Grrl Power #863 – A dangerous day to be a swinging log
In some ways, Sydney is always the main character wherever she goes because she tends to always be the center of the attention. It’s not an intentional thing she does, but attempts to wean her into a higher level of self awareness tend to be a temporary solution.
On the plus side, getting Sydney on board with any given project is just a matter of finding the right hook. I’m not sure what they’ll use to get Sydney interested in marching about in formation. Stripes leaps to mind, but that movie doesn’t exactly promote the sort of military discipline they ultimately want to instill in her.
The Carter Special, for those of you who don’t know, was a custom prop made for Amanda Tapping because while the show did switch to P90’s for the reasons that Sydney spews, it eventually became difficult to get P90 props and blanks because of the Iraq war. It was a mishmash of three different guns. I thought it looked cool, especially because Carter usually had one of those hundred round Mickey Mouse-ear double drum clips. But it also had a 7″ barrel on it, so… might not be the greatest choice for engagements out past a hundred yards.
Anyway, here’s the obligatory “Carter dunking on Jaffa with a P90” scene from SG-1. I feel like I’ve probably linked this before, but it’s always fun to watch.
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Heh heh, Jiggs spoke like me in the last panel (love grammar mangling at times :D)
Okay, maybe not as mangled as thought it was :(
Was that done on purpose? If so, she really knows ho to motivate a tired recruit.
First they tire her out then they reboot her with the shiny new toy.
Well they know Sydney’s habit of nerdgasming and both Maxima and Dabbler can be of the manipulating sort if they want to, so yeah, it’s possible.
I mean, that DOES assume that either of them were SG-1 fans.
Or they could have consulted a nerd with similar level of nerdiness as Sydney. Leon is in her nerdiness range if memory serves.
Remember, Maxima confessed to having been ‘sort of a nerd’ way back in the early days when they were interviewing her about becoming part of Archon, page 87 (April 16 2012)
And Stargate isn’t exactly the most obscure thing ever. Combining having been a nerd at some point AND being career military, there’s no way she’d NOT make such a connection.
*When they were interviewing Sydney*
Important clarification
There’s also the fact that, across the entirety of the Stargate universe, Samantha Carter is an incredibly positive role model for women everywhere (although admittedly it did take the writers a couple of seasons for her to get to that state; season 1-2 Sam, to my memory, is…for lack of a better term, probably written by men–but by later seasons, she’s definitely a good role model).
One of the smartest scientists on the entirety of Earth, and yet also one of the most badass warriors of the Earth, an incredibly independent woman who has made her career succeeding in her life at almost everything she set her mind to do.
That seems like it’d appeal to Maxima.
Plus samantha carter is badass and brilliant WITHOUT the writers tearing down the other male characters. And stargate had other positive female characters as well. Always without making the men look bad in order to make the women look good, which is a big pet peeve of mine when writers make female characters. Impressive for a TV show heavily using in the field military. All too often, in order to make a woman look badass or smart or good, bad writers make the men hold an idiot ball (or just make them permanent idiots), make the men evil and misogynistic out of a captain planet villain handbook, or make them cowardly. That did not happen in Stargate SG-1 or Atlantis. While it did in other hackneyed scifi shows like Dark Matter (or in most CW shows as well). Usually because the writer is focused on a social or political agenda, rather than whats more important for a TV show – making cool characters to root for and engaging stories. Far as I can tell, every character in sG1?and Atlantis was cool and usually had at least a few occasions to be downright endearing. Even the joke characters or jerky characters :). And there were both male and female villains as well – as big bads. Adria, Apophis, the replicators, Ba’al, Hathor, senator whateverhisnamewasbadguyfromrobocop….
As for the positive hero characters?
Vala – claudia black is always great in scifi
Dr Frasier – episode where she died was super sad and surprising
Dr Lam (i think she was also the second generals daughter – not hammond, the other one)
Talia (Atlantis – second most badass character after Ronan)
Elizabeth Weir (Atlantis, although Wolesly was a surprisingly good replacement after she left the show)
DaveB does something similar. He makes the women cool without naking the men pathetic in order to build up the women. Maxima being the most powerful does not make Hiro lame. It also does not make Deus, the true hero of the comic, any less awesome (added that sentence in for guesticus:)). Dabbler doesnt make Math any less cool, etc. and most importantly DaveB gives all the female characters unique and numerous flaws that suit them, avoiding mary sue territory. . I love this comic.
Sydney sure went from “No More” to WOOOOOHOOOOOO! really fast.
Never worked closly w someone w ADD have you
Given that Peggy was surprised that Sydney recognized the firearm, it’s not likely that this was a deliberate attempt to motivate Sydney with a geek-oriented weapon.
Whose hands are on Sydney face? They can’t be her own hands. To get thumbs at the top she would have to cross her arms at the wrists, and the entire forearms are visibly not crossed.
Probably Peggy’s. Physical contact tends to focus people.
I would think that those are Peggy’s hands. All the better to grab Sydney’s focus.
They also have no band-aids and don’t match anyone else’s skintone. Definitely Peggy’s hands.
Agreed – I was confused about this too since I initially thought Peggy’s hands were occupied, but Sydney’s holding the P90 in panel 4. I think this is a case of literally grabbing her attention to get her to stop blathering.
Double barrel shotgun from DOOM.
Sydney probably already have a replica of that.
I can’t imagine Sydney firing a 12 gauge and remaining upright. The recoil would put her right on her keister.
Thats what her flight orb is for.
