Grrl Power #1455 – Tactical tactile
A normal 2 handed sword weighs 5-8 pounds (granted, there’s a very broad range of what constitutes a “two handed sword”), whereas a bearing sword weighs 14-15 pounds, and are roughly 7 and a half feet long, including the handle. Not impossible to swing, of course, but probably foolish to actually wade into a battle with one, since even regular sized weapons and moderate armor will sap someone’s endurance pretty quickly. Bearing swords are, as far as I’m aware, purely ceremonial.
At least on our non-magical Earth. The Grrl-verse clearly has demons, oni, aliens, were-dinosaurs, all kinds of things that might actually be able to wield a sword on that scale. Dabbler’s “Soulreaver” sword is technically a vierhander (man, it’s been a while since she used that) since the handle is long enough for her to really apply some leverage on it if she needs to, but I’m not sure if mechanically, gripping a sword or a bat with 4 hands would really give you a lot of extra striking power, or if all those elbows would get in the way on the windup or backswing.
The sword Maxima is using was sourced from Dabbler’s treasure horde, and clearly didn’t come from Earth, so it’s hard to say who it was originally forged for. All we can really tell about it is that whatever it’s forged from, it’s probably not all that heavier than an equivalently sized steel sword (and it’s definitely not made of steel) because Sydney can lift it. IIRC, I think I said that the other sword Max picked out was made of Ultronium and weighed about 40 lbs.
As someone with ADHD, I know I can be distracted in the middle of a sentence when someone is talking to me. It leads to a lot of “Uh, yeah…” or “Oh… what?” responses, and has definitely made people think my hearing is a lot worse than it is. And if someone is giving me directions that are more complex than “last door on the left,” they may as well just pull a series of random words from the dictionary.
On that front, Sydney is actually usually pretty focused. It’s possible her meds are wearing off for the day and it’s getting close to bedtime.
Finally, here we go! I took the suggestion that I just use an existing panel for a starting point, thinking it would save time… I guess it technically did, but a 5 character vote incentive just isn’t the way to go.
Patreon, of course, has actual topless version.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
Won’t the introduction of alien and super medical tech into market increase the average person lufespan?
based on medical development in the real world
the answer would be yes, improved medical technology and knowledge,
and/or superpowered medical professionals, Doctors, Nurses, Engineers
would increase the average lifespan of the average Human.
You’d think so, since we’re already starting to make medica advances that can slow or reverse aging.
Which are seriously impeded by the FDA’s position that “aging isn’t a disease!”, so they won’t approve treatments for it… Wealthy people can get them on the sly, but most of us are out of luck.
Get actual treatments and the political pressure will reverse that.
I wouldn’t be too sure as part of it would run into interference from the people concerned that if we make a cure for aging then that might prevent people older then them from dying and thus make the higher job positions free.
As it would be young powerful figures fighting old power figures.
The average person will not get any windfall from that advantage until the elites got finished beating each other up and arguing with one another.
We HAVE actual treatments, for example there’s a treatment that regrows your thymus gland, restoring your immune system to youthful effectiveness in your 70’s.
The problem literally IS that the FDA doesn’t classify aging as a “disease”, and so there’s nothing there to treat, so far as they’re concerned, and they don’t approve treatments for non-existent diseases that just cause almost everybody to die before they’re 90.
Woah, I’ve never heard about that before! Could you link me the study on that?
According to google, thymus regeneration methods are still in preclinical (animal) or early clinical trial phases.
So they’re a LONG way away from even attempting to get approval.
We will never be allowed to retire. There will be mandatory rejuvenation. The state and the corporations will keep on squeezing us like a lemon forever.
I thought aging it caused by the shortening of telomers on the DNA (I think that’s how it’s spelled). And I don’t think there’s a way (yet) to prevent that.
I read once that unless that is changed, there is a natural limit beyond which a human being cannot live without replacing parts, and I think that age was around 230. Don’t quote me on that though – I saw it on a science series on Youtube and also once on PBS.
“Telomere shortening” is indeed one factor of aging. There, some corners of cancer research are digging in and finding out stuff.
