Grrl Power #935 – Delta mask
I was going to go on a tangent about various systems of law enforcement on today’s page, but Achilles’s “Good enough for me” isn’t going to be the end of the “Aren’t you under arrest” issue, so I’ll save that discussion for a near future page.
Instead, I’ll talk about being careful what you name incidental characters if you have a habit of promoting them to tertiary status. All of the mercenaries names were: Detla, Agmoe, Madlab, Ips, Teza, Tabe, Crimoon, Lapha, and Garamm. Their names are all jumbled up Greek alphabet letters (except for Garamm because I’m a dumbass and for some reason thought Gamma had an “r” in it? Maybe it was late when I wrote the first page his name appeared on.) Sometimes alien/fantasy names come easy to me, but usually I’m sitting around for five minutes and all I can think of are words like Glib-flnr, Gubbus, Ralnvimborb, Flob Zilm, etc. I was having trouble with the merc’s names so I went the Greek Jumble route. Partially to amuse myself, but knew it would’ve been fun if someone figured it out, not realizing I had fucked up Garamm’s name at the time. (Just add a 10% dumbass factor in the future when you think you see patterns in the comic.)
I kind of like the name Crimoon, same with Madlab and Agmoe. Lapha’s name is fine, as is Garamm’s, I guess. Detla… eh. It’s okay. It’s not Glib-flnr, but it could be something a little cooler like Zandriel or Warsyl.
More relevant to this page, I have to wonder how societies that wear masks work. I actually didn’t get the idea for this from the Mandalorian, it was way back from the 2001 Justice League cartoon. Hawkgirl never took off her mask in the first two seasons, and even jammed it back on her head once when someone knocked on her door. But then the next two seasons, and everything else I’ve ever seen an iteration of Hawkgirl in, she barely ever wears her helmet, so I guess it was just a quirk of those first two seasons. Probably no one got around to designing her face with the helmet off. (Honestly with the simplified art style they used, all the women looked identical. The series had anime face syndrome, where characters were only identifiable by their hair and costume.)
Anyway, in a society where everyone wears masks, I guess you’d have to rely a lot more heavily on fingerprints or something. That, or everyone would have to have some unique feature on their mask, and you’d have to heavily rely on social mores that people wouldn’t switch masks or duplicate someone else’s. Also, you’d run into a problem once your population hit a certain level where you’d just run out of unique mask designs, and someone would have to wear a mask with a mark right in the middle that looked like a coiled turd.
Even besides the mask issue, if a race all looked basically the same, in ways that their brains weren’t specialized to differentiate, like if Starship Trooper Bugs evolved to the point of independent sapience and started up a society that was less based on obedience to a queen and a lot of tunnel digging and instead started inventing cars and TV and stuff, but they can’t visually distinguish each other because it’s all based on scents, would their driver’s licences have scratch and sniff patches on them? Would their TV’s be smell-0-visions? Or would that evolutionary path lead them to only invent radios and no one bothers with TVs because they can’t figure out the tele-scents angle?
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I don’t think she can learn invulnerability…
Ha! Ditto :)
Though if she knew he could stare at a weapon touching his eyeball without flinching she might want to try. (early fight reference to him)
Now I’m just imagining him being in fights, and she’s constantly trying to mimic his ‘take it’ technique by throwing herself in front of every oncoming punch. (Only punches though, afterall, she knows she has to work up to bullets… until she realizes supers punch *very* hard, at which point she starts begging Sydney to ball-thwack her for hours on end.)
lol
or begging Achilles to….
Not everything has be a yes it does.
*giggles to death*
That might not be inconceivable…
The Thwackening.
Thwacka-thwacka-thwacka
I’m not trying to kink shame Detla, but this is illegal in many states and she swore an oath on her honor as a warrior not to break any laws.
It’s only illegal if the thwackee enjoys it.
To be fair he did use some takedown and grappling techniques in his fight with her, and also outsmarted her with his surprise attack. I don’t think sparring him is a waste of time either – you’re going to learn a lot about grappling someone like Achilles, who can only be beaten by outgrappling him – no striking, no tiring him out, no dirty tricks.
But yeah, the concept is flawed. Being beaten doesn’t mean your opponent has an advantage in skill or technique, sometimes you just get overwhelmed by physical advantage. This is already true for real humans, it will be doubly true with the wide range of species Detla is likely to encounter, and it’s triply true when it comes to superpowers.
Yup a sparring partner you cannot break accidentally would be insane for grappling training my buddy who does BJJ read this comic and that was the first thing he thought of .. right after the obligatory ‘hurhur can’t learn invulnerability’
But to be fair, on a world where everyone follows this ‘shadow’ rule, military size advantages wouldn’t last long. Either enemy militaries would disappear in no-time as the militaries balance out, or a weaker & less tactical military would only have one skirmish and its over.
I also see that militaries would have very low death rates (focusing on restraint rather than kill), because you want them fighting for you after. In fact, on a world like that, militaries that kill people would be at a distinct disadvantage (not to mention the public outcry from both sides if you actually *killed* someone in a scenario like that.) At which point military deaths would become more rare and more enaging when they happen.
The only difficulty I see with such a society existing is actually *getting into* a scenario like that; because until that point, it’d be pretty self-sustaining.
And, actually, I could see it getting into that scenario pretty easy. Just start with an olympics, and the first two nations that look at eachother and say, “Whoever’s side wins the most medals wins our conflict.” instead of the typical conflict. I can see it easily snowballing from there.
