Grrl Power #671 – Level duh(p)
Hopefully that blue shit from the downed orbital defense platforms isn’t wildly radioactive cause it’s scattered all over that… mountainous plain? I don’t know what I drew there.
Someone mentioned it in the comments, but the orbs won’t go into upgrade mode if they’re in use, so she doesn’t have to worry about them flipping into skill tree mode at 50,000 feet or while deflecting a hail of bullets or anything.
It would have taken Sydney an hour to get half way around the planet, (according to actual correct math, and not the nonsense I put out) and no way she had the patience to actually fly that long. Still, she probably put 5,000 miles between herself and the bads before she hunkered down to see if she’d earned some points. I mean, come on, Sydney, if you’d flown around to the other side of the planet, it’d probably be daytime. That’s standard operating procedure for most planets.
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She finally found the button to open her skill tree lol
Seems to be gesture driven – the worst kind of button to look for…
ARC-Light will be ecstatic if she remembers to show them.
True she got the skill tree open. but there is still a good chance the only reason she did was because she had available points to spend and this was pretty much the first available time the tree COULD open.
She should show the hacker girl when she gets back. Be a good place to start figuring out where they came from.
Be hard to hit (speed) or hard to kill (shield) but given the bombardment, signs point to shield.
I’ll second this, either speed and shield…..or possibly two points to speed. To maybe, possibly…warp out of there, as she put it. hahah
Except she doesn’t know where she is in relation to earth, and doesn’t know she’s in the future. staying put until she’s saved sounds like a good bet.
Unless of course the Warp upgrade we all assume is there jumps her down the path of Space Folding instead of Linear travel.
Because in that case, she likely could just picture Earth and the orbs would take care of the pathfinding.
Wait, Future? When was it revealed that she’s in the future?
It’s implied that she’s in the future, from what the crazy angel chick said (“I was just speaking to them a few days ago…”) and what Harem said (“…there were too many of me!”).
couldn’t a phase difference or perturbation in the Hamiltonians cause the same effect for Harem? Especially if there were either a time shift or a lensing effect from either a black hole or some other gravimetric disturbance? Or does Harem not exist/communicate through a quantum binding?
I took that to mean that they had crossed dimensions with the portal. Like she is sensing all the Harems from all the Earths through the open gate. But I guess it depends on how many “extra” Harems are needed to disorientate herself like that so she can’t immediately tell what was disorientating her.
One extra… or infinity extra.
There are several indicators.
1. Harem felt “too many” of herself existing. That means all 5 of her were there already and she was a “6th” Harem that did not belong.
2. The enemy clearly knows about the balls and appear ready to destroy her.
3. The entire planet was destroyed within, theoretically, 1 day, yet clearly looks like it was destroyed over a much larger time frame.
4. The creation of the conduit to the time/location they are was damaged, so it took them to their location, but not necessarily the “time”, based on the above.
“The enemy clearly knows about the balls and appear ready to destroy her.”
I’d argue against the “clearly” in that. Yes it’s a possible interpretation but it’s just as likely they scanned the orbs, found something they didn’t understand or couldn’t scan, and decided to respond to the unknown by destroying it.
Specifically, it looked like 2 of the orbs were ID’d: the shield, and probably the PPO. The others were all blank.
Two had reports next to them but they were all red lines suggesting a list of sensors that failed to get any readings, the orbs themselves were blank where as it scanned Sydney down to the nervous system.
There was one green line on the active orb so they picked up what it was doing something but couldn’t identify how (or possibly even what).
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2886
Agreed. If they knew about the orbs and their capabilities, they would have responded to the threat appropriately. Clearly, the one guy whose strongest attack couldn’t get through her shield was not an appropriate response, nor were the hundreds of “drones” sent after Sydney. The latter was an especially horrible waste of resources, since they did absolutely nothing to her. They CLEARLY weren’t anticipating something with such powerful defensive and offensive capabilities. If they were, they would have sent in the four “Kaiju” all at once.
