Grrl Power #763 – It’s an evil spaceship, not a death dreidel
Okay so, the pacing of this page is a little weird. If you read the panel order literally, it might seem like Maxima waited for the Fel ship the hit the atmosphere and dropped all the way down and started firing before she responded to the question. You know, for dramatic effect. Granted, a ship like that could traverse the 300 miles of atmosphere pretty quickly, especially considering something like 90% of the air is in the bottom 1o miles. Given unknown levels of alien tech like deflector fields or whatever, they could potentially largely ignore drag. Really, the biggest issue would be the sudden stop, assuming they could travel 300 miles in a few seconds. But that’s easy to explain as well. Any ship capable of accelerating to warp speeds has to have some kind of inertia dampener or cancellation device so the crew and everything inside the ship doesn’t get atomized when the accelerate to 80x lightspeed in 4 seconds.
So, while they could maybe have actually cut through the atmosphere in like 4 seconds, just assume the chronology of the middle panels is actually interleaved a bit with Max trying to get the press to safety. Just… the page layout would look wonky if I drew it that way.
Max’s “When a special forces colonel tells you to take shelter, it’s usually a good idea to do it.” line isn’t quite a pithy as “I am a bomb disposal technician. If you see me running, try and keep up.” but it’s probably equally good advice. Less clever is Sydney’s shirt that reads “I am an ADHD riddled superheroine, if I am acting distractible and agitated then that’s perfectly normal.”
![The Wraith: Danger Close (Superhero by Night Book 4) by [Haskell, Jeffery H.]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41B7At%2B3X8L.jpg)
Oh, forgot to add this last night. The 4th Wraith book is available for preorder. This is Jeffery H. Haskell’s super powered Punisher-esque series, so if you like super vigilantes killing the balls out of really evil bad guys instead of bothering with all that wussy justice system stuff, then you might like this series. This is also his teamup book where Wraith teams up with his other hero, Arsenal, who is a proper hero, except for that time she genocided a species but it’s okay because they were all bad.
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What was dabbler saying? I have a feeling the artist wasn’t thinking and just threw in word salad.
it is both a reference and a call back.
the call back part being WAaaay back when Sydney was talking to Suzie and Maxima grabbed her up.
I wonder when Dabbler met Mabel?
I think Maxima just doesn’t like Mabel stories.
None of you guys knows anything at all about old time radio, do you?
This is a style of speech that was pretty common in the 1930s and endured for a long time after. The specific phrase comes from The Great Gatsby, by F.Scott Fitzgerald. It showed up in modern “reference culture” from the Simpsons, but the formation “So I says to ___ says I, _________” is very much a vernacular form used in a sort of illuminated gossip where someone’s telling a tale that may or may not be true.
I heard it a lot when I was a kid in the late 50s and early 60s, and then again later when I got caught by nostalgia for the “old time radio” shows like the Jack Benny show, the Burns and Allen show, and especially the Fibber McGee and Molly show.
Basically it’s “I have nothing useful to say now and am just going on about some mundane petty thing.”
First page claims that the “The Great Gatsby” claims to be false
Radio is that thing they had before streaming services, right? :)
Yeah, it came right after smoke signals and just sending a guy on a horse with a letter.
The guy on a horse thing overlapped the smoke and banging on rocks and logs thing and stretched animal skins and was used up to and into the last world level conflagration.
Look up ‘they call him the streak’. That’s where it comes from. ‘so I says to Ethel, I says “don’t look Ethel” but it was too late.
Considering this thing from the viewpoint of potential for future PTSD: About how many thinking, feeling beings would be expected to be aboard a Fel dodeathahedron?
‘Cos it may turn out that it’s harder to live with the knowledge that you’ve personally killed three hundred people than it is to core that ship like an apple using various OP-beams.
Conversely, would they be carrying anything that might prove extra-hazardous (as or more hazardous than their weaponry) if their ship does get cored like an apple? Doing things that would result in a powerplant capable of supporting interstellar flight releasing all of its energy at once could be hazardous to your planet in a way normally measured on the Torino scale.
Look at it this way (Death Star groupie): they fired first
Yes, the obvious consideration is, just how far out in the boonies IS Archon’s HQ? Because I don’t see them taking that thing out without a boom at least comparable to a small nuke.
Well, unless you destroy it by for example…. opening an aetherium causeway while inside the ship, taking both of the half-ships you create in the process with you through the portal and revealing the existance of your nth tech to the galactic community, which starts a whole new story arc.
Just speculation of course. :)
IIRC, once Sydney spent another point on the center icon, she started getting vague intuitions about how to use the orbs; https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-637-beware-the-history-tab/
It appears to me one of those intuitions was, “Don’t go FTL on a planet’s surface!”
Truly, don’t go FTL inside an atmosphere.
