Grrl Power #938 – Fast friends in high places
Hmm, take the stairs up one floor to the roof which you then intend to jump off, or just take the elevator down three floors? You have to admit, Anvil is thinking like a super.
I imagine most women, and black women especially would like to have a hairstylist with super speed. Or at least someone that can speed up chemical reactions. (And presumably, someone who can apply their super speed without yanking out half their hair.) Anvil doesn’t have a natural afro though. I attribute that to some quirk of her being a super in my head, but there’s no reason it would be. Red hair and kinetic absorption have nothing to do with each other, just as straight hair and super muscles have no relation. She just happens to have wavy red hair cause I liked they way it looked when I first drew her like that.
I do like the sort-of-but-not-really dreads look on her, but… it’s kind of a lot of work drawing all those leather ties, so I don’t know how long it’s going to last. Honestly, part of the reason I decided to change it was to set up a joke that might take a long time to actually pay off.
I know that Anvil looks completely different on this page. If my art has one weakness, it’s consistency. Fortunately, my art has many additional weaknesses, hah hah. Seriously though, on the prior page, I was looking at a picture of Gina Torres (Zoë Washburne from Firefly) when I drew her. I don’t often have particular actors in mind for most of my characters, but Torres and/or Angela Bassett could play her. Torres for the face, and Bassett from back in the day when she was buuuuff.
Anyway, I guess I should have kept using Torres as a reference, though I have to say I like the closeup of her face on this page better, even if she looks ten years younger from the previous page. That’s not a slam on Torres either, just how the art came out.
The new vote incentive is up! I tried something different this month – instead of doing one well painted picture with a bunch of dress variants, I wanted to tell a bit of a story. Hopefully it makes sense without any dialog or sound effects. So, instead of one picture, you guys are getting nine. Well, you are over at Patreon. The vote incentive is just the first one. And yes, Pixel is bendy enough to do a full on T&A pose.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Love this day to day super stuff.
Max might be swimming the Atlantic Ocean….
It all depends on where Archon headquarters is. It might be closer to go to the Pacific or Gulf of Mexico, especially if it is in Texas as I believe.
Sydney’s fake ID appeared to say Beaumont, Texas on it, and Sydney’s Honda has a Texas inspection/registration sticker on it, so I’d guess Houston area, so the Gulf wouldn’t be out of the question. I live in that area myself.
We know Dave was affected by the February hell-freezing-over so that at least puts him in the same state. Not a fun time.
Dave is in the DFW area (Dallas).
My own bet for the locale of the ArcHQ (Arch-Q) is so where near College Station.
FAKE I.D. So DFW is probably a good bet. Close/far enough from where they were going.
…and accidentally ram a ship. The thing about swimming is you can’t see where you’re going. That’s why they paint swim lanes on the bottom of a pool.
The only question is, will she completely absorb the kinetic energy or leave some to make a splash over the people at the edge of the pool?
There should be a splash simply from water displacement. But the pain from landing on water at that height should be negated
That’s assuming she jumps in the pool.
She’s holding Syd and they’re looking for Max so for safety and practicality’s sake I’m expecting them to land on the poolside and not splashing around.
Also with kinetic absorption I wonder if she has precise control enough to just run on water as if it were oobleck. Could be fun. You know, very frequently absorb her own kinetic energy so that she starts with no momentum, and release it so that she’s pushed upwards slightly, air being less resistant than water, and move frontwards fast enough that meeting the rising wave in front of her provides more energy and allows her to push herself up some and meet the next wave with her other foot, etc
I have just made the leap that if inertial dampeners (necessary tech for all sci fi except for Expanse and Honor Harrington, etc) exist and can be focused on incoming mass; then all kinetic strikes can be stopped like bullets in the final scenes of the Matrix.
Mass Effect has “Kinetic Barriers” as the primary form of shielding.
Honor Harrington uses inertial Dampeners in every warship..
Did you think those cruisers accelerating at 400G were doing without? Hint; the people on them were biological. And survived!
Hell, the fact that Grayson had inadvertently developed slightly more efficient compensators because nobody cared about them or what they had enough to sell them any is a minor point in the 7 or so books following Grayson’s joining the Manticorian Alliance. Lets the Mantie and friends’ ships accelerate faster than the Havenites (and since Weber loves to spout numbers, it comes up a lot).
In the Honerverse there were instances of military ships pushing the internal dampers, and then having the crew all turn into stains on the walls when the dampers failed.
Aggh! My bad! I was even thinking about them when I was typing that…..for some reason I was thinking of their limitations being part of the plotlines rather than the fact that they were USING them willy nilly.
She just got her hair done, she’s not landing in the water.
Good point.
DaveB is already tired of drawing her hair like that, she’s landing in the water (plus if it gets Maxi wet, and then steamy, she’s landing in the water)
He had the hair done like that to set up a joke he hasn’t used yet (ie: will take a long time to pay off) – it’s probably staying just long enough for said joke to work, and then going away quickly. The question really, is “does the joke have to do with that hair getting wet”?
I think the new style and the color reminds me of Medusa. The Inhuman not the Gorgon. Who by the way, could also style Kenya’s hair almost as fast as Max due to her hair powers (trichokinesis).
“Don’t stop my blood!”
