Grrl Power #689 – Customs conundrum
Sydney obviously already knew that her orbs were high level loot, but now it’s confirmed she has a matched set of God-Tier artifacts. Or maybe they’re… Ragnarok Tier?
But as seen on this page, that can cause some problems for her in the right environments. Let’s be honest, it’s a “my suitcase full of money is so heavy” kind of problem most of the time.
Basically you can’t take advanced tech to a lower tier civilization. There rules are really specific based on each world, it’s probably pretty exhausting going through customs there. The biggest restriction is polluting pre-FTL civs with FTL tech, because the general belief is that a race has to earn that particular milestone… and survive all the particular challenges that civilizations are presented with on the path to deep space travel. The post-FTL civs have their own tech rules and hangups. Some have religious problems with vat grown meat or… holograms. I don’t know. Religion can be weird that way. Other civs have corporations working on the latest game console and they don’t want alien game consoles with quantum optical chips beating them to market and tanking their stock. I mean, imagine if an alien civilization started selling their own cars with an inexhaustible power supply on Earth. The automotive and oil companies would be done, and the world economy would be fuuuuucked.
Actually, forget aliens. If a supervillain wanted to fuck the world economy, all they’d have to do is sell cars that ran on water or something. Doctor Doom made a time machine in Fantastic Four issue… I don’t know. Two? That dude could legit make cars that got 200 miles to the gallon or that ran on banana peels, Mr. Fusion style. He could do that in his sleep and just own the civilized world in under a decade.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
HEY!!!
It’s Florence and Sam!!
WHOA! They are closer to Earth than I thought their story line describes them to be.
Well not too sure about that, they haven’t as far as I can see stated how far the port is from Earth or even their planet. Personally I am surprised to see Sam not being chased by a mob. Maybe he already brought them ice cream?
Maybe Sam isn’t being chased because he bought Sgt. Schlock ice cream…
What makes you think that fracture station is close to Earth?
In Florence and Sam’s universe the planet they are on isn’t far from Earth (galatically speaking). That said that distance doesn’t mean anything here (outside the joke) since it’s just a cameo like Schlock.
OH! Missed Helix. He’s there, too.
Helix, Florence and Sam are easy, I want to know who’s in the 4th panel.
A Sphinx, a ranger (sword, wolf head helmet, and animal companion), a yian-ti or naga, and an archer maybe? They last one is slight enough that I’d guess elf in that context.
Within the context of D&D, the Yuan-Ti tend to opt for scimitars, not straight blades. I would think, therefore, that that silhouette is a “lamia” – A formerly human creature cursed with a monsterous form that comes with a boundless appetite and little enough self-control to wind up devouring its own children.
It has, sadly, become almost synonymous with the naga in modern times, despite its more interesting early renditions as things like a locust hivemind, and was previously shown to be Dave’s preferred term for snake people. Something which I am against, since it means less spice-related puns in the comic’s future.
Or, alternatively, what Noname says but that doesn’t give me the same opportunity to stretch my nerd muscles over subjects tangential to my interests.
https://www.schlockmercenary.com
A short webcomic for you to read.
Short is a poor descriptor but it is an excellent read XD
There’s only been one update a day (probably slightly less) since 2000, by most standards that’s not a significant amount of time.
There was one every day. He didn’t miss one since June 2000. It is the one of the longest web comics, in run time and content I have seen so far.
Even when the server farm hosting the site had a transformer melt down and blow a hole in the wall the comic STILL managed to update that day and not all that late either. Now THAT’S reliable.
He’s got a huge buffer so that helps, also he’s doing it as his only full-time job so that also helps.
Since Cora can scan through aetherium gates to find out where they go, now would seem to be an opportune time to go someplace quiet and figure out where all of the gates on Sydney’s bookmark list actually go to.
One Theory which just occurred to me is that the orb’s were lost when the last owner of them was playing around with this feature and accidentally managed to go someplace that they couldn’t get back from for whatever reason. Imagine going to planet and getting stuck for some way or other and dying, because Sydney isn’t Death Proof. And it could have been something inane like a mosquito bite or a trace vitamin deficiency that made them forget how to operate the orbs. Imagine a caveman who might have bonded with these previously accidentally going for the PPO before the shield.
Sydney is also not protected from death by old age either. Perhaps the previous owner tried to find someplace to die where the orbs would not fall into anyone’s hands so they picked an unassuming planetoid in the trailing edge of the western spiral arm. I mean how could they know that the inhabitants would one day discover digital watches
To bad a lot of the people on that utterly insignificant little blue-green planet are mean, and most are unhappy, even those with digital watches.
– DNA
And attempt to treat that emptiness by application of the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd, since on the whole it’s not the small green pieces of paper that are unhappy.
You actually do not know that.
The final sphere is almost certainly a repair function for the “Thing” Possessing the spheres.
Logically the power structure would go something like.
1. Heal Self
a. Restore Stamina
b. Restore Limbs
2. Heal others
a. Restore Stamina
b. Restore Limbs
c. Reanimate
d. Resurect
A. With Body
B. Without Body
e. Alter Body
A. Change DNA
i. Change Vulnerabilities
ii. Change Appearance
iii. Change Species
iiii. Alter capabilities
3. Create Life
a. Single Life
b. Species
c. Universe.
