Grrl Power #931 – Escape from New York
So, is she possessing him? And if so, why didn’t she just toss herself onto Maxima’s head?
The answer is… kind of, but not really. Basically, she’s not “high level” enough to straight up possess someone. Right now, she’s somewhere between a Trill symbiont, sharing knowledge and memories, and Steve-Martin-bonked-on-the-head-by-a-mystic-bowl. They’re still separate entities, and both have control if the other one doesn’t object. She, and most of her species are relegated to passenger if the host doesn’t want to play along. The more advanced members of her species have increasing levels of primacy, but as Lapha alludes to, other races aren’t copasetic with being possessed, so her people have adapted to be artisanal meat jockeys. Which is to say they grow customized blanks, and pilot those around.
FYI, escape velocity is around mach 33. Maxima can’t go that fast. She can fly out of the atmosphere quite easily though. When she’s flying, she’s… well, she’s still affected by gravity. Her hair and clothes and whatever still “fall” toward Earth, but she just doesn’t… move toward Earth. It’s like in a videogame where you press spacebar to ascend, she just floats wherever she, uh, stopped pressing spacebar.
The new vote incentive is up! 
Maxima won (or lost) the draw this time. There are several clothing/non-clothing variants over at Patreon, including a special version with guest art direction from JJ Abrams. (Yes, there’s a ton of lens flares, hah hah. I amuse myself.) The a-cups will return next month, so please enjoy this offering in the meantime.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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Lapha and Garamm may be getting away for now, but I’m hoping that this isn’t the last we see of them.
My thoughts, too – I *want* them to get away now so we can see them later again. 8-)
@DaveB – lurrvely character design for both of them!
Well obviously. Nothing says “You haven’t seen the last of us” like Team Rocket blasting off.
Yeah, that kind of had to be said.
Yes, but which one of them is Jessie and which one is James?
right now they are both Meowth
+1 LMAO
Team rocket is great and all, but my immediate thought was: Why steal the escape pod/lifeboat/tiny ship and not steal the whole thing? They are criminals, it can’t be that they have scruples about leaving the others without a means of exiting the planet. They don’t appear to be in any danger, other than perhaps the guy who puked into his water/liquid filled helmet, so abandoning them isn’t even the same as murdering them. If Sparky/Lapha can operate the small ship, she should be able to operate the large ship.
Security measures? Preparation/lead-time? Ability to evade attention? Also note that ‘able to’ does not necessarily imply ‘is the best course of action’.
Humans have put token-based security measures on their transports for decades, in the shape of ignition keys. The owner can take the key with them when they leave the vehicle, thus rendering it far more difficult to start it. It’s entirely reasonable to expect at least a similar level of easy-to-implement security from an obviously more advanced People, and far greater protection against hotwiring.
Escape pods deliberately don’t have such barriers. If you need a pod (for its designed purpose) you need it now, not after you’ve ransacked your cabin to find the lost key that you were sure you put down… somewhere…
Large, complex craft invariably have pre-operation procedures proportional to that greater complexity. Whether that be something as simple as waiting for the reactor to get up to temperature, or as involved as verifying the airtightness of the cargo hatch, it all adds up. And for a main craft, while there is undoubtedly a customer-based reason to have the preflight be quick and easy, functional needs and the potential for wear-and-tear over many duty cycles will limit how many shortcuts can be taken.
Again, escape pods don’t have that issue. They have only one job, and they need to be able to do that job as quickly as possible in circumstances which may not be conducive to hanging around. Get in, punch out, and worry about the rest when you’re no longer in immediate danger.
Note also that operators of large craft invariably require at least some type-specific training. Even if it’s just a quick once-over of the cockpit to make sure you know where the controls are and a skim of the Pilot’s Notes to check for limiting conditions, one does not just hop into an unfamiliar craft and hope to figure out its particular tricks before it bites back.
Again, escape pods deliberately do not have such complexities. They must be designed so that even an idiot can at least launch themselves safely, even if the idiot then needs to wait passively for rescue while an experienced pilot could unlock the controls and actively look for help.
Finally, how many people on the ground noticed this pod launching, and how many would have compelling reason to chase after it? The main ship is far more visible, and it is the ride home for Cosmos’s Cosmic Caravanserai. Leave it in place, and it’ll keep the Law occupied with making sure everyone who should be getting back on the ship does so. Take it, and not only do you have a big red pointer saying “HERE I AM”, but you’ve also got (even more) on the wrong side of a lot of People – be that by stranding them on a backwater planet, or by stranding a crowd of administrative headaches in their jurisdiction.
+1
You covered it admirably.
Cute Xenoarchy Customs (stealthed and in orbit)… They’d like to check your cargo hold to see what you’re bringing back – books, movies, drugs, Alari stowaways… And is this Possession consensual? Oh, and there’s this LITTLE fine for landing on an uncleared world…
For every awful Hench Wench or Rava, I hope we have an awesome Garamm and Lapha.
Perfectly balanced, as all things should be. :)
But do we therefore want a HW for every Lapha? Or would be be okay to just have characters we like best?
Or as I once overheard, “It doesn’t ‘take all kinds to make a world’, we just have all kinds.”
If we had fewer kinds we would still have all kinds.
The amount of awful in an HW is worth the amount of good in 20 Laphas and Garamms.
So we need 19 more Laphas and Garamms before I can tolerate another HW.
There. I fixed Thanos’s quote. :)
while I didn’t dislike Henchwench as much as you did, just felt she dragged on a little longer than necessary and Maxima could have ended the fight alot sooner with a choke hold or something given that upping her defense would render some chunk of asphalt hitting her for a few seconds meaningless.
why big issue with, I guess his name is Rava, was he to me amounted to a walk on cameo by someone I don’t know, who only had like one line in an earlier apperance; and just walked up to one of the characters we’ve gotten to know and killed or maimed them.
imagine watching a tv show and there is a criminal, we’ve gotten to know them, may not like what they do, but they’ve been effectively humanized to the point you actually care what happens to them; then some guy off the street walks up and shoots them, trying to kill them, and maybe someone points *oh hey, that’s this guy who contributes to the show, so got a walk on cameo*…but you they mean nothing, you don’t know this person, and had someone not said anything you’d never even know where they came from or why.
they just show up and try to kill a character you may actually like at this point and its just….what the hell was that?
This situation may work in a pure comedy, problem is Grrl Power has kind of moved away from that level of comedy and more MCU less SNL with the humor.
In other words, this had all the impact of suddenly dropping a piano on her and having some stranger lean out the window shouting, “did I get her?”.
a situation personally made worse if you find out the stranger was a paid cameo and not a character from another series.
