Grrl Power #1410 – Trial by obeliskium
Edit: As usual, I biffed the math here. People were saying 9 cc of material would make a sword that’s measured in microns of thickness and I didn’t understand how I messed up by so many orders of magnitude, so I sat down and measured out the sword on paper:
Okay, let’s lay it out. We’ll say the sword is 5mm thick at the spine, and that 5mm thickness extends down the “flat” for 3cm, then there’s a recess for the fuller that’s 3mm thick, then there’s another 3cm of flat to the blade, and the blade is 2cm from flat to edge, so that’s 10 cm wide for 95% of the sword.
So let’s say it’s an average of 4mm thick for easy math. Times 10 cm width makes for 4 cubic centimeters of material for each cm of length. Okay, wow, I really did screw up Cora’s estimate.
Then the question is how long is it? I think I drew it pretty close to the right scale in that first panel, so let’s say the blade is 140 cm, which is just over 4.5 feet, and the handle is maybe 16 inches for some reason. I like the way long handles look on swords I guess, but we’re not so concerned with the handle at the moment.
140 times 4 ccs is 560 cc?
Okay, I see what I did now. I wrote 9 cubic centimeters thinking it meant a 9 x 9 x 9cm cube, even though I know better. 9ccs is just 3cm^3. I meant 9cm cubed, which is actually 729 ccs. The funny thing is, I initally wrote 8 cubic centimeters (again, thinking I meant 8x8x8) and thought that sounded low, then revised it to 9 just before publishing the page. 8^3 is 512, which is actually pretty close to the volume of the blade. Of course, there’s the handle and the crossguard, so I’ll actually leave it at 9 cm cubed for Cora’s estimate. I just have to change her wording slightly.
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“Cosmic” energy is a comic book staple. In the real world there’s the EM spectrum and kinetic energy, gravity, and uh… friction? Also sound, acceleration, centripetal force, but those are all variations of gravity and kinetic energy. And lightning, fire… cold. Cold isn’t an “energy” though, just a relative lack of energy. Also radiation, but I think the EM spectrum covers… some of that? I know you can get into the nitty-gritty about alpha-particle emissions and ionizing this and that, but MY POINT is that in the real world, you kind of run out of interesting energy types pretty quickly when you’re writing superhero and not too hard science fiction. Or straight up science fantasy. That’s the category I put Doctor Who in. Weirdly, the earliest seasons of O.G. Dr. Who were borderline hard-ish sci-fi, but they got progressively… softer the longer the series ran. The new Doctor Who’s are straight up fantasy in space. There’s barely even a nod to science anymore.
So comics and sci-fi have to make up all kinds of crazy energy types to justify how the time traveling statue can turn back into an evil energy specter and possess that episode’s lead female’s father. That’s hard to explain using just infrared light and uh, centripetal force.
I mention all this because Maxima’s primary energy attack is a particle beam, which is totally a real thing. At least it is in a particle accelerator. I mean, a coronal mass ejection is… well, not a beam, surely, but there are particles involved. Arguably, a claymore is a particle… cone attack. It just depends on how you define “particle.” In Maxima’s case, there’s a healthy mix of neutrons and protons, with just a dash of antiparticles thrown in for fun. It’s actually a decidedly unhealthy mix, come to think of it. It’s exceedingly hot and has a surprising amount of kick. And just a skosh of ionizing radiation.
I think at some point way back, I mentioned the power scales of the Grrl-verse was more akin to the Marvel universe than the DC one. Or the DBZ one. Honestly, it depends on the writers for any given issue, but the DC universe tends to be on a much higher scale. I used to kind of limit myself to the Marvel RPG scale, but “Unearthly” strength only lets you lift 100 tons. Now, that sounds like a lot. I mean, sure, it’s a lot of weight, but that’s also only the weight of a tank or two. When you start talking about buildings or ships or trains, 100 tons is just dipping your toe in the uh, weight pool. So, whatever I’ve said in the past about strength levels, Maxima can lift Cora’s ship. I have no idea how much it would weigh. It’s about the size of a battleship? Maybe a little shorter and at least twice as wide. An Iowa class is 860 feet long and weighs 48,000 tons. It’s made of sci-fi space materials, but like with Ultronium, that doesn’t necessarily mean it weighs less than the stuff we have now. So I’m not going to put a hard number on it now, but Maxima can lift a lot. And it’s a good thing her strength can scale with her power pool, because if you could lift a battleship, even using 1% of your strength to open a door would make it explode. Cause that would be 480 tons of pressure, and most doors aren’t up to that spec.
Kobold Sydney vote incentive! Is finally done!
So… you know, check it out. Oh, and as usual, Patreon has a scales only version.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
“The new Doctor Who’s are straight up fantasy in space. There’s barely even a nod to science anymore.”
I once heard something described as “Science fiction, where the science got thrown out the airlock.”
