Grrl Power #1367 – Get rich violently scheme
Cora’s plan probably sounds like a bad idea for a number of reasons. Some of those reasons may be laid out in the next few pages.
At the time this page was posted, a Kg of rhodium is worth about $183,260, which honestly is less than I would have guessed. Iridium clocks in at $132K/Kg, and palladium is a bargain at $35K/Kg. I know they’re all useful in electronics, and also that Rhodium was the primary currency in Star Justice, where I guess it was used as star ship drive fuel.
In the Grrl-verse, elements are valued by four factors: how pretty is it, how abundant is in nature, how useful its chemical properties are, and most importantly, how energy intensive it is to mine/refine/extract or artificially fabricate. Generally speaking, the higher the atomic number, the more energy intensive it is. Also isotopes take more energy – generally, the more neutron variance, the more energy intensive it is to create.
Even with alien super science, the laws of physics still exist, and you can’t use your nuclear reactor to create more reactor fuel. Well, you can, but even the best alien super science can’t get you over 100% efficiency, so it’d be dumb to do. That said, it’s also possible to create Dyson arrays around stars and harvest absolutely massive amounts of solar energy, so it’s possible to create darn near anything – if you have access to a Dyson Array slash Matter Replicator – Let’s just call it a Knights of the Old Republic Star Forge. Not everyone does, of course. Have access to something like that, I mean. Not even every race has their own Star Forge, so while the greater galactic community claims to be post scarcity, the reality is that there is scarcity based economics at play. It’s all just at a wildly different scale than what Earth manages.
The vote incentive is finally done!
The update to the TWC image is pretty minor, but the Patreon version has the bonus comic as well as nude versions. I will strive to make the next one more timely.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
Gee, a whole PAGE of vote incentives…
And for more dyson swarm fun,
If you get to that level of technology you can also set up a ring of mirrors in a specific configuration around the sun and start siphoning off valuable elements, while dumping the relatively worthless hydrogen back.
After all 99.99% of all mass in our solar system is concentrated in our sun, and that includes (over)proportional quantities of heavier elements. There is several jupiter masses of just about any element you care to harvest swirling around deep inside the sun, and some of it occasionally swirls close enough to the corona that it can be separated.
And, this has the happy additional benefit of adding several billion, or trillion, years of lifespan to the sun. It is the helium and metal that is polluting the sun’s core that eventually will cause it to stop fusing hydrogen (when it burned through a couple of percents of the total amount of hydrogen in it).
Nothing heavier than iron until it goes nova, though.
Not sure that would even be useful, if even feasible..
Thing about being able to build a Dyson structure, is that you *alreadY* have the capability to vaporise and harvest entire asteroids, moons/planets if you’re serious. Probably scrub the entire Oort region for the star as well.
Simply because of the sheer amount of material you need to build it.
And you wouldn’t use an active star to begin with if you have the choice. Given that kind of construction capability and interstellar travel, like in the Grrrrl-verse what you’d really want is a nice young White Dwarf.
They’re much more stable than those uppity and temperamental main sequence stars, and will last you billions of years.
It’s actually probably a good idea for Earth to establish itself by doing something like this. We need a rep on the galactic stage for one and the prize money is probably more than just enough to cover the cost of a bounty.
You are right. Some battle fun and training for Arc powerhouses, some badass rep for Earth, some easy money for Cora and her crew. What could get wrong?
I was gonna say Earth probably isn’t quite there yet even with Deus speedrunning its development, but between the Alari colony, Sydney’s friendship with Parfait broadcasting the planet (or at least her comic shop) as a safe space for extradimensional beings AND accidentally blabbing Earth has Nth tech to whoever. It probably is a good idea start debuting some galactic presence before someone with more resources than Lapha decides Earth is free real estate. Any major galactic entity can just claim the place. That can’t be ideal. Although intergalactic polotics also seems like a headache Earth can’t handle.
Basicily, we are some hic backwoods world that dosn’t even have our own teck. We are like a tribe in New Gunnie who somehow came across a car and are trying to improve our village’s future with it.
“generally, the more neutron variance, the more energy intensive it is to create.”
That’s because you end up creating all the isotopes, and then have to sort them out. The lighter ones aren’t a waste, you can hit them with more neutrons, but knocking off an excess neutron without accidentally changing the number of protons and thus the element is tricky.
Reminds me a bit of Poul Anderson’s “Satan’s World”, where a rogue planet is used to manufacture rare isotopes, because there’s no native life to cause problems, and you’ve got whole seas to dispose of waste heat in, keeping the planet comfortably warm despite the lack of a sun.
