Grrl Power #741 – High level meeting
Sydney is concerned about information propagation. One person can keep a secret, but the more people who know it, obviously, the more chances of it slipping out somewhere along the line. She was so concerned with other people getting mind-plundered, that it just didn’t occur to her that some telepath could come by and snatch it out of her mind. From what they know about her shield, its a reasonable assumption that it would block telepathy. But she obviously can’t be in it 24/7. Nor would she want to. They do now know the green orb does “life support” but whether that only includes generating breathable atmosphere, or if it extends to any form of calorie supplementation and hydration is something they haven’t tested yet.
If I was a superhero (or any kind of government agent that made a habit of making enemies of powerful people and organizations) I would be intensely paranoid about so many things. Even before Snowden and Wikileaks, I had zero faith in any organization to keep anything secret, much less any massive, sprawling governments. And that’s in a world without teleportation, phasing, cyberkinesis, or just good old fashion telepathy. Superpowers aside, how many people would have access to Archon’s classified files, and how many of them have families who could have guns put to their heads?
Let’s assume that the only people who have access to intelligence regarding Archon’s full suite of abilities is Archon themselves and everyone is in that one building. That’s clearly not the case, but just as a starting point. Even if an organization had a telepath who could make sure no one is a mole or on the take, you’d still have to check everyone who walked in the door every single day to make sure they haven’t started being blackmailed or have a family member who is “safe, at the moment” since the last time they clocked in.
Even if you did that, what stops someone from getting a video call in iChat or whatever in the middle of the day showing their wife tied to a chair holding a sign saying “leave the door on the roof unlocked” or whatever? Confiscate all phones upon entering, monitor all communications in and out? It doesn’t matter. In the end you’re still dealing with people, and they can be manipulated.
It’s for these reasons and more that people who believe in moon landing conspiracies are ultra-maroons. They really think no one would have slipped up or spilled the beans about it by now? In 50 years, not a single person might have mentioned it. No deathbed confessions? Not even an email anywhere on a server that got hacked? Come on. Come on.
I spent more time on panel 2 than anything else on this page, and I couldn’t get Sydney’s expression how I wanted. It was supposed to be that sort of pinched, “you’ve asked someone a question you know they’re not going to like answering” expectant look. Almost like a Robert de Niro-esque look. I don’t know if that makes any sense. Revisiting it now, I think the thing I goofed on is Sydney’s lips are kind of pursed. I think now that they should be tight, like she’s sucked them in between her teeth. Anyway, she just wound up looking weirdly smug, which isn’t quite what I was going for.
Oh my god you guys, moving sucks. There were like 3 or 4 days last week where I didn’t get any work done on the comic, instead getting like 20K steps in just carrying stuff around and disassembling and reassembling. And that was with movers who did the bulk of the heavy lifting. But we’re finally settled into the new place. Well, not settled. We’re here. We’re a ways away from being settled. Half of everything I own is still in boxes. I’ve already tossed a bunch of crap I never used, and I suspect by the time I’m done unpacking, I’ll have lost another 20%.
I will attempt to update the vote incentive later today. All I have is a bit of a doodle, but hopefully now that the bulk of the moving stuff is done with, I can get caught up in general and put some work into it.
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“I’d tell you why but then I’d have to kill you”
The ‘Weird Al’ rule of security.
Seriously, Halo’s awesomeness may attract unwanted attention to our backwater planet…
I thought that was “Id tell you, but then you’d have to kill me”?
From a document labelled “Burn before reading”….
This is a sub-category of the “Things Man Was Never Meant To Know” genre…
Sherlock Holmes: I didn’t really ask, Dr. Franklyn, but what exactly do you do here?
Dr. Franklyn: Oh, Mr. Holmes, I’d love to tell you. But then, of course, I’d have to kill you.
Sherlock Holmes: That would be tremendously ambitious of you.
– Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Hound of Baskervilles” 1901
First?
How surprised do you bet Maxima will be?
About her teleportation? Considering her current arsenal, not that much.
About the FTL gateway she jsut unlocked, REALLY SUPRISED.
What about the handheld FTL gateway’s potential value to the rest of the galaxy, and what they might do to possess it?
likely very surprised when sydney tells how she does teleport trick to blow giant spacesquids eye out
Au contraire! She’ll nod and say, “Yes, that was obvious from how you went from the rooftop to inside the Mars factory and into Sciona’s clutches. I would have clarified the mechanism but you ran off to the bushes to pee.”
Yup, the team already has someone with vastly superior teleportation abilities, Sydney having a lesser version won’t be that uprising.
Having the maneuver the lightbee into position prior to teleporting is big restriction compared to Harem’s “I can go anywhere I’m familiar enough with or can see”.
We don’t know whether it is a lesser version or not.
Sydney has never tested the maximum distance the Lightbee can go.
Harem can carry a little less than her own weight with her.
It is entirely (from the way the rest of Sydney’s other orb powers synergize) that Sydney can take whatever else is within her bubble with her.
No, not in her bubble, butt what ever she is able to carry, which may be more than the Daphnes can do
Harem’s is better when she has either of those two requirements filled. But Sydney doesn’t have to do either of those things, she can guide the light bee, unseen while keeping her shield up and then teleport in with her shield on(I think) and have access to all of her swiss army tool super powers.
Honesty for the next time I want to see the grace Sydney coin her full Mach 16 or maybe just mach 10 before Maxima smokes her and says that was pretty good
Do you have any idea, of the damage caused, close to the surface? That is w2hyb we don’t have Hypersonic aircraft.
“The main problem (from which most if not all the others stem) is heat – heat from air friction and from the shock waves generated by moving faster than the speed of sound. The temperatures a hypersonic vehicle encounters are so high that conventional materials can’t withstand them and maintain their strength.”
