Grrl Power #830 – The new hire
So I invented Lorlara for this page, because I realized that someone like Deus would definitely have one, if not several administrative assistants, and I’ve never shown any of his staff. Lorlara’s first draft was a mousey, slightly terrified secretary who was clearly in over her head trying to learn her job, English, and Terran social norms, but… Dabbler did describe the Alari as “Imperialist dickbags.” Obviously no race is completely monolithic… Except the Borg or Cybermen or whatever, but so far, the only Alari characters we’ve seen are Sciona and the refugee woman on Fracture Station. Sciona’s clearly a dickbag, the refugee was clearly not. Or maybe she wasn’t simply because she wasn’t in a position of power.
Anyway, I got halfway done writing this page and wanted a decisive swing back in the other direction. In my mind, the Alari were sort of “vaguely not nice,” but I hadn’t solidified exactly what form that took. Now with Lorlara ranting about consolidating power and expanding influence, their whole society has more or less snapped into focus now. It’s tempting to think of them as a bit Drow-like, but that’s mostly because of their color scheme. They’re not necessarily matriarchal, and they’re not beholden to any arachnid themed deities. They have a multi-tiered caste system, with nobles, military, labor, and a few others. All the factions are pretty much obsessed with advancing from tier to tier, and in some ways, their society is remarkably merit based. But it’s also terribly cutthroat, especially the higher a house or an individual within a house climbs.
Anyway, I’m so glad I changed my mind about Lorlara’s personality, because she’s suddenly my favorite character du jour. I’m considering modifying a few upcoming scenes to include her.
On a semi-related note, I think having white eyelashes would be awfully distracting. Obviously, if you just woke up white eyelashes one day, they’d be distracting. I mean I think you’d get glare off them in sunlight and stuff like that.
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After reading that description, Alari sounds allot like Drows from Pathfinder.
D&D and Pathfinder have vastly diffrent society’s of Drows, both very evil but PF’s verision operates under different houses, and like Alari, they will backstab and plot against theire own house to achive more power in it.
Still have a sorta matriarchy per house but no spider diety they worship, Driders are even mostly shunned and distrusted.
That’s pretty much how the Drow were in 1st ed AD&D way back in the late 70’s.
That’s actually pretty similar to D&D. Drow in the Forgotten Realms setting also have houses where they plot against each other but also try to gain power within their own house. Lots of backstabbing. The struggle between and within houses is central to the plot of the Dark Elf Trilogy by R. A. Salvatore where the drow are first really explored.
Also, drow are shunned in D&D as well. Although they gain in strength, it’s considered a form of punishment for who fail Lollth.
Yeah in D3 The Vault of the Drow I remember a reference to the process of transforming a Drow into a Drider being both a punishment and also resulting in insanity on the part of the resulting Drider. That was AD&D version 1.
Moreso than Pathfinder, I love the Drow in Starfinder, which is just the future version of Pathfinder.
In that Drow are pretty similar, but some of the interesting differences are that Elves are a bit more antagonistic to the Drow in this version (the Elven government actively waging a shadow war with the Drow rather than Elves just wanting to Drow to leave them alone) and the Drow are a bit more interesting IMO given their extensive industry of retrofitting weapons and technology. it makes them feel like they have gone from being the evil bad baddies, to more something along the lines of opportunistic but actually helpful when they can get something out of a situation.
Though I think the novel versions had a few bordering evil ones. Jarlaxle liked artemis entreri to a certain extent. And actually took vengeance on artemis’s behalf on a woman Entreri fell for who tried to kill him in turn. He couldn’t kill her in response, so Jarlaxle took vengeance himself. Though to be fair she probably lived life wishing artemis had given her a quick death instead. Jarlaxle never mentioned where she went.
From one of the later Artemis Entreri books separate from any connection to Drizzt at that point
So what you’re saying is Romulans are Space Drow
Eeeeeeh, borderline.
Based on panels 2, 6 & 8 it seems Lorlara doesn’t have an indoor voice, particularly considering Max wincing and rubbing his ear in panels 8 & 9.
Uh, that’s Deus.
So it is. Geez. When do I get to edit my goofs???
When the Earth inter-folds to become an involute globe.
And who might have told Lorlara that interesting tidbit?