Equal opposite force applied, and she can even fire a BFG 9000 ;)
Holding the BFG 9000 requires two hands, and possibly more muscles than she has right now. I mean, it’s a really BFG, after all. So, no, the flight orb would not assist with that.
Tentacle orb in one hand and fly orb in the other.
Oh and on that SG1 video, Mythbusters did a thing on chopping down trees with bullets and to replicate what the video showed took a minigun and about 2000 rounds of 7.62mm NATO ball. If the p90 uses the same ammo as the m16 (5.56 mm NATO) it would need a few dozen magazines to do what was shown in the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC8jnSaCqxY
The P90 uses 5.7x28mm ammo, which is a smaller bullet than a 5.56×51 mm NATO round.
Trying to use the flight orb would be even worse. That would put her at firing the shotgun one-handed, which is not really something that anyone should do, much less someone as small and lacking in muscle mass as Sydney. She’d lose a lot of barrel control and would have no way to deal with the recoil at all, making the most likely outcome be that the gun flew out of her hands and smacked into her body in some way.
I think Opus the Poet has the right of it: one hand on flight orb, one hand on tentacle orb for the lighthook, *which then wraps itself around the gun*. The light-hook’s rated for tons; it can probably keep the gun stable.
Plus the fly orb gives sydney localized gravity and inertia dampeners/removers. She has flown at mach speeds without her hair even moving because of the fly orbs side effects. And yeah the lighthook is rated at around 16+ tons. More than enough fir the BFG
Shotty is a 2 hand weapon for that reason alone pistols are a better option for her atleast then she can bubble up
Man, I would give my left nut for the semi auto version of that, even the one with the stupidly long barrel. Absurdly hard to come by tho, especially in my state.
Hey, you never know when the Goa’uld are going to invade.
You cant get the p90 but you can get a semi auto .22 version bullpup wich while im not a gun guy i admit to wanting to try out
You can get the PS90 (semi, long barrel) easily enough. It’s just expensive, not really hard to come by unless you’re in California or one of the other unfree states. You can also get a 10/22 stock that looks like one but otherwise shares exactly zero characteristics. And shoots like ass, including spitting brass out the side.
P90’s are very hard to get. PS90’s less so, but federal law requires a minimum 16″ barrel. However it is far easier to get an AR57. AR15 lower, AR57 upper. P-90 magazines and ammunition. A quite nasty little weapon that will set you back a little more than a grand. But quite nice. For half a grand less.
Thing most appreciated about the new invotive? You didn’t have the left string flush against her skin (as so many other artists do)
So, who thinks that Max, Peggy and the other instructors have scoured nerdlore for stuff they can use to prod Sydney in the right way?
Sydney; “Noooo, I don’t wanna…”
Peggy; “You want to shoot the gun they used in Stargate?”
Sydney; “I’m in!”
What surprises me is that Pegs would assume Syddles would not be at least familiar with StarGate. And Max is a self-admitted nerd.
What? No. They didn’t scour anything. “Hey, Leon, make us a list.”
Actually, looking up the Wikipedia page for the P90 and the ammo it uses…
Isn’t their service weapon choice the FN 5.7? It uses the same ammo. The two weapons were developed in conjunction with this ammo. That actually looks more like chance, and less like Sydney’s done the amount of research I’d expect of her about her fandoms. I mean, If they chose the five seven as their service weapon before they recruited Sydney, they almost certainly chose the P90 as their assault rifle before they recruited Sydney.
That said, I would still expect that Peggy came into this more knowledgeable about how Sydney would react to this gun than she let on. After all, Leon is still a member of the team.
Now I’m confused.
Check panel 3, then Syddles’ detailed fill-in on panel 4.
Please ignore. Pre-caffeine post.
a peggy carter special?
… Wrong Carter (and wrong Peggy as well :P )
Counterpoint: I am almost certain that, within the confines of the unspoken times between the end of Agent Carter and the start of Captain Marvel, Agent Carter got some sort of custom sidearm from Howard Stark.
There are rummors somthing new is in the works
That would to nice, it seems that every time that there is a good female lead action show it gets canceled.
I want to see them let her have another go at the mini gun. I know she could use the tentacle to hold it and the other hand to fire it. She’d lose her mind. XD
One minor problem with this page? Feel sad now knowing how long it’s been since that show ended :(
It really bummed me out. The last episode of both SG-1 and Atlantis felt rushed, like they were forcing a quick artificial end to the series that had material for more. The direct-to-dvd film at least wrapped up the Ori, but that should’ve been an extra season. (Continuum being direct-to-dvd, don’t mind as much tho because that film is fairly isolated, the one and only non-isolated aspect of it is the final Baal clone having the host be freed.)
The entirety of the Pegasus Galaxy remains unresolved. The threats there still are there, and we never got the same conclusion SG-1 received.
And who on earth decided that SG Universe was a good idea? That show singlehandedly canceled the entirety of the franchise because SOMEONE thought it’d be a good idea to turn the stargateverse into teh dramaz, making a series renown for its lighthearted cheeky humorous nature with banter and quips and yet sense of teamwork and cohesion, into a Battlestar Galactica style knitty gritty dramafest that nobody asked for. (That series getting canceled? Absolutely deserved because it just wasn’t a good idea in the first place.)
Yes yes but what about Firefly?! Serenity was not enough! I still need to know who Book was!!
Do you mean The Shpherd’s Tale? It seems to be a Dark Horse hard-cover…
I think I just lost some nerd points for not knowing that series even existed. It was published during a busy time of life, but even so… I have some shopping to do.
