Grrl Power #1415 – Catered scheme
I wanted there to be more crews present, but I ran out of space and time to draw them. Also, there really should have been a few more aliens and sci-fi looking people in the mix, but no, I just drew your basic fantasy menagerie. Cora’s crew is 4/5th aliens at least. I guess the mostly alien crews were off doing adventuring stuff. It’s not like Cora’s arrival had been announced before hand.
I figure in a galaxy spanning economy, a modestly successful bit of entertainment, like a webcomic or an indie novel could potentially make a mint, because the potential audience size could be in the trillions. I’m pretty sure I’ve posted before about how cultural tropes across many species would be a pretty huge filter for pop-culture. Like, the Cardassians probably wouldn’t be into J or K-pop, but they might really eat up Russian poetry and philosophy, what with their mutual predilection for bleak overtones. There’s always subcultures within each society, even Star Trek-esque monocultures. So the total consumer population would always be a slim fraction of the actual number, but still, if you’re starting with a trillion, as a nice round number for easy math here, if you can sell your indie movie or pop-single to 1/1,000th of 1/1000/th of the population, you’re still making a million sales. And in the post-scarcity parts of the galaxy, entertainment is one of the economic pillars.
All this is to say, the Unlimited Class Battle Arena has a lot more than a million people pay-per-viewing, and the gambling can get pretty out of control. I mean, there’s the official gambling channels, then there’s the underground stuff. If they really do have a ringer in Maxima, they could all buy a fleet of ships. The thing is, a lot of people have tried to put what they consider a sure thing into the Unlimited Class Battle Arena, but it’s the Unlimited Class Battle Arena. So sometimes entrants do indeed sweep the field, but mostly audiences get an over the top event that would make Michael Bay erection to death, and bookies laugh all the way to the bank.
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.
Woof adolescent training film: “You will have hair growing in unexpected places. VERY unexpected places.
I’d assume that, on a Woof, the only unexpected places would be, your tongue and eyeballs.
Organs and muscles would be very unexpected (and probably very uncomfortable or lethal, depending on how much).
I always thought it would be the sudden hair-loss and regrowth cycle in unusual places that would be more on the nose.
Specifically, the hair (fur) loss and regrowth ON the nose. Those mange patches are the equivalent to our teen acne. VERY embarrassing. VERY hard to hide. Creates a niche medical field.
I want to see his high school yearbook now.
time for a super commercial
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Blade inspired fashion even in deep space.
What?! No Wolfman?!
So, is this about to be a video of Max, or a video of Egoma they filmed specifically to maintain deniability?
Likely it will the video of Maxima one-shotting that Fel battle cruiser.
Possibly with the ‘Maximum power? Muah hah hah’ spliced in.
Again, Egoma is NOT the disguise Maxi will be using in the Battle Royale (with cheese)
Somehow the orc’s glasses are the most adorable thing ever.
You misspelled adorable but I agree she should meet Sydney I think they’d get a long like a house on fire. Both seem to have similar tastes in men and both are similar in body type.
Arrgh!!!! Stupid self-correct I said ADORKABLE NOT ADORABLE sorry but the more they try to “help” the worse it gets. It gets me very angry yes very angry! So angry I want to hear an earth shattering Ka-Boom! But as an intelligent life form I’m quite aware it was my fault.
It amazes me that people accept autocorrect issues because autocorrect is basically necessary with touch-screen keyboards when the simple solution is to just have physical keyboards on phones. Physical keyboards are still common in Japan, China, and Korea–you know, where all the phones are made–but for some reason almost no one sells them in Western nations. I managed to find one and so many people see it and want one, so there’s clearly demand.
She looks like a tall goblin to me, or maybe a short troll (because of the teeth)
Half troll-goblin?
That works :)
either Troblin or ‘Gooooooallll’ :)
Depending on which one is topping, they might need a lot of stretchy-ointment in that pairing. Well, depends on whether goblins are naturally stretchy in this world.
Have seen enough to believe gobboes are stretchy in every world ;)
Hey! We don’t use the O-word around here!
In the next episode of Grrl Power…
Cora shows video of Maxima taking down a ship.
Crew ask what that has to do with anything.
Max shows her real appearance and everything clicks.
Oh good, bee…cause… Yeah, I’m not proud. I needed the money and the new guy I’m henching for. Yeah, a bit of a prude.
Is it just me, or does the guy in panel 2 look a lot like Anakin Skywalker?
This is a very odd group, honestly half of them look they’ve crossed over from a DnD campaign set in space.
Typo first bubble you’ve here should be you’re
Feel free to delete this comment
Also probably “unquestioningly” should be “unquestionably”
Holy shit, all of Cora’s friends look like romantasy protagonists.
