Grrl Power #762 – This presser is about to get a lot more exciting
I forgot to put the brackets around the all the dialog, except panel 6, but everyone is speaking in some alien language or another. Okay, bear with me, I know I talk about Universal Translators a lot, but I’m not sure what else to comment about on this page, so here we go.
On Earth, there are a few major languages that are worth your time to learn. English, obviously, since we export so much entertainment, and a lot of international business is conducted in English. Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, German, Hindi, or Arabic. Basically any language where there’s ~100+ million speakers is reasonably worth your time to learn. Depending heavily on your interests and geography, obviously.
BUT. If you lived in a galactic mixing pot with a chance to encounter any of ten thousand viable languages on a given day, and everyone has access to near perfect automatic translators that even somehow create holograms over people’s mouths so they’re lip synced correctly… honestly, would anyone learn more than one language? You’d only need to learn one language that the translators knew to get your foot in the door, and then you’d be set. Even if you’re a Snarglax, and you move into Little Blogsville, would you bother learning Blorgian? Just pop your translator in your ear (and in this case, your translator is also your wallet and your smartphone with the holographic interface projected into your eye and you’d never leave home without it anyway) and you’re set. Ok, maybe you’d learn the Bolrgian for “I got mugged and someone stole my translator.” but that’s it.
Learning a language is not a minor undertaking. Unless you’re learning a second language when you’re young, side by side with your primary language, it’s a lot of work. I’ve tried several times to learn Japanese, and I started getting decent with it for a while, but at some point I realized I wasn’t really going to internalize it unless I moved to Japan for a few years and immersed myself in it. Eventually I was like, well, I could do that, or I could put more time into this webcomic idea that has been rolling around in my head for a while.
So I tried something different with coloring Cora’s face in that last panel. I think it looks pretty good, except that it’s a little blown out. Also it lacks a certain stylized charm, but hey, I learned a little from doing it, so hopefully that helps build my pool of art skillz.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Looks like the Fel want their Artifact of Unspeakable Cuddles back.
It sounds like something Cora would want.
I have been wondering (for a while actually) if some unscrupulous Fel bureacrat sold it on the black market. Perhaps the Fel belatedly realized it was missing, set out to retrieve it, and have been chasing the latest purchaser (from whom they intend to retrieve it by force rather than by buying it back) for a while.
Or, Cora being Cora, decided the civilization owning whoevers ship is on the way in shouldn’t have the Artifact of Unspeakable Cuddles and just stole it herself.
That’s been the majority assumption.
I’m enough of a romantic to think that she might have won it gambling.
There are lots of literary gambling precedents – Han Solo, Travis McGee.
Or she is like an intergalactic Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones- and stole it from a planet that the Fel used to possess, and the Fel want to steal the artifact back which she rightfully stole first :)
But given she had a problem with the Fel right before going to aid Sydney on the Alari homeworld, it’s probably more likely she stole it directly from the Fel themselves. :)
No higher a probability than any other reason for her having the artifact.
If the Fel want it and Cora has it, it is almost irrelevant how she got it.
But only almost.
There are (it has been established) intergalactic cops. We saw them chasing the Fel last episode.
If she stole the artifact herself they could have those same cops which they were outrunning retrieve it instead of sending their own mind numbingly expensive to operate fleet carrier after her.
On the other hand, if it was lost long ago (nobody realized it was missing until some museum curator died and the new curator audited the rotating collection) then the ownership issue may be too arcane for the galactic cops to care.
“If this is so damned important to your culture, why weren’t you looking for the damned thing three hundred years ago?”
“We didn’t know that it was gone.”
“You didn’t know that it was gone.”
That works every bit as good as being late to pick up Sydney because Cora stopped to steal something.
It happens, like you have a tomb of a sacred king behind a door that must never be opened and supposedly has a curse on it. After a few centuries the door is just some tourist attraction till one day historians convince the temple guardians to open the door for the historical value of learning about this great king. Only to find the room practically empty and a tunnel in the back dug out who knows when by thieves.
Like that episode of “Night Court”, when Judge Harry finally managed to open the safe in his office, only to find it backed into Bull’s locker :D
Now I need to find a place that has episodes of Night Court so I can see what you’re talking about. Bull is the bald bailiff right?
Yups :D
Smiling Bull (Sitting Bulls’ brother :P)
Okay I recognize that guy from an episode of Highlander the TV show. The one with Adrian Paul.
Another possibility is that Cora is an intergalactic recovery artist, who is recovering an artifact the Fel stole from somebody else…
It probably would not be called the ‘Fel Artifact’ if it did not belong to the Fel originally.
Probably, but not necessarily conclusive. It could as easily be called the ‘Fel artifact’ to distinguish it as the one acquired by the Fel some time ago (by whatever means), as opposed to the rest of the set which are still in the original custody. The same sort of distinction that named the Elgin Marbles, although probably on a different scale.
Cora is what it says on the official ship registry. But she usually goes by her nickname ‘Indiana’.
So what you’re saying is the Fel Artifact of Unspeakable Cuddles belongs in a museum.
