Grrl Power #886 – Insert joke about airbags here
This sort of thing can only really go down a few ways. Max gets a face to the bosoms, or she takes a crotch or butt to her face. I mean, yes, technically, they could just collide in a less amusing way, but why would I allow that?
I guess this page makes Maxima a Motorboat Eskimo Sister with Dabbler and Cora. An ignominious accolade for her, to be certain.
Not too much else to say about this page, so instead I’ll tell you about how I almost forgot to post it. I got to playing Half-Life Alyx last night and I wound up with some serious eye strain, so I wound up going to bed early. Then an hour later I suddenly remembered it was Wednesday night and I had to post the comic. So I almost forgot to post, which I think I’ve only ever done one other time. Maybe twice.
So my super short review of HL:A and the Vive in general. It makes me excited for the next few generations of VR hardware. The Vive is on the verge of being too low fidelity for me. It has 1080p* screens which sounds adequate, but they’re like 3cm from your eyes, so it’s lacking compared to a decent gaming monitor, plus the lenses inside the headset are lenticular meaning there’s a choppy kind of grain and focus issues at the edges of your vision. I also found it impossible to get it all focused correctly as well. I don’t know if that’s a limitation of my eyes or the hardware. All that apparently adds up to a lot of eye strain for me.
*Edit: I looked it up and the screens are actually 1440p, so I guess I have to attribute most of the eye strain I suffered to the lenticular lenses and possibly my own prescription issues.
Despite that, it is fantastically immersive. There’s just no comparison to even sitting right up on a 60″ TV, much less lounging on your couch or sitting in front of your computer. Being able to move around in an environment and just look around with your head like you would naturally, with the screen taking up almost all of your peripheral vision is pretty amazing. It just makes me wish the display technology was better. Honestly I think the low-res screens might have more to do with managing rendering expectations since as far as I’m aware, anything rendered in VR has to be fully rendered twice, once for each lens. There might be some clever shenanigans they can pull to cut down on some of that processing time needed, but you can’t just take a 2D image and split it into two separate 2D images with depth separation for each eye, because that makes everything look like a bunch of parallaxed 2D cutouts.
The controllers are excellent, with finger-level controls. Things like having to manually reload your pistol and rack the slide to chamber the first round in HL:A is great, and also incredibly stressful when monsters are lurching toward you. My biggest complaint about it is the whole setup is missing a piece. Movement. Obviously it’s a problem, you can’t just sell everyone a 4 way treadmill or something. That would cost as much as the Vive itself at the super cheap end. Immersiveness is the name of the game with VR, but the lack of ambulation tracking means that every game has you teleporting around everywhere, which utterly breaks the immersiveness. The other option is that you use the little thumbsticks on the controller to glide around like you’re playing on a console, which may not seem terrible if you do most of your gaming on consoles, but it’s very difficult to get used to, and especially hard to manage while you’re trying to reload your gun or carry a gas can to set up a trap for a bunch of enemies. Basically every encounter I’ve had in the game has me standing stock still, because it’s too much to try and backpedal and reload at the same time.
Like I said, it’s… partially awesome, and kind of sucky, and I hope the next few revisions of hardware deal with some of the issues I have with eye strain. I just don’t know what they can to about movement. Hell, sitting in a chair and duct taping a mouse to my foot might work.
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I protest. Ray has morals.
Just not ones that are generally accepted to be the “right” morals.
Also, I’m not convinced that souls are really immortal. They just last a lot longer than these brief games or simulations we call “having a life”. From our current frame of reference, the death of a soul is as imperceptible as a soul.
Well, that didn’t get put on the right post. :/
I believe that’s what dnd players call Lawful Neutral. They have principles. Just not life-valuing or destructive principles.
Morals, are relative!
Not all relatives have morals
Some say that about my father’s brother. But honestly he does have morals.
They spell out ‘Me First. Last. And always.’
Has no room for anyone else’s interests.
I disagree, it is the nature of the soul to be immortal and indestructible. The western conception of the soul is largely borrowed from Plato, where it came up in regards to his platonic theory of the Form, where everything that exists is merely an echo of some abstract form that exist in the platonic realm of ideas beyond time itself. This eternal nature is necessary for the philosophy Plato used to justify it and built around it. – So, for example, when you build a table to plato you aren’t just manipulating wood, rather you’re connecting the wood to the platonic ideal of a table, the idea that connects all the things we refer to as ‘tables’ regardless of what shape or material they happen to be made of, and then you’re modifying it with whatever specific properties the table you’re crafting has. But, this is important, the table is merely one reflection of The Table, the perfect platonic ideal from which all tables are merely a reference. And further, that this abstract realm of forms was the ‘real’ world, and our reality was the illusion.
