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.
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I always wonder about that premise of movies/tv series/etc, the idea that if you introduced a high tech that would disrupt current markets, the world economy would basically collapse. The idea is that if you introduce something that makes gasoline obsolete, chaos would ensue.
I think that would be true in the short term, especially in areas like the middle east that depend on oil exports, but people would also find uses for the new technology and an economic boom would occur. Think about it like this, when computers became a thing, a lot of jobs and old technologies went obsolete, and thats an ongoing process. No one makes old style typewritters any more, and the number of jobs ended by computers is in the millions, but, new jobs are created. People figure out how to use new technology and find ways to make money and thus jobs with new tech. If you introduced a portable fusion reactor tech that could be fitted in a car and ran on water, yeah, there would be millions of jobs lost, but it wouldnt be instant. You would first need to make millions of jobs manifacturing the new tech into new cars and not everyone would immediately go out and by a new advanced water car. They would be pretty expensive at first, and mass production would have to gear up slowly.
I guess my point is, unless an alien civ drops a massive autofactory in every city that pumps out consumer goods that outclass everything humans currently have, simply giving a technology would generate an enourmous amount of jobs to compensate for the jobs lost, and the process of switching to the new tech would not be so instantaenous, humans would first have to mass produce the thing, and that would allow jobs lost to phase into new jobs. All the old car makers would switch over to making new water cars, and retool their factories, that would generate so many jobs, and while oil consumption would start to taper off sharply, I doubt the world economy would collapse, though some middle east countries probably would.
It’s like if someone had written a novel about how Henry Ford’s mass produced automobiles would crash the economy because horse drawn carriages would be eliminated.
“Oh Noes! The poor buggywhip manufacturers!”
That was a concern at the time, and some governments like the USA in an extremely rare, likely will never happen again, effort actually went out of their way to insure replacement jobs and setting up an infrastructure for the new technology, like setting up automotive schools so mechanics could exist, building gas stations…this was also around the time they were putting power lines everywhere. It was seen that this new tech wouldn’t just work for the civilians but would also improve defense and the military.
But that said, a number of people did lose their jobs, or have to be retrained in new ones. It always happens after all when an innovation replaces another.
Now while I doubt say introducing Exotic Particle batteries into cars would causes the collapse of world economies (barring kaiju producing side effects of course from exotic radiation exposure), if you were to introduce instant teleportation gates to Earth THAT could cause problems among the airlines, the automotive industries, fuel industries, travel industries *motels, hotels, tourist traps, gas stations, ect…*, and shipping companies (the truck part anyway).
There would be an adjustment period, but the real problem comes down to (certain powerful people will suddenly find themselves not so powerful anymore and not be happy about it), that old song and dance that holds back so much progress.
Introducing instant teleportation gates may affect the airlines, the rest of the industries you mention? Not so much, most of them will barely even notice
Doesn’t matter how cheap the ITG’s would be (to manufacture and run), they would not be placed everywhere (admittedly, they may show up in places currently not serviced, at all or very well, like places that are isolated or not conducive to current forms of travel), and you would still need the other services, like travel companies (which may actually see a boom, now that people have better access to formerly hard-to-reach places), and people will still need places to stay and buy cheap crap (so that means hotels and tourist traps stay)
I think we’ll all be okay, as long as nobody tries to introduce bronze.
The difference is that this isn’t horse & buggy vs Henry Ford’s automobile (which he did not actually invent, automobiles were actually invented about 20 years before he developed the Model T). It’s closer to introducing cars, jet aircraft, and nuclear powered ships to a world where the most technologically advanced civilizations are still Bronze Age.
And that’s assuming the aliens don’t say “this Genghis fellow seems like a fine chap to give a two thousand year tech boost to.” Suddenly, poof, every other civilization int eh world is wiped out.
Yes, Ford didn’t invent the automobile, he simply perfected the assembly line which means they could be mass-produced at lower cost (which is what Elfguy referred to)
Yes, introducing new methods of manufacturing and foreign competition has never had devastating longterm effects on local economies— Just ask Detroit!
And on an interstellar level, Earth is a local economy.
Pretty sure a novel was written about that actually. Unless you’re being sarcastic.
Hell, even the demand for oil wouldn’t disappear, though it would probably drop significantly: hydrocarbons would still be needed for plastics, fertilizers, and so on. It’s only their use as a fuel that would (mostly) end, and that’s not exactly a bad thing.
Suddenly having big factories that produce anything you ever wanted can also be a bad thing. Just ask the Lorax.
Also, unless everyone can immediately afford this new tech, people would still be using their good old gas-powered cars for a long time. There’d be a large dip in like, stock value, and no future for the industry, but it wouldn’t die overnight.
An dramatically more technologically advanced civilization could do that: without the R&D costs or need to work out the bugs of a new technology (because for them it isn’t new) would allow it to be sold at a substantial discount. And they’d probably be able to sell their new tech at a loss long enough to establish a firm monopoly.
Best thread, I am glad someone beat me to this.
I work as a Machinist, 20 years ago (while in I was in High School) we heard CNC machines would be replacing the vast majority of Machinist. This did not occur, except in places that refused to adopt the new technology. Why?? You ask.
Simple, the parts we made became significantly more complicated and were redesigned with tighter tolerances for higher performances. Parts that would have been impossible 20 years ago, I can easily do today. Materials that would have been too difficult to machine 5 years ago is simple with the rapid advances in tooling.
In the 6 short years I worked as a machinist, I have seen a 4 hour long part cut down to 2 hours. Then we replaced the machine, and cut it down to 30min. Because our tooling and techniques are just that much better.
The next few years are super exciting too as they start to use additive manufacturing (3D printing) to make metal parts. It sounds like Aluminum is almost there and Steel is also coming along, but there is a ways to go before it can reach the same level of Precision.