Destroying anything you don’t recognize is a) a terrible way to harvest alien technology, and b) a great way to start a fight you can’t finish.
It has worked out well so far for Earthicans….
Just like with Squiddley’s ‘shield’, being in the future is just speculation and WAT
“the best armour is not being there”
Why not both? Upgrade the shield and the speed and turn Sydney into her own mass driver. Would solve her needing to drop the flight orb to pick up the blaster orb to be offensive.
Assuming you can be a bullet without being hurt yourself sounds like a good way to go splat. Hubris is tactically inadvisable.
Come on comm ball. Reach out and touch someone!
Not sure if it’s been suggested before, but if she could connect her “Comm”-Orb all the way to Earth, then the “Light-Bee”-feature could teleport her home-in-a-blink, right … ?
sure if she could live for the 1000’s of years it would take for the comm ball to travel there
Daniel here. If the portal opened up again, but was too small for her to fit through, THEN the Com Ball Copy could be used to sneak through, but without a portal, yes it’ll take unfeasably long to get there…
I’m still wondering if her ‘lighthook’ might have an upgrade or feature to be able to ‘hold’ all her orbs. Then all she would have to do would be ‘think’ which one she needed to use. Or ‘set’ what she wanted to be active and just touch the orb that she intends to use next (mini access panel ?)
personally, i think that’s what the very very center “dot” of the skill tree pattern is for, once all seven pie wedges are filled, then she’ll be able to OPERATE any orb by just GRABBING ANY of them no matter which one it is…
Actually, I would guess that once she can operate more than two at a time, it may allow her to activate an orb and than switch to another. Once activated, the orb would continue to do what it was last commanded to do (i.e- create air, maintain a shield, fly in a set direction, ect.) Then she may have to touch the orb again to change the command. This would be an interesting limiting factor that would keep her from getting too overpowered as she unlocks new upgrades. Eventually, the links between the orbs would allow her to use them in conjunction: touching one orb would allow her to use the other two it is connected to so that she could use the powers of all six by holding two of them.
Oops, there’s seven of them. Also, I was looking at the links and they each have a node that connects them to all the others. Still, though, hard to say exactly what the links do since the one link connected was there before she got the orbs. We’ll have to see what happens when she eventually connects one herself.
Unless the center dot is the “release” for the orbs, letting them go find a new owner to orbit.
I think one point to speed should be enough. I don’t see her needing warp speed too much in the future. she already added one to forcefield earlier so given the situation maybe it’s time for a “best defense is a good offense” and toss a point into energy blast.
though I admit to being curious as to a telepresence/truesight orb upgrade on the chance there’s another gate hidden/out of phase somewhere and she could find that to get home.
When? The last point she added went to a speed upgrade.
didn’t she put a point into shield when she got hit by the shrapnel a few updates ago? it broke through the front of the shield just as she put the point into it which resulted in the shrapnel bouncing off the back of the stronger shield and end up hitting her? or was that just the front of the shield slowing it down enough for the back ot the shield to stop it?
She isn’t thinking about getting the speed upgrade for the future, she’s thinking about what she needs to survive and get home today.
if the new tree does what she hopes it gets her home, (as she’s hoping for warp drive) but it’s technically a risk to spend since it’s an unknown, if she put it in Shield she’d increase her survivability, PPO lets her “Grind” those 3 giants for another possible point easier, Lighthook could increase her max pull weight or length,potentially letting her do a Snowspeeder run and trip them, Tele-presence could increase her max port distance, let her make illusions, or even make the “scout” a hardlight one, enabling damage from a distance. don’t know enough about the “Life” orb to give an idea for that one either.
Probably not feasible. if only because she’d need several upgrades
But I have a mental image of Sydney “Yes! ooooohhh” when her Tele-presence sends an image into the male showers. in front of Math. Who stands there analyzing her glazed look
“Oh, so that’s why it’s disturbing” Then he turns around and continues to bathe
Later Math is set scrubbing the toilets for a year
Don’t you mean Sydney?