I’m probably missing dozens of steps, but realistically, age and cumulative damage would never kill her.
What could kill her is she gets so busy with multiple tasks that she is left vulnerable to an attack. For example.
An alien wants to kill her, so it spends months or years gaining her confidence. During a crisis Sydney brings her into the shield to protect her. Sydney is maintaining the shield with the assassin in it, she is occupied with saving someone with the light hook, the assassin shoots her in the head. This might kill the assassin, but it would not be the first suicide mission in history.
Actually we do know that. If Sydney was Death Proof then the comic would lose all sense of drama. This is like #1 on the list of things you never, ever do as a writer. So, assuming Dave isn’t a terrible writer… then yes, we totally know Sydney isn’t Death Proof.
There can be pretty good stories about death-proof people. The drama, if drama there need be, can be psychological only in nature. Death of others, mental health issues, and the like. Heck, I think even One Punch Man could qualify.
Sydney IS death proof, at least for several months, as we are in a flashback, and she is the one who is telling her story, and we clearly saw her as a healthy person.
However, knowing that our heroine will survive doesn’t mean we can’t worry about her well-being and being excited about how she solves the problems and the obstacles.
I have to disagree, I am no fan of “anyone can die” stories or “the hero dies in the end” kick in the teeth endings.
I don’t find the prospect of (our hero can’t die) to eliminate drama, rather its the adventure that counts, the escapism, the development of their character, discovery of new things, relationships forged along the way.
One of my favorite Anime of all time (Tenchi Muyo) made it a plot point at one point that even if something kills Tenchi he can just walk back into life. But it didn’t ruin anything, heck, half the cast of this slice of life series are immortal god-beings…three of them omnipotent multiverse makers at that. But the hook of the series is watching these characters interact with each other.
So no, I can do without the *they could die at anytime drama* if I wanted that I’d just look at the real world and not bother with fiction.
Sidney is Death Proof. Without her the story has about as much relevance as a Calvin Klien Ad with Lasers.
at least half the people that just read your comment will be thinking ‘I’d buy that’
I think something bad happened to the previous owner since the bookmark is corrupted. Like if it did not save properly before the owner died or something.
Also it is unclear if Sidney is transported automatically once she open the portals or not.
If not she might not have a way to close them out once open or if they time out.
They should hold out on experimenting until she is back home, get debriefed, some rest and permission from her CO ;)
Might be a good opportunity to test out the presumed “brig/cargo hold” orb if they find one of the system is inhabited later on.
Perhaps the previous owner failed to reduce speed on initial approach and ran into something. Like Utah, or maybe Tunguska.
High enough speed could fling debris a long way, and currents or tectonics could get it the rest of the way to Florida.
Very True. Could be something different too.
We don’t know how the orb record her travel history.
If she look at it now would she see Sciona’s planet?
If the previous owner never came to Earth before how did he/she arrive?
Can she create gateways from know coordinates ?
Does the orb have other FTL means of travel ?
Too many questions still unanswered ;)
Oh crap it’s Sam! Sydney watch your pockets!
He looks happy. Maybe it’s too late.
Nope. Sam wouldn’t normally be that happy if there were still wallets nearby that he hadn’t picked.
More likely, he just scammed someone without Florence noticing it.
Sam is happy. No mob… Sam is pointing.
Sam sees opportunity too steal, but hasn’t had a chance to act on it yet. He’s pointing, which draws attention, so either he’s not starting a heist, or he figures he can swing the heist even under scrutiny.
Schlock, on the other hand, is happy. Must have genuine imitation ovalqwik somewhere on the station. And been allowed in with his plasma cannon and sawed off anti-armor carbines (hint – don’t stand next to him in a fire fight). Worth noting he is not satiated – nobody has tried mugging him recently.
For Schlock that happiness might just be from the ice cream (maybe it’s genuine imitation ovalqwik ice cream?) he got after joining the mob to chase Sam.
Amorphs may look like piles of … ahem, poo, but they can outrun most predators.
Sam, on the other hand, has to worry about being eaten by bunnies, ducks, puppies, etc…
If schlock were in the mob, I don’t expect Sam would survive it (he’s tastier than kittens).
I’ve read his file. It is fat with the blood of kittens.
Also, once the ice cream is gone (ie 10 seconds after frame 1), Schlock is gonna start getting bored. And a little later stuff is gonna start getting broke.
Good time for Sydney to leave, really. Don’t want to get blamed for all that damage.
Good point, maybe he just showed up for the end of it. Or stole it from Sam ;)
This is why the modern interpretations of Lex Luther portray him
as a bilionaire.
I`m sure there’s a TV Tropes that covers this.
It’s literally called .
It’s literally called Cut Lex Luthor a check. And this is called “Locke can’t use tags to save his life.” ::sigh::
One of my favorite fanfics (With This Ring) is at least partially based on subverting this trope, by having an Orange Lantern find all the villains he can and helping them bring their tech to market before their nefarious international debuts.
Updates daily, huge archives, great reading for anyone into superhero comics and crossovers.
Thank you. The long story is extremely entertaining.
I am already enjoying the much more logical take on the Orange Lantern Corp. Why steal when you could just as easily buy? Why use violence to rule the world when half of it could be bought, and the other half manipulated into working with you?
It always drove me crazy how some villains used their revolutionizing tech to rob banks instead of getting a patent and making MILLIONS in the market. CAPITALISM for the Win.