“The butler did it! Yes, the butler, who had no speaking lines before this scene but did offer a serving tray to a main character in Season 1! It seems so obvious in retrospect!”
Yeah I think you’ve nailed it. Dave already said this twist with Nava (I think?) was off the cuff, but given that the gag line and the tour group got a bit of face time originally, it’s not completely out of the blue for me. Not ideal foreshadowing from a writing perspective perhaps, but good enough for me to give it a pass if this isn’t the absolute last time we see him. He should at least be seen in the background being questioned or something so that his disappearance isn’t as abrupt as his promotion from NPC.
the butler remark puts me more in mind of the weak twists from Friday the 13th part 1 and part 5 (more so part 5), Part 1 was a weaker twist as the killer hadn’t even been seen on screen prior to act 3 and may have had like a minute or less before they revealed they were the killer. Part 5 at least the paramedic had a few lines in act 1 and in a “oh you could have explained that better but kind of makes sense, just would have been nice to have clues*
this feels more like a back handed version of mugging the monster, except there was no justification for the level of violence used, and usually in mugging the monster “the monster” in that scenario is the character we’ve been getting to know or is a new character introduction but the other the mugger in this scenario is just an extra. if that makes sense. Like…two drunk violent rapist guys going down an alley get eating by a shapeshifting tentacle monster they were harassing because it took the form of a woman, we don’t know them, but later on the tentacle monster gets the character development.
But yeah, what the hell was that? pretty much sums it up with everything I already said about it.
Honestly to me at least the only way he could be redeemed would be the unlikely scenario of “space cop, and could like Shlok control if he digests someone or not*, however I have to play by the rules of Occam’s Razer and assume attempted murder for shoving his friend via horrific death until/unless shown otherwise.
You, basically, just described Real Life and Random Shootings
That’s not “Occams Razor”, that’s “ignoring the character’s prior actions.” Occam’s Razor has to do with explaining things with the simplest explanation and the least assumptions.
Assuming she is NOT a star cop requires exactly the same level of assumption as assuming that she IS a Star Cop. There is plenty of textual support for it.
Pinkie was blithely standing in front of the escaping criminals, in essence making a citizen’s arrest. Pinkie and Rava had both been practicing English from scratch, together, by agreement prior to the tourist scene.
Either she is a Star Cop with an actual big brain, or she is a stupid tourist who thinks she has a big brain and feels comfortable stopping criminals without visible weaponry.
Which one requires more complicated assumptions? Neither.
I disagree as I saw no indication they are space police, in fact her being so easily shoved aside would suggest she is not, try to shove a cop or any trained enforcer in the face and that arm is going into a lock and you are going face down into the dirt.
So I am forced to conclude, she is not a cop, and her friend went straight to attempted murder *I would be repeating myself, but again the panel where the flame almost ends up inside the gut* would indicate attempted murder.
unless presented with evidence they are space police and she was just pulling a Mihoshi; it is simpler to conclude they were just tourists, one very dangerous one who not only is able and willing to kill at a moments noticed but if they caught someone out of sight can do it in a way the quickly disposes of the body becoming an unsolved disappearance. It may come across a speciest at this point, but he has not left the best first impression.
the biggest evidence they are not space police.
They left the area. They didn’t hang around where all the other tourists were, where as space police would want to keep an eye on the area with the most activity between the various aliens and the humans; especially if they had any idea “poachers” could be in the tour group.
Yes, it’s both speciesist and presumptuous.
We know nothing specific about Nava’s race, you are convicting him by inferring intentions based upon inappropriate analogy to biological earth species in two cases, his own and that of the chassis. We know that the chassis he “ate” is not a being. We can assume based upon Dave’s comment that the chassis was damaged by the event, so it’s probably not in a “stomach of holding”.
We have no idea whether consuming the flame, if Nava had, would have hurt it at all. that remains to be expositioned.
Your claim about Pinkie … “forced to conclude”? You are going to pretend that you were FORCED to conclude? What, is there an alien flame on your head dominating your will?
You choose to conclude, because it’s what you want to conclude. You are importing your own personal beliefs about Earth cop culture into ALL POSSIBLE STAR COP CULTURES and coming to the conclusion you want. Yay you. (By the way, you honestly think that everyone in every single person in every entire police department in the US is trained that way and would react that way every time, in every context? Sheesh.)
Additionally, we have no idea whether Pinkie consumed any kind of euphoria drugs or alcohol, either before disembarking or during mouth eating of the local food cuisine. In any case, Pinkie was friendly and overconfident, and Lapha is a highly trained mercenary in a mil-spec chassis. Between those pages, Lapha successfully made a sudden move that cleared her path. That’s it. We have no idea what skill-vs-skill roll was required or achieved.
Pinkie and Nava were certainly tourists on vacation; acting like tourists provides no evidence of whether or not they were Star Cops. Umm, by the way, other people are asking why Pinkie and Rava were so CLOSE to the ship at this point, so that kind of erodes your “if they were cops they would have stuck close to the ship” argument… which only would be a rational argument if they were Star Cops who were on duty anyway, which I don’t think anyone is arguing.
sorry but between your defensive tone, and your attitude with the “forced to conclude” comment; and the sheer number of “what ifs” I have to repeat. you are taking even greater leaps of logic based on even less evidence than I am. You are assuming they are space cops, there is less evidence to assume that, than to assume they are just tourists, but you are choosing to cherry pick anything you can to come to this conclusion for reasons I do not know.
also yes, if you tried to shove any cop any where in the world you would be face down on the ground in seconds.
I am just going to conclude with this.
There has been no hints, indications, foreshadowing, or nuggets of any kind to give us the audience the idea these characters who were just there for a joke with the van and only brought back on panel as DaveB said because one of them was a patreon character who barely had any time in the comic while another patreon character Henchwench had so much. If not for that reason we can safely assume we probably wouldn’t have seen them again.
so the lack of any indication they are space cops, means there is no reason to even assume they could be space cops any more than to assume they are 10th dimension parasites or heralds of a world eater. All the evidence is that they are just tourists.
I don’t see a reason to argue or assume they are anything other than that. Especially not in any heated manner.
For extremely small values of the word “kill”. Given the conjugation of our lovebirds, perhaps “Petit morte” is an apt term for it…
The character is still alive, not even temporarily dead. This “kill” was world building and throwing our lovebirds a small curve that slowed down their escape.
Lapha’s next chassis, I bet, will have a tail.
“just felt she dragged on a little longer than necessary and Maxima could have ended the fight alot sooner with a choke hold or something given that upping her defense would render some chunk of asphalt hitting her for a few seconds meaningless.”
