Grrl Power #709 – Para-go-on
Cora has been known to help people just because they need help, but she’s like, 80% Paragon, 20% Renegade, and usually has a slightly more mercenary attitude about how and where she applies her talents. Sydney’s entirely altruistic motivations caught her a little off guard.
Of course, it’s easy to be altruistic when you’re doing it with someone else’s spaceship.
People have brought up the question as to how much help these refugees actually need. Fracture Station probably has homeless people living on it, and it hasn’t been established if there’s any sort of social services or support. The fact is, the administrating government of the station is quite well off, but they don’t want to be too generous with social support, because they’re worried it will attract galactic vagrancy. Their solution is to have a jobs program in place. The docks always need workers, and there’s always maintenance. If you can carry stuff, you can find a job. If you can weld or rewire stuff, you’re even better off.
Basically if you get stuck on the station, you can get a grunt work job until you can book passage off the station. They’re not big on long term indolence.
So, some of these Alari refugees would probably be okay. The ones with little kids like this mom here would have a rougher time of it, and if Cora can take them to an Alari planet, they’ll probably do better.
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Way to go, Sydney!
I wonder if she will become an alaian legend, with how she’s rescuing survivors and slaying titans?
They probably don’t know about the Titans…
But the titans themselves know, and will have legends of the tiny fairy of galactic-sized doom.
Unable to locate tiny galactic threat. Quarantine still in effect. It took only 30 tries to avoid any of the poison words the tiny galactic threat produced BEFORE it ******* ******** to John. Send condolences to John’s family. Terminating communications until the swearing stops.
Sydney’s of course going to talk to them and bring back intel that will probably be useful when dealing with the Sciona and the soul skulls that came through. In turn, killing Squidwad and pal is going to set up some karmic debt the Alari will probably have to fill regarding said soul skulls.
Looks like Sydney may have delayed her return home for a side trip…
Sidequest time!
She’s volunteering for an escort mission?! Good luck with that one Syd.
Just remember, escort mission objectives always walk at the slowest possible pace when it’s safe, and hare off toward death the moment, (or just before,) something aggressive shows up.
Always root or snare your escorted NPC before fighting the MOB.
And haste afterwards to preference.
Not in Skyrim.Unless they are following you, they are either walking too fast for you to follow or you are running far ahead of them.
In GW2 (and probably a few other MMO’s) it give you the nice opportunity of being able to clear non-mission related enemies ahead of time.
stick em in stasis, and jam em in the bars of the back windows and haul ass.
Don’t forget how bad Skyrim’s NPCs are at running away from vampire/etc. attacks. (At least there are mods to fix that.)
In Fallout 76, the ‘escorts’ lead the way, haring straight to their target (even if it’s half the map away), plunging heedlessly through the most dangerous spots on the map. You have to make sure they survive the trip. Fun.
I don’t play Fallout, but in similar situations, where the path is very predictable, (or known), and the MOBs are all pre-existing, my solution is to plow the field from destination to origin, and then let the NPC follow the now empty path toward their destination, while I watch for overlooked roamers and respawns.
She didn’t see the soul repositories. The refugees might not talk about them.
She DID see the ghostly skull things fly past, that’s how she got stuck…
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2910
If she mentions that bit, there is a chance these Refugees might provide some info…
We don’t know if she got a good look at what came at her just before the Portal closed, and highly doubt Maxi or the others did either or they would be scouring the planet looking for them
“What new Devilry is…” *Sydney spots the skulls* “AAH! What the Hell is that?!” *Sydney instinctively shield-bubbles up, stopping her from fitting through the closing portal, bouncing several skull-ghosts away from her which then also slips through the portal just as it closes*
Yeah, she got a good enough look, the real questions are did she get to remember enough details about them and do the Refugees know anything, or are they just uninformed Civilians?
No, she sees something haring towards her, butt not what (note in panel three how Sydney has her eyes tight-shut)
And again, if Maxi and co knew they were Sci-fright and pals, they would be looking for them
Panel 2 of the evidence has Sydney staring wide-eyed at the cloud of glowing flying skulls coming straight for her. She got a really good look, Panel 3 has her shield bubbling and closing her eyes in defense against them swarming around her.
She probably has no idea what the cloud was, but she definitely got a good look at it.
Harem Blonde and Dabbler were also looking at the incoming cloud, Harem even pointed and shouted a warning. Out of the group the two who didn’t get a look at the skull cloud were Maxima (who got knocked over by it), and Hiro as he was already in the portal facing away.
Again, she saw a cloud of something, she did not get a good look at what
You are all ignoring a very important fact: if Maxi knew there was a large group of disembodied Alari on Earth, there is no damn way she would not have every conceivable resource used in tracking them down, and even if she hadn’t seen the skulls, Dabbles would have told her!!