Do you really think Maxima would not blame him instead of sydney?
Max is a feminist, sure, but she’s also pretty fair. She’d be laughing as she sends Syd to PT.
if you thinks feminists are far then you vies are based off antifeminst propaganda and not reality and you need to take a good look at your life.
Now now. I was sticking entirely to how much Math annoys Maxima
There were a few typos there so I’m guessing, and maybe you left out a word by mistake, but I think you said “If you think feminists are fair then your views are based off antifeminist propaganda and not reality” You either meant “unfair” or “feminist propaganda”, but I’m not sure which. Clarify, please?
True. Remember that time Varia, Heatwave and Jiggawatt were playing a joke on Math when they were supposed to get ready for PT? Maxima was Not Amused.
No, Maxi was amused, she was just also Very Pissed (that they didn’t ask her to join in first :P )
To be fair, in a situation like that Math would probably do or say something to earn himself a punishment as well.
Her last point went to the 5th dot in the speed line on the fly orb, not shield
So far she’s spent 3 points.
1 point for the comm orb (accidentally because she thought the comm orb might show instructions), which opened the teleport feature.
1 point picked in a blind panic for the machine gun/multi-shot feature of the PPO.
1 point picked for the speed upgrade for the fly orb (Mach 16) – also the FIRST time she picked something she was planning on picking, as intended.
She now has 2 more points, one of which should go towards another speed upgrade to put a dot in the new line of 5 dots that just opened up on the fly orb.
Assuming she can choose more than one orb for the two dots, the other dot could be used for increasing her shield. Otherwise, she could get a second dot on speed.
Or one of the inner rings, like Arc Light requested.
It would be daytime…for planets close enough to a star to have a day and night cycle :P
It might be a planet without a sun.
A hot core, a thick co2 rich atmosphere could last for a long time.
Daniel here. If it had a thick CO2 rich atmosphere, she’s pretty much pass out & never wake up. Carbon Dioxide – CO2 – isn’t classified as a toxic gas, but enough of it can stop oxygen getting into your system & suffocate you. It’s what you release when you breath out. In bar cool rooms they install CO2 monitors to warn about leaks to prevent death…
That said, with a warm core & the right atmosphere capable of sustaining Human life, then yes, it could potentially survive without a star for a while and keep lifeforms alive. Apparently there is a moon in our Solar System that could possess life because of those conditions…
What’s happening in panel 5, please, thanks?
Sydeney has to decide how to use her upgrade. Without sufficient knowledge to make the best decission.
Based on previous gains, put it into either more shield power or the orphaned node on the shield to get a new ability (bottom one on wallpaper).
This should bring Sydney up to at least Paragon power level now
Clearly, they needed more of them.
So… she huddled up against the ship from Aliens for shelter?
Can’t see THAT going South…. ;)
The orange (unknown) orb is the only one where the skill trees are zig-zaggy instead of straight or curved. What could be the significance of this?
I don’t think warp flight will be available any time soon, there are two trails coming off of the flight ball (one with circles, one without) that are not enabled. Warp drive, if it is available, will be on one of these and will not be enabled until either all the other flight ball upgrades are filled in, or some other circumstances we don’t know about yet. The jump from moderately fast linear flight to warp is too big to be accomplished so easily, IMO.
She should go for a shield upgrade, and either a weapon or flight upgrade.
Consider that she just went from Mach 4 to Mach 16 with one level-up. Clearly, top speed does not scale linearly. That upgrade completed a chain, and unlocked a new upgrade path. I agree that is probably isn’t quite a “warp drive”, but I expect her earlier plan of retreating to the moon to become a feasible option in the near future.
On a related note: Sydney may need to look over her contract when she gets back home. Her powers just became exponentially more valuable, after all.