The Orange Lantern also manages to subvert or offend most of the super heroes as well – it’s a long but worthwhile ride evolving the world from classic DC “truth, justice, and no refrigerator logic allowed” to “why aren’t we doing arcane research with Atlantis to develop space travel? Let’s get on that so we can start fixing some intergalactic political issues with ancient races.”
I think its more Crimefighting With Cash, or in Lex Luthor & Deus’ cases Taking Over The World With Cash
So if that little reference about the Aetherium was real…that means the Warp exists.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Also Psykers got brought up. Warhammer is real and that is terrifying.
the good news is that the Warp didn’t truly go to shit until the AelderI Empire fell, which isn’t until the 30th millenium. Indeed, currently even the pleasure cults that spawned Slaanesh haven’t formed, so presumably the Aelderai Empire is merely another high-tech humanoid empire.
The important bit is that Tzeentch and Khorne are around, but not actualyl powerful enough to cause the Immaterium to be the hellish place it is in the 41st millenium. that was caused by the birth of Slaanesh. It’s actually currently reasonably safe, certainly compared to how it will eventually be.
Also this cannot be Schlock. I have never seen Schlock holding food! If he has food he eats it, he doesn’t take it on sightseeing trips.
Especially when Sam Starfall might grab it.
It’s Brown, which means it’s probably Genuine Imitation Ovalqwik Flavored.
Besides, he’s been known to make a steady diet out of lawyers, Ice Cream should not give him any issues.
Maybe Shlock just picked barely it up off the ground and is savoring the anticipation for a moment? He (and other amorphs – squeeee!) have practiced humanoid body language enough to just do some things unconsciously.
You’re forgetting something.
Schlock has friends. Lots of friends who eat stuff like ice cream cones with a cherry on top, and Schlock has been known to bring them gifts, including gifts of food…which he does know has to be carried by hand to his friends, because they don’t like eating his regurgitations (which can be quite dangerous if he hasn’t properly chemically rebonded all the toxic or radioactive stuff.)
… it can’t be Schlock because that would mean Fracture can be targeted by long gun.
Nitpicking…a little. Just call it proofreading please!
Panel 3. Shouldnt it be “causeway” with an “e”?
Absolutely no offense intended!!! LOVE the comic!
Alternate spelling.
get a replacement for your translator at the information kiosk. Obviously that’s what’s wrong here. :-^
Whoops. Should have caught that when I was fixing the inconsistent spelling of atherium right next to it.
I know it’s just cameos, but DAMN it feels good to see Sam, Helix and Florence! (And Schlock, of course!)
But if what is being said about Aetherium Causeways is true here, it seems Sydney’s Bubble has a built-in Gellar field.
Well, of course. It can keep Dabbler out. No Slaaneshi daemons getting in there.
Cavemen with Space Guns sounds like an excellent name for a band.
And this is why the comments section needs an upvote mechanism, so expressing agreement or encouragement doesn’t require an additional post.
electric guitars with amps that dial up to 11 ARE indistiguishable from sonic space guns.
“THIS QUIET OFFENDS SLAANESH! THINGS SHALL GET LOUD NOW!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYKUa0iREwE
Not to be Picky, but Schlock is way in the future of earth, so unless the temporal continuity is way more flexible than is functional, I think we have a serious issue here.
BTW : Score on calling Sydney and potential Minor or perhaps even Greater God.
How do you know it’s Schlock? That could be any old carbosilicate amorph.
I could claim Occam’s Razor, but there’s a better explanation.
Off of Schlock’s home planet there does not seem to be any sightings of Carbosilicate life forms other than Schlock. If we assume they would, when not trying to eat each other, actually get along and want to spend time with others of their species, then we can also assume that Schlock would have encountered others of his species? Chemistry? Odor? Others like him.
As he has not, we can assume that he is rare if not singular in his traveling space among his species.
These are a lot of assumptions, but they follow logic.
So, that is Sgt. Schlock, majority owner of Tagon’s Toughs having traveled through time approximately 1000 years in the past eating Genuine Imitation Ovalkwik Ice Cream.
And you have to admit that would be on the normal side of anything having to do with Sgt Schlock.
Actually, Schlock isn’t the only carbosilicate amorph to have left his birth planet, usually due to being tricked/abducted by slavers. There was even a story where Schlock meets a few of them who gripe about the ridiculous abilities people expect them to be have due to the writers of the cartoon starring Schlock taking big liberties with facts :P
Ok, Ya got me on that one. I keep trying to tell people I don’t have a photographic memory, people keep ignoring me.
Still, I’m betting on Schlock, and that means we have a time travel issue.
Carbosilicate amorphs, while rare, are indeed seen off-world, and are a bit miffed at being represented by cartoon-Schlock. See also: Shafter’s Shifters during the “Massively Parallel” storylines.
The other ones are one eyed. Schlock has two because of his origin story.
Can the gate security actually determine what the orbs are though?
They’d pretty much have to ask why they’re unable to scan them…
And the fact they can’t be scanned is enough of a reason not to let her through a gate to… anywhere.
Are gates considered FTL, and if so does that mean Earth qualifies thanks to Deus?
One person having the technology does not make a society prepared to join post-FTL community. They know that.