“I won’t”
“Or my brain mid-fall”
“I won’t”
“Or any of my other bodily fluids”
“I won’t”
“Or any of my organs in a way that would cause the rest of my body t-
“I won’t”
“Or”
“JUMPING NOW”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
*after landing*
“lets do that again!”
“AGAIN!”
“After all that screaming?”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-74-adrenaline-junkie/
YES!
Does she absorb the kinetic energy of people she’s holding, too, though? How far does that extend? I mean, if she stepped into the highway, and was hit by a car, would the car just stop, without even sloshing your drink in the drink holder?
If she was just getting away with that based on super strength, Sydney would absolutely end up dead. Absorbing kinetic energy? It gets complicated.
The powers we’ve seen her manifest show that they are sufficient for that (she can absorb her own kinetic energy when falling from great heights, *and* from people interacting with her. If she’s the centre of her frame of reference when it comes to kinetic energy (which makes sense, I don’t see her stopping the Earth) then as long as Sydney mainly interacts with her on impact she can absorb it all. As if Sydney had tried to deliver a dropkick on Anvil… or if she just fell on her.
For the car question, my interpretation is we’ve not seen her able to conduct her powers through other objects yet, and rule of cool says the drink being messed up in some way that would highlight just how much momentum she absorbed would be great so go for it.
her plan is to carry Sydney down so that she absorbs her own impact with the ground and Sydney’s impact with her
she would still need to brace parts of Sydney so that the sudden deceleration doesn’t snap her neck or something
This is pretty much how I imagine it as well. Whether she has to cradle Sydney or just hold her hand depends on exactly how her powers work – I imagine it has an object-field effect, like Max’s tele-whatever-effect we saw when she lifted the ambulance without crushing the bumper or twisting the frame.
It’s not “deceleration”, which would be based on slowing some part of Sydney down and the relative acceleration propagating through Sydney’s body. It’s “absorption of momentum”, so there’s no relative inertia to snap anything.
If Anvil can absorb a punch, or the momentum from a large thrown object, then she can absorb the momentum from all of Sydney, not just the points in contact.
Since it works normally by nullifying punches and strikes aimed at her (without causing something horrible to happen to the things hitting her), it would work quite fine with her holding things too.
She could be hit by a car and the car would be undamaged and the passengers and herself uninjured? That would be great for stopping a drink driver as a for instance.
Since she absorbs kinetic energy rather than diverting or sending it all back into what hit her, I’d say it would be the surreal experience of the car just stopping with no to minimal damage to it from the crash.
However kinetic absorption does nothing towards momentum so the drink should still spill as the liquid is coming to a sudden stop while moving forward.
However that would mean whiplash is still a threat to the passengers as she stops the car but the forward movement of the passengers is prevented by contact with the seatbelts, which with kinetic thief won’t dig into them or anything…
yeah this does require some examination on the effects on internal structures and how far along what she is in contact with it extends, would be funny to stop a bus, the front half in perfectly good shape but the back half outside the kinetic thief field is still damaged, possibly torn free at the field horizon due to the atomic structures of the metal at that point behaving so differently, one in rapid motion the other still…so should slice apart with a hot seam like bending a wire hanger back and forth.
This reminds me of the elevators in the Lensman universe. Just a vertical shaft with an energy field that removes inertia. Instant terminal velocity until you hit the bottom, then an instant stop with zero force.
Always sounded like a horrible idea to me.
Actually, the shaft doesn’t cancel inertia; the cadets who use it have personal neutralisers.
considering inertia is just “it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is changed by an external force.”
if my understanding is correct there either going to end up on the ceiling or bust through the ceiling without moving…
i don’t think that’s how it’s meant to work….
Neutralization of inertia means that they just respond to external forces, without regard to the existing state of motion.
Not necessarily. Violation of conservation of momentum is that far is undeniable Bizarristan territory already, physics wise, any other narrative-supporting amendments can’t justifiably matter.
Doc Smith’s Lensman series had a MacGuffin that either partially or completely cancelled inertia (full or partial depending on era). There is no inertia when it is on. There is no speed of light barrier – a non-inertial object moves at the speed and direction at which all incoming forces match all outgoing forces. The density of interstellar particles you impact on the way are part of how you regulate your speed.
So, to clarify, if you turn on the non-inertial field, you accelerate instantly to match the impacts of all the air and floor around you. If you turn it off again, you regain the state of having inertia, oriented in your new direction and speed.
If you turn it off again, you immediately resume your previous vector of motion from before you turned it on. Matching trajectories after travel is a nontrivial problem.
I don’t recall that that is how it worked… which would have made it non-helpful in vehicular accident-prevention which I recall some scenes about, and would make that elevator shaft thing not very workable.
They started out with partial inertial cancellation in the “meteor” phase of the Interstellar police force, whatever they were called. If that exists, I suppose you could just turn your inertia back on slowly and let it bleed off against whatever was in the direction that you had been moving.
Wait, was there some kind of net apparatus at the bottom of those shafts? I should reread those stories…. and see exactly how sexist they are…
IIRC, the original “Bergenholm” kicked in very slowly, and the experience was somewhat nauseating.
The ships would resume their original direction and speed of travel when it was shut off, which didn’t really violate conservation of linear momentum, but clearly violated conservation of *angular* momentum.
And, yes, matching speeds was a non-trival problem, and an occasional plot element.
That sounds like Doc Smith all right.