It is akin to initiating a jump drive withing a jump-gate – referred to by Earth-force as The Bonehead Manoeuvre – no insult intended towards the Mimbar
yeah, that’s the sort of thing that I imagine means they put the largest remaining piece of you on a pike and wave at your lifeless eyes like this.
However I got the feeling these guys can be summed up with one quote: ‘Arrogance and stupidity in one package, how efficient.’
Smack them with an aetherial gateway into a back hole.
…Is that any better or any worse than smacking them into a front hole…
The latter is much smaller hole.
Of course. You want them to go back, front is straight into the planet.
Max’s closing line might be a tad long for it, but arguably belongs on a t-shirt.
Put the first half on the front, second half on the back :D
Bystander is standing by reading the front, thinking “Would love to shelter in there, giggity!” reads the back and goes “What? Why?” and starts looking around like an idiot :P
It’s like when someone shouts “DUCK!” idiots stand up to look for the flighted fowl :P
now what i see here is either a Ship Firing Rapid deceleration engines, or firing massive point blank cannon at a range ridiculous for anything other than in atmosphere artillery….in hoping its the former, but from the description it sound like either the description was slightly grey with the wordage but im guessing the former was stated at about 70% certainty?
Considering what they are directly above, it’s the second, 100% guaranteed
I disagree. The third shot from the left was clearly misaimed, not at the ship, so it was fired for balance, strongly suggesting deceleration is a/the major motive. So I’m assuming shock and awe, rather than an attempt to destroy. We’ll see.
shock and awe, I am guessing this is more their version of a warning shot, considering the thing they want is inside that ship and they can’t know if it still is or not. So it stands to reason they’d use weapons that are both intimidating but not likely to utterly obliterate the target.
“A reaction drive’s efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive.”
— The Kzinti Lesson, Larry Niven
A very good old school science fiction method Hot dogging with reaction drives.
And used more recently on the bigscreen to great effect.
Watched an advance screening with a theater full of fans, it was probably the most memorable part of the evening. Everyone simultaneously sucked in a deep breath, held it in awe for 3-4 seconds in dead silence (good call by the audio designers), then murmured ‘woah’ together.
Umm, guys? If that’s the Fel super battle carrier from before, then it’s a carrier. We’re about to have a SERIOUS gnat problem….
Unless… this is what the carrier was carrying… !
Supposing I told you that Blackwolf survived the Lugar shot.
Supposing I told you Avatar fell, and Blackwolf conquered the world.
Supposing I told you that flower fairies rebelled and their tiny swarms slaughtered everything that moved.
Supposing I told you that the Fel are evil flower fairies…
But did they kill Fritz? if they didn’t then who cares?
Fritz’s death was fratricide, blamed on the fairies.
They’re still those lousy stinking yellow fairies! Those horrible atrocity-filled vermin! Those despicable animal warmongers…
Yeah, but watch out for that one guy that makes flowers bloom. He’s a momma’s boy.
To be fair, it really does look like a giant space dreidel. I wonder if any of the world’s religions will comment on this. The israeli’s just nod slowly and try to make a global intimidate check.
Why would they?
Driedel aren’t a part of Jewish festivities drawn from their sacred texts, just a custom developed over the centuries by celebrants.
I would say that they are analogous to Christians and stockings full of small gifts.
They were created as a misdirection during a period of severe persecution before the Roman occupation. The symbol is highly recognizable as associated with Jews.
Wow. You, uh, you’ve got some antisemitism on your, uh… Everything, pal.
I didn’t actually realize that until I was about to post the comic. To late to change anything at that point.
Nothing needs changed. Just keep drawing.
It seems slightly asymmetric – three crowns but two of them opposite each other, and five or six sides…
It’s also asymmetric in the shot two pages back…
I see what appear to be hinges there, and claws…. Any moment this is going to open up as a hand?
If someone hadn’t said anything I would never have thought it looked anymore like a dreidal than a Goa’uld ship, or any number of castle atop an ancient ruin floating in the sky type of “ship”
basically my first impression was techno floating castle. http://wallpaperesque.com/wp-content/uploads/plixpapers1504/floating_castle_wallpaper_background_26482-640×480.jpg
heck this thing from Star Wars extended universe looks like a top
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41L1SamK06L._SX350_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
and of course UFO sightings of “cone shaped” UFOs
http://www.thinkaboutit-ufos.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/coneshapedufo.jpg
Personally, I think that’s funny. And it only would be an anti-Jew scenario if you didn’t like Jews.
When you are surrounded by people wanting to push you into the sea, you use whatever strategies you can to hold off attacks.
“We have no comment on whether we have atomic weapons or death driedels.”
+1
I pray from a Siddur–with Jews. I find this hilarious. I expect they will too.
Are you saying what I THINK you’re saying??
So what’s the bet that the aliens are here to demand a second season of firefly?
Best to give them that anyway just to be on the safe side.