Remember, Dabbler also said they’d have to drop their xenophobia, first. I imagine that’s on top of having the tech freely and readily available, and perhaps some semblance of one-world government instead of all this stupid geopolitical division by powermongers.
Well we saw Deus on Fracture a few pages back, so clearly the gate operation is FTL, but I suspect you mean “does Deus using a gate qualify?” I’m pretty sure Deus is leveraging his connections to get off-world tech (in this case the Brane Ripper), rather than having invented gate tech in-house, so I doubt his operation qualifies as far as the rest of Earth goes. A smuggler bypassing the legal (cultural?) process does not negate it.
God damn it, this comic needs more fan fiction. I can’t find diddly squad about it barring one lime commission by Dave on Deviantart, and even that is disappointingly short and lacking in sheer detail. :\
Well I was going to write some, but even after all these years I have felt we havn’t seen enough of the feats of some of the characters, or spent enough time with them to do it any justice…other than maybe Sydney, possibly Maxima but I feel DaveB has been keeping something in reserve for her.
I’d hate to have another *instantly bad fanfiction* moment where just one strip or one episode totally debunks everything.
-why its so much easier to use characters from old and very long run series for fanfic like Superman, Spider-man, or Goku. (as well as having multiple versions of them with slightly varying personalities so your version doesn’t feel totally off).
“Diddly Squad” would be another great band name.
There actually WAS a guy who created a car that could run on water. The car companies poisoned him during a meeting.
True
Urban Legend. Until it is proven, it is purely conjecture.
Amazing conjecture, yes. A man who could have derailed the world’s most potently billionaires winds up dead before he can get his product into action. Of course it was simply an accident. It’s not like people go missing everyday under similar circumstances across the world, including in America. That would be silly, and therefore that means it doesn’t happen.
Now picture the most sarcastic damn voice while staring directly at you.
the bigger issue with this myth is if one person can figure it out anyone can and there is no reason why it doesn’t exist somewhere. things don’t exist because the one person made they they exist because the laws of physics says they can exist and humans stumble across them.
While in theory this makes sense, in precedence it is flawed reasoning.
Oil, metal, electricity, all these things existed long before humans came along. Humans existed for how many thousands, tens of thousands of years before they ever managed to build a combustion engine?
Innovation isn’t simply a matter of the physics and materials existing, but someone coming along who can figure out, or reason based on past steps of innovation and invention, to produce them.
Its like saying, so what if computers were invented, someone would have invented anyway no matter what. When we know this isn’t a given, especially with how many things nearly prevented them from being made.
It undermines the great scientists and thinkers of the past who explored and experimented with the physical world to learn its rules and create. It is not a given that plastic would have been invented, or refined tools for building better machines, or closed circuits, or CPUs.
You can indeed run a car on water. Sorta.
Fill the gas tank with water and drop in a couple of acetylene carbide tablets. Acetylene gas will be produced and the engine will run. But it will knock like fury and its life will be short. Also acetylene carbide is way more expensive than gasoline.
Doesn’t pass the fridge logic. Oil companies, maybe; car companies, no. It would just mean that they got to collect the economic value of all the gas that the car would have used. More profit.
Those are called ‘boats’.
Of course, the rules of narrative being what they are, Sydney’s now going to run into Deus, realize he’s getting around this prime-directive-expy and asking him exactly what he thinks he’s doing.
“I’m not an expert in interstellar law, but you’re quite likely right, Miss Scoville. But you aren’t asking the right question.”
“Oh? And what do YOU think is the right question?”
“Why is a uniformed member of the United States military enforcing upon a United States citizen treaty law to which the United States is no signatory or the laws of a government which the United States has never formally recognized, and the effect of which in either case amounts to an embargo upon our fair nation?”
“I… hadn’t actually thought about that.”
“And additionally this member of the military is authorized to operate and use force domestically. Why I’m sure that hundreds of millions of Americans would just be chilled to think of all the many, many hypothetical alien laws which the military might choose to impose upon them in their own homes. And if they can’t imagine such hypothetical laws, well, I’m sure I can imagine them for them, and point out the perils to American liberty of such a policy being embraced by the military.”
“Okay, it’s not my job to enforce it, I guess.”
“But then it’s not actually military policy, but rather the actions of one rogue service member, still a recruit in training, who the military could easily disavow and court martia-”
“I get it! I SAID I GET IT!”
It’s a law for aliens. Humans can develop technology and explore all they like.
also, I’m fairly sure I read somewhere that it was specifically Starfleet that was bound by the Prime Directive.
I’m a little slow today. Would somebody decode “FGG’N” for me?
FGG’N the Yeah Awesome version equivalent to the last panel of:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/197
Fucking scored! :P
Your universal translator has a parental lock on certain words?
Sydney got lectured heavily on moderating her language while around civilians, so as to ensure that Archon members are viewed in a positive, friendly, appropriately polite-little-souls way by the people around them…whether or not they are part of America. (It’s called Good P.R. Behavior.)
Are these bullets not hyper-civilization? Think about it: 1000 years of intergalactic exploration, leveling and fights between players. And Sydney thrown into this game.
For all that it’s common to assume that it would wreck economies and villainoous corporations would stifle the tech for their own profit, the truth is, if you could sell an infinite-energy car, it would make the economy EXPLODE in wealth and productivity. The knock-on effect of figuring out how that energy source worked would be even stronger.
