Grrl Power #680 – Fancy almost bumping into you here
Not a whole lot to talk about on this page. Mostly it’s to show Deus and Vale missing Sydney by less than a block. Contrary to popular theories, Deus actually has no idea she’s there. So I spent most of the page throwing in some cameos and practicing backgrounds.
I know they don’t look like much, but dang, those buildings took so long to draw. A lot of that has to do with me still having relatively limited experience drawing architecture even after all this time. I don’t fervently collect pictures of cityscapes and bank lobby interiors and meeting rooms and open air markets quite as fervently as I do with pictures of faces and expressions and fitness ladies for my reference folders. I’m sure architectural rendering is super satisfying to people who like it doing it. I’d probably like it more if I knew how to do it faster, but all those little details and the molding on buildings get tedious really quickly.
It’s hard to imagine a station like the one Sydney’s on not having a ton of automation. Unless there’s some weird union deal with a race that’s big on manual labor, like Space Dwarves, Ugnaughts, Ood, or Oompa Loompas.
I’ve updated the vote incentive. This time to another attempt at painting a cover. This one is obviously from a yet to be published Tamer 7. I’m fairly pleased with it, my biggest gripe is Victor’s head, which I used a reference for, and it looks almost like I cut out a model’s head for it. Also his expression doesn’t match the fact there’s a 40 foot Purussaurus surfacing next to him.
Unfortunately I can’t link you to the Tamer series of novels, which I quite enjoy, because Amazon still had its head up its ass concerning Michael-Scott Earle’s books, but hopefully he’ll be back online soon.
Speaking of which, if you look close enough, you may be able to spot a M-SE related cameo on this page.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Am I the only one who thinks that they’ll look like a preppy school girl in the top panel? I guess women of all Stripes enjoy shopping
Oh there you are, e_voyager and ro jaws.
*hugs (discreetly showing off fancy new time-piece)*
For once I was early. Being stuck at a computer screen all day have it’s advantages.
Sup?
Whatcha doin’ stuck on a screen?
Working and longing for retirement.
Yea, I am getting close to being back in the rat race again too.
*hangs head gloomily*
Still, it beats being homeless. Yesterday I was told, in an interview, “You should have been a priest. I have only known you half an hour and I already totally trust you!”
I’m not very good at calling job offers though. That was either code for ‘you need to join a seminary’ or ‘we want to hire you but have to finish the other interviews first’.
Ho hum.
*sits back and twiddles claws, for a while, before getting back to the hunting*
Yeah, I shouldn’t complain. I should be glad to have a job at all, especially one that pays decent enough. AI and robots will replace most of us soon anyway. So see you in the unemployment line in the near future.
Auto workers used to say that about robots. Each step forward is never the last step in eliminating human wage slaves.
But what about the robot sharks replacing jaws? Oh wait, he was a robot shark. Just one that looked too rubbery to be shown on screen. Never mind.
The fear of the unseen is always worse.
Yup. Just like the original version of The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers was much more creepy.
Yes, you are right. I admit that today I’m just grumpy enough to want the machines to take over the world so we humans don’t have bother with all the hard work.
I am a total supporter of robot sharks being allowed to be grumpy at work …
provided it is somewhere I am not a customer or have to visit for some reason.
Don’t worry, I know how to bottle up my frustration and put on my customer friendly face.
Oh, the shark has pretty teeth dear
And he shows ’em, pearly white
Who feels there needs to be a robo-shark anthro version of Mac the Knife?
That reminds me of this:
https://globalnews.ca/news/2089934/terminator-fans-lose-it-after-woman-named-sarah-oconnor-tweets-about-killer-robot/
Run for the hills!
Or at least run out of arms reach of any stationary factory robots, at the very least.
And Sarah O’Connor please keep John O’Conner safe! Long live the counter-revolution!
Called it.
They’ll have several more near meetings soon.
Those women….you sure they’re not Earthicans?
No wonder Earth is an afordabe vacation getaway.
Somewhat disapointed not to have seen Sydney’s actual arrival.
No security checkpoint needed?
Anyone can just portal/warp/teleport/walk in?