For most of history, the goal in war was to have the lowest death rate. Soldiers took a lot of resources to train, and in many cases they were the farmers growing food to survive on both sides. In renaissance Italy, for example, they paid mercenaries called Condotierri to make battle lines and intimidate other lords, swapping territories without doing much in the way of actual fighting and bloodshed.
If you do that you would probably eventually get to the STOS episode “A taste of Armageddon” where its just a math problem and this many people have to die after each simulated attack.
That was pretty much the whole premises behind the 1975 movie “Rollerball.” The game itself (there’s a wikipedia entry for it, including basic rules) was a substitute for actual war; it could get pretty brutal.
Yeah, unfortunately most of his technique is “nothing can hurt me”.
He won specifically with a grapple and choking her out. Anyone with the proper amount of strength and stamina could have done it. The advantage of invulnerability just made it safe and painless for him to try.
She may have ulterior motives. I mean Achilles is rather handsome.
It is not inconceivable.
in the second to last panel she is definitely checking his ass.
The guard, too.
All of you stop ogling my husbando….
*jealous noises*
Welp. Now he has a personal sidekick for life.
“Until I have mastered the techniques you used”
– Being invulnerable? You are going to be here for a while.
Perhaps Achilles knows more about the source of his invulnerability than he lets on?
Or he’s just being a troll for the hell of it. He has been shown to have some troll tendencies
Or possibly with his technique being invulnerability with maybe a touch more strength than the average person mostly due to he obviously at least keeps up his figure in exercise, he’s just mentally saying “Huh. I have someone who wants to owe me something. that’s a switch”
He doesn’t keep up his figure in exercise. He’s built because he’s a super and the invulnerability keeps it that way. He can’t get flabby because he can’t change anymore from when his powers activated.
Achilles actually has (low) superhuman strength because he can apply the entire strength of his muscles without having to worry about damaging himself.
Also, as a super, he gets “perfect physique” for free, so he doesn’t even need to hit the gym.
If Achilles “doesn’t even need to hit the gym”, what is he actually even doing in the swimming pool at the start of this scene? He’s not swimming laps to train his body, and he doesn’t seem to have been hanging out with anyone else. Splashing around on your own can be kind of fun, I guess, though it doesn’t really seem like Achilles is the sort of person who would be able to float in the water and meditate for very long without getting bored.
He could be working at his technique, or body coordination in general, or maybe he just likes swimming laps to relax. Unlike you, I absolutely think Achilles is the kind of person who doesn’t get bored meditating, considering his general nonchalance.
Any other super could be building up their body further – we know Maxima did that, but I think Achilles’ shape is actually locked in.
Meditation could be a pretty good skill to build up when the only obvious way to take you out involves burying you under something…
or good old fashioned mind control.
It is. You gain muscle by causing micro tears during exercise. The muscle then grows, filling the tear with more muscle. And since he cannot be damaged he has no way of increasing his muscle mass.
Did you ever see the Bruce Willis movie Unbreakable? I think Dave might be making a nod here. He can’t be physically hurt. Drowning? Practicing his swimming might be important.
Achilles has been buried for extended periods of time, I doubt he can even drown. It might be pretty uncomfortable though. Even if he doesn’t experience it as painful, coughing up lungfuls of water can’t be much fun.
Related to the ideas about meditation, I wonder how Achilles handled being buried alive the first time it happened.
Well, the first few minutes, he probably panicked a lot. Then he was probably calm for a longer period of time before a second wave of panic set in.
Eventually, he learned to meditate really well.
Yet another reason that Achilles probably has such a chill way of going through life.
Possibly, that was what triggered his Breakthrough as a Super. (I don’t think it’s clear yet what the mix is between ‘born’ and ‘made’ Supers, but we have seen both.) Which would be an extra dose of scary, if he only realised that he wasn’t going to die from that situation part-way through it.
According to his character profile, he cannot suffocate or starve
From the cast page “Achilles can’t be poisoned, suffocated, starved, irradiated, crushed, cut, pierced, burned, frozen or injured by any method yet discovered.”
…
Swimming is a skill you can improve?
Also, water splashy fun time?
Not everything is about minmaxing!
Yes, most of us just flail about but there is a matter of effective technique. I would agree with splashy fun time though. Achilles is an ’80’s kind of guy. He is from a time when hanging out around the pool and looking cool was a thing.
…when exactly did hanging out at the pool stop being a cool thing. *sad Gen X eyes*
When skin cancer and video games happened. *sad Boomer eyes* I gotta say though, I enjoyed hanging out at the pool, listening to Wings and Elton John and watching the pretty girls.
Around about this time last year?
Too soon.
“Mouth Feel”
As far as she’s concerned, that’s not inconceivable…
You keep using that word…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wujVMIYzYXg
Maybe you just need to be dipped in the river Styx
Now I want to know who chose her clothing for her?
Not complaining as such but …
“The other females in this building are wearing camouflaged trousers. Why was I given these impractically short shorts?”
Also of note, what appears to be a highly trained warrior from a warrior culture tromping around in high heels (that’s my euphemism today for fuck-me pumps). I mean, it adds a level of challenge, and a warrior must be rady to fight no matter what garments they are wearing. Still seems an excessive handicap.
She’s self-conscious about being short and so wears heels to help with that.