I envy you. You get to watch Firefly for the first time. Note that the movie Serenity (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379786/ from 2005, not the 2019 one) was a sequel to the series.
Oh very familiar with the TV series, and watched Serenity a couple times. I didn’t know about the Serenity comic book series, but I do envy any of the lucky 10,000 that discover the TV show this week.
I know that Shepherd Book’s backstory has been canonically given, and thus, this theory is debunk, but I was always fond of, until the theory was debunked, the theory that Book was an Operative before the current Operative we see in the film Serenity–someone who would also spout about the sins of others (Shepherd Book is religious, the Operative also shows investment in religion asking his victims what their sin is among other things), knew how to kill them in any number of ways, had the highest of high security clearance in the alliance, yet had a crisis of faith.
Alas. Theory has been Jossed and is not canon, butstill, it was a nice thought to be had.
Sg1 at least had 2 movies to smooth out the ending if the series.
The Ark of Truth, which wrapped up the Ori storyline, and
Continuum, which wrapped up the goa’uld storyline – mainly with Ba’al
Stargate Atlantis on the other hand was definitely rushed snd had no movies to end the MANY dangling plot threads
Mainly because of legal reasons. The owners of the stargate IP wanted to make stargate 2 so it forced the tv shows to end. Then they never made the sequel movie, instead naking just a bunch of really bad shorts. And Universe was a trainwreck tryibg to ge more like battlestar galactica than stargate
So, so true.
Battlestar Galactica was very much not my taste and I wasn’t fond of it, but I at least respect that there was an audience that it would appeal to–just, not for me.
Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis were more my taste.
So trying to emulate the show that I wasn’t fond of, made a show that, surprise surprise, I wasn’t fond of.
I’ll stick with my Calico. Sure, it’s not as rad looking, but, 100 round magazines and no muzzle climb!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_M960
The Calico sure is nice. Here is a nice video on the history and mechanics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbKj2t7MnBg from forgotten weapons. However I think the P90 is the better weapon with it’s compact stick mags and the 5.7×28 is a better round for this role then 9×19.
I tend to think Calico got screwed by the ’94 AWB, otherwise they’d have branched out into more calibers and gotten more development in. In fact, I bought mine because I was looking to maximize the number of banned features, to offend my Congressman.
My dream gun build would be a Calico pistol in .50 LC. I’d love to try designing one. Maybe in a few years when I retire.
Yes, I think so. With the AWB there was no point to the system. The lock work for .50 would be quite impressive as would be the size of the magazine.
Oooh, that’s a nice looking rifle!
Way back in the day (circa 1975) an Uncle of mine who was a bit of a survivalist has us both write down our fantasy firearm list for an “after the fall of civilization” type scenario. The list had no dollar limit, but you had to specify the rationale behind your choices. I got points for selecting a pistol and rifle that both used the 9mm Luger round. I figured it’d be easier and lighter to carry a single ammo type, reloading would take less gear, etc. Lots of advantages. The pistol is good for defense against humans, while the rifle can bring down game up to a fairly significant size. Certainly a deer, and probably even an elk or black bear. I’d not really like to try my luck with a 9mm round against brown or grizzly bear, but there are trade-offs to everything.
I remember the Calico as being one of the weapons available to Aya Brea in Parasite Eve 2, and though it wasn’t in the first Parasite Eve game, you could craft something with the same stats (any SMG frame, then spend bonus points to bring the magazine capacity up to 50). Another thing you can do with the unrealistic but fun gun crafting mechanic in PE is make anything a shotgun. One weapon that might even be buildable in real life is one I derived from the game, a MAC-10 rechambered for shot shells: .410 would involve the least modification, each upsizing (.410->28ga->20ga->etc.) creates greater complication. What it lacks in power at the small gauges, it makes up for in quantity. Shotguns in videogames tend to have super short effective ranges anyway, for game balance purposes, smaller gauges would reflect that.
Ppl $#!+ on the p90 cause of its weird magsbut its perfect for what it was made for close quarters and speed
SG-1!
The cast of SG1 HATED Zats. They basically referred to it as a “Penis” that goes “Pew” *and a very weak, emasculating pew noise at that.*
Found it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGFz3X8PqKM
Warning: VERY POOR video quality. You’ll also probably want to turn your volume up. I had to turn my laptop speakers up past 80%.
Wow thats alot of slide bite I think sydney may either need to get that grip checked or she may need to chose a different secondary
I can’t imagine holding so I would get slide bit. I can imagine cylinder burn but that’s a simple case of changing grip or shooting old school. BP scorching cures bad grip.
Look where the wounds are. That’s fatigue, she’s been letting her hand go slack while (re)cocking. And she’s playing for sympathy: the bandaids need to be in line with her… er… scratches. I’d say a bit of quick self-repair before bed.
that video… it’s awesome. and I usually don’t like guns
I’m just saying, we’ve seen a stargate like device earlier, and the show exists in this world – just like it does in the stargate series. Zat’s seam more than logical. Just please tell me there are no parasitic snakes in the higher levels of government.
They have standards and yeah don’t worry none of us wanted those jobs.
It’s an adversarial democracy. Of course all snakes are parasitic, in or not in government.
Only metaphorical ones.
I’m pretty sure Sydney already used a P90 in the video game so she should definitely be able to recognize one in real life.
Yeah, it was in #419
This…*shows advanced staff weapon* is a weapon of terror. Its made to intimidate the enemy.
THIS…*shows P90* is a weapon of war. Its made to KILL the enemy.
I love that line so much.
SG-1 had so many great lines, but that was one of the really good ones. Especially paired with the “Those of you who’ve survived us… you know who you are….” followup.