Maybe there’s security when you try to leave.
They come from a fictionverse where humanity has already spread ‘to the stars’, so.. humans born and raised on other worlds.
Stars like Sol, for example. Of course it is necessary to lay in a suitable fossil history for the colonists, if you want their ancestors to feel like it is their home. You can even put a few gags in like Coke cans, and will probably get away with it!
Or maybe there’s a restraunt somewhere nearby that has actual, honest-to-goodness apple pies & even advertise that they get apples from Earth. You might be able to make fruit pies from just about any planet that catually grows fruit, but none of them will be actual apples unless you get them from Earth.
…Or they could, in the words of Carl Sagan, bake an apple pie from scratch by first creating a universe…
…Or maybe Johnny Appleseed walked around a lot further than anyone had ever thought…
Now that’s a weird thought; After ranging far & wide, planting apple seeds whever he went, Johnny Appleseed was abducted by a UFO & still kept spreading seeds on other planets. If the seeds survive & grow, it wouldn’t be much longer for more seeds to be available to spread even moore widely.
Very believable that there’s a market for the “genuine product”, just like Champagne vs sparkling wines. Same raw materials, same process, almost indistinguishable end products, but the established cultural expectation means one is worth a lot more to a portion of the market. Even though there are few (if any) people who can really tell the difference.
Don’t even get me started on ‘artificial vs real’ precious stones, like the marketing behind diamond engagement rings over synthetic (or no gem at all). Let alone the insanity of the diamond industry as a whole in supplying a market it fabricated for itself.
It’s not just the cultural snobbery concerning Champagne brand sparkling wine, it is the soil the grapes are grown in
You might get the same types of grapes, butt seedless red grapes from California tastes different from seedless red grapes from Oztralia because of a difference in soil and climate
Any experienced grower or buyer of fresh produce will tell you the same. Peppers from spain are some of the best around, french apples border on flavourless and the amount of trouble some home growers go to to get the perfect balance of nutrients is insane.
The difference may be less after it’s been worked into a product but soil quality still has a significant impact.
Of course there was only one place where destiny would bring Deus…
mind you it is kinda lonely here right now. Y’all are missing a new comic. Didn’t you all adjust your clocks to galactic central time? I’m sure that’s the schedule Sydney is on right now.
How often do people adjust their clocks these days? It seems to me that most clocks do so automatically now.
Oh you have one of those fancy sundial watches then? Still the setup time is a bit of a pain, having to make sure it is correctly aligned. Remembering to add one hour’s less/more water to the clock on the relevant day is less hassle I think.
Could be worse. Do you know just how much work it is for the Druids every time they have to reset a henge because of daylight savings time?
All the more painful when you have to roll and unroll the instructions over and over again.
Won’t catch us using them gosh darn new fangled book doo-dads
You joke, but….
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1068443
:-D
Mine adjusts itself…unfortunately they have changed the daylight savings time dates since I got it, so now it adjusts itself on the wrong date. meanign I have to adjust 4 times a year instead of 2 or 0.
Not even Deep Thought or “the one that shall follow” could handle the mess of DST
I think you can see him in panel 3.
That’s Marvin, not Deep Thought. Deep Thought was the huge ziggurat computer. Marvin was the boxy-looking, complaining, downer, depressed robot who never got the diodes on his left side repaired, not even by the End of the Universe…
Ahh, but I was not referring to Deep Thought, rather I was running with “the one that shall follow”. In this case taking the IBM computer named Deep Thought, the “the one that shall follow” would be a more advanced computer that followed it.
Given that Marvin was the ultimate computer, built to answer the mystery of “Life, the Universe and Everything”, he clearly is portentous enough to be labeled “the one”.
Er… it was Deep Thought who found the Answer, not Marvin.
The computer meant to find the Question, however, is all around you. At least until the Vogons are sent to build a new hyperspace bypass (the mice will be furious).
“Earth? That’s a pretty boring name for a computer.” (Not an exact quote, just vaguely from memory. I know the books best, and don’t know the original radio production much at all, but IIUC the thing about Earth being the Question Computer is consistent across all versions.)