There probably are short-sighted companies led by fools who don’t understand that controlling the tech by being at its leading edge is how you maximize profits, who would instead try to do the “easy” thing of suppressing it, but they will inevitably fail unless the tech isn’t really as usable as those who accuse them of suppression believe it to be.
Once it’s discovered, word gets out, and people will develop it in parallel if the inventor isn’t choosing or allowed to produce it, himself.
“Don’t give a cave man a gun” is not quite the same as “don’t give a developed, industrial society energy sources.” And I suspect “don’t give a cave man a gun” isn’t nearly as reasonable a rule as people tend to assume. It depends, of course, on whether cave men are as intelligent as we are, but merely ignorant, but if they are, then they’ll figure it out in useful ways. There is a tremendous arrogance to the Prime Directive-like rules that is very comforting to those who are on the “we must restrain ourselves” side of it, but the truth is that people who are less technologically advanced than you are not necessarily too stupid to use things wisely. That comes more from culture than from technical development or education.
The rule should be: “Don’t give violently expansionist empires weapons far beyond their neighbors’.” Not unless you want them to become dominant. (Note, though, that it’s quite probable that it won’t stay just in the one group’s hands. And few are stupid enough to drive themselves to mutual destruction rather than figuring out better modes of conflict-resolution and ways to survive war with the weapons at hand.)
In short: the slowness of technological development isn’t what prevents tech from destroying its inventors. Sudden introduction of new, advanced tech does not automatically ruin a society. It will change cultures, as tech always does, but there is nothing magical about the “natural” course of societal development “without interference.” By that logic, no cultures should ever interact at all. At any tech level.
Cavemen, to the best of my knowledge, had a similar level of inteligence but rather less knowledge. Between their harsh lives and a lack of predecessors to work off of they didn’t know all that much, but on the whole they weren’t stupid.
“And I suspect “don’t give a cave man a gun” ”
Check out a movie called “The Gods Must be Crazy, where a primitive tribe finds a Coke bottle.
He he, a classic, haven’t seen that in ages.
Oh, you can give cave men space guns, just don’t tell them what the ‘RED BUTTON’ is for.
IIRC the idea is supposed to be that it’s less thinking that lower-tech empires are too stupid to use it wisely as thinking that the more advanced empire is too stupid to figure out who will become aggressively expansionist if given space guns. Hence why it’s a limit on providing tech, not “destroy them if it looks like they’re developing this tech”- and also why the Prime Directive goes out the window if some numbnuts has already given the local Hitler nukes. (it’s one of the main exceptions- if someone has already provided the local assholes significantly better weapons, you’re allowed to provide the others with the ability to defend themselves)
Pretty sure thats one of the ways Tony Stark made one of misfortunes, selling Arc-Reactor powered cars for all intents and purposes, tho I dont remember what he called them.
The most certain way to mess up the world economy would be give every adult (and orphan and emancipated child) a backpack-sized replicator that’s capable of converting granite or sandstone into clothing, pup tents, personal heaters, nutritious food (including iodizing), and clean drinking water. (Sandstone-to-cordon-bleu-chicken is harder than sandstone-to-dose-of-favorite-drug; iodine is the most extreme element that humans need, so sandstone-to-silver would be easy)
Poof!
Capitalism and Communism are dead, as are most of the reasons to sell people. While barbers, hairdressers, and the nails-and-face crowd (cosmeticians?) would remain valid, the rest of the world would have a hard time adapting.
Sanitation & plumbing could still be a major problem…and squeamishness if your “solution” to biological waste disposal is to feed it back into the system.
Medical needs will also certainly still be a huge industry, unless the recplicator can repair biological tissues with minimal fuss and suffering.
…Mind you, I’m still all for the equivalent of Basic Income..but I can also see the rich trying to destroy the poor having these machines & the accompanying happiness.
Additionally, people will need education (the machines won’t be self-repairing, will they?) …and ways of expressing their individuality.
Oh, and by medical needs, I am including psychological counseling. A lot of humanity’s problems stem from difficulties in both empathizing with others & expression compassion for those others in direct & actually helpful ways. (“Thoughts & prayers” are about as helpful as a Bible or other religious text to a man in desperate need of a triple bypass, stat.)
The Riverworld series had a similar device, looking like a lidded bucket, called a Grail. Food for an entire day, with accessory packs. And only THAT PERSON could open their grail.
Some of the nations along the river still managed to impose “grail slavery” where the thugs in charge got their choice of YOUR STUFF because the grails only worked on grail stones. And grails could be taken away.
Read an SF story built around this premise. Money became worthless. The new currency was … slaves.
So the golden throne .. orbits S. Scholfields head ?
If her travel Orb is so powerful, wouldn’t that suggest her pewpew Orb either has sufficient firepower to count as a WMD (possibly equivalent to the Death Star) or has special features that are of equivalent power, like some kind of dimensional effects like Sting from Worm or Ragna Blade from Slayers?
The orbs have their own version of the prime directive. The basic functions are unlocked at the start, but the user has to earn the right to use the higher functions. This keeps things like ‘I wonder what this button does?’ from happening to newbies and blowing up their own planet.
Except the PPO is already at WMD levels. WMD are judged based on their effects against human beings and how many can it kill in one operation. I recall killing more than 5, or more than two in different locations not close together (and again I don’t remember how far apart “not close” is but I remember 10 meters as part of it). Think of the devastation wreaked against the small fighters during the run up to the Kaiju battle on the last planet.That’s WMD and then some.