Yeeaah. Valkyrie and Madam Pike (‘Girl’ feels right out) are a tight adventuring partnership giving off Xena/Gabbie vibes, but nobody’s sure; Daywalker and VampMage are a couple, although Little Miss Schemer and the Self-Aiming Breacher Round have this weird, complicated thing going on with them that started up when LMS/SABR was still acting as said couple’s official Infernal handlers/case officers; and Professor Orc just likes brooding abs.
And everyone just happened to be lounging around on the station in full adventuring costumes and makeup. Errr…. I mean “battle uniforms”. Everyone except Brooding Abs who was either in the middle of washing clothes or else Professor Orc hid all his shirts again.
Which actually could have a canon explanation… the crews present are the ones on duty or on call to protect the station, and therefore are always battle-ready while there. So throw in a brief time-skip to give Gaxgy time to prepare the meal and everyone else time to jump in the shower or touch-up makup, and we have the photo op here. Could also explain the lack of aliens; maybe they needed more time to get dressed.
If they were informed this would be a catered event, that likely would’ve amped up pressure to show up looking their best, especially if they knew that other crews–specifically, those that might fall in the ‘friendly rival’ camp–would also be there.
Cora and Dabbler are hosting a dinner. You dress like there could be an orgy.
True, there would be trillions of media consumers, but also billions of media producers. You would need to be the best of the best for all of those trillions to notice you, not just your homeworld. Even here on Earth – India has a relatively large film industry, but how many Indian movies have you heard of?
Yeah, the lottery has a much bigger jackpot, but the odds are proportionately worse.
A couple of case studies here on Earth: YouTube and Kindle. Both massively opened up the potential audience for something – I could upload a YouTube video here in the UK, and have it almost immediately be watchable by people in India, New Zealand, and possibly China (depending on the Great Firewall), giving me access to audiences I’d have not been able to reach through conventional media. But the UK market has also opened up for people in, say, South Korea, so I’d be competing for views against the entire world, not just my local population.
Some people will make it big – the occasional Baby Shark or Gangnam Style, and individuals like Mr Beast – a number of people can eke out a living, and the vast majority are pretty much completely ignored. Someone put together a chart last year of channels with at least 5 subscribers (my channel which has never done more than comment on other people’s videos has 7 subscribers for some reason) and nearly half of them have fewer than 100 subscribers. 21% make it to the 1000 subscriber monetisation threshold. So 4 out of 5 people who’ve done much on YouTube haven’t even qualified to get money out of it.
Kindle follows a similar pattern – a few people can make big money out of it; a minority can survive off it; and the vast majority get lost in the crowd and barely noticed.
In fact, on average, the wider the reach a platform has, the less well a typical person on that platform will do. If you’re the only entertainment in your small village, you will have a loyal audience of maybe a hundred people; if you’re in a town of ten thousand, with a hundred entertainers, a handful of them will be able to pull in audiences of a thousand or more, but that will draw audiences away from the other 95%, and you’ll get a significant number performing for just ten people…
TLDR; Long Tail creates a curve that has a higher payout at the top and a larger percentage of “nothings”.
Thankfully, Earth porn is already on the galactic market so there’s an easy
hook”.
There is a language and culture barrier for movies.
Which is why the movies that do good foreign box office tend to be “EXPLOSIONS!!”
I suppose Earth porn would also work. It’s not like viewers would be particularly interested in the dialog and character development. It does assume that human interaction is of particular interest to much of that huge audience.
Maybe those “recruited” humans have expanded their population. Could the off-Earth population actually be larger than the number left on Earth? That would likely require artificial means to be possible.
On the other hand, there’s a lot of technically non-human people that seem to be “Star Trek aliens” (humans with add-ons). Are they compatible?
Demons seem to be quite interested…although the demons we’ve seen are associated with a notorious succubus and so might be interested in pretty much everything.
Yeah, they’re definitely all just reskinned humans and humanoidish (Gaxgy) aliens. Heck, there’s even just a white guy and a black guy in there, presumably picked up from an orphanage while some aliens were cruising around abducting people, and they forgot to bring them back. Gonna need some more floating gas clouds, space centipedes, and what-not.
Flashback to the FEL super carier takedown?
So it’s maxima going to keep the disguise in the arena? Because unless she has some sort of really good shielding it’s going to get dexterity in the fight.
It was proven that it took Kevin at nearly full power to break her nose. Max badly misjudged his level, I’m sure she learned that lesson. NEVER underestimate you’re opponents. Everyone in the room will gasp in shock, trust me. They are underestimating her right now!
Which opens up the flaw in this plan…. Kevin can defeat Maxima in a 1-on-1 fight (in canon), so she isn’t invincible. This money-making scheme is relying on no opponent being more powerful than Max, and we know at least one such opponent already exists. Granted, that one opponent is another Super, but are we 100% sure that Kevin hasn’t been approached by an alien gambling syndicate? The fight where he defeated max is public knowledge. Yeah, she worked on her style and developed ways to hurt him, but this scenario is different.
