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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Scotty, full power to the engines, etcetera, etcetera.
She cannae take anymore cap’n!
Ye canna change thuh laws of fizzicks!
(laws of fizzicks, laws of fizzicks..)
For the Satellite Scanning you could look at GPS. They have 24 satellites total and that gives at least 3 in view at any point on Earth. So 8 would guarantee every spot covered at a reasonably low orbit.
But from a reasonably high orbit you only need 2
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.
2 is not enough, unlesz the planet is a perfect airless sphere. You can’t really get a good view if the angle is too flat, too much air in the way, sun directly in background, hills, mountains, etc.
What’s with all the Z’s? “Satellitez”, “unlesz”?
Is that a plugin, or do you actually move fingers to the (on qwerty annoyingly-positioned) z-key?
It is the residual lizard DNA showing up in personal behavior. Garbler really shouldn’t have agreed to that regeneration treatment from Dr. Connors.
Dr Connors is my actual name and title lol. No I do not experiment with lizards :p
Only 2 works only at infinite distance, otherwise the bulge of the sphere gets in the way, leaving a ring around the planet.
Kerbal Space Program has taught me that we want 4 satellites in a “Draim tetrahedron”.
That configuration means that every satellites’ blind spot gets covered, even continually, because they keep flying into each others’ blind spots.
A d20 is nice, but try making one that stays intact when all satellites have to stay moving on their own circle around the planet’s center of gravity!
(Watching the communication links between tetrahedron sats form and break as they move around the planet is strangely hypnotic)
However, as these alien probes can warp to arbitrary points, I’m assuming they have enough spare power that “orbits” and “course adjustment” are trivial things, and thus they can just hover in any place you need.
In that case, platonic solids are literally the optimal tradeoff for number of points versus evenness of scanning area. (Though I’m thinking we should probably go with slightly flattened shapes to account for the squished ellipsoid shape that all planets assume due their rotation.)
Well, one is enough given a polar orbit and no requirement to be instantaneous.
How Could I forget, oh how much hours I’ve spent in Timewarp, looking at my S.C.A.Nsat go :-D
Actually, 4 is the minimum number. You can never see 50% of a spheroid, no matter how far you are from it, so 1 probe will get you, at most, 49.999%. Two probes will get you that x2, but you will still miss a narrow band between the two. Three probes will diminish that band to two small patches in an axis perpendicular to the plane defined by the tree probes. So 4 is the absolute minimum to scan 100% of the surface at the same time. More than that, is a question of resolution, quantity of information, etc…
It depends on your tech level.
Sufficiently advanced technology could have a single probe either in an absurdly fast powered orbit (so that it doesn’t just fly off somewhere) or continuously warp to different points in orbit or be able to scan around corners or through the planet.
A simpler solution can be derived from the info on this page:
The probes were deployed via “warps” (there’s no orbiting involved, as [Jules] pointed-out below, & there’s no need to compensate for any angular velocity), so a single probe could:
1)_Warp to a location, based on both the planet’s center-of-mass, & its diameter.
2)_Take a high-res “snapshot”
3)_Repeat steps 1-&-2, until you’ve covered 4 tetrahedron’s corners
4)_Continue “strobe”-ing those 4 locations at high speed, to monitor changing conditions
… the only benefit to using 12 probes is when speedy intel is vital under unfriendly conditions. Dabbler’s report doubtless mentioned that there was a “squiddly”-hostile in the area, & Capt. Cora might be justified in thinking that some of her probes might be shot down.
GPS is nice and all, but remember that our puny human satellites need to be in a moving orbit.
These alien probes can apparently warp into position wherever they darn well please, so all the assumptions about “orbits” start breaking down.
A single probe warping into 2-3 positions in turn would be enough; additional probes after that is just less-oblique angles and faster results due to parallel acquisition.
The faster acquisition seems to be important in this case though, with the causeway closing on them.
If you want them to remain in place, then they have to orbit, or use some sort of sophisticated antigrav system. If you want them to stay in place RELATIVE TO THE PLANET’S SURFACE, they have to move geosynchronously, and orbital mechanics dictates a high orbit for that.
You can be in a low geosynchronous orbit if it’s a powered orbit (anti-gravity, inertialess thrusters, etc.). And you don’t need to orbit the center of mass either.
There is no combination of geosynchronous orbits that will hold those twelve sensor drones in a constant configuration at the vertices of the icosahedron shown UNLESS they are powered to hold position. They needn’t be Geosynchronous. As long as they hold position on each other, they can scan the entire planet and the regions above.