Ahh, too much time must have passed since I last read it/saw it, I kind of combined them into one.
Bingo! so my original answer was ironic, since the question was found shortly after the Earth was formed. I think the Earth computer bame up with DST just to have a puzzle even more frustrating that the one for 42
“Mine adjusts itself…unfortunately they have changed the daylight savings time dates since I got it, so now it adjusts itself on the wrong date. meanign I have to adjust 4 times a year instead of 2 or 0.”
—- Some of those auto-adjusting clocks have a DST on/off button on them, which makes things a little bit easier.
Halo vs Aliens. Well there goes the neighborhood.
Heck, if it is a wanted poster, with a decent reward, that could be Sydney’s ticket home.
Assuming she keeps avoiding all potential rescuers…
I think Sydney is genre savvy enough to avoid the Aliens despite what the reward might be. Deus too, no doubt he have sold all his shares in Weyland-Yutani long ago.
Did the Weyland-Yutani-Merger already happen? I thought it was still a hundred years away. That insider lied at me!
You know, If you hadn’t pointed out the few blocks away I would have missed the backgrounds lining up. Great job on the subtleties.
Are the twins part of the additional Daphnes Harem alluded to?
I was wondering that. Their faces don’t look right though, and no sign of freckles.
But they often don’t show up (well) at a distance. And there is enough similarity that it is within the bounds of artistic licence – perhaps with a bit of cosmetic work anyhow.
No, the twins are a part of a different harem (the Star Justice harem).
The entire middle panel is the Star Justice from the first 3 books – Kudos Dave! (and with Marvin the Paranoid Android in the bottom panel)
And Maximilian from the Black Hole.
I am thinking Sydney should avoid booking passage with that Max.
Especially if the large poster on the alley wall is an advert showing fellow passengers.
Even so, this confusion about Harem’s comment & the appearance of what appears to be more Harems in deep space does give us a new option for how there could be “too many of her” that we may have overlooked….
….maybe Harem is actually a member or half-member of whatever alien species the Star Justice Harem hails from? If so, maybe all Supers gain their powers from alien DNA? Casual sex tourism?
It’s something to consider, for sure….
If you haven’t read the series, almost everyone in the Star Justice series is human, or some variant there of. The two are just supposed to be twins introduced in one of the later books.
Technically, one of the twins is human and the other is an android. Of yourse, you did say almost everyone.
I thought they might be a couple of Jem from E. M. Foner’s Union Station series. Jem are a clone species, and all look the same.
Um… why is Pixel there?
Deus’s bodyguard/dark goddess looks like Pixel when she smiles, apparently.
20 to 1 gets you that she is Pixel’s mum.
Although Dave does seem to have a thing for pink hair.
“Although Dave does seem to have a thing for pink hair.”
I was thinking exactly the same. Not complaining though…
Huh, apparently Vale’s current skinsuit has a Pixel mode on the rare occasion she has to show squee-level exictement.
Vale could have a big wardrobe of different skinsuits. A natural born infiltrator.
Well it fits her to a tee that she is a fan girl of the Dead Space
Sydney obviously doesn’t know that longshoremen load cargo, they don’t actually travel aboard ships.
Even the Longshoreman of the Apocalypse was only born on a ship.
LOTA IS INSULTED!
Lota is above retaliating over insults involving petty semantics, thankfully.
(Pssst, it’s growprammed, not born; do not upset King Lota.)
Yah, the job she would be looking for is Cabin Girl (Or ship’s cook, if she can get ingredients for the kind of super spicy food she favors, she might become popular among the spice loving races.)
Gooblah: Wow! I’ve never met a non-Halapininan who could cook something that doesn’t taste like ultrabland mud! You’re Hired!
Sydney means to book passage by earning money as a longshoreman, not to be employed as a longshoreman aboard a ship. It’s possible she doesn’t know that much about ships and docks though.
Good to see Marvin and Maximillian in panel 3.
Now is that Vale with a Happy face in panel 1?
Maximillian as a hibachi chef… who’da thunk it?