Cancer cells somehow avoid the normal aging/self-destruct imposed by telomers. They apparently can regenerate them. The mechanisms for this exist in our DNA blueprint, and before a wild growth can become a tumour, it must activate those mechanisms by breaking all the limiters on them. This comes with bad side effects that cancer doesn’t care about, but a healthy life would require more careful tuning.
Source: I did IT in a research group where a few of the postdocs investigated the “telomerase” enzyme which does the lengthening.
Think “ramming speed! Leeeeeroy Jenkins for cancer !” Vs “ninja tiptoeing on chopsticks” for healthy, durable homeostasis.
Gradually but not all at once.
“but I’m not sure if mechanically, gripping a sword or a bat with 4 hands would really give you a lot of extra striking power”
Probably not, the main benefit of two-handed weapons it the extra leverage you gain, adding another extra hands to the lever gives diminishing returns.
Four arms should also give greater stability and maneuverability – Dabbler might still have to let go with a hand(s) to adjust grip, or to just punch her opponent in the face. So while striking power has diminishing returns, she doesn’t have to lose any of the advantages of having two hands on the weapon should she need to do anything else, in addition to it being harder to break the grip on top of having an easier time from breaking her wrists for certain strikes and guards.
Isn’t Maxima’s ability to move her stats around secret? It’s classified to the public and I’m pretty sure it’s also classified to the team (Sydney and maybe Jigawatt were as confused as vehemence when lightning made her weaker. Not realising she was (or could) swapping stats from strength to defence).
When was the secret of Maxima’s powers revealed to Sydney?
Right around the start of the comic.
It was either a team meet or something, and Sydney mentioned how come she could catch bullets, but couldn’t dodge her projectile vomiting after the fake bank heist.
She only explained her super speed needed to be actively triggered.
The other powers, and particularly her ability to lower her strength or defense, haven’t been revealed (that I recall) that’s what I’m asking about.
Would make sense that at least the heavy hitters on the team are informed about it, because it may be relevant for their tactics in a group setting. And despite first impressions, Sydney does qualify as one of those.
It was Sydney and Peggy, not Jigawatt. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-275-wake-up-call/ (Stat redistribution is shown 2 pages earlier).
Dave specifically mentions that the characters don’t know about Max’s powers ‘it’s above their pay grade’. I forget Sydney’s current rank but I’m pretty sure she’s still quite low down.
If there wasn’t a risk of someone trying Maxima’s drink and poisoning themselves Max wouldn’t even be telling them she eats mercury. Either that’s put her in a sharing mood or this is a goof. (or third option it was shared, either off-screen or in a page I’ve forgotten).
I think this is indeed the first time Max has explicitly said anything out loud on camera to Sydney about her powers being able to dial up and down. Though given Sydney’s usefulness with coming up with new power stunts and her heavy-hitter status, she might have been told already. Maybe she had to spill the beans to Cora to get it all set up, so everyone on this trip now has a basic idea?
even if you will outlive someone,
that doesn’t guarantee becoming ambivalent towards them.
it’s better to have lived, and gotten to know someone,
than to avoid people because of the fear of losing them.
a real life version, would be refusing to have a pet
just because you know they will die before you.
or refusing to make a friend, if you already knew
they had a terminal illness and would die within a few years.
there is three tests she could do to test
the flow of time around her or her aging or lack of aging.
assuming she is immune to radiation,
since x-rays can’t penetrate her skin
test one would be to put a piece of Mildly radioactive material
in a ring worn on her hand, or as a mouth-guard
something with a relatively short radioactive half life.
make them as a pair, one is kept in a lead safe, the other she wears
have her test her speed powers over an extended period of time
test the samples at a later date and see if there is a difference
in the amount of radioactive isotopes, or radiation levels.
Test two, Sleep deprivation test,
Part one, Have Maxima stay awake for as long as she can,
every hour she does some tests to determine her cognitive abilities.
after the testing is over she is given a month to recover.
Part Two, Over the course of a full day or multiple days,
she must use her speed powers for as long as she can,
she is not allowed to sleep, but is provided with any food she needs
every hour she is given the same cognitive tests as in part one
this will test if each minute of time was actually
equivalent to an hour for her.