By that definition a hand grenade is WMD.
“If those orbs of yours…”
holey SCHNIKEY, all I can think about or see are HER orbs, yaknowwhatimsayin?!?!?!
O.O
I am quite certain that they would HAPPILY let Sydney travel to her home planet of Earth if she explained what she had, simply because the best problems are ones that want to keep themselves as far away from you as possible.
The problem is opsec – it would be very bad if people who could not be trusted discovered exactly what she had and exactly where she was from.
I wonder if Cora would let Sydney pick up a small souvenir, since she apparently isn’t as much of a stickler for customs. Say maybe a universal translator. The information boot ones might not work off of the station, but there might be others available. Even if reverse engineering is impossible, having one of those in the ol’ utility belt could be useful. Of course Sydney might not think of that and Cora might not want to give Sydney more alien tech than she already has. Dabbler keeps her tech to herself after all.
Oh, she’s taking back some of the hyper-spicy seasoning for sure.
Well it’s not that far from what aps like Google Translate are doing and it’s where they’re heading, so no, it wouldn’t be a major paradigm shift for Earth.
Sydney needs to be more paranoid.
She has pocket sized atherium causeway tech. Which nobody has. Why not? Also how many civilizations with their own armies and governments won’t decide “ooh,, shiny orbs. Must take’’ Just takes a KEW in the middle of the night to ruin anyone’s sleep, and in theory the orbs will need/want a new owner.
Also – causeways won’t be the most exciting tech the orbs have
KEW = Kinetic Energy Weapon?
Given the tech level we have confirmed here, this means the Air Orb has some frightening capabilities.
It is likely now an exotic particle localizer.
-takes exotic particles *neither mass nor energy*, using an atomic template guides those “hyper mass, neutral mass, dimenscerny, subpossium MB not a waves, ect…” to take on the desired particle and energy wave forms desired, and chains them to produce the desired materials (Air) for instance.
-in some series a similar system is used to defy the conservation of mass rule to make things grow giant or morph mecha limbs and the like *exotic particles are gathered, localized, take on the properties of surrounding flesh and material, and boom…instant Hulk, giant Apocalypse, super robot that regrows its limbs and enhances them because the pilot’s strong spirit, ect…
Okay, so with this reveal, Is Sydney now moved up a notch or three on the ArcSWAT Power Level chart? I mean, she can see things no one else can see, do things no one else can do and is bonded with devices having near god like capabilities that can fit in her pockets. I think this would move her up to Maxima’s level 9 Penultimate if not a 10. Hear that Sydney? You are now a “TEN”…in some considered opinions.
Sydney probably still can’t beat Math in a fight where she gets to use her orbs freely.
Oh and, everyone on the team is stronger than Sydney. Nor do they lose fights to limp noodles like Sydney has.
Give her some time to build cred.
Step 1: Shield.
Step 2: Light hook.
Step 3: Tentacle-slap at him for five hours until he gets too tired to move. Yeah, it’s boring, but shorter than a DBZ fight.
1: jump close enough the shield goes around him too. (if others can do it, it’s fair to,assume that Math can too).
2: light hook’s trapped outside the shield. Oh noes.
3: trick halo into breaking her fist on her own orbs.
Take about 5 seconds.
Yeah, but she’s a POG.
There is an argument that Supervillians actually do the Super Crimes for one of two reasons.
1. It’s entertaining. When you can predict the plot and outcome of a book on the first page and have already achieved billionaire status you probably don’t have all that much to look forward to. A little mayhem may just be an advanced chess game to you.
2. They think they are the good guys. I’ll give you an example. Two groups of people after the Apocalypse come across a hospital with a life saving drug in it. Only one group can have it, they both have an immediate need, and there is not enough to share. Both groups, looking out for their own welfare are going to see themselves as heroes, no matter how many of the other group dies in the process.
A less extreme event is as suggested above. Let’s give everyone clean abundant energy that can never damage anything, does not create pollution, and costs nothing! That sounds amazing. In a year the economy of the planet would collapse. The intention to do good, would probably kill millions.
“2. They think they are the good guys. I’ll give you an example. ”
I’ll give you a real example, Adolf Hitler, he thought of himself as the hero.
That actually is a good example. There was a movie in which a student assigned to write a paper on a civil rights activist wrote it on Adolph Hitler.
Finally got around to watching Look Who’s Back, a comedy in which Hitler suddenly appears in modern Germany. He starts trying to build up a following, but everyone assumes he’s a method-actor comedian doing political commentary, and he ends up as a TV show host.
Some very, very funny moments – some of which are completely over the line in any other context, but as the show is German-made and is lamp-shading Hitler, it actually works, and towards the end the movie actually discusses this in modern political context. Very well done, thought-provoking satire.
I remember another German-themed story that attempted to bring someone back to the present. A music lover in the 1980s cloned Mozart from the DNA in a hair sample. He wanted Mozart to write some new classical works. Mozart back in the day had a reputation as a rebel. Instead of creating more operas and such, he fell in love with the anti-establishment movement of the era and started his own punk band.
