Grrl Power #675 – Hot scanning action
When I started to draw the screen with the planet and the diagram of the orbiting probes, I was trying to decide the minimal number of probes that would let you get a clean scan. A tetrahedron (a D4) might work, but you’d need the probes to be really far away from the planet in order to avoid oblique scanning angles. The same can be said for a lot of shapes, actually.
I thought a dodecahedron (D12) would be nearly ideal, but those actually have more points on them than an icosahedron (D20). That is to say, a D12 configuration would take 20 probes, whereas a D20 would only take 12, because a D12 is comprised of pentagons, but the D20 is made up of triangles. That may seem obvious, but it was a bit of a surprise to me.
I’m sure someone has done a proper study about the fewest number of probes needed to scan a sphere. The diagram I drew probably has them too close to the surface to get a good look but it’s probably representative and not literal.
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An Aetherium Causeway? Knowing Sydney it’s likely to turn into an Aetherium Cussway if she hasn’t found Earth after the first couple of hops.
You can’t really blame Dabbler for not warning you about that, Captain. After all, last time Dabbler saw Sydney, that wasn’t something she could do at all.
I have a feeling this is something Sydney is going to become known for.
I mean more than is already the case.
Like some rando alien in a space bar will be like “Oh man, it’s Halo” and another one will be like “Oh damn, Halo the ever cussing and ever changing?”
Because obviously the cussing thing is probably going to be more well known.
And possibly Her Book. ^_^
“Oh man, it’s Halo.”
Oh damn, Halo the ever cussing and ever changing?”
“Stay clear of her if you value your auditory receptors & pray to whatever entities you worship that neither they nor you are on her List.”
Reading this I just envisioned sit me doing a mumra
Ancient orbs of something or another
transform this nerdy form
to Halo the ever cursing!
All the sapiens that hear her say that run cuz they know she’s just saying that for dramatic effect and if she really wanted to start laying waste everything she could do it completely silently at least for the first shot.
Sydney has already performed a ‘Liono’.
“Orb of Omens, give me Sight Beyond Sight!”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1929
Halo exists in two states: “hungry” and “bioweapon.”
Actually, one of the old meanings of causeway was simply a well trodden path. Maybe THATS why the orbs can’t go from the Alari home world to Earth, because there’s no well trodden path. Possibly why the Alari couldn’t go there by whatever regular FTL methods they have.
Alternatively, there’s something such as THE VEIL, blocking most easy FTL travel unless it passes through some well managed and secure gateway by an intergalactic authority protecting pre-FTL civilisations.
Unfortunately, if the Veil is the problem, there is nothing Sydney can do about it. She has to have the shield orb active so space doesn’t kill her, so combining the Aetherium Causeway with truesight isn’t even something she can experiment with.
She can if it doesn’t need to be used from space, as was the case with Sciona’s portal.
This would further explain Cora’s reaction. Who has gotten ahold of a high tech stealth planetary gate, and why are they using it from space?
The existence of THE VEIL in this context may explain the scratchy icon in the travel log
although I though THE VEIL was to block human knowledge of the earths other inhabitants.. not the other way around(there are several aliens on earth as Sydney discovered, I think one hooked up with Hiro for a night after the night club scene)
If, in this case, the meaning of causeway is in that sense of well-trodden path, I can’t imagine it would be a very daunting challenge to discover where it went — something implied by Cora’s statement that they leave no trace once they close (??)
It’s gonna be close…
Actually getting information on Halo’s Orbs? What is this nonsense?!
Not so much getting information on her orbs (panel 5: “the artifacts are themselves unscannable”), but looking for the signature of their energy output.
Energy output like things going KABLOOY, leaving calamari-like debris all over the place.
True, but the way they responded hints that Aetherium Causeways are unusual (“What the hell does Dabbler have us chasing?”) Meaning we might get some exposition on such Causeways (and their origin) soon.
Unusual and apparently considered dangerous if Captain Cora’s reaction is anything to go by.
Not necessarily dangerous, but she’s worried that Dabbler’s friend will be lost forever if they can’t figure out where she went.
Which means Dabbler won’t “Thank” her for finding Halo.
I’d say extremely advanced tech.
Or just the opposite, the tech is so old that it is obsolete and there is no longer any method of tracking them available.
or so old that it’s from an era that was at a tech lvl the current galaxy at large is no longer at, due to some wars or revolutions or something
Or the fact that Dabbler told them they are looking for a single person with no ship, and they detect a FTL method that needs a ship-sized powerplant to use might give them concerns.
Probably this
agree!
Isn’t it funny how doing something just a tiny bit differently can make you appear to be somehow extraordinary?