Seems the speed boost is the square of the previous speed. One point is basic flight (or levitation), 2nd point: Mach 1, 3rd point: Mach 2, 4th point: Mach 4, 5th point: Mach 16.
She’s just activated the Hypersonic tree.
Is it just me or is her hair lighter then it was before she began to farm level ups
yes looking back to the first pages there is a clear difference in hair colour (looked at the first pages instead of more recent once because the dark lighting might mess with this)
so lets see if she gets super hair thats waving in an unseen wind or glitters or shines with its own light ^^
So, wait, this means
o/` She has flown 5,000 miles
And she will fly 5,000 more
Just to be the one who flew 10,000 miles
And fell down on the opposite side of the planet from your door! o/`
TaraTA!
TaratA!
Nice try Sydney. But I got that reference.
So after this can we get some kind of updated graphic for the full skill tree? Never did see where in the PPO tree Halo placed her point.
I second this request.
I third it.
I think we saw it in the fight with the golem at the “abandoned’ factory. It’s the one left of the two pips she already had.
Dunno if we saw it there too, but we also actually saw it when she got her other upgrade point after killing the fighters. It was the one to the left.
Yeah, I’ll have to show the whole skill tree again at some point. It’s mostly been closeups or those out of focus foreground shots lately.
Feel free to ignore me if you wish, but I’m just wondering if Sydney will be back home before 2019? (Real-time, I mean.)
Any chance of getting the updated wall paper linked on Halo’s character page? 9.9
Unlock the mystery orb! :)
Agreed. I might put one in shields, and then either try to activate the mystery orb or put another point in the green life support orb, because that seems pretty important right now. Without knowing where she’s going, more speed is sort of useless.
Nah, she’s gonna go for warp speed (hopefully), and I second that she should spend some points in the brownish mystery orb.
Maybe it’s a translator orb…
That one already has 3 points on it. It isn’t “locked”. Sydney just has no idea what it does, so using two more points on that orb right now would just be stupid of her. This is a life or death situation. She needs to improve the things she KNOWS will help her survive. Until we know what that orb does, any points spent on it are an absurd gamble at best, and outright wasted at worst.
Methinks she’s saying she chose the speed upgrade with one of those points. I’d think shield or that telepresence/teleport thingy is probably the more useful one. Her weapon already appears to be powerful enough. For these things, at least.
But I’m here for the ride: pick what you want, Sydney, and show us where it goes!
If the single nodes with the thick connections are passives that enhance the entire orb then the one attached to the flight orb could turn out to be accelerating to warp, or enhanced reaction times allowing Halo to instantly reverse her direction and juke around crazily and become much harder to hit.
Or maintain full flight speed underwater.
That last one sounds like an absolutely terrible idea. The water displacement is bad enough when she’s flying ABOVE the ocean. Flying UNDER the water at Mach 16 would be an absolute disaster.
(Yes, I called it “flying” even though she would be submerged. If you can find a better term for that, I’d be happy to hear it.)
So, why not just take one and save the other upgrade for later, when she has more information?
I don’t think she can save a point. She’s been ambushed before and forced to use a point. Heck, even touching an orb while the upgrade screen is open forces her to upgrade that orb in one of its branches before it can be used again.
I think the first time it forced her to hold onto it and wrestle with it until she finally completed the process of selecting the upgrade
While most here (including me) want to split between speed and shields, or speed and life support or some other combo…
She may have to use both points on the first orb she touches!
You’re right! The more we learn about this upgrade system, the worse it gets. I can definitely see Sydney having her hand stuck to the flight orb, even after spending her first point. Then again, she MIGHT think ahead and grab one point with each hand.
Even if that new string of pips for the flight orb alows her to access warp speed, it’ll probably start out at much lower than what she needs. The first ‘warp’ pip might give her a new maximiun velocity of 2c, meaning it would still take her 350 years to reach Earth. Or it might even let her go at lightspeed, which would give her a travel time of seven centuries!