In Star Trek, they frequently took up a powered geosynchronous orbit – that is, they stayed stationary above a geographic location – until something happened to shut down their power systems. Then they’d call it a decaying orbit, because the Enterprise had insufficient momentum or velocity to stay out of the atmosphere.
An object in motion will remain in motion unless an outside force acts upon that object. No power needed except to correct for gravity from time to time. Arthur Clarke pointed this out decades ago which is why we have geosynchronous satellites. You put it in orbit match the planets speed and bingo you have a satellite that will orbit over one spot no extra energy needed. This is how GPS and communication satellites work we stick them up high so they transmit to each other easily. Radio is direct line of sight after all.
there is exactly one altitude at which unpowered geosynchronous orbit works.
This is what Arthur C Clarke invented. It only works over the equator.
What we were discussing is that these alien probes are far away from the equator, so it can’t be a Clarke-Geosynch orbit. They must have insane positioning powers, as shown by their warping into position.
With powered orbits, anything is possible, as long as you can amp up the engine enough.
Pedantic note to close: GPS satellites are not in geosynchronous orbits, neither are a lot of communication satellites (e.g. Iridium)
Geosynch is FULL of communication and TV sats, but there are a lot more others outside of it!
Last time I looked physics don’t change when you move latitude, so the first law of thermodynamics still applies. That is all that occurring here moving of latitude and longitude nothing else changes. The reason we put those satellites around the equator is it is the easy and cheap shot, and we can place it far enough out that we don’t need to have more than a few to cover a large area. More coverage fewer satellites like ones you reference. Really far out and able to communicate together with a wide area or coverage.
What we are seeing deployed here is a low end knock off of the VDA (very deadly array), no weapon systems that we know of. They would sit in orbit unpowered and move around the planet just fine that way. Why do you need to have it powered what magic are you evoking to nullify Newtons first law it makes no sense. No really it is fricking space the only impact on it is gravity that of the planet moon and sun as the strongest and closest bodies. So what is effecting these satellites to require them to be powered
You are correct about GPS yes I was wrong there but guess what they orbit in a similar manner to what we see here. Are they under power all the time nope are the Iridium ones your reference under power all the time nope why because it isn’t needed Newtons first law covers it doesn’t matter where it is in space there is nothing to slow it down once you get it up to speed gravity does the rest.
Dude. Those drones are holding position at the vertices of an icosahedron. They are not orbiting at all! As you point out, physics don’t change. There is no set of orbits that would permit the array to maintain the relationship shown without the application of significant force.
Newton’s first law is a terrible argument under a situation where the force of gravity needs to be countered. Orbits don’t happen because of a lack of forces applying to the orbiting object, they happen because one very significant force happens to be bending the movement into a circle instead of any other shape. The conditions under which the force of gravity can do that alone are not unlimited, and do not include any orbits that don’t ring the center of gravity.
Just look at a die, and imagine spinning it somehow, anyhow. The vertices will stay where they are relative to each other, but there will be only one axis of rotation, and any point on the surface of the die that isn’t equatorial to that axis will not be circling the center of mass.
Unpowered orbit must circle center of mass + The vertices of a polyhedron staying fixed in orbit means they must rotate around some axis instead of the center of mass –> orbits of objects at the vertices of a polyhedron are not unpowered, except for the special case where a vertex is at the equator.
Or said another way, the axis of the satellite’s orbit must be aligned with the rotational axis of the planet in order to maintain the latitude, and that only happens at the plane of the equator (perpendicular from the rotational axis at the centroid).
You may only see ‘up to’ 49.999…% of a planet with one satellite, but you have atmospheric lensing (50+%) and atmospheric distortion/etc (which cuts the number back down, boo!)
Where you wind up depends on things like weather, dust in the air, humidity, and just what your tech uses to see, but in general, more Viewpoints = better picture.
Why orbit at all? The configuration used is not an orbital one, remember that each orbiting object must make a full circumference orbit, so they cant just rotate around the 60 degree latitude line and keep that exact layout stable, also the polar ones would have to just fight gravity and stay fixed by sheer thrust to keep their posistion.
I don’t think you can use the GPS constellation as a reference in trying to figure out how many probes Cora needs to deploy. Probes and GPS are doing two very different things. Probes are looking at the planet trying to find things. GPS satellites are doing nothing but pinging out time signals. For a GPS receiver to calculate your position it needs to receive signals from a minimum of four satellites. We don’t know if Cora’s probe array only needs one probe with an eye on target to spot something, or if there needs to be views from 2 or more probes to get all the information required. Just like human eyes; with one eye you can see things, but with two you get depth perception.