I mean, that ship just warped in from somewhere, crossing vast distances (presumably they weren’t just hanging out at the next planet out in this system, which would still be a remarkable feat of engineering) using a technology that is completely amazing to we poor Earth humans. And it is a versatile enough technology that it can be used on small scanning probes, too.
But Sydney does the exact same thing, just using an “Aetherium Causeway” instead of your ‘typical’ warp drive, and everybody just loses their minds. It’d be like a bunch of car drivers just flipping their shit when the odd motorcyclist rolls by. Cars are far more common, sure, but keep your heads on people!
It could be the “causeway” is like Star Trek’s TransWarp Conduits. Something on a whole different magnitude to the usual FTL drives?
Maybe the Atherium Causeway is more seeing a hovercraft fly down mainstreet….
They are not getting info on the orbs, they are getting info about the effects from those orbs. Like you can’t scan the flight orb, but you CAN see her actually flying; you can’t scan the “air” orb, but can take a sample of the air it produced; …
As she said, they can’t scan the orbs directly, but once they’re expending energy, that can be detected & scanned.
So instead of the cavalry arriving after the last minute, arriving after the last second? It’s still too late to help Sydney, but maybe they can find out where she’s going.
I think sydney already entered her gateway, so they are trying to scan where the portal leads
Captain, I have traced the other end of the causeway, well within 0.43 light-years converted from alien units. Hmm, that’s pretty close to where Dabbler is these days.
Next panel:
Halo: All right! This is definitely a different planet from the last one. Let’s see; where to land? Since it is raining, let’s stay away from that river; floods are not my friend. Hmm, it’s raining, but there are no plants? Okay, landing zone found. [ Lands on top of a low hill. She looks around. ] Hmm, lower light levels than back home; could just mean it is almost night. Ooh, snow! So it is going to be a little chilly right now, so the shield stays up and greeny gets to do its thing. Hmm, chili. I could really do with some food right now. So why aren’t there any signs of life with all this water works? Let’s head up and see what I can see. Maybe a city or campfires or something, but after a good atmosphere recharge. [ Wait a few minutes, looking around her position on the hill. Drops the green orb, grabs the blue one and heads straight up ]
Halo: Nothing yet, just more rocks and water, but no trees. There should be trees! The song goes “Rocks and trees and water!” but there’s no trees. [ Keeps flying up ] Hmm, clouds are thick, no breaks. [ Up more ] Speaking of thick, man these clouds go on for a while, a least it is getting brighter over there; the Sun’s over there! [ Breaks the cloud layer. She sees a large ringed gas giant where she thought the sun would be ] Saturn!? Well that explains the lack of trees and stuff. Man, am I glad I did not drop my shield; that would be more than a little chilly! Wait, if it was so could, how could it rain? Something is going on here.
Halo: Anyway, if Saturn is there, where is the Earth? Sun-ward! Time to go into the light! Even at ludicrous speed, this is going to take a while. I guess as I get close the Earth, the GPS thing should start working and help me get home, maybe.
+1 for the Arrogant Worms reference.
My guess was it was going to be Venus. I think the pressure on the surface of Saturn would be more than even her shield could handle considering the explosion size that put it into the red.
If Saturn is where the sun should be, she would be on one of the moons.
Which would mean she was on Titan , which in turn means that that ‘rain’ probably was liquid methane, so she should be REALLY glad she didn’t drop her shield!
That was it exactly. All the rain, snow, rivers, lakes, oceans, etc. are made of liquid methane, not water, on Titan. Well, the snow is crystalized methane, but still. This is in the -200C temperature range.
Oops, fact check: -180C average surface temperature. Mind you -200C would get you methane snow. Methane freezes at 1 atm as -183C, so seeing as there was liquid and snow, it would right around that temperature. Any water on the surface would be indistinguishable from rock or quartz, without a chemical assay.
Well, must say I never expected to see an Arrogant Worms reference worked into this discussion, Nicely done.
Just like Dabbles was able to detect the general location of X: just look for areas that are unscanny, the Inscrutable Unscanny Scoville
Not a viable option considering the size of the Orbs. Much easier to scan for an active shield and/ or explosions.
Scan for giant servings of chaotic calamari.
Aetherium, well, that’s a Skyrim reference if I ever heard one. Plus a reference to “heavenly powers”. If so, they apparently don’t really mind cursing.
Maybe it goes down better if it’s at least creative? Must be tiring about the ten billionth time you hear a curse prayer like “insert name here” dammit!
It appears to be an Elder Scrolls reference. Or just a case of unrelated parallel naming. Or perhaps a lingering memory that hadn’t nailed itself down to a specific area but still got called up when wracking the brain for another name to call something.