All we need to do is get the crew of the Fel ship to take the box to a island and stand around while one of them opens it. After much special effects and face melting, problem solved.
“Perhaps the Fel … have been chasing the latest purchaser … for a while” – Doctor Phogg
And possibly through multiple iterations of “the latest purchaser”.
Alari person apparently doesn’t know how to spell Slyv’s name correctly. Perhaps an issue with the universal translators, or maybe that’s just how it’s pronounced with an Alari accent.
Seeing how the tags spell it ‘sylv’ as well I’m thinking it is more than an Alari accent issue.
Even Cora fumbles his name sometimes, as is evident in the last panel.
Slyv is how his name was spelled when he was first introduced, so Cora has it right.
I am personally hearing Slyv/Sylv speaking with a British accent. He definitely has a stiff upper lip.
It’s been quite a day. I still say Sydney’s effortless annihilation of the evil planet killers will have profound implications and consequences.
Also her casting and Ethereal Channel all by herself…
Fel; “WHO DARES TAKE OUR SACRED ARTIFACT OF UNSPEAKABLE- WHAT DO YOU WANT?!?! I’m in the middle of something!! Wait, what? Are you sure it’s the same energy signature as from the Alari Homeworld?! From which ships? What? What do you mean, just from that single Terran?!?! Are you certain?! Um, alright…_________________________ Damn it I left it on TERRANS, WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE, UM,BIT OF A MIXUP, WE’LL JUST BE LEAVING NOW…”
Why are you here?
We came because of them.(Points at Fel.)
Why are you here?
We came because of them. (Points at Cora)
Why are you here?
We came because of her. (Points at Sydney)
Why are you here?
Well, I live here. (Points down) So you are here. Now what?
So I tried something different with coloring Cora’s face in that last panel.
Actually I really like Cora’s look in the last panel. The lighter shade of blue suits her. Is the color a sign that her photosynthesis has kicked in, or is it just that she’s standing in direct sunlight?
I agree. Dora looks awesome.
The coloring is just perfect.
Cora the Explorer
Dabbler, no dabbling!
The shading is different, but I do particularly like the overall look.
I think Dave it right, it looks good but doesn’t so much match the comics style. I bet this method would be perfect for posters or other large single images though.
Nth iteration vote here on liking the last panel coloring; it makes it look like there is a strong directional light source, as if she were actually outside in bright sunlight instead of a room with lots of ambient light.
It might be both.
I agree as well.
It makes her look a lot less cartoony (not that I didnt like how she looked before as well). I really like the effect.
Agreed, it’s near photo-realistic actually. All the art on this page is great.
Don’t forget French, the secondary language of a lot of awful places. Russian works the same way in central Asia.
English is also the language of international air traffic control. Never fly without it. There’s probably some intra galactic equivalent.
It is also the International Language of the sea, although, one is only “required” to learn about 60 English words for air/sea speak.
I think you mean “the secondary language of an awful lot of places.” Canada has French as an official language and it is not awful! Maybe aweful (that is full of awe), but not awful.
Who are we to believe?
You, or South Park?
The answer is always South Park.
Only Quebec, has French as a co-official language with English.
Looking provincially, only New Bruswick is officially bilingual (English and French). Quebec considers French the official language of the province and for all the others English is the official language of the province. If you want to interact with a provincial government or its various agencies, bodies and divisions, you need to use the/an official language of that province.
French was THE international language of diplomacy in the 18th C. It is still considered A language of diplomacy, but has been losing ground for decades due to their intentionally making it effort-full to learn the language by avoiding loan words.
The language of any former (or current) Imperial Power will generally be embedded in its respective Empire. French and English in large swathes of Africa, Russian across much of Asia and Eastern Europe, Spanish and Portuguese in their respective bits of South America. And that’s just counting official Empires, without getting into the unofficial but no less pervasive cultural Empires.
“So I tried something different with coloring Cora’s face in that last panel. I think it looks pretty good, except that it’s a little blown out.”
Sir, that’s not “pretty good”. That’s a freaking art upgrade. NICE WORK.
Addendum: It honestly looks like it’s entering photo-realistic territory.
Trying to remember who she reminds me of…
Star By Face suggests:
– Katherine Heigl
– Emma Stone
– Taylor Swift
– Charlize Theron
– Margot Robbie
On the other hand, another site analyzed that shot as 87% male, so clearly the machines aren’t quite ready to identify our leaders and overthrow us.
I for one welcome our new machine overlords.
Well if the AI party can do a better job than our current leaders they have my vote.
I’m certain the free* WiFi coverage will be phenomenal!
* and heavily monitored, but that’s hardly new
Or maybe that is just what the machines want you to think…
Mmm, nope, not any of those (maybe an Aussie, just not Maggot Robot)
Something about the mouth and the nose…
A young Molly Ringwald perhaps?
Circa “Adventures In The Forbidden Zone”
Close, butt the lips don’t fit
I’m concerned that you paid enough attention to teenage Molly Ringwald’s lips to be able to discern that.