The fastest real-world aircraft that we have is a little over Mach 3 and less at higher altitudes like where they are now. Sydney at her Max Mach 4 was already flying faster than that before her upgrade. Maxima who was testing her stated that she was the second fastest flyer on the team suggesting that Maxima are ready moves in excess of Mach 4 perhaps massively in excess of Mach 4. The major thing is that there’s no reason for them to be flying that close to the surface I simply stated that I would like to see them do the whole high-speed test thing
Gold foil Max. You have a built-in GOLD foil hat.
The higher material density of gold (compared to aluminium) is a better bet against Orbital Mind Control rays anyway…
And how do you know it’s not just iron pyrite instead of gold? Still more dense than aluminum, but only just.
ETA I googled the density of pyrite (5.07 g/cm3) and aluminum (2.7) so even if Max’s skin was Fool’s Gold it would still have almost twice the density of pure aluminum.
aluminum was found to block some types of radio waves, but for the radio wave freq that are actually used for communication and satellite, it only boosted the signal.
In conductive shell that completely surrounds the target will block all radio waves. Aluminum is no different and frequency is irrelevant.
Which would not be a hat, unless you have been recently decapitated, in which case you have more to worry about then radio waves
Um… tin isn’t aluminum. Tin is tin.
“Tin foil” in america is made of aluminum. Much like “Tin cans” aren’t made of tin
And in the rest of the world, it is ‘aluminium’ :P
The standard explanation is that Maxima has ‘metallic’ skin. I am uncertain if we have ever gotten the ARC-Spark research report on whether it is actually electrically conductive, or if she sets off metal detectors at the airport.
But really, if you were a TSA agent and she beeped at your station, would you have the nerve to pull her aside? Max may need to carry a ‘sets off metal detectors’ card to carry with her when she travels, like Wolverine.
On a more practical side, standard capacitance touch screens may not work with her fingers. She might need to use a stylus to use things like tablets or phone screens. (Yes, we have seen her use phones before, but they may be special issue ARC tech. )
Sadly those cards don’t work, mom has to metal hips, the hips have enough metal to set off metal detectors. She get’s the wand or the full body scan at every airport. You can carry your medical records and show the x-rays they will still scan you. They just have to be sure, so yeah the cards don’t do anything. Also why would Max be flying civilian, she would just fly to where she needs to go and have Harem bring her clothes.
same reason harem took the elevator and taxi to be some what normal at times
Yeah, but it saves time in having to go through the metal detector multiple times as they ask: Do you have a belt on? Empty your pockets. Do you have any jewelry on? They can just go straight to the wand or the body scan and not waste all that time. Because a person with a metal hip can still smuggle in a weapon (and if they didn’t check them, terrorists and other criminals would absolutely start doing that). Admittedly, I don’t think they will disbelieve someone who just tells them about a metal body part, so in that sense the card might be worthless, but some people may be embarrassed and handing a card over is more subtle than blurting it out in line.
You could also just start out by saying something like “Before go through the machine, I should tell you that I have artificial hips so you’re going to wind up wanding me anyway.”
Making them run you through the detector several times seems like it might actually be kind of a jerk move because you’re holding everyone behind you up.
making a “kind of a jerk move” is their whole reason for existing because what they do has less than zero effect on air safety and actually adds more vectors for ne’er do wells to take advantage of, as demonstrated in Brussels and latter in Istanbul.
Right, it’s just security theater.
But I can testify personally that informing them that you’ve got hardware in your leg doesn’t get you waved through, you get treated exactly the same way you would if it just triggered.
Except for the part where they’re not on a hair trigger while wanding you, of course… That’s always nice when dealing with armed guards.
Who would expect anyone to just take someone’s word for it in an airport. That’s some crazy talk there
I’m just going to point out that doctors have zero power to change anything regarding regulatory statutes in US law, so why would you ever expect a piece of plastic/paper you can print off with a generic home printer to change anything?
They are not changing anything, just giving a medical reason to avoid going through the metal detector machines, the person is still going to be scanned and ‘frisked’
Yeah but thats *not* what people use the cards, instead they get mad that they have to be screened even though they got a card from their doctor. People use the card in the attempt to not have to get screened at all, not to initiate alternative screening procedures.
Then those people are self-entitled fuckwits (like the Swanson guy from “Parks & Rec”, who had a self-printed piece of paper that simply said “I can do what I want” {or something to that effect}, nothing else on the paper, no letter-head or signature, just that line), most people use those cards for what it is meant to do, like people who have a special card for if they get pulled over by a cop: they don’t use the card to exploit the law
Touch screens would probably work fine – cover your finger with tinfoil and try it, or put a coin on your screen and scroll by sliding it.
The only problem I have with touch scr5eens, it often choose a “letter” before I can touch the screen, very annoying.
Sometimes, more than an 1/8 inch.
Maybe your claws are getting in the way?
Way back in the early days of the Fantastic 4, they examined the daily troubles of being a super. Ben ‘Thing’ Grimm got frustrated that his new ‘yuge’ hands would not let him do things like pick up a coin or dial a phone.
Or drink his favourite glass of chilled wine…
Wine? Ben?
You meant Beer right?
That’s what he wants you to think ;)
And don’t ask about his favourite tea, he had just learnt which pinky to have raised :P
I mean while i get that it’s good to have an ace up your sleeve, short range teleportation is kind of an important thing to consider when you go making plans with your team.
I mean truesight can be handwaved as saying dabler detected it or something but teleportation is much harder to hide if you use it.
The problem is that it’s an ‘announced’ teleport. All previous uses of the comm ball shas shown the ‘remote’ end as a glowing ball. If an opponent notices it and aims their weapon towards the ball, odds are that Sydney would have serious issues. So it’s really a ‘last resort’ type ability.
