Grrl Power #1427 – Unlimited Class Battle Arena Round 1 Fight!
In a no holds barred Battle Royale, blowing up the whole battlefield is a pretty solid option, assuming you yourself could survive it. Of course, in an unlimited class arena, there’s a chance your opponents could too. Still, why not? Might knock out a few of them anyway. Pretty much the only thing not allowed in the UCBA is anything that could be categorized as off table support. No orbital railguns, no over the horizon artillery, no transporting infinite backup mecha or clones or oceans onto the field. Hammerspace/bags of holding are okay, but not an actual wormhole to a thousand arrays of battleship weapons pointed at the entrance of the wormhole, or, you know, an infinite warehouse full of mecha ocean clones.
Can you put a tag-team-partner in your bag of holding? Well, most of them don’t work like that, but this is Unlimited Class, so let’s assume they have one that allows you to store a living being. No, you can’t do that, because they would count as a separate entrant. There have been some special cases where a duo entered as a single entrant, but they were weird psychically paired or something.
Can you enter a starship? Like a Galactic Dreadnought? Sure, but with only a single crew member. Or a single A.I. (A proper A.I., not the shit we have now.) However, in a relatively close-range fight against 7 other Unlimited Class opponents, it’s a pretty good way to get boarded and lose your ship. There have been a few instances in the past where people tried to cheat by entering a powerful ship or mecha and another powerful entrant shanghaied it to double up their fighting power, but it’s a stupid tactic, because you can just enter Goku wearing Iron Man’s armor piloting a Warhammer 40K Titan in the first place. The only thing “cheating” like that would do is it would let you “beat” an otherwise difficult opponent because they’re really on your side to begin with.
That isn’t to say organizations haven’t tried to stack the final matchups by flooding the entry pools. The problem at that level of competition is getting beings that powerful to take falls. The Gokus and Supermen would be offended by the cheating, and the Friezas and Dr. Dooms would incinerate you for suggesting that anyone would believe that they could be beaten.
There are a lot of good “thing powering up sounds.” The Proton Power Pack from Ghostbusters is a good one, though it’s probably more the reaction than the sound in that scene. The guy yelling “Power UP!” in Altered Beasts is actually pretty fun. As soundbytes go, “POWER OVERWHELMING” is an amazing one. But really I’m talking about sound effects, not He-Man yelling “IIIIII HAVE THE POWEEEEER!” Which incidentally is another good one. Share your favorite “thing power up” moments.
Here’s one of Gaxgy’s in progress shots of the painting Maxima promised him. Weird how he draws almost exactly like me.
I’ve finished the main picture with the nude variant. (More like the clothing is the variant, because it’s easier to add clothes than erase them.) But I haven’t finished the bonus comic yet, so I’ll update the incentives soon.
Patreon doesn’t have a nude version yet, but I’ll try and update this each week until it’s done.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
That is most likely Maxima then. And I’m only saying ‘most likely’ since it is almost to close to her actual body. But in an all out battle like this you wouldn’t want odd padding that doesn’t match up with her actual body.
That said, she looks good as some kind of crystal golem?
I would also guess that is Maxima in disguise.
They definitely needed to avoid anything like armor, weapons or smilar attachments. Because enemies would try to remove them, meaning she would either have to fake losing that power or break the illusion.
Something that can fight effectively nude fits her abilities the best.
Technically, there are two ‘effectively nude’ characters :P
Three. The naked grey and the two warbots. Barny is wearing a piece of clothing, and Cloak-girl still has some scraps of fabric clinging to her form.
She’s missing the magic eating sword. Although it’s possible the other 7 contestants were all known so they skipped it this time.
Who said she was going to use it here?
Or any weapon?
I bet she’s the pixie casting suckhole on the explosion. The one that the comic is clearly focusing on is obviously a clever ruse!
When did Maxi learn magic?
Off screen training montage.
Aw the mysterious hooded figure is Maxima? I thought it was going to be the robot with an M mask.
I figured the ringer entering while wearing a face-concealing cloak was a bit too on-the-nose.
Might not be the intent, but when asking for my favourite “things powering up” moment, the absolute first thing that came to mind was Tim Curry demanding someone “throw open the switches on the sonic oscillator, and step up the reactor power three. More! POINTS!”
I have always liked the Schlock Mercenary Strohl Munitions BH-209 Plasgun, and its “Ommminous Hummmmmm”, which is also accompanied by the cozy glow of doom from the muzzle.