Well, there wasn’t really anything else to pay attention to :P
Butt nah, simply looked up that movie and watched the trailer and some crappy review (claiming it to be a rip-off of Star Wars, when it was clearly a Mad Max clone :P)
The only thing that made the movie bearable was the Art Deco spaceship design.
You could watch the first ten minutes or so and then skip the rest.
Which movie?
“Adventures In the Forbidden Zone”
I am not a baby! I am not out of diapers!
speaking of languages.. i learned french when i was younger, then completely ignored it. now, after 20 years of not practicing, i can barely understand what a french sentence means, but cannot speak it anymore.
so, even if you learn it when you’re young, without practice it could get lost.
There are many reasons to learn a language., other than to comunicate to other people.
First it improve brain and can reduce mental decline.
Second there are a lot of culture and history in a language that you can learn, and some jokes that rely on similar sounding words wouldn’t relliably be translated.
Thirdly, people who can think in different languages also find they think differently in different languages so it would help the hole think from a different point of view.
I love Cora’s face in the last panel
Cora looks amazing in that last panel. The lighter blue is cool but what gets me is she looks more petite, finer boned. Personally, I love that. Always preferred the smaller ladies.
For people who don’t speak English, obviously the second language to learn is English, especially if you intended to become a commercial pilot.
I should put some effort towards CC+.
CC+ reminds me of C++. Speaking of C++, it should be noted that almost every computer language in existence is, effectively, English.
High level, mainstream languages anyhow. There are thousands of languages in active use, including some that use only symbols or even justpixel data.
Ultimately, they all compile down to math (assembly instructions), but the more effectively you can wrap the concepts up into simpler abstractions, the more productive they are to use. And much of the early research came out of the US, resulting in languages like BASIC and C around the time that computers became viable for commercial and industrial purposes. Pretty much all mainstream languages today are descended from (or at least heavily influenced by) C, which was designed by English speakers.
Or if you go into international finance, English is a must as well.
Okay this is going to be something special I’m sure. I wonder if any of the guys are going to ask dabbler what her dating preferences are
She would probably answer with “Yes.”
In the second-last panel, Dabbler’s **ahem** hindquarters are drawn particularly well, and the slight focus blur (i.e. less detailed art) of the rest of the panel really draw it into focus. The casual legover gives it a definitely human (oid) touch as well. Just awesome.
This has been a great description of why so many extraterrestrials are humanoid, but it’s nice to see some action coming in…
On the general subject of languages and communication, I assume that “leg over” doesn’t mean the same in American English as in British English….
Well, you know how the British are, to hear them speak, you would think they had invented the English language. :-) :-) :-)
Well, their Norman guards and Saxon barmaids did…
When dealing with aliens, the other big language barrier is basic biology. It may be impossible for you to ever speak a particular language because you lack the required mouth parts.
Sometimes you need a “Second Date” tongue to pronounce all the words.
As any competent professional translator could tell you, translation isn’t enough to provide full communication. In order to really understand what someone’s saying beyond the pen-of-my-aunt level, you have to also grok their context. For example, the word “grok”, which comes from Heinlein’s Stranger In A Strange Land, literally translates as “drink” – and once you grok that in fullness, you know a lot about the Martian culture in that setting.
Or there’s the Japanese concept of honour, which I understand just enough to know I don’t understand.
So a universal translator might help by letting you understand their literal words without further assistance, but it won’t give you the full meaning of whatever they’re saying – you’d still need to learn their culture for that.
I guess what I’m saying is “Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel”
If you prefer an easier concept for somebody who speaks American English, think about the literal meaning of “dude,” and the variations that are implied by tone.
It can be anything from, “Great to see you!” to “That is a horrible mess you just made.”
*reads your thought provoking post*
Duuuuuuuuuuuuude.
See also ‘buddy’ and ‘dude’
Buddy like Terrance and Philip or Buddy like Pauly Shore?
Buddy Spencer :)
Buddy like Buddy the Elf.
Japanese brand of human stems from their sentence structure. In most Western countries, it goes something like subject>verb>descriptor eg I ate the sandwich. As I understand, in Japanese, it would end up being something like I the sandwich ate. The first sentence structure lends itself to a natural cadence for verbal humor, the second, not so much. That’s why Japanese media relies more on physical humor.
So in conclusion, the Japanese are like Yoda with the right translation software.
No, Yoda is Space Yakusa :P
The final panel looks amazing, but also looks like it takes a lot of work so maybe it’s not good for when you’re trying to keep to a schedule. That style would probably make for some kickass pinups, though.
I really like the coloring in the final panel. And to add I like that her lips seem to be a bit thinner than normal, which I find to be a good look for Cora.
Looks like this press conference is going to be cut short….!