Maybe she’s built subtly different from a human and wedge heels are actually more comfortable for her than flat heeled shoes would be.
That is assuming she has human feet. It is entirely possible her shoes are simply a holographic disguise for whatever she ACTUALLY has on her feet. And… the person who chose her shirt (Dabbler?) clearly picked out the shoes as well.
Maybe she’s not really there to learn combat techniques.
It’s too early to tell why, but it’s not inconceivable…
Considering that Achilles works best by grappling, that’s probably what he’s going to teach her. It’s not inconceivable that they’ll both enjoy it.
I think Max is going to regret assigning the job to Dabbler while distracted elsewhere.
The commentary on masks reminded me about General Grievous from Star Wars. His people were like that and had unique masks.
In the Malazan novels by Steven Erikson and Ian Esslemont, there’s a population known as the Segulah, of which two things are widely known — they’re always masked, and they’re extremely skilled with their swords. The masks are a symbol of rank, and the fewer markings on the mask, the higher the rank… so if you see one with a pure white mask, you’re facing Number One, almost certainly the greatest swordsman in the universe.
Also in ‘Have Space Suit, Will Travel, (And more recently, The Expanse, though the show doesn’t show it), Spacers are described as painting their hardshells uniquely, some even to the level of gallery art, to differentiate themselves.
It’s possible that she has distinguishing features only visible by InfraRed vision.
(Blood vessel patterns in human faces was once considered a viable alternative to retina scans and other markers since blood vessels doesn’t normally shift around. They can change if you happen to get frostbite, though… )
The texture of the curls in her horns may be unique to her.
I’m not sure, but I have a feeling that the t-shirt contradicts her blue skin, pointy ears and horns.
Well, it doesn’t say it s a good human costume.
Actually, I think it’s a very good disguise: she’s disguised herself as a human who’s dressed up like an alien with a really bad human disguise.
I think I actually saw someone wearing a shirt like that at a con. Though, unfortunately, he didn’t seem to wear it nearly so well.
It doesn’t contradict it. It specifically says she’s actually an alien! :)
It’s the ultimate proof that she’s human. Only a human would wear a t-shirt boldly proclaiming themselves to be an alien.
I’m guessing in a mask based culture that other ID types are more prevalent. Given interstellar travel, I’m betting genetic ID is more standard than physical features since their are obviously ways to modify those just in what we’ve been introduced to so far.
As I understand it, genetic ID can already be duplicated by happenstance, and it is likely that it can be spoofed in the near future.
Identical twins have different fingerprints, though.
I could see using retro-viral gene-therapy techniques to alter the DNA in the skin on the palm of your hand, in order to pass as someone else, or in order to hide. If you did that, or even changed out the DNA for your whole dermis, you might still get caught using the smart pot in a train station however.
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Genetic ID works *far* better than fingerprints. While it’s possible to improve fingerprinting technology by taking samples at more places, there are limits. I’ve heard that there have been multiple pairs of individuals whose finger prints at that moment were closer matches to each other than they were to either of their past fingerprints. Of course, they’re probably not stable in that fashion. The only thing there is fingerprints aren’t that unique.
Of course, that said, if you tie fingerprints to genetic IDs to form a single bio-factor ID, that would be a more unique match than just genetic ID alone.
Maybe Deltas species has a form of DNA scanner that allowes em to identify people with a rather simple scan? Or implanted microchips with their ID?
This means Detla will be around for a long time, or very short, since I suspect most of Achilles’ techniques hinge on his indestructability. So while it would probably be easy to learn his various grapples, they can’t be used with the same kind of efficiency.
@DaveB; Weren’t you thinking of the Garam Masala spice blend when you came up with the name Garamm?
I was actually assuming it’s because several of the names are basically greek alphabet letters, spelled differently
Lapha = Alpha
Garamm = Gamma
Detla = Delta
I’m wondering what which ones were the ‘close to Beta’ and ‘close to Epsilon.’ :)
Also, Lapha probably has NO sense of humor, and Madlab is likely the calmest, most reasoned alien you’re ever likely to meet.
Crimoon, on the other hand, probably has a history of wearing pants that don’t fit and don’t have the tail-fly, and that end up supporting his tail like a denim hammock. You can’t unsee it.
P.S. back-arrow is broken on 880. Especially relevant, as 879 is the grapple.
Lapha is also the captain. The leader of the crew. The boss. Ie, the … alpha :)
It seems to work fine for me.
Well, it works now, but when I was skipping back through the archive, trying to match up the greke aphlateb names to the alien mercenaries, it didn’t work for me.
Maybe he fixed it. Maybe my browser loaded the page subtly wrong, and persisted with the error on refreshes. That does happen sometimes.
Annnd I just read DaveB’s blurb and yes…. it was just mixing up stuff in greek alphabet letters :)
Ha, called it.
And I would totally read a comic about Ralnvimborb.
I believe Ralnvimborb is a Hobbit version of kimchee, made with slightly hallucinogenic ‘leaf’
Who says that they’ll actually have a biometric ID? Plenty of societies past and current operate on the basis of introductions: You know me and trust me to some degree, I know him, I introduce you to him and now you know him too. If in the future you have some trouble identifying him, you come back to me. If you want to travel a long distance, you get a difficult-to-forge letter identifying you from some high-ranking person. (that’s what passports originally were)
Silly Question Time.
Wouldn’t Detla have been issued a Visitor’s Pass on entry to Archon? And if not, why not?
