Grrl Power #368 – Billions of bullions
Edit: Ok so I’ve updated Dabbler’s estimate from 2748 times as much, to 20 billion, because I am the worst at math. The actual worst. I’m getting a reverse Nobel Prize for it next year. A Lebon Prize.
Also, if you want to see a lot of gold stacked up in one place: British gold reserves
Having a ton of gold (531 tons, actually) in a virtually inaccessible location is not the same thing as having 531 tons of gold be totally inaccessible. Yes his identity is a secret, the location of his vault is a secret, there’s not an actual ten mile deep tunnel you can base jump down into to get the the gold, you either need his powers or something else that can tunnel through 10 miles of crust to get to it, Archon advised him on additional security he could take, etc, etc. I just wanted to include this page to show an example of a super using his powers intelligently. He does present a potential threat, but he’s not breaking any laws. It’s one of those “watch this guy closer than the strong guy making his living in construction, but otherwise live and let live” supers.
He could try to threaten cities on fault lines and ransom them for millions with is geokinesis, but he’s not living in a silver age comic book, so why would he? It is something that bothers me about a lot of supervillains. So many of them have powers, or their whole shtick is predicated on a gadget they made that with the tiniest application of intelligence could make them millionaires in the private sector. The Trapster made incredibly strong yet easily sprayable adhesive. The Green Goblin made something the size of an opened pizza box that not only can fly, it can carry the weight of at least two humans plus equipment, and based on some of the fights he’s had with Spider-Man, it’s not exactly short range either. Yes, the usual excuse is that most bad guys are a little bit crazy, but then consider this. The first time Spidey beats the Goblin, there’s this flying thing just sitting there. It’s not like the crazy bad guy filed a patent for it. Ok, maybe the first version before he went crazy, but Goblin’s been around for a while, and he’s probably upgraded the flyer, and post crazy, he’s probably not keeping up with the patent process. Somebody would take that thing apart, file their own patents, and boom. Delivery drones, extreme sports gliders, hoverboards, military hovering sniper platforms, whatever. Someone would do something constructive with it. That’s why I’m careful not to throw a lot of gadgeteers into the world, because it would cause an irreversible tech spiral, and the comic world would diverge dramatically from our own.
I actually worked out Dabbler’s math. The total amount of gold mined is estimated to be a 25 meter cube, converted that volume into a sphere, found a reddit thread where someone worked out the total volume of gold in the mantle and core to be a 52.25 mile sphere. Convert to meters, divide by 2 to get the radius, etc. Dabbler only had to google the volume of an Olympic sized swimming pool (which she can do in her head with her cybernetics) and did the rest in her head. She estimated the volume of gold because she knows the size of Earth and it turns out the composition of Goldilocks planets that support life are all pretty similar. (At least in the Grrl Verse) Spinning solid core surrounded by a mantle creates a magnetosphere, without which higher order life won’t evolve because the local star blasts the surface with too much radiation, and solar wind strips away too much of the atmosphere. Earth orbits a medium sized yellow sun which says a lot about its composition, planets are coalesced from stellar dust, debris and asteroid impacts, etc. Anyway, she’d been on enough planets to come really close on her estimates.
Harem jokes about marrying multiple people on this page, but legally, she is still considered a single individual.
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I have a question about this.
What about the effect syphoning that much molten gold out of the mantle has on the mantle?
Siphoning that much gold has very little effect. Anything beyond iron in the elemental system can only be formed in supernovas, so the amount will be negligable on planetary scales.
He pulled out 1/2748 of it out, that wouldn’t affect things much. You could calculate the affect moving that much mass out from the center makes on the Earth’s spin but it would be tiny (it does bring up a few good questions for XKCD’s what if though).
Also, although the gold is no longer swirling in the core, it’s mass is added along the outer rim of the rotating body, in essence pulling out and away due to centrifugal force, I believe? I dunno all the physics.
As they said, not enough mass to have an effect just sitting there. Gravity would close such a small pocket in no time without notable disturbance at the surface. Physics fun fact though, shifting mass like that won’t greatly affect the planet but if every person in China stood on a chair and jumped off at the same time the combined mass impact would be enough to shift the Earth’s orbit.