It’s a stupid thing to get worked up over, yet here I go…
Languages do a lot more than just communicate. A perfect universal translator would be a nearly indispensable tool in the galactic social context you describe – but a universal translator will always be limited by the untranslatable differences between the source and target language. It’s not a technical problem that the magic of advanced science will someday solve, either. Languages develop and evolve over time, like individuals, and, like individuals, there is a lot that can be bridged with empathy, imagination, and eloquence, but also a lot that cannot, unless there is a shared history. There’s a reason even excellent writers generally write unconvincing characters of the opposite sex. For a sense of this linguistic limitation, look to the best translations of poetry, philosophy, religious writing, etc. – brilliant scholars, with a real gift for nuance, like Robert Alter, can spend decades translating something like the Tanakh, but for anyone who can read Biblical Hebrew, the loss from the source is immense, for all that the translation is excellent.
Good point.
I think most sci-fi gets it right when they assign communication officers who focus on specific races with non-verbal cues and biological changes that assist in their communications. For example, Uhura and Klingon. She not only studied their language, but their societal norms and their history to understand how to talk to them correctly. Even in English, without understanding the context or the history behind the origins of the words, people get stuck. Other languages – especially those that have developed in isolation such as the natives of the Amazon – have complex body movements and sounds that convey emotion, meaning and instance.
And wrong when they throw Counselor Troi in to explain how Romulan engines work.
I like the results you got from that final panel. The camera lighting is really doing interesting things with her skin tone.
(That’s my explanation for the difference, and I’m sticking with it.)
I’m just waiting for Max to go “Sydney, shield! As big as you can!”
And for Sydney to accidentally generate a planetary shield with the orb.
“I accidentally the entire planet.”
Power requirements would have to scale at least with surface area, if not volume, so r^2 at least if not r^3. Given that the Squiddies taxed it when merely the size of a small apartment, I don’t think she could effectively shield the planet from a spaceship’s weapons platform. At least not without a few more upgrades.
The squidwards taxing her shield does not necessarily mean the shield weakens as it gets bigger. It might just mean the squidwards’ blasts are unbelievably powerful, period.
One of the orbs produces a special wormhole that normally can only be made by a massive capital ship or sacrificing the lives of multitudes of psykers.
something tells me power requirements is the least of the worries for “Nth tech”, like having something that draws power from a self contained pocket universe or generates power within collapsing dimensions or from random timelines slowing down their relative time by drawing power from the very frabric of time/space, or insert some other insane power source.
The limits seem more self imposed, the experience point stats thing and all that, one of the reasons the theory is floating around that these are the toys of a higher dimensional being rather than the grandiose weapons and tool kit they seem to be otherwise. That or training wheels (you get a gold star for effort, now you can upgrade a stat point kiddo).
“Launch a relay berfore we leave”… Terrans generally have 10 toes, but Cora casually launching a Galactic Comms relay would probably tread on all 10 at once (depending on where she left it), not to mention the importation of prohibited technology. Remember what happened last time someone left one on the Moon?
No, not THAT moon. The other moon. The one we USED to have…before it got left be…right, right, you don’t remember it anymore, because you know, that whole ‘no more dinosaurs’ incident.
Also, that last panel looks great.
The Dinosaurs Had It Coming! – they were getting very uppity.
On one of the Jovian Moons. :)
Sure, but humanity hasn’t been rebooted again in the18 years since that event, so it’s probably fine.
I love the design of Slyv’s faceplate and eyes.
Some random astronauts accidentally released Rita Repulsa?
Wow this replied to the wrong post. Should have been a reply to gorblimey above.
It happens, and sometimes this comments plugin does weird things. At least you explained it instead of leaving me with what I would have interpreted as an incomprehensible non-sequitur. XD
Cool avatar. Head looks oddly familiar.
The figure is built entirely of Platonic Solids, a.k.a. regular polyhedra. The head is a regular icosahedron, better known by some as a d20.
Huh. What are the odds?
Which real model’s photo did you for Cora in the last panel?
She looks very familiar…
I hate to say that I came looking for this comment. I don’t have access to the double-rez version of the page, but that looks unusually like a photo that was repainted. The angle and pose is pretty standard for some model shots, and there’s a clear change in how it looks between hair/face and the added arm/hand. It’s not bad, but I don’t really like the idea of Dave doing a shortcut like this.
Cora looks great, but I feel like she looks *too good* for what we know about Dave’s style.
Kinda like Cora’s face. I thought it looked a little different.
That last panel looks freaking amazing. It’s the most gorgeous lady-face you’ve drawn yet for this comic.
I agree. Her face is amazingly well drawn.
That’s because it’s a repainted photo
If it is, I can’t really say I mind. It’s still amazingly well done.
Complete Agrecian: looks great, just would like to know who was in the original photo
We need to figure out the casting for Grrl Power – The Movie somehow.
+1
Sylv gets no Who’s Who love?
It didn’t make in time for today’s posting.
Dave: Can you add one more person to the who’s who list?
Web developer: OK, sure. What name do I use?
Dave: Um, let me get back to you on that.
Let’s hope DaveB isn’t like a certain other webic author who often gets the names of his own characters wrong, and then gets shitty when readers point out the different spellings
I honestly don’t think DaveB gets any sort of attitude problem with his readers. He seems like a pretty friendly nad upbeat person. At least that’s been my view of it.