Had a good laugh about that, looks like Vale’s hiding a bit of a troublemaker in there :)
I’m waiting for Vale and Lorlara to gang up on Deus… Military Bombast on one side and Total Disrespect on the other :)
She’s very funny.
i do love the FOR THE EMPEROR! vibe im getting and not the 40k one
Am i the only one disturbed by panel six lorlara’s toothless mouth?
A white curve under the tongue would efficiently hinder her inflatable doll aspect.
Her lips just covering her teeth. Her mouth appears to pretty similar to a primate mouth. In fact her body appears to be primate, except for those wings projecting from her shoulder blades.
I’d say all of the bipedal laterally symmetric beings in this universe are primates, as in our Universe Primatomorpha clade, de-(as?)-cending to the Ape clade. The only significant differences come from which planet they developed on.
Have seen many images of real life people that barely show there teeth
Case in point: Was watching SmackDown last (yes, it’s complete trash, still has its moments though, like when they finally remove that Wyatt trash-stick), and was trying to check if Cena’s bottom teeth really were yellow or if it was just the lighting (was also trying to count the number of bottom middle teeth), and, with him defiantly attacking Wyatt, loudly, it was difficult find a good moment
Case in point indeed : when a primate open so wide a mouth, it is expected to show some teeth.
Cena does. even if you may have a hard time to detail it in video, it is blatant with a static image(not watching SmackDown, Wrestling is not as popular in my country, but google is still my friend).
Yeah, he does, he did, the ‘problem’ was, he was also moving his lips
thaaaaat’s why i find that panel so disturbing – the inflatable doll similarity. thank you for defining it, that really helps alleviate the unease. XD
Well, Alari are Avariel Drow, confirmed.
Neat.
Also, all she now needs to learn is an insidew voice, and shell be perfect left hand girl. ^^
I am reminded of a line General Talbot had in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: “THIS IS MY INSIDE VOICE.”
Deus looks markedly different in this comic from his prior appearances. I mean, with the ‘X’ scar in the middle of his face it is obviously him, but take away the scar and put him in a different setting and I might not know who the character was.
The same could be said of almost every character in the comic due to art evolution. The art in the comic has improved by leaps and bounds, causing the characters to evolve in exact appearance, though for what it’s worth, I feel that Deus is still visibly Deus here. I checked comics with his older appearance compared to here, and I actually don’t see what’s so different? The character model looks about the same, similar proportions, size, etc., just…drawn better now compared to then. That, aside from, yes, being Deus, he has some signature features, from the X scar and also in his choice of clothing and also his demeanor. (If you look at his posture, emotions, etc. from older comics, they are still similar to what is shown now if you account for the adjustment in art style.)
It’s funny how Deus is so conceited that he blocks out time during his day to do stereotypical ‘comic book’ routines. I suppose when you’re as competent at getting things done as Deus is, you can afford to be a little conceited.
Atmosphere is important. Deus does that for the same reason mad scientists have a Jacobs ladders running in the corner of the lab and some bubbling beakers full of colored water; To maintain the right mindset.
The scientists I know don’t have any of that stuff, as it interferes with the experiments. But the lab assistant is called Igor…
They’re not the right kind of scientists (or they hide the really cool stuff from you :P )
What’s the point of being an evil mastermind if you can’t enjoy the small things?
In here we see “stereotypical ‘comic book’ routines“, but you’d be surprised how many successful people actually do just (sort of) that. In the series “Medium”, Joe DuBois discovers his boss has a private meditation garden, and is encouraged by his boss to use it.
I won’t go into all the benefits of routine meditation, but there’s lots.
C’mon, this is a guy who requires Ominous Lightning And Thunder in the background whenever he performs his Evil Laugh. This is really rather low-key, in comparison.
That’s one of the things I was referring to, yes.
Reminds me of Jasper from Steven Universe.
That… is definitely a drow. That is curiously okay with working for a dude.
Well, the drow are mainly choatic-aligned whereas Lorla seems more of Lawful Evil type.
To me they sound like Romulans, though Lolari may have been out drinking with Klingons recently.
I was thinking exactly the same!
Yep, Klingons or maybe Galaxy Quest crew.
I like Lolara, I really hope she gets to be a reoccurring character.
