Grrl Power #764 – They probably realize this means war
Yes, Cora’s idea of gearing up for the big fight is proper battle armor. Granted, it’s mostly force fields full of <strike>food coloring</strike> holograms, but her for-serious battle getup has extra projectors and she also teleports in extra hard points that are held in place by the force fields, so that she can rotate out weaponry as needed. Remember she uses the same teleporter system that Dabbler does.
Dabbler’s battle gear is… yeah, a corset. In her defense, it’s some sort of battle corset. Definitely enchanted. +2 lift at least. Dabbler’s not so much into the separate. +1 cleavage. Also some serious projectile defense. Probably some elemental resistances. Honestly I changed her outfit because I didn’t like that green keyhole shirt I drew her in.
My original idea for the Fel was a little too close to chaos marines. Basically futuristic military dudes plus like, evil clerics and general corruption, but when it came to draw them I realized my initial idea could probably use a little development. So, now they’re more like… I dunno. The Flood meets Guyver? Kinda. They’re one of those characters (collectively) that will probably evolve a bit the more pages they appear on.
![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)
The 4th Wraith book is still 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.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
If only there was a super powered person, or, say, GROUP of persons, and if only one of them had these ship crushing orbs….
Halo’s up, real soon now.
Be interesting to see just how many level ups Sydney is going to earn today.
It depends on the power of the ship.
The ships the squidwards launched were all grays to her, so I am guessing that the ground troops will be too.
OH no! An army of corrupted evil alien fanatics that have projectile shield is coming to attack us! Whatever shall we do?
Sydney: -Sighs- -Grabs Pew Pew Orb and fires-
The main challenge here will be not causing massive property damage and murdering her allies. Her earlier battle was on an already desolate planet all by her lonesome. She could fire away without a care. Here? Not so much. Even if Arc HQ was invincible she’d still cause damage to anything within a few miles.
Oh boy. I can see this as a major issue, long run. Sydney uses her words to her fullest ability, and now the fel have a new target. Get her orbs at all cost.
Orbs, not words.
No no, she should use her words to her full ability too. ;-)
Oh absolutely. And it’s possible her profanity fueled insult rants could be almost Nth level ability.
Property damage isnt an issue when you are dealing with an alien incursion. All Archon and guests have to do is let Sydney vaporize a wave of them or two and that should let them get the upper hand easily. Sydney just needs to fly up and shoot down to minimize damage to buildings.
The opening salvo should probably be Maxima’s blast from the first press conference while Sydney also reprises her role as shield maiden for everyone else. It is a known factor in an unknown situation, since Max knows that Sydney’s shield can protect everyone while she opens up strongly with her Tzar Bomba.
Maxima’s blast should be in the category of “wear down or overwhelm” on the chaff that they really don’t need to get bogged down fighting when it is the ship which is the real threat, no matter how good this looked in Endgame when Captain Marvel and Thor (and even Captain America) should have been able to just destroy huge swaths of the enemy with ease. (**ahem** spoiler alert **ahem**)
When you’re facing an existential threat it isn’t the time for Maxima to hold back while her team picks up some valuable experience, which was the flimsy reason given why Maxima didn’t quickly take out most of the opposing supers at the steakhouse fight.
I’m looking forward to this really :) Especially if Sydney makes surprisingly short work of them :)
Greys are a zero XP opponent (in WoW at least, and from my decade+ old memory), and Sydney did level up fighting the swarm of tie fighters, didn’t she?
Well we’re not sure of that. She also killed two kaiju. But I’m assuming all the fighters she destroyed must have had some effect on her level-up as well.
She sliced one, and blew a hole through another’s head, neither of which were confirmed as ‘kills’
She blew one to chunks, forcing the Squidwards to send in three more, AFTER slicing it several times. Then the other she BLEW ITS HEAD OFF at close range. Now sure, maybe it doesn’t need a head to survive, but most things need a head to survive, so the best course of option is not to go with the ‘it does not need a head to survive.’ Especially since she levels up almost immediately afterwards.
Since afterwards she got 2 pips. It’s pretty heavily implied she got the pips because she killed the boss characters.
She sliced Squiddly to chunks, which took them out of the fight, butt unless you know how they function may not have been enough to kill it
She didn’t blow the head off the second one, she simply blew a hole through it. And seeing how it was using its head to house a tractor beam, how do we know that that is where it kept its brain? o_O
Again, it’s not the head that is vital, it’s the brain
Again, we don’t know how her levelling works: she could have gotten them for beating the Squids, which is not the same as killing them
Yes. She sliced one to chunks, which also seemed to involve explosions.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-664-the-biggest-collar-of-her-career/
Boom. Which is of course what you hear whenever you slice something.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-665-rock-paper-particle-beam/
More booms. Followed by a Baboom. That does not look very much like ‘slicing’ to me.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-669-particle-beam-ik/
Second one. BOOM. No more head. Yes, she blew a hole through it, which also involved blowing up almost the entire head. Not the kaiju in the background with a big fire where its head used to be.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-670-orbital-bombardment-obstacle-course/
“Again, we don’t know how her levelling works: she could have gotten them for beating the Squids, which is not the same as killing them”
Which is why I said ‘it’s implied’ – because the implication is that she killed them. Which is further implied when she describes what happened to Maxima in ‘she killed it.’ So the whole theme of the storyline is the implication that she killed it, although there’s a POSSIBILITY that they don’t have brains in their heads or something, and their brains are located elsewhere. Seems like a lot more of a stretch that you’re making than what I’m making though.
Having to repost this since the first post seems to have been put under moderation, probably because of multiple links.
Yes. She sliced one to chunks, which also seemed to involve explosions.
See Grrlcomic #664 – grrl-power-664-the-biggest-collar-of-her-career
Boom. Which is of course what you hear whenever you slice something.
See Grrlcomic #665 – grrl-power-665-rock-paper-particle-beam
More booms. Followed by a Baboom. That does not look very much like ‘slicing’ to me.
See Grrlcomic #669 – grrl-power-669-particle-beam-ik
Second one. BOOM. No more head. Yes, she blew a hole through it, which also involved blowing up almost the entire head. Not the kaiju in the background with a big fire where its head used to be.
See Grrlcomic #670 – grrl-power-670-orbital-bombardment-obstacle-course
“Again, we don’t know how her levelling works: she could have gotten them for beating the Squids, which is not the same as killing them”
Which is why I said ‘it’s implied’ – because the implication is that she killed them. Which is further implied when she describes what happened to Maxima in ‘she killed it.’ So the whole theme of the storyline is the implication that she killed it, although there’s a POSSIBILITY that they don’t have brains in their heads or something, and their brains are located elsewhere. Seems like a lot more of a stretch that you’re making than what I’m making though
As a lawyer, you should know that ‘implication’ is not ‘fact’
And not disputing what she did, just disputing the result: she defeated them, uncontestably YES! did she kill them? that is what is under contention
Actually, as a lawyer, I know that it is a rule of law which allowing a court to assume a fact is true until it is rebutted by the greater weight of the evidence against it. That’s…. literally how the law works :). It’s called a legal presumption – a conclusion based upon a particular set of facts, combined with established laws, logic, or basic reasoning.
