Grrl Power #90 – Grand Mal Willies
I figure that working in a comic book shop, restocking, opening boxes, Sydney’s had her share of papercuts, and of course she conveys her dislike of them in her usual subdued fashion. Fortunately she has remarkable recovery time.
Yeah, and 13 panels on a page? Definitely not the ideal way to do a comic page. I could almost break out each row and post it as a separate strip M-Th or something. Well, we got through all the orbs anyway, maybe I can decompress just a little.
I got some fan art from AndyO! of TMI Comic, which is often a little NSFW so use your own judgement. I’m sure more than a few of you already read it. When the comic that showed Sydney’s predilection for spicy food came up, there were a few who noted the similarity with Ace.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Why doesn’t Sydney read the instructions? They are clearly visible around the orbs. Oh, wait, she doesn’t read alien script. Maybe if she did … or Dabbler did …
Something is visible around the orbs, but it isn’t necessarily instructions. Perhaps charge indicators, or simply FX.
Even without preconditions, it could just be Syd hasn’t tried the correct power with them. She’s been trying to keep the orbs under wraps, so she probably hasn’t tried to talk to anyone far away while using them, so a telepathic cell-phone (or even a super-megaphone), would have nothing to do, just sit active and waiting. Not saying either of these orbs are either of those powers, just examples of the things she might not have yet tried. I do wonder if the unknown red orb is teleport – the squiggles around it are angular and look a little like buildings, so perhaps it is some sort of mapping/gps type device, defaulting to current planet. Or last planet – globe trotting Sydney! But what I’m saying is that TP might not work unless she visualizes the target destination, and she hasn’t done so with sufficient clarity yet. So many possibilities – looking forward to clues in stories to come. :)
Or Zephan…?
Those spheres would be ideal for a more advanced species to deck each and every one out with. Or at least space pioneers. And just like the OmniTrix (Omni Genetic Matrix) fell into the hands of a 10 year old child. So do the Sydney Spheres did the same thing. Into the hands of a manic 21 year old comic book nerd. A perfect set up! Oh and if there are instructions she hasn’t found a way to locate them. Except all she has to do is to think carefully while using them.
Your mention of “if there are instructions she hasn’t found a way to locate them.” suddenly reminded me of that old TV-Series: “The Greatest American Hero”, where an “Average Joe”-type loses the instructions that would tell him how to operate his alien “super-suit”.
Yeah, first time the book fell out of the case and Ralph didn’t notice it while walking through the desert at night. The second time he gets a instruction manuel the idiot shrinks down to the size of a grain of sand reads the instructions to grow back, PUTS the damed book on a grain of sand and grows back to normal size. DUMBASS!!!
It may be hell getting a paper cut while working at a comic book shop…..but I’m sad to say it is an entirely worse hell getting a paper cut while working in a pizza shop while folding boxes, only to….not realize you have a paper cut….then you stick your hands…in some banana peppers and……I…I don’t want to talk about this anymore…
its okay. I once had micro razor cuts all over my hands after wiping the glue from shipping tape off the box cutters at work, then immediately went home to cook lemon chicken. Lets just say screaming was an understatement for the activity I was doing after I reached in to the lemon sauce to put the chicken on the grill.
My guess on the two unknown orbs is the ability to manipulate vibrations in the air that we call sound (the squiggles look like speakers to me) and the other one is something to do with moving and controlling earth, since the other red/ lava looking orb is the PPO.
I thought the green/yellow one was for healing, because of the color-sheme. Though you’re right, looks like little speakers swirling about it…
And it turns out that one of the mystery spheres can change people’s gender while the other allows a dark evil to see you where ever you go. . .
Personally, I think one of those two could act as a power up for the others.
Also.
I do believe Maxima’s been waiting for an excuse to hit Sydney.
Who hasn’t?
Surprisingly enough that she’s the only one seizing that opportunity.
(Did I spell that right?)
Taking the opportunity, in any case.
Sydney’s next line: “Shit! Not the face!”
Now now… the forcefield stretches to make sure syd is surrounded (see arms up vs. arms down in last 2 panels). But… there is one effect that people haven’t thought of. The WEEBLE WOBBLE effect. Syd gets hit and acts like a weeble wobble.