That’s actually sort of why I hated her so much. Maxima had to play intentionally stupid so that HW could start pulling powers out of nowhere. Sort of like Vehemence did, but with even less rationale. It just felt like ‘some person paid me money, so instead of making a balanced character I’m going to make her a villain sue who ultimately gets away with it but everything against her or by her amounts to nothing.’ It was just extremely dissatisfying for a character, when it could have ended right after Arianna’s win on an upswing.
Instead, if I want to describe HW’s problem via tropes, she jumped the shark. Multiple times.
“why big issue with, I guess his name is Rava, was he to me amounted to a walk on cameo by someone I don’t know, who only had like one line in an earlier apperance; and just walked up to one of the characters we’ve gotten to know and killed or maimed them.”
I agree completely.
” I have to play by the rules of Occam’s Razer and assume attempted murder for shoving his friend via horrific death until/unless shown otherwise.”
Yes, same here. I’m obviously not planning on trying to write the author’s story for him in order to come up with a scenario that does NOT make Rava a complete monster, when all info available points to… yes, he/it is a complete and utter monster and a danger to being on Earth. :) Especailly when anything redeeming requires so many complicated qualifiers that have no hint of happening within the comic up to this point, like I had mentioned in the ‘why Rava would be arrested and prosecuted’ posts I made yesterday. Even when the police or a DA does not have a full alien biology lesson available, that we do not even yet know would make a difference (which I don’t think it would anyway). :)
In the end,
Its not my world, its not my story, but due to emotional investment I reserve the right to whine and vent *get if off my chest*.
:)
So even Maxima has her flight limits.
HALO’s are higher, now….
Dave’s author’s note referred to her body as a customized blank, so I’m thinking that it didn’t have an independent consciousness.
This is just weird. I replied to Nealithi’s comment below, yet it posted attached to this previous comment.
Yeah this forum acts funny sometimes. Also you can’t edit after posting. I hope this will never change, it’s more fun this way.
Nothing like a little random weirdness to keep it interesting.
I appreciate your perspective – I think you may just have swayed me from the “I kinda wish I could edit” camp
Well.. to be fair.. the mighty Halo can operate wormholes independently.. And I bet there’s a “middle speed” ( warp-speed FTL levels ) in that orb set she hasn’t found yet…
That’s cheating.. ;)
Though the question remains, does the energy blast Maxima can generate or the ball bearing she can fling exceed escape velocity? Maybe they still get away but their damaged rockett makes them take the slow/scenic route.
Neither killing them nor wasting their time would benefit Maxima, so I doubt she’ll bother firing projectiles at them.
She can’t breath in space, only Achilles can. …And technically, Halo!
If Halo ‘technically’ can, so can Maxi ‘technically’ breath in space
Technically, Les can’t breath in space either, he can just survive in space without needing anything to breath or breath with
Maxima cannot breathe in space. She needed a mask for even high altitude during testing. Maxima has limits apparently. She needs to breathe air, and that air cannot be too thin.
We’ve seen this limit multiple times. Both during testing AND when they visited the Black Reliquiry and needed Halo to ferry them there via her shield.
Halo, on the other, technically can because she specifically has an airtight shield AND the means to create atmosphere.
PS, to Sasha: Like G said, Achilles can’t breathe in space btw, as far as we know so far. Based on what we know of his powers, he just can’t die from not being able to breathe in space.
This is great – I hope we see these guys again.
I wonder who her PREVIOUS partner was…
There wasn’t one, not really at least. From the blurb: “Which is to say they grow customized blanks, and pilot those around.”
So it was a body, just with no conscious to pilot it until Lapha moved in.
hermit crab but with a soul going into body
They’re not out of it yet. There’s still time for Dave to put a wrinkle, or two, in this plotline.
I’d bet $10 they’re still going to get away, but will they be tracked? By Cora or something? Is there a stowaway? Followed surreptitiously by Cosmos instead of with a vengeance?
So, yes room for SOMETHING else, but he’s basically said he’s aiming to move on to the next Arc, so it won’t be drawn out too far.
Frankly, Maxima shouldn’t have a top speed in space. Due to relativity, there isn’t even such a thing as “top
speed” in space other than c.
Top speed in atmosphere is where air resistance equals thrust. In space, there is no air resistance, so as long as you’re thrusting, you keep accelerating.
There is actually a top speed in space of sorts. Space isn’t empty, it is full of dust for lack of a better word that as you go faster can cause damage to you or your ship if it isn’t shielded against such collisions and will apply drag as you push through it.
It depends on how her powers work. It could be that her flight isn’t based on thrust, per se, but is some interaction with the gravity well that adheres her to a frame of reference with a speed limit.
If her flight was based on thrust generation, AND the energy output of her particle beam is also internally generated, AND her total energy output is available to her through either channel … hot damn. Gonna need to get out the Special Relativity math for that one.
Probably best for everyone else if her freedom of movement is a frame-of-reference alteration.
Gotta be tied to a local-gravity frame of reference – if she stopped via some absolute frame, she’d ‘fall’ off the planet as it orbited away from her.
The escape velocity of “mach 33” only applies at sea level. The lower the atmospheric pressure the lower the speed needed to reach the speed of sound. For instance at sea level mach 1 is approx. 761 mph [1225 kph] while at 60,000 feet it is approximately 660 mph [1062 kph]. And mach speed is meaningless in the vacuum of space. There is not enough atmosphere to actually have a speed of sound.
Came here to say this. Also, escape velocity is only relevant to non-propelled objects. Something self-propelled can be moving at 0.1MPH, but as long as it keeps moving up it’ll eventually leave the planet. Escape velocity is relevant if something is basically launched, and counts from the point where it is no longer being propelled.
For example, if the rocket they are in gives them a massive burst of speed then cuts off its engines, it would want to wait until after it reaches relative escape velocity to where it is at the time before doing so in order to leave. If, like most rockets, it just gives a steady burn, then its probably moving far slower than what one would normally think of as escape velocity (even though it does technically pass it at some point).
Incidentally, this concept has been used to figure out a cheaper way to orbit.
Start out by flying like a jet plane or be carried by a jet, to near the flight ceiling for that. At this point, you’re part of the way to space, so you have less distance to go and also less air to fly through. Rocket boost from here.
It’s kind of interesting that as ones altitude increases, the speed of sound decreases, but also the escape velocity also decreases. I doubt they decrease in proportion to each other. I think atmospheric pressure is largely defined by the amount of atmosphere above in the gravity well combined with the strength of the gravity well, while escape velocity is just the strength of the gravity well. Admittedly, wind resistance may play some role in those calculations, but probably not nearly enough to make the force to escape earth orbit significantly different.
