uniform should make that non-instantly lethal.
Still a severe injury. She’ll be going into shock soon.
She shouldn’t pull it out?
She chose the flight upgrade?
Go to the other side of the planet.
That should buy enough time to treat her injury.
Having the last Orb be healing seems…IDK… Too Obvious?
Teleprescence Orb.
Create a hologram of herself a few meters away that isn’t injured.
Teleport into that.
She’s healed.
Thisisn’t a Bugs Bunny cartoon where a character blasted in the face with a shotgun is restored to normal whenever they walk off screen them back on again. But then again, Sydney did go ‘meep meep’ after dropping an anvil on someone.
Hmm, maybe Sydney needs to intentionally start a heated argument with Squidward about “Human” season vs. “Squid” season.
Canonically, the hologram always looks like her; she can’t just create an uninjured one. Also, there’s no indication that she’s “becoming” the hologram and would therefore transform into whatever it looked like if she somehow figured out how to change it.
Green might double as healing as part of all-purpose life-support.
I don’t think she has healing powers.. and she does not need them anyway with her shield and bullet-resistant clothing, it’s unlikely for her to get seriously hurt.. and plot armor will save her from mortal wounds anyway :D
Yeah, her P(ersonal) L(ightweight) O(mni-directional) T(actical) Armor will last her for the next few months at least, so she’s got that going for her.
League of Super Redundant Heroes! Am I right?
Perhaps. Even through a “bulletproof vest”, police still get severe bruising or even broken bones.
If it penetrated and stuck in her flesh? Oh, hell no. In real life, no matter how much it hurts, you don’t want to do that, especially if there’s a chance it hit a major vein or artery. There’s a good chance it’s acting like a tamponade, stopping you from bleeding to death. Granted, Syd is not in a situation where she can expect prompt medical attention, but under normal circumstances, you would leave it in and let the medical professionals remove it.
Depends on the amount of momentum that shard has. It’s not a weaponized projectile, ‘merely’ a piece of accidentally sharp debris. Bouncing around in a sphere has probably diverted SOME of its momentum, hard surface on the inside of the shield or not. Combined with the packs of non-newtonian fluid and the kevlar, this probably has an impact profile more comparable with a punch than with sharp shrapnel. Heavy bruising is still basically guaranteed, of course, but the sticking point will be whether the force was spread out enough to prevent internal bleeding or hemorrhaging, or if it’s still like getting struck with a big stick instead of a fist.
If it sticks to bruising, her functionality will be limited for a few weeks at the least, but she’s still basically got as much time to get home as she had before.
If it’s internal bleeding, even just a little she’s on a countdown for sure, which suddenly gives me another insight about some possible orb functionality. Not sure if its the last orb or part of the life-support orb, but what if there’s so-called “Stasis” functionality? Like, if she gets in danger of her life in a way that cant be solved by an air bubble, the life-support orb auto-activates both the shield and the ‘stasis field’ that basically suspends time for her, leaving her locked down and waiting for rescue. Not sure if there’s such a thing as automatic activation in the orbs though.
The green orb is the only one with the “thick” option activated, which could be handsfree.
(https://www.deviantart.com/davebarrack/art/Halo-s-Skilltree-Wallpaper-01-428873707)
This could also explain why when the alien scanned the orbs he saw stats for the orb she was holding and possibly the green orb.
Less “hands free” and more “tool assisted.”
It flies to her hand when needed, but still needs a hand to activate.
Shock comes from the body not being able to get enough oxygen (typically from blood loss or dehydration). Given the size of the piece of shrapnel, and it’s velocity, unless it pierced her, it probably did not impart enough energy to cause severe internal bleeding. She’s not going to go into shock.
However, being buried alive, bleeding from the face (head wounds bleed like m**********er), and actively hunted by an alien hell beast might cause a panic attack.
That would be bad for her situation.
There must be some decent armor under there, right? I mean, wearing protective gear is part of military 101.
Military 101 is wearing protective gear designed and delivered by the lowest bidder. This may or may not qualify as decent armor.
There were no bidders, there was only one super tailor with his own advanced cloth/armor invention.
The bidder was “someone we are already have on salary and so who will do this work for no cost beyond materials and what we are paying him anyway”.
“…which is ahekuva lot since he’s an ARC super.”
….. huh.
Okay, now this is an interesting accounting question. What exactly is the book value of that field dress, from an accounting perspective?
The cost most likely includes Ashley’s labor and the labor of the two fashion ninja assistants. And yes, he’ll be very highly-paid. But it would only be about 30 minutes of his time including measurements and fitting. We might also count the time he spent designing the uniforms, but that would be one-time overhead divided evenly amongst all the uniforms for all of Arc-SWAT. I’ll be very generous and imagine that puts his labor for Sydney’s at forty minutes.