His secret ingredient is water. And LSD. Just like his culinary idol, the inaugural Zinc Saucier, Bender Bending Rodriguez.
NO! Bad Vale! Put down the evil alien artifact!
Thank you, I was not the only one who saw it.
OK, I’ll bite: What is it?
Ask Halo, she held something very similar, and used her power to examine auras. Although Dairyon B Tarpley can also give you a clue
I thought it was the Spine of the Cosmos at first but that only has one point.
Yea, I *ahem* only collect the latter … uh … two or three. Faces are important! Too.
Oh yes, we’re all convinced now that your computer has only reference material.
Whoa whoa whoa! Is that a mini Dead Space Red Marker?!
Whatever it is, there was one in the closet of magic items that Sydney hid in, within the Twilight Council’s chambers.
Vale seems very excited about her new … toy.
OK with that pause my mind went to sex toy which puts a new light on her expression.
One thing to keep in mind is that “coincidence”or “random chance” can be more powerful (and a heckuva lot weirder) than we tend to give credit for. We look at coincidences in Hollywood all the time, and chortle at the sheer unlikeliness of it all (“A hundred random strangers on that train, and she picks the ONLY person who happens to be a detective / spy / whatever …”, etc.).
But the fact is that far crazier stuff than this happens and has happened. A lot. So, that Sydney and Deus just happen to unknowingly miss each other by a mere city block after each has traversed the Galaxy by radically different means …. Yep, I have no problems whatsoever with that.
Especially when the pure randomness can be taken out of it.
Had Sydney called up a star chart of the galaxy and thrown a dart at it, to pick her destination and Deus had done the same then the only mitigating factor might be whatever area such a throw might tend to hit by accident. And with a galaxy target even that gives a vast degree of variability.
But Sydney picked the previous travel waypoint for the prior owner of the orbs. Those being found on Earth it is likely that a common stop-off point, on the way to Earth, used by anyone wishing to learn about local conditions (be it atmosphere/gravity/customs/laws) or to pick up technology/currency to blend in with the natives (the Veil protects native supernaturals, but alien ones typically have to use their own disguising technology).
Whereas Deus is likely doing the same thing in reverse. The place that most aliens come via, to get to Earth, will be the area where he is most likely to have acquired contacts or made deals with off-planet aliens. Or simply will be the place where humans may be viewed with more tolerance or just have aliens who speak English or other Earth-languages.
Though you do run into a little statistical issue that there are probably two-to-three orders of magnitude more city blocks on the interior of an even vaguely urbanized Dyson sphere than there are stars in the galaxy…
Good point. But that is self-correcting, because of that very problem. Anyone wanting to do a particular type of business will go to the blocks where that is clustered. Spoiler for next page: Sydney is clearly in an area which does cater to sex tourism, supporting this. For instance Soho long had the reputation as the area in London to go. And most big cities will have a recognised ‘red light’ district.
Tourists going to the Dyson sphere will likewise want to know which area to go to if they are intent to continue on to Earth. Presumably the previous orb owner chose their arrival point for such a reason (albeit not necessarily for seedy reasons). And Deus’s arrival seemed to be at an authorised entry point (it had security features which they did not seem to set off alarms or countermeasures getting past). So it is reasonable to suppose it is an approved arrival point for travellers from Earth.
So being thrown into close proximity within the sphere itself need not be down to implausible luck, merely down to people wanting to associate with others who have mutual interests.
i live in Melbourne, Australia. there is a local Chinese place my family likes to eat at.
one day dad was travelling to Europe, and met the owners of the Chinese place randomly at Singapore airport. life is random and weird.
Vale +20 suden cuteness. XD
PS: Love cameopages.
They can be well hidden.
No, that was a camopage :P
Nice use of zoom out to show where they are! perhaps could of been displayed better with a more unique panel placement but it works well.
LOL, you should hang out with my oldest, he draws almost nothing but cityscapes and skylines… hahaha it is crazy, he hates drawing people
Do I see Maximillian from ‘The Black Hole’? I believe I do.
Yup, having a chat with somebody who has a brain the size of a planet.
Kudos to Foz and Gthulu for calling them out too above.