Agreed.
I mean given the tech Level of their worls the Goauld HAD to build their main weapons as Stable, easy to maintain and terrifying as possible, after all, you want your Plasma to be memorable for your slaves….not your Gunshots to echo over mountains of corpses ^^
The only Goa’uld who ever had any actual respect for how dangerous humans were was Ba’al.
Makes sense that he was the last system lord to die.
he died?
I know I jumped in and out during the very last arc (the story had kind of jumped the shark on its core premise for me by then), but I thought Ba’al had retired as a system lord and become a CEO on Earth when the show ended.
Sadly, yes, he died for good. In the show he wiped out almost all of his clones. In the direct-to-dvd film Continuum, the Tok’ra captured his last clone and separated the symbiote from the host and killed the parasite half (that is, Baal himself), leaving the host alive.
Meanwhile, the original-original Ba’al, the last one left, went back in time, and altered the timeline. In the altered timeline, he got killed by his wife usurping his power, rather pathetically, which gave the heroes a chance to right the timeline, and in the process of righting the timeline, Colonel Mitchell killed the original-original Ba’al before he could alter the timeline. Equally as anticlimactically.
While certain aspects of that film had him be in top shape, the same villain he was before (his arrival on earth after he altered the timeline being a prime example of how he had been humanified), by and large the entire thing start to finish just felt out of character for him and rather pathetic an end to such a great villain.
Stargate SG-1 the series and Atlantis the series were great. The way they chose to wrap things up, though? Far less so. (And don’t get me started on the abomination that was Universe. The people who decided to create a knitty-gritty teh-dramaz fest of darkness with constant infighting, plotting, colluding, and character deaths with many immoral actions taken? Singlehandedly killed the franchise because NOBODY wanted that, Stargate is a series renown for its lighthearted humor, witty banter, great gems of characters who usually don’t take things too seriously but have fleshed out arcs when focused on. And Universe was none of that.)
explains it, I watched Ark of Truth just to get “the end” and never got around to watching Continuum because Ark of Truth disappointed me so badly, and shortly after Universe came out and…yeah I hated it too…it didn’t feel like it was even in the same continuity..in fact it felt like a rip-off of the remake of Battlestar Gallactica in tone and characters, so any interest in going back and finishing anything else Star Gate just died there for me. and learning their reason why was just so…why…it was like taking the horse that is making you money, shooting it, and trying to race a donkey in a clown costume because you want to try something different.
Boy oh boy you have NO clue how happy it makes me to see that it’s not just me who holds the opinion that Universe was a badly-done Galactica knockoff.
Ark of Truth was okay to me, I felt like the plot of Ark of Truth could be actually done in the show itself, and that if it had the time to be spread across an entire season rather than crammed into a film, it’d actually have had positive reception, give you time to flesh out hone in and refine on things to make it work better.
Basically, I feel like given it was a film rather than a season, it was executed fairly well and was okay, but if it were actually a season and not a film, it’d have been great.
Honestly, I liked Universe …. as a standalone.
Yes, especially season 2 was too much “And then they acted like childish morons again”, but it did have a lot of potential (and 2 supreme main Actors, hands down).
They should have used it better, but then again,A rk of truth and Continuum were arguably worse, as they tried and failed to capture the original spirit with much Bang and Budget ^^
Ditto, one of my favorite moments on the show.
Well the Carter Special’s shorter barrel did mean it had a bigger muzzle flash and sound whenever it was fired, which would’ve made it better for on screen.
So a nice swap with range and accuracy for TV.
And the Beta Mag did look better on it than the standard magazine, and prevented them having to do bits with swapping magazines.
Got to fire a P90. Fun little gun to shoot. Main problem: reloading the mags. Royal pain in the butt! Better have all the mags you need when you start out, otherwise oh crap. Great for close quarters fights though.
Can confirm it’s a PITA to reload. Due to the size of the mag and the way it’s inserted, removing the empty mag and inserting a new one has to be done in 2 separate steps. But it holds 66% more bullets per magazine than AR15, so you don’t have to reload as often.
A compact PDW suitable for CQB would probably be best for Sydney anyway.
If she has any sort of range at all, the PPO or Lighthook would be more effective than any rifle
Assuming she could see the target, and if she couldn’t there’s always the Telepresence Orb
That wouldn’t work so well for a rifle or handgun since she’d need LOS to use it
For Sydney, I see a firearm more as an intimidation tool since someone would have had to see the PPO in action to know they’re supposed to be scared of it
Given her shield, it’s all moot anyway, the sidearm is for protecting someone else
By the time she drew a weapon she could have her shield up and laugh at almost anyone attacking her.
I’m just sorry I retired before the P90 was issued but I still liked the Sterling SMG I had as my personal weapon :)
I don’t think it’s been discussed in canon, but it seems like the lighthook doesn’t have a lot of range. It appears near her and I don’t recall it being used for anything over a few yards away from her. The PPO, on the other hand, has plenty of range.
When she was paralyzed on the roof she used the lighthook to make a giant neon sign pointing out where she was. She tends to coil it up for visuals. She also reached way up to gran Anvil and throw her back down in the first Acme Special.
Sure, but it was never more than a few yards away from her. Well within pistol range, and not at any kind of range that would require a rifle, even an assault rifle.
Meh. Range is too short. I like something that’s accurate out to 1/2 mile or more, like my .308 M1A.
well it WAS designed for Urban combat and room clearing, not popping heads at a 700 yards.
Agreed. I would rather have the P-90 at close to mid-range fight.