For example:
Innocent until proven guilty.
A person who has been missing for seven years is presumed to be dead.
A child born of a husband and wife living together is presumed to be the natural child of the husband.
Even though there COULD be evidence presented which will dispute these presumptions, it’s still implied that if one thing which is generally common knowledge based on nearly universal reasoning is true (ie, the brain is in the head, or being sliced or blown up into bits = death), then the other thing is true until you can show otherwise. Otherwise you would never be able to come to any conclusions about almost anything.
In the example of the assumption that the head is where the brain is, there’s literally no example where the brain is not located in the head. Even arthropods, like millipedes, who have ‘mini brains’ throughout its body’ still have its primary ‘brain’ in the head, without which it dies (technically they don’t have brains per se, they have fused ganglions, but the one in the head is the vital one).
And how many of those creatures you mention, are able to create a ‘tractor beam’ centered on the middle of their head?
You are making an assumption based on personal conjecture.
Everyone else is making an assumption based on the available evidence and general precedence
-body on the floor sliced into pieces and another with the head blown off. Assume they are dead until/unless evidence is presented that this isn’t fatal in their case.
So for now, the most likely scenario is they are dead.
Exactly. :)
And you know what happens when you just make an ass out of yourself believing they are dead?
You end up with Sci-fright coming inches away from destroying an Evil Secretive World-controlling Council of Monsters and Aliens
And speaking of Sci, she’s no longer a threat, right? She was last seen (by a reliable source: The GEoD Herself) walking dejectably across her now-barren and near-destroyed home world, with no way off
yeah but Sydney is only guessing, she has no manual to her orbs.
Also, personal grief, I hate level adjusting systems on XP. Its not like you only need 100xp per level and it adjust the enemy xp relatively. that required number keeps going up in every game so relatively some low level opponent that only had 10xp could still give that and not matter; no need to make it just 1 or 0.
Yeah, if a beastie was able to give experience once, it should still give it just because you are now twenty levels above it, it may now require grinding a hundred of them where before it was only ten to get a level, butt you should still get something
I had it explained to me once that it was some fair balance issue for players who felt that someone grinding a thousand boars shouldn’t get the same experience as the player who defeated the one dragon.
Of course I disagree, for one reason that I have seen this and personally experience level grinding in one player games so it makes no sense; and If a player is willing to spend those 12 hours of their life hunting low level enemies versus the guy spending 5 minutes in a fight; then yeah; give them the experience points.
Not to forget to mention: Southpark, in that episode where they spent several months hunting mobs that only give one experience so that they became strong enough to defeat a Player Killer on an Extreme Rules server (a server that did not allow respawning)
Remember, we haven’t seen the top end of Max’s energy attacks yet. I wonder how Max and Sydney’s blasts compare to Cora’s main ship guns?
“Sydney, you’re up. I hereby promote you to main DPS.”
She’s an ADC and she’s fed from all that adventuring.
Maybe Cora’s ship can’t bring its big guns to bear on the Fel ship, but one quick call to Sydney and Max will have Archon’s big guns tearing into the Fel.
it’s started, 4 years of battle incoming XD
Will you try to beat the restaurant battle ?
Hopefully the Fel ship won’t “get stronger!” with every attack, defense, or random angry glare.
I am reminded of the old Traveller RPG (no knowledge of the newer ones).
Where all space marines where trained in and equipped with melee weapons.
Cora:”we need to figure out something drastic and we need to do it fast”
Maxima: “Oh Sidneyyyy!”
Just give Sydney a refill on her quadruple caramel espresso latte and let her go to town.
You know that a fully loaded Sydney is difficult to aim?
Sydney had a fully automatic plasma orb scattergun. No need to aim.
I wonder if she gets a point and adds it to PPO, it’ll be carpet bomb.
Fly + PPO (scatter) aiming down does the same trick, but we’ll see!
Sydney on caffeine reminds me of this movie scene with a squirrel on energy drinks.
Right. Look at those lasers. That squirrel moves FASTER THAN LIGHT.
Sidney: “Are we talking Halo of the meds drastic here?”
Woah there, calm down, we’re not at extinction level event here yet.
Something drastic you say? Where is halo?
Something drastic, you say?
All at once: “HALO! Batter up!”
TBH, looking back at it and thinking some more, I’m not sure who would be the better Tank vs. DPS. Max or Sydney
So.
Either Max goes supersayan and shows everyone what “Penumbrate” really means…
Or Sydney will figure out something absolutely ridiculous, that will work insane wonders. Eventually.
Might actually be both.
I wonder if it will include “set Vehemence loose”.
Offer him a reduced sentence & he just might agree to it. If he gives his word (& keeps it) to surrender himself again after the fact, that would definitely qualify as “mitigating circumstances” for either sentence reduction or maybe even a full Pardon.
Of course, if he tries any shenanigans after a Pardon, those will be all new crimes to nail him anyway. Depending on what Kevin (Vehemence) does, Archon might catch him coming AND going…
But if he doesn’t surrender afterwards, he would be supercarged by the battle, and probably even stronger than their first battle, and they will be tired, possibly understrength, and he knows their strengths and weaknesses from the previous battle.
If he doesn’t turn himself in, no sentence reduction (or Pardon). His old crimes still need to be addressed, regardless of any new crimes after he gets away. Archon may not be able to stop him at first, but I bet Dabbler can come up with a weapon that surrounds him & contains him inside of a non-Newtonian substance that’s well-beyond anything that humanity already has…Contained, no violence is necessary to capture him & any violence he tries is also contained. Archon brings him in again, with new crimes to add on top of his old crimes.
Unlike the Hulk, Vehemence is smart enough to understand how useful such a break from his crimes can have for him, both in the short term & long term. I don’t think he’s had his trial in court yet (don’t know how much time has passed & how long it would take to schedule it), Archon is still in the “holding until trial” stage with him as far as we know. Full & honorable cooperation at this point would weigh in his favor. Vehemence has already shown that he can be honorable, even if he’s not entirely honest; he can be reasoned with & he can compromise if given proper incentives.
Your assumptions of “trial” and “sentence” are in no way applicable to Vehemence. He is being kept drugged, which would be illegal in the regimes that you imagine.
He’s not a civilian, he is an illegal combatant and a magical terrorist and has publicly admitted guilt of crimes against humanity, including intention to commit more.
Assuming rationality from him is like assuming chastity from Dabbler.
Is this canon? I know he was “drugged” via Dabbler sleep spell when he surrendered, but after that I don’t recall hearing anything about how he is being held. From the meditation scene with Halo it looked to me, in context, that he was voluntarily working on his violence “addiction.”
