Grrl Power #1410 – Trial by obeliskium
“Cosmic” energy is a comic book staple. In the real world there’s the EM spectrum and kinetic energy, gravity, and uh… friction? Also sound, acceleration, centripetal force, but those are all variations of gravity and kinetic energy. And lightning, fire… cold. Cold isn’t an “energy” though, just a relative lack of energy. Also radiation, but I think the EM spectrum covers… some of that? I know you can get into the nitty-gritty about alpha-particle emissions and ionizing this and that, but MY POINT is that in the real world, you kind of run out of interesting energy types pretty quickly when you’re writing superhero and not too hard science fiction. Or straight up science fantasy. That’s the category I put Doctor Who in. Weirdly, the earliest seasons of O.G. Dr. Who were borderline hard-ish sci-fi, but they got progressively… softer the longer the series ran. The new Doctor Who’s are straight up fantasy in space. There’s barely even a nod to science anymore.
So comics and sci-fi have to make up all kinds of crazy energy types to justify how the time traveling statue can turn back into an evil energy specter and possess that episode’s lead female’s father. That’s hard to explain using just infrared light and uh, centripetal force.
I mention all this because Maxima’s primary energy attack is a particle beam, which is totally a real thing. At least it is in a particle accelerator. I mean, a coronal mass ejection is… well, not a beam, surely, but there are particles involved. Arguably, a claymore is a particle… cone attack. It just depends on how you define “particle.” In Maxima’s case, there’s a healthy mix of neutrons and protons, with just a dash of antiparticles thrown in for fun. It’s actually a decidedly unhealthy mix, come to think of it. It’s exceedingly hot and has a surprising amount of kick. And just a skosh of ionizing radiation.
I think at some point way back, I mentioned the power scales of the Grrl-verse was more akin to the Marvel universe than the DC one. Or the DBZ one. Honestly, it depends on the writers for any given issue, but the DC universe tends to be on a much higher scale. I used to kind of limit myself to the Marvel RPG scale, but “Unearthly” strength only lets you lift 100 tons. Now, that sounds like a lot. I mean, sure, it’s a lot of weight, but that’s also only the weight of a tank or two. When you start talking about buildings or ships or trains, 100 tons is just dipping your toe in the uh, weight pool. So, whatever I’ve said in the past about strength levels, Maxima can lift Cora’s ship. I have no idea how much it would weigh. It’s about the size of a battleship? Maybe a little shorter and at least twice as wide. An Iowa class is 860 feet long and weighs 48,000 tons. It’s made of sci-fi space materials, but like with Ultronium, that doesn’t necessarily mean it weighs less than the stuff we have now. So I’m not going to put a hard number on it now, but Maxima can lift a lot. And it’s a good thing her strength can scale with her power pool, because if you could lift a battleship, even using 1% of your strength to open a door would make it explode. Cause that would be 480 tons of pressure, and most doors aren’t up to that spec.
Kobold Sydney vote incentive! Is finally done!
So… you know, check it out. Oh, and as usual, Patreon has a scales only version.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
I recognise those Obeliskium Pillars from The Dark Crystal, the “trial by stone”.
Fun reference.
Hey, it’s Heavenly Sword! I wonder how she’s doing.
Is that Heavenly Blade (or something like that idr) in the last panel?
Never mind. I just saw the Who’s Who on the side. Thanks anyway.
If I estimate the length of the blade to be 1.2m and it’s width to be 5cm, it being only 9 cubic centimeter of material means it’s 15 micrometer thick. That’s thin enough to cut on the cellular level (as in cut a cell apart). I think.
If it’s THAT thin and Maxima can use it without fearing breaking it than the fact this material is almost 30 times the density of steel isn’t enough to make it hard to use. That’s an incredible material. Also conventional sword design would cut the sword’s weight almost in half, making it in a perfectly viable weight range for 2 handed swords.
Wait, it’s 32 kilograms, not 2 kilograms. Never mind.
Two kilograms is a much more usual mass for a (long) sword.
32kg is much more than a barbell (standard mass 20kg). It’s stupidly heavy for a sword. Unless it’s moving really fast you might actually be pushing the target away rather than cutting into it.