.308 is much better at mid-long to long range.
I like having custom options for each situation.
Pop 2 rounds of .308 in a closed space and hear “EEEEeeeeeeEEEEEeeeEEeeeEEEEE” for about 30 minutes.
A bit old-fashioned here, I would spend good money to get an unobtainium 9mm parabellum for CQB (clearing rooms/trenches) and a Lee_Enfield SMLE Mk3 for popping off heads at 700 yards.
I own a Lee Enfield. It is a heavy beast, and not as accurate as my Remington 30-06. 700 yards? If you’re a trained sniper, maybe. Otherwise hitting an upper body silhouette is your most rational expectation.
TBH, a human head at 700 yards is probably the size of a match-head. Windage alone is going to cruel most of your shots.
The practice with Lee-Enfields was to inspect all barrels at the Enfield armoury, and the straightest were immediately reserved for snipers. Of the rest, only those that you couldn’t see the hole at the far end were returned to the furnace, the rest were shipped as was. My Dad told us that on arrival at the QM’s stores, they were sorted again, and the worst barrels were reserved for intake training, the rest were issued.
You may want to have the barrel inspected for wear’n’tear. It may be worth looking to source a replacement, I’ve heard at 4’th hand they can be got in the USA. You may want to rechamber for the Russian 7.62×54mmR cartridge, it should give you more or less the same feelz.
They are a heavy weapon, ask a 14-yo who’s had to hit the target at 50 yards in the standing position. But I always enjoyed using them on the few occasions I had, very smooth and natural.
Max explained to Sydney that they carry physical weapons for the intimidation factor. So wouldn’t the staff weapon (weapon of terror) serve that purpose better?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-327-ask-a-self-evident-question/
If they want to intimidate they should go for a proper BFG. This is a superhero team after all, you got look cool, sexy and intimidating. Considering the minigun with bayonets https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-328-six-cylinder-enthusiasm/ they already have they know this already. Using the Hentorb Sydney should be able to handle it.
If they wanted to scare people they would carry the M79 with either buckshot or flechettes. Being on the business end of one of those is definitely a “fill your pants” situation. Mine had the standard rear peep and a clear front sight with range and windage markings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M79_grenade_launcher
No, no, no… You need a hand-free weapon!
I will just park my orbital super battle fortress above your home country for now. OK?
You will have bent sticks thrown at it, you know.
The average human in grrlverse wouldn’t know what a staff weapon is, so not very intimidating until she fires it, but discharging a weapon should only be used a final warning.
As Snapper says, the intimidation factor depends on the subject’s familiarity with the intimidating object. A staff blaster is good for intimidation on a population that’s grown up to respect them – especially if they’ve been taught to recognise a carried staff as the sign of authority without the need for it to be pointed – but for most Earth Humans it’s a funny-looking stick. We’re a lot more used to guns in their various forms, including recognising the general form even if the specific weapon is unfamiliar.
found the P90 vs swinging log vid! https://youtu.be/NjlCVW_ouL8
Yes, that’s the one DaveB linked in his sub-comment :D
I’m going to guess that the two chairs in the last panel are really one chair spinning around as Sydney leaves the room at high speed, since there’s only the one chair there, which she’s sitting in, at the start. Love how jealous everyone is that Sydney gets offered the new toy first. Or are they happy to have her around since she motivates Peggy to give out the new toys?
I think on the last panel they’re feeling put out because Sydney gets offered the new toys. It was very clear to them that the new gun was 100% about motivating Sydney, and it feels like they’re under the impression that was just what it was.
But after the last panel (probably before the next one), they’re happy to have Sydney around since she motivates Peggy to give out the new toys.
Yeah, was a little confuzzled about the double-chair, then realised it was to indicate it spinning :D
Considering how rarely I expect them to actually resort to use of firearms this is a reward day for Syd.
Several of them who do not have offense powers will need that training. Ren is one of those.
Ren and the others with out offense powers will be needing those weapons.
They’re supposed to be a policing force. Going out in the field with these means they are not looking to arrest people.
Not necessarily. It means they are prepared to escalate if arrest proves impractical, and it means they have options to persuade/compel surrender to arrest, but it does not mean that arrest is not the objective. Carrying a weapon does not oblige them to point it, and aiming it does not oblige them to fire. But being competent to use it if necessary is a prerequisite to open up those additional options.
Imagine Sydney training with a FAMAS-the firearm of choice for the French Foreign Legion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAMAS
Upon receiving this weapon,Sydney marches as she sings the Legion’s marching song ‘Le Boudin.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwM3oYi5ltQ&list=PL6e8mpdSi7Kdu3zWtlR6px7Bo16pnvoZj&index=3&t=0s
Always wanted a zat myself, so many uses for a handy little thing like that (heh heh)
You COULD waste everyone’s time with parade ground nonsense. Like the heroes will be doing a lot of North Korean style parades. OR you could have her learn to deal with structure fires and rescues instead. But I am sure there are way less chances for drama and comedy in a house faire than in an …empty… field…
*Sydney experiences nerd-energy-based regeneration of thumb tendons upon exposure to Stargate-adjacent tech*
Also kudos for referencing Brewster’s Millions – still one of my fave non-sci-fi nostalgia movies from my childhood.
The thumbs are also backwards. Those aren’t her hands.
It’s Peggy using her hands to silence Sydney’s fangirling momentarily.
I’m sure someone mentioned this here somewhere, but the M-16 looking things on stargate were MP-5’s
Indeed, they were Heckler & Koch MP5A2’s. Can’t figure out why she (or you) think they look like M-16’s though… An MP5 is 27″ long, an M-16 is 39″ long (basically 50% bigger).