As far as making money on the comic dave, you can do the shirt thing easily enough. You’ve got a few popular designs that people have requested. Just avoid cafepress when ya do. There’s the obvious graphic novel collections. You can also have stickers/bumper stickers made. As an additional product, you could sell Arclight/ArcS.W.A.T. ID’s (only at cons for signature authorization on back of card). Lots of ways to make money if you have time to sit and think. Polling your readers would be a great way to get ideas on how to generate revenue, since they’re the consumer.
I like that ID idea, haven’t heard of any other comic doing that before. although i don’t go to cons so if its con only i probably wouldn’t have heard of it
So, the “whisking” commences. Or, at least, the experimentation which includes the (perhaps) non-cooperation of the subject.
My money is on the next scene being Maxima flying out the window because the shield reflects the energy, rather than absorbing it or dissipating it. I.E. Max punches herself out the window.
With the voice from Q3Arena, “DEFENESTRATION”
With Max yelling “WHAT THE HEeeelllllllllll…” *WHAM!*
adri zeph and general raise red flag in right hand
Maxima, you claim to have once been a nerd. Surely you know that hitting spherical force fields in a confined area is not a good idea.
shes a soldier with an O rank she put reason and some inteligence aside for more pay and authority plus I believe she planed an incremental force test (tap flick slap light-punch ect ect) or she realized syd never had another person involved in the testing and is trying to trigger a responce from an unknown orb by her actions
… Sounds a bit like “Irish Mine Detector” methodology. Of course. Max is tough enough that she could cope with unfortunate / unexpected results.
OK, hows this Max punches the force field, bearing in mind that energy can be created or destroyed only converted plus newton’s third law, the mutual forces of action and reaction between two bodies are equal, opposite and collinear (for every action there’s an equal and opposite re-action), the force field combined with the tentacle thinggy converts all the energy of the punch into a big fist and punches Max.
Thought it was Polish Mine detector (Best way to deal with Glory Boys)
All depends on your ethnicity.
Yanks tell Polish jokes. We Aussies tell Irish (and New Zealander) jokes. New Zealanders tell Aussie jokes. Canadians tell “Newfie” (Newfoundlander) jokes. Mandarin Chinese tell Cantonese jokes. The Swedes tell Norwegian jokes. And so on.
Poor Canadians. They could’ve gotten American tech, British culture, French food.
What they have got: American culture, British food, French tech.
The mivie Strange Brew poped in my head when I read this.
Sorry movie.
Lol at the alien’s bib. Man. It’s what’s for dinner.
“It’s a cookbook! It’s a cookbook!”
Nice, Twilight Zone FTW.
huh i recognize that line from the Madagascar movie
Twilight Zone,” To Serve Man”.
From a short story by Damon Knight.
I didn’t notice that! That’s awesome!
so i’m guessing he got some of the idea for the brain sucker from the star-ship troopers movies with the face limb tube and all…
…. I wanna see this….. Please, put some action on the next page! D=
Max, has been waiting for an opportunity, like this.
Yeah, I think that Sydney, while gaining Brownie Points for messing with Ariana’s head, has ALSO given Max reason to mess with her head at the very least. The scary thing is, technically, barring Max supercharging her strength(see Maxima on Cast page), Max’s Strength is just as potent as Sydney’s Force Field(finally figured out all the icons on each Cast member’s Profile).
What will happen? One of two things.
Sydney’s inexperience with “massive hits” will reduce its real effectiveness, so Max will break through, but will note that it took a good heavy hit to do so. Thus, she’ll gain SOME respect (which as we know Sydney she’ll lose somehow with a goofball action soon enough).
The other option is that there will be a backblast of “comical proportions” as two equal Powers collide. IE, something along the lines of the “Immovable Object” being hit by the “Unstoppable Force”.
I’m rooting for the latter, as having her put a hole in the side of the building from the backblast(even if a small one) would certainly ANNOY Ariana and make Max realize this goofball actually has SOME potential.
any idea what the little sun is supposed to mean? Wing i guessed is flight, the arm is strength, the round sphere a shield, the shoe with wings speed, I guess. I can’t figure out the symbol second to top and second to bottom for Max, or the very bottom one for Sydney
Energy Projection. I have a key/listing that Dave said was fairly accurate over in the forums, as the first post in the ‘Powers Speculation’ thread.