If the material is strong enough you could make a sword that masses 2kg which would be absurdly thin. Which would be hard to draw, basically a line. But it would act like a sword, whose purpose is to cut or stab, not crush.
Maybe it’s honeycomb on the inside? It looks like it’s not just 2 dimensional.
I mean, it could be absurdly strong, and at that thickness it would still wave around like a piece of paper. A sword shaped piece of paper that you couldn’t tear, and that would deal out horrific paper cuts, but it would still be floppy.
But if it was nowhere thicker than about 5 microns, but honeycomb on the inside, or even a fractal support shape, you could make it work, it would just outwardly be slim, not 2 dimensional.
Or maybe it’s just ultronium plated on top of some less dense filler material like Osmium?
It IS a fair complaint. In anime you’ve got a lot of characters with swords that probably weigh on the order of several hundred pounds at the least, and maybe they’re strong enough to swing something that heavy around like a wand, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re swinging arounds something that outweighs them. And they don’t move like that’s what they’re doing.
A very fun idea, with a good bit of clever thinking. The first dialog box feels a hair clunky with how it’s getting out exposition admittedly.
Still, Super sword for super hero is often fun. Hope she gets a cool scabbard to wear.
Trail by stone ?
Better than trail by breadcrumbs!
That’s less than one cubic inch and just over 4 pounds. Are you sure, DaveB?
Irl swords are much lighter than many people think. 1kg is already pretty heavy for a sword close to the size Maxima is holding. Not sure about the cubic inch but metal swords that are not display pieces are very thin.
1 kg is not heavy for a sword, even arming swords and rapiers would often weigh 1 kg or more. (average weight for both is a little over 1 kg)
And those are one handed swords.
Maxima’s sword is 2 handed.
Wight of 2 handed swords:
Katana: 1.1-1.6 kg
Longsword: 1.2-2.4 kg
Zweihänder: 2-3.3 kg (for functionally ones, heavier ones was made but probably not used in combat)
I was also tripped by that but Cora is actually saying the sword weights 32kg, not 2kg.
But she still struggles to open the pickle jar..
That’s a weird thing to say, I don’t think she does.
I can say though from personal experience that having enough strength to rip open the package can make it hard to open stuff that twist open like jars. Maxima has incredible control over her powers but I can see someone like Stalwart or Anvil struggling to apply the right amount of force.
MAXIMA IS EMPEROR!!!
Now, by the law, who’ll get naked?
Like some of my super characters, she could cheat a bit on the “lift”…
The Dare family can apply their flight power to whatever they are picking up so it effectively doubles their lift rating, it also keeps the vehicle or building from snapping like a rotten twig from it’s own weight…
So this lets her use Cloud’s Blade Beam? Cool
It’ll be awesome to see at some point, but if that’s when she gets home I don’t anticipate seeing it for a while.
Is it just me, or does the art on this strip feel a lot “Crisper” than the previous strips?
While flying can extend reach by surprise
Would it means the strenght under the swing will stay?
as Maxima divides her “status points” as shown in the “parking lot fight arc”… woulnd’t that actually weaken the swing… hmmm
o well, it’s for show anyway
Using flight power in a swordfight is Further delved into in Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight archives.
Was a cool matchup then also.
A cubic centimetre is a millilitre. Is that sword really only using a third of a fluid ounce of material?
“Real types of energy” really depends on how much you want to get into it. We basically lumped everything into the Strong Force, the Electroweak Force, and Gravity. Also we are having trouble getting gravity to play along with the other two. Maxima seem to be affected by gravity normally (her hair falls regardless of how she flies, she is affected normally by inertia, she has constant mass…) which to me imply that her powers are all about the Strong and Electroweak forces.
On the other hand, if you want an interesting and specific type of “beam” you can just take what it’s made of and rename it to sound cool. “Geothermal hydraulic attack” could be making a geyser hit someone. Maxima’s beam, by your description of what it’s made of, is a random mix of very generic stuff and those usually get a letter, like X-Rays and Alpha radiation. Might as well call it “M-Rays”.
