Grrl Power #1357 – Highway to the sapphic zone?
Of all the myriad planets for Dabbler to be familiar with off the top of her head, she knew that Sol 3 was Earth mostly because Cora is human. Terrans are not a huge population in the larger space society, but a few of them have made marks that put humanity on the “Races to Know” list.
It does sound egocentric, but Max is extrapolating that if Hoss knew enough to know about superpowers, then he definitely knew about supers in general, even though people like herself were classified at the time. He told Dabbler to go through a specific gate, knowing it would spit her out in the middle of a multinational conflict that involved supers, and he knew Dabbler’s M.O. well enough, then it was a foregone conclusion that would involve herself with the leadership of said conflict quickly.
To paraphrase a Tom Baker Doctor Who episode;
Guard, “I’m taking you to the Captain!”
The Doctor, “Excellent idea! No messing about with middle management. Straight to the top! I’ll lead!”
I might be concatenating several interactions there, but there’s a reason Tom Baker was hands down the best Doctor. Dabbler’s version might have been more along the lines of, “Take me to your sexiest leader!”
The Cradle of Civilization to me means either Mesopotamia or ancient Egypt, which is a fairly western point of view, as ancient China had a lot going on as well. I’m just reporting my own biases here. Maxima’s biases trend toward Mesopotamia, because she was stationed there, and maybe visited Egypt while she was in the area, but was never stationed there. Also she speaks passable… shoot, I can’t remember if I said it was Arabic or Farsi. I think it was Arabic.
Oh, and I want to be clear that while Mesopotamia covered areas that are now modern day Iran, and Iraq as well as Syria, Kuwait and Turkey, Max never operated in Iran during Desert Storm 2. Not officially, certainly. She might have flown over their airspace quite a bit, but a human sized object wrapped in a cotton/nylon BDU blend probably doesn’t provide a significant radar return.
Oh look! The vote incentive has an update!
It’s not quite where I wanted it for this update. I kind of skipped over posting just the flats and started shading Heatwave, but hadn’t gotten as far as J-Watt. But I figured I’d post what I had.
I’ll hopefully have more progress soon as things here are kind of slowing down. Still putting the house together after the move, but there’s still plenty to do. The Patreon version is updated as well.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
Hoss looking like Deus’ horse brother from another mother in that one panel
Though I don’t like the idea of Hoss being Deus, that pose is very similar to the one Deus makes on page 1334, and I’m sure he’s done that fingertips touching pose more often.
Mr Burns from the Simpsons does it too. Does that make him a brother?
i was thinking the same thing, he got way too much of a Deus’ vibe in there, there is no way, right? right?
Where are we putting the odds that Deus is actually Hoss in a changeling costume?
I’d argue against that one, if only because Deus needed a way to get to space before for his shopping needs.
Now, I’m NOT discounting time travel, but I’m not sure that’s a door that this comic seriously wants to be opened to THIS degree.
Except that he knew about Fracture Station, he knew his way around Fracture Station, he knew whereto go and what to buy. There were already aliens coming and going from Earth, the only issue was the travel restrictions scanning for and preventing advanced technology being brought back to Earth. So even if he rode with an alien tourist on Earth or used approved gate travel through different dimensions he would have to deal with the official space ports and gate guardians. Yeah chances are he has used some smuggling prior, but its likely slow and only able to sneak back small advances. He took advantage of acquiring access to the Bane Ripper to speed up his plans.
So no time travel needed. He could easily have disguised himself as an alien, been using the magical dimensions to get around along with the alien tourism system going to and from Earth, but just couldn’t sneak back all the tech he wanted till he got his hands on something that let him sneak to and from Fracture Station around those legitimate means.
I’m glad I’m not the only one thinking along those lines.
i don’t think it’s a costume, i think Deus is a were-unicorn
Sydney would have been able to see through that with her orb of true sight, and I think Dabbler would have known too since she knows Hoss so intimately.
Hmmmm.
-Deus plays the long game. Almost his defining characteristic.
-Deus can lie. VERY well.
-Deus is wildly over-muscled, even compared with other supers.
-Deus DOES have a very suspicious scar on his face. Almost as if some sort of non-human facial component had been surgically removed…
-true sight cannot see the animal form of a were-person, if Deus was a were-unicorn, the yellow orb wouldn’t be able to spot it
Oh hells yes.
Ayup, this makes sense. Came here to write about it, but you all pre-empted my rant.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Hoss has spent centuries on Earth to set it all up. Including the emergence of supers in the first place.
Besides being Hoss after extensive surgery, Deus could also be a magical-physical entity (possibly a simulacrum), a humanized clone with implanted Hoss’ memories, or an advanced biomechanical android with implanted super powers.
If he doesn’t have at least some connection to Deus, I will be VERY surprised.
Was just thinking, he reminds me of Deus too.