For some reason, from “A forcefield eh?” my brain has now assigned Maxima the voice of Aela the Huntress (and assorted other NPCs from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim). …it’s oddly fitting for her, really.
been thinking that since november the 12th :P
It would be intresting if the sheld acted like explosive reactvtive armor and pulsed with the same stragth as what ever hit it.
That sounds kinda akin to Anvils power…
Anvil absorbs kinetic energy wich then makes her stronger.
Explosive reactive armour is what is commonly found on tanks to deflect certain rounds or missiles from other tanks, trains and automobiles.
Hmm. What if one of them is “Area Effect”? She could take others flying, encase them in her forcefield, etc. Unless she tried it with the Pew Pew Orb (I’m not hip enough), she wouldn’t see any new effect.
As for the last one, I’m thinking “Comic Inconvenience”. After all, look at how many times that tube has caused Sydney trouble…
Being modifiers might make sense…Maybe they have to be used in conjunction with some of the others, and they modify the effects…
My problem with force fields is that logically they should prevent the transfer of air as well. Those inside would suffocate without an o2 source. I think Disney’s “Explorer’s” did it right on.
Actually, if the form of the forcefield is a lattice of energy, with room for gas molecules to pas through, you could still breathe inside.
The problem is that it wouldn’t prevent poison or sedative gases from reaching you.
The same problem occurs with light (as Sidney showed in the first couple of strips) and sound. If you can talk through the force field, then that sound based supervillain can knock you out. (Barring intelligent noise cancelling, if you’ve got a spare brain or AI to control it)
If you can polarize it you can still see and anything coming in is significantly reduced. Meaning a laser may be either stopped dead or made so much weaker it does not hurt. Sound depends on how the shield vibrates Talk through a glass window. Even with holes you have trouble hearing the other person so a sound attack would also be diminished. But so would her hearing.
The one I have the hardest time with are gases. If the mesh of the shield is small enough it is only going to allow transfer of carbon-dioxide sized molecules. Most man made gases are far larger than that. But a smart villan could use a nice light and not oxygen carrying gas to bypass that. Otherwise go with she can only keep the field up for as long as she has air. So a few minutes like that, or give her a scuba tank for long durations.
There are several poisonous gases that could fit through a mesh fine enough to allow carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxygen molecules (O2) through. The ones that come to mind for me are hydrogen cyanide [ HCN ] (about the same size as CO2), carbon monoxide [ CO ] (smaller than O2) and chlorine molecules [ Cl2 ] (between O2 and CO2 in size).
A ball that size will be able to hold a lot of air, probably several minutes worth, without needing any diffusion of CO2 or O2. Mind you when the CO2 builds up too much Sydney would be having trouble breathing. So drop the force field, let the gasses disperse and bring it back up again. This strategy would be best in a good wind, then you can have the force field down for the least time.
Science teacher mode off
Or the forcefield acts as a semi-permeable membrane, allowing oxygen in and carbon dioxide out. As for lasers, has no one here read Niven? Flare Shielding people!
There does appear to be some sort of probable sentience in/behind the orbs. Significantly higher intellect and detection abilities would allow the orb(s) to modify the forcefield as necessary. I am seriously interested in knowing more of the story of how/where/when Sydney first found/encountered the orbs, and how they have been acting around and interacting with Sydney, as well as what tests she has put them through.
or it could just disrupt the coheision of the beam
Looks like OmniGrrl really knows what she’s talking about…
They remind me of something left behind by aliens when they stoped here to fix their ship.
Allen Dean Foster had a book along those lines that involved sand painting.
One of the orbs might be life support and it is projecting her voice and voice in. Or it might be a True kinetic energy control effect (controlling energy) So it would decide what is safe and what was not. As to how works is the bigger question. Are they Alien science ,Magic all thing are sworn not to pass that barrier, Alien life form, a imaginary effects(limitation) nothing but pretty rubber balls used as a prop to keep to keep a imagination of a God under control. there a lot of possibility.