The GAU-5A’s they used from time to time DO look a bit more like M-16’s (interestingly enough the GAU-5A’s which fired were mock-ups built around an entirely different gun).
Guns all look the same to people who don’t give a damn about guns.
Source: me. I don’t give a damn about guns, and they all look the same to me.
Yep, they all look the same*
Though I think the MP5’s are just that forgettable.
I had totally forgot about them in the show until reading these comments.
Honestly, I didn’t realize that the P90s were only used that late into the show.
I know the original-original Stargate film (which SG-1 is based on loosely, the two have small differences that the show itself lampshades relentlessly) didn’t use them, and I also know that the pilot episodes of SG-1 didn’t use them, but I thought that by season two they were already using the P90s, so this bit of trivia that they only began to use them into season four is new to me.
I like how she knew about the nerdy (sexy) cinematography reason that they switched weapon types. It is details that no one notices, but make a huge amount of difference when filming.
I love the style of the P-90.
Uh-oh. There will now be five pages of USAian gun discussion in the Comments. After a while, the US gun obsession gets boring for most non-USAians.
I’d prefer to see Peggy trying to teach Sydney to march. In real armies, recruits start with marching and similar tasks. It gets them fit and trains them to obey orders NOW, without question. There’s no time for debates on a battlefield.
And Sydney is not good at obeying orders.
Eh, Archon is more “special military police” than that.
I only learned Drill and Ceremony in Basic training. When I got to my Army Reserve unit (Federal part-time National Guard) we only used it a couple of times and it was usually a cluster-fuck. (Regular Army used it a little bit more, but even then it was to fill time than anything else.)
Drill and Ceremony only works well in larger groups, like 20 or more. That “Basic training” class has 6. Not really enough for a proper formation.
Plus, while Sydney will very likely be in a position to clear rooms / battlefields with the rest of the team, it’s very unlikely that she will ever be in a march (parade, field, or otherwise) or crossing terrain in any kind of formation. She is flyer (probably the fastest on the team now) with an (effectively) invincible shield; there’s no point in having her trying to sync her movements that tightly with anyone.
As it happens, I actually was military police.* But we were soldiers, and we still had to march.
Obviously, we trained with guns, and used them. However, we left them behind us when we left the armed forces. That’s the norm for most armed forces, because civilians don’t need guns in a normal country (unless you’re hunting or competing). My wife has never seen a real gun, let alone used one.
*(We had no supers in our team.)
None you were aware of.
it get boring for most US people too honestly
I’m always up for watching Marching Girls :) :) :)
Is it wrong that my mind went to the Mary Kay Commandos seeing the red dress uniform (“even their Uzis are pink!”) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_of_the_Mary_Kay_Commandos
As long as they were marching in formation, with… exciting… music, with lots of evolutions, no nothing wrong at all.
Just be glad she isn’t making you train with a M1, Sydney.
Oh Sydney would love to fire an Abrams, or drive it for that matter. Plus being small is actually an advantage for a tanker.
Pretty sure he meant a M1 Garand semi-auto Service Rifle, which is, admittedly, still a fun gun to shoot. However, it’s a big and – relatively – heavy SOB with a complex action system and really wasn’t made for someone in Sydney’s size category.
It’s also a woefully outdated firearm that even the most Podunk National Guard Depots don’t keep in storage anymore. Plus, it’s getting harder and harder to find them in good condition outside of Museums and private collections.
So was I. ;-)
She might even enjoy firing an Abrams tank at JJ. Abrams.
Please stop mixing the terms magazine and clips. A magazine feeds ammunition, while a clip holds ammunition. You could always insert a clip directly into the magazine (like on the garand). Or feed the magazine from the clip (like the old kar98 or mauser c96 pistol) Same goes for belt fed weapons. The belts are not stored in a magazine but instead hangs either loose from the gun or is contained in a box or pouch affixed or adjacent to the weapon.
So anything that physically feeds ammunition into the weapon with for example a spring is a magazine while anything that just passively holds ammunition is a clip?
As someone who knows next to nothing about guns this is surprisingly logical.
In that case, since the P-90 has its transparent ammo-holding apparatus mounted up top, is it a magazine or a clip? I would assume that anything with that amount of ammo inside it would need to have a feed mechanism of some kind so I’d just make an (un)educated guess and say magazine.
I also know very little about guns, but I’ve seen a lot of intermixing of these terms, both by people who clearly don’t know better, and by people I’d expect to know these things.
I think there are a bunch of guns where the clip and the magazine are very clear and distinct things, fitting with Whoriar’s worldview. And then there are some guns where there isn’t that distinction. Looking on the Wikipedia page for the FN P90, the word ‘clip’ does not occur.
I’d guess that some guns have optimized the clip out of existence, but people who are used to guns that have them then refer to the magazines as clips. Note that the clip itself was an optimization, so to optimize it away basically means they needed to make the magazine detachable, cheap enough to use it to hold the ammunition, and that probably includes meaning easy enough to load from loose ammunition.
This seems to be more or less what the magazine (firearms) Wikipedia page says, though it says it at much greater length and detail.
I doubt very much you’ll find a clip large enough to refill the P90 magazine. Having said that, most weapons that use clips are designed so you never have to detach the magazine and fill it one round at a time. Example: the Lee-Enfield .303 rifles, the receiver was designed especially to take a 5-round clip directly above the 10-round magazine, it was amerely a mtter of pressing the 5 rounds downwards.