There was a complex net-and-springs setup for post-article-transfer. The object would be placed inside the contraption, then the inertial damper would be switched off…
Said MacGuffin was called a Bergenholm. Neutralized inertia when active, and when it was turned off, the object(s) affected by the device would resume their former state of motion, described as intrinsic velocity. An entertaining series that starts with the book Triplanetary.
I always got the feeling that Kenya and Math kind of hooked up, but I don’t think as anything was actually put in saying so.
I see Math and Jabberwocky most likely. Kenya likes Math as a coworker from what I’ve seen, but wouldn’t be romanticaply interested(not tall enough)
It’s because Math knew she was ticklish and a rember someone say she had hooked up with “a short guy”. I think that Math is the shortest ‘guy’ on the team.
What’s an A.A.R.?
After Action Report/Review
After Action Report. Basically the standard paperwork any military or police member would have to file after an eventful day.
Also Correctional Officers, though it is called something different. Still the same general concept.
Also hotel/restaurant and retail where we call it a desk log, incident diary or something like. A place to write down what really happened when the customer demanded to see the manager.
Torres is a regular on “Twenty Five Words or Less.” She’s great.
Anvil’s use of Sydney’s name in back to back sentences threw me off a little. I had to stop and wonder if my eyes “skipped” or if it was there twice and re-read the bubble. It felt/read a little unnatural to me (and that is merely one readers opinion).
Yes, I noticed the same thing. I think it would look/sound better if the second “Sydney” was dropped.
I agree with KFox.
There’s a missing comma before the second “Sydney”
Not necessarily. It’s the technique you use when talking to a kid who isn’t absorbing the knowlege too well. The idea is to keep the kid listening by identifying him/her personally, and letting her/him remember you know who the kid is.
Not within the same speech
Sydney is not that distractible she needs her name repeated multiple times in the same speech, specially not back-to-back sentences
If it’s something the speaker feels is super-basic, they could use it in back to back sentences.
I’ve done this unintentionally when I was sufficiently stunned by the person’s lack of awareness of something. I was just so surprised by what they didn’t realize that I’d forgotten I’d spoken their name just a few moments before.
Did the person I was talking to take offense at it? Absolutely. That’s what made it a memorable moment that I could relate. If they hadn’t taken offense and spoken up about it right away, I might not have even realized that I did it.
So, yes, people do this. Guesticules, haven’t you learned by now that people will do basically anything you complain about characters in web comics doing, so long as it’s actually physically and technologically possible with the tech they have available to them? Guesticules, this one doesn’t even require technology.
I admit it has less of an impact when it’s me typing stuff out, because I’m not good with short sentences.
*side eyes, and sips drink*
You too, huh?
*takes long drink*
People tend to repeat names of someone they first met to help them remember the name, no one is going to forget Sydney nor her name :P
As a teacher, you are trained to use your students’ names as an attention focusing device….esp ADD kids. If you are within earshot of someone in the middle to something and quietly say their name; then they will likely break concentration and look around……(Sadly, I have often used this power not for good). With Sydney, I am sure everyone who knows her, uses her name more than her pronouns.
Halo has no fear of heights, but falling is different.
Better HOPE Kenya has a good grip because Sydney IS going to flail.
Um, wait a sec. Isn’t Max talking to Achilles and his new ‘butler’? Do we REALLY want an alien merc who tried hard to abduct Max to know about the orbs? Normally, they are just look like trinkets, but to someone like Detla, having the ‘menu’ visible might be a VERY bad idea.
She has no fear when holding the Flight orb, she still has problems with heights while not holding it.
Her orbs doesn’t work while in the Upgrade mode.
*Sydney and Kenya jump*
Sydney: WAAAAAAAAAAAAA-
*Sydney’s arm shoot out, instinctively grabs the Forb*
Sydney: -AAAAAAA- hey, my reflexes are getting better! Also, I’m not scared of falling anymore!
Kenya: Yeah, that’s because we’re not falling anymoAAAA-!
*Sydney and Kenya splash into the pool, water flies everywhere*
S *treading water, spluttering*: I thought you were gonna absorb the fall!
K *also spluttering*: You let go too abruptly, i wasn’t expecting it!
*AHEM*
Max (standing poolside, glaring down at them): Having fun?
*Kenya and Sydney glance at each other*
Kenya: Yeah, kinda. *Sydney nods*
Yeah, I know, Syd can’t use the orbs right now. I thought it was funny, though.
+1 rule of fun
She can grab it, in which case she has to allocate the point there.
Was funny. Add Max’s reaction to it and it becomes more funny.
But still… MASSIVE potential security breach if that alien merc has any tech on her person. (Which she probably does)
I agree that Detla shouldn’t be at a security-clearance level that would get her into the discussion of what we think the various upgrades will buy and which Sydney will choose. I very much doubt Kenya and Achilles are cleared for that, and Sydney wouldn’t be if she wasn’t the Orb-wielder. But that ‘discussion’ level is substantially higher than the ‘existence’ level required to know that the upgrade system exists in the first place. As long as Sydney refrains from running her mouth in public (any takers for that bet?), Detla isn’t getting any information that the <a href="https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-182-a-little-light-dinner-speculation/"assembled press corps don’t already have.
No bet.
it would be an opportunity for a writer’s convenience.
(hey, that looks like the symbols of the ancient gods of my world)
and I could just picture the comments too, “oh so they just soooo happen to recognize it and be there at the right time* yes like the untapped psychic going into the haunted house, that’s why its called a writer’s convenience.