That “I could almost break out each row and post it as a separate strip M-Th or something.” thing is basically what I think every time I see a webcomic I have to scroll to see all of. My monitor’s a little abbreviated at the mo(1080 high), but still, I for one like getting smaller doses more often :)
Now, however, I’m wondering: akin to Sydney being tied to the tube, will all the kinetic energy just transfer cleanly across as kinetics, sending her bouncing around the room? Something tells me she’d be quick on the draw with a no-sell, and that last panel ain’t it. Still, the worst that’s likely to happen is interior decorating and defenestration, the shield orb is likely up to the Pew Pew Orb’s standards.
I’d love to see larger panels more often even if I have to wait a week, then read for four or five days, then wait another week. :) Your drawing and your colors are amazing. Stuffing that many panels into one page is *almost* a crime.
It really is a bad practice on comic pages. On the screen it’s not terrible, but I’m worried that when this is compiled into a book it make for a very dense read.
The panels don’t have to line up the same in the book. Cut, paste, resize then. The side cartoons don’t always have to be at the bottom of the page, as Mad magazine demonstrated nicely. Enjoy yourself now, and let the editors worry about the book later.
I second that.
Only problem with that is that I’m the one who’s going to be putting the book together. :P
that’s future spike’s problem. …. i mean future dave’s, i mean… -totally not refering to MLP:FiM-
Every time i read this comic and see Sydney. I have this urge to pick her up and put her in a shoe box with my cat.
Shroedinger’s Sydney
Oh shit, Max gonna break her hand!
Or bounce off the sheild and flies through a wall.
or the shield breaks her arm and send them both flying due to shock wave from both forces..
i.e immoveable force take a hit from unstoppable force could cause a kinetic feed back that causes them both to go flying
It would cause a paradox since immovable object cannot be moved and unstoppable object cannot be stopped. My thought on this is: Immovable Object would allow the unstoppable to pass through and thus stop a paradox from happening. It also prevents universal law of physics from having to pull an emergency retcon just to cover up the incident as “an event that actually happened.”
The whole concept of your question is mythical. You can have one or the other but not both. A thought experiment only. No paradox since both concepts are not based on any reality we know of.
just have to note unstoppable does not limit direction so the imovable would just redirect the motion and thus no stopping and no moving both satisfied
hehe nice… falcon punch?
Oh and I saw a little spelling error on the cast page sydney’s name in the last paragraph lacks a d
Re: Unknown orbs.
I am thinking that one of the unknown orbs must allow her to eat anything and not be harmed by it. Do you guys remember her lunch (before it attacked Max’s boots)? The other might be the anchor. Go ahead, Max, try moving it again.
Unless you count the fact that Syd has to actually touch the orbs in order for them to work.
Nice theory, but I think Syd´s secret here lies in her last name, not in her orbs… erm… you know what I mean…
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction – I. Newton: Third Law of Motion.
When Max nails Sydney’s force field, I see a few possibilities:
1) All the energy and momentum of the punch is bounced back to Max. “My HAND! Arrg! That thing is tougher than a 2-inch steel plate!” After all, the orbs were pretty resistant to Max back in the bank parking lot.
2) The energy and momentum of the punch causes the force field and everything within it to bounce all over the conference room.
At the end of the ride, Sydney staggers around about a bit, with totally blown equilibrium and then regurgitates what is left of her snack, seeing as her lunch is still back at the bank.
3) Same as 2, but Sydney is protected from the effects of disorientation, (maybe that is what one of those other balls do) so when the force field ball stops bouncing around, Sydney is all, “Whee! Let’s do it again!” Of course, the rest of the conference room is in shambles.
4) Same as 2, but the walls aren’t quite strong enough to keep the force field ball inside the conference room. We see Sydney and her force field blast through the wall separating the conference room and the hall we saw her in earlier, then fly out the window. “Waaaah!” Next image has her lying on the grass outside the building muttering to herself. By now, we all know what she will be saying. Maybe with a great big CENSORED! over top of a good chunk of it. Next image, she is trudging back into the building.
Of course, Dave could have the next encounter be just about anything, not just the scenarios I gave here. The limit is the imagination of the writer and suspension of disbelief of the readers.
I think Max will be smart enough to consider all those possible outcomes and pullback her first punch to just a test, then (after she has some idea of its effects) her second punch will be harder. We may even see a third punch if the second proves safe.
So, what do I think would happen in next week’s comic?
The bell gag: There’s this old cartoon gag where one character holds&lowers a large bell over the head of another character – and rings it.