I’d guess you could get a further reduction in cost to get to orbit or beyond by using a lighter than air stage before the jet stage, but that’d be slow and awkward.
Came to say this too. That is clearly a propelled object. Rockets and other propelled objects do not actually reach “escape velocity”, they simply keep thirsting until they are beyond Earth’s gravitational pull, or have entered a orbital path (once out of the atmosphere so there is no drag, you can orbit at any altitude. The higher you go, the slower your orbit can be, as orbit is just the speed at which you are moving forward as quickly as gravity is pulling you down). I would actually believe that, while Maxima can leave the atmosphere and enter space, she could not entirely leave the Earth’s gravity well – which, to be clear, is huge. The moon orbits us, after all, and you can fit every other solar system planet with room to spare between us and the moon.
In short, they likely won’t be reaching an “escape velocity” that is higher than Maxima’s top speed… and certainly not higher than Sydney’s.
Max and Sydney are both far slower than any galactic rocket would need to be. Sydney can apparently do Mach 16 now (speculations vary); the ISS orbital velocity is around Mach 22.5, or 50% faster, and it would still take 13 hours to reach our moon. At interplanetary distances, that’s barely tolerable for even an emergency life raft, let alone a tender vessel – it would take a bit over a year to reach Mars, and unless everyone was in stasis pods they’d have starved well before then.
This ship either goes far faster than anything Earth has developed, or has a warp drive (or both). Given that Cora and Ray both took only a couple days to arrive on Earth, it looks like warp is ubiquitous and there’d be no reason not to install it on everything capable of space flight. Or if it is purely for emergencies (which the quantity of control panels makes unlikely) and it doesn’t have warp, suppose you should be able to get back to Earth from Pluto in 2 days before dying of thirst – it would need to go Mach 87,820 even ignoring accel/decel time, or just under 0.1c. Seems unlikely a mere pod could achieve that though, which brings us back to the question of just how fast Max can actually move given her motion in the stasis field.
Ah, but Sydney can do Mach 16 or so nape of the Earth. The amount of thrust needed to do that with even a very aerodynamic force field around her is absolutely terrifying.
If she can apply that sort of thrust in space, and she IS a ‘space ship’, then she’s probably pulling hundreds of gs outside the atmosphere. She could hit escape velocity in seconds.
And at Mach 16 straight up you’d technically be in space in a few seconds.
Sydney is a space ship but she doesn’t have all points in her speed yet. Also, she has the wormholes for long-distance traveling.
“How much force?” I’m glad you asked. Okay, I’m no physicist, but… some back of the envelope figures (75 degrees * (mach # * bowshock factor (50)) ** 2) suggests that hydrogen fusion is possible at the bowshock.
Truly terrifying. That’s getting into Superman territory.
The spped of 29 877 kilometers per second is therocaly possible with an Orion engine technology …
But cost and potential problems ar two higth …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
No, some rockets reach escape velocity. For sure.
It’s funny how you manage to contradict yourself in few sentences. First you say that rockets “just” keep thirsting until they are beyond Earth’s gravitational pull, then you mention the Earth’s gravity well being bigger than Moon’s orbit …
For reference, most rockets which are supposed to escape Earth reach escape velocity, THEN stop thirsting because they run out of fuel.
First you thrust, then you thirst (once you run out of fuel).
Extended thrusting certainly leaves me thirsty.
Hmm, does light move slower in atmosphere?.
Technically. By less than one promile, though. See refractive index – air is 1.000293. Glass is 1.52 which makes speed of light in glass 1/1.52 x slower, about 200,000 km/s.
Slower in any medium than in vacuum; fiber optic cable for instance is about 1/3 slower. That’s one of the things that makes Starlink internet service appealing for certain use cases – much of the transmission distance between client and server will be covered in space via laser, so it will have lower latency than land-based systems. This is a critical edge for things like stock trading, where automated trades happen in milliseconds based on a constant stream of data. This is one reason the NYSE is still in NY – most transatlantic backbones enter the US there (which is of course a self-feedback cycle since that’s why they were laid there in the first place).
Top speed in normal space is roughly around 2/3 c. At that speed, running into hydrogen and such leads to bremmstrahlung (secondary electron emission) which has the unpleasant side effect of toasting the crew of the spaceship with X-rays and other ionizing radiation.
Does this mean her body had another consciousness that just got eaten because she bailed on them?
Same answer as I replied to Joe Guy.
From the blurb: “Which is to say they grow customized blanks, and pilot those around.”
So it was a body, just with no conscious to pilot it until Lapha moved in.
Just like the blue Avatar blanks the human protagonists had on Pandora.
Space cheerio? What’s that about?
Toilet cake.
Something to aim at. Common enough to teaching little boys in the US is the method of tossing a cheerio (fingernail sized cereal shaped like donut) for them to aim at. Sinking the cheerio is just a means to keep the ah stream centered for less mess. Splashback is a thing.
Thanks for the explanation! I was wondering, too…
Gee some people do it the hard way! All of my family (from distant ancestors to new descendants) had to use the kiddy-sit-upon potty until they could keep everything IN the potty EVERY time. Graduating to the Big Pot was a mark of Being Grown Up. Of course, the Method did allow for awkward questions like “Was Daddy plastered last night? Will he go back to our Little Potty?”
” keep everything IN the potty EVERY time. ” That,. leaves out the average man :)
You might be surprised how many women ‘miss’ as well
I’ve heard a few of those stories from Mom.
They squat, on the seat.
They still make a mess
having worked retail I can assure you public toilets get just as messy for women.
I worked at a gas station back in the 1970’s. Cleaning the men’s room seldom took more than 5 minutes. The “lady’s” room (the sarcasm implied by putting the word lady’s in quotes is intentional) took a couple of gallons of bleach and a high pressure hose. That job taught me that there were some women who could get their used tampons to stick to the ceiling.
As an average man (at least in this respect), my aim’s usually pretty good, but sometimes the flow comes out as a wide-arc spray rather than a stream, which makes aiming a major challenge (effectively impossible).
The self-varying nozzle aperture and flow rate are only some of the many weird things not generally visible to non-owners of the equipment.
Personally, since my prostate surgery I’ve had to worry about Reynolds numbers in a way I never did before.
I mean, it’s great that I can empty my bladder in under a second, but, turbulent flow!
What did they use, a router?!