He was shown in a sealed room with smoke around him. Everything about the scene suggests the smoke is weed and he is as high as a kite. Laughing at silly videos (with his personality taken into account that’s a sign of drugs) getting the munchies, not really caring that he’s locked up… yea he’s stoned. The meditation scene was a vote incentive and I don’t think those are part of the story.
Yes, he’s being drugged, in that he’s being kept in a room with high levels of marijuana smoke to keep him high and giddy. He is not ‘working on violence addiction’ – the meditation scene was NOT canon – it was a vote incentive. Sydney doesn’t even know where Vehemence is being kept – she’s only a cadet/recruit/whatever they call her. It’s above her pay grade.
Huh, my first thought after that description was ‘So, like the Borg?’.
The later version of them at least, as in their earlier depictions they were more interested in new technologies than just assimilating any and everything.
Sort of the eldritch horror branch of the Borg. Still assimilating folk and all, with the Stygian stuff thrown in for good measure.
I like this.
I also like that the one defining characteristic so far is an unreasonable number of eyes.
Big diamond ships crashing into earth and releasing hordes of disposable mooks? No one else getting a Thanos vibe here?
being equipped with a proper melee weapon for a space hand to hand fight is important. Really fuggin hard to shrug off a pickaroon to the faceplate
I’m thinking it’s time for Maxima to grab Achilles by the ankles and, er, go clubbing with him.
Probably the best way to use Achilles. As a bonus it would look funny.
Probably not as effective as you might think.
Achilles has the same basic shape & skeletal structure as a human being. He’s a bit stronger than a human male of his build & muscle mass would seem to indicate, but that’s due more to his invulnerability than his mere muscle mass. Using Achilles as a club with even a moderate amount of actual super strength would have Achilles flopping around lik a rag doll with every impact, so his body would not be able to transfer the full kinetic force of the swing; a super strong combatant could probably get a more forceful impact with their bare fist than they would with Achilles as a club.
But strapping him to your arm & use him like a shield would be far more effective defense than using him for offense…
So…it’d look really funny?
I’m not sure about that. A super strong super, especially one that is also a flyer, should be able to swing Achilles much faster than their fists. Also a human body is much heavier than just a hand which adds power to the impact. Imagine a indestructible human head hitting a bad guy at mach 4. The Achilles club also give you a lot more reach. The floppiness should not be a big problem if you swing him fast enough. If you hold his ankles and aim to hit the opponent with Achilles ass first you should have more than his legs worth of extra unfloppy reach and as a bonus it adds insult to injury.
So he’d work more like a wonky, badly balanced flail than a club. Still a flail that’s not going to break even with super strength.
A badly balanced padded flail. His flesh still gives & flexes, it’s just that there’s no damage that can affect him.
Max: Hiro! I’m going to try to drill a hole in the side of that thing. I want you to fly up with Achilles and throw him in. Achilles, suicide vest, maximum charge!
Harem: [ To the reporters ] This way please.
Harem (60 meters from the first) : Keep going. That way.
Harem (over by the door to underground parking): Come in here. Just go down and around to the right. You’ll see me down there. Just keep going.
Nice.
super-dense ‘Durium’ space axes…
We know Dabbler can teleport in things from her ship. I wonder if she has any Illudium Q36 explosive space modulators?
Groan…
Could be easier, teleport in Sidney with shields up (or just hyperspeed her into it after boring a gangway trough with the pewpew orb), to about the middle of the ship.
Then activatie the shield embiggener to it’s limits, the ship should suffer some serious damage from that.
After that, flight orb/shield to a strategic location, molestorb/pewpew orb where applicable, or Max could go bowling with Sidney.
Simreeve I dearly want to give you +Karma for the added Lensman reference
If projectile weapons are “all but useless” against their force fields, melee weapons are also going to be all but useless for the same reasons.
The slow blade penetrates the shield.
That’s a great Dune reference and all, but in this universe shields are not said to be useless against a slow attack. Or to blow up like a nuke when hit by an energy beam, which was definitely not explored enough as a strategy in Dune or the following novels.
Hmm. I cannot wait to see Maxima get ‘drastic’.
And our Halo really needs to show off her recently acquired skillset ;)
Sydney: Hey, boss. You called? What the smorgasbord is that?
Maxima: Attacking vessel. What can you do to neutralize it?
Sydney: PPO to the rescue. [ Evil grin! Pops her shield and flies over beside Cora’s ship. Drops flight and picks up PPO ] Fire in the Hole! [ Lets loose a massive PPO barrage ] No frigging way! That should have punched a hole in the side the size of a bus! Okay, take two. [ Drops PPO, picks up flight and flies off at just under Mach 1]
Maxima: (On radio) Halo, where are you going?
Sydney: (Also on radio) Clear the space around that thing. I’m coming through!
Maxima: (Still on radio) Coming through? [ She notices a rapidly growing dot in the distance (mile or two) that starts to glow. ] Incoming! Clear the combat zone!
Sydney strikes the vessel at Mach 16 in an rocket-shaped shield. The sonic boom is heard after she comes out the other side, at a much slower speed. Her flight path on the other side is much slower and much more wobbly. Heads over to Max and clumsily lands beside her.
Sydney: Ok, I’m not doing that again, but at least I gave us some openings to work with.
Hiro throws Achilles through Sydney’s entry hole. A few seconds later, a large gout of flame is seen coming out of the same hole. A few more seconds later, a nearly naked Achilles is jumping out the hole 200 metres to the ground.
Maxima: Sydney, Hiro, we need to push it out of here. I do not want anybody to be near it when it crashes. Hiro, Sydney’s entry hole. Halo, go your exit hole; I want you pushing in and up (mostly up) on the scrap you left there. I’ll be pushing up from the bottom.
Hiro: Where are we taking it?
Maxima: There is a state forest a few miles north of here. Let’s go there.
Sydney: More like state forest fire if this thing explodes there. What about Sunshine Ravine? Drop it in the river and most of an explosion should go straight up and their isn’t enough water in there this time of year to cause much flooding up or downstream.
Maxima: Okay, east it is.
Maxima: Sydney, Hiro, we need to push it out of here. I do not want anybody to be near it when it crashes. Hiro, Sydney’s entry hole. Halo, go your exit hole; I want you pushing in and up (mostly up) on the scrap you left there. I’ll be pushing up from the bottom.
Dabbler: Just giggles.
I don’t think the Fel are after an artifact on Cora’s ship… they are clearly after Halo’s orbs… and maybe payback for the trouncing the received a few days ago…
It’s not them, how many times must you be told that?
They do look kind of similar though. A multitude of red, vertical, pupilless eyes, lots of tentacles…
Cora knew who the Fel were, she did not recognise the squidwards. This indicates to me that they are not the same. There’s room in the universe for more than one nasty alien threat.