Yeah but the trick is that it replaces her illusion so you don’t know if it’s just an illusion or actual sydney
Well except for the part where the real one has the orbs
The copy has copies of the orbs too
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-89-badgers-apparently-terrifying/
So she could use the comball to establish the illusion, and if need be let the perps take a while to learn that an illusion is just what it is. Then once they figure out she’s not really there and start looking for her true location she can teleport in, probably replacing the illusion seamlessly and the only outward sign would be that the light trail from the comball disappears. Even if someone notices that, or has some other way of telling that the “illusion” now is solid she should buy at least a little time before most would be able to react.
If they need short (and not so short) range teleport Harem can already do it, but if nobody knows that Halo can teleport, it would be a real ace-up-your-sleeve.
Harem can only teleport to somewhere if she can see it or it is someplace she knows very well. Halo’s teleport is anywhere her comm-ball can go.
Yet to be established what her cargo capacity is, though. I expect that they HAVE tested the com-ball’s range at some point.
Especially with the amount of fire power she can bring. Also Harem can only teleport to places she can see or has been. Halo can go through material with the com-ball and teleport to the other side of the wall.
So here’s a thought: Could Halo give the comm orb to Harem, have her teleport it somewhere, and then Sydney follow with a shielded team? Or vice versa? Or can no one touch the orbs except Sydney?
The orbs won’t go beyond a certain distance away from Sydney, and can exert enough force to throw Maxima off balance (aka make her fall) when she tried to after the bank incident
That’s been established for the Orbs themselves, but I’m not sure it’s been established for the Orb subsystem specifically designed to travel long distances from the user. Sydney has sent the Lightbee well outside the leashing range of the Orbs under its own power, and has then followed it via Teleport. Whether the Lightbee has its own limits on range, speed, or mode of travel is yet to be established.
Not quite: Holo-Halo can pass through walls, the Light-Bee can’t even pass through a glass window
Again DaveB already explained that he sorta forgot that the lightbee orb can go through objects back then.
It wouldn’t be the first time he changed his mind about something after making an ‘error’
True, if you’re meaning with the ‘air being able to enter the shield’ change. But he actually said in one of his comments AFTERWARDS that it was a mistake because he forgot that it was not solid. With any luck, DaveB will eventually do another Dabbler’s Science Corner and clear up whether or not he’s changed his mind and how the lightbee works :).
Yeah, that’s why said “after making an ‘error'”
Remember how Maxi’s rank changed from Colonel to Lt Colonel?
Until (or if) Sydney shows ‘in world’ the Light-Bee’s ability to pass through solid objects, going to go with the current example of it not being able to pass through solid objects
Personally prefer erring on the side of things we have seen, rather than start going off on hypotheticals that have no basis on in-world fact
How does sound move in and out of the Sydney bubble?
Just like with light (lasers) it seems to have some sort of “upper limit filter” so it lets it pass trough normally but blocks them if they are at a dangerous level
I agree – I think Mr Bubble is smarter than we know.
In this scene, the big bad is leaning right through it before the fight.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-236-recon/
that holo-Sydney, not the real Sydney
They both can wear those earplugs that transmit audio waves (produced by their pipboys) directly into the ear. No atmospheric medium should be neccesary. Also, the microphones imbedded in their collars pick up subvocals due to being in direct physical contact at ther throats.
Because SCIENCE!
In that case the force field still has to let the radio waves pass through just like sound waves.
Also, in this case neither Sidney nor Maxima are currently wearing their collar so it’s just pressure/sound waves (from talking).
But they should be wearing their collars.
This isn’t the first time DaveB has actually admitted to occassionally forgetting to draw them in…
They’re explicitly trying to not to spread this information. Broadcasting it through radio waves would be monumentally stupid. I think it’s fairly obvious that they are not wearing their collars on purpose. And that the shield can pass through audible sound. This is also demonstrated earlier in the comic.
Yeah Syd talked to Kevin with her shield up in the parking lot fight.
Unless my math is off the shockwave of a theoretical God-rod that perfectly radiates energy that is roughly 1m in diameter traveling Mach 16 is more than strong enough to shatter glass roughly 300m away and flash boils water at 20c water if she goes below 50meters due to compression heating. Literally her shockwave is visibly glowing at night.
However we don’t know how her shield reacts to her higher velocities, after all the sheild May absorb some or all of the excess energy, or it may act dramatically at times because hey its Sydney, so why not.
Technically, that was Holo-Halo (her shield was cutting through Kevin’s arm)
Perception filter. She can’t be blinded with a flash bang either.
I wonder if Sydney is going to withhold mention of the aetherial causeways she can make.
The teleport is one thing but the causeways are apparently top-tier tech on the universal scale, that’s above the entire planet’s paygrade.
Even if she pretended Dabbler’s friend found her on the planet they left her on, they would probably spill the beans to dabbler and she would have a hard time explaining her pictures of Fracture on her phone
I think the Aetherium Causeways, while classified, are not going to be THIS highly classified against even the government knowing because they already will know about the causeways, since Cora knows, and Dabbler knows, and if Dabbler knows then X probably knows. And if X knows then Arc-Dark knows, and if Arc-Dark knows, then Arc-Light probably also knows.
But Sydney wants there to be at least one power which NO ONE knows about, except for Maxima at most, or something that will be completely off the books because she’s so trope savvy.
That said, the government MIGHT want to highly classify that there’s an Aetherium Causeway generator that can literally fit into the palm of your hand, since that’s the type of device that governments might to go to war to get if they knew it existed and where.
Big high-tech governments with ginormous magictech spacefleets. Against a little rinkadink barely-launching-spacecraft backwater planet.