Then there’s raw materials. Normally I’d guess that the Oobtek and Q-Vex are expensive and require licensing, but there’s no way we have hard numbers for that. They could just as easily be Arc-SWAT’s own invention, in which case they get it at-cost. Still, that cost would include a lot of defrayed R&D, and if it’s small production runs that they don’t have fully automated for large lots it will be much more expensive than it needs to be on a per-unit basis. (And the fact that Sydney had to be individually fitted, rather than just grabbing one of thousands of uniforms off the rack, suggests exactly that.)
Overhead NOT counting design and R&D will be pretty damn low, though, since they don’t have a factory set up and Ashley really reduces the number of tools they need to use.
My jokes about lowest bidders aside, supers ARE expensive and even if Archon’s leaders are purely cold-blooded unsentimental monsters who don’t actually care for the lives of their people (and they aren’t), they’d still want to protect that investment. If nothing else, I’m sure they have various forms of insurance policies and premiums that can be lowered by impressing the providers with high tech protection.
So lemme pull some numbers out of my butt here. I’ll assume that roughly half of the price is Ashely’s labor, and half of it is materials and R&D overhead. Sydney commented that four weeks pay was more than she saw in a year. She has what looks like a studio apartment in a middle-of-the-country city, and was running an until-recently-failing retail business with herself and one partner (and just now a new employee). I’d guess she was taking home somewhere in the range of 30k-50k a year from Event Horizon Comics, and that would put her new salary at over 350k, maybe a lot over. I’m going to guess a million annual, and I’ll further guess that Ashley makes ten times what she does (he’s not a raw recruit, his skills are both incredibly useful and in high demand, and he’s not at the tip of the spear). That would make half an hour of his time, plus materials of equal value, worth… a bit short of 5k.
Now there are a lot of assumptions (really wild guesses) that went into that, but I’m guessing it’s within an order of magnitude of correct. So I’m speculating that her uniform is worth somewhere between $500 and $50,000.
The low end puts it below the price of the top-rate stuff the Army uses, but I’d guess it’s worth a lot more than that. Then again, this is accounting we’re talking about — its book value is its cost, not its actual worth.
That was two weeks of her pay. Just as a advance, the comment was that she will get the next one in four as she was paid. with your math she is paid 390-650k, with my numbers 780-1300k. still less then what some universities pay there football coaches.
*rereads archives* Huh, that WAS only two weeks pay. So…. double all those numbers, I guess.
Didn’t DaveB say somewhere that she gets ‘more than a four-star general’ ? That would imply more than 189,000 a year according to the Net. Of course technically, a cool million a year IS more than that, but would he have used that comparison if the difference was that huge? Then again, say she gets about 250k a year… divide by 26… that would be nearly 10k every two weeks. But her comic shop makes less in a year than she got in that one paycheck. The shop is doing badly, but if they made less than 10k last year, wouldn’t it have folded already?
MAYBE not…. all a business has to do not to fold is break even before the owners get paid.
But if she was only making 10k, Sydney would need about a dozen roommates to make rent.
I don’t think we saw his entire process in action. He might need to spend several hours or even days/weeks/months ’empowering’ a bolt of cloth. Or if that makes it too difficult to work with, empowering the finished product.
Well he said “come back in 20 minutes”.
Empowering bolts of cloth would be categorized as raw materials, rather than labor. (Or, more specifically, it would be categorized as labor to produce the raw materials for the uniform, rather than labor to produce the uniform.)
If it takes multiple hours of a highly paid employee such as any super to create the cloth, then the value of the cloth is increased by that fact. The price, for something that is going to be sold. This isn’t a hard thing to understand, it is simple arithmetic.
Actually, that’s only Military 101 for nations who don’t care about losing soldiers, and Special Forces Teams tend to get the top-of-the-line stuff, i’d imagine ARC-SWAT even moreso, especially given the tailor and Dabbler being on staff.
Agreed; plus, would a manufacturer really want to be held responsible for mission failures and personnel loss by people who are trained to kill people in unique and interesting ways? Some don’t care, but most probably would take that into account.
Thank goodness Anvil went all army discipline on Sydney at the meeting.
Yes, she even specifically ordered Sydney to wear her bullet proof (“bullet RESISTANT!”) suit.Syd may well owe heer life to that order now!
We already know from the pages pre-flashback that she sticks with the round glasses, Dave :P
She could get through a different shaped pair before returning to her current style in time for the events of the first pages, but I would prefer that she didn’t change. They just seem to suit her personality somehow.
Maybe she has a spare pair?
Came here to say the same thing.
Ofc Dave could always go back and modify the pre-flashback pages, there are only a few.
Nothing wrong with trying something new but sticking to the original in the end.