Reference: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/gps/en/
From far enough out, perhaps 2 satellites could see nearly all of each hemisphere, but if the object of interest lies along the circumference between the 2 opposite points, you can’t see it. The bare minimum you need to see the entire surface reliably is 4, one at each point of a tetrahedron.
Same is true for locating based on those satellites, you need to see at least 3 to triangulate a precise location, with 2 you get multiple results. Or you’d at least need some other data point like “I know I’m in the Northern hemisphere”, but that significantly reduces the usefulness of a global location device, effectively turning it into an actual left-handed spanner.
The major problem with determining how many probes you need is the unknown capabilities of the probes themselves. Clearly, if distance is no issue, only two are necessary; only one, in fact, as it could orbit opposite the ship itself. However, redundancy can be your friend as long as you don’t overdo it. The reason there are 24 GPS satellites is to get 3 satellite readings on any point of the (relative) sphere. 3 are needed to triangulate for your position. To actually get a good e-compass heading, you need 5,
That’s just location. certainly, those probes are reading a lot of other information, each item of which may have a practical range that would give a different number of satellites needed for full coverage.
All that said, your point, “Scanning a planet as you orbit is so 24th century.”, is one a lot of sci-fi writers miss.
On other point is transmission lag. Unless you predicate instantaneous transfers (or practically instantaneous at planetary distances), you have to account for some lag between control our and data back. Lasers, for instance, would give you light-speed transmissions. Communicating with an astronaut on the moon has a lag of 2.6 seconds. If you use gravity pulses, you get FTL telemetry which, depending on bandwidth, would give you relatively instantaneous telemetry over solar systemic distances. That’s “in-space” telemetry. If you allow for sub-space (as in Star Trek), where each sub-space level has a different rate of time, you can propagate a signal many millions of times the speed of light. There still lag, but not for practical purposes.
Gravity does not propagate faster than light. Gravity pulses will not provide FTL communication.
The gravity pulses that were recently detected were measurable as such because of the lag between the two signals at large distances.
Quantum entanglement MAY propagate faster than light, but it does so in a way that (so far) forces a reference to be within lightspeed boundaries.
Tachyons, if they exist, are faster than light by definition, but getting a sensible interaction is way beyond anyone’s comprehension. And yeah, space-warps, shortcut dimensions, and wormhole tunnels are also cool ideas but none of them have been proven to exist in a useful form yet.
Also sometime after Star Trek started using them for everything real life physicists proved them to be not real.
Here’s something I find interesting and no one else seems to have remembered.
Aetherium.
As in the Aetherium Throne?
As in part of the material her Soul Reaver was forged from?
So does that implies that the swords are forged out of a material that was “used up” in making the causeways (ie: “crystalized mana” that makes space-time-highways), or does that mean that the swords are condensed space-time (and called aetherium)?
Either way, I don’t think in as-many-dimensions-that-such-a-process-requires.
Presumably “Aether” is an alternate spelling of “Ether” which is the medium that it was once thought Light propagated through, that was later proved to not exist. In games like Dungeons and Dragons, there is an “Etherial Plane” which is a coexistant dimension very close to the “real universe” and Coterminous with it
Some sci-fi has modified the old theory using the a in front spelling to refer to other dimensional “matter”, rather than just go with terms like Hyper Matter and Neutral Matter, they will refer to a sub-space “mass” as Aether, which is basically the same thing as Mana, but in fantasy and sci-fi often Aether has the funny property of being able to over-write the source code of the physical plane reality to produce effects or change the property of objects in ways that defy the physical plane “Matter/Energy” as we understand it’s normal operating rules/laws.
In other words, exotic energy that can break the laws of physics for a short time while its present. Dangerous stuff in the wrong hands (Magi-Tech).
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1533
It’s “Aetheon” Thrones.
I stand corrected.
Go sit on your throne.
I’m always on my Throne.
Guess the flight orb would work as a gravity control for spaceship Sydney? In case she ends on some planet with 10x Earth’s gravity.
Upgrading the life support orb might help her with pressurizing the forcefield against highly dense atmospheres – though she’d need decompression afterwards.
What she could really use at the moment would be a replicator system that can provide her with food once a few of her preferred meals are scanned. – I’d put that under life support orb as well as it is changing or producing matter.
Zeth, are we certain that anything can replicate the scoville count of young miss scoville’s preferred meals?
True that food might actually fall under the duties of the Pew-Pew orb … once it is upgraded to max.
Now I am terrified about the thought of a gun shooting pure capsaicin crystals.