It’s almost certainly more the collective unconscious thing. The concept of Aether has been around for a long time. It was once thought to be the medium through which light travelled, until it was conclusively demonstrated that light wasn’t a particle (It was of course later determined that light is sometimes a particle). Nowadays that lingering idea of an omnipresent but nigh undetectable substance serves as an adequate rationale for magic.
Beyond that, it’s what they are calling it. Could be a vastly different name for another advanced race or even just their nickname for something that has nothing to do with the human concept of aether.
I wonder if Dabbler was smart enough to give them Sydney’s comm frequency. That and some greeting to verify them as friends to her.
You have it backwards. If light were a (normal) particle, it wouldn’t need the aether. But a wave needs a medium through which it propagates. That’s why there’s no sound in space – there’s no atmosphere to carry the sound. The assumption was that light was a wave, and thus it needed a medium. That medium was called aether. Proving that light wasn’t a particle would have strengthened the argument for aether, not weakened it.
For more info, Scishow is awesome:
https://youtu.be/RGp3FZSi900
https://www.irregularwebcomic.net/3241.html explains it nicely.
Hmmm, my gut instinct is to say that you’re wrong because light does indeed propagate through empty space just fine, so no medium required. But then I recalled that light is both a particle and a wave, so I guess the ‘particle’ portion could be what allows it to travel through empty space.
But now we know that space isn’t empty at all. There are particles forming and disappearing constantly, in both ’empty’ space and in all other kinds of space. In between the electron rings and the nucleus of every atom, even. At the edge of every black hole, with half of the particles escaping and contributing to the eventual evaporation of the black hole (except that most have an evaporation time frame longer than the lifespan of the universe) and the other half falling back into the black hole. Constantly.
But in the end, it is ‘spacetime’ that is itself the field though which light propagates.
I believe that the discovery of light as a particle was a separate thing to the denial of Aether, sortof.
Thing is, there’s experiments that can be used to test for waves, and experiments that can be used to test for particles- and Light ticks positive on both of them.
I’m thinking Treasure Planet as the source, if anything. That movie had the “Aetherium Sea” which was plied by the ships.
What? Elder Scrolls reference? No, of course not. Almost no word you hear that you think is a reference to something made in the last twenty years is going to be the case. Elder Scrolls didn’t invent orcs and elves either, so why would you think they didn’t use the concept of the Aether, which has been around an extremely long time?
Don’t you know? Everything was invented within the last 18 years, including this planet, there was nothing before Y2K
Hmm, with all the prophesying of doom and destruction surrounding it, Y2K would make a nice creation myth…
Or perhaps a recreation myth.
All praise Haruhi-Sama.
Neat, they are just in time.
I’d say slightly late, since the wormhole is closing, meaning Halo went through already.
But at least they’ll probably know where she’s going.
IF they can get a probe in and IF it can return telemetry reading from the other side and IF the portal doesn’t close before either of the other two conditions can be tested.
“IF they can get a probe in…”
What is it with aliens & always trying to get a probe in anyway? Sometimes they seem to have a real problem with “getting up into” everybody elses’ business.
Cora does not like the Aetherium. Makes me think if that was the technology of some dreaded space invader that everyone hoped to have overcome.
Or something that only some very powerful races/beings can master, so you need to tread carefully.
That was the feeling I got; sort of like the First Ones from Babylon 5.
At least it sounds like Cora is familiar with whatever the hell Sydney’s orbs conjured up this time. Can’t track Sydney if you have no idea how she’s getting gone.
Yeah she’d probably react the same way to a scan of the PPO in action.
I think the issue is less that Cora “doesn’t like” the idea of an Aetherium Causeway, and more that they can’t track an Aetherium Causeway. This is a valid reason to panic, because they were here to pick up Sydney. If they don’t act quickly, they will have absolutely no clue where in the universe “Dabbler’s friend” ended up. Mission failed. No second chances.
Anyone else think she looks like a blowup doll in that last picture with the way her mouth is rounded?
Now I can’t unsee…
You know, I’ve always thought that one of God’s bigger mistakes was to allow human(oid)s to have the ability to express the ‘O’ face…The most frequent circumstances under which it’s employed is not really esthetically pleasing.
Also, her boobs look like knees.
Just try to unsee that.
Just did… and I wouldn’t mind wobblin’ them knees.
I’d like to scan Captain Cora’s orbs…
…The shorter range scan, the better…
Aliens. Considering some of the less organic members of The Council, it’s entirely possible Cora is living latex or something suitably stretchy as opposed to ordinary flesh.
Bouncy.
And stretchy…
There *is* the eternally reshape-able race from Cassiopeia Quinn, another science fiction webcomic.
