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. ^_^
He seems to be looking a little less like Peter Falk, the actor.
Because he was never modeled on Peter Falk
It’s the dude from that Aliens movie (the third one? with the cloned Ripley)
Seems like Ariana should be in on this conversation, seeing as this recreational activity ‘for max’ will involve lots of cameras and publicity.
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”.
Hmm, Becky Armstrong is a Thai actress, so too is Milk Pansa
Eye Spy a cranky “Puff the Magic Dragon”. :)
I don’t think it is exactly Puff… there is something in the back of my mind that recognizes the dragon but not as Puff but as somedragon else.
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.
HALO power tree unlocks— Current: Interstellar Warp …>Inter Galactic Warp (cue Beastie Boys) …>Inter Universal Warp (cue Space Oddity)
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).
I saw a video the other day.. Earth is actually Tera and the Moon is Luna.
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’ :)
Are you sure of that? I thought that Sardegna was the Italian spelling of “Sardinia,” which is also part of Italy.
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).
Yup. Those conditions would make it more than worthwhile.
Provided everyone’s fairly confident that Maxima’s actually able to hold her own (and honestly, if she *wasn’t* a statistically-rare powerhouse, there wouldn’t be much of a security issue in the first place.)
Cora did say she’d be a ringer. Presumably, Cora has a pretty good idea of how tough the opponents are. So she’s at least confident in Maxima’s ability to win. And even she hasn’t seen all of Maxima’s abilities.
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.
Agreed.
The German pulp series Perry Rhodan often pulls this off well. In one battle in the Andromeda Galaxy where the good guys were loosing they were suddenly reinforced by people some even the local nations, that had thousands of years of space travel, had never heard before.
At least 50,000 years of known galactic history, several galactic-wide conflicts and they didn’t know every FTL civilization in their home galaxy.
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
Heh Heh Heh, Puff the Magic Dragon fighting Shin Ultrawoman. XD I’d do PPV for that.
I grew up with Ultraman, but I was unaware of a female version.
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?
Milky Way does not mean galaxy. The Milky Way refers to the band of light that cannot be distinguished as individual stars by the human eye which looks “milky” against the night. So, Milky Way Galaxy is correct and Milky Way is not a synonym for galaxy.
Etymology: It was originally written Gala-kuklos, Greek for milk circle.
Don’t forget using your PIN number to access the ATM machine.
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.
I’ve watched all of ST:TNG, much of ST:V and a little of ST:DS9. I don’t recall them ever even going to Warp 9 for more than a few moments, and I get the distinct impression that going Warp 9.975 (which is MUCH faster, considering the Warp scale is *at least* an exponential one until it asymptotes right below Warp 10,) for any significant duration would destroy the ship.
And then let’s not forget, they actually need fuel, and IIRC there’s at least one Voyager episode where they’re desperately looking for some.
So I’m not certain, but I actually tend to believe they really did the math on this, and got it right.
Warp Speed and most fictional FTL drives don’t matter.
Most science fiction settings have the bad habit not really establishing distances and what is where.
That way a ship can arrive whenever the writer wants it to.
In Star Trek ships can stay at their mentioned maximum speed only for a limited time. I think it’s often around 12 hours, but that’s pushing it. They can stay at cruising speed as long as they have power.
The Warp 5 limit has been lifted during TNG with the introduction of some kind of damper if I recall right. It has been mentioned on the side once.
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.
It is dependent on the CO and is governed by the same rules as other risky activities; i.e., don’t get in too much trouble and you’ll be fine. When I was stationed in Hill AFB, the local area was anywhere in 6 hours and Vegas (8 hours away) because it was a lot easier to let the Airmen go to Vegas than it was to punish half the base every long weekend
The first military rule relating to gambling is NEVER bet more than you can pay. “Financial responsibility” is in the UMJC, and you can loose a stripe over it.