Er, no, no amount of people jumping would in any way effect the earths orbit.
For obvious reasons (conservation of energy, anyone?)
No no no, you misunderstand. They’re jumping off the SAME chair.
impacting the earth simultaneously, penetrating the crust, and, when their bodies stop magically clipping together, exploding due to overpressurization.
They shift the earths orbit in much the same way the Death Star shifted Alderaan’s orbit.
https://what-if.xkcd.com/8/
XD awesome reading… XD
That’s not how gravity works. because while those people were accelerating towards the earth, the earth would also be accelerating towards them and they would meet with exactly counteracting force. For the same reason, earthquake move far far greater amounts of mass and have zero effect on the orbit of earth.
However earthquakes do have a (minor) affect on the Earth’s rotation, moving several thousand tons of earth closer to the pole on one side will introduce a (slight) wobble (you probably can’t measure it without very sensitive astronomy equip.) .
Actually, it’s been found that very large earthquakes DO have a noticeable impact on the earth’s orbit–but probably not in the way that you think. It’s easy enough to check google with “earthquake change orbit” and “earthquake change year” and discover that while they aren’t changing the Earth’s actual orbit, the PATH IT TRAVELS, earthquakes are definitely changing the length of our days (by millionths of a second) and even the tilt of the Earth’s axis (by inches).
I’m not sure, I couldn’t find any data with a quick and lazy search, but I’ve heard that the change in the length of a day is also changing the length of a year. So, while Earth’s actual orbit hasn’t changed in as long as we can calculate, Earth’s POSITION in that orbit might have changed.
One mathematician calculated that a near-miss asteroid (I think it was 1990 MU) would have hit us (probably in 2027; it’s getting closer with each orbit) if the Ancient Mayan calendar’s projections had been 100% accurate, but we’re not in the same place in our orbit that we should be according to the Ancient Mayans. We’re talking a mere 2.87 million mile miss in 2027. A fractional change in orbital speed, spread out over the millennium since the Mayans made their calculations, could easily close that distance. Of course, it was one mathematician, and I have no corroborating source. Plus, 2027 != 2012.
Addendum: a more thorough search turned up that while spin is increased and decreased, orbital momentum is preserved, so the aforementioned mathematician was a crackpot. Still, eat Science! Earthquakes DO effect the orbit of the Earth.
With the caveat that “noticeable” doesn’t mean “significant”. We have very sensitive instruments that can “notice” the change in gravity of a location to a dozen decimal points.
After the recent Japan quake, Japan moved EIGHT FEET! Please define “significant”.
(but millionths of a second in a day and inches of tilt, agreed, not significant)
Ie Yamof Ool beat me to it, but in addition to changing the axis, it shortens and lengthens orbital spin. HOWEVER, trying to simulate an earthquake with all the people in China…yeah, no idea. Common sense says no, conservation of energy says “earthquakes do it”, and the North Korean says “We are coordinating with the Chinese to shorten days until all Americans suffer from sleep deprivation”, and the Chinese say “If you want us to all jump at the same time, we’re going to need more food and better communications technology. Can you afford 1.357 billion cell phones? Don’t forget the food. We’re a little hungry right now.” Physicists are not returning my calls, but their secretaries are telling me that while the physicists are too busy with more important things, 1 out of 3 secretaries wouldn’t mind if I took them out to lunch. The number rose to 2 out of 3 when I contacted them via Skype.
Who ordered a physicist?
Have you considered, that when one changes the angular speed of the earth’s crust, which is where the change in the length of a day comes from, then the amount of days between each rotation around the sun would change, thereby changing the amount of days per year without changing the actual time of a year (which is measured in seconds). However, the change in rotation will generate a miniscule difference in the effective gravity on earth, which is also generating another miniscule change in the speed of which time flows at the surface of the earth. Note that the change in time from earths effective gravity is detectable by modern equipment, and it is a necessary correction to make to get GPS to have sufficient accuracy (meaning it would be quite inaccurate without it). This change should not affect our orbit of the sun, atleast when only looking at it using the simpler moddels (normal Newtonian orbits), it would take longer time from our perspective to go through it, but otherwise everything else would be the same. I really do not want to try calculate the general relativty model necessary to describe these changes, just the math for getting a single thing to orbit is horrible enough (meaning I do not want to compute the effect of the earths gravity and effective gravity on our orbit through the general relativty, you have to use a lot of tricks just to get the normal model in the first place).