And Sydney shows herself to be a true hero. Rescuing people for no other reason than they need to be rescued. She’s definitely living up to Stan Lee’s immortal motto; “From great power, comes great responsibility.”
I thought it was “With great power there must also come great responsibility”?
With great power comes great responsibility.
Gawain has it correct:
Amazing Fantasy No.15: with great power there must also come — great responsibility!
technically they’re both correct.
Gawain’s version is just the first use of it, but Pete’s said it the other way quite a few times too, specially if he’s helping out a younger hero.
Here’s actually the original form of it:
Luke 12:48 (KJV): “But he that knew not and committed things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.”
Or, as the NLT version puts it: “But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong, will be punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.”
Actually, that’s not the original form. Older in ancient Egyptian – from Nefer-seshem-re teaches that value by example:
“I have left my city, I have come down from my province,
having done what is right (ma’at) for its lord, having satisfied him with that which he loves,
I spoke ma’at and I did ma’at, I spoke well and I reported well….
I rescued the weak from the hand of one stronger than he when I was able;
I gave bread to the hungry, clothing [to the naked], a landing for the boatless.
I buried him who had no son,
I made a boat for him who had no boat,
I respected my father, I pleased my mother,
I nurtured their children.”
*Ma’at in this case refers obliquely to the Feather of Truth, aka “I spoke truth, and I did truth,” the kind of truth that one weighs one’s heart against when standing before the gods in the underworld at the end of life, facing the judgment of death.
…Oddly enough, it’s not about you lying in your life that matters, so much as you lying to the gods about whether or not you lied. You have to ‘fess up your sins, including lying, cheating, stealing, etc…or you get destroyed permanently. Oh, you’ll still face punishments for lying, cheating, stealing, etc when you confess to them…but at least your ba & ka won’t be irrevocably devoured & obliterated.
basically “what is considered right thing to do is what I do”
Actually, I was refering more about this line is where the thought originates:
“I rescued the weak from the hand of one stronger than he when I was able”
A Screaming Skull of Karaoke sounds pretty dope. Any adventurer would love that.
Or metal band. Saves the lead singers voice by doing all the screaming for them.
The screaming skull of Karaoke: Auto equip on pick up of enchanted item. The Mic
Much like the One Ring it randomly drops from your inventory. Orc Rinds anyone? nomnomnom
Those Orc Rinds come in salt and pepper?
Normally salt & vinegar down here, have had a few salt & pepper flavours, just not the same
Slays TM Orc Rinds: Piss and Vinegar Flavoured
Reminds me of the metal bard adventurer band i once read on /tg/
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_Metal_Bard_Band
I suppose that’s sort of what Aztec Death Whistles are…
Had a Mimir like that in Planescape…
Heh, knew that would be Sydney’s motivation :D
That was what she was going to do when she first came across them (after ensuring they weren’t Sci-fright of course :P)
The way she offers her fealty makes me think they may not be better off on an Alari planet. They seam to be the feudalistic slave keeping kind.
Ehh it depends it migth be a temporary thing and there has been fedual countries without slaves: see medival sweden
They way the Alari hesitates, then offers fealty, says that in her society she’d be giving up whatever Noble station she has and putting her at Cora’s mercy. And given casual dialogue we’ve seen, (the Alari have, or had an empire built on conquest and Dabbles thought maybe the Alari had stepped far enough out of line that the equivalent of the space UN had decided to squish them) in Alari society, that’d be a real risk, at least from her perspective. That she did it anyway to help her family speaks volumes about her character.
Fealty / Pledge of Allegiance / Oath of Citizenship, not necessarily a bad thing. Check the small print ;)
The way Corra doesn’t want a thrall says to me slave keeping society. Thrall is the name for slaves the vikings used.
It’s a little trickier than simply saying they were someone’s slave.
Being someone’s thrall meant that they were under someone’s power in some significant manner. Slave, serf, indentured servant, significant debt to work off, and so on.
So in this case it might not be “I’ll be your slave” and more “I will act as your servant until my debt of passage is paid” akin to a serf or indentured servant. The main differences being that a slave has no rights whatsoever and is at the complete whim of their owner. However, a serf or indentured servant does (ostensibly at least) have certain rights.
A serf, for example, can leave the land they work, but that also means that they have nowhere to live and no source of food unless they find another liege to take them in. An indentured servant who refuses to work off their debt or pay the rest off with money can be taken to debtor’s prison and jailed. However, it was generally considered unacceptable to do things like beat a serf or servant or do other offenses against them without just cause under the law (though that wasn’t always held to). Also, for a serf or servant the one they serve is also expected to protect them when necessary, make sure their basic needs are taken care of, and so on.