Test three, Get pregnant.
a pregnancy lasts for about 9 months, or 6048 hours
at super speed 6048 hours would be equivalent to about 101 hours,
or 4 days 5 hours, with no sleep
or 6 days 5 hours, with sleep, but no breaks
or 12 days 5 hours, with sleep and breaks
if Maxima Got pregnant, and used super speed,
could the child complete the full term of development
within 5 to 13 days ?
the Problem with this would be, the risk of Maxima
now having to raise a super powered child
with the same or similar super powers.
Also, Max knows literal vampires. Give it a few lifetimes and I’m sure she’ll be feeling really snuggly with some of them.
If Maxima doesn’t age, she’s stuck with Harold (Achilles) forever , which is still a price to pay.
Radioactive isotopes with short half-lives also tend to radiate ferociously. Max may be OK, but it wouldn’t be healthy to be around her.
IIRC yes in this setting powered people do tend to have powered children more often. Though I’m not sure how they can tell, since the incidence of powers is really low. It’s like rare problems that aren’t diseases. If there’s only one in a million with it, how can you tell what causes it?
I can’t remember when they tend to manifest, though I think someone said that Max was fairly sure she wouldn’t have powers by the time she got doused since she was a teenager. Which brings up the whole “how much did the average person know about powers before Archon went public” thing. It’s (sort of) explained by the Veil, but it’s still really odd to talk about – did Max’s doctor know? Did she know? How? If they did, how much did they know and how much of it was actually accurate?
Settings with powered children tend to have different stories than ones without. Any public school setting with a student with powers (secret or not) would be really odd. The likelihood of two powered students in the same school would be vanishingly small unless there’s some factor gathering them together.
And even if they were initially concealed, most children and teenagers are pretty bad at keeping secrets.
Yes, they are, because most people are bad at it in general. Observant adults can usually find them out pretty quickly, and the question becomes whether it’s worth it to publicize.
Max’s super speed likely wouldn’t translate to the fetus. Just cause Max can shorten various time frames doesn’t mean that the fetus would start developing more quickly. I don’t know if we’ve seen multi-generational inherited powers, but at least one brother/sister pair had different (but somewhat related powers). Thus, assuming Max could even get pregnant, I doubt very much that the child would both inherit her super speed and would have the concentration to use it to mature itself faster.
The obvious solution is to give people you like immortality. Or ratheryy, agelessness.
Amusingly.. Dabbler of all people is one of the few friendships that wont die off in 30-40 years xD
And she likely wont give up on her quest to make Max losen up a bit.
Maybe she should practice on that, since speed sleeping would be a very handy thing during extended missions.
When you get prostate surgery, you lose that sphincter that reflexively keeps your urine from leaking, and have to rely totally on the second sphincter only men have, that you can voluntarily clamp down on. You know, the one you use when you’re desperate to pee? That’s all you have to rely on.
Eventually you train yourself to unconsciously keep it closed tight even while sleeping.
Maybe she could do the same with her super-speed, if she tried?
Or maybe she shouldn’t. Once you’ve trained yourself on that, it takes a conscious effort to relax the sphincter, and she probably doesn’t want to spend her life at super-speed except when she remembers to slow down.
Using super speed is like sphincter training is certainly a new take.
is that a fridge or a temporal stasis field generator? I imagine the later would be better at peprserving food- could even it keep it warm or cold!
I’m reminded of “A World Out of Time” by Larry Niven. One of the characters describes being captured and put in a large stasis chamber (large enough to need an elevator).
The elevator was always going up or down from his point of view because when the elevator reached the top, time stopped in the chamber.
Finally someone came down and basically said (through a translator) that all the occupants had been freed. Meanwhile, ten thousand or so years had passed outside. They needed a translator because the languages had changed.
Whatever it is, MAX IS THE LUNCHROOM THIEF!
She just stole Frix’s burrito. It had his name on it and everything
Most people over-estimate how heavy swords are, despite the fact in combat a knight could be swinging them round for hours.
For example, Arming Swords (the side-arm of the medieval age) are generally 2-2.5lbs, though you can get examples as little as 1.75lbs or as heavy as 3.3lbs.