Especially since there’s some power out there that that already easily knocked over the Alari, who definitely were not a rinkadink barely-launching-spacecraft backwater planet, and that power knows the orbs exist and some of their capabilities and seem to be after them with extreme prejudice. Having those orbs in its backyard MIGHT be something the government wants kept secret.
….. they’ve done several national broadcasts with the orbs in them and made a celebrity of the woman who has the orbs floating ’round her head at nearly all times. CRAP.
My point is that while the aetherium causeways are going to be classified, it’s already known to several people so it’s going to be recorded SOMEWHERE in the government. The teleportation is currently not known by anyone except for Sydney, and MAAAYBE Krona if she reviews her logs.
Especially since Cora said that the few races that use the Causeway “Generators” are on DREADNOUGHT-size ships.
Is that to imply that Sydney, already the Queen of Salt, should get a payraise?
Seriously though, Sydney is currently getting her paygrade according to her military rank (adjusted up by being a Super). As her rank increases, she’ll be getting more pay anyway. She’s also got a lot of other benefits that aren’t directly reflected by paygrade, such as Medical, Dental, Life, free room & board, Bachelor’s Allotment for Quarters, Uniform Allowances, etc, etc, etc.
In my humble opinion, I don’t think any pay-raise would sufficiently compensate for her ability to create causeways. However, Sydney doesn’t seem especially financially greedy, considering she invested in a comic book shop – In the current climate, that’s clearly a nostalgic choice rather than a profitable one. A better option would be to ask for clearance raises and access to ALL the fun stuff.
She’ll have to mention that she has some means of space-grade portal tech, and not just to explain her recent movements. That’s a major logistical asset to the team (arguably to the entire planet) and the information should be available for planning purposes. What could easily be more restricted is the nature of those portals, and the level of attention they may draw. Aetherium Causeways are evidently not the only means of portaling across the universe, and if outsiders don’t know any different they may well assume that she has one of the more ‘normal’ versions. Equally, if the team members don’t know that human-portable Causeways are considered impossible, their attitudes will be consistent with a ‘normal’ technology.
It would be more feasible in general to keep back the extent of an upgrade. It’s not worth trying to hide the fact that the upgrade happened, that’ll be revealed the first time she pops her upgrade tree with a moderately attentive viewer present. But knowing that she is now faster in flight is not the same as knowing how much faster – plans made on the basis of a pretended Mach 6 top speed may be derailed by cutting loose at Mach 16.
Sydney didn’t really think it through, though. Even at that altitude, someone with superhearing could overhear.
I mean, I kinda recall the scene from Superman Returns, where he takes Lois into low orbit, and tells her that every day, he can hear people calling for a saviour. Even from that altitude.
While plausible, superhearing would have to be a serious physics-bending superpower to be able to hear a voice over idk THE SOUND OF THE WHOLE WORLD THAT’S NEARER TO YOU?
Not to mention the wind at that altitude.
That’s presuming that Sydney & Max are still inside of Earth’s atmosphere…Even so, at that high altitude, would there even be enough of an atmosphere to transmit sound?
They could be talking through the short-range radio transmitters/receivers built into their collars/pipboys, speaking with direct-conduction through their throat-mics & hearing directly through earplugs, so there wouldn’t even be a need for an atmospheric medium for them to communicate.
But that would also raise the question: Does Max even need to breathe to survive? At that altitude, if Max needed to breathe at all, she should be gasping like the proverbial fish-out-of-water. However, her own cellular-level forcefields effectively covers her entire body (& then some small distance beyond it), probably due an “overlapping effect” between adjacent cells. Max may not even need to breathe any O2 to stay alive perhaps due to the nature of her Power Pool & her minimum-level invulnerability.
Of course, it could be that Max continues to breathe from “force-of-habit” & she still has to force air through her larynx in order to speak, but her invulnerability should also be an effective against air-borne infections & gasses;Every cell inside of her lungs also produces her force field.
They are. Maxima has a flight ceiling above which she needs an oxygen apparatus. we saw her use it when they were testing the extent of Halo’s shield, iirc. I don’t think depressurization is an issue, though.
Maxima does need to breathe O2. Over a certain flight ceiling, Maxima needs to also use an oxygen mask so she does not pass out from lack of oxygen. And she is unlikely to be able to survive being in space at all. This was actually already shown back when they were trying to test what Sydney’s flight ceiling is, and discovered that she probably does not have one (which was then proven on Sydney’s own when straded on the Alari homeworld and the Fracture).
Superman, can tune them out and only hear what he wants to hear.
assuming he knows WHERE to hear.
Gibbs Rule #4 – The best way to keep a secret? Keep it to yourself. Second best? Tell one other person – if you must.
The best way to keep a secret is to forget it yourself.
Ha! Take that pesky esperdroppers. You’ll never know … uh … whatever it was.
” The only way two people can keep a secret, is if one of them are dead.” I don’t know who said it, so you need to research it yourself.
It was Ben Franklin who said; “Three people can keep a secret, provided that two of them are dead.”
It is possible to create a culture of institutional secrecy. I retired from a state run maximum security psychiatric hospital that occasionally had high profile patients. The culture operated on several levels. From the moment of hiring the concept of confidentiality is drilled into you as a part of your identity as an employee. The hospital is the biggest employer in a relatively small city and is the best job opportunity for 100 miles. You did not want to screw that up. HIPPA laws were drilled into you at annual refresher training. The attitude of administration both on a local and state hospital was one of “the press is out to get a story, they will sink us to get that story”. This was occasionally reinforced by news cameras filming the hospital campus from down the road. It also helped that the hospital had a fairly solid esprit de corp. Once we went to an electronic record there were varying levels of access to patient charts with some charts being tagged with an “abandon all hope” level of warning. It was possible to audit a chart for access, duration, documents viewed and entries made. All in all, between culture and management we managed to do a good job of maintaining confidentiality, even with high profile patients. The patients on the other hand…a member of a fringe religious sect whose contact with a federal agency blew up rather spectacularly called a press conference and got us splashed across the national news.