Interestingly enough, drying semen acts as an adhesive (probably the sugar in the mix). If one isn’t both careful and observant, this can result in a twin spray effect, which results in a pretty much guaranteed partial miss. When I was at that age where this was most commonly an issue, I learned to sometimes go to the toilet rather than the urinal, and sit down to do the business, because the alternative was to either frequently make messes or to perform pre-urinary maintenance which would look to someone watching like playing with myself. This was especially frequently needed in the morning, for reasons that few men would likely need explained.
Not sure if it’s due to sugar but it’s definitely annoying. Which is why it’s useful to have some privacy in morning.
There is a lot of potential comedy there for teaching an individual who doesn’t have a pointable excretory extension how to void liquid waste using the body of one who does. Yes, I know it has been done but seldom cross species.
She doesn’t need to learn, she only needs to let him do it.
Yes, that would be practical but where it the fun in that?
Or you could just teach them to sit on the toilet.
These meat jockey gals are pretty wild. I mean really!? Sharing a bladder on the first date!
Quite common if you’re Scottish, actually.
I’m hoping Garamm’s bladder isn’t stuffed with barley and assorted offal (I love haggis, people should really give it a try).
Was thinking either bagpipes, or booze
Or tiny lizards. No really… saw on “sex sent me to the hospital”
remember folks to keep toys sanitary, and inanimate.
Hmm, would vibes be considered animate? Seeing how they, well, vibrate and becum very animated ;)
Hm more of a non steven king / non AI / non batteries way. Then again any of the above would have dentimental effect on precise aiming and concentration control.
“The new Ronco mental health tool. Now with AI motion control, ethereal satisfaction feedback and Eterni7m power cells. Eclusive upgrades with Cluthu lube. It gets you off where the others leave ya hanging.”
Ah ‘hink ye mean gittin’ bladder’t. Disnae huvtae be a date fer that, ‘s jest a Sighthill Sa’rdy night!
Again I have to say that I love these two and I really hope the arc ends with the duo’s successful escape.
Ima disagree here. I want an UNSUCCESSFUL escape. Specifically, I want Max to shoot down the rocket. Debris will interfere with radar, preventing a precise track of its less-than-controlled “landing”. (Is it still a good landing if you run away from it rather than walk away from it?) They will crash land somewhere isolated and be stuck on Earth for us to encounter again, rather than be free to avoid our planet and thus the storyline like the plague for the foreseeable future.
Specifically, the Island of Mislaid Subplots. I believe it’s near Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific, and is gaining more inhabitants every month.
I don’t want an unsuccessful escape. That would be very annoying for a really BAD, poorly written, deus-ex-machinaed character like HW who has no reason for us to care about her (aside from some person paid the author to insert her into the story), who really brings nothing to the overall story, to escape, but these two well written, humanized, organically likeable characters, who can bring a lot to future stories, to escape. As it is, Lapha getting eaten by ANOTHER patreon character felt off. But was acceptable because at least that showed a feature of Lapha’s people. Not letting it amount to something useful would just feel …. very frustrating. Like ‘why did we bother even HAVING this sub-sub-arc if not to let them have an escape?’
We can still have future subplots of them coming back to the planet in the future.
I’m torn – we already have Sciona, some Council intrigue, and probably the Fel now all gunning for Archon specifically, or at least factoring them heavily into their plans. I think Lapha/Garamm has at least as much entertainment potential as some stranded mercs trying to blend in and still salvage something from a mission gone wrong, as they would with time to go off-plant and sort out their cohabitation status while preparing a proper assault. I think they’d both be fine pursuing an easier target, rather than targeting Archon again unless the pay was better. It wasn’t personal, it’s just business.
Why would they want to return, seeing how close to being killed they came to the first time?
Severe default penalties in whatever bounty contract they’re operating under?
Since there wasn’t a predetermined buyer for Maxima, that’s unlikely. There may be someone who financed the team, but throwing the same team back would not make much sense.
If we see those two again, it will probably first be as a cameo in the background when Deus next visits the Fracture… with the grey female holding hands with the green male, and entwining tails…
I’d like that :)
Maybe to rescue the other members of their crew who have been captured if they have loyalty to their team?
somehow, I should have expected a ‘I gotta pee’ thing on this escape. its almost like Dave has children or something.
Make sure to checkall the telephone coin slots in thos space rest stops for spare quatloos, gotta fund the comic book collection
sigh… ok.
escape velocity- that’s how fast you have to go to escape earths gravity if no further thrust will be applied.
if your flying thing can apply thrust greater than 1 g in the upper atmosphere where the air is too thin for propellers, wings, and many jet engines it can escape earth without reaching escape velocity.
It’s not about escaping the pull of the earth here. It’s about building enough of a lead that Maxima can’t just come get them. Escape (Maxima) Velocity.
from the context in comic and authors note. it is intended to be the Earth’s escape velocity. (as opposed to say Sagittarius A). a more technically correct phrase might be ‘local escape velocity’ as these beings travel to many planets.
now should Sydney pull herself together she may be able to catch them. a better choice is to simply drop some sort of tracer on it as there are some people who would like their ride home back.
That’s an escape pod, so their ride home is not gone. But yes, Cosmo wants his hardware back.
And “escape velocity” may be a more general term, rather than meaning “the speed at which something fired from the Earth’s surface would escape the Earth’s gravity.” It may just mean “fast enough that she can’t catch us”.
Well, technically, it still has to reach escape velocity, it just does so by flying far enough away under power that the escape velocity from their current position is below what they’re already doing.
TCM recently played “Mouse on the Moon”.
The Kopinz Drive allowed the spacecraft to leave Earth at around 500 miles per hour.
It effectively had unlimited fuel and didn’t need to reach escape velocity.
For conventional rockets escape velocity uses the least fuel as it allows the engines to be turned off.
There is a significant difference between launching on a rocket (or other device that continues to provide thrust) and launching from a cannon. The acceleration in a cannon to reach escape velocity, depending on the length of the cannon barrel, will tend to be several orders of magnitude beyond what most materials, especially biological ones, can survive unharmed. You definitely want a rocket so you can accelerate just a little more than 1 G (10-20 m/s^2 acceleration) so that your biological cargo does not get squished.
Hmm, let’s see. At then end of the barrel, you want to be going 11 km/s (escape velocity at surface). Let’s try a ridiculous 11 km barrel (it makes the math easier!). If you have a constant acceleration over the length of the barrel, your accelerations will be 5.5 km/s^2 = 5500 km/s^2 over 2 seconds. This is also assuming that air resistance is negligible; at these speeds, air resistance is actually very significant! Accelerations of 100 m/s^2 (10 G) have been known to kill people. Accelerations in plane crashes in excess of 100G (1 km/s^2) tend to have 100% fatality rates. So, reaching escape velocity quickly is not what you want to do.