I noticed it, as well, but never imagined I’d see it in the comments section…
A d8 should do it. 4 probes in a staggered ring around the equator and 1 at each pole.
The best setup has already been done. THE GPS array. This has 36 sats in it but that is for redundancy of the signal. It is designed so anywhere will be able to see at least 3 of them all the time. For a complete simple scan it would be 12. That allows for redundancy as well. ALways allow for redundant scanning of a surface. BEing 12K or so miles out simplifies scanning as well. Each bird will see about 35% of the surface, or somewhere in there. You need to remember the probes will not be stationary. The planet is moving in its orbit, the probes are in the gravity field, so they are in orbit. If not they are moving to stay with the planet. Before you say the scan doesn’t take that long you never just take one scan, many are needed for constant information.
For gps, more than the minimum number of satellites is also useful for a faster and more accurate lock (particularly for altitude which is sketchy with GPS). Also for getting a lock at all when in challenging topography.
That’s why newer mobiles will use the Russian/Chinese/EU systems in combination with the US one.
Indeed. Most systems need a bare minimum of 4 satellites, and prefer at least 7 or 8.
Also, just because you can technically see the entire surface doesn’t mean you can get good resolution or redundancy, especially at the horizon with significant atmospheric distortion. And the fewer nodes you have, the farther from the surface you have to be, and get more lag and worse resolution.
I think Dave actually settled on about the minimum I’d use, though unless those probes are really expensive (which they could be with a built in teleport) I’d always lean towards more. Preferably something like the Very Dangerous Array*.
*The next 7 strips or so after the one linked walk through the reasoning; IIRC the VDA was expanded to over 10K nodes at one point before being shrunk dramatically by performing its secondary task.
I love the world/tech building in that arc. The gas giant as a space ship that comes up later is pretty cool too.
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2003-08-03
A Platonic solid is the easiest for calculations. Each vertex is equidistant from its neighbours and each point on the surface of the sphere is visible to at least two vertices, and only visible to vertices which are neighbours.
Also, although you’ll want the polyhedron to be a tight fit around the sphere (to maximise resolution), you’ll want the altitudes of the vertices to be enough to minimise radial distortion (see projections of a sphere onto a plane).
Basically, you’re looking for a spherical equivalent of the hexagonal tessellation used for cellular networks.
Also, the GPS implementation may be excellent for long-term global positioning, but for a ‘simple’ search and rescue, it’s complicated overkill.
I wonder how they’ll feel when they see the full scan or when they have the full scan of the planet and see dabblers friend handiwork in the form of giant Corpses.
Also show of hands who thinks that the reading that they’ve got is actually Sydney warping into the area coming back from wherever she just was.
So Dabbler… WHAT KIND OF POWERHOUSE DID YOU BEFRIEND ON YOUR LITTLE VACATION?!
Hooray, I just realized that now Sydney has the pics to prove it happened and provide 3rd party verification of her kills! 50 points to House Archon in the Galactic Cup!
Sydney suddenly curses after realizing she has no free hand to take a selfie with a dead kaiju in the background.
I’ll take that action (Sydney coming BACK here) – I feel pretty comfortable with the portal that brought the team and Sciona here being a temporal as well as a positional displacement mechanism (Though maybe Harem’s shared consciousness only propagates at light speed?).
I was a little suspicious for just a moment with this scouting team showing up so “soon” after the portal collapsed (like, a couple hours?) that it seemed like if this WAS the future, they could have gotten there a bit sooner — BUT that could be explained by it taking a while to contact Cora from Earth, or to find Sciona’s planet, or to prepare for the rescue, or to travel there or all of these combined… who knows(?) well, Dave, but he doesn’t always weigh in on things…
From the Elder Scroll wiki:
Aetherium is a rare, blue luminescent crystal found in Dwemer city ruins. It was originally discovered by the Dwemer miners in Blackreach. It possesses magical qualities, though it is almost impossible to make anything out of, without the proper tools.
The only known way of working with the material is by using the Aetherium Forge, an ancient Dwemer forge located deep below Bthalft.
The items produced from Aetherium are said to be powerful artifacts imbued with very powerful enchantments.
Seems legit.
I think it just means “causeway through the aether”.
This has nothing to do with Elder Scrolls. The ‘Aether’ has been around for a very long time, long before Elder Scrolls was ever a thing. Come on, people.
Your name is Oberon, maybe that’s a reference to SAO.
Or, Oberon is the king of the fairies in mythology from centuries back, which feels far more likely.
Not to mention the sometime-King of Amber. :D
Well, yes. That too.
Since I have no idea what a SAO is, your far more likely supposition can be confirmed.