That last pannel had me giggling for a solid five minutes, I whole heartedly approve of Anvil’s elevator method :3
Seconded, this is the kind of creative applied power-shenanigan I’m here for. Looking forward to the entrance scene on the next page.
“Now you’re thinking with [strike]portals[/strike] physics!”
Dang itFor some reason I really like the face Anvil is pulling in panel 2. It speaks to me!
Anyone who’s ever had cornrows done, appreciates and understands that face. It is 50000% an accurate reaction, whether the braiding is done at super speed or not.
Also: I kind of thought the neck comm should be able to sort out the “I need Max” problem?
Not if Maxi isn’t wearing hers
Or Sydney simply forgot to use it, because Sydney
Maybe a bit of a “No Prize” answer, but I imagine team members are encouraged to leave all communication devices in their bunk when they have an appointment with Dr. Frost. At least enough to disconnect from the source of their stress
‘Turn off cell phones while in the pscychologists’s office’
Yeah.
Oh, that’s actually a good point. Can Kenya actually stop blood from flowing, hearts from beating etc.?
probably needs a physical touch on it
like if she did it while sticking her finger in a bullet wound or something
unless she can generate a field where she can nullify it
Interesting for Sydney to worry about, but blood doesn’t work by momentum, it works by hydrostatic pressure. Stopping someone’s blood would be a terribly advanced “fine” application of a power that we’ve only seen Anvil use in a gross physical way.
Actually, if you could absorb ALL kinetic energy, every time the blood incrementally started moving in response to hydrostatic pressure, all the momentum would vanish, and it would be standing still again. So, yes, completely efficient kinetic energy absorption locks things at a standstill.
Presumably the efficiency of her absorption drops with lower relative speeds, though, so blood would only stop flowing if she really poured it on.
Ack-tually, wouldn’t perfect kinetic absorption also involve molecular energy too, with electrons frozen in their orbits? Everything she touched would then drop to 0 Kelvin. Since she hasn’t iced anything yet, I think we’re safe in assuming plot-safe limits to her powers.
if she can go even half that far, then her ability to also expel that kinetic energy as strength would need to be really precise, which her falling and not absorbing any shock from the impact or transferring it to someone she is holding she will need to expel just a little kinetic energy to stay standing and prevent her momentum from throwing her over like landing on a slippery surface as part of human balance is pushing against the ground to form a stable point.
even just to walk she can’t absorb that kinetic energy and has to be able to turn it off or expel a little intentionally or else she wouldn’t be able to walk properly.
When walking you exert kinetic energy into the surface, as that surface is more stable and has more weight than you, which means it has the greater resistance your force has an equal and opposite force basically the floor/ground pushes back in a sense and that moves you forward.
if you stand there and absorb ALL kinetic force without exception then your interactions with the ground during that time are going to get awkward.
all that said it looks like she has some pretty precise control on how much she absorbs and expels.
Anvil looking mighty fine in panel 5.
Is the “aetherium causeways” pip missing from Sydney’s grid? I know she unlocked the branch but I thought she put one of the two kaijuu pips into it, and one in the central sigil (which is filled in properly).
I think you’re right. The Aetherium Causeway pip IS missing in all the panels – 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
So is the multi-shot pip from the PPO orb.
I can’t tell if the teleport pip and 3rd center triangle is missing though, because there are no good pictures for that.
But I think what happened is DaveB is using a copy of the first showing of the skill chart and hasnt updated it for the additional pips that she’s gained since it firstshowed up during the press conference at the tank training range.
I was thinking the same thing but after looking really closely at the first panel I noticed the teleport pip is filled. Hard to tell for sure about the central sigil but I think it has 3 wedges filled in panel 3. Also I thought she needed to fill the connected node to fill that one but the connected node is empty so… Does it mean anything?
Obviously there’s an error in whatever mechanism is allowing us to see the skills grid at all. That mechanism must be an n-minus-1th tech, rather than nth tech.
the display mechanism needs cleaning and lubrication. please, go imagine some unobtanium process for that.
I see what you mean about the 5th pip on fly, but upon further inspection the center is not 3 wedges. If it was, that would be half since there are 6 wedges in all and it looks like 1/3rd insteadof 1/2 full, when it should be 1/2.
There are 7 wedges for the seven balls.
You can see the wedges don’t align with the lit pips but seem to extend clockwise (from Sydney’s point of view).
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-672-engage-your-advanced-math-skills/
The original, better view, picture of what 3 lit wedges look like.
Ah okay yes you’re right on the 7 wedges thing. Good catch. But it still looks like less than that from what I can see in the current picture. It’s difficult to tell though since there’s no real clear picture of that.
Oh, Max is so going to kill them for this. Where’s Dabbler in all of this? Porno sense has to be going off the radar given the skimpy two piece down at the pool and the likelihood of a wet T-Shirt contest being imminent.
Porno sense likely requires more than just being in a bikini or it would be going off all the time at archon. Since mist of arcswat is gd sexy as hell.
Cue Sydney grabbing the flight ball by reflex and ruining yet another upgrade in 3… 2… 1…
CAAANOOOONBAAAAALLLL!!!!!!!!!!