Where exactly did you pull those numbers from? We have absolutely no idea where in the universe Sydney is right now. Why are you saying she is exactly 700 lightyears away from Earth?
It’s been mentioned in comments to earlier episodes as being stated by DaveB, so I have always assumed that was the correct distance, but looking back I haven’t found any comment by him that actually says this – though I may have missed it, of course. The earliest I’ve found the 700 ly figure mentioned was in the comments to episode #650, but a source wasn’t mentioned as far as I could see.
Huh. Always check out your sources, I guess. Of course, this makes Sydney’s situation worse, rather than better. As you say, if these figures are incorrect, she could be anywhere in the universe, though since Dabbler knew about the Alari, they’re probably from our own galaxy, which woul mean Sydney could be at most about 70,000 lightyears from Earth. That increases her travel time by a factor of 100, though the ways she’s been going, that may be just one or two more upgrades of the flight orb.
Sydney’s mouth expression in Panel 4 bears a striking resemblance to that seen by Rick Sanchez.
The drooping lip thing is an evolution of an anime thing. I thought it fit. :3
So on my personal favorite message board we are discussing this as well. Space travel would have to be very specific to work for sydney. Remember she has to get back to earth in under a day, as she has to physically hold those orbs to use them and she has to sleep sometime. Secondly, as she mentioned several updates ago, she needs to know how to navigate as she has no fricking clue what direction earth even is from here. And being off by as little as an actual hair in angle means she misses her entire solar system by the time she reaches the vicinity.
That, among other issues, means space travel would have to be something like stargates, wormholes, or some other mostly instant method of travel. The other option would be something crazy like, each of those new open slots on her flight orb represents a waypoint to instantly teleport to. The first one brings her to earth (Or if dave wants to drag this out, perhaps the home world the orbs came from) That sort of thing.
Personally, my vote goes on, hit that last shield upgrade in the line and hope it is boosting its power, and get the first flight orb in that new tree and find out what it does. Worst case scenario you are already capable of continuing the fight if you must. Better case she is a lot harder to hurt and so can handle them easier, best case she can gtfo of there.
Even if Sydney were able to pinpoint which star is Sol with a telescope, it wouldn’t help. What you’d see with a huge telescope is fossil light, where Earth was several hundred years ago. Course correction would be needed.
Personally I think she should take the pip in the cross over for Flight and Shield. Im thinking offensive weapon like Cannonball from Marvel comics.
I would prefer the crossover(s) from shield to PPO.
Does anyone remember Bujold’s Shards of Honor? The plasma mirror? It reflected your attack back on you. Aral Vorkosigan was aghast hearing that the flagship was going to drop its shields just long enough for an all-out attack on the Escobarans. With comms limited to light speed, the flagship was already dustbunnies by the time he heard their plan.
So, a mirror-shield effect would be so nice, Nestles Pa?
I still think Sydney should hold off on getting any more “linked” upgrades until she figures out how the connection between the flight orb and PPO works, since that was on from the beginning. Once she knows what that actually does, it should be somewhat easier to guess what the other connections might do.
She’s chosen to boost her flight, and I’d recommend spending the second pip elsewhere.
If she chooses the Life Support orb, she might get a water spigot. Probably handy given the circumstances.
If she upgrades her shield, well, she MIGHT be able to go toe-to-toe with the enemy. Or, the shield just gets larger – no real improvement for the moment.
If she upgrades the energy beam, it MIGHT get strong enough to overpower enemy shields. No guarantee, there, either.
If she upgrades the comm ball, she may be able to teleport others, or extend other sensory abilities (infrared, radio, porno-sense hehehe).
If she upgrades the pseudopod orb, she might get multiple tentacles, or simply stronger – both are long term useful, but not immediately.
If she upgrades the brown unknown, she may unlock some phenomenal cosmic powers. Or, an itty bitty little living space. Where’s the downside?