Deus got his brain transplanted into a high end human body (hence the go’a’ould type X scar on his head), but he’s still a stallion at heart with the pride of knowing he’s truly as rare as a unicorn as a matter of FACT.
So scheming? That’s probably Hoss’ racial trait or at least the intellect.
Okay, I thought it last week but now I’m certain. If Hoss isn’t Deus (or rather, if Deus isn’t Hoss), I’ll eat my hat.
Only issue with that is continuity. It has been shown that he didn’t have access to his Star Gate rip-off until after Sciona’s base was destroyed when Halo went to the Alari homeworld. That Star Gate was how he got to the space station, so he can’t be Hoss as that happened before the start of the story and Deus didn’t have access to the space station then.
Or he just couldn’t get his fancy scifi loot through the official gates and had to make his own.
the official ways to get to earth are legislated, and until the Alari spaceship show up, the aliens were under strict secrecy and non interference, if Deus is really a were-unicorn (totally possible, we got were-triceratops, so, why not) he couldn’t smuggle alien tech as he wanted until he got his hands on the gate
however, with the gate, he already knew the coords of where to open the gate to, showing he already have plenty of intel about alien places
Not just me thinking that then?
Given the hint about Tom Baker Doctor Who in the commentary, it’s possible Dues will go to the fracture, get himself changed into a unicorn thingy, and then go back in time to prompt Dabbler because (a) He gets to tick Succubus in his book of conquests, and (b) he knows that Maxima and Dabbler crossing paths combined with Dabblers talent for annoying Maxima, despite that they both respect each others strength, to further his own plan.
No I’m not saying he’s that good (but he just might be close), but that he believes he’s that good that he can do this.
Late night thought while sipping the last winde before bed (maybe the second last wine, I’d hate for it to be lonely).
* will further his own plans, not to further. And wine not winde.
Grumble, grumble, edit function is needed… (You’ve heard it before on many social media platforms :-) )
Except Dabbler already knew “Hoss”, so the time-travel theory doesn’t make sense.
If Deus is Hoss in disguise it would explain a lot of Deus’ knowledge, and there are a very large number of similarities. From their apparently high sexual skill to Deus’ large facial scar possibly being from unicorn-to-human face surgery.
Hoss is on his way to Gygaxia, and is leaving earth, and we know that Max knew Deus from before he first appears in the comic. Did he get what he wanted there fairly quickly and return? Another reason to send Dabbler to Sol 3 is that he was planning to return quickly.
But the biggest problem with this is that Hoss we’ve seen in these panels would absolutely interact with Dabbler as Deus, and Deus hasn’t done so to my recollection. Other than incidentally, such as in the meeting where they secured funding for the Dungeon.
If Deus really is Hoss it’s a retcon.
Your points are well made and do make more sense than a “cross your own time line is disguise” ploy. Occam’s razor is on your side this time. :-)
time travel not required.
When he got to the station, which he already knew about, and knew his way around, the only issue was getting technology back to Earth. Earth has regular contact with aliens in secret via a tourism system, as well as implied if not state portals to mystical realms which also portal to one another and alien worlds. However the space ports are heavily legislated to prevent advanced tech getting to less advanced worlds, control the spread of dangerous life forms, etc… and as last page stated even the magic gates have guardians that will filter out bringing tech beyond certain levels to certain magical and so on worlds as well.
So Deus easily with his connections and given his knowledge of aliens and magical beings via his talks with the Twilight Council members and his wall of sexual brags of different species including nordic evil undead, could have had some way to get off world, maybe disguise himself, or at least have these off world connections. The problem was getting stuff back to Earth.
The Bran Ripper presented an opportunity, a way to get to Fracture Station under the radar, get what he wants and sneak it all back to Earth.
With or without ketchup?
Want seasoning with that fedora, Columbo?
The only way BigD and SmugD could be the same, is if SmugD’s illegal trip to Fracture wasn’t his first time (Dabbles was well acquainted with BigD that she recognized him just from his voice)
the him being deuz could still work why got the X on the face remove of horn and possibly loss of memory? OR working for deuz
At first I thought that the “post-scuffle Sapphic kissing” wouldn’t be much fun for him since he would have to imagine it, but then I realized that Dabbler would record it and he could probably persuade her to show home movies later.
Also I thought he would have gone full gladiator mode which includes a skirt, but I looked back a couple of strips and realized he was wearing trousers after all. They seem like they would be awkward on digitigrade (or unguligrade) legs but maybe I’m just parochial.
– shoot, I can’t remember if I said it was Arabic or Farsi. I think it was Arabic.
I’m pretty sure she’s said the word “Farsi” at one point, but I can’t remember if it was “I speak” or “I don’t speak”
Modern scholarship acknowledges several ‘cradles of civilization’ where the urban revolution occurred independently. Notably, they largely are the same areas where the Neolithic revolution previously occurred, broadly speaking.