Now I’m wondering if this Space Dyson Mall has a food court, or even more alien, a space IKEA for Sydney to murder everyone with her penchant for spicy cuisine?
Ooh, if there is one, she should hide in a display wardrobe. She is bound to find a portal to another world. One known to have links to Earth!
IKEA will expand wherever there is someone who might need a cheap bedside table or is hungry for meatballs.
Who says they already haven’t?
Swedish Meatballs I and Swedish Meatballs II
Turkish Meatballs. Although if you know your Shakespeare well, you will not be surprised to find out that they are originally Klingon.
Yes, yes. But I’m sure Chekhov would say the Russian’s invented them first.
You can tell that Chekhov was yanking their chains (which was invented in Russia)
Ahh, in which case, the big question is, what is the tiger doing with his gun? Is he Chekhov’s puppet?
No strings on that pussy…
They are our meatballs now! Introducing meatballs to Sweden was one of the few things Karl XII did right.
Hmm. Seems like I wasn’t the only one confused by the “Too Many Daphnes” line.
It was Time Travel Shenanigans, people!
Though, I’ll admit, my personal theory was Schlock Mercenary-style warp gate clones. I thought they got duplicated accidentally, and figured (hoped) there would be some very confused ARC members cartoon-crashed into the wall behind the portal on Earth
5 billion Daphnies? That’s almost a planet-full!
If she were only a bit more moral, that would be an interesting place to visit. Just, with that and her high libedo, don’t expect to get out of there unmolested.
it would be funny if we find out that the previous owner of the orbs had left a little money in the bank connected to who who own the orbs at that time. and that over years of compounded intrests. she now has a good stash of space money. then she goes to the food court and we hve a repeat of what happen at the restraunt in the begging. lol
It could be a David Webb situation where Sidney gets the resources (possibly even some bases) and enemies of the last user.
Wonder who Adam’s going to kill? Given he only goes tiger when he’s really mad.
You don’t walk around anywhere with your shootin’ iron out, lessen’ you’re ready to kill some one.
Is his other form a German tank?
Panther vor!
Probably someone familiar with Earth literature. The brave/foolish person probably saw Adam in his full battle suit and said “Hey Puss, nice boots ya’ got there.”
he only goes tiger when ticked off? so…he’s a sour-puss
Notice Vale’s face in the first panel there,also how will she and Deus react to seeing Sydney there?
Pay attention, Sydney! You just passed a place where you can get a fresh, extra-hot cup of tea.
Worse case scenario: Sydney has to work at an Alien Strip Club for cash, where she’s at constant risk of been sold off as a sex slave
It’s odd that you say that.
In the early 1960s there was a tv pilot for a comedy/sf series.
A team of aliens (one female, 2 or three males) were sent to study Earth.
(One of the actors was from McHale’s Navy. The tall one?)
Anywho the female was the team leader.
The gag was in her society she was considered unattractive.
Here on Earth she’s gorgeous.
And this was decades before 3rd Rock.
SO…..
Going by panel 2, those women are sort of ordinary?
Sydney may be considered exotically attractive?
Now that I’ve put down my phone and now using an actual PC,
I see that that was Carl Ballantine.
Because the show was never picked up as a series
it isn’t on his IMDB filmography.
First panel: I see Interlac!
“Mariet District,” I think?
(For the uninitiated: the written language of the 30th Century in Legion of Super-Heroes.)
Oh, duh. Market district.
It could be ‘Marroitt’. They seem to be everywhere.
Vale you put that the fuck down right this instance!
Awww… maybe it only make tiny toy creepy alien things that tries to eat the other toys.
Whelp.. there goes my hypothesis from the ptevious comic that Deus got Fracture’s coordinates from Sydney after she gets back to Earth…
That may be why they ended up in the same small area, even though The Fracture is a large place.
Unless, of course, time travel is involved.
Although the author’s blog kind of eliminates the option.
“because Amazon still had its head up its ass concerning Michael-Scott Earle’s books”
Anyone want to give me the background on this? I know that book series isn’t on Amazon, but what’s the story?