… talk about getting peppered with fireballs
I’d say the crystalized/concentrated Mana. If Mana is another name for ‘Universal energy field/Life Force” than I’d say an Aetherium Causeway Could actually be more like a tunnel through said energy field, with the tunnel itself composed of the energy that was “Shunted aside” to create the tunnel. AKA It’s “Parting the Red Sea” on a Cosmic scale. Which could explain why they leave no trace once closed, once through, the local energy field simply returns to it’s normal state.
Ok, that was supposed to be for The Zet…
So a wormhole, just using Magic instead of Spacetime.
It’d essentially be a Dimension Door at that point, wouldn’t it?
In the same way that a mole hole and a subway are both tunnels, yes.
Different materials, capacities, source energies, energy requirements, and rules.
Think like how a Mirror Travel requires a reflective surface and takes you through the mirror space and can only open up to other reflective surfaces; and uses astral energy to do so, and unless you are the type to not have a chosen destination and instead wander the hall of lights its usually fairly safe. Sometimes it can be used like a direct link and actually see the other side of the other reflective surface instead of your own reflection like you’re just jumping through a window.
meanwhile Shadow Gates require areas with low light sources, or specifically a shadow being cast from a solid object with a light source on it; is much slower way to travel, and requires keen navigational sense to make it through the world of darkness safely with constant danger everywhere and the risk of being lost in the eternal void of the dark nether should you lose concentration or be badly hurt during travel (this why a sophisticated Shadow Gate system uses a keen line linked to gates and entering an address to connect to a specific gate that then tunnels the traveler through quickly and relatively safely).
Magic, science… same difference.
Ayep… as said by other Great Minds
Should have said this in the previous comic, but forgot: Dabbler has the kind of pull / favors owed / power / money to divert a spaceship in an emergency manner. And the ability to contact them. What the heck is she doing on Earth? Are supers and/or shadow council that interesting? Because it is a good bet that normals and Earth technology aren’t anything to her.
And as for the “What the hell does Dabbler have us chasing?” question, surely Dabbler provided a picture and description.
Dabbler’s on Vacation obviously! =P
As for the description for Dabbler’s friends. Syd’s gotten..3?4? power points for her skill tree since she’s been stranded. For all we know if she’d put them into the PPO she’d already be a Planet Cracker.
Telling the Intergalactic Alliance that parties unknown just flattened a planet would be more that enough to divert a fast scout ship.
Good point. And rescuing the person with the most eyewitness and combat experience with the enemy would be a priority.
“Divert a spaceship in an emergency manner” might sound like a big favor, but in a much earlier scene in the bar Dabbler talked about space tourists, implying maybe space travel isn’t a big deal.
this universe seems more star track then warhammer 40k in the ftl department. This is a good thing for the survival of everyone involved.
Seems to me, the less Warhammer 40K, the better for the survival of everyone involved.
Nah!, i’m sure the Twinklecorns can take care of themselves…
You say you “may have drawn them too close to the surface to get a good look.” That’s kind of amusing after a week of watching Wolfie, Dan, Sic and CHL tear apart flat-earthers.
I even made a couple of scale drawings myself, for anyone who’s interested in such stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-erEdY1uAo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7pfDzgI0MI
Geostationary is a long way out. The ISS is really rather low compared to the size of the planet.
The thing with the geostats is that they’re all over the Equator. To be geostationary, they have to be above a point on the surface that’s going round the centre, and the set of those points is the equator. Building a 12-point system means your satellites are orbiting in directions. That could get awkward. Of course, you can make geosynchronous ones on slightly lower, elliptical orbits tilted a little from the equator so they draw little figure 8 paths in the sky, and two rings of those at different altitudes, one furthest north at 6am and one furthest south at 6pm, would combine to give 100% coverage at all times, with a lot of overlap in some places. Overlap’s good. It lets you use time difference of arrival to locate a signal source in 3D.
The display may not be to scale. I imagine that most displays dealing with normally interstellar distances wouldn’t be.
Of course, you can make anything work if you just apply power to each satellite’s propulsion. They can hover over their chosen points on the surface if needed. Given these people are opening wormholes for each satellite, I am guessing they have plenty of that.
I was waiting for someone else to say “orbit” with reference to the sensors. I wanted to go Inigo Montoya on them (no, not the “prepare to die” speech – the “you keep using that word” speech.)
The sensor array is not-not-not orbiting. It is station keeping.
I guess, instead of geostationary, you should think about the iridium satphone satellite network.
Complete global coverage with non geostationary satellites
because geostationary has one hell of a ping.
nice videos. well done.