“Longswords” are a little heavier, though mainly under 4lbs.
Zweihanders (two-handed swords) are usually 5-6lbs.
And a Bearing Sword (a purely ceremonial sword/wallhanger) typically weighs 8-10lbs.
based on it’s length and how wide it is
that would be a Broad Greatsword,
Looks to be as long as a Large Claymore or Zweihander
based on how wide it is, it probably weighs as much
or more than a Bearing Sword.
between 6 to 15 Pounds sounds about right.
might have some Magical/tech weight reduction.
I was under the impression that bearing swords initially had one function (before they were phased out for more practical weapons), namely as “line breakers”.
German specialised mercenaries would use these (or probably similar) swords while advancing in a loose line, swinging them back and force and battering through enemy weapons, shields and inferior armor. Relying on the longer reach and heavy weight, as well as undertrained rank-and-file soldiers in the opposing line. Intimidating the everloving *bleep* out of conscripts and dropping the chunk of steel for something more practical when an actually trained opponent showed up.
The ‘Maximum’ weight two handed swords that survive are likely to have been ‘Whifflers’ – swords swung in parades by skilled operators who were also known as ‘Whifflers’, to make ‘wooshing’ (woofle) noises and impress the onlookers while Lord Winkleboom and his attendants passed by. Really only a thing from the early 1500’s and had died out around the 1650’s.
I will admit, it is nice to see Max as Maxine (that was her name before the change right?) and not Mxima.
Maximillia.
What about Achilles? He’s (presumably) immortal as well
Achilles doesn’t seem like the introspective type, but eventually he’s going to have to deal with outliving everybody.
Max being humanised is great.
For Sydney it’s super hero questioning.
For Maxima it is a question of how her powers work. Super speed might age her and she just has an absurdly long lifespan or it is speedster power with no aging effects. Her age still might be normal, it could be immortal, or she could just have a long lifespan with an unknown age date.
Something you’d rather not think about for your own mental health in the same way you would rather not think about getting a possible terminal disease tomorrow. Especially if you are still young and healthy.
Sometimes not thinking about it is for your own mental health. Though still try and live healthy of course. Just don’t stress yourself to death about theoretical risks you might not even have.
Oh Sydney…Max was really opening your heart to you, talking about her lifespan and you just ignored her. So rude.
Gotta say, I’m wondering if Sydney was deflecting away from an awkward conversation. That was quite a pregnant pause. Still on the rude side though.
Well she didn’t do it on purpose so not really rude.
Aw. Max does worry about outliving her friends and family. Well she’ll have Dabbler, Achilles, possibly Deus too because I just feel like a guy that smart is figuring out how to get immortality probably as a side hustle. Maybe Daphne has some weird aging shenanigans too with her multiple bodies. At least it won’t be everyone.
I like to think Sydney talking about this has helped Max’s mood a tad concerning the topic.
I hate that line of thinking of immortals “I’ll outlive everyone I know and love and it’s so hard to think about…blah blah blah”
That’s basically life as it is. You’ll outlive a lot if not all the people you know and love. People have been living with that reality forever, but suddenly they get extra years on them and they think it means it’s different. It’s not different.
The things she should think about that someone who is immortal may need to think about is, she falls in love with someone and they age while she continues to look young.
Though, Maxima looks to be in her 30s, while getting her powers in her teens. Did she stop aging?
Niche comment department here. A teddy bear for for Maxima would not be die cast unless she needed a new one every night. Die casting is for mass production. This seems more like an investment casting situation. There could be a case made for her having a machine that melts and recasts her bent up teddy bear every morning. That would more likely involve die casting. Either way I bet UHMWPE would work fine and not require daily foundry work.
Not a teddy bear *for* her, a teddy bear *of* her, presumably for the general public. So, mass production.
” It’s possible her meds are wearing off for the day and it’s getting close to bedtime.”
Sydney has a SPACE medic for a boyfriend. Why does she not have a bio-status implant and a med pump yet?
ask anyone who has to deal with decreasing medical efficiency of their prescriptions and they would take investigate that if only to not have “bad days”.