It’s hilarious that you draw women like that but think white eye lashes would be the distracting part…
First, he meant distracting for the person with the eyelashes, not distracting for other people looking at the person with the eyelashes.
Second… I’m confused by your unstated logic. I would think there would be a positive correlation between drawing “women like that” and not being distracted by them. If you perceive something as normal or positive, are you as likely to find it distracting as something you perceive as abnormal or negative?
Have you ever heard of the Kristang from the series Expeditionary Forces? There a lizard base space race very similar to what you describe with a caste and clan system and their society has a civil war every 80 years or so, almost like clockwork.
Lorlara’s cute as a button. obviously a psychotic button, but cute as a button. Like a deranged little drow fairy..
Did you just compare Lorlara to Evil Ernie’s friend and sidekick, Smiley the Psychotic Button?
wish I’d thought of that, but no. I meant she’s adorable. Insanely dangerous, of course, I don’t think Deus quite understands how dangerous….but there’s something just inherently cute about her whole schtick. like crossing an omnicidal maniac with a disney princess.
It’s always nice when your employees wanna get you laid, but uhh… you know those kegel exercises? In Max’s case… you’d be sticking your dong in a hydraulic press. Not pleasant.
We-e-e-ll, there was a very full discussion of the Perils of Maxima in the previous page, but I’m of the opinion she is able to dial back her responses to something civilised. I think her comment “I forget things have weight” when Syddles was trying to lift the minigun was meant in the context of keeping her powers dialled up while on duty.
We need to remember that at least once Maxima could have put Harem in hospital very easily.
If Maxi is sufficiently forgetful of her abilities that she imperils other people — supers or not — then arguably she should be sequestered from human contact, as she would not even be able to hold breakable objects like beer bottles.
QED, Maxi is capable of treating her lovers with thoughtful passion, and can refrain from disfiguring them.
Remember, part of the reason Maxima’s so powerful is she can shift her superpower ‘energy’ around, adjusting it on the fly for whatever the circumstances require, including reducing her strength to increase other powers. Therefore, her strength doesn’t have to be always on, unlike some other characters.
where to shift it, though? speed and you’re looking at friction burns, durability and she loses…erm…involuntary pliability, and obviously the strength thing. so what’s left? energy bolts? flying? Human orgasm has a similar EEG to an epileptic fit (this has been known since the 1960s at minimum, ref: “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex”) That means a loss of voluntary muscle control. We’ve also seen that young max blew out a wall of her house while fooling around with a boy. I’m going to hazard a guess and say she probably doesn’t have much, if any, sex life with non-supers. Probably something on the order of “Must be able to survive x megatons of impact before you can ride this ride.”
“…while fooling around with a boy.” Brother, being a typical bother, you mean.
grrl-power-122, on behavioral therapy.
Am I sure that’s her brother? Pretty sure.
I just need to rub it in a bit.
The brother had rudely awoken his siter with a puffed-up paper bag… Scared crap out her in fact. I’d say the only thing that saved the brother was Maxi’s astonishment at the damage she did to the wall. But I’m sure the brother never did that again.
BUT. NOTE: At that early stage of her transformation, Maxi almost certainly had little (if any) conception of how her powers worked. No skill-set in fact. She has that skill-set now, because growing up.
Safest place to put her power points when she actively doesn’t want to be dangerous or operate in bullet time would be flight speed because she still has the option to walk; we’ve never seen her fly involuntarily.
Lorlara knows a variation of the *Royal Voice!*
@DaveB, Perhaps the Alari Homeworld (now destroyed) has always been darker than Earth norm. It was apparent that Sidney was there during night-time or the clouds of destruction were obscuring their sun; but perhaps the Sun of the Alari Homeworld emits a lower frequency of light. That could be a reason to explain naturally white hair. White eyelashes in that case, wouldn’t cause glare into the eyes, but instead allow the Alari to see better in the gloom that is their daytime. On Earth, though, Lorlara probably needs sunglasses badly when going outside. Disadvantage on perception checks while in bright light.
Probably a G7VI or G7VI star, like our sun but smaller and significantly less luminous. I’ll also argue it has a planetoid moon (like ours) created by a Theia collision, therefore it has a loose tectonic plate system and deep oceans.