II know this isnt exactly on point with the comic, but ‘d really like to know if Sydney is now the fastest flier, now that her speed is Mach 16 instead of Mach 4. She was already FIRMLY the second fastest flier at Mach 4, with the next fastest being Hiro at Mach 1 (with gravity assist), plus Sydney didnt even NOTICE her speed at Mach 4, but did at Mach 16.
We-e-e-e-ellllll… Siddles definitely takes the fastest *assisted* speed.
Howeverrrr, UNassisted, that would be Maxi.
Please remind me to be not there when Siddles next goes out for a high-speed flight.
Um…. how do you figure that? :)
Sydney only has been clocked by Maxima when she was at Mach 4. It was before she had the upgrade, which has now increased her top speed to Mach 16+. Given that she was already firmly the second fastest flier… UNASSISTED BY GRAVITY… she might very well be the fastest flier now. She was literally able to travel halfway around an entire planet in a matter of seconds, back on Alari Prime.
Unless when you say unassisted, you mean ‘because she is assisted by having orbs’ which seems to sort of miss the point of my question, since when ‘assisted’ was used in the comic, it was referring to gravity assist – flying downward. :)
Anyway, my point was that we don’t actually know if Maxima is still the fastest flier or if Sydney has now surpassed her, which was actually alluded to as being possible once she got her fifth pip during the flight test. So i’m curious to find the answer out.
Just as a comparison, the fastest jet in the world -ever- built was the X-15, which could go at Mach 6.7.
Aetherium Causeway is faster than light.
Yes in the same way that instant teleportation is ftl. But I mean speed, as in raw velocity that does not involve teleporting, folding space, or other types of wormholes
At this point, Sydney says something about Harem being mighty fast, and no she’s not talking about teleportation ;-)
Only on her progression on a first date.:)
Sydney is fast enough to bag a alien on the first date so she knows what she is talking about.
True dat.
Yah, I’m going with Pander here, if only because IM(Not So)HO the Aetherium Causeway is a lot closer to taking the Hi Speed Rail, rather than actually putting in the hard yards.
And yes, there is no difference between “gravity assist” and “orb assist”. I look forward to the day Maxi decides to put her pedal to the metal.
Sorry to nitpick, but, the X-15 was NOT a jet. Straight up rocket power. Not an air breathing engine. Fastest aircraft, okay.
Fine substitute the word aircraft for jet then.
My point is Sydney is faster than any man made aircraft and faster than almost any man made vehicle short of the space shuttle.:)
“She was literally able to travel halfway around an entire planet in a matter of seconds, back on Alari Prime.”
She did it mostly between pages, and she was clearly faster than the squidwards, or else she wouldn’t have gotten away from them, but nothing says it was a matter of seconds.
Just for reference, Mach 16 translates to ‘around the world in thirty minutes.’
If Syd wants to be anywhere on Earth, it takes her less than fifteen minutes to get there. New York to Paris, in five minutes flat. LA to Beijing in about ten. Kansas City to Sydney Australia would take her fifteen minutes, and, well, that’s pretty much it.
At Mach 16, she is about 70% of the way to matching the orbital velocity of the International Space station. And she can reach its altitude from a standing start in under two seconds. If she gets to include the speed of Earth’s surface turning under her, she’s more like 75% of the way to matching its orbital velocity.
But if those tight orbits are going too fast for her to catch, why should she care? She can get to geosynchronous orbit in just couple of hours. If that’s ‘zero’ speed relative to earth, then it’s all moot. But even if she ignores the rotation of the Earth, she’s still got more than enough speed to match a GEO orbit.
Holey crap, she could deliver satellites to GEO four times a day if she wants extra cash. The satellite launch market supports GEO deliveries at over ten million dollars a pop. Or she could even fly up and retrieve malfunctioning satellites for repair. That’s done so seldom one can’t even really think of it as a market, but people have been willing to pay at least triple the delivery prices to do that.
not to mention going up and picking up the broken bits. *avoids a certain word*
flotsam and jetsam?
No, she couldn’t. That would require her to use three or more orbs at the same time.
Maybe once the varia angle becomes known…
Not really; MisterBubble open to a sphere say, 10 meters across, has enough air inside for *DAYS*, and she can fill it with air whenever she wants by grabbing the lifesupport orb for one second. So she has ‘ZipZipZoom’ in her right hand and ‘MisterBubble’ in the left, and that’s really all she needs for the mission. There’s one annoying quarter-second or so where she grabs the lifesupport orb and releases the satellite from MisterBubble, but that’s really it.
All the people who think each new upgrade will give her a ‘third hand’ equivalent for the orbs just annoy me; she doesn’t really need it, and the supposed limitation engages the audience to think about how to handle each situation without it. So it’s audience-engagement and narrative-tension, all at once; the ‘two-hands’ limitation isn’t going anywhere, and SHOULDN’T go anywhere , except maybe with Varia’s help.
If she can get a spacesuit, she can retrieve small satellites easily. Use MisterBubble and ZipZipZoom to rendezvous; Drop MisterBubble; move next to satellite; enclose it in handy container for safety; reengage MisterBubble and go home.
Big satellites require additional equipment. Build a cage shaped like Mister Bubble attached to a satellite towing harness – webbing or cables sufficient to bear the satellite safely. Enter the cage; use MisterBubble and ZipZapZoom to rendezvous; drop ZipZapZoom; use GlowingWormOrb to stop satellite rotation if any, and attach harness; Resume ZipZapZoom and go home while carefully monitoring the status of the contents of the harness.