Sword Art Online – an anime based on the concepts of living in a virtual gameworld – not the first but it was the one that caught the imagination of a generation – think of it as the latest iteration of .//hack but with more implied real death.
I wouldn’t presume any connection to existing mythos. Aether/aetherium are common concepts in sci-fi/fantasy.
In Final Fantasy XIV, Aether is the basis of life, energy, technology, magic, basically everything. Anytime the dev team needs some kind of Applied Phlebotinum, it’s made of Aether.
Oh, believe me, I know. Aether isn’t as annoying since it’s treated as the foundational building block of all matter in-universe. It’s the Allagans being responsible for every sidequest plot point that makes me sigh. Still love the game though.
Dabbler mentions an “aethersphere” on this page, which is apparently somehow connected to magic. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2581
Hmm.. We’ve seen other races and… things that look almost nothing like humans… I wonder if Dabbler specially chose these alien friends to look for Halo cause they look the most human and would be less likely to make her freak out and hurt them.
Halo have shown a lot of tolerance of inhuman looking characters thus far. If she met some chtuluesque alien she would probably just annoy it with a lot of personal questions.
Well I’m diabetes defense when Sydney first peek through her veil or glamor as it were she tried to hit her in the face with a chair followed by dropping one of the artifacts on her head. It was only after she calmed down being asked why she did such a thing that she took time to think and respond rationally. After that she was just fine but I have to agree sending squid-like friends to help Halo considering what was attacking her would have been a bad idea
Remember that was her very first time to see a gosh-really-honest alien-looking alien. She guessed Dabbler was there to steal water. (which, btw, is one of the most common molecules there is)
Earth’s water could be rare like when in one Universe they hired Lobo to take down Superman due to the fact that he lived on earth and the water of Earth had a weird mix of purity and toxicity that made it a hallucinogenic drug to most of the Galaxy
Yeah, that’s just a bit of bullshit the authors came up with to try to justify their flimsy plot. I mean, seriously? Earth’s water is somehow a hallucinogen to most of the races in an entire galaxy? Chemistry, and especially comic book chemistry, being what it is, it would be duplicated and used as a drug by all the other species in the galaxy.
Alien ne’er-do-well One: Duuuuude, I scored me a primo liter of Earth water!
Alien ne’er-do-well Two: Awesome, fam, let’s chug that shit!
Never said it wasn’t though I have to admit it was a interesting Prospect. For the sake of the story the different pollutions and stuff like that that humans were dumping into their ocean water and stuff like that come up with a premium and theoretically perfect mix for most species in the galaxy the basic get high sort of like Homebrew bath salts on a grand scale. And despite all that it was ruined at least from the point of the people who wanted to sell it to other people when Lobo after calling off the contract for being attacked by the droids of the people that were trying to harvest the water decided to take a leak in one of the oceans before heading back to extract Vengeance or his former employers
*giggle* “Dude… you’re drinking Earth fish based SLURM” heh, heh heh – (Beavis and Butthead laugh)
Let me put this here
grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1377
The words are very close but different. For a second I thought they related to dabblers swords
On a positive note, it’s unlikely the Squidwards have sensors in position,
so her destination(s) are safe from them.
Still no sun for that planet?
“Cap’n”???
Ok, OBVIOUSLY they’re speaking some weird alien language that to us
sounds like Dutch backwards (which has been translated for the benefit
of the readers) but….
Cap’n???
Perhaps they are speaking with a space pirate accent?
You realise the only reason idiots believe all pirates speak like that is because of the actor who played Long John Silver came from the Dales, right? In other words: it was just one person out of the entire crew of pirates and yet everyidiot forgets the rest of the crew spoke ‘normal’
Arrrrr you sure about that?
Yes
You realize the only reason pedantic arses complain about this is because they’re boring and insensitive people who need to insult large swathes of the population who are having fun, and it doesn’t even matter to begin with, right?
So, attempting to correct a 50+ year old mistake makes me pedantic? Then so be it (will also continue and forever correct any moriot who refers to a ‘kiwifruit’ as simply a ‘kiwi’)
Yeah, no, you are unbelievably pedantic. It’s obnoxious, and odd that you treat it as something of which to be proud.
The country of origin of this fruit is China, where it already had a name. Kiwifruit is not that name.
https://time.com/4662293/kiwifruit-chinese-gooseberry-new-zealand-history-fruit/
Thank you
Wait, THOSE are Gooseberries? Huh!
No, those are mutated Chinese Gooseberry’s (branding is everything, ask your grandparents), these are gooseberries, and these are cape gooseberries
There HAD to be a “I double dog dare ya” in there somewhere to get some fool to try them the first time.