Remember, Max is the most powerfull person on the planet.
At worst?
They’re going to need a new tower while Syd leaves conspicously insonspicously, whistling and all.
Max is also a professional. She wont do anything that risks that kind of damage.
At worst.
WHen Syd really ticks her off. Even a Colonel can loose it.
Are you saying … after the 2nd or 3rd punch – each harder than the one before … of course with Sydney taunting Max (in a way only she can do) …
Max ‘hulks out’ a punch that causes Sydney to try take back a few (or more) taunts?
Naaaa …
Or, since most superpowers give a rats beind about physics, as is proper for them, the shield could just distribute the energy around itself and give it off as light or sound, or maybe use the Energy to get stronger.
At least syd is in no danger, a short detour to the castpage reveals that syd´s shield is at level 5, same as Max´s strength.
On the other hand can Max boost her powers, which could be a problem for Syd (or it could, if they were on different sides).
In any case: I’m blaming the Doctor
i didn’t suspend disbelief i think i expelled it from school. As a writer it helps maintain a form of sanity that may or may not coincide with reality (at least on paper anyway) that the rest of the world shares.
i don’t think i have ever had a problem with suspending disbelief, and have been unable to really ‘get’ people’s explanation on whythey weren’t able to suspend their disbelief for specific stories. “But it had x, that’s so unrealistic!” “so?”
the perception of reality is a bit like those optical illusions, one person might look at a picture and see an old lady where as someone else might see a young lady, it’s the same picture just different interpretation.
you could say the same thing about sanity
sometimes you come across a person who could see both for what it is at the same time and other times there’s that one person who only sees blotches and a mess of tangled lines. i’m not really into dichotomies like that where it’s one thing or another. To be honest, i think there is always a third option in reference to the the old woman/young woman picture and dichotomies.
Suspending disbelief is better than some explanations people come up with.
Midi-Chlorians, ’nuff said.
Given that I like the theory that these are alien spaceship maintenance tools, I think that any force applied to the force-field will be transferred around the user to the other side of the force-field. In other words, whatever hit the force-field will be stopped and the field will bulge out on the other side to dissipate the force.That way a maintenance engineer will not go flying off into space when hit by a micrometeorite or piece of exploding equipment.
An alternative to that could be a non-standard topology safety field (sometimes known as a spacewarp). As far as incoming matter is concerned, the area around Sydney simply doesn’t exist: it gets whisked round the edge and reforms at the other side as if nothing had happened. That would avoid the pesky problem of recoil reaction (particularly awkward in a space-repair setting), as well as solving what happens when more than one thing hits at once. Of course, that raises questions of what happens when something touches the edge from the inside. I’d guess it works the same way: Sydney could reach any part of her back by reaching forward through the edge. Not sure how it would interact with floors either: it would need some sort of safety device to maintain elevation.
This idea also raises an interesting bit of rules lawyering in a hostage situation. You can’t really use Sydney as a human shield from range, as projectiles can shoot ‘through’ her, and getting to closer range means putting yourself inside a hit-from-any-angle field with her (assuming you avoid getting splinched on the edge).
Traditionally force fields are depicted as repelling attacks but a better way to defeat a kinetic energy attack is to absorb it by converting its energy to another form. What’s more if Syd’s FF orb could store this energy it could be a power source for the others.
Unfortunately that´s out, since the Packing foam already bounced off of it.
Come to think of it, that takes care of my theory, too…
I was looking at the picture again, and there is a white energy latticwork around where the packing foam hit.
It might be that the energy is distrubited over the surface of the sheild.
Now that I’ve read the cast page, I must wonder what type of super-villany they are going to face to give them a challenge. The team seriously looks “over-powered”. It will take good writing to give them interesting fights to fight. I have high hopes.
it doesnt realy have to,,, some of the golden age of comic’s villain have ben those who were not the most powerfull but those who knew how to use what power they had,,, and often you would have a villain be overpower to a certain hero,, only to be proven powerless facing another one with different powers,,,, also if you take time to look at the powers you’ll see that they leave weakness in some area,, so i would say a shapeshifter could prove extremely trouvblesome for them
Or it could be a supervillian who was a planner. Like the Joker in the last Batman movie. Or someone like Lex Luthor who see’s someone, or a group of supers and has jelousy issues and decides to fuck with them from the shadows.