This brings us back to the idea about people jumping down back on the earth. In simple terms, this should have no effect on the major paramiters for our orbit, when we only account for the local first order pertubation of the Newtonian gravity field. This comes from a very simple rule, for this type of field, everything can be described through effects on the center of mass, and since the “jumpers” are both on the earth before and afterwards, then conservation of momentum ensures that no momentum changes could have happend, and due to center of mass then the collective path will also be the same. This means that only higher order terms of outside forcefields (gravity) would be able to affect this. The second order pertubation of local Newtonian gravity is responsible for tidal forces (higher order terms can be ignored). These tidel forces are the difference in the gravity force field, and it is the only outside thing we can use for this type of “experiment” to genrate changes in the earths orbit. The largest source of tidel forces on earth is the Moon, and everything is suppressed by orders of magnitude, and is what generates the tides (where the name of tidal forces comes from). For about 10^9 people jumping with about 100kg of mass, would be around 10^12 kg of mass moving in this tidal field. The interesting thing with this though, is that it is not by the act of them jumping that the change the earths orbit, but it is when they are standing on the chair. But this means that any ununiformness of the earth would create such a phenomena, then it means that many other actions (like us building cities) would have change earths orbit by more (since both sides of the rotation would be effected in the same way), this means that it would probably be fairly hard to notice. For the earthquakes, well the change in form of the earth would change this too, but on a more permanent level.
There are some more things to consider, but I have to go do other things…
Interesting things. But very easy to loose your place when trying to read. It is well worth putting in regular paragraph breaks. Otherwise you risk loosing readers after the first few sentences.
Compared to the mass of the Earth itself, there is no instance where you can describe a few tons as ‘much’
Since the Earth’s core is actually 90 percent iron and nickel, and the Earth itself weighs about 6.6 sextillion tons, it’s pretty unlikely that an amount as miniscule (comparatively speaking) as 531 tons – especially once no longer compressed by the incredible pressure at the core, would have much, if any, effect on the planet once removed from the core. Even removing all of it really wouldnt affect the earth much (other than, obviously, financially for the evolved simians living on it who created economies based on its scarcity).
Depends on speed. If you removed it at >0.1 C, for example, everyone on Earth would notice. Never forget to include A when you talk about the F of M. ^_^
Just think on this. Sydney is making you better educated!
Err, you can come out from under the table now. The thought is not that frightening!
Well, it happens to be just a wee bit more frightening than what Sydney taught us about being the Queen of Salt…
Not sure if you want to use Earth’s core as a measuring stick to compare to other Goldilock’s planets… after all, Earth survived a planetary collision with also gave it a moon to stabilize its rotation axis for optimum life sustainability :D
Other people have mentioned the weight of the gold on those shelves. A standard gold bar is 7 x 3.6 inches. This makes 5.7 per square foot. 5.7 x 27.5 lbs = 156.75. 156.75 x (about)13 layers = 2038 lbs per square foot, or roughly one ton. Those are some good shelves.
They look to be the same shelves used in that British gold reserve video.
Look at the video again: the gold bars are stacked only 4 high. On this page, the bars appear to be stacked 12 high. Thus, I agree: those are some good shelves.
Also, these bars seem to have a more regular shape than standard gold bars as they seem to stack perfectly. I’m sure it’s not because it’s easier to draw that way or something. ;-)
I’ll just point out ‘geomancer’ and move on :P.
Exactly, for all we know he took some other metals and made his own super strong alloy from metals we barely have access to.
I wonder what you could possibly offer someone with essentially unlimited wealth to get them to make adamantium for you? Maybe that guy was a military contractor under a nasty NDA before he got the idea to just get a swimming pool of gold from the Earth’s core. I hope, for his sake, that Wolverine never finds him and his adamantium shelves filled with gold…
This guy would bury Wolverine under half a billion tons of solid granite and call it a day. Geomancy is a literal world breaking power.