They don’t think to ping Sydney’s smartphone?
She has the ARCSwat choker and the PipBoy.
How is Cora expecting to contact Halo? Did Dabbler give out the frequencies, protocols, and necessary passwords for the ARCSWAT comms?
I can just see the first contact, too:
Cora: “Dabbler sent me to look for you.”
Halo: “Yeah, you look like a ‘friend’ of Dabbler’s” (looks around at beefcake) “And it looks like you have the same hobbies too.”
Next up on Alien Stuff:
Baking Cookies With Cora.
+1
All Cora needs to do is say “bah weep granah weep nini bong” and Sydney will know that a) someone did their research and b) that someone knows Sydney very well.
Or “Spa Fon Squa Tront!”
Well crap… I leave for a bit and find my projections for how the heck the level up system works blown through the airlock…
Just to be sure… I could be wrong in what I’m reading. Did Sydney put a point into the off shoot from the speed tree or just into the center deal?
She had 2 skill points, so she put one in both.
We haven’t been told what the other point was
She ‘earnt’ three on Alari: first one went into the Speed, third one went in the middle, it is only rampant WAG that the second one went into the Speed off-shoot
She definitely got the speed offshoot. That’s the only reason she can do this wormhole-ish form of transportation.
Where was it actually shown or said that that is what she did? Or did you miss the “I feel severe case of Choice Paralysis coming on.”?
She had two points, then said “definitely going to get the hopefully probably warp drive and… crap”, after which she mentioned choice paralysis. Aka she knew where the first point was going and had Choice paralysis on the second point.
Besides, we saw her using a new ability on her blue flight orb immediately after this, which was what made the aetherium causeway, so she definitely spent the point somewhere on the flight orb.
No, we were told.
She put one into the center, and it did nothing.
The first upgrade she was debating between more speed or shields. She decided on speed to try to unlock the next line. For the next upgrade, when she got two points, we were told she was definitely going to put one into speed, but wasn’t sure where to put the other. In the next page we were told she put the second point in the center.
That’s what she said she was definitely going to do, butt we didn’t actually see that happen
So yeah, it’s pedantic picking of nits, butt it is also speculation without proof of action
guesticus its not nit picking its flat earthier level BS thinking.
there is literally no way for Sydney to have the wormhole unless she put that point into the flight speed line. as all the build up form the last few chapters has been that the upgrade after the mach 16 speed boost was FTL of some kind.
so we don’t need to see Sydney put the point in that line because she said she was going to and then we see the power that would have come form that upgrade. and sine 2+2 doesn’t equal fish Sydney point two points into the speed line and one into the center part.
all points are accounted for.
Yarrryaarrrrrr!!!! Me Favorite Booty Twicewise!!!!!!
Apparently, is gave Halo, greater understand, of the orbs effects.
At least we now know what kind of portal halo’s orbs open, will be handy to help explain to her how best to navigate with them later, also same dimension or dabblers ‘friend(s)’ wouldn’t be in that locale.
“Quick! Find the Effectway before it disappears!”
because.. you know.. where there’s a cause… there has to be an effect…..
Otherwise what did it cause?…
anyone?
anyone?
If the effect was not observed, was there really a cause?
According to classical physics, there must be a cause preceding the effect.
According to quantum physics, weebly wooble blurp.
Every effect in our universe requires cause. Every effect in the game of monopoly requires rolling a die. You don’t need to roll a die to set up the game or to get snack. Now, how necessary is the cause again?
The Cause is people deciding to play Monopoly.
The cause is Monopoly.
The effect is nobody in my family speaking with each other for the rest of the evening.
Monopoly: The cause of more family arguments than I care to count.
so setting up the Monopoly game/getting a snack is akin to extrauniversal activity? like w/e caused the Big Bang?
+1
Given enough time, a single probe is plenty and how long depends on how good the tech is. More probes, less time. The question isn’t how many to scan a sphere, it is how many to scan as fast as possible within a certain budget (probably not an issue here) and spacial constraints (only so much room on a ship). If you have no budget and tons of space, you could swarm the planet with 50 probes.
And now, after getting information about halo’s artifacts, An high ranking operative in a new branch of the space police force will want to incorporate sydney in their ranks ? ;) with sydney freaking out about alien scientists prodding her ? (what déjà-vu ? ^^)
I’m probably old-fashioned when it comes to probes scanning a planet where they assumed stationary positions: I’d use a dodecahedron (D12) and place one probe in the middle of on of the surfaces, so each one scans a pentacle. Naturally it would be best if each had the inner surface of a circle to scan and pentacles are better than squares and triangles.
