Grrl Power #1368 – Reasonably petition it up the chain
When Max shows up at Faulk’s office in her dress purps outside of “the usual times,” he knows there’s going to be an ask. And in this case, the ask is “me fight big danger, friend gets paid.” I’m sure there’s officially military rules about gambling, certainly in uniform, though I’m not sure about while on leave. I imagine it’s probably fine as long as it doesn’t ultimately bring disgrace to your branch, or missing going back on duty because the Thailand version of Fat Guido broke your knees backwards over gambling debts. Come to think of it, I don’t think I know a single Thai name off the top of my head. Except for… Sagat. Which I assume is about as typically Thai as Guile is an American name. Technically Max herself wouldn’t be gambling, though, so… it’s probably fine?
Any sensory organ is technically a scanning device. Although to me “device” implies something that is either detachable or self-contained. And yes, a tongue is technically detachable. But usually “detachable” implies “retachable.”
I had Cora call out the galaxy/universe thing, not because I think Faulk and Max would confuse them. Well, Faulk obviously doesn’t care about the distinction. It’s not relevant for his purposes – especially as Cora points out, intergalactic travel is uncommon at best. I guess I drew attention to it because, as I’ve said before, I watch a lot of MST3K, and a lot of old sci-fi movies do one of two things. One, space consists of the solar system. Attack of the Neptune Men. Mars, mars, mars, martians, Attack from Mars, Santa Clause Conquers the Martians. First Spaceship on Venus, etc. Two, space consists of the entire universe. Which, yes, is correct, but old movies treated it too casually, like “The zabvronians have invented a bomb that can blow up the universe!” or “Let’s fly to my starbase, it’s just on the other side of the universe!”
Anyway, Faulk is incorrect in saying that the universe (or even just the galaxy) has only seen that one demonstration of Max’s power. You can bet they’ve scoured Earth’s media for every single scrap of information about Max and Supers in general. So they know what the public knows, and if we’re being honest, Terran information security probably isn’t up to defeating determined alien hackers, so quite a bit of classified stuff in in their hands as well. But not everything. Early on in the information age, several nerds working with classified information about Supers realized that the breadth of powers meant that electronic systems probably had some unforeseeable vulnerabilities, and now, most of the most super-duper classified stuff was never committed to computer. And then someone saw Read or Die, and decided to transfer most of that stuff to sheets of plastic, because weirdly, no one has discovered a Superpower that directly manipulates plastic. Unless it’s being worn as clothing, and then someone like Ashly the clothing-kinetic. Or if it’s being used as armor or a weapon. There are powers that can manipulate categorized things like that. But just sheets of plastic sitting in a filing cabinet? Not saying the Power doesn’t exist, just that it’s not been discovered yet.
Oh, and I’m sure very few people noticed, but the pictures in the frames aren’t my art, so credit where credit is due: The Ship, The Horse.
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.
I’m sure he’ll give in so we can have a story. I wanna see the group have fun at a space coliseum and I’m sure a bunch of heavy hitters being off planet will let some villains get up to some shit on Earth. Maybe this time some of the B-team can go on the trip.
It’s nice to see General Faulk again.
I’ve missed him. ^_^
Maybe the reason you don’t know a single Thai name off the top of your head is because they’re insanely long due to some rule that no two families can share a surname. For example, one of my friends is named “Sinchai Rungsantrattanakul”.
Eye Spy a cranky “Puff the Magic Dragon”. :)
Puff the Magic Dragon?!? 0_o
General Faulk, and the Deathmatch Gambling Scene, should be glad, there are no recordings of Mightay Halo soloing three planet destroyers and treatig their death swarm as xp pinata until they turn grey.
Certainly.
Secret abilities shown, Actual demonstration of her limitations, FTL capabilities demonstrated.
That’s the kind of stuff you want to keep secret from the galaxy.
I mean the only “limitation” shown by Maxima was that if she spreads out her blast it’s less powerful.
Also she showed just one part of her power set.
Keep secret from the *universe*, cmon; The Mightay Halo is going to be one of those exceptions to “intergalactic travel is prohibitively expensive”, because Nth tech.
It has always bugged me when people mix up interplanetary and interstellar, star systems and galaxies, and name every star system a Solar system. We live in the Sol/Solar system because our star is Sol. Other stars are not Sol just as every tissue isn’t Kleenex despite the mental ubiquity.