Perhaps not pedantic, just wrong. “Kiwi” is both a perfectly acceptable abbreviated form of kiwifruit, and accepted as a word variant in its own right. As happens with all linguistic forms, language evolves, and the name a thing is called becomes its name. One can rage against linguistic change all you like, but Merriam-Webster will define kiwi (2nd definition) as “kiwifruit.” Other dictionaries go further, defining kiwi thus: “Also called Chinese gooseberry, the egg-sized, edible berry of the Chinese gooseberry, having fuzzy brownish skin and slightly tart green flesh.”
I’ll trust the Cambridge English dictionary, if that’s fine with you.
What does this have to do with Grrlpower? Only in demonstrating that the pointless debates herein diminish the attention on the detailed artistry and writing of the artist. If you want to “prove” to people who don’t care how clever you are, try Instagram. We’re here to talk Sci Fi.
How about we ask an actual kiwi what they think on the matter, shall we?
Oh, well isn’t that handy, you already got what a real kiwi thinks
Until a loganberry is referred to as simply a ‘logan’, or a strawberry simply ‘straw’, you. are. WRONG!!!
Your need to be the smartest person in the room now has you declaring that the dictionary is wrong because it isn’t saying that you are more right than everyone else. Just stop, dude.
Most people will defer to a native speaker, guessing you are not like most people
No, I accept that language evolves differently in different cultures and don’t throw screaming, childlike fits over things that do not matter in the least. I also do not presume to speak for “most people” but I assure you they don’t feel as strongly as you do about the name of a small, tart fruit.
I’m sure that almost everyone are smart enough to know that there never was any special pirate accent. But that doesn’t stop us from talking like a “pirate” just because it’s fun.
Except, you are speaking like a West Countryman (okay, made a mistake: he’s not from the Dales, butt from Penzance)
You see. Gilbert and Sullivan knew what pirates sound like even before the movie was made.
FYI:
1. I *always* speak like a ‘West Countryman’. Because I live in and am from the West Country.
2. No one in the West Country refers to themselves as a West Countryman. We prefer demonyms based on either our native counties, cities or towns. A few years back, a childhood friend and I resolved our demonyms down as far as parish level. That’s about the same level as dividing the world into kilometre squares.
3. There is no Pirate accent. Just as there is no Military accent, no University accent and no religious accent. Pirates spoke in whatever accents they’d grown up using.
4. “Cap’n” is slang, and is therefore connected to dialect, not accent. A completed different part of speech. Although, there is usually historical geographic overlap between dialects and accents.
5. People in Norfolk have pretty much the same generalised accent as in the West Country. But their dialects are totally different.
#3 is what have fucking well been saying
Well, you had the right gist, but your context fail was what had let you down.
Also, remember some people don’t like to be enlightened of their misinterpretations.
E.g. People who think that the nesting of dreams aspect of the film Inception is what the word inception means, when the title actually refers to the ‘putting in’ of the idea into their victim’s head.
No, just forgot that there are people in here that will jump all over anything said by me, no matter what it is, simply because it was posted by me
Yaarrrrr!!!! me favorite booty!!
I think I see the terminator line peeping over the top of the planet in her scanner, so it has a sun.
Which one? T800? T1000? Terminatrix? o_O
Papa Smurf! Rawbutt Girlyman!
I would say the word line here is Hell, since that’s an Earth reference.
Unless this is being translated, though I don’t remember anyone else speaking another language to know if they have a special bracket or something like ”.
On a LESS positive note:
If Sydney went to the other side of the planet to spend her points
AND
The Aetherium Causeway is currently on the far side of the planet
THAT MEANS
The weird ship they steered around wasn’t Sydney
AND
The Screwship can see them.
Yes, it’s the Screwship, butt we don’t know it can detect them and seeing them would require someone to actually be looking at that part of space, and seeing how Sydney just blew through one of them, most (if not all) eyes would be focussed on the planet looking for her
This is why you record everything at all times, and make low-level grunts take shifts reviewing all the footage of significant events, in case you missed something important while focusing on the action.
Yaaaaarrrrrrrr! Me Favorite Booty!!!!!
Well, presumably, if Dabbler sent them to find Sydney, she PROBABLY mentioned the genocidal terror-aliens that were currently savaging the planet. Even if the Screwship can see them, they likely have some way of dealing with it, whether it be fight, flight, or diplomacy.
Whatever informal short hand for her title he used in his language got translated to “cap’n”.
They are pressed for time, so there is a tendency to use Cap’n in a ‘Crunch’.
thank you for saying that first.
The words are close but not the same. For a second I thought it’s the same as dabblers sword
How many probes you need depends on what maximum angle you get a decent scan and of course the height.