Make one of those “G8VI”…
Have to wear sunglasses when going outside during the day as well, even when overcast
Vale’s smirk in panel 5 indicates that she’s more closely identified with/inhabiting her current human form than I’d expected. She’s fundamentally alien and, I had imagined, not even humanoid except for the convenience of interacting with humans. The smirk, especially if not facing toward anyone who is expected to see it, is not an interaction or communication. That’s just … herself. Or itself. or something. And that’s a *very* human, *very* embodied response. It’s not something we *decide* to do, like deciding what to say. It’s just something we do.
So, Vale is embodied/formed on the human template closely enough now to have human reactions. That’s more than I had thought.
Note the direction if Loli’s head in same panel: she’s looking towards Valeur (because she was the one who told her about that ‘forthright observation’ nonsense :P )
Just because you don’t expect observation, a smirk is still an interaction and form of communication (even if aimed at just yourself)
And Valeur isn’t ‘fundamentally alien’, she is completely alien (remember during that cat-fight between and Sci-fright?)
The fact she will now willingly watch that “Teen Titans, GO!” shit in the privacy of a private jet means she has gone too far into hyu-mon (too far for many hyu-mons even)
Okay, it’s Lorlara, not Lolara, can’t use that name any more… maybe?
Much as you have to admire that of a bowstring, I suppose.
For whatever it’s worth, Deus’ ‘X’ scar is very much like something that was known in a few Viking tribes. This is something I read at least twelve or fifteen years ago so I may have the details fuzzy.
It used to be that when someone had stolen someone else’s cattle, or raped somebody, or tortured someone, or whatever … great crimes that indicated they could no longer be part of that tribe or culture – They’d shear off all his hair, carve an ‘X’ on his face, and turn him out (Obviously, this only applied to crimes against other people of the same culture/tribe; outlanders were not protected by law or custom).
These exiles were not expected to survive. They were not allowed to come into any town or any house. Anybody who wanted to was allowed to kill them. And the ‘X’ tended not to be made with a clean knife; most were infected from the outset. Very few of them lived long enough for the ‘X’ mark to heal and become a scar.
There were only a few – three or four I think – who ever got so far away as to interact with people who didn’t know what the ‘X’ scar meant, where people would feed them and allow them to work, etc.
I don’t mean to suggest that Deus may be a 700-year-old exile. But the scar suggests it. And the ‘Ex’ might be a play on ‘Exile’. So it keeps wandering through my mind every time I see the character.
Lorlara is definitely a worthy addition to the cast. And is ideally situated.
Slight non sequiter, but anyone else wonder after the demon history lesson what Dabbler makes of DOOM or other media with demonic baddies? Offended, amused or “yeah, that’s pretty fair?”
She’d probably sot one demon and go “Oh, I dated him, once, he never called me back, always wondered what happened to him. Last thing he said was that he had some sort of ‘job interview’ concerning ‘dirt’?”
‘sot’ equals ‘spot’ :(
Hm, Romulan, Terran empire from the alt universe… If we’re talking star-trek. Dilgar if we’re talking Babylon 5… There’s been quite a few species with the conquerors outlook. Centauri even if you go far enough back… Oh, the Peacekeepers in Farscape… Kind of wished I caught more of Lexx before it went off air now. But yeah Militarized Dictatorships with Spartan value vibes run strong with this one. Also getting a touch of Dark Angel vibes here actually. Is that intentional?
As others have already said (been not too well the last week, still recovering slowly), you described Drow (minus the icky spider-fetishism) perfectly
Speaking of ‘drow-society minus the spiders’, should totally check out “DrowTales”, if you haven’t already, believe it may be ending this or next year though :(
Hope you get back to full strength in due course. Keep resting and recuperating and don’t take risks!
Both my previous shifts have had over half the workforce calling in sick, with no option for replacements from elsewhere. I had to run our busiest floor solo. Including looking after the dead and the dying. But would rather be overworked than have colleagues return to work before they have properly recovered.
Wasn’t Corona-related (liquid nor virus), a re-occurrence of something that hit about a month ago: Abdominal Gas (at least, that’s what they told me at the hospital years ago, when they finally saw me three hours after getting there)
A month ago, apart from a little painful and uncomfortable, it cleared up in a day or two, this time, it was worse: vomited bad the first day, second day the ‘gas’ had moved and now felt like pinched muscle (or squished spleen) and a cracked rib. And the stomach was giving me serious problems
Wasn’t able to eat for four days and sleep wasn’t easy
Salmonella?