That’s kind of how it works in government. Screw up with the wrong information, and you’ll literally disappear from the planet. I mean, that’s why Snowden is still around. He may have blown the whistle on procedure, but he knew if he said something damaging enough, not even the Russians would let him live (since that would make him untrustworthy at every level).
That’s a funny thing, too. If you told the Russians where the nukes are, they’d give you a medal. If you gave them the codes to said nukes, they would kill you merely because you just proved to them how dangerously inept and untrustworthy you are (and they’d probably also think you are a huge liar).
One of my favorite God’s from the exalted role-playing system was the god of things only one person knows, his entire mentality consisted only of information that only one person in the world knew, if you told that information to a second person or the person who knew that information died he would no longer know it….
While having the ability to teleport is useful, is there really any situation where it could get you out of trouble that a PPO couldn’t? I mean unless it’s being trapped in a small room with really valuable equipment or something?
I guess it does have the advantage of stealth, since it produces just a quiet “blip” instead of the “VVORP” harem does.
Also since the lightbee projection is incorporeal, she could totally confuse enemies if she’s there or not by swapping with her illusion, giving the appearance that she can walk trough walls (tho orbs being around the real one would probably give her away to an observant enemy).
It already HAS gotten her out of a problem that the PPO alone could not get her out of – the Squidwards. The PPO alone was not enough since they have shields that seem to be equal to hers.
Well that’s more getting into problems then out of them, but that’s a fair point
Well the teleportation ability has gotten her into one problem (Mars Factory), and gotten her out of two problems (getting through Squidward’s force field and getting out of Squidward #2’s tractor beam). Net gain for getting out of problems :)
Light-bee can not pass through a glass window, therefore, no shield around Squidward #1
Light-bee is solid, Holo-Halo is not
Actually the lightbee can pass through a glass window. DaveB just said that during the Mars Factory scene, he forgot that it could. :)
The light-bee orb is NOT solid. It’s a holographic projection of the actual orb. The actual orb is still tethered to Sydney and cannot go more than a certain distance from her, unlike the holographic lightbee orb.
There’s even proof of that
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-496-bishonen-holdem/
Count how many orbs are orbiting Sydney while the Holo-lightbee orb is doing its thing. If it was solid then either:
1) The lightbee orb can move away from Sydney beyond the set distance, which we already know it cannot do; or
2) The lightee orb makes a lightbee orb hologram which is NOT limited to the tethered distance, and since it’s a hologram, it can go through other objects.
The reason I wanted you to count the orbs around Sydney is because the lightbee orb is ORBITING SYDNEYS HEAD while the holographic lightbee orb is doing its scouting.
Count just six in the last panel, where the CommBall is hovering over Sydney’s hand, unless you copied the wrong page
Same as in the following page, where Holo-Halo is checking out the Warhouse
If the Light-bee is a hologram, then why is the Hentorb not? They are both projections of the contents of their respective balls
No, the Light-bee creates a solid object that is not tethered to the host-ball
You are getting fused by the similar-in-appearance Mystery Brown Ball
There’s 7 Guesticus, not 6. Also check in the ballroom when she first shows the lightbee being used.
And the reason the hentorb tentacles are solid is because its a completely different orb and doesnt “hentorb” a duplicate hentorb.
The Light-bee doesn’t duplicate another CommBall, it ‘pops out’ of the CommBall, and, like when the Light-hook is deployed, leaves an ’empty’ ball behind
I think the difference we’re having is you think each orb has something in it, while I think each orb does a different type of energy manipulation. My reasoning on why the lightbee orb is a projection is based on how when it becomes a Sydney duplicate, that duplicate is intangible and the lightbee holo-orb is no longer in the air, it’s in herh and like the original Sydney, and while it’s in her hand in holo form, it remains a hologram (until teleportation is activated, at which point the projection seems to be the ‘end point’ for a teleportation effect)
No, only two balls have shown to have something in them, that, when activated, leave the ball ’empty’: CommBall (with the Light-Bee) and Hentorb (with the Light-Hook)
Another example of how the lightbee orb projection is not solid.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-498-hangin-with-my-hybrid/
Count the orbs around the head of the SYDNEY PROJECTION.
Notice it’s missing the yellow orb there? Because the yellow orb has turned into the holographic projection of Sydney with the other 6 orbs. It’s always a hologram, until the teleport is used. Then once the teleport is used, there are again 7 orbs around Sydney’s head.
Again, six balls orbiting Sydney’s head in panel one, there is no visible Yellow Ball as it is firmly in her left hand
So are you saying that the orb in her hand is SOLID? Hrm wouldnt she be able to use that to pull out the needle?
No, because it’s a projection.
Seriously Guesticus, think about it. If she was able to make a copy of the orb which would be SOLID and go as far away from her as she possible wants, then she could have used the orb alone to free Pixel.
No, didn’t say the orb in her hand is solid, it is a projection of the ball in her real hand
Counted all those pages, and the panels where she is holding the CommBall only has six orbiting her head
Going in counter-clockwise order: Green Mystery (at the time), Flight, Hentorb, PewPew, Brown Mystery and Mr Buble
And when you go back to the previous pages last panel, her balls are in the same order
Someone needs to be able to tell the difference between their Yellow from their Brown
The orb in the REAL Sydney’s hand is solid. The orb in the holo-Halo’s hand is a hologram – not sure why you think the yellow orb goes from being solid when on its own to being a hologram again once in Holo-Sydney’s hand.