Technically, the magazine is the thing that feeds ammunition into the firing chamber. All weapons able to fire from a firing chamber more than once before loading more ammunition into the weapon use a magazine, but some are internal magazines that are fed ammunition externally (like a bolt-action rifle where you load bullets into the gun with the bolt open and then can fire multiple times in succession), while most these days use a detachable magazine (which may not be external either, like handguns, where the magazine is inserted into the gun).
Would a revolver be considered a modified breech loader? Or does it have an over complicated magazine?
Modified breech-loader, with all breeches prefilled… But “over complicated magazine” works too. I have a memory of one model being able to simply insert a fresh cylinder rather than refilling in action.
Speed-loaders are the thing now; basically, circular or semi-circular clips that you stick into the back of the cylinder and twist to detach from the rounds. Much faster than hand-loading and much lighter than carrying spare cylinders, but fiddly and sometimes prone to misalignment. Everything is a trade-off.
It’s precursor was probably the plastic ring you put in cap guns. I miss being able to get good quality cap guns. (Note to self: Look into gunsmithing for production of cap guns.)
Aaaahhh! Misalignment in the clip! Fond memories! Oh joy! My day is… wrecked :(
How the hell did she manage to get slide bite with her FN five-seven? There is serious space between the grip and the slide.
Did you see how Sydney went round the course? Many bits of her were in places that they should not be able to go.
Similarly to bits of me. :-(
She talks about guns , not just one gun, maybe there was training with other guns too “offscreen”
One of my favorite scenes from SG-1.
I had always thought the Jaffa/Goa’uld energy weapons were just for looks and clearly resulted from millennia of very little resistance from alien forces, relying more on air strikes and sending in ground troops only to intimidate the population into submission.
showing them that a less “complex” weapon isn’t inferior if its design to function is significantly more effective.
-granted the show went a little nuts with this later on and suffered from human-ego-centric (we da’best) in a sci-fi setting (yeah by the end of the series Earth went from under-dogs to a pan-galactic force…yet still keeping it all secret from the public spitting on its own core concept) . But at this point it was earned.
Jaffa weapons were designed by the Goa’uld to be “good enough”: ideal for the fear and intimidation against primitive forces whose idea of advanced technology is bow-and-arrow, with staves that emit beams that kill them deliberately seeming like magic beam sticks from the Gods, sent to punish them.
They were designed for this purpose, to subjugate slaves and primitive races, while also serving to help Goa’uld in, so to speak, “God to God warfare” between the infighting Goa’uld. The staff weapons still work fairly well for the Jaffa using them to dispatch of other Jaffa, so Goa’uld fighting other Goa’uld rely mostly on either who has the better space fleet, or who has the more reserves of troops (since they have a ‘we have reserves’ approach to Jaffa in sending them en masse), or who has laid the better trap.
The Goa’uld probably could have designed better weapons if they wanted to (and the Kull warriors’ wrist-mounted weapons accomplishing what the staff weapons can do demonstrates as much). They had no reason to make it better, though, because it was good enough as-is for what it was used for given the mindset of its creators. (They cared little for the lives of their troops, so they didn’t need the weapon to be optimal, just good enough to subjugate the masses while allowing for functional combat against rivals if need be.)
The Goa’uld notably kept the best of their technology for themselves personally, not entrusting Jaffa with things like personal forcefields, handheld healing devices, sarcophaguses, handheld kinetic blunt force weaponry (whatever you’d call their wrist-mounted blowback thing to be), or the mind-melting lasers, among other things. They were disincentivized from innovating because they were satisfied with the status quo:
They were the rulers of their galaxy, the top dog, virtually uncontested, technologically almost unrivaled, aside from a few outliers, most of which for varying reasons remained neutral and did not fight the Goa’uld’s dominance. (The Nox remained in isolation the entire series; the Asguards probably wanted to help but were struggling with the replicators and were losing that war in another galaxy struggling to maintain their existing presence in ours and relying largely on bluffing the Goa’uld into thinking they could protect more than they actually could, I forget the name of that one race on that one planet but they remained neutral up until the day the Goa’uld developed shields immune to their tech and then were promptly wiped out as a consequence, you get the idea.)
They were in control, and they wanted to remain IN control. Innovation of optimizing technologies/developing new ones represented a threat to their existing power and they actively sought to oppress it. The technology being good enough to serve its purpose was all they needed, because it allowed them to reign supreme. There was obvious flaws in said technology, and these flaws were then exploited, but a critical trait of the Goa’uld is that, by and large, in their arrogance with thousands of years of this dominance, they didn’t think they needed to adjust, and by the time they realized they needed to change, for most of them it was too late to do so.
The Jaffa, inherently raised by Goa’uld doctrine, would naturally believe that their weapon of the Gods was perfect and optimal, because it was given to them by the Gods, and in their blind faith, they believed that if something better could be made, the Gods would’ve already made it and given it to them, the Gods’ chosen warriors. (Questioning the optimal nature of the weapon is probably literal heresy by Goa’uld doctrine.) But the Goa’uld had no reason to actually make the best weapon, because the best weapon would present a credible threat to them and their established power.
And, admittedly, Earth had good reason to be treated specially. Earth was the planet that the ancients decided to live on, so humans on Earth have a disproportionately high number of people with the ancient gene, allowing them to work otherwise-unworkable Ancient technology. Furthermore, humans developed enough understanding of genetics, something very few others can claim credit to, for them to develop an artificial gene therapy allowing for people not even born with this gene to still work that technology.