I’m quite sure that the flashback part has passed because of these two pages:
– https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1630
– https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/55
I know the time part doesn’t seem to have passed, but then again we don’t know how long she spent in that education camp with the classes. I believe it officially starts here: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1991.
For that she’d have had to be promoted five times off screen. She started out as a recruit and in https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/60 she is a corporal.
What if Maxima was talking to Anvil? (I know it’s a stretch…)
Alternatively: that panel was before the comment where Dave said he didn’t understand the military ranking system… maybe he just wanted to throw down a title for Sydney and move on? There has been several accounts, including this page’s comment, where Dave said the characters make their own path rather than do what he initially envisioned.
you are probably right. Dave didn’t understand ranks. Max should be a Major maximally for what she does, a Captain fits even better. Hiro one below her. The others from the military should be some sort of Sargent, maybe a few warrant officers. At the moment there are way to many officers and enlisted below Sargent.
Max came from the Airforce and so if ArcSwat is based off that more officers would make sense. (In the Airforce only officers fly planes so all the fieldable combat people are officers.)
There are other minor inconsistencies that have happened already as well. For example, there is a contradiction in this (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/82) page that we don’t know about until later on. Arianna held the “Supers are Real” meeting so America could be the first country that revealed it had supers and Sydney was at that revealing. The panel suggests supers are already known about mainstream but hasn’t been revealed as having superpowers yet; hence: contradiction.
Unless I’m missing something…
Assuming I’m correct with the time difference being spent in the training camp/classes, and the good point you brought up about rank was an accidental contradiction; is there any other issue with this not being a flashback? (I really can’t think of another, but then again I didn’t remember about the rank.)
There’s no contradiction there. The public at large had been hearing stories & rumors, but there was no Official Story to confirm it until the ARC Swat press conference. Before, it was not exactly a secret, but a subject of rumor & heresay. There was no confirmed knowledge of “supers during the course of history” until the brief story given during the press conference.
Thank goodness she’s wearing that armored uniform. One thing that gets me is that it actually looks like the item ricocheting with speeding up as it bounced off of the walls which should not really have been possible unless it’s like made out by brainium or something and which case it conserves most of its momentum as it bounces around including is full store of kinetic energy well close to it
Weird things happen with long, thin objects that spin on some bounces and not on others – the energy can convert between angular and linear kinetic energies (though that also involves transfer of both linear and angular momentum between the object and whatever it’s bouncing off), so you can have a slow, spinny leg between two fast, non-spinny legs.
Today, Sidney learns an important lesson about overthinking decisions when the pressure is on.
It’s “Thuk” sound, not “Blaargh”, she is not penetrated :) Probably will have a bruise though :)
I’m not sure about the debris in the last panel – it looks like it falls on top of her, but she is still holding her shield orb, and the debris is outside of it on the previous panel.
Well, that scene increases probability that the “mystery” orb is medbay :) I do believe it’s different enough from “life support” for it to be a separate function (if she has it at all)
I just hope that debris isn’t the wole building collapsing on top of her. Her shield and air orb would keep her alive, but she’d be pinned down in darkness – not good.
well we don`t know that. did we ever figure out what her flight orb capacity is?
I don’t believe there’s ever been a rigorous test of its weight capacity. It can carry enough spare Archon members to take some flight time off of the Osprey. But Sydney didn’t try to use it to get herself out of the rubble at the Wars plant, and so all we know (as far as I recall at least) is that is can carry a few people in addition to Sydney and everything she is carrying.
At least it wasn’t The Holtzman effect with the slow knife penetrating the shield. Incidentally, is that a piece of shrapnel embedding in her or is it a stinger like probe shot from Squiddly Diddly to turn her into one of them?
It’s shrapnel. Rather sharp shrapnel, but sometimes that happens.
Sydney, that is not the right way to catch a bullet !
In fact, leave all catching of bullets and other projectiles to Maxima!
or Achilles! lol
You know, I’m really glad we are getting Sydney alone time with these pages, it’s really fleshing out her perspective and how she thinks, as opposed to having to share it with a 20+ sized cast.
That said: Oooo! That’s gonna hurt. Penetration of skin or not, that rock will still be carrying a fair amount of kinetic energy that has to be dispersed.
Hurray for bullet-resistant clothing! Now she probably “only” has a couple of broken ribs to worry about.
No need to draw the broken shards on all the following pages. Once Sydney has sorted herself out from injured/not injured she’d likely do something about it as soon as possible.
When a glass breaks like that, one usually pushes the rest of the shards out of the frame to avoid possible injury to the eye – and I would recommend ducttaping some paper or cloth over the empty frame, because if Sydney needs very strong glasses as she apparently does, seeing ‘good+black’ is by far to be preferred over the headache one gets from brain trying to sort out ‘good+blurry’.
An empty rim would provide a set-up for an obscure FLCL reference though…
It has already been established that Sydney’s glass are primarily for reading.