And next, what is Mr Goldie McGoldstein making for his efforts? DaveB says he has gathered 531 tons in about ten years, or more than 520 weeks. Let’s round to make it about one ton per week. 1 ton = 32,000 ounces. Gold has ranged from $600 to $1600 per ounce over the last decade. If we go with $1000 per ounce, he has been making a salary of $32 million per week.
Hey Dave, where is he a citizen, and have they been collecting taxes?
Self made gold bars are not currency. Until he sells it, there is no income to tax. Since it was removed from the Earth well outside the jurisdiction of any nation, he can’t be accused of having stolen it, assuming he has the mineral rights on the property through which he extracted it. (So far as I know, no country has claimed the Earth’s molten core, or has any way of enforcing such a claim if they have.)
…where is he a citizen…
Amy damn place he feels like living. Because, stupidly rich.
Aside from what Elfguy said (which is correct) about gold bars not being taxable income until sold. international law would claim that EVERY country can lay claim to the Earth’s core. However, since the core is rotating faster than the outside of the planet (one of the reasons for our magnetic fields), there’s no way to actually claim any particular part of the Earth’s core to any one nation.
Actually, mineral rights, and even national borders, have a set depth, much like the distance at which a nation can claim to own the water. The tricky thing is this (look up “land rights” on Wiki): Nations own land territory underground and continental shelf underground, but international seabed underground is “international jurisdiction per common heritage of underground”. I think any good lawyer, which he can clearly afford, can argue that anything underneath the crust is, being below the tectonic plates, international territory.
Nations own the air up to the definition of Outer Space, territorial waters, and continental shelf underground, but territorial waters airspace, continental shelf SURFACE, and extended continental shelf underground have restricted jurisdiction. International waters and airspace, of course, are under international jurisdiction (although mining in international jurisdiction could be a problem).
If he’s smart, which he seems to be, he lives (and mines) in Monaco.
Some equatorial nations have recently had the idea of claiming that they ‘own’ the territory directly above them. There are international laws that allow free transit through their airspace. However, they are now claiming that geosynchronous satellites are not just passing through and therefore would need to basically pay ‘parking fees’ for remaining fixed above their territory.
If that passes, I expect the satellite-owning countries to say: “Affix a valid parking ticket and then you can collect the fees”.
8-)
Geomancers can probably make some serious titanium alloys for their shelving if they need to.
It is annoying how many comic-book supervillains never seemed to take economic advantage of their own genius. But they weren’t the only ones; take Peter Parker, for example; in his first days as Spiderman, he invented his fantastic webbing and web-shooters. Think about that, and all the potential uses for both the material and the delivery mechanism, for a bit.
It works this way in comics because a superhero or supervillain gadget is a Magic Ring; it is intended to be a Unique Item of Power that makes the hero a SUPERhero or a villain a SUPERvillain–which wouldn’t work if just anybody could use the same toys.
The same principle applies to straight-up superpowers, of course; a superhuman isn’t a superHERO or superVILLAIN unless he uses his power in a heroic fashion. The very smart geokinetic introduced here is a very lucky man, but not a superhero you could easily produce a comic series about.
What Dave rightly points out is that the mercenary motives of various Silver Age supervillains is ludicrous when intelligent application of their gifts or inventions should yield them far, far more wealth than the old Hold A City Hostage game (plus you’re not a wanted criminal). So modern-day supervillains, to be more believable, tend to be crusaders of some flavor or other (Magneto, Red Skull, etc.) or simply megalomaniacs for whom wealth is not the point.
More work for the writers, but today’s comic book readers demand more, too.
“a superhuman isn’t a superHERO or superVILLAIN unless he uses his power in a heroic fashion.”
Suppose there was a person born with oddly orange colored skin and what we might call hypno-hair. Anyone who looked at the hair would do anything he asked. He used this power to become a billionaire in, lets say, the real estate business. His power led him to believe he was inherently better than everyone else and he began putting his name in huge letters on anything he owned. He then decided he should rule over all others and went into politics. His hypno powers allowed him to say insulting and irrational things without anyone questioning his competency on his quest for power.
Is he just using his abilities to improve his own life, or has he crossed the line into supervillian?
jajajajajajaja
Not unless he also keeps a white long-haired Persian he pets obsessively.
That makes me angry, and when Dr. Evil gets angry, Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset. And when Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset… people DIE!