That sounds really out there, and it kind of is, but it’s actually something you almost certainly believe to one extent or another, either through religious or scientific philosophy (plato was, after all, quiet the influential guy). – If you look at something like the Hindu gods you can see something that is almost a direct comparison to the platonic theory of forms (though, it should be noted, hinduism predates plato by several thousand years, so it’s convergent evolution) with each of their gods being a mere variation on the form of the true platonic ideal of divinity, Brahman. Christianity, on the other hand, also follows the platonic theory of the forms, but this time it IS directly inspired by Plato himself, who’s philosophical teachings were incorporated into christianity through many christian theologians/philosophers/historians/leaders/whatever, most notably perhaps being Saint Augustine. And it is indeed PLATO’s idea of the soul that can be directly traced to the modern christian conception of such. Certain judeochristian sects would dive even further into that direction, in particular the Kabbalah under judaism, which actually maps out the metaphysical geography of the platonic realm of forms in the form of their Four Worlds (Asiyah, Yetzirah, Beri’ah, Atziluth), and even links the ultimate origin of the platonic realm of forms (and thus, all of existence) to God in the form of Ohr Ein Sof, which can be translated as The Infinite Light of God, which sits at the top of their metaphysical ladder (the sephirotic tree of life) above all concepts, thus being completely featureless, boundless, and omnipotent, due to the very idea of restrictions being something that was only created in the realms below him. – Our physical world in Kaballah is actually the lowest one, Asiyah, and the result of all the worlds above it. (kind of like the GUI of a computer application vs. the Source Code, you only see the former but the latters really calling the shots).
Since Plato’s Theory of the Forms is 100% dependent on these abstract ideas being eternal and beyond the physical world entirely, the idea of a soul that we derived from it must also be completely eternal.
With that said, you don’t need a soul in your philosophy. While it is certainly a popular choice, it is not a philosophically necessary one, and I might even go so far as to say that Plato’s ideas are a bit outdated (I know, shocking for a man 2000 years dead). – If you were to take a more modern secular approach you might say that the soul does not exist, the ‘abstract forms’ are just a result of the abstract reasoning the human brain uses to categorize the universe rather than an actual part of it, and consciousness is a property of the human brain, thus no soul required. – If you want to come at things from a more religious bent, Buddhism is entirely based around the complete rejection of the existence of any eternal soul, or indeed any consciousness whatsoever, or any eternity for that matter. In fact, they are two out of three of the characteristics the buddha ascribes to ALL existences, in the form of Annata (no mind) and Anicca (Impermanence). – The last one isn’t related to this discussion since it’s just Dukkha (suffering).
But that doesn’t really qualify as a temporary soul, since the idea is that you never had a soul to begin with, you simply perceived the illusion of having one. So people who believed in souls would still believe they were permanent.
Anyway thanks for coming to my TED talk. You’ve all been great.
Calvary means skull. Perhaps you meant cavalry?
Unless, of course, your superhero fight is in the Middle East, and your superhero has just picked up a local mountain — ok small mountain — to hit the enemy over the head with and rescue your party, in which case “here comes the Calvary” is only a bad pun.
Anyone else notice the power pack falling out of the stasis gun as it is tossed upward in panels 2-3? I don’t think you can pick those up at your local big box store.
You have much better eyesight than I do if you can see that.
:-)
I don’t see anything of the sort. What the hell are you looking at?
What part of the panel is it in, because I don’t see anything either. Or are you wrongly thinking that the blue lines in the bottom right of panel 2 are a power pack when they are clearly part of the American flag sign???
Just under the stasis gun.
Nope, that’s part of a different display
Just under what part of the gun??? If you want to support your belief, add some clarification to it. Otherwise you just come across as wrong and not knowing what you are talking about.
I can see how you could think that, but it’s just an advertisement on a building.
Sorry at second look, I was wrong!
I bumped the image up to +200% and I think what sort of looks like the power supply coming loose
is actually one of the times square billboards across the street.
I think it is made to drop it, when stolen!
I finally figured out where I’ve seen Ray Cosmos before:
https://katamari.fandom.com/wiki/The_King_of_All_Cosmos#:~:text=The%20King%20of%20All%20Cosmos%20(Also%20known%20as%20Great%20King,the%20father%20of%20The%20Prince.
Apparently the local super criminals watched Star Trek and thought the Terran Empire was a good idea, rob the aliens for weapons then conquer. It will be madness I tell you, goatees as far as the eye can see!
Xevoarchy: but then, they will want a piece of our action!
Sydney’s Chekov’s gun is coming into play, talking about aliens being mugged by humans.