My understanding is that we have a moon, named Moon. Similarly, there are other solar systems, while we’re in the Sol System (from what I can find, it’s not Solar System, but Sol System), another lowercase s solar system would be called [Star Name Here] System; such as Polaris System or Vega System, or the RMC 136a1 System if we extend that convention past its logical ends.
A solar system is any system where a singular star has planets orbiting it (sometimes called an exo/planetary system), and we just named our star Sol, or literally Sun if you want to use English over the formal Latin, making our solar system’s proper name “Sol System”.
Contrasted to star system which *usually* refers to a system of 2 or more stars that are gravitationally bound.
And to confuse things even more, you can say planetary system to refer to a binary star system because the star system has planets, or basically just any non-star bodies orbiting one or both stars, and you can legitimately just call that same system just a star system.
Basically, the rules are loose and kinda vague, probably because even in the most esoteric levels of astronomy, there’s no practical need to actually staple down these terms to a solid and distinct definition. And even if it were to happen, it’ll have decades of inertia in everyday language to overcome before it’s common knowledge (see why people easily fall for a “Nutritionist”, while “Dietician” is the accredited and defended title).
well we are stuck with the greek or latin names of stuff.. English people call the Mediterranean island Sicily, but the Italian name is Sardegna..
when we eventually get to Proxima Centauri having got a working warp drive (that does not have relativistic problems)
we will most likely find their name for our star is the language version of ‘ nearest stars’ :)
well we are stuck with the greek or latin names of stuff.. English people call the Mediterranean island Sicily, but the Italian name is Sardegna..
when we eventually get to Proxima Centauri having got a working warp drive (that does not have relativistic problems)
Um, Sicily’s italian name is Sicilia. Sardegna (called Sardinia by english speakers) is a different island.
If I were Fauk, I would agree, but try to extract the following conditions:
Someone who’s not Maxima or Sydney, but still pretty strong goes(Stalward or Kevin for example), Arc Light is allowed to hitch this ride(invaluable intelligence gathering opportunity), she’s allowed extra matches to earn some extra credits(galactic credits are very valuable especially with assistance of the mighty Halo).
One thing I would suggest all sci-fi writers to do is to spend a few hours messing around in a scale-accurate space simulator. Like, I don’t care if you genuinely want to tell a story about a Type-4 civilization, but you should AT LEAST have, in your own mind, an idea of the scales you are trying to convey before you start writing, or you’re just going to make people who are familiar with the mind-boggling magnitude of space roll their eyes.
Even a single galaxy is way, way too big a playing field for most space operas.
Is that… Puff the Magic Dragon? From the old old OLD cartoon?
Damn that is a hike down memory lane.
Just what I always wanted to see; a piss-off “Puff” fighting an old, campy, Japanese super-hero that suddenly got shapely lol.
For anyone who’s young enough to have never lived life without a cellphone, this is what I’m talking about: https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Puff_The_Magic_Dragon
The other issue is the same type of bounty-hunters that attacked her in New York could show up at a match to try and grab her, so she’d need security/backup. Sure, not only would Max get some needed venting/fun, and building up some credits would be a huge help, but is it really worth the risks? I’m on Fauk’s side on this, it’s very risky. But I also like to see Max going all out as well. Maybe some clothing “mishaps” ;)
Halo, Cora, and Dabbler between them can probably handle security.
Take into account that up to around a century or so ago, galaxies were thought of as nebulae within the Milky Way galaxy, which was then the known universe.
It’s no wonder that science fiction in that era, and for many years later, would use what we now know is incorrect terminology.
Add to that the linguistic redundancy. Galaxy means quite literally Milky Way. Calling it the Milky Way Galaxy is like saying ATM Machine, which is Automated Teller Machine Machine. Of course, why not call it the Andromeda Milky Way?
Most average people have no clue about the relative size and distances between Earth and Moon, much less the Sun and Earth. Going beyond that is just beyond most people’s ability to comprehend. I’ve studied a few real-scale simulators multiple times, and spent quite a bit of time star gazing. At one time in my life I could look up, instantly pick out planets vs. stars, and could envision the earth’s rotation and the other planets’ orbital paths then predict where the planets would appear the next night. “Mars is there, and we’re moving away… Venus is there and is catching up to us… tomorrow they’re going to be over there and there.” And even I get lost in scale once you get past Saturn.
For somewhat realistic portrayals of space and physics, watch (or read) “The Expanse”. It’s limited to the solar system, though.