That said, if you use an icosahedron as base and place a probe in each corner to scan staight down at the planet, you also get a (large) pentacle for each to scan, with lots of overlaps, each triangle would be seen/scanned by 3 probes (if I got that right). That’s also something and would IMHO be a good configuration for something like GPS.
[A Nitpicking-Note to the Esteemed Author]:
In Panel-1, I’m amused to note that the ship’s bay, used for deploying the 12 probes, displays only 11 probes.
The bay’s shape is a trapezoid, & when that shape is made from a single row of equilateral triangles, it will always be a ODD number. To hold 12 triangular probes, the trapezoid must be made with 2 Layers of “5+7”, consisting of 5 probes on the top (I.E., the trapezoid’s shortest parallel-edge), & 7 probes between the top-layer & the hull.
For what it’s worth, a 2-layer trapezoidal structure like this will accommodate ANY multiple of 4 triangles, so if you DO want to store 20 (=Dodecahedron), then the 2 layers would be 9-&-11.
You could even manage a Rhombic Triacontahedron:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhombic_triacontahedron]
… with 32 probes, in 2 layers of 15-&-17 triangles.
As others have speculated, the ship itself is the 12th Sensor Array
[Guesticus]:
I like the elegance of that answer, but it strikes me as terrible from a strictly strategic viewpoint. The locations of the scanning array’s “grid” must be stable, to get a good read. By locking the ship itself into one of the grid-points, it becomes relatively motionless, & a FAR EASIER target for hostiles to kill. Probes are ideally as tiny-as-possible, not just to minimize their profile in the enemy’s crosshairs, but also to improve their ability to dodge incoming fire.
Bottom-line, though, is that the very nature of probes is that they are EXPENDABLE — unlike ships — & can be mass-produced as needed. They wouldn’t even be asked to come there if there weren’t hostiles nearby, from whom Sydney needs rescuing. I’d be deploying a full 12 probes (or 20, or 32), & keeping my defensive options open.
Most ships are able to perform scans on their own, so using it as one point of the Scan-Array makes sense, and it is only as vulnerable as long as the scanning takes, and with the probes equipped with their own warp-drives…
The reason they were asked to go there, was because Earthicans have no means of inter-planetary travel of their own, let alone inter-system or even inter-galactic
They could be stacked six deep in the bay.
This kills one of our theories.
If the ship of friends arrives in the “nowish” then this planet didn’t happen 30 years in the future, there isn’t another full set of harem. If Halo and everybody else there is “NOW”, how was there a spare Harem?
dabbler could have friends in the other universe, too. Or crossing them is not that difficult. Only Dave knows.
Given other events that happened happened, it could be as little as a few days to a week and there would still have been another set of Harem, and it could have taken time to get to the Alari planet, let alone for Dabbler to get ahold of her friends who are free to go looking.
Time can still have passed it doesn’t need to be a huge amount.
That Maxima Elf Guy last time said: ‘Local relative time is… we’re a bit late. Our encounter with the Fel altered our angle of departure.’ That sounds to me that their method of FTL also affects time.
Sounds to me like Dabbler figured out how far into the future the portal had taken them, asked her friends to show up right after that point to avoid paradoxes and pick up Sydney; but they got there slightly later than expected.
Quite certain a Octohedron would be by FAR the most efficient scanning shape since it would circumvent the whole scanning angle thingy while still only requiring 6 probes, 1 on each point (north and south) and 4 to get the angle wid enough to circle the planet without dead angles
A tertrahedron could even do it.
Tetrahedron was mentioned as impractical due to the distance the scanner thingies needed to be from the planet
But distance should make little difference to probes using warp tech.
I think it was distance as in a pain to draw, more than distance practical.
What gets me the most are those rows of colored rectangles with no text a lot of low effort scifi has. RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN.
Nah, we just can’t see them. one probably reads: “Warning don’t flush corrosives down the waste tunnel”.
Maybe a long running version of Magic?
HUMANS ARE SUPERIOR!
also, crackers are awesome!
Well now we know what to call Sydney’s new ability – Aetherium Causeway. Otherwise we’d be calling it hyperspace/hyperspace bypass or transwarp drive or a wormhole or slipstream or something :)
Didn’t realize it before cthulhuearring turned my attention to it: That’s a 3D- display, the planet with the grid of probes is hoovering above the screen.
One probe is totally adequate. Unless your probes are so primitive that they don’t view planets and stars to be practically transparent.
“Here’s a map of all the rivers on that continent. Remember, you are viewing them from below, so reverse the map left to right if you want to use the map for boat navigation.”