Probably because she was a prisoner at that time, only now she is going be allowed to come and go as her pass allows (ie no more security shadow)
And Archon is going to give an alien mercenary that attacked Earth limited free reign in their HQ and possibly access to classified material based an her oath that she will behave? Not buying it.
Having an official pass does not necessarily mean more access. We have contactless smartcards that can be used as access cards, but they can also be used as ‘detect if this person approaches’ carts. So long as Detla thinks it’s about granting access rather than tracking her, she’s more likely to actually keep it on her person.
Of course, in a sense, it would be granting her access, as I would expect people to not be amused if they found she had left it somewhere in an effort to get somewhere in Archon without being tracked.
Kinda like what Daphne does when she goes off for touch of douching?
Rationalizing: She had a temporary pass and the guard was sent with her to walk her up to Achilles. When he accepted he as apprentice, he had to get her a more permanent pass.
It doesn’t look as though she’s actually entered the building yet, until the end of this page. Achilles started out in the pool last page, but Detla was waiting outside the front doors for him to come to her.
Also possible that the mask wearing societies have extra means of identification – scent, or voice, or electromagnetic field.
But the idea of a society where personal identity isn’t important is pretty nifty.
Okay I was…. pretty close on my guess actually on why she was allowed to be freed.
Dave should keep a little notebook for names. Or a page in a note-taking app on his phone. Then, whenever he comes up with a name he might want to use in the future, he can write it down immediately so he doesn’t forget it. Then, when he needs a name, he can just pick one off the list he has prepared.
This is a technique I heard of from a different author. (I can’t remember who…)
Yup, been doing that for years now.
Of course, all the good names are already earmarked for characters I plan on having bigger roles from the start.
Several people will be disappointed by the implication that the alphabet squad are not destined for big roles.
He said bigger roles, which means there is still hope for them to have further big roles (or even some big rolls, if they are not allergic to wheat)
Detla = Delta
Agmoe = Omega
Madlab = Lambda
Ips = Psi
Teza = Zeta
Tabe = Beta
Crimoon = Omicron
Lapha = Alpha
Garamm = Gamma (r) :)
There are a few other anagrams of Greek letters that could work:
Atio – chara design inspired by Assassin’s Creed
Magis – gee, I wonder what their specialty is
Tae – a bit cutesy for a merc, but that’s the beauty of it
Spiloen and Spiloun – twins straight outta Splatoon
Thate
Pakap
Ohr
Atu
And the Consonant sextuplets – Um, Un, Ip, Ix, Hip, and Hic.
Hetta would be a good name
> Magis – gee, I wonder what their specialty is
This Mag Is. *cleans, quality checks, and loads mag in record time.* (Unfortunately, he can’t shoot worth $#!t.)
It is always interesting trying to imagine how different species could evolve differently from us, for example, imagine a race with no sight but a bat-like sonar sense. How would they science develop without access to i.e. microscopes and telescopes? Would they even be able of even try to go into space if they’d never know there is something up there?
I guess this goes back to one of Dabbler’s first expositions on what makes successful… people… in any planetary civilisation. We must start with a powerful brain, simply to figure out ways of avoiding the lower beasts so we can later exploit them for whatever: riding, milking, shearing the (soft) fur for clothing, eating their flesh, whatever.
Some wonderful ideas unfortunately lead to diminshed brain capacity, for example the generation of electricity, or echo-location… These take needed resources away from brain development and growth. If you have non-cerebral super powers, you are stuck with hoping the other beasts won’t evolve ways of by-passing them.
It matters not what specialities they have, those specialities will absolutely prevent the use of imagination to work out why making friends with apex predators will pay off bigly to both sides, as we did with canids; or how to deal with climate change due to whatever geological disaster. So the absense of eyes condemns the species to subsistence on leaves and fruits. It is my personal belief that (unlike the Jenkinsverse) the only successful aspirants to intellectual supremacy on a planet will be descendants of tree-dwelling apes. The Gaoians speak to the cutesy factor in us readers, but regardless of however the Hierarchy modified the original raccoonish carnivores, the Gaoians will forever struggle to achieve the intellectual vision of bipedal tool-making humanoids.
My general thoughts for “what works” and “what doesn’t” would be to look at what traits evolved in parallel. Evolution patterns so useful and so efficient that they evolved more than one. You can bet any dominant species is going to have most, if not all, of the parallel evolving traits. Afterall, they’re the dominant species for a reason, and non-dominant species don’t have a chance when there’s a dominant species. (Our closest contender is probably the great apes or the racoons, and the former is almost extinct and the latter is relegated to digging through our trash.)
Some of the things that that evolved in parallel in A-tier species:
Eyes. NOT evolving eyes is downright silly unless your planet doesn’t have light. (Tunnels? Super-thick atmosphere? Rogue planet without star?) Any such species from such a location would be an extremeophile though, which means a lot more than just being blind will be a stand-out trait of the species.
Bipedal motion. Humans got this. Chimps sometimes do. All the birds do. Kangaroos. etc. Despite it being harder than quadraped, it has obvious advantages (such as freed up limbs for fine manipuation.)
Fine manipulators. Hominids have these (our hands). Octopi have these (tentacles). Plenty of birds have these (it’s how they hold onto branches and prey; some even figure out basic tool use). The list goes on.
Things you *won’t* see except is really rare or bizarre world styles:
Plant people. Seriously, getting to A-tier is insane when your hereditary is immobile.