But really bring all that fancy tech around, while these guys may have originally been waiting for some alien to say throw away a portable fusion reactor into a trash can, or mug someone in an alley for their translator, quantum camera, or whatever; these alien mercs have presented too great an opportunity to pass up; I mean most their stuff is maybe okay, bolas and pointy sticks made of fancy alloys may fetch a price with the right buyer, but that 2nd tier civilization tech like a stasis gun; you might as well have been ringing the proverbial dinner bell.
I’m ready for… NOT THAT
I bought a PSVR a few years ago. One of the first games I got for it was Skyrim VR.
Graphically it’s not that impressive. The controls are a bit wonky. Not to mention all the typical Bethesda jankyness.
I loved every minute.
There is just a more impressive sense of scale and place. At times I forgot I was just standing in my living room, flailing my arms around.
My eldest nephew was watching me play one night. I was delving into one of the various ruins, murdering bandits, as you do. He said something that stopped me dead.
“How did you look around the corner? Skyrim doesn’t have corner peek. It’s that a mod?”
I stopped dead. I hadn’t even realized what I had done. I just walked up to a diary and… stuck my head around the corner. When we both realized this it just blew both of our minds.
It’s this kind of physicality and presence in VR worlds that is so compelling to me. I can’t wait to see what the future brings for VR. (Unless the world explodes before 2020 ends.)
door*
I walked up to a door. Damned autocorrect…
I assumed you meant “dairy”, but yeah, “door” makes more sense in context.
and panic puke call back not ready for it XD
Now that is a massive catch 22, how does one apologize for accidently faceplanting into Maxima’s boob when does not regret faceplanting into them.
Perhaps: “I’m sorry I was involuntarily flung into your bosoms”? I mean, he’s probably regretful that he didn’t do it of his own free will, so it’s at least kinda true.
the smart one and totally his kind of wording.
“Excuse me.”
“i am sorry this happened during a fight, when I have not the time to fully enjoy it”
That seems like the winner to me so far. Though I could also see him saying, “I’m sorry this happened during a fight, when we don’t have the time to fully enjoy it.”
I mean, it feels like a large part of the people I’ve known with attitudes similar to his seem to always have this idea that the women enjoy them at least as much as they enjoy the women. That all women love them, except possibly for the ones right here saying these hurtful things.
that’s what has always got me about sexual harassment. if it’s a skeeze that you don’t like its sexual harassment. if it’s the guy you’ve got the hots for then it’s okay.
Sexual Harassment, is wrong, PERIOD! No matter who does it.
What you’re missing here is that there is a broad swathe of human experience, and many things you do in the privacy of your own home become illegal when considered from other contexts.
The context here is that if someone hits on you and you think they’re ugly, it’s sexual harassment, if you think theyre hot, it’s flirty and “oh my God he might be into me”
Power, attractiveness, social standing, there’s a reason this is a well known phenomena, there’s a reason women get to pick their mates and men don’t.
The other person decides in what spirit your actions are taken, not you, the person doing the action.
I’m not reccomending harassment of any kind, but I also don’t reccomend whips and chains unless you’re a masochist. If you call flirting harassment it doesn’t magically make it harassment, but it does make it a crime just because you feel like it.
There are two components to sexual harassment, and they’re entirely unrelated: it’s sexual, and it’s harassment. The specifics of the behavior make it sexual, but have no bearing on it being harassment. What makes a behavior harassment is that it’s unwelcome. Some behavior is understood to be unwelcome by default within a culture, while in other cases it’s behavior that continues after it has been communicated that it’s unwelcome. And that’s really what’s at the bottom of it all: lack of respect. If you do something to someone after they’ve told you they don’t appreciate it, it communicates that you don’t care about their rights or feelings.
50 shades of….
The big problem with it was that for over a century, (or hell, a lot longer, but movies and t.v. don’t go back that far, and mass printed books only go back a little further) women were not allowed to say “yes”unless they were married or filthy whores, so well over a century of courting behavior was built around ignoring and working around a series of ‘no’s until societal requirements had been met, and you could kiss, then began a whole new chain of ‘no’s to go a step further, and men were expected to somehow know the difference between “polite token protest before we continue” nos , “i’m not sure, please convince me” nos, and “I am genuinely uncomfortable and want to stop” nos. It wasn’t until the sexual revolution of the 60s that women started being socially acceptably allowed to say “Yes” and by doing so were able to give a clear, unambiguous “no” that actually meant no. Unfortunately, the conditioning on both sides has stuck, and many women want to be “convinced” and some men feel they still need to BE convincing. It needs to be shaken the fuck off by both sides. No man has ever said “I really like women, I just with they were more ambiguous and confusing in their communication” Women: You are allowed to say YES, you are allowed to say No, but you really need to get a handle on saying “Perhaps, but I want you to put effort into courting me first to earn a YES from me,” because men just are not telepathic enough to know when your “no” means maybe, and have to choose between being seen as a pushy creep for trying again, or a wishy-washy wimp for giving up.