I assure you Dave that there are enough “energy types” to play with in the real world.
Every half assed particle a particle physicist comes up with to make their theory fit in the standard model can be used for this.
A few suggestions:
Kryptonite behaves like bèta radiation(electrons).
slow neutrons go through anything, but have limited range and trun anything they touch radioactive
fast neutrons go through anything and have limited range(no radioactive trace)
neutrinos go through anything, but require special focusing to meaningfully affect anything.
Alpha radiation can do a lot of damage to really close things.
Gamma radiation weakens from obstruction.
Cosmic radiation(mix of particles thown from cosmic objects through the universe) is generally fast and heavy as such it does a lot of chemical damage if it hits something sensitive, but it barely ever hits things.
Micrometriorites
Flying in a sword fight is completely unfair. Well, it’s more unfair since Maxima has ranges attacks and if she is deigning to fight you with a sword, it’s only to let you save face. ANYWAY… I was sparring with a guy at Pennsic and I couldn’t figure out how I kept winning. He was more skilled than me, stronger than me, and faster than me. But I kept kicking his ass. Eventually I figured out that because he had a limp, I could back up faster than he could advance which let me control the range, and that was all it took. I pointed that out and mentioned that if he was less aggressive I could never beat him. He shrugged and said he knew but this was more fun.
If Maxima has a “particle beam”, from where do the particles originate? Is she shooting off parts of herself?
“Weirdly, the earliest seasons of O.G. Dr. Who were borderline hard-ish sci-fi, but they got progressively… softer the longer the series ran. The new Doctor Who’s are straight up fantasy in space. There’s barely even a nod to science anymore.”
The early seasons were for children, so they were supposed to be somewhat educational. IIRC the first “companions” were a pair of actual children; the Doctor was in the role of “eccentric uncle”.
They removed that, so the science went away.
Dabbler’s been hiding a bit about her abilities. One of her swords weighs 32kg. She can afford to be picky enough about her weapons to bypass those she could not use.
“Parmesanium”?
That must be an extraplanar element, from what we call the Emmenthal Plane of Cheese. Much of it is ruled by one we call “The Grand Fromage”, though not to its face.
“An atmosphere of mildly thick intrigue” is now I will describe my dinner parties from now on.
32 kg is also the weight of janitor Anatoly’s mop, surely this is not coincidence.
BTW, I just noticed: Given that Cora has access to a fricking Star Forge, what the heck kind of bets is she making on Maxima that makes this trip even worth her time?
Like, is she and Dabbler betting the Star Forge itself and getting rulership of a populated planet if she wins?
Something with that much mass, being swung by someone with the strength and stability to do so, is going to go through just about damn near anything. The F=MA on that puppy is gonna be totes ridonk, as the kids these days say.
Max you can already destroy anything opponent in close range.
You don’t need a way to hit harder.
You need a way to hit farther, better, in more places.
also that sword has a density of around 3555555,56 kg/m^3(around a hundred times denser than the core of the sun).
That swords appears to be Maxima’s length, which is 185,928 cm or 1,85928m
It’s also approximately 2,5 Cora fist thick(do your own pixel measurements if you consider this insufficient).
Assuming she has average woman hands that’s 7,87cm*2,5 = 19,675cm
Assuming a 1dm width for the sword(I’m too lazy to calculate heft curvature)
It weighs around 1300670kg, which by comparison is around the weight of a medium sized flying, but empty plane.
Max you can already destroy anything opponent in close range.
You don’t need a way to hit harder.
You need a way to hit farther, better, in more places.
also that sword has a density of around 3555555,56 kg/m^3(around a hundred times denser than the core of the sun).
That swords appears to be Maxima’s length, which is 185,928 cm or 1,85928m
It’s also approximately 2,5 Cora fist thick(do your own pixel measurements if you consider this insufficient).
Assuming she has average woman hands that’s 7,87cm*2,5 = 19,675cm
Assuming a 1dm width for the sword(I’m too lazy to calculate heft curvature)
It weighs around 1300670kg, which by comparison is around the weight of a medium sized flying, but empty plane.