(sorry, I get excited over new technology and metal working)
My interpretation was that Dabbler was using the fuel thing as a transparent excuse and what she really meant was “I don’t trust myself with large scale socioengineering and I definitely don’t trust any of you, there are people who are talking about it but they’ve been talking about it for millennia and don’t seem any closer to having a clue now”
The real problem isn’t the jobs or the economy. The real issue is that introducing tech that is much more advanced than the current tech base causes problems. Give a medieval king a nuclear power plant and he’s more likely to cause a meltdown than figure out what to do with it. Not his fault. The civilization just hasn’t discovered how radiation and electricity work yet. Even if you tell them how it works and teach them the basics of nuclear science they’re not really likely to understand the scale of what they’re working with. Nor do they have the societal structures to handle that kind of damage to the environment. Then there’s the issue that the other kingdoms will be jealous and want the power plant too, or at least want their enemy not to have it.
A lot of our advance as a species comes from things most people shrug at today. The concept of bacteria leads you to hygiene practices and antibiotics. Just handing out antibiotics doesn’t really solve the problems. Oh, it can turn the worst cases into mild or survivable events, but antibiotics will cause symptoms of their own.
Hygiene is the real key, and it’s not a technology, it’s a cultural thing.
People used to wash clothes in urine.
To drink unchlorinated water from the same well, using the same bucket/cup without washing either.
…
Shudder.
Any time someone brings up the coal industry and all those poor coal miners, when pitted against making electricity via solar panels, etc, etc…the solution is simple: Invest in retraining the workers of the previous tech for the new tech, or for whatever other career they could be well-suited to handle.
The two things stopping us from doing this are the willpower of the workers to demand free job retraining, and the willingness of government and/or corporations (who have enough money & resources) to provide it.
Well there IS a third thing: Solar panel technology isn’t good enough (yet) to actually replace coal, gasoline and natural gas in most applications, unless you really want a car that can only move during the day, assuming it’s not cloudy out, and at a maximum top speed of about 10MPH.
That’s… a bit of a myth, about solar panels not working when it’s cloudy
Also, there is such a thing as ‘solar power storage devices’ (most commonly called ‘batteries’)
Show me a battery that can hold sufficient charge to move the car at freeway speeds for 100 miles after sitting in a parking facility for a month.
A current electric vehicle with a solar trickle charger on the roof can do that. It can also be charged during the day in the parking lot where you work, then driven all night. Modern battery tech, admittedly, isn’t the greatest it could be, but is sufficient for the vast majority of people, with the proper infrastructure.
And that trickle charger, it works inside a parking garage? Somehow I doubt it. If you want to replace ALL Internal Combustion Engine vehicles with electrics, you won’t be able to park them all on the top level of parking garages. Remember, I said parked for a MONTH (Like when I fly to Alaska to visit my grandmother for christmas and new years) and then drive 100 miles at freeway speeds when I come back. I can do that with my Corolla, so your electric replacement would need to be able to duplicate that feat to be a real “replacement” wouldn’t it?
Battery technology isn’t there yet.
I’m still trying to figure out why you’d park an electric car in either your home garage and not have it plugged in, or pay to park for a whole month in an airport garage. Do you not have friends or neighbors or co-workers who could give you a ride to the airport & pick you up to bring you home? 100 miles is what I’ve done for friends & family, driving them to & from a major airport without complaint. (It’s what you do when you’re friends and/or family.)
I’m a little surprised you find this surprising? When you were visiting airports, did you notice the signs for long-term parking? The lots are quite large and tend to get pretty full.
I don’t normally ask friends to pick me up, because I don’t live in a big city with an international airport, they live in a rural area. I’d be asking those friends for a lot more than 100 miles, and the landing time is not always a convenient time of day, and the economical time is not always the weekend when they could make a weekend trip of it. It would be absurd for them not to complain. Unless I transferred onto a chartered cessna or something and that’s way worse for me in basically every respect (time, stress, environmental impact, luggage, etc.).
Not to mention that lots of people can be new to a region and don’t immediately have “drive 100 miles for you” friends.
Having said that I tend to use taxis in this airport scenario.
Elfguy’s scenario is accurate however the notion that this is “most scenarios” is something I’d question. Parking your car underground for a month is not most scenarios. The problem isn’t most scenarios, it’s edge cases. Fossils are good for emergency backup power supplies, and airplanes and rockets and those weird scenarios where you’re stranded from a power supply for an extended period of time, or long distance travel. I foresee a future where gas stations are replaced by battery stations that just swap your batteries (like swapping propane tanks for your backyard BBQ), which will be helped by automation technology so it just automatically installs. And *those* can be charged by solar panels and wind and whatnot when the station is in the middle of nowhere because they are explicitly for charging batteries so that smoothes out irregularity in supply. I say this as an avid supporter of nuclear power: this is a great, great case for renewables because all of their downsides are basically irrelevant and all their upsides are centre-stage.
Every industry collapsing has a winners and losers, but this is the right industry to collapse. I’m going to tell you that some coal workers will refuse retraining even if offered, even though it’s the right answer. And honestly, local economics. Even if you can retrain a *person* into a different job, that’s not enough. Unless you are going to relocate them, you also need to “retrain” the location to have jobs available that match the person’s retraining. For a town with a coal-based economy, they won’t exist. Take away the coal jobs and other jobs go away too because they just supported people who did coal jobs and the town income came from coal. Unless you can give the entire town a replacement industry, it will die. And at the scale of this, that’s going to be hard for even the government and impossible for even many very large corporations. It is, however, an opportunity for other corporations.
Or, you can relocate everyone. But that has massive problems of its own. Including lots of people that plain don’t want to.
Doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do but let’s not underestimate the massive difficulty in retraining for dying industries.
Unfortunately the best solution was to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels more gradually when the problems weren’t so urgent. We could do a town at a time. Now we have to go rapidly and it will be a shock to the system.
(I anticipate self-driving vehicles are going to eviscerate the transportation industry in the coming decades, and that’s going to be much more hardcore due to how many people are employed there, even though it’s decentralized because of the nature of transportation so it doesn’t have “dead small town syndrome” — and it’s still better that people aren’t forced to do the labour of machines).
If you don’t have friends handy (or at all), get a taxi or an airport shuttle
Ladyofthemasque‘s confusion was over why would someone leave their electric car not plugged in or in a long-term parking facility
If you know you are not going to be back for a month (or more), leave it at home!!
Parking garages that are free-standing, which is most of them IME and all of them at an airport, have a top floor that is open to the sun. Park up there.
Oddly enough, there IS battery technology that could power a car for a month without it being plugged in for recharging…because it’s a type of battery that does not NEED recharging.
No, it’s not science fiction, it is 100% legitimately real, and the battery power will last for hundreds of thousands of years before going dead.
Before you get your buttocks mega-wedgied, IT IS A REAL WORLD THING…and the reasons why we don’t have it in production are as follows:
1. The battery in question requires being twice the size of current batteries, so it’s very bulky and heavy.
2. It is literally radioactive nuclear waste byproducts that have been encased in artificial diamond. That’s why it has such a long shelf-life.
3. THE BATTERY IS NOT RADIOACTIVE. The scientists who developed this have tested it, and report that the diamond coating stops harmful radiation from escaping. Most people don’t realized this, but a frikkin sheet of paper can be thick enough to stop radioativity from reaching a geiger counter, so yes, carbon molecules arranged in a mineral diamond formation can do the same thing (and be far less likely to deteriorate over time).
4. Diamonds are super-tough…but they’re brittle. So car crashes could conceivably shatter them. It was suggested that the diamonds should still contain and enrobe the radioactive material (the process uses it in carefully milled microscopic-sized amounts, not as a huge lump of glowing death-slag) in the advent of a crack…but that’s an IF.
5. If they can ever guarantee the stuff won’t spill hot invisible death when broken, I’d pay to have a car that runs on that. I don’t care if I’d lose my cargo capacity. I’d go for it! The car would vanish long before the battery power would run out!
That’s not a battery though, it’s a reactor. A Battery is something that stores electricity, but generates none of its own. That generates power, so it’s a mini fission reactor. I would buy such a vehicle if it was available, but it isn’t, and won’t be for the foreseeable future due to the paranoia about nuclear power. We’ll have to wait for West Tek to be founded and start mass producing such reactors.
Rather than diamond, have they tried using Buckminsterfullerene instead? It wouldn’t be as brittle as artificial diamond, though more expensive.
After 20 years in Nuclear Power, I DO know a few things about radioactivity.
1. That radioactivity you say can be stopped by a sheet of paper? That’s alpha radioactivity, a decay product from some forms of radioactive decay. It’s a particle generally consisting of two protons and two neutrons, thus electrically charged (+2). They don’t travel far from the source and are easily shielded.
2. Another common form of radiation is the beta particle, which is essentially a highly energetic electron. Also charged (-1), and while not quite as easily shielded as alpha particles, still no big deal. A foot of air is sufficient.
3. The most concerning form of radiation is gamma. It’s a naturally produced x-ray. It passes through air like it wasn’t there, and it gets produced with just about every reaction that produces an alpha or beta. Gamma rays are the death rays of SF. It takes 4 inches of lead or two feet of water to block 90% of gamma rays (those are called “tenth thicknesses” because there’s still a tenth left.) Gamma is energy, instead of a particle. No mass. Travels at the speed of light.
4. The fourth type of radiation is just good ol’ neutrons. No charge, but the mass of a proton, and they can kill just like gammas. It takes less shielding to stop them, though.
5. These four types are “ionizing” radiation, and they damage cells by depositing energy from collision, absorption, or knocking off electrons.
Those batteries you want built? The right waste products from reactor plants can be selected to minimize the gamma and neutron and contain the alpha and beta. That’s minimize, not eliminate. You don’t want to eliminate them completely, because that interaction generates heat, and what these cells do is generate thermovoltaic reactions, just like a thermocouple. But what makes them heavy is not surrounding them with carbon, but surrounding that with lead (or other heavy metal. Gold works well, or cadmium.)
A big claim, requiring big evidence and cited sources. It’s not worth duplicating this post from the first page going through some of the holes in the claim; any archive-diving replies may as well be consolidated to the one place.
Wrong link. This post.
One massive additional problem with batteries that gas engines don’t have: Charge time. I can put enough gas in my tank for 200-300 miles in 5 minutes. How long do the batteries to do that take to charge? Pretend it’s 30 minutes, that’s still a massive difference.
Unless you invent batt-pacitors (store like batteries, charge like capacitors) that’s got to be taken into account.
Retraining doesnt addtess the fact that there are fewer jobs. For example: Nexflix is worth more than Blockbuster was, but it employs less than 1/10th the number of people. The same with iTunes vs Tower Records, or News Apps vs local newspapers. This video explains ot well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSKi8HfcxEk
Technology advances lead to either less work/more leisure for everyone, or to wealth/power
consolidation. Society has to develope to cope with the new tech. Manufacturing lead to The Robber Barons (consolidation) which lead to labor unions (invented the 40hr week and weekends)
I think it might more be related to the balance of power.
How would an alien race know what a, in this case ‘pre fdl travel’ would do with an enormous shift in power.
Looking at human history, we aren’t really that great when we get a step up, and it might even be misused if given to the wrong individual, or one person might hoard it and use it to dominate the planet.