Umm, never said the ball in Sydney’s hand wasn’t solid
Thought we were arguing over how many balls were orbiting Sydney’s head? o_O
We have seen the Light-Bee ‘pop out’ while the CommBall was in Sydney’s hand: Sydney didn’t make a duplicate CommBall
Actually hopefully DaveB will eventually give a comic with specifics the comm/lightbee orb.
Perhaps in a Dabbler’s Corner :) (I really would love to see another one of those)
I wonder how she’s going to demonstrate teleportation. Will she expose herself to the elements, or fall constantly?
I’m gonna guess she’ll summon the lightbee, fall and teleport back up to the bee.
On that note, what’s the max range on the bee and what happens if you leave it’s range?
Well, an Nth tech Light Bee?
As far as it wants to go,
And who’s going to tell it no?
You just made me think that she’s about to demonstrate how she thought the giant squid who will she be attacking in this particular case
I wonder is this going to be the teleportation power or the interdimensional Gateway power? Or even more it could be that she’s going to tell her that she can teleport through other people’s teleportation
Do you mean shields? Because I’m not sure how you would teleport trough teleportation?
It was supposed to come out teleportation resistant Shields but apparently I lost part of the toast
Well, the didn’t bring their chokers, that at least avoids the audio bug in the equipment problem.
Sydney need not worry about someone reading her mind. With her ADHD even if they could read her mind they’d never be able to follow her thinking to find what they want. Its like trying to read a book with too many plot-twists and/or subplots.
Reminds me of this comic from Skin horse
http://skin-horse.com/comic/of-nigel-the/
You mean, like reading Wheel of Time?
Ah, but what if the mind-reader ALSO has ADHD?
…..
…. no, seriously, would that make reading her mind easier or harder? I have no frickin’ clue.
I have ADHD as do both sons. It would definitely make mind reading ha……squirrel!…… harder.
Like spread spectrum: First you have to synchronize the pseudo-random codes, then it’s all clear.
I love that her first though wasn’t “Oh it’s safe to tell her” but “Oh no what if they read my mind”, that’s so in-character for her
Am I just missing something, what’s this ‘new ability’she’s talking about? Or has this just not been shown to us readers yet either?
Her ability to teleport, which she discovered during the Mars Factory stakeout, which was the strategy she used to kill two of the squidward giant aliens.
She never told them about the light bee telportation function – her first upgrade, because it got retconed so she never used it
There was no retcon’ing. it did happen, Sydney just didn’t get around to telling Maxi
Hoping that sometime after Sydney finally tells Maxi, Maxi will stop, pause, and go “…That’s what you froze up about after the Wars fight*?”
*or whatever the official name is
Retcon as in Krona’s checkpoint. Not out-of-story retcon, in-story reset-and-it-didn’t-happen.
So, how did she Bee-Port on Alari-prime then? o_O
She had the ability unlocked before the mars factory fight.
That was the point: just because she didn’t use it (which she did, she remembers using), doesn’t mean she no longer has that ability (which she does)
She had the ability unlocked before the Mars Factory, but she did not know what the ability was, and that she could teleport UNTIL Mars Factory.
Except that, even in story, it still happened. Krona is self-taught and doesn’t fully understand her own powers. She thought her checkpoint could rewind time, but it turned out to be more of a respawn mechanic than a revert.
it reverted everythign except sydney’s mind, but only in a small area, so Maxima who was at base wasn’t affected
there are 2 options. Teleportation, and Aetherium Causeways.
Not so much Teleportation or the Atherium Causeway, but that the Orbs,
once thought to be alien, are ALIEN Alien!
Nth Tech is a rumor and myth to the various Galactic Civilizations.
If someone goes after it it may not be healthy for the planet it’s on.
+1
It just occured to me…. while Maxima MIGHT be more immune to telepathy, I doubt it.
She wasn’t immune to mind control from the Super-Mannekiller at the Mars Factory. The only reason she was able to break free of the mind control there was because Halo’s attacks, the Osprey attacks, and Anvil’s attacks had created a crack in its lens, which was just enough to let Maxima break free from the mind control. So if other psionic powers act similarly, a ‘tinfoil hat’ might not be that effective in any case.
Still, at least one person, especially Maxima, should know (even though one of Sydney’s concerns was if Maxima ever went ‘dark Maxima’).
It’s actually implied Max can pull that even with fully fledged vampires and even if the lense hadn’t been cracked:
“Maxima, as you might imagine, is quite strong willed, so even if the eyepiece wasn’t cracked, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether the Super Husk could have stunned her into sitting still for a withdrawal. There is at least one vampire who learned the hard way that unsuccessfully trying to mesmerize Max is such a bad idea.”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-520-from-distress-to-datstress/
It’s not even remotely implied that she could have done that if the lens had not been cracked. In fact, the exact opposite is implied. Otherwise, why would there have been a crack in the first place, except to say ‘good thing the lens was cracked or Maxima would have been in trouble.’
Even with what DaveB said in his comment, he does not imply that she’s immune to psionics – he leaves it up in the air, although the whole idea that there was a crack would have been unnecessary to draw if there was not an implication in the exact opposite direction. He says ‘it’s anyone’s guess.’ Even with the ‘there’s at least one vampire that learned the hard way’ could just as easily, or more easily, in fact, mean “It takes a certain level of power to be able to mesmerize a strong willed individual, and the vampire that tried to do that was either not powerful enough or tried to seduce her first instead of getting right to the mind control.’
Also you might want to note that in your own link, her attack ‘ceased’ although she was able to grab a tentacle. It was Hiro who destroyed it while it was focusing on Maxima.