And he’s been really good in either taking constructive criticism or, at the very least, not letting it sour his attitude towards the readers.
Not sure what other webcomic author you’re talking about btw.
Someone who called me a ‘toxic sock-puppet’ for not liking some characters who were (seemingly) created to be non-likable and for using nicknames for characters that hadn’t been seen in a couple years
Yeah well, it wasn’t DaveB though who called you that. I don’t think you’re a toxic sock puppet btw :) Despite your scurrilous accusations against Deus, our lord and savior. You’re a good egg.
Yeah, DaveB is one of the best authors
No, what you are smelling is the sulphur, once it gets into your skin and clothes you can never fully get rid of it (not even bathing in fresh angel blood helps)
I wonder how Dabbler would respond to this video from the Hoover Institution considering how confident she is about Evolution: Mathematical Challenges to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
NOTE: The Video is an Hour long.
I don’t understand why these people are discussing “Darwin’s theory”.
Darwin’s book was written one and a half centuries ago, and modern life sciences have developed accordingly. No one except creationists even read Darwin’s book today, except as an historically interesting text. It’s like reading Copernicus is historically interesting in astronomy, but not relevant to modern knowledge.
I mean, no one seriously thinks that antiquated books are relevant to modern knowledge, do they …?
I get quite a bit of knowledge out of antiquated books – Machiavelli’s the Prince, Plato’s Republic, Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (which is pretty much the foundation of most western law), pretty much all Shakespeare, La Morte d’Arthur, Beowulf, The Iliad and the Odyssey, The Niebelungenlied (you know, the story about Siegfried and Kriemhild), and Ptolemy’s Geography. A lot of older texts can still have a lot of relevance. Even with science, we use some scientific principles that have been around for hundreds of years, like Gregor Mendel’s Experiments on Plant Hybridization is still one of the source materials used when understanding the concept of dominant and recessive genes.
Plus let us not forget that Jean-Luc Picard in the episode ‘Darmok’ used the Epic of Gilgamesh to open communications with that alien species.
That’s only law and culture though – human nature has completely changed, and science has now moved beyond its roots, and therefore we no longer rely on ancient concepts like Pythagorean Theorem, Euclidean Geometry, Keplar’s planetary motion, Newton’s laws of physics… oh wait, none of that’s changed, my mistake.
Yeah, we do use still old texts – extensively, especially in early-/mid-level education – because you have to understand the foundation of the ideas, even if they’ve been refined since. Don’t get hung up on the “definition of a theory” argument. Sure, others have built out the concept far beyond Darwin, but they’re still building on his work (which brought the ideas to international recognition), and it’s far faster to convey the concept with his name.
You almost tricked me with how you started your post. I was all set to argue until midway past the second line. Damn you.
:) :) :)
Gotcha :D
Thought I’d demonstrate the XKCD comment feedback protocol and see if some of the other members picked up on the technique.
That, and the fact that even though they’ve upgraded the “Theory of Evolution” to a “Law”, there actually is no such law.
What is the general statement of the so-called “Law of Evolution”?
Okay, now take anything else called a “Law” in science.
Newton: An object at rest tends to remain at rest…
Ohms Law: The current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to …
Thermodynamics: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only …
Boyles Law: P alpha 1/v (pressure is inversely proportional to volume at constant temperature)
Relativity: E=MC^2
Every other law has a general statement. Except that one.
Defining a ‘Law’ doesn’t have anything to do with being able to condense it into a snappy sentence, nor is it an ‘upgrade from a Theory’.
A ‘Law’ is something that’s been consistently observed in nature, to the extent that we can use it to make predictions about future events. It doesn’t mean we necessarily understand how it works, just that we can be very confident that it does.
A ‘Hypothesis’ is a provisional explanation of how the observed effects come about. It should ideally be usable to make predictions and be open to challenge via experiment.
A ‘Theory’ is a hypothesis that has accumulated sufficient evidence for it to be generally accepted as the best explanation to date. Being accepted doesn’t make it unassailable, although it does mean it’s already withstood a lot of assailing. But if new evidence arises that disproves the current theory, then something else (whether a refinement or radically different) will have to take its place.
Evolution per se falls in the category of a Law: it’s something that we can see evidence for in the past, that we can see happening in the present, and that we can even induce ourselves. Most of the present-tense examples are in creatures with very fast life cycles relative to Humans, just because it takes so many generations for measurably large differences to build up.
One could argue that the Law as observed is separate from the Theory advanced by Darwin and others. They set it forth as being the best way to account for the similarities and differences seen in various collections of zoological specimens, and it’s later work that’s shown real-world organisms changing characteristics in response to environmental demands. You could claim that the evolutionary Law we can see in action in the present isn’t proven to be the same as the evolutionary Theory which accounts for past performance, but they fit together far better than any proposals to fit the two separately.