Instead Sydney choose holo-BOOBS.
oh Max, you won’t outlive EVERYONE, like you’ll likely still have Dabbler and Achilles!! and maybe Harem? do Harem selves still age when they’re stored? Hell, we don’t ACTUALLY know the full functionality of all the orbs, Sydney could very well live forever as well. OH! and the vampires! oh oh and Laphtha (sp? the chick who body hops because she’s functionally a discreet true AI, might have the wrong name). Plus Dabbler’s sister and big Tom. like it’s a select group, and many of them Max very well might kill herself after a few millennia, well Achilles she would just toss into a sun until she got lonely enough to forget… and then face immediate regret upon his removal.
I feel like Achilles is the only person who truly might have to consider that he is immortal. Same as Brit in the Invincible universe, since Brit ad Achilles have essentially the same powerset.
I honestly wonder if Brit would die if he was hit with Space Racer’s Infinity Ray Gun.
Her aging CLEARLY has not stopped, as we’ve seen a few pages of her when she was younger but still gold, like when she first learned she could do a plasma blast. and her brother startled her with a popped paper bag.
Although who knows, maybe it’s like a Viltrumite, where her aging slows the longer she lives, or like an Asgardian, where they do age, but just get more powerful as they age and never actually get ‘decrepit.’
Or maybe aging stopped later with peak physical maturity like a normie age 25–28.
Always loved Klingon weapons being so damned heavy. A Bat’leth is 11.6 pounds. That Kur’leth in Picard must of been way heavier.
A normal longsword (which is the most typical two handed sword you are going to find), is between 2.5 and 3.5 pounds. A chunky montante could weigh around 6.5 at the high end. Maxima’s sword can weigh whatever and I’m sure she wouldn’t care, I just wanted to combat the myth that swords are that heavy.
I don’t think I would feel comfortable letting Sydney hold a Vorpal sword anywhere near me.
Outliving everyone is one of the themes of Jack Chalker’s Well World series. The central character, Nathan Brazil, CAN’T die, and this comes up in various contexts, many of them bittersweet.
Regarding outliving everyone you care about, there IS an alternative: Continuing to make friends and find lovers as time goes on. Some of us are experiencing this now (note my signature line, which is perhaps tongue in cheek but still salient.)
We’ve already got the younguns whining that us old ‘Boomers’ are taking too much money in the pensions that we PAID FOR and they’re not getting more free stuff that they haven’t. Imagine us living even longer…luckily the gov’t is already taking steps to fix that.
Up here they’re openly trying to kill us off with ‘medical assistance in dying’ or ‘MAID”, now the fifth leading cause of death with over 100,000 served. They tried to talk a woman into it for a bad back that eventually healed and she sued but the Supreme Court ruled that she had no recourse, the same court made up of hand-picked ‘justices’ that were appointed with no vetting by the PM on the condition they render decisions the way they’re told to, I was offered it for a not particularly life threatening condition and I’m still here almost five years later, but I get the feeling that fairly soon they’re not going to bother asking, if they haven’t already. A fast talking bureaucrat pushing it on an elderly patient and calling them ‘selfish’ if they say no, isn’t a replacement for a health care system that actually works instead of the funds meant for treatment of illness going to multiple layers of unnesessary bureaucracy and the ‘social justice cause of the week’…all that for a 50%+ tax rate and another 15% sales tax on pretty much everything you buy, including food. DO NOT ask for ‘universal health care’ because it isn’t universal and it doesn’t care, you’ll be told that a surgery could probably help you but you’re too old to warrant it so just suffer or we’ll put you to sleep like a sick dog.
Super irrational & delusional take, which is very normal for conservative boomers.
Uhm…last time I wielded my brother’s two-handed claymore…it was considerably more then 7-8 pounds. Double that. At least. Sure is fun though. Was made from railroad steel and solid oak. Basic, simple, and I loved it.
And here I was thinking that all the time Sydney had been spending at the gym was actually paying off.
I, too, can not take a string of verbal instructions. My memory buffer is not large enough. Give me 6 steps of verbal instructions, and I will remember step 6.