It kind of annoys me that people call anything set in the future or in space as “science fiction” regardless of how little science is involved. We have a genre called “space opera” for a lot of that, and there’s no shame in calling, say, Star Wars “fantasy” or “space fantasy” instead of sci-fi.
Believe Star Wars was originally touted as a Space Opera
Some people just have a hard time associating ‘fantasy’ with ‘laser’ guns and space ships instead of fairies and dragons
That’s a fair estimation though. The series started out “moderate” Science Fiction, and, for about twelve years, was what Harlan Ellison called “The best Science Fiction show on television” – but fantastical elements began creeping in during the Fourth Doctor’s era, and often pushing the scienc-y stuff aside (the show’s original “brief” had it tagged as an “educational” series, with episodes set in the past to teach history, and ones set in the future or space to teach science!), and when the show came back after … well, back up a bit – the episode “Battlefield” linked The Doctor to Arthurian mythology, introduced a villain who actually DID use magic instead of psionics (like The Daemons did) or ultra-advanced technology (like the Daleks, the Sontarans, heck, even the Time Lords themselves), and began the trend that the TV movie, perhaps accidentally, tried to reverse, of moving the show far more solidly into the same “Science Fantasy” space Star Wars occupies instead of the “wobbly science fiction” of, say, Star Trek.
Gotta ask: which Dr Who TV movie are you talking about?
Yeah, Star Trek is totally ‘wobbly’ when it came to science (or even basic technology) :P
maybe the sword mostly only exists in two dimensions at a time
Have you been watching “The Keeper of Traken” again?
Flying while duelung. Why do I suddenly think of Maxima fighting like Cervantes from Soul Calibur? Grrr, that guy is frustrating as he Kirkwood flies around the arena.
“Flying while dueling”. My first thought at seeing that phrase was Yoda with a light saber.
(snark) A wooden ultronium practice sword would be impractical due to the limited mass density of wood. (!snark)
A steel ultronium practice sword would work though; you’d need to make it five-and-a-half times the width of the true ultronium version to make it the same mass. So it would be chonky-looking. But that’s normal for practice swords. The ratio of the mass of hardwood to the mass of steel makes a wooden practice sword even chonkier than that.
And you know, if it’s a steel sword that masses about ten times what a heavy medieval longsword did? Somebody with good natural armor might have a different opinion, but whether you call it a practice weapon or not, I don’t wanna get smacked with it.
Just like to point out that logarithmic scaling is a feature of a lot of RPG’s. 3e D&D (not sure about 4+), every 5 points was meant to represent a doubling of ability. If you followed the Strength carry charts, that’s exactly what it did, too. While ten points represented x4 ability, it also only represented +5, because four times the ability didn’t mean four times the chance to do something, either.
The math may not have been mathing but you are quick on the draw. Nothing like movement powers to derail a contest of skill. Your muscles may have a tell but I doubt the invisible force pushing you around does.
I confess, I’m mildly disappointed Max is taking home a sword and not a battle axe.
But if anything, I would think the best equipment for her would be some magical/sci-fi trinket or mask to prevent opponents suffocating her and maybe some anti-magic protections. Max might be the most super of supers, but that won’t necessarily help if a spell turns her into a frog… Then again if the frog retained Maxima’s super powers… thats a horrifying thought.
Personally, I think warhammers in the hands of super strong heroes are vastly unrated – and under-represented. Just putting a slice through something with a sword that never needs sharpening is no comparison, in terms of sheer capacity to commit mayhem, to the tonnage of a hammer that weighs as much as a semi in the hands of a flying super strength like Superman or Maxima.
I’d probably use a big ol’ pole mace, like a tetsubo, if you’re just going for reach and weight. Technically, I think Maxima should always have a wrecking ball close by to really bring the impact damage…
Kinda like that frog in DragonBallZ :P
The TSR Marvel Superheroes game had levels beyond Unearthly – Class 100, Shift X and one more that I’m blanking on. I believe each was introduced in a different boxed set – the Advanced Powers one, the one focused on mutants and another one. Then again, I was more of a Champions player back in the day… and it got even more complicated.
That last panel reminds me of one of my super characters, who does occasionally fight with a big two-handed sword. And more than a few opponents have been horrified to realise that she *can* wield it one-handed, making “out of reach” a lot further away than they’re standing.
Regarding the volume of the sword. If the sword was plated with unobtanium, or whatever, the 9cc volume would be acceptable. Heck, for all you know it could be hollow and therefore 9cc’s is all it takes to make a sword.
To be fair, an “incredibly” strong and extremely dense sword that was only microns thick would slice through many things like they were made out of “parmesanium”.
there are 4 fundamental forces gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. all other effects stem from those.
Time moving forward isn’t defined as a force?
I’d probably like to add ‘that we know of’ here. Not sure how the nuclear forces work on stuff below electrons, such as quarks or neutrinos or whatever, and forces of higher dimensional realities probably have their own forces.