Psychic slug parasites? Fine manipulators? Bipedal? It’s not happening. At best they would be a parasite an actual dominant species would eliminate far before ascending to the stars. (Now a symbiote is a different matter. A symbiosis of two species may be able to achieve planetary dominance where alone both would fail.
And then, i the other end, you can’t evolve *too* many useful traits, because you need to develop tool use at some point, and natural talents that can’t be matched easily means being unlikely to try. For example, a winged dominant species would probably never invent mechanical flight, which means never getting space travel.
And also there’s limitations. A water-breathing species is going to face severe limitations to actually leaving their planet due to added payload weight for life support.
I personally recommend: If you’re going to have aliens, best to read up some bits on xenobiology. (There’s actually real study on the topic, even if it’s generally hypothetical.)
That said, having some excuse for everything to just be humanoid (an ancient species rewriting other species in their own image), is a really useful out of an otherwise complex scenario.
That mostly makes sense. You can add that they’ll use carbon-based chemistry fuelled by oxygen and mediated in aqueous solution, as that’s the strongest combination of common elements, ease of reaction, and a diverse but stable molecular catalogue. I’d widen the ‘bipedal motion’ constraint to ‘has non-locomotory limbs specialised for manipulation’ though, to cover centaur-like forms.
In our region of space. Recent physics discoveries regarding dark matter imply the universe’s physics may be far more varied than we first expected. It remains theoretical for now.
Still, humans like to propose that “the way of Earth is the way of the Universe” but that’s just geocentric theory for the 21st century.
Agreed, we’re limited to ‘the universe as we know it’ – whether that be completely consistent, has special cases we don’t yet know about, or we’re one of those special cases. But without good evidence to support the existence of said special cases, it’s reasonable to assume that there aren’t any. And until we know how they differ, we can’t make any meaningful predictions about whether those different conditions would lead to differing outcomes.
That’s because the only plants we know are an Earth speciation. Earth plants’ cellular structure is antithetical to rapid movement. Some plants worked around this limitation with neat mechanisms like the Venus Flytrap – but it’s still not mobile. Being a rooted A-species becomes a far more likely prospect if a plant-type organism were to evolve from a cellular structure whose cellular attributes provide a clearer route to dexterity.
Earth plants evolved away from such attributes due to low energy cost and high reproduction being the primary drivers of evolution in the face of far more mobile predators. Imagine a world where the animal-plant divide was blurred or perhaps there was no such divide. Imagine a different world where plants attacked back; where the soil was rich enough to support plants far more powerful than mobile creatures. There exist so many possible combinations of life-sustaining conditions. Earth represents only one.
“Winged dominant” might go the balloon/blimp/dirigible route, as aerial way-stations. Rocket-assist (unlikely to be flaming exhaust for personal use, initially) for ranged combat and helping the weak/crippled reach way-stations. From there, it’s a few cognitive jumps to orbital way-stations.
“Apes” is a far too specific. Just because humans got there first, does not mean that any number of other competitors would not have gotten there eventually.
The key is getting smart enough that cultural factors drive evolution. Once that happens, it eventually gets to “whatever we really want, we will create.”
Read the “Star Carrier” series. They deal with a species that “sees” through sound. And they do it well.
Microscopes at least should be possible for a species using ultrasonics.
But they won’t be able to develop it without first developing electronics and probably a bit of material science.
Imagine a box they stick their head or other sense organ into, then ‘blast’ the inside with ultrasonics, the box nulls the sound, and instead returns an artificial echo.
Paul Kidd has a race using echolocation in his book ‘Earth-Kin'(just out), but they live on a planet with a methane atmosphere and very low temperatures. They’re barely past stone age development, though. No heat to shape metal, but they have some chemistry.
Sooner or later, even without sight, they’d have to wonder where meteors come from. They’d be doing geology and finding evidence of gigantic detonations coinciding with mass extinctions. They’d be finding whatever equivalent of the ‘iridium layer’ that, for us, marks the K/T impactor. They’d have to wonder what drives tides and why the seasons turn.
At some point, after the theories start getting sufficiently intense, somebody will devise a general-purpose detector in an experiment whose goal is to answer these questions; a way to detect light and capture images (Maybe their equivalent of photographic film develops a different texture in the exposed areas or something). And then they’d discover the sun and the moon, and everything’s uphill from there.
I”m not sure how much Achilles can teacher her,manly because he wins his fights by being invincible. I mean,not even max can actually beat him in a fight
Max can just grab a steel bar and twist it around him, tying him up. Or collapse a wall on him (actually seen on page). Or yeet him into orbit.
I’m bothered that I’m bothered by the Subway measurement of a foot, with 5’5″ being halfway to 6′ :)
Um. Wat?
The comic clearly shows Archon is using a 10″ long foot, with 5’5″ being the halfway point between 5′ and 6′. The question is whether the world in general is on the same measurement scale or not. Also, is the foot length the same as what we are used to, or is the inch length? Based on height of the main cast, I am guessing the foot is supposed to be the same.
Clearly, the United States military has gone with decimal metric “feet”, each divided into ten “inches”.
5’5″ is not halfway to 6′. 5-1/2″ is halfway to 12″… according to Subway.
Well I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed.
Yeah, kind of weird that in the Grrlpower universe there are only ten inches in a foot. Go to the bottom and count them out and you get ten. Tis odd I agree.