So many unknowns, better to not do it.
Sorry if i am doing this wrong, i rarely post anything at all.
Can we talk about the plot ?
Does anyone else then me see (or hope) that the following things will happen ?
– Sydney sees Mr. Duce (X-Faxe) and his bodyguard.
– Wondering what those to are doing on that space station just an hour after the Sciona incident and how they managed to do that ?
– Sydney asks Cora or the bases security to confront them without showing herself
– Mr. X-Face shows some official papers of the US gouverment, that he is on a official mission to aquire tech
– Sydney shows herself taking a peek through the gate that the base security found
– finding out that its powered by the same artifact that Sciona stole/assembled,
proving that Mr X-Face is/was not only Scionas partner in crime, but also he broke into that vault with the knowledge and will of the US gouverment
– Sysney arresting X-Face and his BG then going to Earthe via that gate or whatever with Cora and the base security as offical excort
– then contacting her friends at Arcon and her superiors/gouverment
confronting all of them with her knowledge
– secretly having Cora/Dabbler or whoever have that conversation broadcasting that live across Earth on all medias
in order to to prevent the gouverment from hiding these fact and forcing Sydney to shut her up
– Sydney and Archon then have to act againg the corrupt US gouverment
Now thats a plot o would like to see and one that really would be the best plot.
and of course the right thing to do, since i see Sydney mor as an protector of Earth and rightness and etc then as a loyal lapdog.
regards
Eskrador
You will find there a few readers who would like to see that (or similar), unfortunately, that number is very small :(
You are right, there should be more discussion of the plot.
Problem with “figuring the new tech” is that if the difference is too big, people would NOT be able to figure the new tech. It would be just like magic to them. They wouldn’t be able to understand it without someone teaching them all the necessary steps between our technology and the new one. Or without recreating all the steps, but that would take very long and, like, what is the motivation?
So… many… cameos and references…
I see Freefall and Schlock but what are the rest?
I think everyone Is missing the most obvious question.
How did the the sflight orb know about other destinations.
Point 1 Sidney needed to spend a point in flight to unlock the portal branch
Probably because the previous owner of the orbs had the portal feature unlocked, then when he/she/it went to Earth, something bad happened to partially reset the orbs.
Point 2 Sydney needed to spend a second point to actualy get the first portals.
Piont three, this is the first time she has been off world.
How were thoes point programmed in, and if so, why?
Well the current theories are
A: The orbs used to belong to someone else before they somehow ended up on a shallow sea bed on Earth.
or
B: They are to some degree aware and only gave Sydney a starting set of points autoselected based on a scan of her and she has to earn the rest.
It’s obvious that something brought them here to earth. The question is how. After all like I said a while back it odd that fracture station is a destination, so either the station has existed that long, or it was built since the orbs were created. In fact Ironicaly enough, It’s entirely posible the all that Flyball realy does is act like a remote controll for a pre existing fracture/gate network
And no, that in no way means Cora is wrong about the orbs. They may be and probably are literaly are so advanced a technology that everyone at fracture might as well call them magic.
Again, Clarke’s Law. “Any technology sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable From Magic.”
I believe in this case there is another quote that is more apropos.
Maxim 24: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a big gun.
-Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries
With the Shlock cameo that is very appropriate.
I prefer Agatha’s Law: Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from SCIENCE!
https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20081205#.XAbJfM1ReUk
Nothing is preventing Sydney from simply walking through any portal (except those that simply won’t allow a human through) except the Rules
It’s not like someone can SCAN those orbs and determine what they are capable of, is it?
Something Cora stated matter of factly is suspicious in this regard.
Sydney’s orbs would be ALLOWED through a gate because of technological advancement issues, yet everyone Cora knows of doesn’t have tech this advanced. So, what authority is the Fracture exercising in now allowing something above even the current known highest intergalactic government?
So either the Fracture is its self run by an ultra tech entity that exists outside these rules and is itself ultra tech in nature. Or the Fracture is treated fully neutral but could be its self pre-cursor type tech (like the Kylnn in Marvel Comics which many races like the Kree and Xandarians used as a prison, but had actually been built by Galactus near the start of time to imprison beings of the same class as himself).
Not necessarily. It could just be that those running the station recognize that they are just as susceptible to disruption as lower technology civilizations, provided that the technology is that much higher than their own. Or they wouldn’t want anyone else to get them…
Either way.
Here’s a thing to keep in mind
NO ONE HAS A CLUE AS TO WHAT THEY ARE.
Dabler was blind sided by them, aparently no other alien has even commented on them, beyond Scions wondering if she can use them with Syds blood, and despite Syd becoming the local version of a instant celebrity you don’t even see evidence of any of this stations “powers that be” doing more than flat out ignoring her, meaning they either see her and her Rediculously overpowered glowlighs as Mostly Harmless, or they are so Genre savvy that they already evacuated to another reality as a precaution, or there in a Monitor prepare and pray mode. Or the station is actualy running on automatic, and no one can realy do jack squat about it.
That or the “powers that Be” will finaly show up in Thursday’s page.
Yep… it looks like Cora may be the first person to realise just how powerful the orbs could be. Dabbler has only seen their lowest-level capabilities… to her they’re neat, but not obviously far exceeding her own technology. It’ll be interesting to see her reactions once they’re reunited…
So it’s quite possible that they’ll pass screening because nobody appreciates that they’re more than just cool toys…
The only aliens we have seen scan the orbs seemed to freak out about them. If she tried to go through a gate I bet the ‘powers that be’ would then freak out at the pre-transit scan results. So far Cora is the only one on the station who has seen/understood how powerful these orbs are, and even that is only from scanning the results of her FTL travel method.