As some readers will be aware, there is at least one display globe that is so large that you walk inside and see what the molemen who live in the core of the earth see.
Even speaking as a gay man, those are some very, um, distracting boobs. She looks like she could literally put someone’s eye out.
I volunteer.
… for the good of the mission!
…as Tribute!
Could this be the origin of Dabbler’s cybernetic enhancements?
Speaking as a heterosexual woman, I concur.
Freckles AND my favorite color? Damnit, Dave. XD
One probe is optimal if it is a hollow sphere that encases the planet.
Predictions time!
Next strip will have a personnel shuttle landing on Archon HQ’s helipad under cover of night. Cora will disembark, leading a manacled and mitten-ed Sydney. She will GLARE at Dabbler, who will actually look abashed. Cora will then hand Sydney over to Dabbler and march off without a word. The shuttle will take off and fly back into the night.
Now, fill in the punchlines.
Dabbler: “HOW WERE YOU EVEN ABLE TO ” [insert noodle incident punchline here]
Sydney: “It’s not my fault! ” [insert absurd justification / explanation here]
Nah, Cora sounds cooler than that,
Cora seems pretty chill, but one can only take so much unrestrained Sydney chaos at once before being overwhelmed by the compulsion to drive her out of their secret lab. It’s especially annoying if she’s actively destroying ongoing experiments.
So I’m probably just nitpicking here, but shouldn’t the “Warp In” and “Warp Out” text be switched? I think the syntax is that “Warp Out” is used when referring to origin, as in “warping out” from a place; “Warp In” is used the opposite way, as in “warping in” to a destination point.
I think it’s been fixed.
‘Out’ and ‘Out’ would work also as our point of view changes.
You are confusing the reference point: the probes are going in to Warp, and then out again at their destinations
Everyone seems to be looking at the warp-hole as the focus, and not simply the means
…Btw, thank you for all the sexy maliens, DaveB!
So, umm…
Sydney went to ‘the far side of the planet’ to get away from the big bads.
Then she opened up a portal.
The ship arrives, seeing a portal on the far side of the planet.
This implies the ship may be somewhat closer to the big bads…
I wonder what comes next…
Also, if the ship can track the portal from the far side of the planet …
Can the big bads track it as well?
For that matter – portals can be tracked? Do the big bads already know where Sydney arrived from, having picked up on the portal they arrived through?
Well, Earth was a pleasant place to live, while it lasted. Nice job, summoning Armageddon, heroes.
Dave pointed out that Sydney was likely exaggerating the distance she traveled. He placed it at about 5,000 miles. If the planet is anywhere near the size/density of Earth, that would be about 1/5 of the planet away.
Yup, Sydney’s Space Tunnel is simply on the far side of the planet from Cora’s ship, not that Sydney travelled that far
The regular D12 uses Pentagons but there is a D12 shape that uses diamond faces.
Garnets are shaped like that naturally.
Unfortunately, it has 14 points so the icosahedron still has it beat for probe efficiency.
https://helpkidstolearn.com/Articles/Star%20Garnet_files/Dodecahedron.jpg
That is a cool shape – but it isn’t a “regular” polyhedron. On a regular polyhedron, all the faces are identical and “regular”. Equilateral triangles make up tetrahedrons, octohedrons, and icosahedrons (4, 8 and 20 faces), Squares make up the cube (6 faces). Pentagons make up the dodecahedron (12 faces). Many other polyhedra are possible using non-regular polygons, such as the 10-sided die. or look at the various configurations of geodesic domes or buckyballs. Geometry is neat!
Not being forewarned that their quarry can boomtube, would it be logical to a) continue scanning the planet looking for signs of Dabbler’s friend, or, b) compute the end of the aetherium causeway and immediately go chasing after WHATEVER it was that traveled the causeway, in the hope that it would eventually lead them to their target?
Definitely chase the boomtube. They can always come BACK to this planet if they get there and find it wasn’t their target, right, but they can’t chase her later if they finish scanning the planet and she’s gone. Besides, this is not trchnology your average joe is walking around with, it’s reasonable to assume if you’re looking for a friend of Dabbler’s and an insane portal nobody should have opens, that’s probably what you’re looking for.