That’s why we in The Great Southern Land decided to completely forget about Imperial Measure when we went Decimal. (It’s called Immersive Learning.) Now we have fluency in Decimal, we can use Imperial in casual conversation without coming unglued. Of course, we do retain Cricket as one of our Elite Sports, so it is ncessary to understand why “20.1168” does not have quite the same satisfying impact as “22” when describing the length of the pitch.
Bah, Imperial sucks wombat vomit!
Have always found Metric easier to understand (blame that largely on watching WWF, back when characters came from “Parts Unknown”)
““20.1168” does not have quite the same satisfying impact as “22” when describing the length of the pitch.”
Just keep it simple, the length of a cricket pitch is precisely 1 chain.
Can’t speak to the authenticity of decimal feet on a mugshot scale, but my bank has a height sticker by the exit marked almost identically. It’s really a very reasonable way to mark ‘half’ without having to adjust font height/layout or mess with Unicode characters for ‘1/2’ (½) which some printing equipment can’t handle. Engineering with Imperial units regularly uses 1/10th or 1/100ths of a foot. Land surveying being the most prominent example I can think of, that’s been the norm for decades, since even before the abandonment of ‘rods’ and ‘chains’ as a unit.
Someday US engineers will overthrow the government just so we can fix stupid legacy measurements and enforce the 1970s federal act directing that we adopt the metric system. I predict the revolution will start with aerospace engineers.
It’s uh… decimal. >cough<
On your mask sub-point, that also assumes we’re all using the same piece of the visual spectrum and they don’t have something like unique patterning that’s only seen in infrared or ultraviolet. Hell, might even use unique sound signatures if their hearing was good enough.
It also assumes that faces are distinct in her species, or that she doesn’t have a secondary sexual characteristic hidden behind her mask that is considered rude to display.
Meanwhile, she’s confused as to why everyone keeps covering their chests — how can they possibly tell each other apart?
Your name… you have a tendency of killing time?
The problem with killing time is it is fluid and very squiggly… Ultimately it always gets away from me, then I lose track of it.
Perhaps not even secondary; not everybody keeps their genitals in the same place. I guess it would be a step closer to loving someone for their mind?
And then there’s also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NPw3WvpRL8…
If she’s honourable enough that her word is her parole, then she’s presumably honourable enough to not lie about heR name. Thus IDs are not necessary in her society.
Orko from the He Man cartoon was from a masked society.
I had to use find on page and you are the only other person to make this comparison.
Regarding alien names, I can recommend a pronouncable password generator like pwgen(1) (Unix specific):
pwgen -A0 10 10
aibiashoht oechahlaov iexairaish foozohfuux vuenuquuma iuthicohth quoofieghu
aephoubepe ohmaegioba eigeeshain aekahphoot authaecieb uichoophai ichiekieva
pwgen -A0 42 1
quuucheluxoozapiewiepuejuoquiepheexahkifah
Use to do that with an Amiga600HD, it came with a text-to-voice program and would just enter random letters and see if it could pronounce it as a whole (rather than each letter separately)
He already had an unpronounceable alien name.
The Fleurian’s name. The one that’s a smell.
And even spelling it was unpronounceable, even though we only got one ‘letter’ for spelling it. Clur – the letter that represents the scent of slightly under-ripe Kovo nuts, that have been moistened with summer rain, then left out in the sun.
i really want her shirt
You and I both.
You and you both. I just want that waistline.
Still want those boots
All of the above, plus the skin & ears.
Erotic Eyelashes
My take is that Achilles can’t simply tell someone like her that he has the superpower of invulnerability, not that the press conference early on in the series didn’t already announce that to the world.
For now, he’s just waiting for a chance to bring Max into this discussion so that they can figure out what to do with her. Any decision regarding Detla’s training will be up to Max and possibly others.
He “displayed” it and hiss ass at the demonstration. When Max nuked the tank. And all Achilles lost in the explosion was the the back side of his clothes. And his marshmallows.
There was an episode of Star Trek TNG called “Masks” where the crew encountered an archive from a lost civilization that relied heavily on masks and other iconography. Apparently that civilization downloaded their entire culture into this space library, which then downloaded the personalities of all those people into Data’s brain. The Rulers of the civilization, Masaka and Korgano, each had masks with their own symbol, and the peasants wore plates with icons unique to them, and appeared to have their leader’s symbol branded on their forhead. When Picard tried to confront Masaka, she wouldn’t even acknowledge his existence until he put on the mask of Korgano.
I imagine that in any society that uses masks on a cultural basis, there must be a very good reason for it. Maybe you used to be one of Masaka’s devout, but decided to lead a revolution and so you had to replace her symbol with yours. I like the idea that the mask represents your station and identity to the point that the person underneath becomes less important than the facade. Then, like the Grey Fox of Cyrodil or the Dread Pirate Roberts, even after you’re gone someone can still carry on the legend.
If Detla wears a mask for everything, and her people randomly switch sides from battle to battle, it could be because her culture view individuals as meaningless until they prove themselves in some way. She has to earn her symbol before she could ever be expect others to rally behind it. Similarly, if she only shows her face to her mate, it could be taken as a sign of trust, openness, and a willingness to accept vulnerability. I’d be curious if her mask is generic to people of her station, or if it represents her personally. Does she make it herself, or is it the same one everyone else at her rank in society wears. If it’s generic, does she adorn it with symbols of her victories like medals on a general, or does she trade it out for a new one when she gets a promotion? What happens if you steal someone’s mask? Is there a way to prevent identity theft, or are you forever shamed like some kind of Space Luchador?
that sounds the same as a culture that uses flags, shields, and badges with symbolism on them. You put pins, hearts, stripes, and so on to proclaim which nation you serve, your job and rank within that nation and so on.
the mask thing isn’t too far off from helmets,
it just gets weird when you expand this concept to the entire civilian population, but its not as far fetched as it seems.