Earth developed alliances with many other advanced cultures, most notably and famously, the Tok’ra and Asguardians, and their planet’s stargate is notably special for being an optimal one for connecting to other galaxies (probably due to being the planet the ancients decided to live on, as per above). And humans on Earth managed to break down the workings of the advanced technology and engineer their own, and this pioneered technology came from many, many sources.
Not just reverse-engineered Goa’uld tech, but Asguardian tech, Ancient tech, and various technologies they found from exploring worlds that the Goa’uld didn’t dominate for whatever reason (including having access to hundreds of worlds not on the Goa’uld’s list of worlds, giving Earth sole access to the coordinates of hundreds of planets that nobody else knows exist).
Point being, Earth had resources simply unavailable to others. It wasn’t so much that humans were the best (keep in mind, everyone in the setting is biologically human, or mostly so, with the exception of the four races–Goa’uld inherit human bodies and have access to that human’s memories/personality/knowledge/etc., Jaffa are modified humans, offworlders are still biologically human descendant from slaves taken off-world from earth), so much as, Earth the planet was uniquely situated in a unique combination of factors that made it uniquely suited for pioneering the advances they had.
Earth became the pan-galactic force it did because it had access to technology, resources, and knowledge, that no other planet had, and connected and interfaced with other advanced races, who didn’t share with each other but did share with Earth. (You don’t see the Tok’ra using Asguardian tech and you don’t see Asguardians using Tok’ra tech, but you do see the Tau’ri use tech that combines parts of Tok’ra and Asguardian tech. Similarly, Asguardians largely don’t use Ancient tech and presumably vice-versa too, but the Tau’ri use both Ancient and Asguardian tech.)
Basically, it was the perfect storm of coincidences and happenstance. We happened to be the planet the ancients lived on, happened to be the planet with the stargate most suited for intergalactic trips, happened to be a planet with a working ancient outpost on it, happened to be a planet that gained access to planets nobody else knew existed, happened to be a planet that through our exploration met multiple advanced races, and happened through chance to forge alliances with them that protected us while we were vulnerable from being wiped out.
The Goa’uld easily could have wiped Earth out until about season seven, but via forging the alliances we did we were allowed to develop the technology to protect ourselves from them or any other threat. (You also have to keep in mind that it can take as little as one chance encounter to have made the difference. Daniel Jackson got sent to an alternate universe, which allowed for him to gain knowledge of a Goa’uld invasion. Dozens upon dozens of alternate universes, lacking that knowledge, got invaded and destroyed; we got lucky.)
The show did make it a point that as advanced as Earth was, we’re still not entirely superior to everyone else (the show did well to highlight the less-paragon aspects of humanity, e.g. the NID and their evolving into The Trust, where we took things that weren’t ours and screwed things up for everyone)–we can make surprisingly good points, but we’re not infallible, we have weaknesses, we can be exploited, can be defeated, but we’re growing stronger with time and advancements so that we’re less-fallible, have fewer weaknesses, are less prone to exploitation, and face defeat less often.
In other words, while individual humans were shown to be good, paragons of the human race, humanity as a whole was demonstrated to not yet be responsible enough to be “the best”, as it were–which, notably, is the reason for the continued secrecy.
By the end of SG-1, it seemed like the plan was to progressively get the denizens of the Earth ready, by slowly introducing them into the intergalactic scene, slowly declassify things, slowly make things public, slowly prepare them, and when the public was ready, make things public. They did have preparations in place with things like trying to demilitarize the command of the stargate (not that that lasted, butstill), bringing member nations of the UN into the fold, opening the base up to civilians and other nations, and the like.
But suffice to say, overnight making everything public, everything declassified, all at once revealing everything, with humanity as a whole outside of the secret aspects of it being our world? How well do you think we would react if the stargate SG-1 show didn’t exist as a fictional medium, and then all of the things in Stargate SG-1 were revealed to exist overnight with no direct fictional media to compare them to?
That is to say, we wouldn’t be able to go, “Oh so there’s stargates in real life, just like in the show SG-1?”, because the show wouldn’t exist, and yet overnight we were expected to learn about stargates, aliens, advanced technology, and the like?
It wouldn’t go over very well, in all likelihood. So instead of revealing it all, they intend to slowly try and get us in a state where we wouldn’t screw over the entirety of the galaxy, ourselves included. (Basically, while humans like O’Neill and Jackson make good points to advanced aliens, the advanced aliens still make good points about the Earth, in that while individual humans might be ready for the grand reveal, humanity in of itself on earth as a whole is not.)
my biggest concern on the reveal was the scope.
in the beginning of Star Gate the slow reveal would be (we are not alone in the universe, there are many civilizations out there including humans who had been taken from Earth by hostile aliens as slaves thousands of years ago)
At the end of Star Gate (we are not alone in the universe, also we have space ships, made allies with powerful aliens, have been to other galaxies; there are space vampires, energy beings, and world ending killer robots; but don’t worry because Earth has secretly become a major power in known space but we have so far kept everything for ourselves so you wouldn’t panic and not shared any of the advanced commerce, travel, energy, and medical technology with you at all but hey, maybe now we will)
its a leaps and bounds difference in just how big and how much was being kept secret. Basically the show became Star Trek, if everyone back on Earth had no knowledge of aliens or anything going on with the Federation. It started to feel silly to be that important but retain that whole secrecy angle.
Where did the second chair come from in the last panel?
It is a visual effect. The one chair is spinning so fast it looks like two, to anybody who is not Ren.
Sydney enjoys zat gun.
Groan…
Not as much as Dabbler enjoys it.