I don’t know if Cora has actually seen the squidwards on the Alari homeworld. She got energy readings from their ship. Dabbler has seen one and knows about the Fel, but maybe she hadn’t met them previously and all she had were second-hand experiences.
What’s more convincing to me is the author blurb about their design, a strong hint that they may have been recently (re)designed; although you never now if Dave didn’t mean that as a red herring.
Cora did see the ship and use the term “world wreckers”, but there’s been no other on-screen discussion about it so we don’t know if she recognized them or was just going off of what Dabbler told her and what she saw on the surface when she arrived.
Why do people keep trying to tie in the Fel to the squidwards? It’s very clear they arent the same. For one thing, Cora knows who the Fel are and had no idea who the squidwards were. For another, completely different ships. For a third, they’re about 1/1000th the size and the squidwards, despite the name Sydney gave them, did not actually have tentacles. It had those tentacle-like-but-not-tentacle energy blast things on its head. One of them. The others did not have that.
The Fel are not the same aliens, even remotely, as the squidwards. They are here for the artifact on Cora’s ship, which is painfully obvious so I really don’t know why people keep suggesting other reasons for them attacking, or who they are.
I’m pretty sure everyone who keeps saying some other theory for them being here, aside from the glaringly obvious reason which has been repeatedly telegraphed in the story, and heavily foreshadowed, is just doing it now as a joke, because I really don’t think people can be that willfully ignorant of a storyline :).
In summary:
They are here for the Fel Artifact of Unspeakable Probably-Not-Cuddles, so they can use it to do things that are probably not cuddles.
They’re not here for Sydney’s orbs, nor do they likely have any idea of the orbs’ existence, or what the orbs do – they do not look like the type of people who watch Galactic Youtube btw, and probably wouldnt care about orbs that make you able to eat spicy food if they were big Galactic Youtube viewers anyway.
They’re not here for the Alari.
They are not the squidwards.
They are not associated WITH the Alari.
They are not here for Spicy Taco Tuesday at the Archon cafeteria. Okay maybe that’s a side benefit of being here, but it’s probably not the main reason.
The End.
Maybe if they gave a Sydney Spicy Taco that would solve the invasion angle. Mind you, with all those alien races, a few of them will not react to capsaicin, so it might not do much, unless they can’t digest Earth proteins.
Like Sam from Freefall :)
Who’s race happens to be called Sqids. :)
And whose ancestors who
stole</strikeacquired fire from BoB the creator were named Lairee, Mho and Coily :DOh, they’re fine with saying they stole it. Sqids are all about stealing. :) I’m waiting to see how they convinced Bob to stop bopping them on the head. I’m assuming there will be a pie fight.
I think Sqids are fine with the concept of stealing. It’s a matter of pride when they steal, so no need to diminish that accomplishment by merely calling it acquiring. :) :)
And I’m wondering how they keep Bob from keeping on bopping their heads and taking fire back. I’m assuming there will be a pie fight. :)
Ok weird it somehow posted both of them even though the first time it said my post did not go through.
Did it actually say it didn’t go through? If it didn’t, then you should know how this board works by now :P
Binge-read that webic every Monday, sometimes there is three a week, sometimes less, no idea what his schedule is so once a week is good enough for me (same with Drowtales)
Yeah it did say something roughly like that. I didnt memorize what it said though. But it wasn’t ‘I posted, didnt see it, and so I posted again.’ I tried to post, it gave me some sort of message, so then I posted again.’ :)
I think Freefall updates every Monday, Wednesday, Friday btw, and has for the past 21 years since it started in 1998. I remember that I started reading it in college, and it took me … a long time to get through it all. A really really long time.
Not sure when started reading Freefall, butt it’s been at least a few years now, and read both the normal and the colourised at the same time (bookmarked both URL’s :D )
Use to read “Mansion of E”, stopped a couple years ago just after they reached Day Two, maybe one day when have the time (and endurance) will start that up again
I agree about the eyes. Dave has shown enough creativity in alien design that it looks like a clue. Or a red herring. Another possibility is that the squidwards had also fallen prey to the Fel. We’re seeing a variety of body types in the ground troops; do we have any reason to assume a maximum body size that they can “recruit?” Presumably they also take and use their new acquisitions’ ships because why wouldn’t they? Cue vehement disagreement…now.
To be fair, it is the first time Arthur said this. (Under this name at least, I checked.)
The amount of people who keep thinking the Fel are the same guys Sydney fought on the Alari homeworld, despite being corrected, is staggering though.
It might be revealed in the future there is some kind of connection, but for now all signs point to them being two completely different alien factions.
I’m assuming it’s a running gag on why people keep guessing it’s the Squidwards. Low grade trolling for giggles. Because I have too much faith in humanity. :)
If there is a connection I am going in a secondary connection.
the aesthetic similarity is passing, but enough that a possibility could exist that the guys who attacked Alar are some ancient race that was in hibernation, but some species or another came across some of their tech, like a glowing orb, an old space ship, a self replicating destroyer borg like bot, obelisk giving off evil extra dimensional stygian energy, ect… and they became the Fel as a result of being corrupted.
In short: Sydney fought the ancient super power.
The Fel are a bunch of guys corrupted by huffing the fumes from some left over discarded tech those other guys had left on some planet.
-unless the corruption was intentional, see glowing orbs, and other harvester type hibernating evil technologies.
So you’re saying they’re the same aliens that Sydney fought. Got it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DgbUBoxa48
Halo, has never met the Fel!!!!!!!
Sydney: “Are those guys HIGHBREED?”
Max: “Sydney, what are you talking about?”
“Literal cartoon alien villains!”
“… If we survive this clusterfuck I’ll want an explanation.”
With the tentacles they appear more Vilgax-ian to me.
That was my thinking looking at the first two foot soldiers there.
Bets on what Sydney can do to the Fel? It would be cool if she could teleport the whole ship back to the Alari homeworld and let the Squidwards and Fel duke it out.
I think that will require more orb upgrades.
How about creating a wormhole between the sun (about .5 gigametres from the core) and the centre of the Fel star-ship?
And say goodbye to all life on Dirt at the same time? o_O
Sydney ‘Something Drastic’ Scoville?
Sounds like Chekhov’s gun needs firing. Perhaps something like a “Safeties Off” Aetherium Causeway, destination Sagittarius A. Easy to identify and chart. Put it directly above their ship and give them a reason to attempt to retreat.
Cora – “We need to figure out something drastic.”
-elsewhere-
Sydney – “My ears feel funny.”
Or the manga version, and Sydney sneezes.
Sydney you’re up attack the ship.
Maxima you’re on cleanup.
Quora your technical support.
Dabbler you’re regular support.
I’m pretty sure Dabbler’s at least +2 or +3 Support.