Melania is Slovakian not Persian, and she is a brunette.
Without intent, there can’t be super-villainy.
If this hypothetical man were unaware of his ability, he would simply be going about his life, no doubt thinking he’s very charismatic and very intelligent. A career in politics would tend to be an obvious choice, especially if the hypno effect transmitted over TV. But even not, he would be a master-dealmaker.
If the effect went over TV, he could even make himself the first US President elected by unanimous vote. Heck, he could nominate himself ruler of the Earth. All by unknowingly turning everybody who sees him into an involuntary sycophant.
The kicker is there’s no reason his hair doesn’t work on himself.
Ironically, there is a breakthrough superhuman who behaved much like this in the background of my book series’ Post-Event World setting. He united Turkey and the Arab States into the short-lived Caliphate.
But what about unscrupulous businessmen?
Suppose a corporate raider stages a hostile takeover of a city’s (or country’s) industrial corporations. He basically parts them out and sells everything piecemeal. In the process, he dismantles and destroys every industrial job in the city/country.
This causes a HUGE economic problem, that happens to benefit his operations in the next country over. He does all of this without powers of any kind — is a he a supervillain?
Now think of that geokinetic with all the gold. Suppose he did the same thing to the precious metals markets to make an equally short term profit. Both individuals know they’re ruining lives and all, but don’t care.
Is the geokinetic a supervillain?
And now you’re just being silly.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Supervillain
There are plenty of people actively screwing the economy over or up – without having ANY superpowers whatsoever.
On that basis, worrying about what someone with auperpowers MIGHT do to the economy seems pointless. There are more than enough “normals” doing horrible things to it enyhow.
Cmon, there’s no way Boris Johnson could become President of the US. That would be crazier than Canada having more Sihks in their national cabinet than India has in theirs.
Crazy. But legal. He was born in America.
What? Thought Boris Johnson was a Kiwi! o_O
Whilst there might be a hobbit named Boris Johnson, if talking political figures, the 2nd Mayor of London was born in New York.
The worrying thing, for anyone living
in America, is that he is charismatic enough that the concept of him becoming the President of the USA is plausible, if unlikely.Intent is the key. If he knows about his hair, he’s a supervillain. If he’s unaware of his hair’s ability, he’s just a super idiot…and a megalomaniac. So, basically Hitler without the Holocaust, BEST case. Oh, and taking Poland with diplomacy (“Give me your country.” “Okay.”) instead of tanks. Seriously, at some point he has to realize that people are giving in to RIDICULOUS requests, if he goes into politics and extends his power beyond a single existing country.
Unless it’s Russia. “All the ‘stans are belong to us.” is apparently a reasonable sentiment in Russia.
There are no heroes or villains in this world – only cops, and criminals, and citizens in between.
What about soldiers?
They are the criminals
May the day come when you need a solider to protect you and it not happen
Was being sarcastic
actualy they are cops and criminals at the same time.
by what definition of the word “soldier”? if you mean the actual factual MILITARY soldier working for the duly appointed/elected GOVERNMENT… or do you mean the street slang O.G. Soldier gang member?
everyone in the Government (USA only, as far as I know) is under Oath of Office to uphold the Constitution. This means that they work for We the People more than other Government Officials…This is a matter of the Supreme Law of the Land; We the People come first, over and above anyone in Government.
At least, that’s how they’re supposed to behave…
Spiderman’s webbing was offered for sale in at least one story, but rejected for the flaw of coming apart in a fairly short period of time. While I have my doubts about this and think that it still could have some highly useful applications, it is not immediate nonsense.
This would be the case for a number of superhero inventions. While the invention would seem to have great uses, some flaw will make it impractical, as is the case with most real inventions too.
At the very least, it would be an awesome non-lethal “weapon” for police departments; one of the reasons for some of the brutal footage we see online is that when an adult suspect (or even mostly-grown teen) does not want to be restrained, it is very hard to slap the cuffs on them without getting very physical–and a single officer trying it by himself is risking injury. “Web Guns” would be a godsend to law enforcement, as well as to individuals interested in self-defense measures that aren’t capable of killing.