To be fair the reason Dabbler kinda freaked out at first is because, to all her tech, THEY DON’T EXIST. Dabbler’s scans couldn’t even detect the light they were obviously emitting. The PTBs of the station haven’t freaked because they literally can’t see anything there. Deus and Vale are more likely to be noticed than Syd’s orbs.
To be fair the Squidies were Basically in Kill-Destroy Everything mode and probably reacting to suddenly seeing (From there pov) Sciona and her Amazing friends. They basically dropped a nuke and. . . No One died…I would be a little worried if something like that happened.especially after one of them had something missing in the scan, and especially when it was blatantly missing.
My current working theory is that the orbs are in a sort of auto-repair sequence. They’re NOT at full 100% operational ability due to whatever happened to land em where sydney found them. Only partial systems operational – level ups, while coincidentally timed – are really just directing the next system to fix.
Its repairing circuitry and data behind the scenes, and stress-testing what does work is beneficial to the process, but it does need pilot input when break points happen.
the order of restoration is interesting too. Life support, sensors defenses, weapons, propulsion. Exactly what would happen if a stranded ship needed to get home. Keep the crew from dying, see where you are, keep the crew from dying to external threats, weapons pre-emptively and finally get under way.
One day, the ‘minor’ less urgent systems like linguistic interpretation’s going to start working, and sydney’s gonna flip.
If nobody has this kind of tech, I’m suspecting something incredibly ancient – possibly even biblical – or something far future.
Well if we go all Star Ocean or Overlord *or insert preferred the universe is really a game setting*. We could see the orbs as artifacts from a previous version of the game that somehow survived the set change; some part of an older player character class.
-on that same note, having Supers be the descendants of player avatars (hence so many verities of powers yet specific physical traits). Kind of like the “God-kin” of Overlord whose ancestors were the players who got trapped in their similar offshoot world. It is an interesting concept to explore, (we are the descendants of the gods)…and the “gods” were just player avatars, bodies artificially created with power boosts, stats, and special skills; but as the program (the world) was designed to be ever lasting and self expansive to keep players interested, they kept the NPCs and the player avatars the same fundamentally so the players ended up parenting children among the “NPCs”; creating hero classes among the NPCs.
Okay, Sargent Schlock has got to be my favorite background cameo in this whole story arc!
With that look on the good sergeant’s face, its clear that something is about to be exploded, eaten, or bathed in!
Or all three…
Could be he’s just there to make friends.
Schlock’s moral compas has 4 points to it…
Between this and the orbs having strong resistance to magic and seeming designed around countering it a little. I would suspect not just ultra-tech but magi-tech civilization (where most civilizations couldn’t tell it apart from magic)
like say a civilization that has design towers or obelisks that can manipulate the raw multidimensional disruption potential of a given gravitational body to grant the locals the magical abilities.
-and I don’t mean, like what we’ve seen here by crafting spells, wide range sigils, and the like. I mean like making it so doing those things is even possible. Like literally making magic exist, why using certain words or symbols would even do anything *the multidimensional phenomenon interface matrix program is designed to react to user codes with a range of possible modifications the users can create*, to such an extent that most magic users on a given world would think that magic is just a natural thing that exists and only those who have studied it for millennia and peeled back the layers of “why it works the way it does” discover that the basic power source its self…the primal magic, was being manipulated with hard set multi-dimensional reality warping code.
Of course there are simpler to describe examples of tech at this level,
soul cores (simple looking orbs that channel unlimited energy and can manipulate life and magic around them), like a golem core except it exists on multiple reality planes at once, can’t be destroyed, and can be aimed/programmed to adhere to certain materials and build bodies around its self via a Soul Grafting method. Basically an insane level version of a golem core.
not sure if the Ju-el dimension bomb counts, (dimension bombs are basically explosives that collapse multiple dimensional layers at once, designed to fight against ethereal life forms and multidimensional entities like eldritch abominations where physical attacks would only push it back into another dimension to lick its wounds…the Ju-el like to be precise on eradicating threats to the empire), but their explosive is the size of a sugar cube and can be left behind in a safe spot on a planet and detonated from another reality if need be.
The Genocide weapon of the Suihrai can link the genetic signatures of a target using the extremely precise level of dimensional imprint signature of the specific genetic sequences *life sign detector only it can detect all of one type of cell if need be*, normally meant for medical purposes *target all of a bacteria in a body* the Suihrai designed a wide scale version that could…oh…detect every blood cell in your body…or you…or everyone in your family…or…your entire species…your entire phylum…and so on…basically they could one shot you…everyone you know…or exterminate an entire species so long as they have the DNA of that species on file to aim at.
-forbidden tech,
Remember the level-up system. These orbs are from a civilization of hyper-powerful GAMERS!!! They are probably randomly scattered across many universes and are the biggest entertainment industry of their culture. XP and unlocking might well be based on how much up-voting the player’s adventures the viewing audience of the creators give them.
Yeah, been pushing that theory that its a toy from some insanely advanced civilization that got dropped on Earth by accident.
Let’s just hope the beings that made the orbs take better care than the Amana of my multiverse whose interactive virtual world (Inferverse) ended up spilling its magic and enemy NPC monsters into other realities thanks to a glitch. (Nothing so frustrating as learning the Demon King of Vampires that has threatened your world for centuries was just a mid-boss from some ultra advanced species game and they can just spit out a shut down command instantly/not a threat to them outside the game despite being a threat to lower dimensional beings).
Sure, but I think the big challenge for the ultra-advance civilization is entertaining the population, and that sending stuff like this orb set out to be found by primitives is intentional, and is probably the basis for a huge gambling and soap opera industry. Sydney has got to be a gold mine for whatever media company sent out that set of orbs!!
Hold on one cotton pickin’ moment!