The second military rule relating to gambling is “no fraternization”. ST:TNG actually got this one right. The poker games were 100% rank separated.
And gambling with your CO? WAT? Maybe the Navy has different customs, but my mind boggles.
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.
Send Achilles and make bets that nobody can knock him out in 5 minutes.
Is this Faulk a general? And only a star? I’m a little surprised, that’s like the lowest general. With the amount of people and wide range of duties ARC has, I would think that he (Max’s boss) would be at least a three star general. Especially after ARC swat went public.
Considering that Arc has only a couple dozen personel, or lets say 200, having a general as a commanding officer is an expression that the army takes them very serious indeed.
Normally a unit that size would be commanded by a first lieutenant or captain…
I imagine a pinnacle for this sort of scenario being a no holds barred rematch between Maxima and Vehemence. This honestly seems like the perfect event for him, unless he’s forced to be a few miles away until its his turn so he cant feed off the residual energy from other fights.
It’d definitely be the perfect *escape opportunity* for him.
Once he got powered up there’s no telling what magic he’d be able to pull out of his butt.
To be fair, it’s not so much “friend gets paid” as “asset already responsible for otherwise-impossible interstellar help to the United States gets to keep doing what they do for us.”
Actually, “galaxies” used to be known as “island universes”, so the terminological difference is not so well grounded in English.
I’m not sure about the rules in the US, but given the number of game show contestants that show up in uniform, I’d say that legal gambling is alright and illegal gambling is illegal no matter what you’re wearing ;)
I like how Faulk is not only concerned about the possible ramifications for national (and planetary) security, but he’s also loathe to unnecessarily risk Colonel Maxima’s life on this. It’s nice to see commanding officers who genuinely care about the lives of their subordinates.
I like how Cora corrects him about the universe/galaxy distinction, and then he actively chooses to double down on saying ‘universe’ anyway.
My college roommate was the son of the Thai ambassador to India at the time. Chulvat Narinthrangura. The only Thai name I know, but I’ve never forgotten it.
Note that Dabbler was able to stall Maxima completely in their off-camera initial fight with superior force field technology, and trying to hit someone with an energy beam like that in a duel is basically a pipe dream. She’d have to sacrifice her speed for energy, and likely just waste the shot. A true ELITE combatant is going to be much less discomfited by energy blasts and have ways to deal with them, because Elite in a galaxy with super science and magic alike.
To be fair I would want to know how much clear space would be needed to ensure the alien wrestler didn’t do a chock hold that blow up a nearby city due to the impact of it.
RE: Military rules in this situation.
1) You know what you call an off duty Sergeant? “Sergeant”. You carry your rank 100% of the time. This is about 5x over for Maxima, who is an O-5, a commander of an elite unit, instantly identifiable, and celebrity. Vacation status has no bearing on this.
2) If she were injured, and this injury impacted her ability to do her job, she could (and should) be charged with “damaging government property” (specifically, her body). That’s if she acts without permission. If Faulk permits this, then he might well face a fitness for command review. Ariana DEFINITELY needs to be in the room here, and, after reviewing the footage, Faulk needs to talk to HIS commander because…
3) There are strong national (and, implicitly global) security issues here. Yes, some significant chunk of the galaxy has seen her one-shot that battleship, but a series of bouts would give a MUCH more detailed understanding of her capabilities. We don’t want the nasty types to have certainty–if they doubt, they are less likely to act.
I honestly have a hard time seeing the upside for the US in allowing this to happen. ARC-* is clearly dominating the scene locally–there is no need to impress Terrans. As mentioned, it is a BIG galaxy, we really don’t want to be showboating at this point.
Of course, the rule of cool absolutely applies here. I’m not going to complain if it happens. This is supposed to be entertaining science fan service/tasy, after all.
the chair cora’s sitting in is missing in the last panel.
*breaks into song*
Puff the Magic Dragon, Lived by the sea.
And frolicked in the autumn mist, in a land called Honna Lee.