It’s a long story and I don’t know much about the details. I think part of it was something about page counts being manipulated via font size alterations (not sure if MSE was doing it or not, heard conflicting reports on that, but several others were and Amazon decided to crack down on it) and that that somehow affects either marketing or metrics or payout through Kindle Unlimited, I dunno. Amazon haven’t publicly said what the problem is which doesn’t help.
And I think the sticking point now is that MSE needs a proper publishing company if he wants back in and he can’t be self-published on there anymore (probably some policy changes to crack down on the thing I mentioned before – make sure people stick to the proper guidelines). I think he tried to set up his own publishing company for it, but since it was blatantly still him effectively self-publishing they didn’t allow it.
I’m not an author, so I don’t know this for a fact, but I from read about this (and I’m not saying MSE did this, I’m sure Amazon has many ways to screw people over) one problem is that some authors were manipulating page reads in Kindle Unlimited by putting a link in the front of the book that jumped you to the end of the book. KU works by using the farthest point in the book you’ve accessed as a measure of how many pages you read, and by jumping right to the end it makes it look like you’ve read the entire book when you really haven’t read any of it.
Your monthly KU payment gets distributed to authors based on what percentage of the pages that were read were written by each author. So by making it look like you read the entire book when you didn’t, that author’s page count got inflated and they got paid more than they deserve.
Thank you for the information, I was curious about those details.
I can understand Amazon’s stand on this (even though their lack of transparency and heavy-handed procedure are not good), but what I don’t get, is why the books are removed not only from KU, but also from their main/normal shop. I stopped using KU, which I find too expensive despite how many books I read per month (since many come from other sources, and some of the series I read were not available at the time tested it either), and, as such, I have actually bought many of M-S E’s books, but I can’t get the new issues, because they have been completely removed from Amazon’s catalog.
This is stupid, honestly. Removing them from KU because they have a feature that makes Amazon possibly pay them more than they deserve, okay, but if people want to read the books by buying them, Amazon actually loses money, there… :-7
Hmm… I don’t recall Adam having posture that bad. :P
Then again; if he was standing up straight then his head would be out of shot.
Anyone else notice marvin from hitchhikers guide in the background of the last panel?
in the Hitchhiker’s guide movie, there’s a point where we see the Marvin from the series in line, waiting.. I had thought that was an awesome touch
DaveB, my only critique on the Tamer cover art, other than ‘rawr’, is that since they now have a stone shaper the spearhead probably wouldn’t have that chipped flint/obsidian look to it. But know you were going for the dinosaurland look.
And you are right, they do seem to have a mad-on for Earle’s books on Kindle right now. The only ones listed are the Audible audiobooks.
Speaking of MSE, if you are making covers for Tamer 7, could you perhaps link us to where tamer 6 can be found????? May amazon KU burn in hell…….
It looks like this place has enough gravity they don’t need enclosure. I expect the assumption is, most people will travel by space ship, and the remainder will be able to force their way in regardless and they don’t want the casualties.
That is handy for the shop pumping all the smoke up into the air above then.
I wonder how they would handle anti-air pollution laws in a place like that?
“What do you mean ‘pollutant’? That is our air, you damned clear-air breathing speciesist!”
Oompa Loompa Doopity Doo
We’ve serviced and fueled your spaceship for you
Oompa Loompa Doopity Dix
Your bill is eighty seven credits
and thirtyseven subunits
Grunka lunka dunkity daceship,
We have completed repairs on your spaceship.
‘ You expect us to sing? what do you take us for, Oompa-loompas?’
(looks at amount being paid, plus tip)
‘ Okay, Guys! Key of G!’
Vale is excited as she has found her new “ahem” nighttime toy
where is Master Sargent
Master Sargent Halo is here. But Corporal Halo is in panel 3.
I’m waiting for the:
“Scoville?”
“Deus?”
“Scoville?”
“Deus?”
“Hmmm.”
“Hmmm.”
“Hmmm.”
“Hmmm.”
[Vale thinks to herself] “Oh for the love of Zpharddeck.”