This is, of course, in the standard custom… though what defines things like “basic needs” was up to interpretation. However, nobles/landowners who mistreated those who worked their land or served in their homes frequently ended up eventually without people to serve in their homes or work their land.
Serfs and thralls might have those things on paper, but it is unlikely that the authorities would enforce those rights, since the land owner IS the local authority.
And, in most cases, the land owner is enthralled to the king (or the local church, who is enthralled to the king)
And the king in turn was enthralled to the pope (which is why it was such a big deal when England made its own church and broke from Catholicism.)
In theory at least. The German Kaiser got the crown a lot of times by conquering Rome and forcing the pope. A few times they had a pope exiled/killed because he didn’t want to give to them what they wanted. In times the bishops where selected by the Kaiser not the pope. What the pope wanted was something to take under consideration and a great excuse to start a war but his power was very much limited.
I thought Serfs “Belonged to the land”, and were rarely allowed to quit it.
This was the original meaning of the phrase “Serf and Turf”.
? o_O
and I wouldn’t be surprised if their owners used them as sources of fuel for blood-magic… maybe even used them up completely…
I bet they’ll love her stories about how she defended their homeworld and took down some leviathans
They may love the planetary bombardment she provoked a bit less.
By the time that the Squids started bombarding Sydney, the planet was already pretty well toasted. Any Alari that can manage to get back home safely aren’t going to see any distinction.
As once quoted from a famous Vulcan, “Any difference that makes no difference, is no difference.” This even stands up to Chaos Theory & the standard “Butterfly Effect” explanation: If that butterfly flapping its wings really made no difference at all at the input stage of weather patterns, then the end-stage would still be no different than it would have been. In truth, the next errant breeze could have easily countered against the butterfly flapping instead of contributing to it, which renders the butterfly irrelevant. In essense,
That Standard Explanation also goes both ways: Instead of causing rain, the butterfly could have prevented rain as well, but the butterfly’s input is so miniscule to begin with that the odds are that the butterfly was irrelevant all along, especially while there are other, stronger influences all along the length of the process.
“Wait. How are cuddles unspeakable?”
“Sorry, can’t talk about it.”
Also, Altus, do you WANT that kid to go looking for the artifact?
Also, where’d Sydney get that jacket?
Depends on what’s doing the cuddling…
Plus the child looks like a boy, Althus is going to greatly regret his choice of words.
On another note, are they taking them to Earth?
Well, I think if C’thulhu projected himself into a plushy-toy of himself as an avatar, he could pull off a lot of Unspeakable Cuddles, couldn’t he? “C’thulhu loves you. He just loves you to death.”
0.o
https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/021/646/671/b1342d212be02182bc7d203371e0a4c5_original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&w=680&fit=max&v=1529518595&auto=format&gif-q=50&q=92&s=984fbf46ea699c4558c5a6216ad168df
gads I hate those long URL’s
Have you seen his Pecks and Biceps, Anyone less than Max would not be able to breath, less be able to speak…
Possibly one of Frix’s jackets. He’s the only person on the crew that we’ve seen so far that seems to wear real clothes. Of course I’d expect something that fits Frix to be way oversized for Sydney’s small frame, so maybe not.
If you look at panel seven, it doesn’t fit
But it isn’t so oversized that it would fit Frix. Looks more like it would fit Cora’s frame. Maybe wardrobe left over from before the hard light clothing?
Didn’t say that it was his, just that it didn’t fit Syd
Still, saved like a boss, or so.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4pn0n_-rM4E
Artifact of Great Annoyance, ooh that’s what Vale could call Sydney when she describes her elevator ride to hell to her (friends?), “And whatever you do, do not get trapped alone in a small space with it!”
Most field uniforms have undershirt, shirt/blouse, and jacket, so I would guess this is the blouse as we say the undershirt in the med room and pool room.
saw the undershirt, saw
With padded shoulders and collar, that ain’t no blouse (and it ain’t Sydney’s either, not the way her hands have trouble poking out)
She had a t-shirt. It had no collar and the arms are way to long for her. I would say it came out of Coras unused wardrobe.
It’s quite possible the jacket’s just a spare set of clothes borrowed from a pile they keep on hand for guests. Maybe it’s a shipsuit (jumpsuit, coveralls, adult onesie minus the cute hood & footcoverings, whatever) like you see car mechanics and astronauts wearing.
It’s like the way people with swimming pools or hot tubs at their homes will often just buy cheap swimsuits to have on hand for guests, in case they forgot to bring their own…which is what my family did back when we had a house with a hot tub. We bought several suits at an end of summer sale, supercheap, things like trunks and one-piece suits, each type with one small, one medium, a couple large, and a couple that were extra large or larger. That way whenever we invited friends over, if they wanted to use the hot tub, they could without having to preplan. Toward the end of our time in that house, a college friend of mine, it turned out her family had a swimming pool atrium built into their house. They, too, kept a plethora of sales bin or secondhand swimsuits on hand for guests to use.