I have heard so many love stories in the 40+ age group that started with “he asked me out 5 times before I finally agreed to a date with him” Well that’s a lovely tale of persistence, but nowadays a woman can have you arrested and slapped with a restraining order the second time you ask, so young women need to be trained to say some variant of “No, but you can keep asking” if they want him to demonstrate, persistence, otherwise, when men stop asking after that first ‘no’, it’s your turn to ask HIM; it’s not wishy-washy, it’s not wimpy, it’s taking your ‘no’ at face value and treating you as a human being who is interacting honestly, and not treating you as a less-that-human object to be conquered.
“Baby it’s cold outside” was not written as a rape anthem, as so many activists proclaim, but an example of reasonable courtship of the era, where the man answers all of the woman’s ‘no’s until she is allowed to ‘give in’. Even the line “Hey, what’s in this drink?” didn’t imply her drink had been spiked, but quite the opposite, she was verbally signally that she was willing to be convinced by pretending her drink was strong and had lowered her inhibitions. IT would be an unacceptable song to release today, but back then it was a guideline of standard courtship interactions.
Your way of speaking is unwelcome.
Stop harassing me.
If I believed you were serious, and cared about your feelings, I’d stop. Spoiler alert: neither are true. The community here will judge which of us is being reasonable. Feeling harassed is an internal state that only you can know, but it’s the community that decides what behavior they collectively will accept or reject. If a bunch of people were to complain about me, then I would probably decide that it wasn’t a group of people I wanted to interact with, and would stop commenting.
It wouldn’t be the most absurd thing on the internet — western culture has become one of perpetual grievance, where people are extremely upset by the things other people say, do, or like that doesn’t involve them at all. Like the occasional person who wanders into the comments section of this very comic to complain that the author is a terrible person and so are all the readers who like his work.
Funny, the explanations you get here are different from the one I normally encounter.
The explanation I normally encounter is:
consent. If explicit consent isn’t given it’s wrong to do any act that is close to sexual even if you’re attractive. It’s just easier to get explicit consent if you’re attractive.
The normal explanation I get here is because: the subject appreciates it(with or without explicit warning).
Answers probably differ a lot more than I just encountred. I just wanted to share my analys.
There is no social ceremony in place for expressing interest in a woman in a workplace environment. The fact that many couples find each other in the workplace means that it does happen and lends credence to the idea that sexual harassment is determined by how a woman feels about whoever is doing the flirting.
I wasn’t aware that there were “social ceremonies” for expressing interest in other people in any environment. The belief that there are suggests to me that such “shortcuts” would only be applicable in a specific environment, in which certain stages of normal relationship are skipped over for the sake of expediency. Attempting to use them in a different environment would come across as rude or overly familiar. That such “shortcuts” are impermissible does not mean there is no valid or acceptable way of expressing interest in another person in a workplace context.
I am baffled by the idea that any particular behavior could be categorized as harassing or not without regard to the feelings of the person the behavior is directed at, and as a result, baffled that “sexual harassment is determined by how a woman feels about whoever is doing the flirting” is seen as novel or surprising, as if it were some secret truth contrary to logic or common knowledge. Is there some source that claims otherwise?
I think “Would you like to get coffee sometime?” pretty much covers it. The woman can say “That would be great” or “sorry, I have a boyfriend” or “maybe, but I’m booked up for a while” or a host of other things that provide nuance.
Clearly we need to formalize an interaction where any person may give another person a token that says “I find you interesting and attractive,” and the other person can hold onto the token and choose how they react, either by presenting the other person a similar token. Sexual harassment in the workplace leads to a hostile work environment, but most people only ever meet people at work, because we commute, we work, we commute, we sleep, we get ready to go back to work. On weekends we recover from working and commuting, and maybe wash the clothes that we’re going to wear back to work and possibly do some of the chores that we’ve been neglecting. TL:DR we need an acceptable, inoffensive, unmistakable but also non-harassing way to indicate interest and reciprocate it.
*either by presenting the other person with a similar token, or by retaining and displaying the token to indicate further attempts would be welcomed. Ran on to the next thought before finishing the last one.
“thank you”
A bit low survival rate, but come on if you just tried to fight a dragon and lost maybe your survival instincts aren’t very refined
its both to the point and innuendo, should max chose to interpret it as such.
the assumption he would feel there is anything to apologise for, or that max would blame him for the landing, doesnt fit either character.