Thanks to Oobtek and Q-Vex, Ashley’s going to be getting an awesome thank-you present from Sydney once she gets back. (At least, he’d BETTER.)
I guess now we find out if the Oobleck clothing blocks fast knives and/or if the last orb is a healing ability of some sort.
It still bugs me that with all her bruises she hasn’t tried to heal with that orb.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1991 shows a lot of them.
Medi orb, activate.
great page exept for one little thing,, an object of that shape wouldnt skip like that,,the point would slide on a surface it cant penetrate ,not bounce of like it was a spring,, a spherical or near spherical shape would, hence why non pointy bullets can ricochet with near frontal colision,, but take a pointy bullet and it will not unbless it hit only its side and then it wouldnt ricochet with such an angle.
also the amount of kinetic energy would drasticly reduce with every ricochet, enough that after 3 or 4 it wouldnt have enough to keep going,
since if i recall vectorial physic,, such a change of direction would opose some of the objects own energy to itself based on the actual angles on impact and ricochet, the closer the 2 the moire oposistion,
so this action/superhero meme of ricochet is a bit like the ones they already talked about,, the look behind your target and hitting with cars ones
Unless Sydney’s shield actively rejects anything that impacts it? Not sure if that’s the case though…
Because the shield has to act like sheets of metal or whatever?
It’s a force field of some description, it can kinda act however Dave wants it to act
As far as i know, the amount of kinetic energy lost depends on how hard is the thing that gets impacted.. Softer the material, more kinetic energy lost.. And that shield is strong… Like really strong.. So that part is not that hard to believe.. But i agree with you that pointy things would not bounce like this :D
My guess is that now we find out the mystery orb heals….
Here’s hoping that the last orb is a medical orb!
That doesn’t look like shrapnel, but some sort of advanced armor-piercing ammunition round that has a propulsion system, and a seeking program.
Now we get to find out what automatic features the green orb has, as it was active to MNS’s scan without being held in Sydney’s hand.
It’s still just shrapnel. If it had a seeking program, then why was it about to miss her in panel 4? (And then she put her shield up while it was still inside the shield’s radius, so it bounced around and hit her.)
Crappy turn radius at that speed, so it couldn’t maneuver well in the shield sphere. Yup. That’s the ticket.
Let us hope she remembered the inserts when she geared up today.
She should have, Anvil specifically ordered her to, right before they left to chase Sciona.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2804
So yeah, she should be fine, for certain values of ‘fine’.
Is this a good sign,yes or no???
Meh, methinks it makes sense for the mystery orb to be stasis — prevent bleedout.
Uh. I’m sorry but even in the entropic entropy that is cynicism, I heartily reccomend a: a massive dose of gofukyoselfium, followed by a battery of fukthisthan and watium. I mean, to say this is out of left field means left field A: existed. B: was a universal congruent. AND C. Had been approved by 4 out of 5 asshat’s off the street.
Whoa, chill!
As for myself, I just take a dose of Fukitol with a grain of salt…
well, time for her to figure out how to use her healing ball.
Okay given she was deployed dealing with supervillians she has her armour packs in. And the projectile was clearly not traveling bullet speeds. Though it is pretty pointy. But it should have been stopped by the non-newtonion armour.
Re: Sidney’s glasses.
For the ultimate joke, when she goes to get her glasses replaced, have ARC medical issue her Military style Birth Control Glasses.
Those are pretty tough…You could throw them up against a brick wall & there’s little chance of them breaking. Depending on how they hit the wall, might not even scratch the lenses. I know this for a fact.
Yep, they’re pretty tough even if they’re none too pretty. You could throw them up against a brick wall & have little chance of breaking the frames. Depending on how they hit the wall, may not even scratch the lenses. Slip on some side-shields & they qualify as honest-to-regulation safety glasses.
I know this for a fact.
The lens may not scratch, but most glasses come with several layers of film applied for various purposes such as glare resistance. And those scratch up pretty easily. I had to replace a pair of lenses after my glasses fell down in between my bed mattress and the wall. Without thinking I reached down and grabbed them and pulled them out, but the lenses were against the wall and the film(s) took a beating from the drywall/paint. I asked if the scratches could be buffed out and the optometrist said that they could not. Being somewhat frugal I tried myself with some soft cloth and then some ultra fine buffing compound. It didn’t cause any more damage but it also didn’t improve things any and I ended up having to buy new lenses because the scratches (more like a fully discolored/translucent area about half the diameter of a penny in the middle of both lenses) were enough of an annoyance to my vision that I just couldn’t make due. And except for insurance my lenses apparently cost something in the area of $750.00, which seems ridiculous.
Looks like she came very close to losing that eye, and she may end up with a scar from that slice. If she wants one, that is.
With Sydney, it could go both ways. Remember how much she liked her eye patch?