Lowest would be 4, after that you get 6 (corners of an 8-sided die), 8 (corners of a 6-sided die) and then 12. And that is only when you want regular polyhedrons.
The aetherium causeway fits the orbs. Nothing to see when not in use.
I’m sure you meant 8 corners of a 6 sided cube.
Oh. Nevermind.
The 8 sided one threw me off.
No, “die” as in dice. since d6 is a thing, it could be called a die.
Just look up table top dice.
tho yes, its also a cube.
I’m assuming that with 11 probe bays, the ship acts as the 12th corner of the d20?
i was just about to comment on that… late by some 20 minutes. well, if it wasn’t before, it is now.
that was my thought too…
What kind of words will Cora have with Dabbler?
Hot, sweaty, panty ones (either or neither may or may not be wearing them at the time)
I feel like “warp in/warp out” should be switched.
you warp into a destination. you warp out from a point or origin.
Did DaveB manage to fix the wording already?
Or, is it that they are going into warp and coming out at their destination
It’s one of those directions that depends what part of the process you are referring to.
Leaving an area is warping out of it, but you go into warp to do so. And the reverse at the opposite end.
Like me arguing with my wife on wether it’s exiting the interstate, or entering the access road…
I say “exiting the interstate”, and this wording on the comic seems odd to me since it’s not from the perspective of the “Warp”…
I once read a “Frontage Road” (what access roads in my area ate called) sign as “Fromage Road”, so access roads since then are called cheese roads.
I would be way more excited to take a fromage road at rest stops, though I suspect I’d find themterribly disappointing.
I guess that is why they say “Entering warp (speed)” AND “Warp us out of here now!”? (or conversely “Exiting warp (speed)” or “Entering normal space now”)?
Yep. I’d have worded it as “into warp” and “out of warp”
But then, this isn’t a crowd sourced comic and I don’t possess even a tenth of Dave’s artistic skills.
With 12 sats, you need to be the radius of the planet divided by 5 away, plus some extra to compensate for ‘circling the sphere’. On Earth, this would around 1300 km above the surface. Geostationary sats orbit around 20000km.
Are we counting the ship as one of the points for the scan? Cause otherwise I only count 11 probes.
Seems logical, though if the probes aren’t indestructible, having only the minimum number would seem a tad imprudent…
She’s going to see the devastation that Sydney has left in her wake. Thousands of destroyed ships, to begin with.
I’m just waiting for the destroyers of worlds to call them and ask for assistance.
Fun fact: if you twist the edges on a d12 90°, you get a d20 with each face becoming a corner, and vise versa. The same thing happens with d6 to d8, and d4 to …d4
…Huh…
I was going to post the same :)
Each platonic shape can be vertex truncated into it’s dual.
so how many sides does a coin actually have?
3 if it’s a sub-normal coin. Melnibonean Gold Weels have 10, punched coins have 4. Non-euclidian have some, or none….
all depends on what you’d phrase as a coin .
:)
There’s no fixed number of satellitez needed to scan a planet well. Each eye has a best resolution at oblique angles, and the atmosphere has a big impact on clarity, both regarding focus and transparency. Even the sun illuminating the ball is a factor. More is better, and orbits keep them moving relative to each other anyway.
You know, it might not be heathy for this lot to catch up with Sydney. Right at the moment, everything looks like a threat (and bonus XP) to her.
Dabbler gave them an RF frequency and a message for both the
Choker and PipBoy.
“Dabbler sent us. Don’t shoot!”
(Or I should hope so!)
What?
No one making fun of RF frequency?
PIN number?
ATM machine?
Almost caught me :P
RPG game? :D
Cora is the first blue skinned alien I’ve seen portrayed with freckles. Extra points for originality.
really? you never saw Avatar? those lovely blue people with glowing freckles…
Didn’t Megamind have freckles?
I believe he did
For a moment I thought that “aetherium causeway” referred to the big squiddy ship (even though that would be an odd name for a ship) and that “closing” meant “closing in on us”. I can easily believe such a ship would leave no trace, or close enough, once it closed on you. :-)
But comments cleared it up, and I’m sure the next page does as well.
The Screwship is the ship she was talking about on the previous page…you know, the one with the Energy readings she was concerned about.
“This just in from Inter-Galactic News! There hass been a major pileup on the Aetherium Causeway 99999999977 after an unknown traveler entered the causeway followed by what appear to be pieces of a screwship of unknown origin. Travelers are warned to avoid this route until the debris has been cleaned up. We now return you to normal programming”
Is it just me, or does the thought that Halo will be uber-OP when she does finally get home? I mean she will be no good for local issues if she can carve two 40 story alien battle things to pieces without breaking a sweat, and that BEFORE her upgrades. Heaven help the next guy to walk into her store and try to steal a magazine…better yet, heaven help the city block she nukes trying to swat a fly…
its like one punch man and super man, being op is the point
the fun comes form how they deal with hat fact and how the interact with the other characters.