The Fertile Crescent, in a tier with Egypt for the second stage, bears a special place of honor among them since it is the place where transition to agriculture and later to civilization first occurred. So, in a sense it is not wrong to identify it as the cradle of civilization par excellence.
Yeah. I’m always glad people acknowledge history happening outside of Europe and the Mediterranean. But Mesopotamia really did get started way before any of the others. Like the earliest samples of writing in China have been dated to around 1200bce; earliest in the fertile crescent are from 2500bce.
One, the wider galaxy has known about Earth for quite some time. Hoss mentions an ‘origin gate’. The Veil has been arpound for centuries. Cora’s ancestors being sailors who fell into the Bermuda Triangle or something.
Sydney finding the Flyball encased in a coral reef… and the Orbs being ‘Nth Tech’ that an ‘ordinary’ person could immediately use.
The Ancients were real, and they were us. An earlier version of us anyway.
From what I remember Cora implied her ancestors either signed up as sailors or were pressed, rather like the English navy was in the habit of doing during the Napoleonic wars.
Even if they signed up voluntarily, they would have been ignorant of all the implications. Including the English navy habit of not paying return fare to a crew member’s origin if the ship was decommissioned.
This still doesn’t explain how Hoss got such a boost / edge though. Unless he is similar to Vehemence and absorbed energy from the ongoing war involving supers. Or absorbs some other kind of energy, there must be more than just tantric and vehemic energy types and users of those things.
I see some theorizing that Hoss is Deus, but I wouldn’t like that. There is something up with Deus, but I rather have him be some ancient super human than a long lived alien genius. Hoss and Deus having crossed paths can still be on the table, Deus might even have been the one to help give Hoss his still undisclosed edge.
Could be that, only similar to Vehemence and Dabbler, he draws on a specific type of energy and supers provide a very plentiful/potent form of it.
Vehemence had that same toothy smile and he is not Deus. Just like Maxima had the whole glasses on a dark silhouette from Hellsing and Maxima is not Alucard, let alone in tge same universe. In other words it’s an artistic style.
The answer is simple… He pulled a ‘Dues’ just because he wanted to see both of them interact.
Though this could be called the same as opening up a door and claiming treasure is on the other side of it just so you can see pirates being teleported near a ninja base just to watch ninjas fighting pirates.
Anything past that scene isn’t a part of the plan… Or making sure the authorities in charge of warp gates investigates that incident while you smuggle your sci fiction technology into fantasy land.
The cities of Sumeria were ancient before the civilizations of Egypt and China (among others) were even a distant possibility.
If any one place deserves the title Cradle of Civilization, it’s Mesopotamia.
Wait, Cora is human? When was that a thing? And why is she blue then?
#755 – #757
Strips 755-757 cover it.
Blue is genetic modification. Although why she was still born without limbs to parents with the technology to modify her genes to photosynthesize light and create her own Vitamin C is an unknown. As for how long we’ve known this:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-755-the-great-gouda-caper/
A human sized object flying around would get plenty of attention from anti-drone AA these days.
The timeline in this comic goes really slow because Dave crams so much into each day and the release schedule.
We’re just a few months from day one and thats because we had a time skip thanks to time travel shenanigans.
Maxima’s skin is X-Ray proof and probably an excellent radar reflector.
Also not stealth shaped with those rounded parts.
Sure…. if she was naked…
Radar operators would definitely pick up on a human size object. You know, something about the size of a missile….
As an officer and extremely powerful super, Maxima would have full cooperation from the military in both testing her reflection and minimizing it.
X-Ray proof is not radio wave proof, though it’s likely.
Also, is it reflective or absorbing. Yes, normally absorbing would involve energy transfer and resulting heating, but superpowers laugh at physics anyway. Maybe the x-rays and radio waves just disappear.
Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1910
Humanity has been staring at the sky for at least as long as it had writing to write it down.
A gold human sized object breaking the sound barrier needs active technomagical intervention to say hidden and this guy is an adventurer aware of the veil.
Except… this webic is not set in ‘these days’, it’s set sometime around 2010 or 2011
Nice to know I’m not the only one getting huge Deus vibes from Hoss. I don’t think they’re the same guy though for a few reasons. One I doubt Hoss or Deus has a disguise powerful enough to fool Dabbler or Sydney. And Deus is way more interested in Earth’s development into I assume a galactic super power he would be in charge of. I don’t think an alien would have Deus’ agenda even if some of their interests align and they have a similar cadence or aura or whatever Hoss’ vibes are giving off. I’ll say not the same guy for now, but I can be convinced with more evidence.
it’s been said by fans for decades. that Tom Baker wasn’t playing the doctor. The Doctor was just Tom Baker
My fave classic Doctor was Jon Pertwee. Tom was a hair behind him. :)
Six cradles total, Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India/Pakistan, Peru, and Mexico.