It’s just what you do; if you have the storage room, you keep a few spare outfits on hand for guests. Sydney’s probably wearing the smallest size available in adult, before you get down into the kid categories.
No chance of that: the poor kid looks terrified in panel ‘cuddles’
No, that is definitely the look of “OMG, I can’t wait to Snuggle with it!!’
It is an adorable loving puppy that has a virulent flesh eating bacteria living symbolically in its fur.
“Unspeakable… cuddles?
“There are tentacles, aren’t there?”
“Maybe. Look, I REALLY can’t speak about it.”
I’m more impressed with Altus saying that with a straight face. I now feel the need to add my own item.
The Dark Toothbrush of Eternal Minty Fresh Breath!
The Hideous Periapt of Grandma’s Sloppy Kisses.
The Accursed Ring of Wonderful Blessings.
The Enigmatic Blanket of Reassuringly Comfortable Thermal Protection…
OK, I stole that off Daniel the Human…
One Ring to gently advise them, with minimal interference of their free will.
(This is the actual translation of that line. So much misunderstanding of one little misinterpretation.)
the idea, or the blanket?
Why can’t it be both?
The Eldritch Tentacle Horror of hugs
I wonder if the authorities would do anything about the captains who took their barter stuff and ran… then again, it didn’t say they “ran” as such. It may well be they only gave them some minimal supplies and aide but decided what they’d fled with wasn’t enough for travel.
…Actually… How the heck did they get to the station in the first place? Surely they must have had SOME means of travel… direct portal from the Alari homeworld?
They were probably on vacation while their planet was destroyed and when they got back to the “airport” they had nowhere to return to (and their money was probably worthless now)
The mother had a rag bandaged wound on her leg, strongly suggesting she was there for the conflict (as brief as it may have been) and fled it.
Heh, just noticed the mother is missing her headband from earlier. Likely bartered. Nice touch.
Also noticed that Sydney is starting to look exhausted. Really, it was night time when They attacked Sciona. She’s likely been awake for most of two days.
Daniel the Human here. I’m thinking they were left there as in “brought from Location X (the attacked Homeworld?) then left on this Dyson Sphere”. The items they traded only got them this far. Probably hoping to continue from this place, but the price to get there was steep but necessary.
With nothing left, perhaps they were going to take advantage of the Jobs Program mentioned below the comic, but that would take ages to gather enough funds for the next leg of their journey, so Cora/Sydney’s offer would be a Diety-sent gift to them. Especially when you factor in the longer they spend there the more food, shelter, fluids & other expenses they’re going to need, all of which slow down the saving process…
Perhaps they also couldn’t contact others they know/are related to in all the confusion, so this also gives them an immediate chance to let others know they are alive…
Yeah, was thinking the same thing: everything they had they managed to gather before fleeing just managed to cover the ‘cost’ of the transport to the Fracture
Kinda like what happens with hyu-mon smugglers on Dirt
…the shuttle captains? Who took their valuables?
I read it as they paid for transport to the station and now they have nothing left.
Even taking them to a Alari colony world may not help.
The colony may not have enjoyed being a colony and now it’s free.
It may have been dependant on the homeworld and now is struggling
and doesn’t need more problems.
True, but currently it appears to be the best of the non-optimal options. And getting the refugee’s to a familiar societal framework (even if that society isn’t a comfortable one for us) will help them recover.
Daniel here, seems I’m stealing my Gravatar account back from Screwball a bit tonight…
There’s also the possibility that the Keepers Of The Kaiju ( :P ) aren’t just targeting the Alari Homeworld, but any colonies too. Systematically wiping them off the face of the Galaxy? If so, taking them to another Colony could either mean finding another ruined planet or worse, putting them back in the front lines with an unknown enemy Estimated Time of Arrival…
Getting rescued from being stranded in a foreign location with only a distant chance of returning to your people……only to have the same enemy show up an hour AFTER your free transport takes off? Yeah, I’d INVENT new curses for that situation…
That ‘may’ be happening? It all depends on how the KOTK conducted their offensive. Did they reduce all outlying worlds/colonies first before approaching the homeworld? Cleared a corridor to the homeworld? Just showed up at the homeworld? Strategically, the last appeals most, as that shatters the centralized CnC for the rest of the Alari (insert suitably grand title for whatever they called their lil corner of the galaxy)
But for all of those, there is time for whatever worlds ‘aren’t’ currently getting pancaked to muster a hurried but coordinated exodus.
Not sure what earths policy on interstellar refugees is. I mean they hide aliens under the veil, which suggests they don’t want to admit they exist. Taking in and housing people they would need to spend super bucks hiding?