Make sure and get the BH-209i if you’re planning on dousing it in alcohol, the BH-209m doesn’t like it and explodes.
Also, get the BH-250 for even more Ominous Hum goodness, or rig up an AP-130 (or an AP-229) with a stereo and LED system to mimic it (they use annie plants instead of fusion for power, so you can fire them in a vacuum for extended periods but you lose the Ominous Hum and glow of doom effects).
This is objectively the correct sound to imagine. Nothing beats the Ominous Hum.
The TARDIS’ “operating with the parking brake on” sound is a pretty iconic power sound for me, even though it’s more of a regular operating sound than “powering up.”
As far as dialogue goes, when you heard “Atomic batteries to power. Turbines to speed.” in the Batman ’66 TV series, you knew some campy villain’s @$$ was about to get whooped when the Batmobile got to where it was going. It wasn’t over the top, but it was as good a signal of the oncoming storm as anything out there.
Heh, local radio station uses the Batman soundbyte all the time
Thought it was fake (because it didn’t sound like West) and couldn’t remember it from the show
It didn’t sound like West, because that line wasn’t Adam West, it was Burt Ward as Robin in the passenger (copilot’s?) seat.
West (As Batman, obviously) opens up the exchange with “To the Batmobile! Let’s go!” and then Robin responds “Atomic batteries to power. Turbines to speed.”
Didn’t sound like him either
And yet, amazingly enough, nobody bats an eye (heh) at the fact that the Batmobile was freaking nuclear powered. Holy unlicensed nuclear accelerators, Batman!
Because it wasn’t.
Whatever “atomic batteries” are (besides technobabble, which was almost certainly the whole point), they are explicitly not a reactor or accelerator. They’re *batteries.*
Terry wasn’t a character at that time, so why were they even talking about Bat Terry?
So, that soundbyte was from something else?
Actually, found the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpWy0nNeSWU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpWy0nNeSWU
Godzilla -1 the first time he uses the atomic breath. That power up sound is chilling.
Monsterverse Godzilla as well, in my opinion.
Definitely a classic sound effect.
When it comes to single AI ships that go toe to toe with entire fleets or even an advanced species, that would be Ian Bank’s The Culture Series. “Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints” is just one picket ship that thinks was is a bad idea and wants to show you how it ends.
It’s good to see folks appreciating their classic literature here!
Honorable mention goes to Ennesby’s maser. Not so much of a noise as the realization that the little drumstick just HAD that ability thr whole time
I was about to say, one of the big notable tactics that were not mentioned would be self-replicating entrants like the cutlure Mind ships. The one AI can control or make from raw materials innumerable bodies (on the off chance that bringing the bodies would make them count as separate entrants) and with time make another entire ship every couple of X intervals as far as I understand.
There was a book in the series (Eve of Destruction) by Benjamin Medrano, book 4 I think, where two ohmygod class combatants went at it over a point of draconic honor. Since the dragon clans ran the galaxy this was a very big deal. The rules more or less boiled down to whatever you could carry onto the battlefield under your own power was allowed, resurrection magic was available win or lose, and please don’t break the planet. Kiloton range fireball spells were assumed, or you were not badass enough for a fight at this level.
There were a couple of fine points added because of past attempted cheaters, my favorite being ‘any attempt to weasel word around these restrictions will resort in immediate orbital bombardment’. Apparently one of the attempted cheaters used a sighting mechanism for offsite artillery and got stomped. All things considered the rules (there were only four) were surprisingly simple and straightforward.
Did… did nobody get her ultra destruction level resistant clothing?
Ir’s ultra-destruction-level resistant, not ultra-destruction-level proof
I think even with their advanced tech, Max is still more durable than anything they could get that she could wear and still move in, especially at this level of power dynamics and combat.
The M-920 Cain from Mass Effect 2 sounds great.
Giant lizard guy putting the “bat” in “battle”
Thundercats, thundercats, thundercats hooooo!
If that doesn’t count a car motor revving it up or the Jaffa lance opening.
The biggest flaw with the Sword of Omens power-up, and with a lot of cartoon characters ‘preparations’ (Transformers transforming, etc.) is that if their opponent decided not to respect the rule of cartoon, they’d get trounced before they’d uttered more than the first few syllables!
(This was actually addressed in a 1980s Marvel UK Transformers comic, where Swoop was shot with a tracker mid-transformation and was stuck between forms until another Dinobot later managed to remove the offending item.)