Don’t tell the Americans that, they believe they are the cradle (maybe if someone was rocking or robbing it :P )
Its possible that the Peru cradle really ought to be somewhere out in the Amazon basin; we know there’s all sorts of lost civilisation stuff there, but haven’t explored thoroughly. Similarly, “Egypt” may have started out in the Sahara, and there may be other Afrcan locations that count. There’s a bias to what’s been explored, and that isn’t always what was really going on.
Another problem is that sea levels may have been quite different, especially around the Mediterranean basin. We should be humble about what we know.
If I remember correctly from the other comic Dabbler appeared in, Hoss used to be a human?
Meaning his “new edge” could be superpowers?
WereWorld? Don’t believe so
indeed, the guy in the other webcomic was a were-leopard, not were-unicorn
but if hoss is indeed a were-unicorn, he could have had his human part catch superpower when he visited earth, and he could have come back by now and stayed under his human identity, like, with a super oddly catchy nickname.. who name their son “deus superion” really?
I know Dabbler appearred in another WebComic once.
And I think that is the comic Hoss came from.
But I have forgotten the name and I cannot find any link.
Wikipedia actually lists six cradles of civilization: Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, Mexico, and Peru. But Mesopotamia got started earliest, and much earlier than any of the others except Egypt. So if you’re going to single out ONE “cradle,” Mesopotamia has chronological priority.
Farsi is for Iran/Persia.
Arabic is for most other Muslim countries – its a bit like Spanish in The Americas, you might have a ‘native’ language, but just about everyone can get by in it to some degree.
Syd’s look at the end was like, “Really?”
Nah, that’s a fake out. Hoss isn’t really Deus (but might be working together).
Artist reuses a favorite pose and the comment section goes wild with speculation.
Another possibility to add to the cospiricy theory crafting. Rather then Deus being Hoss, I would consider Hoss as the guy who MADE Deus – as a clone of himself, but with a humans superpowered genome. (the eventually goal of Hoss would be to find out what made all the livings things according to the theory “Deus” presented about where superpowers come from)
How well educated is Hoss about Earth that he knows about where Cradle of Civilization was originally? Either he was on Earth long enough to study our history (which brings up a host of questions about how he was able to blend in, does the magic field thingy cover aliens? I forget) or the alien history books have info on Earth history. Both are possible, but which is correct?
It seems to me that nobody has pointed out the fact that the previous and current pages are the FIRST to feature ACTUAL nudity – not inferred, not covered up by speech bubbles or actual bubbles or whatever, but ACTUAL nudity.
I’m not a prude, I like that it’s there. I’m just saying I was expecting it earlier than page 1357.
The main reason why we can safely say that Hoss is NOT Deus, is because he’s someone else’s OC.
“Sol 3″… Not me and my dumb Wuthering Waves associations… sorry >.<"
[awkward]
I think Mesopotamia gets the title of “cradle of civilization” because even though it wasn’t the only ancient nation at the time, it spread it’s influence more, especially into Europe which is sort of the most important continent to our western memories. By comparison ancient China was very insular, secure in its borders (inhospitable desert to the north, tallest mountains in the world to the south, ocean to the east, and only a narrow passage to the west that they had control over) and aside from a trickle of innovations that were snuck out by ancient entrepreneurs (like gunpowder, paper, etc) they had very little political impact on global affairs until the 19th century or so
For Gulf War 2 as it occurred on our Earth, and assuming Maxima learned Arabic or Farsi to better deal with that war, Arabic would be the language for her to learn. It would be the language spoken by the people of Iraq, the US-trained Iraqi army as well as by any Saddam Hussein (sp) loyalists and by most al Queda fighters.
Farsi (aka “Persian”) is the language of Iran, who wasn’t exactly on the sidelines but they were more positioning themselves to take control of Iraq through its Shia population once the dust settled, which they have. Farsi might be a better choice these days.
If Max learned (arabic or farsi) prior to 9/11 it’s a tossup. Iran has been an enemy of the US for almost 50 years now and the problem of arab terrorism is about as old. Anytime after 9/11, arabic becomes the hands-down language choice.
Everyone keeps thinking Big D and Deus are the same, or related, or somehow connected.
The easiest solution is the simplest: They’re just the same /kind/ of guy. The universe is infinite, after all.
I’d say it’s pretty established convention that “the cradle of civilization” singular refers to Mesopotamia. Sorry to the Nile, Indus, Yellow, and Yangtze River valleys, not to mention the new world cradles of civilization (at least one of which I think was not a river valley), but the Tigris and Euphrates stole top linguistic billing and that’s just how it is.
I guess we know the answer to if you’d ever self insert your fursona or not: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/1898250/