I do agree that just helping cos you can is a good reason though. A reason that gets far too little use these days.
Off-planet detention on the moon?
Nah, they can squeeze in a new extended family of thirty-seven supers from… :looking at map: …New Mexico who all went through the same physiological changes from having their super-powers activate. Those poor folks had to stay self-isolated for so long, but now that supers are ‘out,’ they can be integrated back into society. What’s that that one drow kid said about space empires? Oh, man, aren’t nine-year-olds great when they start firing off that imagination of theirs?
PS: This all gets paid for in the debriefing. “Look, I don’t know how the space drive works.” “But they work, right?” “Well, sure, they warp space so that the ship goes fast.” :scribble scribble scribble: “Great! Now, when your military wanted to make a Little Boom, what did they use, and what did it look like?” And that’s not even considering whatever makes the alari equivalent of Happy Meals toys tick.
PPS: If they have those, I guarantee that at least one of the kids has the equivalent of a Happy Meal toy in their possession. Or maybe it’s just at the bottom of somebody’s luggage, and nobody quite knows why.
Park them over a silver mine. Blame their skin on that.
There was a community of blue-skinned people in the Appalachians, once upon a time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Fugates
Without a unified Earth government there probably isn’t anything remotely resembling a planetary policy on alien refugees. There probably aren’t any such policies in any of the individual nation-states either because who would have thought a policy to be necessary?
Under U.S. law, and the laws of most other western nations for that matter, they SHOULD be treated as any other legitimate refugees. The law, generally, refers to refugees as “persons” who meet certain conditions. These particular refugees are “persons” so they qualify under the law. The term “alien” just means some one from another legal jurisdiction, whether that jurisdiction is some place in outer space is irrelevant.
But does the law define non human sentients as “persons”? Humanity has a long and shameful history of defining groups of people as “not people” in order to justify slavery, imperialism, genocide and other such atrocities.
https://www.space.com/7044-moon-apollo-astronauts-customs.html
Yes the Good Samaritan thing. Kind of figured it’d go that way after all she doesn’t want to believe that all of her race is like Sifright
I’m looking forward to seeing how Syd explains all this to Max. The debriefing should be epic.
I can just imagine either Dabbler or Max interjecting multple times saying “You did What!?!” And Max telling Dabbler “You should of guessed she would do that”. That debreifing should take sevearl pages.
And Several “She can do what now?” when cora mentions the gateway. And one or two “where did those come from?” or “you cant use those here” talking about the wings.
I will agree. That’s a very good reason, if you have the ability to do so.
I hope she isn’t giving them false hope…
even if Sydney doesn’t know where to take them, Cora likely knows a place.
If you can carry stuff, you can find a job
Good to know that despite the advanced tech of that society, their automation tech is equal to or only marginally better than present-day Earth.
maybe they choose not to use them for the reason to have jobs to offer people to help them out & not be a drain on the station & also not have the “eye sore” of the homeless? (how others would put it not me)
maybe they choose not to use them for the reason to have jobs to offer people
Because capitalism is totally like that.
There are plenty of goods that should not be trusted to automated baggage handling. (Not talking AIs here, but just your standard non-sentient robotic equipment.) Pet animals, plants that have cleared customs (some might be pets!), delicate objects d’art, musical instruments, so on and so forth.
Apparently, the dishwasher was invented because the help kept breaking the inventors crystal.
Then there is this gem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo
Human labor isn’t always better than automation.
And, yet, we, meaning women, still have to wash the dishes before putting them in the dish washer.
Especially around holidays… Elves tend to sit on gingerbread houses.
I recall a line from the now re-running web comic Basic Instructions that described human workers along the lines of being “smarter than a monkey, cheaper than a robot”. Why spend a couple grand on a machine to do the work and worry about maintenance fees when you can hire some shmuck for minimum wage and replace them when they get worn out or uppity?
Why? Because automation is cheaper and more efficient. Probably best to get information from the real world rather than a webcomic specializing in snark.
Because automation is cheaper and more efficient. Probably a good idea to get your information from the real world rather than a webcomic specializing in snark. Just saying.
Because it’s at least anecdotally true? I once worked at a laboratory that spent close to a million dollars trying to automate an agar-filling system for petri dishes. They got it down to an 80% contamination rate. For that same cost, they could have hired a team of four (which is what they eventually did) for $12/hour, 40 hours a week, every week of the year, and only have to pay a tenth of the cost. Who had a contamination rate of 3%. And were either promoted to other duties if they showed enough promise and initiative or were fired before their three months if they didn’t.
The next time you go to a fast food restaurant, ask yourself why they don’t have a burger-making machine if automation is cheaper and more efficient. Why not have automated stocking systems in retail stores? There are a host of job positions that don’t require anything over an hour’s training but won’t be possible without a sapient-level of ambient intelligence to cover complications and the myriad additional tasks that managers love to pile atop someone else’s duty list. The programming behind such chores isn’t time-efficient when there’s already an available alternative.