Some species of social wasps can tell nestmates apart by facial features, and not just by smell; it’s thought that individuals mainly use smell to distinguish nestmates and non-nestmates in incidental encounters such as when multiple nests’ foragers happen on the same resource at the same time, and on the nest rely strongly on facial recognition – which makes sense given that nestmates will mostly smell about the same. It varies by species, and is seen more often in those where a nest will likely have an association of reproductive foundresses rather than just the one, and consequently a more complex social hierarchy in which quickly and accurately knowing who’s who is likely to count for more. But it definitely is known to happen!
Granted that Starship Troopers isn’t much interested in ethology and the “Bug” species is consequently all over the place, but if we’re going to talk about works not created by Dutchmen with trauma to work out, it’s very reasonable to imagine that members of an individually sapient arthropod species would be able to tell one another apart by sight as well as olfaction.
You know, I wrote a series of fanfics based on Star Wars where I created a race of sentient insects that did just that. Their communication was based on a form of basic telepathy mixed with scents. They looked horrific, but they were actually quite nice as long as you didn’t make them angry and even then? They TRIED to act civilized. That didn’t always work out, so they made a lot of friends of dangerous people.
One word came to mind to describe Detla as I was reading her dialogue: Forthright.
But she could also be forthwrong. The two can be surprisingly hard to tell apart. In our duplicitous society, we frequently guess that anyone who is being forthright is actually being forthwrong, because so much of the time, we encounter forthwrong people more frequently.
For example, the vast majority of salesmen and marketers are forthwrong, giving misleading or even blatantly wrong information about their products to make sales. What do those of us who are actually forthright do to compete with that? Don’t tell me, because the forthwrong people will read it and start doing that, too, so they can be more convincingly forthwrong.
They will then go on to prove that black is white, and get themselves killed at the next zebra crossing.
Damn you, babel fish.
That one was enough to make God disappear in a puff of logic.
The ancient samurai followed the bushido code. Used car salesmen and others of that ilk follow the far less honorable bullshido code.
Used car salesmen follow the bullshito code.
I did not expect that response to “how likely is that?”
It most stories it’s either a flat no(and then becomes yes), a yes from the start, a flat no that stays no, or it’s never brought up until it happens in the final acts of the plot.
… I now realize I know a disturbing amount of series’ that feature this concept.
As Achilles himself lampshaded, it is a convenient storytelling pretext to write a love story that taps into the belligerent sexual tension trope. As it concerns Mask Lady’s answer it actually makes sense considering the little we know about her no-nonsense, honorable mindset. Her humanoid species seems close enough to human she may find a super’s perfect physique attractive, they share broadly similar callings in life, and she admires Achilles as better than her in something she greatly values. Too early to tell if it ever gets fulfilled, but some potential exists, and she is forthright in telling it so.
“Not inconceivable” can be interpreted as “Yes, eventually, unless you really blow it or I find out that you are not sufficiently honorable.”
It can also be interpreted as, “Probably not, but you are attractive and may become more so with familiarity.”
Nearly identical exchange to what Lapha said to Garamm when he brought it up. Not saying yes, just that so far it’s not off the table in the future.
Dear David: If you want better names for your characters, please hire me. I’m a specialist in this field and I’ll work for cheap.
I don’t recall Achilles having any specific fighting techniques Detla could learn. He relies primarily on his invulnerability and improvises as he goes along. I remember in the Restaurant Fight, after he stopped her sword with his eyeball, Heavenly Sword pulled a Judo move on him, dropped him on his ass and cut loose a building wall to fall on him; with no effect of course.
That was back in the day, Achilles has been doing some grappling training since, and successfully employed it against Detla, choking her out (using his invulnerability only to defend against getting sliced to pieces by her sword.)
Here is the link to the fight between them. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-879-immovable-grapple/
I’d say Achilles’ moves aren’t bad, but they wouldn’t work if he wasn’t invulnerable.
If he weren’t invulnerable, he wouldn’t have been conversing with her and letting her try to get out of the grapple, he would have just straightaway choked her out.
It depends on if an alien species even has fingerprints. A masked society might work like the movie Gattica, where everything seems to revolve around instant DNA samples from gaining building access to dating, or Minority Report, where even billboards have long range retina scanners to determine passerby’s identities to tailor the ads to them.
Well yeah, as others have pointed out Achilles invulnerability, I’m thinking she’s only going to go so far training with him. I’ll bet a doughnut that when she catches sight of Math working out or better yet in a sparring match with one of the ‘invulnerables’, she’s gonna have a orgasm. Math being such a horn dog and Detla being a hottie in search of a martial arts master conjures forth all kinds of hentai teacher – student situations. Regarding Math’s sparring opponents, can you imagine a better place for him than Arc? I mean he’s got at least three invulnerables he can go all out with and not be concerned with hurting, much less killing them.
> I mean he’s got at least three invulnerables he can go all out with and not be concerned with hurting, much less killing them.