They’re the worst. You can mop the floor with anybody else, but the planners…
The “Planners” are easy to defeat, you just have to get them started talking about their favourite subject; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-cEDubwxKE
The monologue is cliche for all villains, but planners are normally not that easy to even detect.
They might not have many powers, but their minds are normally in overdrive.
They plan many steps in advance, calculate any eventualities… and if they’re caught, they have damn good lawyers.
And if one read the Evil Overlord Guide, may the Force have mercy on our souls.
if they are a good planner you will never even find them to get them talking, well until season 2
get them to monolog, then hit them
The ones who are planners who think about this stuff don’t monalog unless they are buying time so their plot has gone off.
Keeps the good guys ocupied while your minions are doing their jobs.
Thats why it’s realy important to properly train your minions at least two years before launching any nefarious plots.
Because the good guys usualy do have at least one brain on hand to tell them where to go.
NEVER think that your plan is so briliant that no one could possibly figgure out what it is \, or where your secret base is.
“Dan, I’m not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I’d explain my masterstroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago. “
Just remember: If you have taken the machine that makes you invincible from your opponent… it doesn’t really make you invincible.
That was seriously the only part of that movie I liked. Well also Dr. Manhattan becoming so powerful that he was immediately disinterested in the concerns of humanity. The rest of it I was thinking, “I was promised superheroes, these people are all sociopaths. Do any of them even have powers?”
You can be a super without extraordinary powers. But then do you have to be a psychopath to be one? All you need is a costume and a carte blanch from the govt to do what you will to stop any criminals.
I would say that Maxima hasn’t yet broke anything, even a finger nail. So when she does it will mean something is very dangerous and powerful.
I think it would be harder for Maxima to break one of her fingernails than it would be for her to demolish a hardened bunker. Just saying.
“Just saying” is we don’t know her full capacity. We haven’t seen Maxima at her maximum yet. But we will. Even Superman gets tired if he is up against beings or devices (or both!) that are close to him like Valius and his psycho bolts. Nearly fried his invulnerable hide once.
The cast page mentions that Max and Peggy met while they were both injured. Max can be hurt, it’s just really hard.
Max (in hospital): Bloddy anti-tank land mine! And I was focusing on speed at the time. My entire leg was scraped up! Not my most graceful landing.
I just realized something, The Orbs are trying too teach her how too use them!!!
That suggests that they might be intelligent in some way.
NOW, for my joke explanation. Aliens are using Sydney’s orbs to film a superhero reality TV show.
and one of the unknowns is the camera, other one is the instruction manual on how to use each ioun stone.
Now that is a nice twist of an idea! I like it.
If it is like a camera it would be maybe a millions years in advancement. For all we know Sydney could send it anywhere she can visualize and it can stay in half phase to avoid detection. She would do more than see, she would have the full range of the 8 human senses., and maybe more.
halo would have no access or control of the camera orb as it is there to watch her use the other orbs for an alien real world super heroes edition shown for non earth television channels aka it’s only use is to get her alien tv ratings that may result in rewards/punishments in her power levels based on viewability
I like the Leonardo Da Vinci thing on the alien’s bib
Clearly, their power is to make the camera zoom in and focus on her chest.
Another possibility is that the forcefield acts like punching jello, with a pronounced “WUBBLE” coming from the field as it ripples and wobbles and absorbs/distributes the energy.
haah love this comic just got caught up just awesome work xD
Are you implying that one of those orbs is a separate healing factor?
One of them may have they are not sure. Two of the orbs just sit there and glow, so they don’t know what they do. There’s been a lot of speculating as to what powers they could have.
DaveB, did you ever find anything out about making new posts stand out for the first hour?
Unfortunately I haven’t have time to research anything. The next page won’t have 12 panels on it so maybe I’ll have some time this weekend? :P
Thanks. Sorry if I’m bothering you about this, it’s just seeing as you have a full schedule people might forget things if there’s fifty other things on their mind. So it helps to be reminded every once in a while.
I know it’s a pain in the ass to find see new comments cause of how many there are. I cheat cause all the comments get emailed to me, which it how I can keep up with them. I found one plugin that might work but the description is a little vague. It may require readers to log in to wordpress for it to work instead of being cookie based. Either method has advantages and disadvantages. I need to update my installation of WordPress to test it though.