Oh, wait; she could catch the international space station. All she has to do is get to a much higher altitude, get on the right trajectory at less than mach-16 to put herself in an orbit whose perigee is at the space station’s altitude, and let gravity do the rest.
At perigee, she’d be going much faster than the ISS; presumably the ZipZipZoom orb can be used, even if it can’t boost her over mach-16, to slow down from mach-30-or-so to match the ISS orbital velocity at mach-25. Might want to test that before you bet somebody’s life on it, but slowing down from a much higher speed in a controlled way is pretty basic.
It is so damn weird to be thinking of orbital velocities in terms of mach numbers….
You could translate to furlongs per fortnight…
I’ve always preferred Smoots per Sol.
How are you so certain that Sydney is faster than Maxima now? Back when Sydney was Mach 4, Maxima was the fastest flier by a very wide margin.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Maxima’s top speed is 1% of the speed of light, which is a little under Mach 9000.
I wonder where you read me saying I was certain. I said it was a strong possibility because it was alluded to that Sydney might become a faster flier than Maxima at the Grand Canyon, and Maxima seemed to agree that once the 5th pip was added, she might no longer be the fastest flier in arcswat. Check the page.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-354-and-i-would-fly-500-miles/
In Maxima’s own words when Sydney mentions theres still one more speed pip on the fly ball:
“You might be faster than me one day.”
If Maxima’s top speed was ridiculously faster than Sydney’s at Mach 4, sge would likely not have said that.
She would not have thought that if her top speed was mach 9000.
Also mach 9000 is nowhere close to .999 light speed.
Light speed is Mach 881,742.5 (rounded down).
Sorry Pander, but look again. 1% of c is not 0.999c. I’ll accept Brlliand’s arithmetic because I’m simply too lazy, but Mach 9000 sounds about right.
1% of c is Mach 8810, or 9k when rounded. That’s ~2200x faster than Sydney’s then-top speed of Mach 4.
I can’t imagine why Max would have looked at a mostly-full speed graph and said “almost as fast” if Max’s own top speed was 3 orders of magnitude higher, rather than a small multiple. I think Halo is likely faster now at (an inferred but unverified) Mach 16.
Okay. I doubt that Maxima’s speed is anywhere close to 1 percent of light speed also.
Seriously, regardless of the tangent about light speed and any percentage of light speed, I think people are ignoring what was very clearly alluded to by Maxima herself. That Sydney was likely to be faster than her once the fifth pip came in. That would be a VERY unlikely thing if Maxima’s top flight speed was anywhere higher than Mach 16, and would make her statement very weird.
And my main point has been that I’m curious if Sydney is now the fastest flier, compared to Maxima.
Duh, for some reason when I saw 1% of light speed, I read it as 99% of light speed. :) Whoops, my bad.
I have the same problem when I’m thirsty. Nothing a nice cold lager can’t fix. Or maybe a Ginger Beer from Broome — they’re only 3.5%A/V :)
Ummm, we don’t drink Fosters here. They forgot how to make beer when they went to America. The original recipe is still in their old Melbourne office, but they just say “LaLaLaLa” when we try to tell them.
It wasn’t you who was certain; it was gorblimey.
The numbers I get from putting “speed of sound” and “speed of light” into a search engine indicate that the speed of light is very slightly more than Mach 874030, but I also see statements that the exact speed represented by Mach 1 varies based on the current air pressure and humidity. Due to that uncertainty, I rounded that number to one significant digit, so 900000. I then multiplied by 1% (0.01) to get 9000.
Good point about Maxima thinking Sydney could eventually be faster than her, though; I can’t see Maxima thinking that if her top speed was more than Mach 100. In conclusion, your question about whether or not Sydney is currently faster than Maxima is interesting and I’d like to know the answer as well.
My point, which is being sidetracked, is Maxima’s top speedis nowhere remotely close to mach 9000. I would be surprised if it was double digits since maxima said stdney might be faster thsn her when the fifth pip came in.
Oh sorry. I just realized that you meant you were responding to gorblimey, not to me.
My apologies :) Threads get confusing sometimes!
I do like this friendship Kenya and Syd have, very sisterly.
Maxima and Sydney also have a sisterly friendship I feel :) Maxima’s super-protective of Sydney, even compared to the other people under her command (including those who were injured, like Brooke or Jiggawatt). When Sydney was lost, Maxima was taking it EXTRA hard, compared to everyone else.
Anvil and Sydney “drop” in on MAx lecturing Achilles and Delta about having to go through her first BEFORE they see Arianna….
Max sees Sydney-
“Anvil, take Sydney to Zephan immediately. I’ll be along shortly”
Lecture continues. – some means of sending Delta away without Achillies happens
‘Achilles, this is why you clear guests with me. Delta just saw Sydney’s upgrade tree. that isn’t Sydneys fault, its YOURS. we’ve already had someone figure out one of her weakness and nearly kill her with it. I don’t want to know how that feature can be used against us. some things we have to be careful of. an alien who is trying to learn to best you in combat is not someone who should be seeing how the rest of us train.”
This is true of everyone, regardless of Sydney’s presence, at least until Archon has done a solid background check and trusts her motives. Not sure how one does that on an alien merc, but the leadership should definitely be clearing this arrangement, not Achilles himself.
very true, it can also be argued that several people have seen the upgrade tree and due to its ‘shy’ nature there’s inherent security. all that being said… it is a convenient example and Achilles may be a bit static in his thinking.