Sorry, it had to be said.
dabbler’s got a lot of resources she can use to combine bonuses…That bustier she’s wearing is good for +1 (no, +2) support just by itself, at the very least.
No, her bustier is just regular support – it doesn’t need to be +2, because regular ones support 2, and she’s only got 2.
FWIW, Dabbler has appeared before in a four-boobed version (not so peculiar, it made sense with four arms) in the ‘Wereworld’ comic. So, back then, she really did need a +2 bustier to go along with the standard 2.
My headcanon is that succubi have a limited body-reshaping ability that takes several weeks, in addition to their glamour ability that happens instantly. Reshaping would be something that can affect soft tissues but probably not the basic body plan or bones. And Dabbler would have ‘reshaped’ for two-boobs when she took residence on Earth, because too many Earthians found the four-boobed version of her confusing instead of sexy.
And confused, conflicted boners have a certain charm, but they’re really not as much fun as straightforward (so to speak) enthusiastic ones.
I don’t think this fight needs to involve Sydney. For fun maybe, or let her show off her offensive toys. But she’s mainly known to the team for her defensive capabilities, not for DPS (no one saw what happened on Alari world, even Max only heard about it, from Sydney herself, which probably isn’t the most reliable source). If Maxima feels the need to “get drastic”, her first reaction won’t be to call for Sydney’s big guns. She’s pretty big gun herself. Not particularly fast or skilled fodder – with her speed and strength she could probably wipe the whole ground assault in the matter of seconds. Dealing with the carrier may be bit tougher, but only because she can’t go full-power nuke on it (how close to the city is Archon building anyway? I was under impression that it was in the middle of big city, this looks more like a country side with nothing important in few miles radius).
Uh-oh! The hair is up! Serious Business™ has begun!
Trying not to pull a KND B.R.A. ?
Battle ready armor? Seriously going to go with the codename kids Next Door reference here
P(ersonal) L(ightweight) O(mni-directional) T(actical) Armor is far more reliable, so it’s my personal preference.
We all know such armor is bat approved so yeah it’s probably the best in the Market at this point
I get the impression Cora — and perhaps the rest of the universe — has yet to understand just how much “something drastic” this backwater planet can supply. I mean, with just Max and Sydney alone, you’re already somewhere deep into “apocalyptic” territory…
And in addition to Sydney’s other powers, assuming the PPO or Maxima’s blasts or Dabbler’s Railgun do not work on a Fel Battlecruiser, now that she understands how to use the Aetherium Causeway controls, she can also conceivably open a causeway to a black hole by bypassing the safeties like Altus showed her earlier.
would be funny if everyone is expecting a long drawn out fight and Maxima just Captain Marvel’s the Fel ship.
I’m actually kind of hoping for this, actually – we’ve seen some good action, and this is a good chance for a curb stomp played for comedy.
However I think this is too pivotal an event (first contact and first alien confrontation) in the overall story arc to do a throwaway gag.
So I’m guessing Stygian energy is, like vehemic or tantric energy, one of those fundamental forces people can tap into for power. Except this is, like, the power of death and decay, so unlike with Vehemence, there is no real hope of a non-murdery solution to stopping their assault.
yeah I figured by Dabbler’s “Kill them fast and move on”
Assuming it is related to mythology, it is probably what corrupts the victims of the Fel, rather than a force to accomplish physical tasks.
Stygian means “Relating to the river Styx”. The river Styx is the barrier to the underworld so I guess that means it’s magic that taps into death. The more they kill the more power they get.
Clothing can have surprising combat capabilities as clearly demonstrated in the series RWBY with their combat skirt
I’d prefer a short fight, but there are lots of fun scenarios here, potentially.
1) Harem teleports into the ship. ONE of her gets captured and corrupted. WTF happens. (Probably not possible… quick corruption is too powerful… but if Sydney’s lightbee witnessed that, it would change strategy a lot.)
2) Finally, the bad guys fight their way into the Interdictor, incidentally threatening the refugees. Just a couple of the refugees are mages. How about some uncorruption?
3) In which case, maybe the Squidwards are related to the Fel, now know we have Alari on the planet, and now we have a REAL war on our hands.
4) We still have Space Pigs coming, which will provide a momentary diversion for the ship.
5) The killing stroke for the ship needs to come from the Interdictor. Because Cora’s the guest star.
My only worry at all is it will become another year long parking lot fight :)
Exactly. We know everybody is cool. Slam dunk this thing with a couple of vignettes and move on to the world (and off-world) reaction to Dabbler’s now completely non-credible claims.
babble around Galactic Round Table:
…pre-FTL…
…beat off a Fel war cruiser…
…With only twelve individual “humans”…
… arrived at the Fracture without aid…
… pre-FTL, my aching gorblatz…
… aetherium causeway? …
WHAT THE FREL?
Exactly,
the fact Marvel comics never took that next step, when it was decades ago a galactic council was looking at how Earth had fended off Galactus five times at that point, and stopped both the Skrull and Kree from invading.
the MCU has this right now, the Chitauri might have been self contained and no one out there learned of it, but with all those Ravagers at the big fight with Thanos Earth has to be on the radar of the galactic powers. Hopefully MCU does a better job with this than the comics.
But yeah, in super hero stories it is common, I think because so many writers feel the need to have aliens and sci-fi stuff; but feel if Earth becomes (too advanced) or too much alien stuff shows up it will overshadow the super-hero genre aspect and turn it into a sci-fi outerspace fantasy just with supers. But honestly, I feel so many superhero stories would benefit from that.
No telling how the dual world-timelines works out. Thanos snapped his fingers and people disappeared for five years, but then a prior Thanos slipped forward again and died, meaning that Thanos had been gone for seven years as well. Presumably, all the other divergent timelines were reunited when Cap returned the stones, but at the very least there’s a timeline where there was no Thanos to kill all the peoples… including the escaped Valhallans.
Actaully I think Marvel DID take the next step and there was stuff about how Earth was like a cosmic egg or something, which was the reason for all the superpowers and why so many things seemed to keep happening of galactic importance on a relatively backwater planet.
Yeah,IIRC Galactius was basically unknowingly the Natural Predator for the Celestials by devouring their children. (And guess where one was.)
By next step I mean publically available advanced tech, trade with alien worlds, a presence in galactic talks, alien embassies, ect…
But Marvel has shown that while we have armored super villains and heroes, alien tech and advanced tech super geniuses ect… the average person is still using a combustion engine car and time the comic was written contemporary technology like the current phone, PC, ect…
the Fantastic Car has existed how long but no one has levitating cars with infinite power engines?