Max had just armored back up, so faceplant was onto bewbs of steel
This brings rise to a question: When Max slides the arrow towards protection, does she actually become hard to the touch or is she firm-but-invulnerable? Would, say, the pressure of a gripping hand or poking finger still dimple her skin? or would face-planting in her boobs break your nose, as if you’d attempted to aggressively motorboat a marble statue?
something like this came up earlier in the comic while talking to Varia (the one who gains various powers by touching people), regarding armored forms. She said some are petromorphic *stiff* while others are just as soft to the touch as any human but have some property to them making them impossibly to cut or damage; with some having a defense aura.
Maxima as I recal has both the tough skin, and when she armored up her featured were said to become more angular as she becomes a bit stiffer; and she also has a defense aura or layers of them; why the Boom Balls type she fought in the parkinglot battle (I forget this character’s name) surprised her with an exploding bola that actually got through a few layers of her defense aura to damage her clothes in the immediate area of detonation.
Atomic Bombshell.
Guess a better name to call yourself with that power set than Speed Ball or Boom Boom
Dave, you will need to fix the joke text at the bottom of the page. Calvary is the hill where the crucifixion happened. Cavalry are the mounted combatants that might come to save the day.
Also, you say halfary and halvary, which seem to be plays on Calvary(The Hill), but then completely switch to Halfvalry which seems to be a play on Cavalry(The Combatants) instead. It is all very confusing and, to me at least, makes the joke fall flat.
I’m honestly curious why there haven’t been more Rail Shooter games for VR. You’d think a Panzer Dragoon would be right up there as a best-seller.
Please tell me this leads to Marble Maiden showing up!
Am I the only one thinking “Yay! Someone just tossed Max an Improvised Weapon!”
Four Quatloos says she uses Ray as a club to clear the riot zone.
I think she’s shove him aside with less care than she would a vanilla human, but he has clearly demonstrated he is not on the same weight class her current adversary. He’s annoying, but technically a civilian, so she’d try to get him out of the conflict before she starts delivering the kind of punches that leave clean, fist shaped holes in tank plating. (no blasting because crowds, and no punching opponents through buildings.)
@DaveB (is there any way to actually tag him?).-
Your eyestrain is caused either but misconfiguration (you NEED to know your IPD and set it correctly in the headset), bad seating of the headset , its kind of tricky, and your prescription if you have any. For the last thing there are several providers that can create lenses that slot in the headset with your prescription (even though both the Vive and the Index, allow you to play with your glasses). Before LASIK I played both with and without glasses.-
Finally Alyx has it covered, but most other games require some finetuning in the SuperSampling (that is, rendering the game at a higher resolution than the headset)which improves the visuals a lot.
I recommend that you visit the subreddit r/Vive, r/SteamVR or r/ValveIndex for very good guides and information.
If you want I can get you details on many of the things you need to optimize your experience.
Welcome to the future, we were waiting you. (I’ve been there since 2016)
I just fucked around with the dials until it was sharp as I could make it, which was still fairly lacking. I don’t know what else I can do with it. Don’t think I’ll use it enough to get what I assume would be $300 worth of prescription Vive lenses. Doubt my insurance covers it. Maybe I can try it with my glasses on, which may help with the focus, but I suspect it’ll make the lenticular aliasing more noticable.
They are around 65 bucks, (They are basically inserts, the Vive subreddit might have specific recommendations, you got WidmoVr as the most recommended, or vroptician sites for example)
If you are not using glasses you can move the screen very close to your eyes, which increases the FOV, and for me it reduced the aliasing. (BE careful of moving the screen close to the eyes if you ARE using glasses, you risk scratching it, my dad scratched mine :/)
The IPD is easy to measure, there are lots of methods online, and proper seating of the headset makes a world of difference.
I know it might sound like “eVRangelization” but there are lots of crazy and cool things to do in VR in 2020, from free experiences to some of the greatest games. (How about Alien Isolation or Silent Hill PT in VR, or Quake, or a CounterStrike analogue, heck, even Minecraft)
They make these bowl-shaped “treadmills” for VR. You wear slippy shoes as you “walk” around and the newer ones even tilt the floor around to match the gradient of the environment. https://youtu.be/q_rv-213IjI
Reinventing the baby bungee jumper.
See my misplaced response below. VVVV
There are advances in “positioning tech” that are helping create “fake” space. For example, with a enough large space, you can configure your space, to make it so that when you walk in a straight line, you are “slowly” turned around, so you never realize you are turning. Making it possible to “endlessly walk forward”
(Check OpenVR-AdvancedSettings)
This is one of the most compact solutions I’ve seen, while still appearing to be pretty effective. That demo video is a little ruined for me though by the smooth futuristic design being side-by-side with a low-poly environment and jerky camera movement. No point throwing so much money at a nice rig like that just for a cartoon world.