Unlikely. They’re probably villains instead.
Maybe they are Browncoats :D
Moreso if they come from the Outer Planets :)
The Xevarchy seemed to wear purple…
T-shirt condensation of Maxima’s line: “When Spec Ops says ‘take cover’, DO IT!”
This is similar to the military maxims
2. A Sergeant in motion outranks a Lieutenant who doesn’t know what’s going on.
3. An ordnance technician at a dead run outranks everybody
I dunno. I think the pacing would not be interrupted by moving the Maxima ECU cut-out to the top of panel 5, attaching it right to the bottom of red-shirt guy’s panel. This would allow the feeling of action interleave while letting the action in panel 6 stand out in all of its awesomeness without seeming like a background breaking news story behind Maxima’s head.
agreed
Maxims that might apply:
2. A Sergeant in motion outranks a Lieutenant who doesn’t know what’s going on. (31 July 2009)[25]
3. An ordnance technician at a dead run outranks everybody. (1 November 2009)[26]
For the aliens:
4. Close air support covereth a multitude of sins.
6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
13. Do unto others.
27. Don’t be afraid to be the first to resort to violence.
But soon they will realize the Relevant maxims were:
42. “They’ll never expect this” means “I want to try something stupid”
45. “The size of the combat bonus is inversely proportional to the likelihood of surviving to collect it.”
47. Don’t expect the enemy to cooperate in the creation of your dream engagement.
53. “The intel you’ve got is never the intel you want.”
55. “It’s only too many weapons if they’re pointing in the wrong direction
69. “Sometimes rank is a function of firepower.”
And of course:
34. If you’re leaving scorch-marks, you need a bigger gun.
And my personal addition: “If you are not even leaving scorchmarks, you should have run!”
Sydney in turn will wonder about this one:
18. If the officers are leading from in front, watch out for an attack from the rear.
Dang it – another Schlock fan :)
And looking forward to finding out what the sergeant does when he takes the fight to the non-baryonic side.
“Eat it, kill it, make friends with it or take a bath in it – those are the options on your moral compass”
Thurl, 25th April, 2009.
And it just occured to me that maybe he is actually somewhat of a “kindred spirit” to thos entities? They propably got issues relating to “boney bags, filled with water”. But a fellow amoprh?
First priority needs to be drawing the enemy ship away from things that it could hurt by blowing up or falling on them.
(Thought I posted this yesterday…)
Or pushing it back into space.
Meep!
Puts on rocket skates…
Am I the only one, who can only think now, “Death Deride”?
Not a death dreidel eh?… That’s exactly what a death dreidel WOULD say!
Dreaded.
Dreadel, damn autocorrect.
Dreadel, damn autocorrect.
Oh, dreidel, dreidel, dreidel,
I made you out of death,
Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel,
Until my final breath
I mean really she could have just left it at ‘because’.
I feel the need to point out that you would not hear the sonic boom from that spaceship in the first panel. By definition, a sonic boom is traveling at the speed of sound and the craft that created it is traveling faster than the speed of sound. So the spacecraft would arrive before the boom. If the spacecraft was slowing down, then it might be preceded by the sonic boom, but the first panel shows a shockwave coming off the bow, suggesting that it is breaking the sound barrier at that time.
The scene showing that “Boom” is in the middle of the air… so the Boom could arrive in the next panel, if that works out dramatically, breaking all the windows in the place, and for miles around.
Maybe it was a sonic boom made by the first sonic boom, or even the third sonic boom made by the sonic boom made by the first sonic boom, if it was boomie* enough.
*not a canadian teenager.
I predict the poor space cops giving pursuit are going to arrive to find Archon has kicked the shit out of the baddies, while Dabbler gives Cora a lecture about how “The locals are squeamish about violence here”.
Fake news ticker headline. “Saturday morning cartoons fight scenes are real, but way ickier in person.”
So who is Mabel, and what did Sydney and Dabbler say to her?
Its filler for background conversations, originally used in the Great Gatsby. Its since been used in dozens of creative works, notably the Simpsons among others
Read the comments: it was never used in the Great Gatsby!
One last final remark:
upon closer inspection, the ship reminds me of some of those dangly ear-rings.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/17/87/67/17876760978adaa102ccbcf16ced85f7.jpg
https://www.artfire.com/img/2x/resize/900/-/-/uploads/mfs/my_shop/52/a0/52a075177005a12de787a7c6e25d9ecc8c8abcead8c75a4adc859abf2e7cae84.jpg
Heh, many people, when thinking of the silhouette of a diamond think of the first image (with four sides), when, correctly, a diamond has five sides
Was actually thinking of that a short time ago, and coming up with a third variant on baseball: lowest level is soft-ball, then base-ball (minor and major leagues) finally with Diamond-Ball (basically the same as traditional base with a few minor ‘tweaks’)
Holy hell.