Because Reed richards & many other comic book heroes are useless…
Well more less-potentially lethal you mean, web someone wrong and they suffocate to death in short order and Spider-man generally didn’t have an agent to dissolve his webbing in such an instance and had to rely on his skill to avoid that happening. Still they did have a storyarc where a businessman hired a super-villain to capture Spider-man because he wanted to steal Spider-man’s webshooters to replicate the technology feeling it would be able to save many lives making it available to firefighters (messed up plan of course as the super-villain at his support was going to cut off Spider-man’s wrists to get his web-shooters rather than just remove them).
Not with Spidey’s webbing, he has used it at least once as a full mask
And after a couple almost-unmaskings started actually webbing his mask to his face.
The short life of Spidey’s webbing was actually by design, not a design flaw. He didn’t want the city to wind up looking like someone’s cobwebby cellar after a couple weeks of his web slinging, and, you can’t keep the crooks tied up forever…
OOOOOOOOO!!! Your THAT Marion Harmon!!! I love your books!!!! Can’t (re: won’t) gush on someone else’s site about them but please, everyone, check his site and look. Great stories!!! And I love the world he built!
No, I’m the other Marion. Common name and easy mistake, it happens all the time. ; )
Ooh, you fibber! How can you say that, whilst wearing your cape?
Nice write-up by the way, on Grrl Power, in your blog. Thanks, from us fellow fans.
Bloody hell *Writes down more book titles to read*
He’s still got a Scrooge McDuckian Vault!
No. No he doesn’t. If you can’t swim in it then it isn’t Scrooge McDuckian.
The irony, now I think about it, is if he has the power to manipulate the metal maleably then he probably could make a liquid form of it that wouldn’t be hot so he really could swim in it.
Yup. If Magneto can fly with a disc of metal, I am sure a powerful geomancer can have a pool of gold coins react, as if they were a fluid, when he swims in them.
Because Superman’s home planet of Krypton(Depending on the story version you read.) has taught us that there is no way screwing around with the worlds cor can have any negative consequences. Still if all they need is that individual’s power to get that all they would need is a good psychic or puppet power individual and enough man power to move all that gold to another location and there golden!
Having trouble telling who is the said individual, the guy out of breath or the guy with the outstretched arms?
Completely different situation. The gold is not a major portion of our core and he’s just extracting it. The Kryptonians performed an experiment on their planetary core that was supposed to create crystals that would provide a limitless power supply (Kryptonite) but the crystallization process didn’t stop. It spread throughout the entire core until it froze solid. That plus tectonic inertia and the buildup of energy in the Kryptonite caused the chain reaction that ripped Krypton apart.
Even if you remember that a spheres volume goes up by the radius cubed (not linearly!) the amount of gold is not really noticeable.
Supermans planet fate is also totally not in any way related to any real physics, unlike this example.
If my wolfram alpha quick calculations is correct, it would cause the earth to rotate about 0.8ms/1Bn years slower. The placement of 6e18kg of gold moving at about 2km/s relative to the surrounding rock would also have been a rather high energy event. As in, 1e12 x the total amount of nukes in the world going off at that location. :)
Unless the super somehow supplied the missing rotational energy. That would have been quite a feat, however.
Anyway, even with the really low value of 512 tons you would need to supply 300MW over one hour. I hope you have a good power supplier. :)
The speed of Earth’s rotation is already slowing gradually…As far as the physicists say, it has to do with “tidal drag” from the moon’s gravity, orbiting our planet.
They also say that the moon is also gradually increasing in its orbital distance form us…Which means that someday it’ll break away from Earth’s orbit & go flying off somewhere. Just think of what that would do with earth’s climate as the ocean currents settle down.
I’d like to see the Global Climate Alarmists try to pin THAT on being “man-made” disaster…
:P
Our moon is ever so slowly escaping us, but the two asteroidal moons of Mars are equally slowly spiraling in and will one day hit the red planet.
But didn’t the moon already make it’s get away? I think it happened sometime back in 1999, didn’t it?
I fondly remember that from my youth. I simply cannot watch it nowadays. It just seems weird hearing Koenig speaking in anything other than Afrikaans!
Actually, Phobos is spiralling in at the rate of about one meter per century, so in about 50 million years it’ll collide. Deimos, on the other hand, is spiralling out and will fly off into space.