“Hands Up! This is a bust!”
I know stuff like that exists, but I also bet it costs $10,000. I think we’re a super long way off from a realistic consumer solution.
I am 900% sure this ended up on the wrong comment. Hilarious.
Hah hah, whoops!
Really helped along by the accidentally accurate price XD
Putting everything into speed just to bring herself up to ‘slow’ put her at a disadvantage in every field. It would have been safer to trust her team and turtle. I understand not wanting to sit with your hands tied while people try to kidnap you, and that she’s operating on split-second reflexes though.
Removing a possible hostage from play is also to the benefit of her team, since then they don’t need to work around that.
That would imply she knew what the fuck was going on, and that her team hadn’t already been taken out
By all rights, Maxi should have been ‘stuck’ in that same position indefinitely until someone turned the field off, the fact she was able “bring herself up to ‘slow'” at all should not have been possible, and she managed to break out of it… until Juggernot punched in
That is what I mean by “split-second reflexes”. Unless the stasis field somehow doesn’t effect her perception of the passage of time she has to have only experienced a tenth of a relative second of “why is everything blue and blurry” before deciding to slam on the gas.
She is a combat vet, and this is not her first Super Rodeo
Her eyes still work, she can see there is nothing in front of her (or wasn’t), so logic dictates that it came from behind or the sides (well, could also have come from above actually) so she was putting everything into speed simply to find out what the fuck was going on
Turtling wouldn’t have been safe. She has now way of knowing how well prepared the attackers are, so blindly trusting others to do the job is very dangerous. For all she knows, it was a coordinated ambush and most of her team members are already down.
Also, if the attackers put her in stasis, it’s very likely they’re not trying to kill her, so making herself vulnerable to that isn’t that risky.
Additionally, sitting it out she not only risks being whisked away, but also the lives of her team members. Trading their safety for her own isn’t a good deal for a someone like Maxima, even if the benefit wasn’t so dubious.
Let’s add the x-factor of she would have no way of knowing if this was the only stasis gun they had, we don’t know yet how well she could see outside that field or if it was a delayed image. If it was a blind-blur then for all she knew the whole team had already been ghost bustered into submission. She needed to get out of it or remove the threat as quickly as possible.
Yep, that’s all a fair expansion on my last sentence. It’s worth pointing out though that this is exactly the tac you would use if you wanted to take out Maxima. Put her in a situation where she has to stat-dump to something other than defense and then hit her with something energetic.
The enemy would have to know about her stat-dumping, which they clearly don’t, they figured she was just strong and an energy-projector, locals may have seen the video of the bank heist, doubt aliens would have done that much research
Okay, but being stuck in stasis, vulnerable to all sorts of indirect attack, while her team is without support and she has no idea what’s going on isn’t a great deal either. Once you’re in a bad situation like that, you need to take some risks. If she gets whisked away in stasis, she risks a fate worse than death. And if it’s an assassination, the quicker she gets out of stasis, the less time her attackers have to set up the BFG.
In the end, while no armor is bad if someone wants to kill her, stuck in stasis is bad in all situations since she has no information and no initiative. Changing that ASAP is paramount.
Valve tested various options for movement beyond the size of your play area. They found that without the subtle cues of physical lateral motion, after about half an hour, players get vertigo and start vomiting. Not optimal.
Something occurred to me a few minutes ago.
Maxima needlessly swam upstream in the Stasis beam, seeing as how she could still move over the ground; meaning she could change her position relative to the earth extending outside the stasis beam and interact with it;
She could have flown straight up and out of its range faster than charging head on into it.
guess chalk that up to her confidence and not thinking ahead all the time in a fight.
Or, the beam could have simply followed her, and considering how slow she was going, remain in it’s beam
If she tried to fly ‘straight up’, she might have been met by a flyer with another gun, or worse, instead, she chose to ‘take out the threat’ and neutralise what ever was slowing her down
NO ONE was expecting Juggernot to intercept her face with his knuckles, certainly not Torchy, her back up was otherwise engaged
Given how close the alien got with the device, something tells me it has a notoriously short range to begin with. If there was a faster option to exit its range, while also taxing it *still moving quickly, still taxes it*, and once free even if it still has a charge she’d be able to easily move fast enough to disable the device or its user before it could be used again.
She chose to face the threat head on, she had no intel on the device, didn’t know if she was taxing it or not, yes it still makes sense she’d go after her assailant, yet the option still existed to try and dodge out of the line of sight. Heck pulling a super drill spin down into the ground *might* have also been an option…not a good one in the real world given sub-structures she could damage; but given the beam would very quickly start to have road material blocking its line of sight; still an option.
