Grrl Power #1395 – Iron maidenform
What, indeed is going on? Get ready for the most shocking reveal… no, you all 100% know what the crowd gathered outside of the funnel cake stand is doing.
The general consensus is that you’re not supposed to sell high-tech stuff to people from pre-FTL planets. That said, if someone is on Fracture Station, they have access to some form of FTL transportation, so the vendors aren’t exactly required to card anyone, or perform any sort of advanced scan on customers. In the incredibly unlikely event that some STL generation barge drifted into orbit of the station… STL is “Slower Than Light,” in case you were flummoxed… If a sub-light ship did arrive at the station, an even that has never actually happened to date, then everyone would probably be okay selling them some engine upgrades, because 1) It’s just so unlikely, given the size of space, and to a race with radio telescopes, Fracture Station reads as a really odd, mostly obscured magnetar, so why would you send your generation ship anywhere near it, and 2) by the time you get there from where ever you’re coming from, there’s a reasonable chance that your species would have developed much faster ships and are already there. That or they might have experienced one of the great filters, like a self-destructive war on the scale that extincted them or at best they’re all Mad Maxing it for the last gallon of drinkable water, or they climate changed themselves to death and you’re the last of your species. So, heyyyyyy… Congratulations? Have a barely Faster Than Light Engine on us, buddy. And some funnel cakes. The bad news is that Fracture Station is a massive commerce and diplomacy hub, and every remotely habitable planet or asteroid nearby is claimed by someone and the nearest unclaimed place is 7,700 light years away. You know what? I’m going to throw in this Class E terraforming unit, on the house. With that, you might be able to find something workable within 900 light years.
Digit would very much be at home in a steampunk setting, where people are used to carrying an active furnace on their backs and 120 pounds of assorted brass gears, only half of which actually seem to be connected to anything useful. She’s never built anything that a sane person would describe as sleek, but then, she’s never had access to a hoverwagon-load of not-quite cutting edge consumer level alien tech before. Which may or may not enslicken her gadgeteering, but it should maybe give her some new ideas. My money is on her building a new, more powerful kind of harpoon with ergonomics that can only be used by someone with tentacle arms. Because it’s more efficient that way. If you have tentacle arms. Pointing out that neither she, nor anyone she knows has tentacle arms has about a 12% chance of registering with her. Because it’s more efficient, you see.
Ooh, look! A new vote incentive! And it’s updated with color!
Well, in progress, obviously. I have another one that’s actually a bit further along, but everyone was all, “Sydney Kobold vote incentive!” So I switched to this one. Plus the other one was a multi-character picture so it will actually take me longer to finish. I hope to have an update for this one each week, so stay tuned. There is a slightly higher res version on Patreon.
By the way, this gunmetal blue-ish background and teal pencils are how I draw the comic. I set it up this way so I don’t have to spend all day staring into a bright white blank page.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
Bottom left I’m seeing cameos by a Zygon (shapeshifting race from Doctor Who), Roberto (criminally insane robot from Futurama, likes stabbing things, once killed a man with a sock), and a Sontaran (clone warrior race from Doctor Who, may or may not have an obsession with melting people with acid).
For dr Who references on this page don’t forget Lalifrey.
Looks like ROM: Spaceknight is in the crowd to the right there as well.
Hah! I was going to make a joke that that looked like ROM: Spaceknight, but I figured that was obscure enough that I was probably imagining it.
Also, looks like a hell knight. Far right with the horns and red skin.
Unless he’s accompanying a Silurian? But in that case, he’d be dressed as a butler.
…
Digit needs a minder with a pre-rolled newspaper on hand at all times.
Honestly? I’m surprised that bra wasn’t fitted with projectiles.
Or Harpoons, she seems to have an obsession with em.
In a good way or a bad way?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1381-disassembly-dissembly/
Good for the rest of the universe, bad for her. =_=
I can’t wait till till there is a cultural misunderstanding with Syd
Someone apparently of her adopted species is peaking through the crowd immediately to the left of Harem’s legs. I’m guessing male. So one cultural misunderstanding coming right up!
I guess Ætholith bioframes can get really big. Not too surprising; I hope this one got some lessons in how to move carefully before wandering out onto the general station. See Tenri/Lapha/Sydney and shenanigans for reflexes involving tails when going through doors or lack thereof.