Did Sydney just FAIL TO CUSS at the end there?
AND replace the potential swear with a shortened sound effect?!
Well, points to the PR department because they must have gotten SOMEthing right somewhere along the way!
Sydney’s swearing rants are a result of her being angry. In this case she was happy, so no rant.
“nobody has technology like that”
areyousureaboutthat.avi
Sydney thought she heard ‘NO ONE has technology like that.”
Cora was actually making a reference to the ancient and highly advanced “Noh Unn” civilization that had colonized much of the galaxy thousands of years ago.
It makes me question a few things.
for starters the vault on Earth if a lot of that might be tech contraband.
and another if the Fracture and portal generators are even from this generation of interstellar civilizations.
-in some series a lot of the really advanced stuff ends up being from a precursor civilization.
Portals (Star Gate), (Babylon 5), and even (Star Trek) and (Farscape), portals, wormhole tech, and the like all came from the Ancients, First Ones, mysterious precursor species. Granted for Babylon 5 some of the youngest of these first ones ended up being major players in the plot.
in some warp drive systems that the ether dive and such were discovered in ruins belonging to the mysterious and long gone precursor civilizations like in (Outlaw Star),
in such cases different species just found them, reverse engineered them, and were lucky to locate the MacGuffinite that powers them.
Sydney, Sydney, Sydney, it matters not how powerful you balls are, if they are in the hands of an easily distractible hairless monkey!
Ask yourself this: “How did these oh-so-powerful orbs happen to be found wherever it was you ‘found’ them?”
Forgot something –
“…hairless monkey who barely understands what they are capable of!”
making a car that ran on solar and water would be relatively simple.
[ citation needed ]
Simple? Perhaps if you are looking to make a car that uses sunlight to boil water to operate a steam pump and moves about 10 inches per hour. Making a solar powered car that performs as well as a car powered by an internal combustion engine, not so much. Particularly at night. Or when it’s cloudy.
I raise you this entire wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_car_racing
Love the Schlock cameo. One of my favs…..though I have to include Grrl Power in that list now….in the top 3 easily.
BTW, as an Alaskan I have to put in a plug for you to check out the Whiteboard by Doc Nichol. I keep expecting to see a polar bear in a black t shirt and shades in the background…
re polar bear … Oh, Doc from Whiteboard (docs machine)? I also favor ‘Girl Genius’, ‘Peter is the Wolf’, ‘Pawn’ was fun
Seen too many disappear or go ‘cold’ this last year.
Pawn’s returning.
I have been waiting for that, for years!
Your drawings have improved a lot in the past years, but somehow I miss the more goofier Sydney, she was more cartoonish.. Dont get me wrong, these drawings are georgious, the colors great, but I dont feel the style fits the comics so well as it did in the past… The story is still great and fun! My five cents! (And what do I know about comics art? ;-) )
Actually, Sidney might be able to just walk through any Gate on the station…
We don’t know how old the fracture is… It could be many Millions of years old,
current civilizations may simply have inherited the thing and have no idea who built it.
And if the orb Makers and the fracture builders are the same people,
then Sidney might have automatic supervisor authority over the entire thing…
( and isn’t that a terrifying thought )
which also may explain the world killers reaction…
they recognized the tech even if it’s far beyond them,
KNOW who the orb makers are, and it scared them out of their little genocidal minds.
also, all those little fighters that they sacrificed? they probably knew they had no chance,
they were just intended to distract her and keep her busy, while they prepared
their actual attack strategy.
Actually, we don’t know that the squidleys were genocidal. They may have been enacting a last ditch doomsday attack in an interstellar total war which they didn’t start.
When Sciona was with Deus they had the good / evil discussion, and Sciona’s admission there could be construed as confirmation of what Dabbler said about the Alari.
There is probably nothing physically stopping Sydney from walking through any gate, just like there is (usually) nothing physically stopping someone from leaving a building through a fire door
This whole “Prime Directive” thing is an artificial pact, usually enacted after seeing what happens if it isn’t followed
They need a “too powerful to be restricted” category, where they just wave you on through because no one can use or duplicate your stuff in any case, no matter what their tech level.
I was thinking this too – what’s to stop Sydney just porting past security and into the gate, or at least a half-step in front of it? I doubt the ETSA agents and their body scanners have the power to stop her, even if they could detect the orbs.
I do like the Warhammer 40k ref about sacrificing a thousand psykers…
Hey, a webcomic reference I actually recognize!
I remember a panel someone shared of, I think, Spider-Man telling Sauron if he could genetically engineer people into dinosaurs, he could cure cancer. His answer “but I don’t want to cure cancer I want to turn people to dinosaurs!” That’s one of the problems with comics you’ve hit upon though. The technology some villains have could make them immensely wealthy, and powerful. If they’d just think of alternate uses for it that being a villain.
Of course, I also recall Aberrant RPG’s “this is not the…Superfriends” rant in I think the player’s guide and noting “Whoever wrote this is like twenty-five years behind comic books and even comic-book based cartoons!” when it was written made. It made me believe their exposure to the media was limited and they probably were the wrong writer for that book, especially for that rant. However, it turns out even though people given superpowers in Aberrant’s world could change the world, be rich, iconic symbols for advertisers, whatever for millions of dollars have power in the government, etc. etc.
The end result is that due to exposure to comics, cartoons–and now movies, is that people when given superpowers have the urges to do one of two things. Do good, or use it to become rich RIGHT NOW. Rather than say waiting a week for contracts and such so heroes and villains.
Yeah, that’s called ‘being Human’
Hey, first panel, second silhouette from the right, that centaur looking person in the back with horns or… Eye stalks, perhaps? That wouldn’t happen to be an Andalite, would it?
I think I see an Andalite. I vaguely recognize the rest.