Accelerating just little over 1g is wasteful considering properly seated and trained human can do 6-10g without problems. Space shuttles go 3g, which is less than some roller coaster (but for longer time). Apollo got 7g.
Escape velocity is Mach 33 *at the surface of the earth* and falls off as you fly away. Escape velocity doesn’t apply if you have continual thrust. Something would only have to hit Mach33 if you were trying to launch it into space via cannon (and would promptly be atomised by air resistance). Space ships would achieve escape velocity by simply powering their engines long enough until they got high enough that the required escape velocity dropped below what they were already doing.
Wish I could upvote this. Yay physics!
Ahh :-) Thanks, that was what I remembered/know.
Escape velocity applies if you “propel” it like a bullet: If one bang isn’t enough to make it fly up at mach 33, it will fall back to earth’s surface. With continuous thrust, the problem shifts to overcoming earth’s gravitational pull, at whatever speed you like. (As long as it is directed (partly) upwards.)
Have a virtual upvote from me, too.
It’s based on energy, if you want a simple calculation. “Escape velocity” should really be “escape kinetic energy.” If your kinetic energy is at least as high as your gravitational potential energy, then you will escape, with your kinetic energy tending toward the difference as your distance grows without bound.
Here, kinetic energy is measured in the reference frame of the Earth, and gravitational potential energy is negative with “distance” being measured from the center of the Earth. If you are entirely outside the Earth (as most people trying to fly to space are) then it is mathematically correct to treat the Earth as a point mass at the Earth’s center, for the purpose of calculating gravitational potential energy. (See, The Divergence Theorem.)
“The Mouse on the Moon”, escape velocity was pretty dang low for the spaceship powered by a teapot.
That’s actually discussed in the old Salvage 1 TV series. Andy Griffith plays a scrapyard owner who wants to salvage the equipment left on the moon of all things, so he looks into building his own space-capable vehicle to do so. He then begins looking for experts to build this ship for him and the intended pilot explains the difference between escape velocity and his suggestion of a continual thrust vehicle by driving a car up to a recklessly fast speed to demonstrate standard rocket launches then slowly driving along with a steady but mild acceleration. They then rope in a female scientist because they need a special fuel to provide sufficient thrust-to-mass ratio to make this method feasible.
A note on the whole not-possession thing:
Garamm can indicate that, with his full consent, he provided an emergency rescue for another entity that was facing death by a known, highly dangerous species. I think we can postulate that Galactic Society & Law Enforcement has the means to determine if it is true consent vs. fake or coerced.
Lapha could probably make the case that her right to self-preservation under emergency conditions allows her more liberties than usual, so long as she can demonstrate no harm, no intent to harm, and all reasonable effort at obtaining consent and otherwise NOT possessing another entity at the expense of their free will. Might not get her or people like her off the hook entirely, but mitigating circumstances can go a long way to vastly reduce penalties.
I’m beginning to think I might make a decent Space Lawyer, Esq. (Law degree from Dunning-Kruger Galactic University)
That and she’s not technically possessing him.
him saying “how do I suddenly know how to do this” is more that she acts somewhat like a Trill Symbiont from Star Trek, in that the host gains all the knowledge of the symbiote when they bond. Also somewhat like the Tok’ra from SG-1 as well there.
Don’t forget the fact that she has limited to no control. She had to tell him to run from their enemies not force him. She is more like a benificial parasyte then anything. Symbiote if your being generous. I’m going more with parasyte because she doesn’t get much of a will here her safety is the only win condition she is getting while she is bonded. Him getting knowledge is the only
That doesn’t make her a parasite, which by definition does harm to the host. Symbiote is the correct term.
No, the definition is that symbiote is USEFUL to the host, not just not-harming him. But if she can operate the escape pod and he isn’t, she’s symbiote.
Possession is 9/10ths of the law.
* hanging judge enters the room *
That said, what’s the enforcement mechanism? Lapha’s only at risk of breaking a law here if this not-possession is non-consensual (and it appears to me that this is fully consensual). In real life, if two people have sex, unless one of them didn’t consent or was unable to consent, there’s no privacy-violating prosecutor who brings in rape charges. I don’t see how this situation is any different.
Sounds like this species could have lucrative careers as professional cognitive Co-pilots.
So those bodies are more like the vampires from the Kate Daniels series (which I can wholeheartedly recommend)
Except hopefully with less mindless omnicidal tendencies when left unpiloted.
Given Max’s non regulation outfit, I don’t think she’d chase them too far out of the atmosphere. She’s likely to burn her clothes up. Bring a spaceship back while topless isn’t great for some of your media image.
Three billion likes isn’t good for your media image?
Social, yes. Professional/government, no.
I now have so many questions about that last body of hers. Was it actually her body or one that she conveniently happened on? Assuming she happened on a body that was rendered into a vegetative state, would she be given full control at that point? Would the actual owner of that body be able to be revived while she possessed it? If that was in fact one of her species body, how does that even work? …… So… many… questions….
Considering how much it resembled the other example of that race (minus the teeth)…
Think of them as organic shells, all the functionality of a living being, minus the brain-capacity (kinda like politicians)
Or
lawyerser,internet forums, um,fan clubs… never mind.A-hem!!!!!! :)
You didn’t see anything. This is not the comment thread you’re looking for. ^_^
Oh man can you see the line at the DMV (dept of meatbody vehicles?)
Oh, crap… i left my wallet in my dress zoot suit.
do they have to have VIN tattoos on then as well? “Yeah, ya see officer this is my spare meatsicle….”
“Well ya see my other body who was driving WAS sober…”
Yeah and this low pedometer beauty’s only been driven by a little old lady going to hur h on sundays…(used meat popsicle dealer)
Just check this low pedometer beauty’s out – only been driven by a little old lady from Pasadena (used meat popsicle dealer)
Gee, I don’t know does this one one make my butt look fat?
She NEEDS the brain capacity. Just not the consciousness.
Third time I get to use this same reply (don’t people read the author’s word or the other comments?):
From the blurb: “Which is to say they grow customized blanks, and pilot those around.”
So it was a body, just with no conscious to pilot it until Lapha moved in.
Since we have seen at least two of those bodies it has me wondering if that isn’t the base line, ubiquitous model. Everybody starts off with one of that variety but as the individual advances in status or resources they can obtain fancier, more capable versions. It would depend on what Lapha’s species finds important/attractive but there would be a lot of advantages to having a standardized body.
Socially advantageous at least, both internally and with the rest of the galactic community, much easier to maintain a shared cultural identity and inter-species relationship with a standard form. Also probably lots easier for courtship and reproduction, however those may work for a species that can body-hop.