…off page topic, DaveB but Target has beat Arianna to the punch: https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.target.com%2Fp%2Fda-bomb-amaze-balls-mixed-fruit-bath-fizzer-12-oz%2F-%2FA-51248767%3Fref%3Dtgt_soc_6092793792954_pd_7649B63E33714F54BD52B515%26AFID%3DFB_BR%26CPNG%3DDR_DPA_BTY%26FNDSRC%3Dtgabcm&h=AT1CeHHTLxipAU8YwhGvifVqXy5YGqvlypx0VqUM3ZyhpTKeNUcEtTcSXV8PrTdXq_6wCM728eujnDcNS0LryCfKnje-YOuH-oE6CTK6JrcjekHkwq7EEamnFh4n8j44TRCJZvi4p57wd6o7uU7mWr2A2czM63X-di2QnF2VITxnt1MzavAhPiSJeSeWVUnoMFjkv86pPdpSTmk-EgPz1Qu8HlSouVG03KiEOi3XFzgh8lhELJVFaksfp21TqFs-Hn4Ppzopp0WIaoYVPCXz3cgLMTSCariMqNGkZQAZdrLjrbQHBkobktsc3UsHdET0CipmVKYDyuakHvLRq7Nz6FBFxCuROzvVn1gkAWd81hrHIGUXCVETc0hiRb8jvbqmu6K6lRl88i-A0DZWYXXBIwxLaM6l-30_Snww13Z_BQ
I’ll probably get some of those and keep them around in my carry bags*. Or maybe just put them straight into storage bins.
* Also, this is by far my favorite take on the subject.
Just wondering if Cora has any official standing to own a ship with that type of firepower, like maybe the local sheriff…
Which just made me think of this…
Squiddly: “Officer!! Officer!!! We want to report an Orb-user, it just murdered Billy Bob and blinded Frank!! Do something!!”
Loose command structure and association with Dabbler, a known murderhobo, suggests they’re mercenaries rather than official law enforcement.
Just because they have an association with Dabbler does not rule out the possibility of official law enforcement, neither does the loose command structure. I’ve seen several village police forces with a loose command structure.
Also I wouldn’t send in a friend unless they could claim legitimate reason for being there, just in case… the Galactic Police (Xevoarchy) shows up, looks at the giant holes in the now dead planet, scan their ship, detects the anti-matter warheads and decide that they put the holes in a previously inhabited planet and react accordingly to the threat.
The number of probes you’d want to use would mainly depend on if you had to pay attention to orbital dynamics, the maximum angle the probe could look down upon and still get meaningful information, and the maximum amount of space it could observe and still get meaningful information. Like, if it could observe 100 square miles of land from its orbit at a time, you’d need about 2 million. Likewise, if you start having a situation where it can’t observe more than 2 degrees from the perpendicular.
For full coverage, you’d probably never want less than 4- if orbit doesn’t matter, or 6, if it does.
“Aetherium”?
So-o-o-o, now we have a name to go with those Orbs. Just a name, but if we could only connect with the Galactic Wiki (or nearest equivalent thereof), all would probably become clear.,
… Which actually pales somewhat in comparison with the very reasonable question – How thoroughly has Dabbler prepared / forewarned Cora & Co for First Contact with the unbridled horror that is Sydney? Guess we’ll see. .
Dabbler had no clue what they are, they’re not gonna have an accessible manual on a wiki somewhere– if they did, a treasure-hunting murderhobo like Dabbler would DEFINITELY know about them. Aetherium Causeway likely refers to the type of wormhole– a causeway cut through the aetherium, presumably some form of extradimensional space or theoretical matter. It is not necessarily connected directly to the origin of the orbs.
I wonder if the explanation in https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2581 could be connected to the aetherium causeway?
Probably not.
What Dabbler is explaining there appears to be similar to the Manasphere concept in Shadowrun (The Manasphere is created by all living things, whilst the Aethersphere only seems to be created by intelligence), meaning that an Aethersphere is restricted to planets, ships, space habitats and other places with intelligent life in them.It could also explain why the aliens we see seem to be more tech than magic focused and why Dabbler might be interested in hanging around Earth, because her magic works best in a densely populated planet. (Hint: It is a bad idea to try and use anything magical in even low Earth orbit in Shadowrun)
Boob windowed spacesuits because aint no gravity in space
I’m thinking it’s because even space fabrics can’t be deformed that far without making folds or adding a seam, and either one just isn’t fashionable* these days.
*And probably weakens the structural integrity in vacuum, and/or interferes with the embedded nanofiber force field.
Does Cora have a tongue piercing?
She and Xuriel probably have matching piercings. When they make out, there’s a lot of rythmic ‘ting’ing coming from their mouths…
Of COURSE they make out! Hobbies don’t stand in the way of True Friendship!
(Emphasis on the ‘ship’, I admit…)
It’s a highlight on her tongue, not a piercing.