Unskilled labour is cheaper, more efficient, and with a large enough population base, more replaceable.
Go Sydney!
Go Cora!
Go DaveB!
Why isn’t Sydney wearing her glasses? Is she still in the bath area?
She seems to be outside with them. The thing she is wearing looks like a pull over so it may be a left over shirt from the crew while Sydney’s stuff is being cleaned. As to her glasses. They were broken and the ship’s system might be fixing them. Note she is squinting.
I thought she took them off to look more intimidating.
Dave….Shouldn’t that be “Because they need help.”?
Why isn’t Syndey wearing glasses?
To quote Sydney waaaay back at the restaurant fight: “Nobody’s that blind.”
I know a few people that would contest that statement. One of them has -12 dioptres. Without his glasses he sees not much. On the upside, he can see the bonding wires in clear leds.
Wait… Are you saying it’s unusual to be able to see those???
(Seriously asking there… I wear glasses but I’m not particularly farsighted or nearsighted, such as I can drive without them if I must and I know where I’m going. But I can see things like the bonding wires on those things, and a single burned out pixel on a 52″ HDTV from 10 feet away when I’m wearing my glasses… which is more annoying than you’d think.)
For most people with 20/20 vision, it isn’t as easy to see certain things as it is for nearsighted or farsighted people…but only certain things. For general seeing-virtually-everything, the 20/20 standard is the gold standard for daily life interactions.
When I take off my glasses…I wouldn’t trust me to drive to save my life, or anyon else’s on the road, save in an absolute bright daytime dire death-is-imminent-anyway emergency. (And I actually keep my previous prescription in my glove compartment so that I can access spare glasses via accessing my car interior…and yes, I had to do that at least once.
I got in a fenderbender (not my fault, the other guy turned left in front of me without seeing me coming (moving van in the next lane over; everyone had stopped for a light, and I didn’t notice the gap) so my glasses went flying off my face. I shut off the engine when everything came to a stop, got into the glove compartment for the old pair (big stiff boxy container, easy to see even when everything’s blurry), and THEN found my current glasses down in the footwell.
But I can see things up close when I concentrate that has required others to use a magnifying lense to discern. Not quite reading a microdot (lol, I wish!), but definitely “you can read that??” territory. (I used to annoy my opthamologist by saying, “Yes, I can read that, but it’s still fuzzy, keep going.” …a dozen times before the lenses got to the “It’s actually starting to be clear-edged now” stage. Longtime friend of the family, tho’, so some teasing was allowed)
to further quote Sydney “I take that back. Some people are that blind but they don’t get to be cops.”
But they do get to be referees and umpires…
Uh oh.
“Let us take them to Earth, where I do not know there is the swarm of Alari bloodmage souls are looking for suitable hosts, so I am sure nothing will go wrong with this plan.”
“The FEL Artifact…” FEL, as in Front End Loader, of the tractor type.
or Fiery Exploding Laser
Or ‘Fel’ as in the name of his race
It seems they picked something up when they “encountered” someone/some people called the Fel. Which changed their angle of departure, making them too late to help Sydney go Kaiju hunting…
Thank you, knew had read about the Fel somewhere, just forgot where :(
“fel” …
“Definition of fell (Entry 4 of 5)
1a : fierce, cruel, terrible
b : sinister, malevolent a fell purpose
c : very destructive : deadly a fell disease”
So vaguely, it’s a word meaning you don’t want it happening to you, stay away.” It’s a word used fairly often in fantasy to give a fantasy feel to a danger.
That’s the other reason why it seemed familiar
I wonder if Cora knows about Sciona…!?
I imagine she would, Dabbler would have had to explain how Sydney ended up on the planet in the first place.
I’m calling it now, Sciona will have either a face turn or a truce because of Sydney helping out her people.
She will first have to come up with a new face before she can turn it. According to Voldemort rules, disembodied spirits take several years to save up the down payment for a new body. There are not that many jobs available for them. Most work in things like telemarketing. Sciona will probably get a job in the corporate help desk area where she can keep people on hold for an hour then hang up on them.
Or possess an office clerk. That works too.
Based on past record, Sciona’s idea of a face turn is keeping you as a favorite slave she doesn’t beat as often. And there is a very good chance every member of her race is at low grade war with every other member, making her gratitude even more dubious. But even in that case, these may be the 37 Alari she hates the least, so it isn’t hopeless, just very unlikely.
That’s where my Screaming Skull of Karaoke went.