Note that while neither Laws nor Theories are permanent and unchanging things, the experimental results that led to them are, so disproving one doesn’t necessarily invalidate it. More often, it simply means proving that either [i] there are special cases for which it doesn’t fully account, [ii] it is itself a special case of a more complex reality, or [iii] it isn’t fully accurate beyond a given level of precision. In either of those situations, it’s still valid for predictions within the limits of the relevant domain.
Take gravity as an example. Relativistic gravity is as general as we’ve got so far. We know it’s not the full picture, but none of the various alternative hypotheses have (yet) demonstrated sufficient evidence to take over. But if you’re only working at low energies, Newtonian gravity is often accurate enough and saves you a lot of calculating/modelling complexity that can be better used for other things. Or if the scope of your prediction is sufficiently small-scale (and Earthbound) you can just treat it as a uniform 9.8 N downward force, because further refinement doesn’t actually make a significant difference to the results.
As for a “general statement of the ‘Law of Evolution'”? How about this:
‘Reproduction does not create perfect replicas, and the environment affects which of those imperfect replicas will have most descendants and be most successful in the long term.’
I think you mistake my point.
Science honours the work done by peoploe of the past. We have moved much further down the road than they did, and we know more. So, we rarely use their books as reference material, and we do not think that what they said was unchangeable truth.
Newtown was a genius, who jumped human knowledge forward. However, modern physics students do not study his writings, because we have jumped even further. His ingenious writing is now out of date – it is not some holy scripture.
Both Darwin and Russell pointed to a new way to understand the formation of species. However, modern students do not study their writings, which are one and a half centuries out of date. Our understanding has leaped much further than they could ever see.
So, it’s absurd when creationists and non-scientists keep focussing on Darwin’s big book. It’s part of the history of science, not some religious belief which can be destroyed by attacking his book.
To quote Clarence Darrow, from the Scopes Monkey Trial:
“Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it. Sometimes I think there’s a man who sits behind a counter and says, ‘All right, you can have a telephone, but you lose privacy and the charm of distance. Madam, you may vote, but at a price. You lose the right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat. Mister, you may conquer the air, but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline.’ Darwin took us forward to a hilltop from where we could look back and see the way from which we came.”
I wonder why we can’t go a day without someone on the forums trying to send comic discussion down an irrelevant flamewar rabbit hole.
Did you not notice who posted that to the forum?
I’ve got to say, I have read more pleasant and reasonable discussions in this comic’s comment section than any comment section other I have on the internet, and encountered less (if any at all) flame wars, shooting matches or just plain general nastiness than I have in other places. It’s quite refreshing, to be honest.
Sooo, did slyvv mean to say cora has friends in “the system” or “THIS system”? The sentence seems a little off.
He meant it exactly how it looks: she has friends in system, implying ‘this’ (meaning Dabbles, and probably Archon now)
Oh. So it’s not missing a word? The phrasing looked a little wierd to me.
I have seen that phrasing used before, usually in a military context, “in system”, “in country”, etc.
Yeah, not only did the English language drag other languages into a dark alley and beat the verbs out of them, it also tends to get lazy with using half of what it stole :P
If you spend time going “What?” then you know you are reading English :D
Other languages are like kung fu, karate, savate, capaoeria, boxingetc.
English is UFC mixed with some WWF, including the folding chairs used to beat you over the head.
Screw the fake aluminium chairs (that bend just by farting on them), early WCW where they used the literal kitchen sink! :D
The funny thing is the fact that English frequently breaks its own rule makes it VERY easy for non-English speakers to leran, because the rules are so loosely followed. So if someone does not have a great grasp of proper grammer, other English-speakers can still easily understand what they’re trying to say most of the time. At least more than non-English speaking people can understand someone speaking very broken non-English languages (the further from English it is, ie, non-Romantic languages, the more difficult it is to understand a brokenly spoken language by the native speakers).
Yups, one reason keep saying ‘screw the Granma, and the grammer’ :P
Not sure I’ve ever commented here before, but I just had to say:
THE ART UPGRADE ON CORA LOOKS AMAZING!
DaveB commented “I’ve tried several times to learn Japanese”
For your excellent work on this comic over the years I would like to say domo arigato Mr. Barracko.
If I ever learned Japanese, I could probably double my salary while not having to even take on clients or even keep my office open. Law firms pay really well for document review cases in certain languages, like Japanese.
So, learning Japanese could satisfy your yen to earn more Yen.
Something feels hinky to me: is there something preventing this group of Fugee’s from finding out about the group enslaved by SmugD?
Cora saw their ship when they were entering orbit…
Well they’re in tents in the cargo hold, not on the bridge. And the Alari on Cora’s ship have a specific destination that they were heading towards when they got stranded on Fracture Station.
You would still think someone like Cora would mention the other Alari ship
Remember, Cora didn’t want to pick them up in the first place, so the chance to palm them off on their own kind would have seemed like a blessing
According to what DaveB has said, she’s not above doing acts of altruism. She just is 20% mercenary, 80% paragon. :)
In any case, maybe she did tell them and they are just wanting to get to their settlement destination, where maybe some of their family have survived, instead of being stranded with other Alari on a non-FTL world.