1) I’m betting the conversation goes nowhere near there, and Achilles acquits himself and his decisions admirably in it. Reason? Because if he is really only a frat boy and no deeper, he’s less interesting than he could be. This is his moment.
2) Unless Detla fought her way out of custody and then blithely wandered over to Arc, and no one in Security had heard about it, the decision to let Detla on her own recognizance must have been made at top diplomatic levels.
3) Unless Achilles is an actual idiot, he or Security checked out the story. And he specifically told Detla that it might not be his own decision, so he’s not an idiot as far as how these things work.
Okay… you know me… I criticize the new art every other page… but damned if Anvil doesn’t look cute in this one. Very nice.
Sydney’s acrophobia is going to kick in big time on the trip down. And it’s not like Anvil’s going to do an Acme special with Sydney, that would just be mean.
Well, at least Max and company will hear them coming with Sydney screaming the whole way down. Detla will be surprised. Everyone else just shakes their head.
Gina Torres….. ahhhhhhahhhhhhahhhhhh (*Homer Simpson drooling sound*)
Seriously though, when I happen to see, hear, or even think about any of the ladies of *Firefly*, my blood pressure goes up. Not for that reason, but because I’m still hacked off at Fox for killing the series. And it’s almost 20 years now?
Almost all the cast are still around (damn, I miss Ron Glass- sob). They could do an animated series at least. Anything. We need more Firefly. Damn Fox network, they killed one of the most promising SF series of all time. But they’ll put on the Masked Singer. Oh yeah, *that’s* quality entertainment….
Friends tell me to let it go. No. It still burns me.
Here’s hoping will do a mini-reunion on “The Rookie”
Hmm, maybe Officer Nolan is Captain Mal’s ancestor? That would be a great episode if they link it somehow (like Nolan get’s knocked out and dreams he is on Serenity :D)
They did! They did do a mini-reunion on “The Rookie“!!
The lack of Book could be worked in, if the new series were set after the Serenity movie. Downside is you’d have to lose Wash as well though, which would change the tone rather. (What is the statute of limitations on spoilers anyway?)
I’m a bit worried.
Sydney have her orbs in Upgrade mode, and there’s either no way of cancelling that, or Sydney hasn’t found it, yet.
And now she’s taking the Express Anvil down to the pool where Max is for advice on upgrades.
A pool that currently has Detla somewhere in it.
She probably shouldn’t be allowed to see that…
I’m pretty sure that’s Detla standing next to Maxie and Achilles in the last panel. She’s not in the pool.
Wacky prediction: Detla can’t see the upgrade tree though her mask. (If the mask is supplying some sort of AR enhancement, it may act like a camera, so the tree wouldn’t be visible. It would explain the glowing eyes.)
I like it. If this theory plays out, I wonder if Detla’s curiosity and thirst for learning would be enough for her to take her mask off in ‘public’ to observe the mystery nth-tech skill tree. Either way, I’m really curious to see her response/input on the orbs.
More likely, in character, based upon having been kidded by Achilles, Detla will be stoic and believe they are putting her on, only asking later.
I’m fairly certain Detla seeing upgrade tree is a plot point…..Wondering if she ‘recognizes’ it
Okay, while Anvil doesn’t take damage from falling from that height, the ground still does
So, another reason why she will be aiming for the water
The ground doesn’t take damage. The energy gets absorbed, leaving the ground intact.
For reference, on page 516 she jumps out of a helicopter and the roof she lands on is fine (for about five seconds at least).
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-516-between-the-anvil-and-the-roof/
Was actually thinking of when she got whipped into Kevin
When she got whipped into Kevin she was deliberately directing force at him though. The way her power works, I think she could land from a 3-story height making a crater if she wanted to and was charged up, or eject from a supersonic aircraft directly into a cliff and land lightly on her feet.
That last bit? Doubt it’s something she would like to test out, only takes being wrong once to ruin your life
When Sydney is the one saying something is a bad idea, maybe you should listen…
OK, Anvil, but when you step off the roof don’t do it in line with the door down below. Somebody could walk out at the same moment, and that could get ugly.
Started nodding along, but then… would it be so bad? I think she’d absorb all the energy from an impact with a human just the same as with the ground, resulting in a small team pile-up no worse (and perhaps gentler) than just tripping over each other.
Yes, she absorb the ‘impact’ but… well, let’s just say that Kenya is a big girl (in all the best possible ways, of course) and while she can land on you without damage she is still on you after, and her power don’t negate her weight.
Yes, Anvil and Sydney could land on Dabbler and Cora, absorbing the impact but creating a pile of four women. The only reason I know it won’t happen is because neither Anvil nor Sydney is wearing a skirt.
I can already hear Sydney chanting “Let’s go again! Lets go again!” in Cosmo from the Fairly Odd Parents voice
I’m curious, why is Anvil so slender suddenly? She’s always been drawn far more muscular than she is here.
Well to quote DaveB, “If my art has one weakness, it’s consistency.”