Imagine Spider-Man’s famous talk to Sauron only instead directed at Mr. Fantastic, SHIELD, Tony Stark, ect…
Because Reed Richards is a rubbery prick, and Stark is just an alcoholic playboy (without the cute tail)
Or because Reed Richards is like Steve Wozniak without a Steve Jobs. Brilliant on his own, idiotic when it comes to common business sense. On the DC end, Lex Luthor at least has a reason why he doesn’t give out all his super-tech. He makes more money by not doing so, or because he wants to use it as a way to kill Superman (Lex Luthor cured cancer, then decided to not release the cure because he would make more money selling a lesser version as a treatment; he created a space city on the moon, but uses it as a base to plot against Superman instead of expanding humanity’s exploration of space; etc).
Reed Richards is just an idiot when it comes to business, unlike Dr. Doom, who was able to rule an entire country with ‘almost’ the same level of knowledge as Richards, because Dr. Doom is like Steve Wozniak SLIGHTLY slower brother +Steve Jobs combined.
It’s a common trope actually, especially in Marvel. It’s called the ‘Reed Richards is Useless’ trope.
Spider-Man’s webshooters (in an alternate universe, Peter Parker actually did use it for business purposes, among other inventions he made, and he became a multi-billionaire). Hank Pym’s Pym Particles (which he EVENTUALLY starts using for business but still never really goes beyond super-villain fighting). Wakanda’s vibranium.
Sometimes Marvel says not to use the tech in wide public for semi-legitimate reasons, like certain side effects worse than the problem being solved if used on a wide-scale, or because it would massively destabilize national and world economies if the tech is put out all at once without an infrastructure in place first, but most of the time, the reasoning is stupid.
Happens in DC too, but usually explained by the people with the tech being insane to begin with, or because they’re not insane, but extremely evil, and do not want to help humanity. To be fair that last part ALSO happens in Marvel (Spider-Man – you figured out how to rewrite human DNA on the fly? That could cure all diseases! Extend lifespans! It could cure cancer!…. Sauron – But I don’t want to cure cancer! I want to turn people into dinosaurs!)
Iron Man at least has a semi-decent reason for not giving away the specs for Iron Man armor – he doesn’t trust the government to use it intelligently, and he no longer wants Stark Enterprises to sell weapons (although he still does let War Machine have HIS armor, because Rhodey is his friend).
No, it has nothing to do with poor business acumen, it’s because Richards and Stark don’t want to share their toys (there is more to what Stark has created than simply a tin death-suit, remember that little glowy device that keeps the teeny tiny pieces of metal from penetrating his heart? and what’s preventing a simple heart transplant anyway? o_O )
Well …. I mean there’s a Fantastic Four comic where Johnny literally tells another person says Reed has no business understanding and rarely considers patenting his inventions. In fact, it took a lot of convincing for them to even get him to patent a FEW of them in order to pay their rent on the Baxter Building. Because Reed Richards is stupid when it comes to business and has not ever considered the idea of just starting a company and producing inventions for retail sale.
Stark does produce stuff for sale. He just doesn’t produce the arc reactor or anything that can be used as a weapon for sale (at least not the one in miniaturized form) – they did create and patent the large arc reactor though.
The miniature one in his chest? That’s not patented – it’s a trade secret.
Yay, I get to talk about law again :)
Patents are different than trade secrets. When you patent something, you HAVE to make the details of how you created it publicly available to anyone who goes to the US Patent Office. The patent just gives you a certain amount of years (20) of exclusive use. A trade secret, on the other hand, you do not have to give out the directions on how to make the invention at all. But if someone ELSE figures it out, by reverse engineering, by coming up with it on their own, industrial espionage, etc – they can start duplicating it and you can’t do anything about it.
Like the coca cola recipe? It’s a trade secret, not a patent.
Teflon? Dupont did not patent it – it was a trade secret, which someone else finally figured out how to reverse engineer SOMEHOW (it’s a really difficult process and I have no idea how they reverse engineered it though).
The Arc Reactor? Patented. Anyone else can make it once the 20 year period is up.
The MINIATURE Arc Reactor in Tony’s chest (before he used Extremis)? Trade Secret.
For that matter, the Extremis Formula is also a Trade Secret.
Btw, Tony Stark did eventually get rid of the Arc Reactor (or R.T. Node, as it’s called in the comic) in his chest in the comics. After the Extremis storyline, he did get the metal removed from his heart, but created new R.T. nodes which he also implanted in his chest, specifically for powering his successive armors, like the Bleeding Edge armor or the Model 42 armor or the Carbon Nanotubes armor (used for fighting Magneto). It also somehow raised his intelligence and physical abilities a bit. He did the same for Pepper Potts, actually, after she almost died.
Richards is also one of the Illuminati, which would go more towards why he won’t release his inventions than simply “he’s too stupid to know how money works” :eyeroll:
As for the Arc Reactor, was simply more pointing out the “why does he even still have that?” … Okay, a little bit of “why doesn’t he sell the plans for the fancy-schmancy Pace Maker, that could save so many lives?”
Oh right, he’s also part of the Illuminati (along with Namor and a few other ‘good guys’)
He’s one of the illuminati, but not because of his business sense. More because he’s the most intelligent person on the planet, if not the galaxy. :) Just…. not for business.
With the Arc Reactor/ RT Node, the reason he has it is because the Iron Man repulsor beams require an immense amount of power, compared to some of the less advanced suits, like the War Machine suit which Rhodey uses. So the RT Node/Arc Reactor is the power source for the repulsor beams, which the War Machine armor does not have. The Rescue armor (Pepper’s armor) originally did not have repulsor beams either, until Pepper got an RT Node after her near death. After which the Rescue armor did have repulsor beams as well (despite her not WANTING them).
Just to point out the Coca cola thing, you can’t patent a recipe for a drink or food. You have to keep it a trade secret or nothing.
Otherwise some yahoo would try to paten chocolate chip cookies or a bologna sandwich.
PS: also can’t patent scents, so perfume companies are volatile with one another.
All that said, that is all Earth tech. The Earths of those worlds also have exposure to alien tech and alien life; and Earth’s superheroes regularly go off world to fight in alien wars and against cosmic threats. But Earth has no ambassador to the galactic talks or off-world trade and not even close to trying to make a colony anywhere.
real world wise comics try to reflect the real world but with a “what if super heroes” but some have built up so far that it has long ceased to make sense to stay that way.
Ummmmm you can TOTALLY patent a recipt for a drink or food.
You can patent anything that is new, useful, and non-obvious. Food can DEFINITELY be patented.
For example, Cold Stone Creamery has two patents on combined cake and ice cream desserts – Patents D550927 and D571526 (patented 2007 and 2008 respectively).
Pringles also patented their version of potato chips, which are not called chips specifically because there was a lawsuit about that, since they are not MADE like chips. Patent A23L19/19.
Trust me, I’ve actually filed a few patents for different types of food recipes and food processes :) Coca Cola could definitely patent their formula if they wanted to. It was a business decision to not do so, because they felt it would be very difficult to figure out their formula, and they’d be able to have exclusive rights to it far longer if they just keep it a trade secret.