I don’t remember if the format of this fight has been established. Is it a bracket of 1-on-1 fights, or a massive battle royale with everyone for themself? If the latter, Kevin would be a better candidate for winning this fight than Max. Have him skulk around the edges a bit to “power up” and he’d dominate. Unless Max spotted him early and took him out before he could power up, but she’d have to outright kill him and that isn’t her style.
Where did Kev beat Maxi? He bloodied her nose, that’s it
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-274-master-sham/
She’s pinned on the ground, power 100% allocated to shields to stay alive, Kevin is steadily getting more powerful, and he’s flatly stated that he’s going to kill her because she’s too powerful and could take him while he’s in a “normal” state. Everyone around is under the effect of his “violence aura” except for Sydney and her ADHD brain. If not Sydney cutting off the aura with her shield and distracting Kevin with Dabbler’s hypno-boobs, Max would have died.
Episode 274, very first “super brawl”, quite some time after the broken nose. I replied a few days ago with a direct link but that reply never appeared.
Kevin is already more powerful than Max. She’s pinned on the ground, all of her power dumped into shield just to stay alive. He straight up says he has to kill her because she’s too powerful when he’s in his “normal” state.
And in the next episode he activates his “violence aura” to re-start the brawl around him and get even more powerful. It’s only a matter of time before he kills Maxima. There are multiple reporters in the area, so this is all on camera. At least everything up to #274 is on camera; I believe the camera operators join in the brawl once the aura is activated.
He’s eventually defeated by teamwork, Sydney’s ADHD brain being resistant (not immune) to the violence aura, and Dabbler’s Hypno-boobs.
Kevin was a threat because she fell hard into his cunning plan.
Super powers are a rock-paper-scissors thing. A speedster or an intangible or a mind-controller or a teleporter could have locked Kevin up pretty quickly. Basically anyone who can defeat him without getting angry (and thus feeding him).
Yeah Max can be a speedster, but she didn’t do that due to lack of knowledge until it was not possible in that fight.
It’s a “tournament” so probably one-on-one. There might be a melee qualifier, but that seems hard to do the sort of betting they’re relying on.
“X just got beat.”
“By who? That matters for half the money out there.”
“It was a team, and then he fell into a hole.”
“Damnit, who had ‘beaten by a hole’?”
The best thing about a super-team is when you’re sparring, it’s practice. When Kevin sparred with Max, she knew that at some point he’s want to go rouge, and switched to Sydney, who just ‘ported him into empty space. I never said he beat her, just that it took him at full power to break her nose. That’s not defeat, just a really good reason to blow his arm off…
Oh wait…
She did.
You didn’t say he beat her, the one who replied to you said he did
“The fight where he defeated max is public knowledge.”
They said she will use a different disguise (combat bot perhaps). Egoma is just her disguise for travel.
Soooo….. how can any disguise not get destroyed at the level these fights will be at? A replenishing nanotechnology coloring layer maybe? Keeps regrowing no matter how much she gets effectively sand blasted?
It’s been established that Maxima’s “armor” shield extends just far enough to cover her clothes (usually). It should protect the hologram shell as well. Of course, if the hologram isn’t accounting for attacks that should damage her shell, that in itself might raise suspicion. “This sword disintegrates rocks! How come the crystals are still on her arms?” or similar.
You may be off by a factor trillion.
In a single solar system …
Dyson swarms are kind of insane in scope.
And once you get to star-lifting(*) you can get enough raw materials to build any number of planets you care to add to your swarm. Or the one two solar systems over.
(* which is what Cora e.a. are doing here if not yet on a scale fitting for a kardeshev 2 society)
(Assume typo at the beginning of the speech: «you’ve here»?)
Instead of the clatter of a 16mm projector, I want to hear the THX “THOOOOMMMMM!!!”.
The Netflix “DumDum!”
What used to start 16mm films? VHS tapes? DVDs? Is there a current day Trope? Is there a future Trope?
“Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow”‘s intro went on and on before it got to the dirigible.
VHS tapes was generally the FBI warning
For 16mm I remember the chicka-chicka-chicka of the projector starting of and then the boop-boop-boop of the sound synchronization. Before theaters all went to digital projectors 35mm film did the same thing it was just trimmed off when the film went from the can to the projector.
As an aside I’m not a fan of THX. It always just came across as an excuse to crank the sound effects up way too loud.
Yes, I am old. Thankyou for noticing, now get off my lawn.
I don’t think you remember sound in theaters before THX too well then. It was crap.
THX was developed so they could be sort of reassured that there was a minimum sound quality for a theater that wanted to show their pictures.
Admittedly they do crank the sound too high now. But I suspect that’s so people can’t talk over it. You know who you are.