Thinking about DaveB’s comments on his artwork reminded me that I have been reading things that could be at least loosely defined as webcomics since the days of dial up bulletin boards. When you think about it, that is a really significant body of literature. You can get on line and find a comic that has been running for over 20 years. There are exceptions, usually someone who already had a well established artistic style, but generally you see a progression in artistic style over the span of a comic. The path that I seem to notice most often is that someone has a story to tell and they begin with some fairly sketchy art. Then, the story takes off and gains popularity so they tighten up their art style. Things progress and what was once a sideline is looking like full time work and the author brings in a colorist. All along the author is practicing their craft and building their skills. All during this time the appearance of characters change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not. One of my favorite strips has taken this to the point where the author has brought in an artist to draw the strip while they write the story and focus on writing on prose stories, often in the same universe. In that case I prefer the authors second stage art. The comic while very nicely drawn, visually looks very different from its origins. The whole point of this ramble is just to point out that as authors build on their skills things change. Don’t be too surprised that Anvil looks a little different. There are characters we haven’t seen in months. I wouldn’t expect them to look exactly that same at this point. They wouldn’t fit the current, more polished look of the comic. For myself I am okay with DaveB occasionally tweaking the look of a character. Keep up the good work Dave.
“I was looking at a picture of Gina Torres (…) when I drew her…”
Well, that is precisely the problem. Draw character reference sheets for each of your characters, and draw from *there* and not from photos of different people, that way you are always drawing from the same base, one that was also done with your skill level and style.
On the other hand, a visual reference for the character position results in more realistic positioning and detail work. Dave is making it happen, making a living, and has been for a decade or so, so what he is doing is working well enough.
Ideally, one should use both I think. There is no point to realistic positioning if your character looks like a reject of a lookalike contest of itself every few pages.
Dave has certainly made it work financially and if that is his only goal, that’s fine. But he can always improve his craft and us commenters can point out how we think he can. After all, “not consistent” is a pretty huge weakness for comic art to have, and Grrlpower is by far the worse at it from the ones I read. (And I mean, he has come a long way, but there is still a loooong way to go particularly in regards to consistency)
I am a very bad artist, especially with the consistency thing.
But when I have attempted to draw the same character panel after panel, I did find photo references handy.
Thing is, you gotta pick your photo referent to match what you’re trying to do. If you’re doing a lot of cheesecake and skintight outfits, you might want to pick a model who’s done a lot of nude shoots. If you’re going to need a lot of dynamic poses, you’re looking for an athlete.
If you’re looking for a body type like Anvil’s, and a lot of dynamic poses, you’d look for female bodybuilding competitions. And as a bonus there, there are lots of photos available. A lot of bodybuilders LIVE by selling portfolios of photos, because their fans see them as beautiful and love to look at them. That bit of support is one of the ways they have time to train instead of doing a nine-to-five job.
I’m noticing the perspective is off in the last panel. Those at the top of the building should look exactly like those at the base where the pool is located. I get what the artist was going for but the building also needs to play into the perspective in order for this scene to work correctly. We should be looking at the building at an angle if the characters different sizes are to make sense; narrow at the pool area and wider at the top where Sydney and Anvil are. A quick fix would be to re-adjust Sydney and Anvil’s sizes to match the group at the pool area.
True. I believe there is a significant overhang, such that Anvil cannot see the three characters at the bottom. Also, the camera is at Anvil’s height, and as such Anvil is somewhat closer to the “camera” than they are. Those mitigate the perspective slightly. However, if those things are true, then the windows should not have parallel lines in the vertical direction, they should trend toward a vanishing point far below the pool.
Sydney is close to correct scale, but Anvil seems slightly larger relative to Sydney than she should be. If Anvil lands right next to the three at the pool, then she’s just drawn too big in that picture.
DaveB, don’t beat yourself up too much on the face thing. Depending on how she applies her makeup, Anvil’s face can definitely look different day by day, and even moment by moment whenever the lighting falling on it (from eveh so much as shifting her head or turning a bit) changes angle.
When researching AI face recognition’s alleged bias, I ended up finding a set of pictures of Oprah. There’s no way in heck that the simulation we are in has not switched actress models on us several times for that “Oprah” character.
Try feeding a training algorithm some pictures of Michael Jackson over his 5-decade career.
Yep. Train it so that it identifies 90% of MJ’s pictures as MJ, and it will probably identify a few thousand other people as MJ.
That’s the “trick” they do when people who hate the existence of AI image recognition throw pictures of politicians at it with the default settings, rather than the setting recommended for law enforcement use, and announce that half the politicians in California were identified as felons. So what?
When used for law enforcement, the AI identification is at a finer setting and is one step of many.
For a moment, I feared her ADHD had her forget about the level up
I would like that, but I would also scream all the way down
Right now I would laugh very hard if being exposed to Kenya’s power in action doesn’t cause one of the Orbs to automatically ‘learn’ and new option relating to KINETIC MANIPULATION. When Sydney goes to show Max there is not pip in her hand and the schema is just starting to face, but there is a brand new position on one of the Orbs with the pip sitting in it.
I love spell corrupt. face -> fade, not pip–> no pip
Nice.
I thought for sure that before the jump Sydney would make a Gwen Stacy reference.
I would like to wish everyone a happy Earth Day, unless you are reading this on the ISS. In that case happy Space Day!
I prefer happy ‘talk like shakespeare’ day, and anyone who doth protest to that is surely a harlot or a rogue ne’er do well.
Have Bacon, it’s betterer for you than shaking spears (unless it’s Britney, then shake-away)
National Bacon Day is September 4th, sorry :)