Btw, the reason no one tries to patent chocolate chip cookies or bologna sandwiches is because they do not meet one or more of the patent requirements of new (original), useful, or non-obvious. Bologna sandwiches would fail to be non-obvious (or new). Chocolate chip cookies as well. You also cannot patent a recipe that has been passed down generationally, because that would not meet the new/original requirement, even if it is non-obvious and useful.
There is an entire CLASS of patents dedicated to foods (Patent Class 426, which covers foods and recipes). You can get a patent for foods when it involves stuff like altering shapes in innovative ways (dipping dots had a patent), creating combinations, improving flavor, improving texture, increasing shelf life, making foods healthier (Truvia had/has a patent), making foods easier to cook (minute rice had a patent)
In addition, you can also patent foods under a design patent – it’s a little easier, but you only get exclusivity for 14 years instead of 20 years (example – Patent D762342 – a cheesecake an embedded swirl)
Fairly sure the Pringles company no longer holds a patent on their product, looking at a generic store-brand version right now (and that is one of two non-Pringles potato snack-in-a-can we have in the house)
Also extremely doubtful the Fel are related to the squidwards in any way. For one thing, the Fel are apparently a collective of different alien races corrupted by Stygian energy. Sort of like the Ravagers in Firefly crossed with the Borg in TNG.
I also doubt any of the Alari refugees on board are mages. Although Sciona is a mage and possibly some of the others who put themselves into soul batteries to survive could be mages. The refugees on Cora’s ship look more like the peasant class of the Alari.
That would be the Reavers from Firefly. The Ravagers are the pirates from Guardians of the Galaxy.
Sorry, you’re right. My bad.
and now I wish I could edit a few comments I made.
I feel like we both lost a few points of our nerd cred by making that mistake.
Mostly it made me think about the possibilities for an MCU / Firefly crossover.
There’s already been a Star Trek TOS/Marvel-616 crossover :) so we’re due for a Firefly/MCU crossover :)
I was thinking they remind me more of the Vinn (from the comic Drive).
well since someone brought up the Stygian energy is death energy, necro-energy, ghost energy, whatever.
and the whole enslave, kill, conquer bit, It made me think of the Necromongers from Riddick
https://riddick.fandom.com/wiki/Necromonger_Empire
Ooooh, good reference
I hope this fight doesn’t push Sydney over some kind of edge i.e. her P.T.S.D. comes out and she loses it and destroys lots of baddies in a way that scares the living hell out of everyone. That could result in a major reevaluation by Max and the higher ups and they way they’ve been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt for so long.
On the other hand I don’t expect it to go that way because that’s practically the Hollywood cliche’ about vets with P.T.S.D. and it would be…well, cheesey and cheap to take that route. Especially since RL vets who suffer from P.T.S.D. do NOT need that Hollywood cliche’ waved around like an attention grabbing flag just for a tired old plot twist.
I’d expect, if anything, the opposite. It’s her second combat since her Squidward fight, and if anything, this might calm her nerves. She’ll have others to protect.
On the other hand, once they figure out that she’s a top target, she may get multi-teamed. It may take Sydney and Max together to use the PPO to greatest effect… with Max flying and Sydney shielding and shooting. Which would be a great screen saver or splash page.
” … benefit of the doubt for so long.” She’s been a member of ARC for less than a week, her time.
She’s been a member, her time, for at least two or three weeks, which is more than plenty of time
Dave’s fans would never forgive him if Halo held the final orb
and asked it nicely to teleport the enemy spacecraft to the
center of the Sun.
And it did it.
A bigger Deus Ex Machina, it is a cleanser of corrupting energies and after Maxima, Cora, and Dabbler have killed a ton of them, Sydney shows up, the final orb starts blinking like its detecting something, she touches it…flash of light, surviving Fel are freed from the influence (purified) of the Stygian energies.
Bring in Kevin
Let Vehemence RAGE!
No. Why? Why would you bring a psychopath, who has already tried to kill Maxima and lives to cause destruction to ANYONE, not just ‘alien bad guys,’ who gets stronger in the presence of violence to a war zone of epic violent proportions?
He decided to kill Maxima only once he determined that she was powerful enough to pose an actual threat to him. He doesn’t benefit from -killing- people any more than Dabbler would benefit from killing the people she has sex with, killing your source of sustenance is counterproductive.
‘Epic violent proportions’ is the hook to get him to accept boundries. Meta conflict is a richer source of sustenance for him than from the general population, or he never would have arranged for the throw down at the diner and ‘outed’ himself. Signed on to ARCHON, he can partake of super powered sparring sessions ‘and’ get to be in the ring for all the concentrated violence that ARCHON is not only a magnet for but finds in the field as part of their duties.
Yes, yes. All good points. You forget one key point though:
Some people just want to watch the world burn. And Vehemence is one of them.
Except he’s not really. Remember his rant about starting a class war, incite a massive regional conflict in the Middle East, etc., etc.?
And how he said he’d rather just go take part in a football riot in Brazil?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-274-master-sham/
That was only because it turned out there were bigger tougher stronger Supers (and Sydney) out there able to stop him
He literally says that he thinks war is unruly, and that he enjoys a good scrap is all.
Not that having other, tougher supers around was why he wouldn’t. Hell, he was only going to kill Max because she proved she could kill him. Also, look at his reaction to Sydney – he specifically hopes she doesn’t die, and doesn’t attack her at all – even when she’s completely exposed and with his massive reserve of power, it probably would have been trivial to take her out (admittedly, he was pinning Max at the time, but he was also vastly overpowered at that point).
Also of note: Maxima theorizes later on that Vehemence’s aura only made people fight, not kill, and that he may actually be the reason the body count was zero for that fight. Dead people don’t fight, after all. War (or even just watching the world burn) would involve a lot of killing by its very nature.
Seriously, I don’t think Kevin is a watching the world burn sort. He made that fight happen because he wanted to have fun and test himself against ARCHON. Not because he wanted to kick over world tensions without anyone to stop him.
Love Cora’s battle armor…!
If Maxima can do a penetrating beam in addition to launching small nukes like she did in the press conference, all she needs to do is point at the ship and do a power spike. Beam goes in one side of the Carrier and out the other. Aliens get scared and bug out.
We know the Pew Pew Orb can do that, as long as the other side is the sky and there’s something to contain the debris/explosion of the ship it should be safe.
*sigh*
I don’t understand the phrase “makes projectile weapons basically useless.” I dislike this line of thinking. First, it ignores basic science for physics and thermodynamics just to go “The aliens have invincible shields!” Second, it’s a really poor way to say “Your human tech is worthless!” and shows a distressing underestimation of the power of military hardware.
Also, it’s fun that the shields are powerful enough to stop bullets, but not enough to stop a sword or a fist. Awfully convenient, that. Some more of that Dune “slow knife” bullcrap.
Is the fact they brought a small army with advanced technology really not enough, you need to hamstring humanity, too?