Yeah, I always enjoy knowing that anyone I walk up to on the street who looks like my wife could really be anybody. It makes life so much more exciting.
I wonder if you can hold multiple in one body? Might be pretty neat. Wonder if they can power ranger your body like a zord if there’s mutiple.
If she had missed him, would she just be laying on the ground until someone scoops her up or does she die if she doesn’t land on an organic host? Will she die if it doesn’t have any shell for long periods of time?
There is nothing specific on “being thrown”, so she definitely doesn’t die in impact (unless she breaks or something). I would assume there is some time limit after she dies, but it’s probably hours or days, not seconds.
There are likely also limits how much of them can share single brain, but five probably are possible, even if non-optimal.
the how many may also apply to the kind of neurology of the host.
a blank body with a centralized intelligence may be optimal no more than one, three at the most if they can pull a conscious, subconscious, ect.., agreement (driver seat, passenger seat, back seat to simplify it).
but if they get a body or host with distributed intelligence *like a cephalopod*, they may be able to get a whole bunch in there. Think Voltron (I am the right arm, I am the left arm) ect…
Now I have this mental image of dozens of elemental eyes stuffed onto a single multi-appendaged street performer doing a clown-car routine and performing dozens of complex tasks at once.
Other uses would include cheating on college exams, unless a) there are ways to do a ‘retinal’ scan and positively identify the co-habitant, or b) hats are allowed in the test hall.
That’s “copacetic” not “copasetic.”
If I recall correctly Scape Velocity is a fluid speed. The base criteria is “traction”. So, Max, with her “infinite traction” has a minimun scape velocity of almost 0. Wich is something that could hapen with any way of propulsion that do not change it’s overall streanght in any meaningfull way from the vacum of space or the the atmosfere. The more eficient the propulsion, the less neaded is a High Scape Velocity.
On the other hand, they could be refearing not the Scape Velocity of the planet but another “fisical barrier” of sorts that could make it to FTL.
This is painful to read.
scatch your junk
do it yourself coward
>They’re still separate entities, and both have control if the other one doesn’t object.
Relatable! :D
Um, has anyone thought about what Ray will do with the fact that part of his ship just took off without him?
ANY self respecting being of that type will have SOME way to keep less savory types from taking off with any bits of his livelihood. A kill switch, a tracker, something.
It’s an escape pod, presumably with a tracking beacon of some sort, so Ray will get it back eventually but can’t in good conscience (which he may or may not have) chase them until he rounds up his passengers.
They’ll have enough of a head start to get to another planet though, and possibly sell it to a chop shop, so I imagine he’ll be on his way quickly.
That assumes he paid good money for said escape pod and didn’t trap it. Some people in such professions HAVE been known to either lock up or trap lifeboats/small craft to keep them from ‘wandering away’.
Ray does not strike me as a particularrly trusting sort, so, if they DID manage to make off with a bit of his ship, I bet he can track it and I bet he won’t be happy if he gets any kind of data on who took it. And, he has to have SOME kind of data on his ‘passengers’ no? Even if it is faked, it can potentially lead him to them. At which point, life may get ‘interesting’ for all kinds of people.
And I would hazard a guess that Lapha seems “l33t” enuff of a haxor to have made this assessment already, but we are also assuming this escape craft has FTL capabilities (?)
True.
Most escape pods that I have seen in games/movies/books or whatever wouldn’t have such built in because FTL tech is generally to big, too expensive or too finickey to have as part of something that you hope never to use.
That said? It is possible, but if so, I BET Ray has a way to track it or SOMEONE does. Maybe Cora? (Evil grin)
one would think an interstellar craft whose escape craft can’t go FTL or at least send a trans-space emergency beacon would be little more than floating coffins for those who used them.
Two options, really. One, you stop the fugitives making off with a pod. Fairly revenue-neutral there. Two, you allow the fugitives to get away in a pod – which already carries a tracker ‘for reuniting the survivors’ – and sell the tracking code to the authorities…
Where’s Cora’s ship? Waiting above with mass drivers primed?
assuming still parked over at Archon HG, unless they used it to fly over to Times Square for some reason.
Anti-mass drivers!
Anyone else getting tickets to see the Artisanal Meat Jockeys concert on Fracture next month? I hear they’ll be using some Terrans with Earth-indigenous laser instruments.
and now i can see her line with i need to make me a set of claws for percision work. as makeing her new shell to look close to female of gramms race or hybrid of her form with his race. type thing.
So her species uses manufactured bio-frames.
The questions remains though, did they “ascend” to this state and the bio-frames are based on their pre-ascension forms. Or are they naturally symbiotes that either took control of simpler yet tool capable species to develop tech…or something like (one day aliens visited out planet, we jumped to their bodies…or were collected for study, and been in space ever since).
the degree of influence is always an interesting one, you have subtle influence like what gut bacteria can do *yeah scary thing to think about they can apparently influence cravings*, or the wisp demons which inhabit your brain but can only create pulses, interpreted as whispering in your ear and feed on certain emotions like anger.
the classic battle for will from possessing demons as they have to try and over power the will. While some send the mind into a dream state or coma while they hijack the body its self.
but, I think the Goa’uld are a bit more diabolic and medically make more sense, they just bypass the consciousness all together and take control of the body’s motorskills and receive the same feedback from the senses the original inhabitant does…of course this bypass means the consciousness is still there and has become a passenger in their own body. The interesting thing was the Goa’uld weren’t even aware of this, they thought they killed the consciousness and replaced it rather than the host’s mind still being alive and aware. Not that they cared after they found out.
I imagine the Goa’uld were thrilled to learn that the host’s mind was still alive, given how they got off on dominating and torturing other creatures it must have been like Christmas to them to learn that their hosts were locked into an endless hell by them.
So if Lapha’s People “grow customised blanks” to act as their bodies… Good news Garamm, tails can be back on the menu!
He really should use this as an opportunity to show her the advantages of getting some tail.
Hey stop that. You’re not licensed to make awful puns. That’s Ro Jaws’ job.
He didn’t mean to follow Ro Jaws so closely – it was accidental tail baiting.
A tail of epic tales.
That tail has been told
We’ll need to pick it up before it starts to drag…
A tail-ored body
I really want to know how fast Maxima CAN go. We know that Halo can go Mach 16. We know that Maxima can go faster than Mach 4, but NOT Mach 33. And we know that Sydney can leave the atmosphere, but we don’t know is Sydney can achieve escape velocity, becaus Sydney’s method of flying has her own localized gravity, as opposed to Maxima, so escape velocity isnt a limiting factor for Sydney.