Source: https://www.space.com/20345-deimos-moon.html
Also Family Guy did a parody of doing a Scrooge McDuck dive into a big swimming pool vault of coins. The results were……..
Not pretty.
That’s what the obligatory link is at the top.
Oh, missed that.
Dabbler’s math is comically wrong, if the input figures are right. 25m cubed is 15625 cu. meters. A 52.2 mile sphere is 4/3 x pi x 42044m = 311,315,462,200,000 cu. meters, for a factor of 19924348812. Call it 20 billion. The ratio of volumes of two spheres is very different from the ratio of the diameters.
Happy mathing!
To be clear, by factor I mean 2748 should be 20 billion
the ratio of volume is equal to the ratio of diameters cubed. That’s easy math.
Yeah, I… apparently forgot like 7 decimal places. I’ve updated the page, and of course with a crazy bigger number it actually reads a lot better.
I wouldn’t worry too much. I’ve graded undergrad math tests. There’s a long way to go, before you get to “worst.”
Anyway, it’s cool to see some genuine effort to include real science in a sometimes fantastical story. I’ve really enjoyed your comic for the last few years, so thanks for all the work you put into it!
He can always commit perfectly legal economic terrorism if he wants to.
Wormholes are my thing. I would explore the galaxy with them. Finding exotic items, from every Earth-like planet I visited. Using regular astronomy to pick fairly viable candidates and using window-like techniques to examine the systems from a conveniently positioned vantage point, to spot interesting planets. I would leave the viewers open to let minions handle the analysis.
Once penguin soldiers had checked that the basics were safe, like having breathable air, I could then explore to my hearts content. Do enough and you are bound to find some with intelligent life. Keep going until you have found a whole bunch with reasonable artistic and metallurgical skills. Picking up souvenirs along the way.
Putting the choicest items in a chest. Exotic gems which have had scenes sculpted into their interiors. Golden and iridium jewellery, more intricate than a Fabergé egg. Caskets grown from living wood that, when opened, release helicopter seeds, which dance a ballet, to ethereal music. Every handful of objects featuring the most extravagant object d’art from a dozen planets.
I will then take the chest to the filming of an episode of the Antiques Roadshow, and say “I found this in my attic, do you think it might be worth anything?”
“Penguin soldiers?” The rest of the plan seems viable, but I can’t get past the penguin soldier part.
They guard my Antarctic base. But the territory is getting smaller. They need other jobs.
Smaller? How come?
:-D
My bit of it is. It is a big place and different things are going on in different places.
As is true with most things regarding climate change. Pointing at one bit, of news, that appears counter-intuitive and declaring that to be definitive proof, alone, is a common enough tactic of the sceptic camp.
Climate change, it is too complex for me to call, without informed opinion. But doing that sensibly is easy enough. Just believe the majority of the more experienced climate scientists, who indicate that climate change is real and man-made. Whilst remaining sceptical of the smaller camp, of less experienced climate deniers.
Should the latter camp manage to convince the former, of the validity of their arguments, then the numbers will change.
Until then, I am happy to trust the consensus of the assembled world experts.
Some people just believe the hype.
And do not bother to question the “experts” motives and conclusions.
XD love it!!
I remember reading somewhere that if we did actually find intelligent life in space, what we’d probably end up trading with them would be math papers and art. In theory, by the time we have the technology to find intelligent life, we’d have the technology to make sure that everyone had enough of everything to live comfortably.
We are pretty close to that, technologically speaking. We only need to solve energy scarcity (ie post oil dependency) to really have all the tech necessary for a post-scarcity world. But we are still a long way of socially/culturally from allowing that to be implemented.
Up to the point of Antiques Roadshow, and with technology instead of art, the above plan seems to be Dabbler’s life ambition.
If I had a Superpower, I’d be happy just using it in my daily life. To make it a little easier.
However, I know people who, if they got the same superpower, would be a danger to themselves and/or others. Or simply go crazy using it for the wrong reasons.
I think it’s great that there are those in this Grrl Power Universe who use their powers just to live and work and not do anything crazy.
But, for every so many that are liek that, there are always going to be at least some like those she attacked the Restaurant.
BTW – the is advertisement at the bottom of this page, right now, that is aimed at First Time Gold Buyers and Gold Investors. Ironic.