It wasn’t as much mind control as a Vampiric ability that lets them feed on humans without exposing themselves to their prey. It’s more of a hypnotic inducing ability(at least it seems like it) that makes the victim pretty much unaware of what is happening while under its influence.
If I was going to use role playing game vernacular, it was either ‘Dominate’ or ‘Presence’ being used on Maxima. Which did work to an extent, even with the cracked lens, since Maxima wasn’t attacking it when it did that to her. Hiro wound up destroying it.
Also, ‘hypnotic inducing ability’ seems to be a type of mind control, or at the very least a type of psionic power.
In that case, Maxima was at a standstill with the thing, not fully under, and that was magic, not telepathy proper, though I guess magical telepathy might still work even if normal telepathy doesn’t. Still, if she says she’s effectively immune, it’s probably been tested, so…
also that had a visual base, i assume ingested could work on her but anything other than that or visual probably as difficulty, especially if it needs direct bloodstream access
Again, Maxima’s eyes. Not metal/’tinfoil.’
And a simple prevention for that, is Maxi needs to close her eyes… in time (emphasis on ‘in time’, can remember a series of books about a time traveller who went back to Hungary at the time of the Hun invasion, and how another time traveller was completely impervious to injury, except… he didn’t manage to blink in time and either did a King Harold and took an arrow to the eye or took a spear in the eye, either way, he ded because he didn’t blink in time)
Lets just use the catch all term of psionics then. Includes telepathy, mind control, magic-based mind powers, vampiric powers that seem to mimic mind control/emotion control/awe-inducement, etc.
Also I’m not sure she’s saying that it’s been tested. She’s just saying ‘she has a built in tinfoil hat’ because it’s a way to get through Sydney’s paranoia about the information getting out, and it’s at least PLAUSIBLE.
Maxima’s eyes, btw, are not ‘tinfoil.’
A rough translation from an old Norwegian saying:
“A secret between two people is only a secret if one of them is dead.”
Or if one is a telepathically protected paladin sworn to secrecy.
“A secret between two people is only a secret if one of them is dead.”
Not true! You’re discounting forensics. Dead men do tell tales!
They didn’t have that medical knowledge, then.
One question Sydney, just one: Do you trust Maxi?
If she doesn’t she’s screwed.
Point being: if the answer is ‘Yes’ then tell her, if the answer is ‘No’ or even ‘Maybe’ then don’t tell her, tell her something else, like her ability to survive three bowls of Grakz passing through her digestive tract
Three people can keep a secret, if two are dead.
It might be worth it to give the team basic protection against telepaths.
Like, maybe you can train up your resistance if a friendly telepath coaches you.
Or a mage can give you a warding tattoo on your scalp.
Or Archon can construct psychic pink noise generators and make people wear them.
…Of course, anyone snooping on Sydney’s thoughts is in for a wild ride…
But not as wild a one as they’ll get snooping on Dabbler’s.
That’d be Rule 34 meets a feline on catnip suffering through a heat cycle while tripping on peyote…
What is Maxima telling Sydney!?
About the US Government, two words: Secret Empire. Both the original and the modern one. And all the corrupted governments stories in other comics too.
Sydney has air inside her forcefield but Maxima is not inside it. So how is she hearing a word that Sydney is saying?
Think of how people have to wear oxygen masks on top of Mount Everest.
They’re probably at an altitude where there is not sufficient oxygen for Sydney to breathe, but plenty of air for sound transmission.
There’s enough for Maxima to breath (last time Max had to have a breathing mask when they were up high) so the shield is probably mostly for against the cold.
Heh. I agree with you about the moon landing hoax. Weirdly, while I was in the shower this morning (before reading this comic, in other words) I was musing that my favorite theory along those lines was the the one where the government *did* hire Kubrick to fake the whole thing, only to have the director eventually stubbornly insist on shooting it on location.
There’s another argument against the hoax theories that I find pretty convincing: given the technology available in the 60’s, creating a fake that convincing would have probably been harder than actually going to the moon
https://xkcd.com/1074/
That cut by xkcd left blood on the floor. And the walls. And the ceiling. And possibly the moon.
https://youtu.be/P6MOnehCOUw
I assume they took the collars off so that this would be a *private* meeting.
I’d call this overly-genre-savvy paranoia, except that we already have evidence that someone in Archon is a spy.
Dave, you did an *excellent* job with Max on this page! The shininess really comes across.
Re: not-supposed-to-be-smug look, have you tried showing a bit of teeth? Like a tiny, strained smile, or turning it upside-down into a tiny grimace.
Dave, you did an *excellent* job with Max on this page! The shininess really comes across.
Re: not-supposed-to-be-smug look, have you tried showing a bit of teeth? Like a tiny, strained smile, or turning it upside-down into a tiny grimace.
Hmm… if she teleports with her bubble up, can she effectively move to protect a target by teleporting in their vicinity to put them in it?
Shell, need to disable it first, then enanble it around them both, a difficult action to take, with no guarantee.
Sydney seems a lot more on-model than she has recently.
Face shape etc.
I like it.
Archon could have no files labeled “secret” let alone “top secret” or higher. No encryption on their files at all. They could claim that all the powers and abilities were public knowledge. They could have a public policy of replying, “Oh, yeah, we can do that” to any question asked.
No one would believe them, of course. All the spies & snoops would be going nuts looking for the really secret stuff.
Now imagine a “whistleblower” saying, “No, really, all our stuff really is public domain just to mess with you.” They’d be speaking the absolute truth — and no one would believe them. No one would dare believe them. Such whistleblowers get ignored as saying stuff too ridiculous to even listen to, let alone believe. It’s only in fiction that a lone voice betraying a big secret brings the whole thing down.
All that’s needed to “hide” a really big lie is enough people with egos that won’t let them even imagine they could have been duped. In my experience, that’s most people.