Sydney: “cause they… need help?
Cora:”Heh… That’s a pretty good reason.”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-709-para-go-on/
Pretty much covers it.
At what point did the Alari refugees in Africa become slaves? Deus invited them in to his country, but that doesn’t mean that he’s enslaved them.
Guesticus always thinks the worst of our savior, Deus, the world’s most perfect man. I’m sure it’s jealousy.
Nope, don’t always think the worst, just haven’t anything good about him :P
His country, aka Hotel California: you can check out any time, you just can’t leave :P
Not yet proven either way; we don’t know what their conditions are, or whether they’ve tried to leave yet. Note also, for potential future reference, the difference between slavery and indentured service: slavery is permanent and involuntary; indenture is voluntary and term-limited, basically mortgaging your future work against present costs.
Looks like we might see how big halo can make her shield. Can her shield cover the entire planet? If her shield is able to cover the planet, could she move the planet to where ever she wants to?
What is inside the shield still has the same mass as before. Assuming her thrust is the same as her lift (16 tons) that is not going to make a lot of change in Earth’s orbit around the Sun, even over a long period. Plus if she tried pulling up on the Earth for a whole day, her pull ‘up’ would go around in a full 360 rotation and cancel itself out.
For more information see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgu1syQP124
Possibly she could make an Aetherium causeway big enough for the Earth to be transported through, but that would be a terrible idea anyway for all kinds of reasons.
That said, she could also possibly make a causeway open right in front of the Fel battlecruiser after using the button that circumvents the exit point being near a black hole’s singularity . . . .
Ah, that’s what that button’s for – permanently ditching anyone pursuing you during an interstellar chase, just pop open the tunnel and step to one side.
Her thrust is definitely NOT the same as her lift. She can go Mach 16 in the atmosphere, aetherium causeway notwithstanding. And unlike how thrust works, it does not seem to matter how much weight Sydney is carrying, which makes it sort of impossible to accurately calculate her thrust, since thrust is dependent on the mass of the object as part of the formula. But I can make a guess by comparing it to a space shuttle. I don’t think that Sydney’s flight involves any thrust at all. Whatever means by which the fly ball operates, it’s not via thrust.
But lets say it was, and we use the space shuttle as comparison:
The space shuttle has a total thrust at launch is about 7.8 million pounds of thrust at launch, or 3900 tons, and the space shuttle has a speed of Mach 25 max. Sydney’s speed is Mach 16, which means, if Sydney’s flight DID involve thrust, it would be about 2496 tons of thrust.
The Space Shuttle Assembly, at launch weighs 4.4 million pounds. Sydney weighs about 100 pounds. That means, to achieve the same acceleration as the shuttle, she needs about 56 lbs of thrust. Maximum velocity is not determined by thrust, but by the duration of the thrust. If it was maintained long enough, many years at least, even 56 lbs of thrust could accelerate one to, close to, the speed of light.
My point is that Sydney’s flight does not require thrust, and if it did, it would be a lot more than 16 tons of thrust.
Also no…. 56 pounds of thrust will not give you the same acceleration as the Space Shuttle. Think about what you’re saying for a moment :). A professional baseball pitcher can throw a ball with one pound of thrust, but for him to maintain that thrust long enough to get into orbit would require approximately 3600 pounds of baseballs.
The formula for calculating thrust involves more than just the weight of the thing – I just mentioned weight because you NEED the weight when calculating thrust. You also need amount of time it takes to reach orbit, the gravity being exerted on the object, the velocity of the object (the starting velocity of the Space Shuttle assembly is not going to be nearly as fast as Sydney, who can go from 0 to Mach 16 almost instantly).
Thrust, as a type of force, but doesnt use the simple force calculation of F=ma – it uses F=([mV]2-[mV]1)/(t2 – t1), where m=mass, V=velocity, t=time. Then you need to take into account the mass flow rate (mass per unit time), the and the area and density of the object, which is m=r * V * A.
I don’t know what happened with the end of my sentence. It is supposed to say ‘and also the’ not ‘the and the.’ This is what happens when I talk math and physics before I’ve had a coffee.
Or you can just use h=1/2*GT^2 and v=GT and give it that much velocity to start (ignoring air friction which would be a burn at that speed)
Even without doing the math like Pander did, there’s no reason to expect Sydney’s thrust to equal her lift. The two forces are generated by separate orbs, and the orbs are mostly upgraded individually.
Only if she was on the equator. Otherwise, she would increase the vertically elliptical nature of the orbit.
I wonder if Halo’s shield remains the same strength regardless of the size? ie, it’s stronger when just around her, weaker when around several people, and the bigger it gets, the less powerful it is? Or is it the same level no matter what size it is and it has a limited size that it can ’embiggen’ to?
Depends on how it’s implemented, I suppose. If centrally generated, it probably gets weaker as it gets bigger.
If the orb is just churning out little independent shield tiles that go where they’re told, a bigger shield might be just as strong, but just take longer to put up. Noticing that the shield gets all tiled when stressed suggests that this might be the case.