So we are assuming that the agency of genicide that attacked the homeworld left all other groups alone? Doubtful. The Alari were a space-traveling species. Anyone seeking to eliminate them would know this and plan for it. Any significant cluster of there populatio or power would be annihilated as a threat of resurgence. Take the US vs Russia conflict. Would either be foolish enough to just attack the capital or even just the continental part of the enemy? Those refugees are what’s left of an empire in that sector. Probably no Alari worlfd left.
1945 japan says hi
We don’t know why they attacked, it could have been a decapatation strike to stop any future problems or a case of “if we do this our fortune teller says that this human will do X in a years time leading to Y happening.”
Given how powerful the squids were they might not feel the need to do more than that warning shot.
For the first time since March of last year Sydney is wearing new clothing. It is a good thing she took a batch. She must have been getting pretty ripe.
I wonder if the ‘Scraps of Hope’ orphanage has any beds available?
“… unspeakable cuddles”
I’m don’t think you saved it there, sounds like something straight out of an hentai
Altus doesn’t get a Who’s Who?
I’m kinda surprised at this point that Frix hasn’t already offered to give her “InstaLasic” to fix her eyesight.
The glasses are part of her iconic look. It is a very cute look.
Clark Kent has an iconic look without actually needing his glasses.
Just out of curiosity, it has been some time since Sydney has been on board. While Cora was waiting for the Necronom… rom-com to be loaded, has she contacted Archon yet to tell them that she has found Sydney?
she may not be able to, it took a lot of work for dabbler to contact cora so it doesn’t seem like something they can just leave on.
My read is that she was originally going to say “my body” but hesitated and chose a different word, either out of modesty or because she was speaking in front of the children.
It’s a possibility. That I would not be against exploring…
…Aaaand Daniel The Human is -_- staring at me, so i’m just gonna wrap this up…
Given how racially proud Sciona was (and the implication in Dabbler’s comment re the Xevoarchy possibly doing the damage), I’d imagine that just offering to serve someone else was like trying to choke down a slice of crow pie, feathers and all. Not an easy thing at all to humble yourself and genuinely beg for help, when you’re used to swanning through life being arrogant from privilege & propaganda.
Sciona was probably upper social class.. either nobility or military. these refugees probably don’t have many of that sort with them. probably none at all by my guess.
so offering fealty probably isn’t as tough for them as it would be for Sciona. but the fact that offering to be an indentured servant is considered a viable option for the culture says a lot about how said culture worked.
She definitely mentioned a title at some point, Duchess iirc.
I’m just so disappointed that the Fel Artifact of Unspeakable…. Doesn’t just trail off into Unspeakableness.
I noticed Sydney gave up her wings.
I did a Ctrl-F on “wings” and got no hits, so if I missed one, sorry.
I think they’re retractable.
The Alari mother has a set of fairy wings right now. I wasn’t thinking of Sydney’s bare back, since it’s simple enough to just take something like that off and leave it on the ship. But when I see what look like her wings on another person, who is presently explaining that she is destitute, I assume they were a gift.
Well, a gift again. Sydney didn’t pay for the wings, either.
Sydney’s wings are hologram-tech (they don’t actually allow her to fly), with the Alari it’s probably physical
Okay, the wings that the Alari mother is currently sporting look neither like Sciona’s murder wings, https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2668 , nor Sydneys toy bug wings, with very detailed veins, https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/3048
I still say they look more like the ones Sydney got from the shop than the ones Sciona has.
The Alari wings are actually her wings. Like, all Alari have transparent floating wings. Remember Sciona got hers back?
ok why did the kid freak out with the eyeballs on the word cuddles?
Because that kid is now going to search through the ship to find the coveted “Fel Artifact of Infinite …Cuddles”
And possibly get himself killed when he finds the “Fel Artifact of Infinite Exsanguination”, or whatever it is really called, instead.
…Or get an early life lesson, if the first word DID start with a C and a U, but sounds sort of like “Cunning Linguist”.
Yeah, I don’t think that save saved anything either.
So is the ‘unspeakable’ version better or worse than the ‘paralytic‘ version? This sounds like a question that can only be answered by first-hand comparison! (Don’t all volunteer at once…)
Why not just take them to Earth? I mean, that’s where Cora and Sydney are heading already, and Earth has a system in place to hide the alien aspect of, um, aliens. Plus it is a place where there you can occasionally find social systems in place to help out the needy, and both Sydney and Archon appear to be fairly flush with cash. The refugees can pay for the aid with information on both the Alari and the attack on the Alari homeworld. Plus any other Alari world would seem to be under threat of immanent attack and destruction by the same crew that wrecked the Alari homeworld, making dropping off refugees at any of those a fairly cold-hearted decision.
This is likely the actual plan. THey never stated they were planting them back on the planet. and tht absolutely can’t be the idea. Syd herself left 3-4 “mega baddies” on said planet.
Syd is absolutely trying to take them somewhere–if they had a place probably there. but without its probalby Earth.