Of course, in the Grrlverse, advanced societies probably have to tech to strip mine neutron stars for neutron rich isotopes…
It took me far too long to comprehend PTO as “Paid Time Off”, which I only got to after:
– Please Turn Over
– Peculiar Turn-Ons
– Perky Twin Orbs
– Punches-To-Orbit (which I hope we’ll see her do in the arena).
I’ve heard of grewsome farm accidents from a tractor’s Power Take Off.
Ironically, the reason they’re called rare earth elements isn’t because they’re all that rare. They’re just so chemically similar to each other that they’re a real pain to separate from one another, and tend to be found mixed with radioactive elements like Thorium, which makes radiation paranoid governments reluctant to allow them to be mined.
But the platinum group metals aren’t even rare earth elements in the first place. And they genuinely are rare, on Earth, anyway.
It’s more like most rare earths are so difficult to refine that mining for them specifically isn’t worth it, it’s done as a side product of other mining.
My understanding is they are all a right pain to refine also. I do know that some nations literally have zero capability to refine said rare earth elements in quantity. I suspect I am wrong.
It’s early 1900’s chemical technology; You wouldn’t do it as a science fair project, but it’s not all that challenging, either.
The real problem is that rare earths are found together with elements like thorium, and so you tend to get toxic/radioactive waste products from their refining. Countries like China that have abundant slave labor and next to no environmental protections have a big economic advantage in producing them.
Now, if you really wanted to, you could combine rare earth production with remediating coal fly ash dumps. Coal fly ash is fairly rich in rare earth elements, (As well as uranium and thorium, of course!) and cleaning up those wastes would make the production an environmental wash at worse, and probably a net benefit.
Oh, so the Grrlverse is going to have its own Tournament Arc, like a helluva lot of high-powered manga/anime stories, and Max, being the battle maniac she is, is going to be drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Yes Cora, a workaholic like her is absolutely going to have loads of unused PTO.
It feels bad to limit the fun to Max alone, though. In addition to her, I assume at least Halo, Dabbler, Anvil, Heatwave, Hiro, Math, Amorphous, Achilles, Stalwart, Jabber, Jiggawatt, and Ren have the right abilities to participate in superpowered gladiator games. And dear Universe, Vehemence. I bet Dabbs is no stranger to whatever event they are going to.
I struggle to think why this should be a bad idea, however. After they crushed a Fel invasion in minutes, it is not like the civilized galaxy is unaware of Earth’s supers.
I do like this hyperrealistic drawing style for Cora and Max. It highlights their sexiness and fitness/badassitude, just like a superheroine should look like.
She so has to bring Kevin (Vehemence) along!
To be fair with the alien invasions and attacks on the team being unannounced… Getting a semi legal/illegal ring for her to have people come down so she can punch them sounds reasonable.
They are going to mess with her in the future unannounced and this method keeps the problems to a minimum, a display of force, and earns space cash.
Better it in a paid ring rather than a surprise attack like the alien tourists or a surprise abduction attempt like what happened at the comic shop.
Since no one’s mentioned it yet…
“Piss or zip up, don’t leave it hanging out there.” Wow, never thought Max of all people would be one to make a dick joke.
As much fun as it would be to see Max fight alien warriors for fun and profit, no way the US government lets her leave Earth. Although I think she could abuse her power on that. No one could realistically stop her and firing her seems unlikely too.
DaveB the art on this is really good, you’ve started to improve in your colleration and suddle shifts in facial exoressions.
Good for you, getting better at your job! Hope to see consistant improvement to come.
Actually, I’m not sure if Maxima would win. She has never had to face somebody who was outright better than her beond a few instances.
Compared to supers on a galactic scale who constantly and over time fight diffrent opponents who are Alpha and S to SSS level fighters.
I think the trick here is that no one will know how powerful she is, even roughly, until they see her in action. Any attempt to get a reading on her magical power is going to turn up as ‘zero’, and she’s physically stronger than any non magical/supernatural being could possibly be.
Also, she can one-shot hi-tech space ships with their shields up, which would be developed with the knowledge of what powers other beings have. The idea that a single person could casually one-shot something like that was shocking to all the aliens present without prior experience. That’s why Max was a kidnap target to begin with.
Are we doing a Planet Hulk/Sakaar/Thor:Ragnarok storyline? Please tell me we’re doing a Planet Hulk/Sakaar/Thor:Ragnarok storyline.
If you had the technology to turn matter into energy and energy into matter at 75% efficiency a Dyson Swarm would not be required.
Turn 4 units of energy into 3 units of antimatter.
Add 3 units of ordinary matter, preferably toxic waste.
Turn that 6 units of matter into 4.5 units of energy.
Repeat with a gain of .5 units of energy with each pass and lots and lots of heat.
Hey Maxima, we got Kevin* to go into the ‘work release’ program.
*aka Vehemence
Oh boy…