Flying straight up; if the beam had to compensate, it would likely have a harder time doing so for the target moving further away, using more energy not to use to contain but to extend. If anything walking upstream actually helped the device compensate *not by much likely* but still.
The only good reason I can think of to tank the beam like she was, would be to keep this threat focused on her and prevent it from being used on anyone behind her or nearby should she have found another direction to break free from.
Her flight and speed share the same power pool. Her super speed was directly countering the stasis effect, which allowed time to progress for her. And above Maxima said that doing so required cranking the speed up to the limit. Importantly what got her out of the field was draining the battery. Which was the direct result of a temporal contest, powered by an ultra tech battery on one side, versus Maxima’s geode juice on the other.
Now let’s speculate what would happen if an F35 flew by and one of Torchy’s colleagues fired another, fully charged, stasis gun at it. I contest that the aircraft would stop in mid-air, even if it had been travelling at top speed. Because, without time progressing for the plane, it would not be able to move. Further there would be no more drain on the gun’s battery whether it was freezing an F35 in the air or one parked on the ground. Either way time is stopped.
Following this logic, for every point that Maxima diverted from her super speed time would get progressively closer to being frozen again. She may well have even tried doing as you suggested, but quickly realised that the outside world was becoming more and more blurred as time was progressing faster for the rest of the world. And would have realised that it would take very little effort, even for normal reflexes, to simply raise the gun and track her snail-like flight.
Likewise for any other attempt to move at right angles to the gun wielder. But beating the snot out of Torchy would provide a lasting solution to the problem. Which did require closing the distance (as Maxima could not have safely predicted the results of any attempted ranged attack, and she would be mindful of all the civilians around).
The stasis gun doesn’t stop time. It just slows it down a whole lot in a projected zone. Fire the gun at a plane, that plane is still flying, all the same forces keeping it up that usually apply. It’s just got a bubble of really slow time around it. Most things can’t be accelerated to go at a million times faster than normal (or whatever the slowdown projected by the gun is) so it looks as if they’re stopped. Crank that up to a few trillion times (or whatever the more complex systems of the stasis pod can handle) and nothing much at all is going to happen even if a year passes outside, even for Max.
Though of course, there really shouldn’t be any exchange of anything across the boundary. Otherwise you’d have molecules part way across going at two different time speeds at once, and that just seems crazy.
This is an interesting observation. The tearing apart of O2 and N2 molecules at the boundary would nicely explain the FLRZLRR sound.
Are we assuming her flight speed and ground speed are separate?
The thing is she is moving fast, and covering distance, relative to the Earth, moving towards her target; we don’t know the gun’s range, and since she can move relative to the Earth, interacting with the ground that extends beyond the stasis field, the same holds true with the air around her. So if she went straight up, and if the gun has a limited range, she could potentially have taxed it enough and moved far enough away to break free from it faster than marching up stream of the beam.
Now above I did mention in response to Guesticus a good reason for her to decide not to. But that doesn’t say should the conditions have been different that she wouldn’t have this other option.
Fairly sure flight speed and ground speed are the same, just with flight she is not restricted to, well, being on the ground: she could run at Mach 20, but that would wear out her boots faster than losing contact with the ground
And yes, will concede that flying up was an option, but she had, as someone else mentioned, no way of knowing if that was the only source of the stasis, if she took out Torchy and she was still slowed down, that at least meant there was one less threat and the stasis would be weaker (having lost one of the sources)
Plus, Maxi still has a temper, so… dealing with threats with her fists does tend to happen more than she would like to admit :)
Did Ray just imply he knows English?
only that he’s done what most people do first when they learn a new language: learn the swear words first and THEN how to talk the a normal person… though in HIS case I’d say he learns the equivalent of all the flowery, flattering, female-wooing words and phrases first… and let’s his translator take care of the rest of the conversation…
It gives me some hope for the human race that you distinguish between swearing and talking like a normal person, but I’m not certain it’s reflective of reality.
Last time Maxima distributed her power set it went in big steps of 50%(primary reason why she did fall so fast when Vehemence was strangling her(otherwise muscle could have saved her a hard hit on the ground). Does this thought process of Max mean she had a basic half in defence?
Does this mean mister super muscles can shake up Maxima with 50% defence, because if that
is the case he’s a serious foe.
I think I may have a new Gravatar pic!
Are Maxima’s ears normally that pointy? I feel like I recall a detail about that but not clearly. Can someone help me with this?
Yes, they are.
Yes, she has always been the Golden Elf of Doom
The first time I specifically remember it being mentioned by the characters is at the Twilight Council meeting.
Pointy
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-566-surprise-billionaire/ teleportation can be countred with magic.