If that is possible I sure hope she won’t make any sharp turns or sudden stops.
Cora? More like A-Cora-ble!
Can we get a full image of her face in just that panel without speech? Cause she looks so cute there
That’s Slyv, Mr. Sylv Slyv, remember it. Why do all sophonts seem to have trouble with that?
His mother’s first name is Anna. Her maiden name was Graham.
Sylv Slyv’s mother
Says Sylv Slyv is leaving
For a galaxy called Milky Way
Sylv Slyv’s mother
Says Sylv Slyv was hired
To launch missiles and fire beams and rays
The galactic operator wants forty quatloos more
For the next three units…
Please Mrs Alien
Just let me talk to Slyv…
For those who don’t understand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPrixYOTNHw
I just want to say, Cora in the bottom right panel looks _incredible_. Definitely some of your best work – amazing to see how far this comic has come! Please more of this colouring style.
Cora looks amazing! Like HeavyMetal / Dragon magainze type amazing
I’ve actually learned 6 languages in my life, if you include English. Seven if you also include American Sign Language, which I learned in camp when I was a teenager in order to teach some deaf children how to use computers.
The other languages I learned are Korean, French, Spanish, Russian, and Hebrew. Usually because I’d go to a country and learn the language first. Technically I learned a few hawaiian words but not enough to say anything in particular. I then proceeded to forget EVERY LANGUAGE I’VE EVER LEARNED in a stunning display of laziness and/or stupidity as soon as I no longer need to use them, except for French. I have no idea why I can still speak french semi-well and can read it well – I don’t practice it either. I think I’m able to pick up languages well, but I can’t retain them unless I actively am practicing using the language. I don’t know anyone else who’s FORGOTTEN multiple languages. Maybe you learn Spanish in high school then forget it, but forgetting four languages takes a special type of skill
Also I still know sign language, but I think it’s because sign language uses a different part of the brain than other linguistic intelligence, and I might be a bit dumb on retention of spoken languages, which doesnt seem to translate over to sign language (I only ever had to learn a few hundred words in ASL, the alphabet, and a few slang words in order to get by in it.
Also learned a few computer languages (Pascal, Fortran, LISP, C++, Cobol, Linux, and Logo) and, just like with spoken languages, I forgot most of it after I no longer needed it (except for BASIC) – but those seem a lot easier to re-pick up. What they need is a universal translator that also translates into computer languages, so you can program a game by telling the computer what you want the game to do, and it just translates it into the computer code…. although I’m pretty sure most modern video games today are made with pre-built engines, so they’re sort of halfway there already.
Seeing as how most computer languages are, essentially, English, it is to be expected that you could “re-pick up” them very easily.
You’re describing loss of language, and it seems to be surprisingly easy to do.
Recently, I heard an interview with a man who had lived in Poland, and spoke only Polish until he moved to Ireland aged 15. Then he learned English and spoke nothing else for decades. When he met Polish cousins recently, he was unable to understand them. He had lost the language.
However, you may be surprised by the “lost” languages. If you live in a language environment, you may find it “hiding at the back of your head”. It can wake up suddenly.
Okay, that makes me feel better to be told that forgetting multiple entire languages is not uncommon :)
Modern English was born out of a blending of Saxon and French. I’ve heard a college professor claim that English and French are still so closely related that one might treat either as a dialect of the other. That’s taking it rather too far, of course, but the point stands that the relationship between the two languages might help explain why French is the one you’ve still held onto.
Yeah but modern English is ALSO a blending of Spanish, German, and Italian. And I can’t remember any Spanish, even though I knew it well enough to get around in the Dominican Republic for a month, and was able to pass two semesters of Spanish in college. But yeah maybe it’s the similarities that’s the reason. I like any excuse that means that there’s not something screwy with my brain.
You would revive it at something like ten times the original learning rate. Really, if you left Spanish language movies playing in the background for a week, you’d find yourself refreshing the language automatically.
Champions analysis: In your case, you spent 3 points on the “linguist” option, and you probably also have the actual languages in a multipower that takes a few months to reallocate the points in.
That’s actually quite comforting information. :) Thanks.
The core of English is derived from Anglo-Saxon (which was a low German language, so English is correctly characterised as a Germanic language); almost all of the most basic words come from there, as does the sentence structure and things like how prepositions are used (instead of, say, case suffixes). There’s been a huge injection of words from elsewhere, especially Norman French, but English is not at all unique in adopting loan words and they don’t really change the basics of the nature of the language much.
OH MY GOODNESS!! Cora’s face looks AMAZING and even more so on the PATREON page with 4k resolution zoom. LOVE IT! I was blown away.
P.S. – If you like this webcomic then you should definitely support it and check out Dave’s Patreon!! even $1/month would help I’m sure.
*Note: not a paid actor or advertisement. I just love this webcomic.
Last panel Cora looks amazing! It’s like looking at a photograph… of a fictional alien species?
Human, just not a Baseline Human. About a quarter of unspecified ‘other’ ancestry, if memory serves, plus the various effects of Gene-Modding.