There was one major sci-fi universe where they did do a decent job of portraying the size of the galaxy, and that was Star Trek. One entire spin-off series was based entirely on the premise of a ship getting supernaturally flung to the opposite side of the galaxy and how long it was going to take them to get home using normal means.
Just to add to this, and we’re just gonna have to assume that people can grok the size of just planets in our solar system – Jupiter is HUGE, yes, but you can fit it, and every other planet including Pluto between Earth and Moon, and still have ~8000 km/~5000 miles of wiggle room.
To be honest, even I have trouble wrapping my head around Warp Travel speeds, & I’m a Trekkie.
“Light-Speed” is the distance that light can travel in 1-year. Our galaxy is somewhere between 100’000 & 200’000 light-years across (Let’s assume the lowball size for ease of comparison).
That means it would take a beam of light 100’000 years to cross the entire galaxy.
Light travels at a constant rate in a vacuum, approximately 300’000 km/second. This means that light can travel approximately 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers) in one year.
So, again, using the smallest estimation of the Milky Way’s size, our galaxy is around 588’000 trillion miles wide, or about 5.88 quintillion miles (9.46 quintillion km). (this is assuming I did the math right in multiplying 5.88 trillion by 100’000).
In my current looking for the relevant information, Warp 9.975 works out to approximately 5,126 times the speed of light (5’126c), which works out to 1.86 trillion kph (1.68 trillion mph).
ASSUMING all of this math still lines up amidst all of my searches for information & previously-worked out math equations, it would take a ship travelling at that speed about 19.5 years to cross the whole galaxy, assuming it kept its speed constant.
& Voyager wasn’t even crossing the whole galaxy….it only had to travel 70’000 light years (just under 2/3rd of the total distance). Even accounting for stopping for exploration or resupplying, that’s a significantly lower travel time than the estimated 75-years Voyager claimed to be looking down the barrel of.
The Voyager was not travelling at Warp 9.5. Except in exceptional emergencies, Federation ships are prohibited from travelling faster than Warp 5 to prevent destabelising Subspace.
For me, one of the defining features of a “device” is that it was intentionally designed and assembled by mortal agents; organs and appendages normally occur naturally (unless they’re prosthetics, which would also make them devices). Yes, I’m including “design and assembly by a divine creator” in “natural” for the purposes of this categorization.
Re: Military rules on Gambling.
I don’t believe that there are any, beyond what local commanders impose on their people based on the local commanders’ personal opinions.
At least that’s how it works in the Navy. I know that I’ve had COs who forbid any form of gambling, even Moral, Welfare, and Rec Committees’ lotteries, and on other ships, I’ve participated in an at-sea poker tournaments with one particular run with the CO sitting at the table right across from me that ended with me accepting his personal check for $800… And after I commented that I might never cash it, rather frame it and hang it on my ‘I Love Me’ wall, he begged me to cash it as soon as possible because my wife was known to host meetings of the Wives’ Club where his dear wife might happen upon evidence of his loss.
Proof that even COs have People they report to who don’t necessarily wear uniforms.
On Joint bases/missions, I’ve played poker with Marines, Coasties, and Soldiers, but oddly never Air Force. Most of the Air Force types I ran into were kind of Bible Thumpery… Which always struck me as an odd thing to find in a military force.
I thought the rule was “don’t go into more debt than you can afford to pay off tomorrow in cash”?
And that it’s all about security risks of people being blackmailed.
If he says no, she should just use her vacation time. :p
This comic is the last place is have expected to see Puff the Magic Dragon.
When I woke up this morning I was not expecting to see a sexy Ultraman today.
Is that Puff vs Ultrawoman?
You’ve really up’ed your game on the art. Great work! The general looks really lifelike. Although you can’t see the resemblance to that actor who he is supposed to look like.
Otherwise a good comic.
I would love to see a pay per view channel that spcilizes in interstellar fighting. Just imagine what odd ways some species and cultures could come up with. Just look at our boxing, We don’t even use our feet to fight in that one. So ritualized and the cultural implications are so facinating. Really, just imagine what anthopoligest at galaxy grade collages would think of it.
If they’re deathmatches, doesn’t that risk Max, ya know, dying?
Seems not worth it. Isn’t there a non-lethal league?
Do Supers in the Grrlpowerverse have Ace and Deuce levels like in the Wild Cards universe (in Wild Cards, a “deuce” was a power that was trivial or useless, like being able to change your skin color)? Would a Super with a really weak power still be physically imposing?
Max is going to have strong objections to killing sapient beings for sport, so will insist on being in the non-deathmatch division.