Digit’s been fairly smart here in getting simple, obsolete stuff. One of the problems with reverse-engineering things is that after a few iterations initially needed stuff has been pared down or out, and you don’t know you need it until you make the version that did need it. Then you turn it on and let the magic smoke out.
See also trying to recreate a cellphone using the newest version sold now instead of one from twenty years ago.
The latest version is basically one chip, containing about a billion transistors; you would need an electron microscope to even see a lot of the details. The rest of the case contents is one big battery. Why are the electrodes the shape they are? Lots of iteration on the shape of the electrodes, the shape of the battery, the exact composition of the electrolyte, etc.
The old one actually had different chips on a board wired together, with a fairly simple battery that could be removed. Much easier to try to replicate.
For that matter, you likely wouldn’t even be able to make an antenna that could produce signals that could connect to a current network, since that involved a fair amount of iteration.
Also second hand electronics betray usage patterns and are cheap enough to buy multiple of.
Yes. If you were to give a 1980s engineer an iphone 17 they would be hard pressed to understand what it even is for (I mean, there is a screen but nothing about it even suggests it is a telephone. A global wireless telephone network is not something that was even considered at all at that time).
They would understand that there is a chip in there, but their concept of chips was hardly micro. Manufacturing on a nano scale was not even in the realm of science fiction. It was still the time of 8 bits computers and a portable device with the capabilities of a mainframe of the time (which was room sized and required another room full of cooling equipment). Probably they would be able to figure out some of the functionality, but much of it is in circuits they have a hard time seeing, and depends on code that they cannot reverse engineer.
That’s only half a century and the same technological base and it already is almost beyond their ability to reverse engineer. Now give somebody from 1850 an iphone. They would not even have the mental and scientific framework to begin to understand what is going on here. Plastics? Never heard of. Glass that is as strong as metal? Not remotely possible (in their understanding of materials). Electronics? Aren’t those the parlor tricks of some bizarro engineers in europe?
Now put in entirely alien technology and a time difference of several centuries, or millenia or perhaps even millions of years. Their tech could be an apparent solid piece of material that defies our understanding of chemistry. With no moving parts, no powersource, no interface we can recognise as such. Even if by some miracle we get a handle on the theory of sub-quark field manipulations they use for computing, we do not even have the ability to build the machine that can prove the veracity of that handle. And whatever logic the device is using, it is guaranteed to not be our binary logic enforced by transistors as we are using.
So, anything high tech would indeed be beyond useless for Digit, but some low grade obsolete equipment might be just close enough to her superpowered analytical and manufacturing mind that she can learn from it.
It also makes you wonder how useful that FTL ship will be that Cora exchanged for the Fell battlecruiser.
Just a quibble, but you’re slightly underestimating 1980s tech. The 16-bit PDP-11 came out in 1970, and the 32-bit Intel 80386 debuted in 1985. Capacitive touchscreens? 1965. An engineer from the 1980s wouldn’t have any trouble decoding the most of an iPhone’s functions, although replicating them would be beyond them.
Bottom right is Rom the spaceknight.
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Rom_(Earth-616)
A. Maxima seems to have a problem(pretty high profile).
B. Altus walks around with a full size weapon and ammunition in public view. Wow. What kind of hellscape is fracture station? Look I understand that I should expect American scenery in an American comic, but I just happen to know that walking around with what appears to be a fully automatic weapon and ammunition in public is not legal anywhere in the USA(yes, one can get a full automatic weapon with a license, but public carry is still restricted), the rest of the North and South-american continent or the rest of the world for that matter, so apparently this’s an adjustment Dave made for story purposes.
My current hypothesis is a hfy style explanation.
With a belief in a right to assault weaponry the writer can get convinced that advanced civilizations let their citizens carry more and more dangerous weapons, but in that case, why is he the only one to carry any weapon in public.
B. I think the intent is to imply that Fracture Station, or parts of it, are more like Star Wars than Star Trek. High-level police presence that can show up after the fact and take a report, but generally people are responsible for their own security. Hence Sydney and Cora getting ambushed in an alley the first time we meet Cora and the existence of slaver societies.