Aliens bringing a new energy source and causing economic havoc is a variant of the Luddite Fallacy. Replacing hydrocarbons as a major energy source wouldn’t cause economic failure. Firstly, no sector of the global economy is reliant on the direct production or refining of oil products to such a degree it makes up a notable portion of the economy. Second, oil has uses in other sectors, like pharmaceuticals and construction.
Where any meaningful disruption would occur is in the following ways:
1. The aliens don’t bother to tell us how it works and disappear on us.
2. Governemnts attempting to stimulate and bail out affected sectors to maintain donor bases.
The second is like how GM is an anchor on the US economy, Americans wanting productive resources on subsidies of an inefficient industry trying up valuable resources that could be used on better things.
The first is the real issue. Imagine we get a device that broadcasts near limitless energy in a sphere ranging out a bit beyond the maximum lunar orbit. This replaces all terrestrial power stations and batteries. 40 years goes by and, suddenly, the thing breaks. We have no clue how it works and every bit of tech we have stops. We can’t go back to old methods as we demolished power generators and wiring along with the industrial support base long retooled to produce other things. Anyone who knows how to design and construct a gas turbine plant is long dead or nearing death, assuming they survive the chaos of planes dropping from the sky and all technology ceasing to function.
This isn’t even hypothetical but a very real thing Europe did to West Africa, so we know how damaging it can be. In the 1980s, aid agencies went around remote villages installing water pumps so village women didn’t have to walk 20 miles a day gathering water from rivers (villages form a long way from water to avoid mosquito borne illnesses). Things went well for a while. Crop output increased and populations grew now that women weren’t spending all day walking with buckets of water.
10 years on, pumps started to break. No one knew how to fix them and famine started to set in. Social order completely broke down since village women no longer wanted to go get water from the river, assuming anyone even knew where it is since it was a decade since anyone went and rivers change course. People began dying in large numbers due to starvation, disease and violence. All because a water pump they couldn’t maintain was installed.
Ok, adressing the impact of the entire energy sector bbeibbeing put out of work.
If we can depend on the technology bbeibbeing above our understanding then, yep we are hosed.
If we can’t or do not need to build it then the jobs would disapear not convert to something new.
There are only so many jobs for running power lines and only my so many buildings to run them to.
If we limit rhis to only the oil industry then thebpeiple working on oil rigs are out of work. The transportation companies tthey depend on are bankrupt. The catering companies tthey depend on are bankrupt. The safety eequipment companies have a major hit on their income and are probably bankrupt.
Because wwe cannot build the power sources, batteries are made faster than ever. Sadly rhis would result in an environmental apocalypse. Those things are nasty.
The toy and computer industries wwould collapse because thw major use of oil would go away causing tthe cost of plastics to skyrocket. Canabis would step up to replace that demand, briefly until famine really sset in.
Medicines are gone.
Food preservation, gone.
Modern medicine, gone.
And due to the cannabis and ecological ddisasters combined with the loss of oil you would not be able to paint your house.
Just saying.
Aliens bringing a new energy source and causing economic havoc is a variant of the Luddite Fallacy. Replacing hydrocarbons as a major energy source wouldn’t cause economic failure. Firstly, no sector of the global economy is reliant on the direct production or refining of oil products to such a degree it makes up a notable portion of the economy. Second, oil has uses in other sectors, like pharmaceuticals and construction.
Where any meaningful disruption would occur is in the following ways:
1. The aliens don’t bother to tell us how it works and disappear on us.
2. Governemnts attempting to stimulate and bail out affected sectors to maintain donor bases.
The second is like how GM is an anchor on the US economy, Americans wanting productive resources on subsidies of an inefficient industry trying up valuable resources that could be used on better things.
The first is the real issue. Imagine we get a device that broadcasts near limitless energy in a sphere ranging out a bit beyond the maximum lunar orbit. This replaces all terrestrial power stations and batteries. 40 years goes by and, suddenly, the thing breaks. We have no clue how it works and every bit of tech we have stops. We can’t go back to old methods as we demolished power generators and wiring along with the industrial support base long retooled to produce other things. Anyone who knows how to design and construct a gas turbine plant is long dead or nearing death, assuming they survive the chaos of planes dropping from the sky and all technology ceasing to function.
This isn’t even hypothetical but a very real thing Europe did to West Africa, so we know how damaging it can be. In the 1980s, aid agencies went around remote villages installing water pumps so village women didn’t have to walk 20 miles a day gathering water from rivers (villages form a long way from water to avoid mosquito borne illnesses). Things went well for a while. Crop output increased and populations grew now that women weren’t spending all day walking with buckets of water.
10 years on, pumps started to break. No one knew how to fix them and famine started to set in. Social order completely broke down since village women no longer wanted to go get water from the river, assuming anyone even knew where it is since it was a decade since anyone went and rivers change course. People began dying in large numbers due to starvation, disease and violence. All because a water pump they couldn’t maintain was installed.
If aliens were in constant contact and trade, The Zygax 11 replacing the PlayStation 4 wouldn’t cause any issues. Humans are adaptable and we’d adjust to the degree our governments didn’t hinder it with bailouts and regulation forcing old ways on us. It’s only if they show up and disappear without telling us how it works would there be a problem.
Replacing Oil as fuel source would of course not directly cause a major issue.
The problem is we would wind up having to replace it as the basis of our technology.
Citing The Car replacing the horse is a horrible argument.