As a martial artist (only green belt though) I can honestly say an invulnerable person would be an amazing sparring partner that would do a lot to improve my skills (but a horrible opponent).
Detla or is that Delta, it is spelled both ways in the chapter title.
“Grrl Power #935 – Delta mask
By DaveB on April 12, 2021 at 5:00 am
Chapter: Main Story
Characters: achilles, detla”
*****
She will have a great deal of trouble honoring that vow not to break anymore laws of the nation. If the laws of the Earth where Archon exists are anything like ours, in some cases you can break a law while following the law. I think they do this on purpose. At least when a federal law contradicts a state law the federal law will preempt the state law, but there are cases where state or federal laws contradict other state or federal laws.
To anyone who doubts this, just do a quick search for “three felonies per day”. Dr. Floyd Ferris would be proud.
Or look at the current fiasco with red states trying to ban voting in various ways.
Blue states are doing the same thing in reverse; import illegals, let them vote, overpower legitimate voters. We need to stop focusing on one side and condemn BOTH parties for this bullshit.
Don’t post dumbass conspiracy shit here. This isn’t FaceBook.
Sorry, I forgot to post the scientific paper that is my source:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261379414000973
You people are a fucking joke. Defend actual conspiracy theories but kick the guy out citing science.
Now I’m actually gone. By the way, fuck you.
Believe she meant that she would not intentionally break any more Dirt Laws, at least not the Death Penalty ones (except for the hidden ones that very few know about, and most break regularly, or at least once)
Dave’s setting is a lot more reasonable than ours, in a lot of ways (there’s a fresh incident in the news about an Army Lieutenant suing some cops for… well, basically the only reason he’s still alive is he drove to a gas station with security cameras). And in such a reasonable society, a fugitive who is coming in peacefully and expressing a willingness to cooperate warrants a lot more leeway than one who had to be brought in despite their resistance. She’s saying, “I was misled and deceived into breaking your laws, and I wish to cooperate peacefully now that I know the truth.” That gets you a lot of leeway with authority figures who aren’t insecure or drunk on their own power.
Never knew security cameras had microphones, most SC’s are grainy colour at best (those that aren’t still grainy black and white that is), and certainly not found in a gas station
The ones outside my office have microphones, motion sensors, night vision and are in color. And I honestly didnt pay much for them. You might be thinking of really old security cameras, or really cheap ones? Simplisafe, adt and nest all sell very good SCs from what I’ve seen.
When I was researching them 2 years ago, most common security cams did not record sound.
I have some 3 year old wireless ones that were some of the cheapest I could find – they have 2-way sound, full color, night vision, motion sensor activation, and are waterproof. And that’s just ones I got on principle for my house, if it had been for a business I would’ve gone with something fancier.
The tech itself is quite affordable these days for a small system, it’s the storage, software, backup, and name brand that get expensive. Eliminating audio (or any other sensor) from the entire stack can shave a lot of money off the total package when you start installing and monitoring dozens of devices though, which is why they still offer the soundless and b&w ones. Especially in full-site monitoring situations, say an entire parking lot or an atrium, where people are far enough away that the sound would be useless.
Nothing wrong the name ‘Detla’, for all we know, it could mean “She Who Squints In The Morning Light”
That reminds me of Babylon 5: Legend of the Rangers. One of the Rangers was a huge alien called a Drazi and his name was Tirk. When he net another Drazi on a mission, he told the other Drazi his name. Apparently it was a very unusual Drazi name and the other Drazi mentioned that.
Tirk PROUDLY replied, “My mother created it for me. It means “Don’t touch me, I’m not having another child with you, ever.””
The other Drazi, notably impressed, said “That is a lot of meaning for such a short name! Your family must be very proud of you!”
Aliens can be hilarious.:)
I wonder if Tirk was the Taptain of his space vessel
1) That’s wessel, not vessel.
2) Wrong scifi franchise. :)
I wonder what Maxima or Arianna will make of this!?
And what efforts should be made so Delta can train under Achilles???
I doubt that Maxima does not already know that she was released and why.
Even money says she already signed off, hoping to further expand the team’s combat training.
I would bet that Detla would be done with Achilles fairly quickly, at least in terms of training, for the reasons discussed throughout the comments. I would enjoy watching her run into Math. Once you get past his horndoggery he is one of the few actual skill based characters.
Aside from hoping to recruit her, why would Max or Arianna want Detla to have that information?
Detla’s oath implies that she has had some interaction with at least some sort of authorities following the incident. It is difficult to imagine the local constabulary turning her loose without at least notifying Archon. I could foresee a plotline where Detla hangs out with the Archon team and finds it a good fit. An alien with a strong warrior ethic could be a good contrast to some of the more chaotic characters.
Um, the Archon team is some sort of authority. I expect that either she managed to also convince whomever was in charge of processing the aliens after they got them back to HQ, or she managed to wander off without attracting attention – possibly by not going for any secured areas or perceived exits. (Where she *is* would be an exit for many supers, but she’s not a super so it’s hard to say.)
The last time that we saw Detla before her appearance poolside she had been rendered unconscious by Achilles. It seems likely that she is in Archon custody. Archon may believe her story to the degree that she can wander around a bit but isn’t allowed to leave the grounds.
Archon were the ones who ‘captured’ her in the first place, they got distracted by Maxi fighting Henchie so left Raymos and Cora to watch over her (and the other space mercenaries) until Cora got that call from Sydney