Mainly I want to know if Sydney is now ARCHON’s fastest flyer because that would be cool.
I am still bugged by her flight speed being disconnected from her super speed stats.
like the super speed boost you’d think would add to all movement speed including flight. It makes for an awkward limitation “I can boost my speed to extreme super speed levels, but only on the ground, not while flying”. I suppose its not unheard of like the guy who can fly but can only go so high because of how their flight works. Which really just makes me more curious about the mechanics of her flight vs her other powers.
When you say ‘her’ do you mean Sydney or Max? Because I’m assuming that you meant Sydney, but your third sentence makes no sense then about ‘I can boost my speed to extreme super speed levels, but only on the ground, not while flying’ (I’m assuming you meant the other way around).
It does make sense that Sydney can only move fast while flying, rather than on the ground though. Think of her like a vehicle. In particular, a spaceship. The Space Shuttle or an airplane can’t move as fast on the ground as it can in the air, or in space. Same for Sydney. Contacting the ground is an additional variable, I guess.:)
Maxima. I thought it was clear in the context.
Oh, okay. Then to respond, Maxima CAN boost her speed while flying as well. It’s just an additional thing on her ‘powers dial.’ Probably because one power involves a resistance against gravity, and the other does not. Whereas with Sydney, Sydney makes her own localized gravity when flying.
then her maximum flight seed should exceed mach 16 (beating Sydney’s speed) easily if she dumps all her boost stats between flight and speed…although on wanders if there is a point of diminishing returns there were more defense is needed for the resistance *fun fact you don’t see jetpack flyers flying like DBZ or Superman because of the stress that puts on the spines. the standing but leaning forward approach of Magneto while not as streamlined is much less strain on the human body.
of course friction and what not is also an issue in there.
at least short range with flight and speed boosted you’d be expecting her to *zip* about in aerial combat. Although I don’t know how well she is trained in aerial combat, we’ve only see her dive and bomb while in flight not actual mid-air combat (which has so many variables its a pain to think of the mechanics of it), probably easier to just pull a mini-Rodan with ki blast assist.
at any rate given how insanely fast she can move on the ground, applied to flying escape velocity would be a cake walk.
I love these two, I wanna see more stories about them
“FYI, escape velocity is around mach 33. Maxima can’t go that fast. She can fly out of the atmosphere quite easily though.” Makes sense. You don’t actually have to go at Escape Velocity to escape the planet’s gravity, if you’ve got a source of propulsion. Escape velocity is the speed you have to be going for pure momentum to carry you out of range. Of course, the question this raises is if she can survive without an atmosphere, because if not, leaving it becomes a bad idea.
Lapha/Garamm are now sharing a body that was formerly exclusively Garamm’s.
Will this newly created multi-sapient creature eventually ‘integrate’ into a mono-sapience resolving the conflicts and contrasts between the contrasting personas? Or can they continue to be multi-sapient indefinitely?
Or is this more a question of just whether they can continue to be multi-sapient long enough for Lapha to locate a new ‘blank’ body of her own preferred style?
It’s not a permanent bonding, like Cooter-Worm, Laph is simply ‘hitching a ride’ to ‘Anywhereelseville’
I predict it will last as long as Dave can keep thinking up rom-com / buddy cop scenarios to subject Garapha (Laramm?) to. Really wish he’d do a quick “whatever happened to” sequence with some of the minor subplots, or stick the characters in the background sometimes (on a TV newscast in the break room or something).
It’s a reimagining of The Odd Couple, where the apartment is actually Garamm’s body.
just thinking of a sketch comedy about a person and their sentient tapeworm.
or if Evil Con Carnae had been a better cartoon.
Intresting concept for a alien. I love it
An obscure movie to recommend for people interested in aliens that live inside other life forms.
The Hidden.
A fleshy parasitic alien is being pursued by a space cop, who is an energy based alien that takes a host.
(I don’t remember if that last bit is a spoiler or not, but regardless you know he’s an alien anyways)
Lapha’s body if its recovered will possibly be dead if that creature was only capturing her.
Im curious if it was only a blank…it looks like it was since sputtered out after throwing her flame.
I would bet that with the body being a blank the light of sentience has gone out but it would probably continue to live for a while. It seems like you would want the blank/body to have all of the autonomic functions. If Lapha’s blank didn’t die in the Nava’s cavity it would probably continue to function until it expired from neglect.
Harem + Lapha =????
one ‘mind’ multiple bodies, merged with a one body multi-mind ‘symbiot’?
A bit scary when I think about it.
Extra points for the phrase “Autonomy Cooption”.
I fully expect to see it in the injectable microchip EURs.
“Mach” is not a absolute indicator of speed. And especially in this case, can be highly misleading.
The Speed of Sound is highly subject to the medium it travels through.
In water Sound travels 4 times as fast and wide as in ground level air. And in diamand it can travel up to 35 times the speed of air.
Conventional Firearms are limited by the Speed of Sound in the gas they created, wich is the reason we can already see the theoretical limits – wich Railguns can easily exceed once operational.
Most planes are affected by thinner air, as they collect and push out air as reaction mass.
But Maxima has no reaction mass to expell (as far as we know) while rockets carry their own reaction mass (on top of their own Oxidiser), so air density would not affect them.
Escape velocity is also missleading, as it asumes you somehow started at ~40k km/h at ground level and have no further acceleration or deceleration by drag. Both are not asumptions that hold true for Rockets.
There have been a number of cases where Atomic bombs accelerated metal pieces upwards – and we are pretty sure that while they did reach escape velocity or close to, the air drag caused them to vaporize from heat.
Interesting character concept to roleplay someday. Possession, meh, too easy. But cooperative thingy, yea, that would be different.
Unless of course you normally hear voices in your head, then it’s just another Tuesday. lol
Roses are red
Violets are blue
I’m schizophrenic*
And so am I
(or “classic paranoid” or “MPD” depending on era.)
It shouldn’t be that hard for a body possessor to understand that creatures that can’t swap bodies around and only have the one body would be extremely possessive of said body and hate and fear anything that would usurp that in any fashion. They only have the one chassis and something happens to it they’re gone forever, no hopping to another one while waiting a new chassis to come available.
I`ve gotta say, this seems to be a clear poiont of improvement for their relationship, private and business.
And lets be clear, if it was somneone I totally trusted, and there was no active secret sharing, that sounds like a temporarily fun and useful setup.
As i see, Lapha was not the “body”, what we saw before, more like a parasite or symbiont, who take over the other body, which was taken by that “umbrivion” guy.