Zen Aku in Power Rangers: Wild Force hits the Ranger team mid transformation with his Crescent Wave in one episode. He just looked so bored and done with the Rangers when they declared the transformation.
In ToQGer (a Sentai that was never adapted for Power Rangers), the morph included a warning to stay behind the line (in the way you’re meant to stay behind the line when a train is arriving at the station – it was train-based).
Most of the time, this involved the mooks semi-comedically running to get behind the line. But on the couple of occasions something DID get in the way, they regretted it.
If you call the line literally smacking into them and forcing them back so the morph could go off with no trouble then yeah they regretted letting them start the full morph sequence.
The rushed one, when it was used, did not summon the white lines.
There were several times when the mutants attacked Lion-O, trying to stop him from completing the summon sequence. They knew and were always like; ‘crap if he summons the others, we are screwed’.
If Lion-O just needed the sword in long form for battle, that only took about a second to do.
There was one particular episode where he completed the summons, only to be knocked down a second later. Actually worked against them that time as the other werelike, that’s no good, summons occurred and aborted, things must really be bad.
Thunder, thunder, thunder, thundercats hooooo! (to be precise)
I wonder how Kevin (Vehemence) would do in that tournament. I guess he would either be taken out right at the start or immediately power up to win it all. I do not see a middle ground for him.
Ah, but if Kevin V. were in this, he could begin powering-up/absorbing aggression energy by arriving at the equivalent of the Olympic Village early as the ‘athletes’ assembled prior to his first round of the tourney.
But we don’t know yet whether he has been released yet for service in Tom’s demon army.
A story point could be that Kevin’s appearance on galactic media would blow the Earth/Super story wide open, exposing ringer-Maxima to speculation during the tournament. Dave B. might not want that.
So Dave B. is getting straight to Maxima’s first elimination round. Good choice.
It appears her chosen competition disguise is a sort of “Silver Surfer” look, with a separate cloak on that has already burnt up.
Alternatively, the hard light disguise burned up too and we’re seeing naked Maxima in the flames. But he wouldn’t show that without charging a Patreon fee first.
As far as the fight goes, I guess Maxi is in full defense mode, and the closest within reach of Barney-zilla’s club. Boy, is he going to be surprised on Thursday!
Did Maxi just get DOOM-sticked? o_O
Nah, no way the bat would survive THAT!
GLASUCK HOLE!
New catchphrase enters the ring.
Casting a small black hole in the center of the arena will certainly keep the dust down for this event…mind the event horizon. .
It’s also interesting to see another “regular humanoid” type entrant. I was under the impression that it was all giant robots and monsters and such. Magical Girl/Fairy Godmother is an interesting twist.
Wave Motion Gun, The SDF-1’s main gun, Deathstar Superlaser Primary Ignition Sequence…lots of neat “You’re in trouble once this finishes powering up” moments to pick from.
Ah, the WMG. Absolute classic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty-1zWsXFNs (classic series)
https://youtu.be/vV0x4XHdbyc?si=sayBYqnPJeIaytP0&t=109 (new sequence)
https://youtu.be/4phT2Vukvn0?si=Meert5BANJ11CchM&t=190 (live action. doesn’t sound ANYWHERE near as cool)
SDF-1 main gun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHDxYYHBDZE
Death Star:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g77WN6obk4
Three things from the WMG:
‘Space Knots’? any relation to Don Knotts? :P
Poor evil space kitty :(
‘Tweet’ :P
Year, I was sad about space kitty too.
This just occurred to me, but the instant Max says anything would give away her origin. Even with universal translation, wouldn’t people be able to hear the spoken language at the same time and get an indication of the species?
And I assume this is why the Maxima-looking golem-thingy has no mouth at all.
I wonder who that very attractive humanoid could be…
:V
Honestly, the first noise that came to my mind was the flash charging on one of those old disposable cameras.
I’m gonna go with a webcomic classic…
Ommmmmmminous hummmmmmmm
I see how it is. Mecha-guy just wanted everyone else to fight naked. What a kinky dude.
thats a mini black hole… or an illusion of one… i don’t think maxima is at that power level… yet
i think “power levels” just went out the window
Seems pretty big for a black hole – as far as I understand one with the mass of earth would have an event horizon about the size of a marble and evaporate (read: convert all its mass to energy to make an explosion that makes the sun look like a firecracker) within minutes.
The black hole was cast to counter Tinman’s initial explosion
That would be an impressive reaction speed, given that explosions generally move significantly faster than thought, let alone nuclear-scale explosions.