Does make one wonder about the availability of the CIA World Factbook in other countries, doesn’t it.
Been a long time but I don’t recall anything “secret” in them. At least nothing the US considered secret. There were a few things the local government wished were secret.
Any example of something like this happening in real life?
Last I checked governments do indeed keep some stuff classified.
Google, Pentagon Papers and Daniel Ellsberg.
Anyone else pity the telepath that tries to read Sydney’s mind? I can totally imagine them thinking it will be a sraightforward thing like other minds, then have their brain start to burn out just trying to keep up with her thoughts.
Er…it is called secret compartmentalized information and need to know restrictions. And logically the only people who need to know are her Force commander (the General), her field commander (Maxima), and her squad commander (though that appears to be effectively Maxima also, I have yet to see anyone in this force actual operate in a squad.)
And mellyrn the U.S. government has tried that already in Jane’s etc…and got mixed results.
Technically they did split up into squads to search for more of the bloodmagic golem people, which is how Sydney ended up on a squad with at least one Harem (corporal, higher rank than Sydney & Pixel, and thus presumably in charge of the squad), Pixel, and Krona…and that is how they ended up encountering Sciona/how Sydney got her teleport ability, which she’s kept secret all this time.
And yes, the teleportation ability is much, much more secret than the aetherium causeway, which was seen by Cora & her crew. The only one who saw the teleportation (and remembers it) is…er, was…the tractor beam squidward…who got a REALLY close look at it, before developing a fatal case of asyndyetism. >.>*
*that is to say, remembered it for that brief moment of realization (mostly consisting of the squidward equivalent of “WTF?!?”) before the asyndeytism turned fatal, with no Krona-made memory wiping, which is what happened to Sciona, who (according to DaveB’s comment) came to investigate what the yelling was about.
Technically, Pixelicious was in charge (as an alternative to Dabbles), which resulted in a super cute Dabbles face :)
Dave:
Awesome art in the first panel. Can we get a posting of it sans text bubbles on your Deviant Art page?
Seconded! Yes, please!
I’ve always found the idea of tinfoil hats weird. “Let’s block the mind control rays by putting homemade antennas on our heads” doesn’t strike me as the best of ideas.
The ones who believe in mind control rays aren’t exactly that smart to start with
The idea for the full head coverage is to act more like a Faraday cage and block the sinister signals.
An antenna would need external coils and amplifiers to boost the signal.
https://themidult.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/back-to-future-mind-reader-brain-waves.jpg
Doc Brown had it right.
There was an actual study of the effect of a foil hat and all it did was focus any directed signals into siad head being covered.
Oh and a Faraday cage only works when there are no openings larger that the wavelength of any energy encountering it. It is how a microwave oven has holes in the door you can look through yet keeps all the energy on the inside [supposedly]
I think Syd is over valuating her teleport a bit. Its no no were near as useful of a combat teliport as Harem’s. It may have more utility since Teli Syd/orb sid could walk/fly though barriers into a unknown sealed space then teleport in. We have no idea how fast teli syd can move but most likely when it comes to distances Harem will eat her for lunch. We also don’t know Syds weight limits. Harrem can just barely carry Peggys rifle.
Harem, said she barely has the weight limits, to bring her clothes.
Harem was able to “hump the Barrett” in the steak house fight and that weighs around 30 lbs. She only had to remove her boots to teleport so she can teleport at least 25 pounds over her fully dressed self. Not a huge amount, but we haven’t seen that Halo can teleport anything other than herself and her clothes.
And her utility belt.
I get the feeling that Sydney can port anything inside her shield. Or not. Like you said, we just don’t know yet. Could be some testing in the near future.
When Sydney manged to ‘get her ass to Mars (warehouse)’ it moved what was present in her original Holo-Halo image to the new location. It would probably take what she was holding, but (my guess) not the chair she might be sitting in. She needs to pick up a car with her lighthook and activate the image repeater. If it shows her and the lighthook and the car, then she needs to try the teleport. If she is lucky, it might take her and whatever the active orbs were involved with.
Just how are Sydney and Maxima communicating here? They obviously are high up in the atmosphere, so the air would be to thin to carry sound. I also think that Sydney’s shield would block sound waves. If they are transmitting on radio, even encrypted, it would be possible for some one to detect and translate the information.
sydney’s shield is advanced enough to only block what needs to be block. sound and light can gets through but only at levels that can’t hurt her.
I’ve flown next to a thunderhead and heard the thunder crack & rumble through the insulated walls of the airplane, over the sounds of the airplane jet engines, fellow passengers chatting, and the whooshing of those little personal air vents they give each person. We were a couple miles from that thunderhead, too. I’m quite sure that Maxima can be heard by Sydney just fine.
I think panel 2 looks just fine, in fact it caught my eye on the first read. Might not have been what you were going for, but came across as very thoughtful/sly.
You.
Back to work!
Write faster.
I don’t know Maxima, the way Sidney’s mind works may be so chaotic that any telepath may have a nervous breakdown after trying to read it for only a second or two.
Reminds me of the telepath deterrent from Wearing the Cape where she just ran through the gory battle she was in until the telepath couldn’t stand it anymore.
Well the Joker is immune to telepathic attack because he is so insane in the comics, so Sydney having non bubbled protection is plausible…. but unlikely imho. Shes not insane, she has adhd and is a bit of a spaz. Sadly that might actually make her more susceptible, not less. Esoecially when on her meds.
At the Mars factory, she used the light bee teleportation. Krona’s retcon was triggered and her use of the function was undone. Because reasons, it was not included in the original report. Sidney still remembers doing it (despite it being witnessed by no-one else who remembers). So she used it on Alari-prime, but has not told Max about it yet. Therefore, she has a power that Max doesn’t know about.