First, by replacing the horse we eliminated a major source of water and air pollution. Horses Poop like you would not believe. Seriously, it’s amazing.
That poop build up in the streets was making city life unlivable.
The runoff after the rains was causing massive fish kills.
It was all around a bad deal, I doubt the horses even liked it.
But the jobs situation had an impact, right?
It sure did. First it takes a lot more people to build a car than it does to raise a horse. More jobs were created.
Second, a car is cheaper to maintain than a horse. More people could buy transportation.
Third, with the cars the ability to live farther from work became an idea. This created the suburbs.
You may be thinking the suburbs ate up the virgin forest…
Wrong.
Remember, the cars were replacing horses that required a steady supply of vegetation. The Suburbs were build on the former farming fields that largely raised feed for the horses that could not be produced in the cities.
As a result the people living in the suburbs planted trees, this if anything contributed to the quality of life and the quality of nature.
But each one of these changes allowed each thing lost to be replaced with something else. Nothing was actually destroyed. Heck, the first cars were hardly more than carriages with engines bolted on. The old coach worker became the Auto Worker.
In the movie Sky High, the villain builds a ray gun that turns people into babies and zaps 99% of the supers into infants to raise them into an army of villains in some crazy attempt to rule the world… meanwhile, if you create a device that could remove 5-10 years off some’s age and you could offer short zaps and they would give you the world with a smile. All without dealing with super-diapers…
I think someone else mentions that the end goal of Syndrome in the Incredibles was to mass-market his super power gear…
Then again, Ozymandias made electric cars, high capacity electric batteries, and a few other high tech options available to the world and it still spiraled into WW3 due to infighting politics and human stupidity… teleporting 100k tons of artificially grown, insanity octopus into NYC was required to stop that building war… so there are some things that technology can’t fix with exploding a few million brains.
This is a common villain trope because people fear change, and fear rapid change most of all. Especially when they get older. Funny enough the current generations (below age 60 anyway) have grown up in eras of rapid technological change so this is why it feels sillier to us vs back when these tropes first showed up. They stick around in media but we roll our eyes now at them vs back when it was feared they’d take over jobs, cause economic collapse, that one man with that power would take over the world rather than share it.
funny thing is we have the silent movie Metropolis to thank for starting this dystopian outlook of technological progress (despite using it mainly as a way to make a different social metaphor).
before then a lot of sci-fi had tech as the savior of the situation not the cause. Super villains using high tech that any reasonable person would market and make money off of was an extension of dumbing down these dystopian movie themes. Namely Ultra Humanoid and Lex Luthor really started this trend that so many movies would combine till we get the weird mixes we have now. Also why so many old movies treat progress as this evil scary thing (take the movie Tarantula for instance: they were just trying to develop a growth formula to make larger animals to eat…why they chose to use a tarantula and it got loose is the dumb part, but treated by the movie as “what happens when you play god”).
Now we just need some cameos from either Axis Powers Hetalia or Scandanavia And the World.
(OK, so I recently picked up SATW as one of my regular webcomics. Sue me. Though I do appreciate Dave reminding me to go through the back archive of Schlock Mercenary, it’s been a decade since I was last reading it regularly and the backlog won’t get any shorter.)
Oh man, don’t OP Sydney!
Too late. Somewhere in this universe, Mary Sue is weeping hysterically.
Until Sydney shakes hands with a universe maker I think things will be fine…and even if she does…maybe she’ll get a ton of anime, merch, and video games made about her…
https://www.funkollection.it/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/zeno-del-futuro-mano.jpg
This all means that there is, or was, some super advanced civilization that made the Orbs. Said civilization would have had the ability to stomp all other civilizations into the ground. Where are they now?
Probably the same old story: they either stomped themselves into the ground or peaced out to another plane of existence.
Watch out for Sam there; I don’t know how he would steal orbs that cannot go more than a set distance away from you, but he would definitely take that as a challenge.
I just remembered where I had seen the thing in Schlock’s hand. It’s the thing the doctor used to detect nannite infections in the bloodstream. Hope he doesn’t stab Sydney with it.
Intruigued by the 6 pink lights between Cora’s shoulder blades. Are these the hard-light projectors for her suit? Auxiliary ones for Alari-style wings? Mere decoration?
The current car company: You have this neat car. We have this world-wide string of dealerships. You will buy us out, for something you can easily deliver and cheap. You mentioned you have cheap transmutation. How about ten million tons of gold, platinum, rhenium, and gadolinium?
Sgt. Schlock has just heard that there’s a human who ate 3 bowls of grakz, and a) he wants grakz too; b) he wants to meet that human, who is obviously someone Schlock would like to party with.
Come to think of it, Shlock and Sydney would probably get on like a house on fire – which is probably exactly what would happen as well.
OK, so the Cast page still has Halo lower in power than Dabbler.
Does this need to be updated?
So… Is having a warp gate of your own more powerful than having a friend with a space ship?
yeah needs updates. Be cool to have a ‘episode sensitive’ version that as you progressed through the online pages would change the pics as well to match. eg so nothing would be spoiled just by checking the who-who page.
Well within reason.
Dabbler has a wind spell. Halo does not. We still don’t know more than a tiny fraction of all that Dabbler can do. Halo has a lot of unknown pips…that she still haven’t got glowy skill points yet for spending upon them.