And why it was cast matters less than “is that black hole about to evaporate and convert all the matter it absorbed into energy?”
Or maybe it’s just something that manipulates spacetime directly but isn’t actually summoning enough mass to make a persistent black hole.
It was to clear the air
I suppose if you still need air in this bracket you are already at a severe disadvantage.
I do wonder how Maxima would handle the entire battlefield being turned unbreathable by lack of atmosphere, lack of oxygen, or excess of poison, and all possible equipment being too fragile to survive the constant Area of Effect attacks.
The Death Star powering up.
It IS a powerup…of sorts ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D426qwe3igM
I know that sound, that’s the sound of someone’s mom taking off her flip flop and getting ready to smack someone about the head and body. Truly, the most singularly terrifying sound ever heard, ever, by anyone or anything sentient. I’ve had more than one SV/Mastermind boss do a spit take or visibly cringe when hearing that sound… several henches literally curling up in fetal position and crying even (nobody judged, we knew about their mom)
And the Jandal of Doom can also be used as a ranged weapon, with perfect accuracy :)
The wielder never misses and it returns to their hand like a boomerang :P
You just basically lifted an entire joke written by Eddie Murphy, completely.
The only difference is Eddie’s version had the returning to hand feature as specific to her dress pumps. *chick chack*
Where do you think he got it from?
No, not me
His mother!
Eddie is Samoan?
I always liked the sound of the bfg 9000.
Thinking upon the possibility of Maxi being the flying bug had me thinkerizing about using illusion to change your ‘hit box’, which in this case would be not-a-good-idea (small ‘target’ but a big ‘hit box’), which had me remembering an old Star Wars book (non canon now, like almost every story after the original movie trilogy)
Lando was fighting someone in a spacesuit and nothing he could do seemed to affect or hurt them, until he missed his last shot and accidentally shot the bad guy in the foot, which left Lando confused as that seemed to finally do the trick. On inspection found a, now dead, snail in the boot of the otherwise empty suit. Turned out the ‘snail’ was an evil force user from a race of sentient snails
As an official “Old Dude”, I second both the BFG-9000 and the old flash bulbs. I would also put forth the “SNAP-hiss” of a lightsaber being ignited. Especially when the saber is red and it is lit at the end of a dark hallway.
The Sound Ramiel makes before firing her big ass laser attack
*Geometric screaming*
And Kaworu/Tabris puppeting Unit-04 just smiles and TANKS it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouzzf4KnYtg
Not a sound effect, but this “powering up” dialog sequence is so iconic that it has burned itself into my brain:
Ready to form Voltron!
Activate interlock!
Dynotherms connected!
Infracells up!
Megathrusters are go!
LET’S GO, VOLTRON FORCE!
Form…feet…and…legs!
Form…arms…and…body!
And I’ll form…the head!
Very iconic and great, though it did leave the team vulnerable for a few moments while forming. To my recollection, though, the bad guys only took advantage of that once.
“but not an actual wormhole to a thousand arrays of battleship weapons pointed at …”
You seem to have been giving this a lot of thought. You OK there, Dave?
We need more thoughts, they’re great!
i second the use of the BFG 9000 and the flash bulbs. i also would like to add in the use of the Excalibur from Babylon 5 Crusader firing its main weapon.
Excalibur:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7Et0EZSIvc
BFG9000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6NlT9PXqwE
“BOOST!”
I always liked the warm up sound of the Martian Death Ray in the 1953 version of “War of the Worlds”.
1953:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IixELyhvSKc
2005:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrYq2flwHEE
To quote a Phoenix after hearing that word, “Doom Doom?! DOOM?! What do you mean Doom!?”
I tend to like the electronic hum you get from powering up some fscking big transformers (as an incidental part to powering up whatever they’re powering.) For what it’s worth, this has been used in some works, although exactly which ones eludes me at the moment. For transformers to make that much audible noise, if you’ve just connected this to house power and turned it on, you’re also going to get a lot of light flickering as it’s basically guaranteed to cause a localized brownout.
That said, the capacitor whine on a Ghostbusters’ proton pack going from off to standby is also pretty good.
Another one in that vein in the PPG power-up sound from Babylon 5.
My favorite is the subharmonic wub wub wub sounds that grows in pitch and speed until it hits a single tone and fires. Often works well in conjunction with the “pulling energy into itself in waves of light” effect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrzKT-dFUjE&list=RDlrzKT-dFUjE&start_radio=1
Shlock Mercenary, Ominous Hum.