“and shows a distressing underestimation of the power of military hardware.”
Sorry, much as I like HFY, but if the enemy force is FTL and we’re not, then conventional weapons really would be practically useless.
Any sort of inertial dampening system combined with computer aided point defense systems (think CWIZ on steroids) would render most projectiles useless; even before shielding.
Swords and axes even more so.
Fists and feet on top of that. I’m not making a “HFY” argument (whatever that is). I’m making a physics argument.
Reductio Absurdum. If it can stop bullets, it can stop everything else physical, so if you’re going to say “Solid projectiles are all but useless,” the same goes for everything else solid, which makes it doubly ludicrous for the expert to say that the fight’s going to be a melee slog.
Think Protoss shields, from StarCraft. Melee fighters had just as much trouble against those as anybody shooting projectiles. However, the difference is that those shields were depleted after a time, because it takes energy to keep those things going and MORE when they’re struck, causing them to run down after enough hits.
And stop mentioning PD or Inertial Dampening. She said Shields, not any other kind of high tech defense, and let’s try to avoid the complexities of putting an inertial dampening system on a biological creature’s body. Deathstroke has a system similar to that, and there’ve been a few times he’s nearly been squished by it while other times it’s caused massive collateral damage to the area he was in. Why? Because of Energy Conservation. You can’t just STOP kinetic energy. An equal and opposite force has to oppose it, and if it all happens at once… Boom. The more mass, the more momentum, the more kinetic energy to deflect.
Even tanks stop working if you put enough bullets into them.
Or, the force fields work like Dune: they stop high velocity projectiles, butt a slow blade can penetrate, in universe that has high abundance (and reliance) on energy weapons, most don’t bother learning how to use a simple ‘primitive’ melee weapon
Gunny Picard was able to take a few of the protected troops out, butt was overwhelmed in the end due to share numbers
I keyed the reverse on that. “All but useless” is not “useless”. In other words, they have great point defense.
She didn’t say that hand weapons were any better… although, of course, Max’s fists can be nth degree more powerful than any bullet.
In hero terms, they have high PD, resistant, extra PD against ranged physical attacks, and moderate ED, resistant, with part of the defenses is bought as a personal force field or force wall that is ablative or can burn out if overwhelmed.
History lesson time. The battleship Bismarck, with state of the art fire control systems, was damaged badly enough that the fleet could catch and sink it, by WWI biplanes. Why? Because the biplanes flew slowly / low enough that the anti-aircraft guns, designed to shoot much faster planes, had a hard time tracking them. The “flak” shots which were supposed to explode near airplanes, weren’t being triggered by the cloth wings of the Swordfish.
Then there are non-newtonian fluids– mix a bunch of cornstarch into water, and as long as you provide enough force as you run across it, it will support your weight. If you walk softy, or slowly, you sink.
A field which uses a projectile’s kinetic energy against it, may be science fiction to us, but it may be a high school chemistry experiment to the Fel.
Just like with Goose’s powers in Galaxy Rangers, something like that has a serious design flaw: it has to be hit first before it can be triggered slash activated
That is some suprisingly practical power-armor.
If these aliens run on Stygian energy, would one of the shuttles bringing them to the ground be called a ‘Stygian Ferry’ ?
Officer in charge over the planetary landing forces: Lt. Charon.
Why not just let loose Halo with her updated Pew-Pew orb!
Does the word Chernobyl sound familiar? We want whatever is powering that ship to stay safely inside its containment unit.
maxima: “Sydney your with me. Sydney smash”
Halo: “Puny alien”
Soo… The Vinn (http://drive.mcslp.net/index.php?title=Vinn)?
The Vinn, the Borg, etc (there actually are quite a few more in fiction). This particular version is death-energy powered, which is at least a twist and gives them a reason to kill anyone they don’t feel like converting.
So Blackest Night! Remove their black rings and they stop attacking.
One strategy no one has mentioned yet. If the Fel are so determined to have the artifact and can never be allowed to get it, why not just destroy the thing now? (assuming there will be no Earth Shattering Kaboom as a result)
Obviously.
Can you give an example of “Destroy it. The enemy can’t be allowed to find it.”
I’m sure there was a lot of that in WWII.
(Enigmas, Nordens, ???)
What movies did it?
That was the Avengers’ plan for the Mind Stone, have Wanda destroy it so Thanos couldn’t use it.
There are three good reasons some artifacts of power can’t just be destroyed even if you can’t let them fall into the wrong hands.
1: It is invincible, or nearly so requiring a focused supernova’s omnidirectional force into a single beam or chucking it into a black hole or something to actually damage it.
2: It will explode, and in a manner where any force sufficient to destroy it will result in some massive horrible explosion (or something equivalent like a wave of mutating chaos) ect… that makes destroying it tricky under field conditions.
3: The power or influence it exerts over these Fel is a secondary effect, the artifact’s primary purpose is to contain or prevent some eldritch horror from entering this universe (The vault mentioned having stuff like that there).
The fourth reason is
4. You can’t destroy the MacGuffin except at the end of the major arc.
O.B. we have documented cannon from earlier in the series in which some artifacts are either impossible to destroy or have ridiculously specific conditions to do so.
Did Cora’s eyes just change color to indicate a switch to serious-battle mode?
These guys at Archon just can’t catch a break.
I thought Dabbler went up a cup size when she switched to serious-battle mode.
switched from a loose fitting t-shirt to a corset, corset’s shove all the meat into the pie
That is an… interesting metaphor.
I’m waiting for it.
“You’re usually in for a melee slog.”
KAPOW
“…..unless you happen you be Sydney.”
Or Maybe,
Fel: Hey Sydney, we saw your food show on the Fracture, awesome, and are impressed by your work on the Alari home world. Can we get an autograph. Sorry about the battle, but the ship below stole from us, and we are lawfully retrieving our property. any collateral damaged will be reimbursed
I know the space police established them as bad guys, but their property was stolen, and they are trying to retrieve it. also, if the Fel have FTL, and the Xenoarchy or whatever(to lazy to look up correct spelling) is not trying to keep them in their place, then we only have the word of Cora and her crew, and they are basically space pirates, that the FEL are up to no good
that being said, blow shit up using Sydney, and i am fine with that. that also being said, the most common trope among super heroes are good vs good battles. it happens alot
We do have the word of Dabbler too. And the terms she uses to describe the Fel are pretty un-ambiguous about their moral code.
The “collateral damage” would have likely been the deaths of everyone in the building. Hard to say you are the good guys when retrieval of property involves the casual deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians.
The space police did not establish the Fel as bad guys.
Attacking everyone they meet and corrupting everyone they can into their mutant zombie hoard while killing everyone resistant to that estblishes the Fel as bad guys.
Someone “stole” something powerful from them?
No.
That’s spoils of war, and hopefully it will turn out to be something that could be used to free beings from their control.