You not wrong about the sound quality back in the day. I worked for a small company that had maybe ten or eleven screens in Texas and Oklahoma. The little college town where I worked had six of them. The sound at the two drive-in screens was just garbage as you might expect from a six inch weather proof speaker in a box. The single screen in town wasn’t much better. The had a solid state amp but some of the speakers in the ceiling had to date back to the 1950s. The tri-plex on the edge of town was state of the art though, at least for the 1980s and it was as good as you could get, pre-digital sound. Up through the 1980s there were a lot of older theaters still running single channel analog sound because that was what they had. As such I wouldn’t beat on them too hard. Digital sound in a theater is better. But I have been in theaters where you couldn’t hear the dialog over the sound effects. THX allows that sort of operator mismanagement.
I expected Darth Revan to show up on the Star Forge, not Anakin Skywalker.
She needs to be clearer… are we talking buying one top-of-the-line starship total, or per each person in the room who takes advantage of the gambling opportunity? And is that a top-of-the-line starship if you play it safe and only bet what you can afford to lose, or a top-of-the-line starship if you go for broke with everything you own?
Cora did say depending on how much they are willing to put in. The bigger the bet, the bigger the pay-out. My grand father used to go to the horse races and never bet more than $5, He just liked to get the feeling of winning without killing his wallet. The most he ever won was $50.
I think I have found a new cutie to fawn over… panel 4, enough said.
What about tall and horny?
She’s cute too, but i kinda go for nerdy girls more. And well, geeky green skin with glasses.
Was just messing with you :P
Tall and horny is nice, but geeky green is cute :)
Since they all have some kind of stake in a star forge, the amount they’ve got available to put up is going to be astronomical (heh). I think there’s a limit on how much they can bet, even in a galaxy-wide market, without skewing the odds on an unknown rookie. Bet too much and people will figure out what’s going on and that only has bad outcomes.
Just do what others do with crowds you can’t be bothered drawing: say they are off camera :)
It took me a few seconds to see the ‘3’ on the screen…
Aliens/extraterrestrials use school.film countdowns..?
Remember: Cora’s ancestor(s?) came from Dirt
Now I want to see at least three pages full of woof adolesence health film to see what it’s like.
DaveB you missed the butt of the spear in the first panel.
It is a good idea to keep a small circle if you are going to try to game the system when gambling syndicates are involves. Remember the movie “Lucky Number Sleven”? Too many people told their friends and everybody died.
I just realized how much rep that random guy who got beat up my max is going to get. Dude fought and lived against someone who became the champion fighter.
How will they know? Unless someone here squeals because Maxi will be wearing a different disguise in the Battle Royale!!!
I wonder if Deus’s Greedy sense tingling.
Does Deus have a Greedy sense?
Is he going to the death match palooza, and will immediately recognize Maxima for who she is?
Should I take my meds now?
If Deus superpower was a greedy sense it would explain a lot.
“I wanted there to be more crews present”
That could just be the captains…
Yes, that works, captains and maybe lieutenants
In a deal like this, you want to keep the circle of trust small. The more people know, the more chance that someone will let the six-legged space cat out of the antimatter bag.
Honestly, I’ve been thinking the ‘circle of trust’ is already way too big. “Three can keep a secret, if two are dead.” And while, yes, all of these folks are long-time allies, they are ALSO individuals of a mercenary nature. I think Cora is relying way too hard on old friends being able to keep their mouths shut.
“Two people can keep a secret if three of them are dead.”
two people can keep a secret if the fourth is a mime?
Then again, they have a good reason to keep quiet.
I imagine that the interstellar gambling consortium is not going to be amused if they find out that they have been ripped off for the equivalent of the gdp of a small country.
And they will want to personally let you know how not amused they are. With extreme prejudice.
They are going to show when she one-shot a Fel batter cruiser, aren’t they? That will wake some people up.
Lol at the interstellar movie test pattern.
All this build-up and I can’t help but think Maxima is going to end up getting her shit rocked and lose everyone’s money.
Maximas favourite movie: “Things I destroyed with a single finger.”
He latest entry is a Fel Supercarrier..
Anakin “Blade” Skywalker (closeup in panel 2) needs a spin-off
Yes Hello I would like to know more about the Tall Demon lady, the Blue Tiefling, the Goth Cyber-Noir chick and also the Elf-Goblin girl they are all extremely appealing.
What I want to know is…
…that tall woman in the back with the dark red skin, the hooves and the horns?
…Can I get her phone number?
She doesn’t have hooves. Look again.
I thought most dragons have truesight as the standard loadout
Love the sci-fi fantasy future people gathering around what appears to be the 4:3 reel-to-reel projector from my middle school.
Am I the only person that thinks the really intense guy looks like Tom Welling?