WHich is gonna get her in a serious amount of trouble. Earth doesn’t have a system proper (yet) but it has stuffed in afew things here and there. Its kind of lucky there is only 37 or so. Thats a fairly managble number. Likely Dabbler will volunteer to help and likely give them monitoring stuff. (After all currently the only interaction with said race anycreature on that planet (except dues) has had has been “murder a whole lot and threaten to end the world” So initial reactions will be the same as she had “freak out for a moment” Depending on their skillset Arc tech might want their input. but chances are they won’t be freely integrating into the society for more than a handful of years.
You do make an extra point against the plan though. If the Alari homeworld was purposfully destroyed (which we do not know yet. The monolith could’ve been coming due to the orbs and the planet died a diffrent way–this is fairly the most likely set up actually) and any refugees are targets. Earth/Arc really would have trouble taking them in. The Alari’s were by far and away, more advanced in every way. If they got decimated, there isn’t much we could do (other than syd, max +the other ones in the world at that level.. which doesn’t help everyone else burning)
So that is another concern they’ll have to address in someway. ALthough that ‘ll be probably mostly off panel since this is Syd’s story not the world’s story
DaveB said ‘an Alari planet’, implying that they had more than one
Soooo…. Where is Sydney’s glasses? I mean I know they were broken but still, if you use glasses 24/7, then after a while moving around for long periods of time without them on are gonna SERIOUSLY hurt
The author has noted that Sydney is slightly far-sighted, meaning she can see distance well, but has trouble seeing things close up. They basically act as reading glasses. A useful thing for her work in the comic shop. Maybe she can wrangle a set of unbreakable hard-light replacements from Cora.
Panel 5 is best face.
God if it is where this is going, i just can’t wait to see the look on Maxima face when Sydney come back with a bunch of alien refugee…
I’m still wondering what her plan is here…
She can’t really authorize bringing them to Earth. I don’t know if they’d take them in-and cora wouldn’t be happy to have them stuck on her ship after dropping off syd. Unless they plan to just drop them some obscure part of the Earth. but without tech that kind of makes life difficult and just as bad.
I suppose she could be hoping to broker a deal with her superiors to help them, in exchange for Tech Advancement? It’ll be kind of awkward considering the only previous experience. THough could be helpful given the spirit bomb invasion–though i’m not sure a race that views body possession and rebirth via said effect as a fairly normal concept would help stop said events. I’m assuming its fairly normal because they had everyone stuffed in said battery as sorta Ark thing I guess? could be differnt class situation thing I suppose.
Well.I wonder if she’ll get in trouble. she is techincally in the military now, and this is an unauthorized thing. But. It also is unlikely she’d get fired and such given her power suite. So she could be banking on that. Or. More likely. She just hasn’t thought about that end much (out of choice). Which. Is what I’d do.
Whatever she discussed with Cora, then Cora is okay with it…and Cora understands the implications (as clearly outlined in the orb discussion pages) of people & things traveling to worlds that aren’t ready for them yet. Which means Cora (being demonstrably savy & worldly) understands that Sydney would not have the authority to offer sanctuary on Earth…but Cora would know of a means to help the Alari refugees, whether that’s to take them to an Alari colonyworld or outpost…or simply to give them some money, to be remunerated via the Council’s off-world economic exchange system. (Because if they have alien tourism, as is implied in several different spots, then they have a means to exchange currencies.) And it’d probably get taken out of Sydney’s pay…but considering she’s getting paid more than a year’s salary in an advance cheque to cover a little more than two weeks’ worth of work in Archon…she can probably afford to be generous right now. (She hasn’t had time to buy a pony, after all.)
I still wanna see this. All too often in Superhero comics, the Hero in Space is all “I have defeated the great villain that destroyed your home!” And the survivors are like, “Alright, we got it from here. Thanks.” But really, why would the hero stop helping? Why wouldn’t the Hero take the time and spend the effort to help refuges?
And having them come to Earth would be interesting, it’d shake things up. Syd makes enough now that she could probably afford to house and feed 50 people, and she’s got an ‘in’ with the Council, so she might be able to help there. Also the whole “Supers are real” thing means she might very well be able to be more… public with this. Not in an ‘aliens are real’ sense, but in a ‘these folks are totally an extended family of Supers! Yeah!” way.
“Fel Artifact of Unspeakable Cuddles is probably Yorp. Congratulations, you’ve been upgraded to artifact.
Heh.
But, shush, we must not speak of it!
*seals mouth with paw*
…I know a couple of people who would FIT “Fel Artifact of Unspeakable Cuddles”. It’s scarier then you’d think! Someday, I will introduce the Cuddlebugs in an RP again….
Yup…
…but that’s yet another subject we must not speak of.
*seals mouth behind masque*