Sydney has technology no one else has.
There are now multiple alien civilizations willing to kill Sydney, and everyone on Earth if necessary, to get that technology. (If the news about her abilities gets out.)
She has been DNA printed and recognized as human. She cannot shield the location of Earth.
I can foresee a problem or two coming up…
Another issue, the unknown aggressors of the Alari world seemed to recognize her orbs.
We could be looking at a Shadow/Vorlons situation, or at least a (allies of the Shadows) situation.
’’…seemed to recognize her orbs…’
I’m thinking the thought process may have simply been: “Objects, with a psychic presence but no optical presence. Paradox, no technology or artifice can do this. These represent a direct threat. Destroy or capture immediately.” ?
Alternately … “witnesses! Silence them!”
Or … “there must be NO survivors!”
Or even … “she reveals her teeth and hides her palms, a clear declaration of war!” Quick, destroy her before her war mongering it kills us all!”
We can make guesses about why the squidleys attacked, but that’s all they are – guesses. It’ll probably take dialog with an informed party to figure out the cause of the attack.
Is that an andilite in the background of panel 1?
Woo! I love the Freefall reference! How did Sam, Flo and Helix get here I wonder? They were headed to earth! XD
Not headed to earth – from the conversation Sam had with Tex of Tex Tonics (makers of soda, fine China and tectonic plates), we learned that the folks patrolling Sol had ‘shoot on sight’ orders for Sam.
When did that happen?
Besides, they are going to visit Flo’s future in-laws (and not on Dirt)
Fairly early in the comic IIRC.
Been reading it for years, forget so much (about everything :( )
Since it was asked, Sam meets Tex here:
https://freefall.purrsia.com/ff600/fv00600.htm
They cover how Tex got into geophysics a few pages later.
Wait, Sam knows Tex? …oh, not that Tex.
*Disappointed*
Oh yeah, remember the ‘little’ guy now
I’m disappointed to see Sam in Panel 1 and yet she still has all her orbs in Panel 5 …maybe he substituted a fake though
I see a Carbosilicate Amorph, and I am greatly amused.
Thank you so, SO much for the Sergeant Schlock cameo! ♥♥♥♥♥
DOGGY!
Good thing there aren’t too many androids around.
I spy with my little eye, a sphinx.
I see a griffin.
Where? Griffin’s have the head of an eagle, not a human (or a Trump, seriously, that head looks like Trump)
I, too, am wondering if the tauric critter in the far background of panel one, between Schlock and Sydney, is an Andalite.
……..FOR THE EMPORER!!!!!
Stay out of the warp sydney… it’s full of must not be………
and a little disappointed, 3 pages and only this reference to the 1000 psykers…
Oh and “For the Greater Good”
A thousand psykers….
Hmmmmmmmmmm
Glory to the God-Emperor of Humanity!
Death to the xeno scum! (After being brought back to Holy Terra, of course)
screw the oil companies. we, as a race, are running our planet with fossil fuels, viable transportation that doesn’t use it as fuel would be a godsend. I would invest in Doom Enterprises if they had a good non-petrol dependent vehicle.
As soon as the West Tek microfusion cars become available, let us know.
That ‘prime directive’ guff is just guff. There’s logical justification for denying people better tech, let’s not pretend anyone understands more than a fraction of it anyway and special interests on a more primitive planet can go @~@£$%£$%
Yes… just guffable guff …
Would you like some free ET blankets? (plague fleas included free of charge and free of mention)
Or how about you just hand over all your heavy metals (gold, platinum, anything transuranic) and we not drop a 200 mile chunk of rock into your ocean from orbit?
Want a real world example? The fall of the Aztec and Incan empires.
Dunno how you prevent that in the intergalactic stage without someone doing work to prevent it, and that work may include bringing fledgling species up to the level of their neighbors.
X?
527
94
622
8
#
This of course begs the question: How the hell would any space customs agents have any clue what Halo’s orbs are capable of doing? The “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” rule should apply here. And if it takes capital ships or 1000 dead psychers to “manipulate the atherium” then no hourly wage customs agent, regardless of being at a higher tech level than our own, would even conceive that a set of 7 glowing orbs can do the same.
Soooo…Sydney’s Orbs aren’t just a “functional spacecraft” but the equivlent of a highly-advanced interstellar warship that fits into the profile of one human female for its crew…And a fairly short one at that. The “spacecraft” itself fits into a space just right for Mr Tubey to carry around.
Not only that, but she’s already confronted the Frontline Forces of whatever race that was who have effectively committed genocide on Sciona’s race & devistated their planet…And Sydney has yet to access the full capabilites of her “spacecraft.” Set with a perspective like that, Sydney has the potential to become the Scariest Effin’ Bad’dass in the Galaxy.
…It’s a good thing that she’d rather be a Hero, not a Villain…
Sorry if i am doing this wrong, i rarely post anything at all.
Can we talk about the plot ?
Does anyone else then me see (or hope) that the following things will happen ?
– Sydney sees Mr. Duce (X-Faxe) and his bodyguard.
– Wondering what those to are doing on that space station just an hour after the Sciona incident and how they managed to do that ?
– Sydney asks Cora or the bases security to confront them without showing herself
– Mr. X-Face shows some official papers of the US gouverment, that he is on a official mission to aquire tech
– Sydney shows herself taking a peek through the gate that the base security found
– finding out that its powered by the same artifact that Sciona stole/assembled,
proving that Mr X-Face (Scarface) is/was not only Scionas partner in crime, but also he broke into that vault with the knowledge and will of the US gouverment
– Sydney arresting X-Face and his BG then going to Earth via that gate or whatever with Cora and the base security as official escort
– then contacting her friends at Archon and her superiors/gouverment
confronting all of them with her knowledge
– secretly having Cora/Dabbler or whoever have that conversation broadcasting that live across Earth on all medias
in order to prevent the gouverment from hiding these fact and forcing Sydney to shut her up
– Sydney and Archon then have to act againg the corrupt US gouverment
Now that is a plot i would like to see and of course would be the right thing to do, since i see Sydney more as an protector of all that is weak/ good (not only Earth) and righteousness
and not as a loyal lapdog.
regards
Eskrador
Government pulls Archon’s funding and declares all members of it as Traitors to the US and possibly the World.