I don’t think Dave need worry too much about magic countering his VR teleportation.
Correct.
I just found it and was caught of guard by this pretty relevant trivia about the grrlverse
“Calvary? More like… halfary. Halvary? Halfvalry. He’s ineffective, see?”
Incorrect on ALL counts. Spelling error. CALvary, is where Jesus died. CAValry, is what I did as a Soldier in the Army.
VERY common mistake, no worries. I had battle buddies, who were ALSO Cavalry Scouts in my own unit, who could not remember the right spelling to save their own freaking skins. X-D
Calvary = Jesus.
Cavalry = Cav Scout. :-)
I find the “Who’s Who” block’s lack of a pic and a name for Super-Strong Black-Ops-Looking Dude disturbing.
How soon until Super-Strong Black-Ops-Looking Dude has an official name? Might I nominate “Torpedo”? o_o
How about “Knuckles?”
Juggernot
I going to guess that he’s not going to need one. Because Max is about to make him irrelevant to the future of the comic.
The rule is that new characters require both a speaking part (duly qualified) and to actually be introduced. This villain clearly lacks the etiquette to be elevated to said worthy status.
Even Sydney trying to nominate nicknames did not get those on the Who’s Who.
Well, Sydney’s suggestions WERE a bit ridiculous. But then again, ridiculousness alone doesn’t disqualify a character or his/her name from Who’s Who; For Whom the Death Tolls, anyone? :-D
(Please don’t give Torpedo/Knuckles/whatever a ridiculous name, Dave! Please, please, please….)
I would not be surprised if this group were a special unit, black ops, or private contractors sent in to sneak off some alien tech, dig from trash, pick pocket, mug if need be; and seeing this ludicrously advanced tech being demonstrated right in front of them being able to slow down an S-class with super speed that much; implying anyone below or without super speed would be rendered immobile; became a primary target they could not pass up.
and has been passed off, so this guy’s job is to get out or keep Archon and anyone else busy while his team mate(s) get the tech to a safe place,
considering how few supers there were; if these aren’t just local mobsters and are a black ops type team; or another of the crawling out of the wood works there are more supers than thought; then I would not be surprised if Maxima recognizes this guy.
if his job is to grab tech, he’s not going to stand around and fight Maxima. Maybe throwing Ray was a ploy to get him some escape time.
So he wouldn’t be as offended if she wasn’t “beautiful”? Man, outer space society is not as progressive as I would have expected.
It is almost tautological to say that we value things we find beautiful more than things we don’t.
Cue the old, philosophical “Squashing a butterfly versus squashing a cockroach” dilemma.
Well there Are worse ways to go and unexpected motorboat on Her of all people would be a hell of a crowning life achievement for someone like him.
I seem to remember a pie chart for Maxima’s power balance.
Might you post it with her stats or refer back to that early page?
Mmm, pies.
*licks lips, whilst looking around for them*
Hey, I’ve seen enough anime to know where this is going …
Holding hands, lewdly? in public!!!!
Oh no, far worse than that!
“I’m going to put my foot in her purse!” –Dick Sullivan, 3rd Rock From the Sun
(Wish I could find a clip of this scene – it’s (mostly) not a euphemism.
Tentacles, surprise new power the symbiote unleashes phallic / ovipositor tentacles.
Oh, dear. Max is going to kill Mr. Toque, Ray, or both. Either way there is going to be excessive violence.
You know what, for a somewhat sleazy new cars salesman type, Ray is still proving himself more charismatic and likeable than a surprising number of the main cast. He’s definitely a smoother operator than Dabbler, and seems to be actually asking for consent before doing anything, unlike said Dabbler. He might be sleazy, but he’s got a gentleman side as well. He definitely doesn’t deserve the retaliatory violence that many seem to be implying.
he grabbed at the zipper on Maxima’s coat without consent.
…as a Victorian gentleman might take a lady’s hand to kiss it, and he asked before proceeding as said gentleman might not. All this said, to repel Xuriel elevates sleaze to cosmic levels.
The villain throws Ray head first at something harder than Ray’s head. Max is the only possible target. Max, seeing incoming, stands slightly, enough that Ray can hit something relatively soft.
Even at minimum armor, Max’s boobs are as hard as the rest of her, at least if something comes flying at them that fast. That’s gotta hurt. Hard to feel bad for the guy, though. He was totally asking for it, getting super mercs and alien mercs.
*between super mercs and alien mercs
Wouldn’t the correct sound effect for face-planting in Maxima’s bust be ‘clang’? What’s this “floomp” business?
He collided with me!
She isn’t made of metal.
…And Ray falls for one of the oldest failings in the book. Monologuing.
I’ll say this much for Ray, an attempt was made.