I just noticed the floating glyphs (icons?) on the mystery orbs. I’m betting that is the user interface. Probably just a BSOD asking Sydney to reboot them after she gets her chakras re-aligned.
I have an idea for the two unknown orbs… One removes powers from a current orb (contact needed and that stone will do its best to avoid that stone…it’s why they orbit…they keep running from the “thief stone.” That stone then stores that orb’s power it inside itself temporarily or changes it/digests it to power the others… Then the other steals a power/ability/magic from another source (contact needed.) Transfer by contact with the now empty orb… then the two orbs that were used need to be clinked to reset the energy distribution and activate them and power balance the stored powers again.
Like a power pool of say 20 pts, some powers take 2 pts per active pt, some are 1:1…but five orbs can’t hold more than 20 active pts in them… best balance would be 4 pts each… so one at five like the force shield means another is going to be weaker…or overcharging that orb cost another orb a pt out of its max too… so that’s why some have a power of 2 or even 1… some pts can go into effects/tricks etc too…
Be interesting to see if someone can quantify the powers on that basis…
So unknown orbs steal powers from another source on contact (at random? unless that power is it’s only power…) up to x number of points…
The last orb is the one that can adjust power of the other orbs on contact and remove/reset them and transfer the power from the thief orb to the empty orb… Or the empty orb now becomes the thief orb and the empowered orb becomes one of the “guys.”
So far, I assume all Sydney’s tests of the shield have used objects moving with reasonable speed. However, a shield that did not allow anything to pass from inside to outside would have serious mobility issues, as well as splinching chunks out of everything it intersects with on activation.
Given these limitations, I wonder whether it works on the same lines as a non-Newtonian shield: objects moving slower than some as-yet unspecified threshold can pass through, while only faster objects are blocked. Frank Herbert set the threshold speed at >10 cm/s in the Dune universe, but for the purposes of the comic I’d maybe suggest about 1 m/s (= 3.6 km/hr = ~2.25 mph, so walking’s OK but trying to run trips you up as the floor suddenly becomes an anchor). However, if it’s directly based on the Holtzmann Effect, Sydney had better steer well clear of lasers!
If I were designing a forcefield, it would block or not block objects/energies based on their energy level and adjustable by the user. Electrically neutral objects moving with low relative inertia would pass through (“The Slow Blade penetrates the shield”…and air) while lasers with enough power to do damage, falling boulders, etc would be blocked.
And the user would be able to decide whether the force field should block certain low energy objects on a case by case basis. For example, the force field COULD block air if the user is about to jump out an airlock into space or fall in water/lava
Dune references – gotta love ’em. Keep in mind based on Dune principles of shielding, a laser impact on the shield would cause a catastrophic event i.e. explosion.
Stargate: Goa’uld personal shields block just about everything in the anti-personal range. And then O’Neill throws a knife.
For all we know the shield just absorbs all energy including kinetic and uses it to either strengthen the shield or reflect it back. I think Sydney will find out the first time they are in combat against very bad people. (She obviously hasn’t had that kind of beta test yet.) Human, alien, paranormal or other. Other covers so much more.
I bet as more energy is expended the various globes light up brightly. Would make for an interesting light show if we could see it beyond our imagination. Also the Avengers Movie is fantastic. Now that is how a Super’s movie should be.
Just realized: DaveB, you wouldn’t happen to be a Legion of Superheroes fan, would you?
Besides Sydney and her orbs being reminiscent of the Emerald Empress, how Sydney accesses her powers is similar to that of Ultra Boy: Ultra Boy has a plethora of powers like Superman but can only use one of them at a time; Sydney also has a variety but can only access them while holding their spheres, hence just two at most at a time.
In addition, Maxima’s powers are similar to Ultra Boy’s as well, in the sense that, while she has all of them turned on all the time, she can boost up one of them as needs be.
I don’t think I’ve ever read that. Is that the Teen Titans/Justice League of the future? I think there was a Justice League cartoon with them in it, but I’m only passingly familiar with it. 90% of my DC knowledge is from the animated shows.
Ultra Boy was from back in the [Curt Swann]-era of DC Comics, & was a member of the 30th-Century group the Legion of Super-Heroes.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_Boy]