I mean, she’s only more powerful as a transport. She’s fast, but not in a way she can use in combat. She beat some huge enemies, but she had the rock to counter their scissors, so it doesn’t make her any more powerful against other Supers than she already was.
Tip for tracking Sydney. Look for areas with rapidly expanding thermal energy and recent debris scatter. Follow it from oldest to most recent events and you will be able to plot an accurate path.
or just find the hottest food possible. it will lure her in.
That may be not as easy as it seems on a planet that appears to have been bombed all over in the VERY recent past, and by the same guys who were attacking Sydney.
Hence the need to follow the most recent destruction.
*points tail away from it, to confuse any bad guys trying to follow her*
In short, follow the trail of destruction…
*wags tail of destruction*
These Probes look like the missels from the old game “Homeworld”. This can mean only one thing.
Sydney jumped to HIIGARA.
Ah, the interstellar equivalent of “Follow that taxi!!!”
As well as an odd inversion, sydney being left behind a portal, then leaving behind her rescuers
I’m beginning to think that after this little adventure, Sydney should be bumped up from Ultra to Paragon on the power chart…
Sydney is gone on to spread her ADHD among the worthy…
So… what Halo’s done here, is this more like a jaunt through the warp, or more tapping into an eldar webway kind of deal? Trying to wrap my head around how much BS she’s just managed to pull.
Technically? Three: the “heads” side, the “tails” side, and the “edge” of the coin, which is one continuous side around the whole thing, provided it has a non-zero width.
Well it’s been mentioned that she’s upgraded a couple of times since she was on the planet, so presumably she has a few more tricks up her sleeve than she did when she arrived. However, she still has more than half of her “skill tree” unfilled, so she’s still nowhere near the apex of her eventual power (and probably a long way from being able to go toe to toe with, say, Maxima).
I think Sydney was already close to a power/skill level where she *probably* wouldn’t beat Maxima, but would at the very least make the fight an interesting one.
Oh good, they at least have a clue.
Oops.
Well, I guess we’ll just have to hope that the squiddy guys don’t like planets mostly covered by water (71% and rising…).
Hmm? You are discussing ‘hedrons while I am distracted by Cora’s chest orbs.
What did you say again?
Does the talking deck officer look a little like Thugboy?
So, this just kind of occurred to me (though someone on the forums has probably mentioned it before), but is Halo essentially a Green Lantern but the Orbs are stuck in training mode? The creators of the Orbs are essentially the Oans, creators of the Lantern rings? Thus Squidward and friends recognized the Orbs and were like, “Oh Crap, it’s the intergalactic police!” Who knows, maybe the unknown Orb contacts other Orb users and the Orb creators. Just a thought.
Based on the icon that Sydney pushed to initiate her transport, I’m still hoping that it’s Mogo it was indicating.
An insidious alien video game seems more likely to me. Training programs don’t usually let you choose your own upgrade path. Orbs that belong to psychopathic people who treat other intelligent races the way gamers treat NPCs and enemy mobs would warrant the same response. Also Squidward and co. might BE the intergalactic police.
Addendum: never forget that Dabbler had never encountered the orbs or anything like them. They’re not something famous or highly visible in galactic politics.
No. Sydney opened up with conversation and negotiation, to which the Squidlies responded with what was intended to be an overwhelming attack. Law Enforcement left the checklist at that point.
I mean, she opened with dialogue they couldn’t understand while wielding weapons of mass destruction. I mean when has a cop ever decided to shoot at a suspect without justifiable cause? Never I bet. Never in the history of ever. Nobody has ever gotten shot because a cop got scared. Ever.
I actually thought of that a while back.
My theory is that the orbs were used by a green lantern -esque organization that disappeared sometime in the distant past–which explains why nobody recognizes them today.
If course, that begs the question of what happened to them, and what happens when Sydney meets the thing that destroyed them…
Or the organization still exists, it’s just that our galaxy’s Orb Guardian came to an unpleasant end on Earth millions of years ago, and since their Orbs were lost, there has been no Orb Guardian for all that time, and only the oldest civilizations remember even the legends about them. (Which begs the question what the cosmic beings fulfilling the role of the Oans will do when they become aware that the long lost orbs have been re-activated.)
Or if their Oan-equivalents notice that the lost orbs have been re-activated…
Cr*p, I thought my first post didn’t make it. Oh well…