1 result (0.25 seconds)
Did you mean:
Sephardic Fairy Deck Phonedeck Zephyr Deck
Search Results
Web results
Grrl Power – Grrl Power #680 – Fancy almost bumping into you here
grrlpowercomic.com/archives/3009
4 hours ago – [Vale thinks to herself] “Oh for the love of Zpharddeck.” fairportfan.
November 1, 2018 at 8:37 am | # | Reply. I thought those were the Bettys…
No, double “d”s are silent in Oosgillian. [insert bust joke here]
(inserts bust joke) *POP*
I thought those were the Bettys…
I understod that reference.
(Captain America meme gif)
That Cat-humanoid could be Tiger Claw from thet 2012 TMNT Series.
Unsure about the women:
No clue on teh Brunette
The higehr blonde could be Jack from ME 2/3, just based on the tatoo. A bit too much hair for her however.
The two not quite even twins could be Mirranda and her unaugmented Twin Sister from ME 2/3.
Pretty sure that’s a Kzinti, as pictured on the cover of The Man Kzin Wars, volume 1, sans helmet.
Why is that one blond holding her hands apart in a “this big” gesture?
Humanoid tigers, not as big as you might think…
bipeds loose out, I’m afraid. For practical reasons, I guess.
I like the second panel. Obviously a big fan of Michael-Scott Earle (I’ve really enjoyed that series as well)
Maximilian from Disney’s Black Hole, classic BBC HHGttG mini series Marvin the Paranoid Android, a wyrm from MiB… also is that a Kilrathi?
No, Adam – from Star Justice. You may recall a recent vote incentive of a mock-up Star Justice book cover featuring him.
Ah… just seeing so much 80s and 90s scifi stuff threw me off and had me thinking Kilrathi (not pathetic looking enough to be Kzinti)
I was thinking about the inside of the dyson sphere looking like space/night, but that would be the most familiar to everyone. Daytime sky and sun coloration might vary wildly and anything “arty” could be hated by a vast percentage of the population. Yeah, stars are the safe choice.
Shouldn’t it look like a sun, in the middle? Or a pulsar/magnistar if Sydney called it right.
Must be an artificial night sky.
The inner surface of the Dyson Sphere is probably partitioned for different environments. It probably even has multiple levels to comfortably accommodate natives of higher- and lower- gravity worlds.
I’m pretty sure that’s on the outside of the sphere. The inside would be where the power is contained (all that radiation, radioactive particles, hot gases, etc.)
But wouldn’t they fall off?
Let me guess you are one of those folks who pretend that Australians don’t have to use velcro on the soles of their shoes?
they don’t. their feet are like hobbit feet
:)
Wrong continent :P
Ozites shove their feet up the arzes of baby crocs (Crikey!)
No. It’s the inner surface, and I’ll tell you for why.
Despite being huge, the mass of a Dyson Sphere is too spread out to provide anything like enough of a gravitational force.
Because of the Sphere’s huge radius, the Sun’s gravitational force is also too small.
Due to conservation of angular momentum, the Sphere rotates. This generates a centripetal force which easily overcomes the combined gravitational forces by several orders of magnitude.
So, if you are on the outside of the Sphere, you experience a resultant force away from the centre and, if you’re not tethered, you float off.
If you are on the inside of the Sphere, however, that same force pulls you toward the inner surface of the Sphere (i.e. away from the centre).The surface of the Sphere pushes back with equal force, and you experience artificial gravity a a result.
If Sydney etc were on the outside of wherever they are, it could not be a Dyson Sphere, but would more likely be some closely-fitting shell around a celestial body with a more hostile surface.
Naw, it’s even easier than that, they use the pulsar’s gravity and just reverse the polarity.
Be glad the sky isn’t full of floating billboards.
Kind of surprised she’s not being inundated with ads now.
Kinda thought that since we see the ships going into/out of the stargates that we were looking at the outer surface, under some sort of transparent dome arrangement. Given the output from the two open ‘ports’ to the pulsar/magnetar, figuring the inner surface is only habitable to species that are comfortable ‘walkin on the sun’.
Careful you don’t get a “a href=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQj–Kjn0z8”>smashed mouth :P