As a pedantic digression, I wouldn’t guess full-auto; probably semi-auto, which is much more commonly legal (to own) back on earth. Carrying a loaded shoulder-fired weapon, whether full-, semi-, or non-auto, in public is a whole other issue regarding legality. That aside, my problem is that it appears to be a very large caliber to the point of looking more like a grenade launcher. Absolutely not a point-defensive weapon suitable for use in a crowded area. And another reason to think semi-auto, because even Altus wouldn’t be able to handle the recoil of a weapon of that size on full-auto.
I think the challenge they have is the different power levels of the various races. You can’t disarm an archdemon (or whatever) so instead they allow possession of weapons of any caliber. You only have a problem when you use them unless you manage to convince the local law enforcers it was selfdefence.
Nice author fitting logic, but how do you explain that only the 2meter tall and nearly invunerable demon carries that weapon and nobody else in the crowd.
Bullshit, open carry is legal in many places in the United States of America. Florida being the newest. Please do not spread lies.
Sorry, my bad. I thought open carry of [b]nfa[/b] weapons was generally illegal(just, because one can carry a glock freely doesn’t mean a machine gun can be transported the same way).
insufficient research from my side.
You make a good point.
It’s only good when I selectively surpress my non-american instincts, but that fits with the socio-cultural background of the author..
Perhaps pilots like Altus get a special permit to carry a BFG because they have a dangerous profession. You must be ready to defend yourself against pirates, smugglers and paperclip maximizers.
You make a good point.
It’s only good when I selectively surpress my non-american instincts, but that fits with the socio-cultural background of the author..
So a question. Just what form of FTL is common in this story? Wormhole drive, warp drive, dimensional tunneling? Something more exotic?
Cora’s ship seems to use some kind of “jump through hyperspace” judging from the way it first appeared near the Alari homeworld and Cora’s comment about extra “hops and loopbacks” to avoid being followed.
Hm, does that cart use the antigravs from The Matrix?
They may not have tentacle arms but Sydney can make them so…new weapon!
“HEY! Down in front!” -Short alien similar to Halo’s disguise.
Sydney has done something that has stopped the duel.
Regarding Tsraratal and her purchases.
Breathing fabrics exists, but we do not want to use them in our bras because they are relatively thick and impossible to conceal. (and concealing is sadly a necessity because of to 10 to 20 pct of the male population who is either unable or unwilling to excercise restraint)
Improvement over underwire also has existed for some 20 years now, but here it is the industry that is refusing to change. They have this hugely complicated production process and highly trained production experts that make it far too expensive for them to switch to a fundamentally new design.
Self adjusting though, that would be a godsend. It is often so difficult to get across, even to men who design clothes for women, that our bodies change a little from day to day. Not radically so, but enough that a bra that fits and supports comfortably one day may pinch or chafe a week later, and then pinch somewere else a week after that. Something that could scan the shape, water retention and muscle tone and calculate and form the exact shape needed for optimal support and compression (or lift if that is what you want). I mean, the commonly given method of measuring sizes is already pretty wrong, leading most women to wear the wrong sizes and getting back and neck ache and migraines. It is not as if one length and one ratio is ever going to be able describe a complex and flexible three dimensional shape. So … something that can automatically adjust to your actual sizes would indeed make her the richest woman in the world (assuming she can contract with Deus for industrial scale product printers).
Doesn’t Digit know someone with tentacle arms? Well Dabbler certainly does, and more than one. I’m quite certain that an eldrich horror of a mother stopped by and became part of the “crew” at some point. Possibly ArcDark… or was that just an excuse Dabbler gave when he/it was spotted in the lounge…
Damn. Altus has a flat ass. Poor dude.
It’s called ‘strategic butt covering’
Admittedly it is more of a game than a comic thing but artist in neither medium appear to like drawing male butts in greater detail, so they tend to be out of frame or drawn only by approximation. And in many a game there is a part of the physics engine that is dedicated to ensuring that the (mandatory) short cape at all times is between the camera and aforementioned male butt.
(courtesy of Anita Sarkeesian)
Tsraratal’s fascinator does its job.
I want to see this damn bra now. I’m picturing a metal bikini with built-in harppoon launchers, front and rear, a windlass and spikes, lots of spikes.
Ah the big world enders are still tracking down Halo… Not sure if ending up on a world away from Earth helps or amplified the problem as people are probably going to notice.
“an even that has never actually happened to date“
That should probably be “and”
I think rather that should probably be “event”
There is zero doubt they’re finding Maxima atm. I fully recognize that green stand.