Doubt it, no idea what the symptoms are though, so who knows
Holy crap! I caught up to the leading edge!
Dave, I only found Grrl Power a few weeks ago, and I’m very glad I did.
I’ve burned through all 830 in that time, and I’m very positively impressed by the the progression in your artistic skills (which were pretty good (at least!) to start with).
I really, really enjoy Sydney, as a character, and I’m very much looking forward to the next few weeks of her life (however long that may take for you to produce ;) ).
Welcome, hope you continue to enjoy the ride :D
Welcome! Glad to know I’m not the only one to burn through the archive when I first found this comic.
You may enjoy the unofficial wiki (even though it’s not terribly well maintained), as well as the discussion in the comments here.
Also, since it will inevitably come up, know that a) there is no
crying in baseballediting comment posts, and b) sometimes your comments may not show up for a few minutes but are almost never lost, so give it 5-10 minutes before reposting.Reminds me of that military alien friend from Doctor who.
Which one? o_O
Just remember, every one in UNIT was a ‘military alien friend’
I wanna say The Brigadier.
That was him, couldn’t remember his rank though :(
White eyelashes are awesome. I wore and wear them when I’m feeling my old cybergoth roots and they do make people double-take :) They’re one of the few makeup tricks you can use to draw attention to the colour of your iris when your eyes are really dark and you can’t “aim to bring out the coloured flecks” or whatever ‘cos there aren’t any!
So, I’m hearing Lorlara’s voice like Magenta in Rocky Horror Picture Show: “Master! I tire of this world!”
Does that make SmugD, RiffRaff or Frank? o_O
Now, picture SmugD in fishnets, heels and a corset :P
Oh Hiro!
I dunno. Loralara’s cute and all that, but she just doesn’t do it for me. She’s feisty, but a bit lacking in the… physical endowments department, IYKWIM, AITYD.
Sorry, but after Sciona, any woman with less than a five-foot wingspan just doesn’t excite me.
Think about this: we never really saw Sci-frights’ wings until she was ready to deploy them, Loli’s wings are visible, so potentially… she could have a greater wingspan
Of course, we could ask “Can Lorlara conceal her wings in any way?” Probably just as interesting: “Can Lorlara use her wings to interrogate another person’s body?”
If he actually manages to get Maxima in bed, I really don’t think I can continue reading this comic.
That said, I really like the Maxima/Hiro pairing, even though I understand the difficulty in pulling that off considering she’s his superior officer.
It’s only a problem while Arc-swat is operationally confined to one base.
As they bring in and train more personnel it would be reasonable to presume that they will open additional bases. Perhaps Hawaii or Guam in the Pacific and somewhere in New England and somewhere in the Northwest.
Each facility would have a CO reporting to Faulk (or the general who succeeds him in the event of his retirement or demise) and at that point Maxima and Hiro would no longer be in the same chain of command.
Unlikely to be an expansion in the Pacific, at least in the first few bases – Archon is a US unit, and the population base of Hawaii (Guam, etc) is just too small. East and West Coasts first, where they can cover the most people with limited resources.
Lorlara is either standing on a stool during this conversation or she has abnormally long legs and a comparatively tiny upper body, if panel 5 is anything to go by. Her waist is further from the ground than Deus’s waist is, yet he’s nearly a head taller when she straightens out as in panel 2. (I considered high heels or platform shoes, but with that height they wouldn’t do. After a certain point you need stilts.)
Who says she is standing… at all? o_O
She has wings. Presumably, they’re for more than show.
I keep looking back at panel 6 and find it is one finger from being very rude, which makes me wonder if she shared Dabbler’s tastes in interpersonal relations. Then I remembered what Scionna went through to get the location of Skybreaker and her reactions afterward.
I like Lorlara already.
She is going to scream For the Emperor as she runs at an M1 with a bayoneted lasgun and SOMEHOW kill it.
wtf are alari?
A species of Extraterrestrials, whose planet was recently visited by a rather destructive invasion. One group managed to leave the planet, and landed in Galytn to make repairs. They have something of a reputation for being military-expansionist, and not being very subtle about it.