My PERSONAL choice is to try for Brown (which I think Dave labeled “Abs” on a sketch once; your guess is as good as mine what that stands for). Unlocking a whole new range of power is a crap shoot, but she might win big.
My secondary is for her to continue the life support orb, because maybe it won’t be water, but rather Rigellian brandy. Party time!!
Shield or gun, in a combat situation, the choice is simple. Only need to decide which you need upgraded more.
Back with the rest of the team you can explore the utility options.
Her shield and gun are both Good Enough right now. She should focus on life support. She has no idea how long she’ll be trappes and eventually she’ll need food, water, and sleep. If the Life Support orb can provide any of those it helps her mkre than anything else.
Having full-pack marching memories due to that phrase. They’d say “AT&T” and we’d have to say that while reaching out for the pack in front of us, keeping us from falling back. Thanks, drill instructors…grumble grumble.
Has no one else noticed the obvious ‘Alien’ reference?
I thought it was neat.
As far as the two pages of endless debate, upgrading the PPO would probably earn her a disintegrate ray. Like a +10,000 plasma cutter
The only reference I got was to D&D.
Problem with me, is I would put two points to the gun and go back and investigate just how tough that Screw Ship is with beefed up PPO. I am a terrible gamer, I am the first to die.
I guess everyone has forgotten that Dabbler has a spaceship.
Can’t remember, has Sydney asked the orbs to give her labels on the points, a manual, anything of the sort?
Obould does not appreciate Sydney’s estimated value of an orc – but secretly he agrees.
Upgrading her PPO is useless. Assume she gained the ability to boil the planet. She destroys the aliens and their ship and is stuck there. The aliens leave and she’s stuck there. Similarly, upgrading her force field is useless.
I’m enjoying the sight gags. eg: the ship in panel 1 :)
Remember: When it is rolling towards you, run at a 90 degree angle from the direction of roll. Do not under any circumstance attempt to run directly away from it!
I’m not sure why she is having choice paralysis. The team that analyzed her skill tree, hopefully with her and not just next to her, had a plan for her next few level-ups. And while she may be rearranging it a bit due to her desire for the supposed warp drive, once she buys that she should probably just fall back to the agreed upon plan. After all, that plan was made while everyone was all safe and sound in the Archon HQ, and Sydney is in a state of panic/shock from her first sentient being kills (hypothetically, but it seems really likely) and the aftermath of a combat that might not even be entirely over yet.
And if she doesn’t follow the plan, then after buying the supposedly probably warp drive she should probably go for survival and invest in the force field. It hasn’t failed her yet, but it’s one of those things where the first failure is very probably going to be the last, for Sydney as the wielder of the orbs at least. She certainly doesn’t need any more firepower, she’s proven that with all the fighter craft kills and the two giant kaiju kills. I mean, she couldn’t blast though their force fields, but her power set gave her a work around that allowed for an application of overwhelmingly deadly firepower anyway.
Is ‘giant kaiju’ redundant? It seems redundant.
I’m a casual fan of this comic. I read every update and donate on patreon, but I don’t read every comment or analyse everything that is said or done. That being said, as far as I remember, when Sydney gets so tired that she just falls asleep, the orbs fall asleep also fall asleep. What happens if this goes on long enough that she has to sleep?
Sydney’s orbs came with spots already filled in. Even if she decides to grind, it only took her minutes to kill all those space drones. If it’s a system like any we are familiar with, that won’t work again for the same number of targets.
Warp Drive does her no good without a map.
She’d likely be wise to point up Telepresence to make a long distance phone call perhaps, or even point up the unknown to maybe figure out what it does.
So am I the only one getting an “Engineer Ship(Aliens/Prometheus)” vibe from the background? Also if Arc-Light ever gets to see the skill tree PLEASE have someone comment on Skyrim-esque background noise when opening or a joke about the Sphere Grid system from Final Fantasy X(even just making a crack about not being the license system of 12 would suffice).
This is why I always use a 3rd-party site or program to plan my build in advance.