Being a Super becomes illegal.
Deus’ lawyer and PR department both get him off and spin it so it appears Deus was working a sting operation to prove Supers can’t be trusted.
Cora and the base security get mistaken as a hostile invasion holding three humans hostage.
Archon tech staff get arrested for pirating the media channels to broadcast a fake story.
It’s not a plot I want to see, because it won’t actually go down that way. Even accounting for the fact that Grrl Power is not set in our universe, (I can’t believe I have to point this out), because that means its governments aren’t our governments…it still won’t happen that way.
First, DaveB said that Sydney won’t ever cross paths with him here at the Fracture. The Author Has Final Say Over Canon Events, even if you disagree with what should happen. (That’s what fanfic forums are for. This is for discussing the actual canon events, so please don’t stray too far off the path, thank you.)
Second, that is not a plot suitable for this webcomic’s subgenre.
It’s a great plot for a much more serious, straightforward science fiction-y storyline.
This ain’t that.
This is Superhero Dramedy, aka Dramatic Comedy.
DaveB’s been doing an excellent job of mixing up the drama and the comedy, and after all these years, I don’t see him veering into Super Serious Superhero Stuff.
Seriously, if that’s what you want, go write some fanfiction about it. Check with DaveB on what his rules are regarding posting fanfics based on his works & be polite enough to follow them (if he has any), if you want to post anything you write online. I hope you and those other few who want this plotilne enjoy your fanfic versions. But don’t expect to successfully use peer pressure to change the actual canon plotline by requesting support for your assertion that the plotline be changed to suit your particular tastes.
Seriously, that is a serious divergence from the genre and the style and the plotline that DaveB has clearly and steadily and consistently been delivering to us. Don’t expect your expectations to supplant them.
(TL;DR: This ain’t your sandbox, so go build your own elsewhere. That’s what fanfiction is for.)
(Fanfiction is awesome for the What If speculations.)
(Fanfiction is awesome for the What If speculations. This ain’t a fanfiction forum, though.)
People have been posting ‘fanfiction’ and ‘What If speculums’ all. the. damn. time! in here
On the way to Cora’s ship they pass trough a more touristy area.
Souvenirs!
Four inch diameter levitating models of The Fracture labeled…
“When you’re here you’re almost there!!”
(Loses someting in the translation. )
“Just passing through”
“Gateway to The Galaxy”
Also…apparently working on the same principle….
Models of planets…one of which is Earth!
The seas, the continents, the clouds in exquisite detail.
Half is darkened, and the lights of major cities are visible.
At this scale it isnt possible to see that it’s animated.
Sydney: I’d like this one please.
Sales clerk: Are you sure you want that one? Maybe you should ask your mother.
Sydney to Cora: Mom, I want the blue one! Pleeese!
What occurs to me is that if Sydney was to just hide the orbs in a tube, sensors would pick nothing up. Then she can go through any portal. Dabblers sensors could not. Nor coukd Specs’ powers. The only person who has been able to see anything special, other than Sydney, has been Krona. Plus its not like anyone else knows she can make aetherium causeways with the orbs
Here’s one question though. I’m assuming the Fracture’s sensors picked up the Causeway opening, but nothing coming through. (It seems like it’s be almost impossible to pick up a 100lb object against the background of space without a beacon)
Anytime you have customs keeping stuff out of a country, you have people seeking to sneak stuff past customs. Reasons will vary… “I uh, need my gold supliments for a medical condition!” “Gold coin supplements, really?” “I can’t leave my pet locust home, he’d starve!” Etc..
What’s not allowed in usually doesn’t care for why someone wants it in, and customs will be trained to spot smuggled items.
Even Archon could figure out that the tube was holding something strange. ET customs will be at least that good.
The issue is that they will see Nothing. Not an area filled with air, gas, light, but literally nothing. and if there is Nothing somewhere then that’s a good indication that there is something there.
Fridge logic moment.
Cora has a ship capable of spitting atherium causeways.
A much larger station that provides any level of security ought to be able todo same.
Wouldn’t the station take special notice of these causeways? Especially any not accompanied by the arrival of capital ships? Implying thousands sacrificed for the visit – surely thousands more will be needed for a return trip – would local population be conscripted for that?
Where’s the mass panic?
I don’t recall anything about her ship generating them, just being able to detect the emissions and determine the destination. Her ship arrived via some other “common” method of FTL.
Defeat by my phone’s auto-clobber. Not sure what Exactly i was typing, but I was aiming for something like ‘detecting’, not ‘spitting’.
“mass” panic? The people from sensors are keeping it secret, especially considering they STILL didn’t find out anything coming through that gate (because Sydney was too small to be picked by sensors on that distance and they are looking for something bigger anyway).
They might have detected the gate, but since nothing (they spotted) came through, they could have just chalked it up as an aborted jump. So no need for further investigation.
The problem in skipping ahead from a tech standpoint isn’t will the new tech quickly or slowly replace old tech, it’s thst there would be no competition because no one will be able to reverse engineer that many steps ahead before the FTL importer has a monopoly.
Sounds like Sydney has an ability many would be wanting to examine, to be able to do that in such a small level is interesting.
Halo, you are the One!
And loved to see the page kick off with two of my favourite comics.