Coincidence? I think not? ;)
“And that reaction, Harem, is WHY we are not disclosing his identity.”
A person with a Superpower deserves the right not be ‘Outed’ if they wish to live a normal life and are not using their powers for anything criminal or dangerous.
He’ll just have to rely on his vast wealth to get women, the poor bastard.
“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.”
Yeah, must really suck to be him.
Don’t forget that supers are also abnormally attractive. That will also hinder him in his dating life.
> Abnormally attractive.
> Owns a vault full of gold bullion.
> Can pull exotic gems, from deep underground, on demand.
A hat-trick of curses, on his dating life.
Also, I love the Science discussions here in the comments section. Very interesting to read.
I find it odd that no one has mentioned the Kola Borehole or why they stopped drilling it. They stopped at a vertical depth of 7.6 miles, because the temperatures were pushing 350 degrees. A ten mile deep hole would be pushing 600 degrees Fahrenheit, with sufficient pressure to make a rock chamber impossible to excavate without it imploding under the mass of the rock above.
Which makes for a very secure storage location. Even if you could GET there, it’s 600 degrees Fahrenheit, and requires the owner’s consistent expenditure of power to keep it from collapsing… all they’d have to do to stop you is… let it go.
In the borehole pressure mines 100km beneath Planetsurface, at the Mohorovicic Discontinuity where crust gives way to mantle, temperatures often reach levels well in excess of 1000°C.
It’s on the diagram in the background. Wasn’t the material at the bottom of the hole liquefying faster than the bore could scrape it out?
Anyway: “magic.” And the walls were all glowy; that probably has something to do with it.
You apparently did not read the first few pages of the comments. The borehole was mentioned at least 3 separate times by three different people.
apparently I didn’t.
I nominate the Geomancer as “The Golden Barron”
Looks like Arianna is in love. She doesn’t normally hyperventilate over just anybody’s gold reserve.
Yeah, but the gold bars can’t hold her like Maxi can :p
What? With the kind of antagonistic relationship Max & Ari have going on? Max may (ok, most likely) hold Ari up to prevent actual injury from falling, but would like to let go as soon as safely possible.
…And with that in mind, I somehow envision one of those internet memes that use the phrase “Now kiss & make up.”
:-/
I think I’ll need to slightly increase my own Standard d Daily Dosage of Brain Bleach™…
max is the only gold that doesn’t turn ari into a snack bar/ lunch buffet for xurial.
On the tech spiral. In my brother’s Champions/HERO System campaign, one of the characters from a previous time he ran the campaign was the smartest person in the world. He had an Int score of about 52, which is estimated to be an IQ of about 520. Our campaign was about looking into rumors that aliens were going to invade a second time. By the time we had started, this guy, Patrick Chen, had cured cancer and otherwise revolutionized tons of things around the world including making the Mars colony a real thing that was happening. As well as mining the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
When the alien invasion happened, it became obvious that Earth tech was far superior (we had faster ships which we used to ambush the invaders half-way to Earth…and the asteroid belt and outer edge of the solar system had been weaponized)….but numbers were the issue since we were fighting a multi-planet empire….we cut their first fleet down to about 30% before they landed enemies…but that still just about overrun large portions of the Earth.
Anyway, any time we ran into something in game that seemed more Star Trek or Star Wars than superhero, we asked “Patrick Chen?” and he would say “Yep.” Since we worked with him, we got to use a lot of that.
His skills didn’t seem to extend to battle armor design though. It wasn’t until our group stole some armor from the super-hating bigot group to expose some traitors as powered by posing as that group…then later reverse engineered it, mass produced it and sold it to the nations of the world that nations had power armor as standard weaponry.
Basically, that seen in Avengers where Captain America and everybody look at Fury and go “naughty, naughty you shouldn’t be using this to make weapons”….yeah, our group never even thought twice…we were more like “We’ve got aliens coming, why haven’t the two big geniuses in the world already done this…oh, wait, one of them is a villain.”
“Hey, Captain Dopey, yeah you Mr I’m-An-Awesome-Super-Villain, You do realize we may have ways to fly around out solar system, but we still can’t LEAVE it? So if those aliens come here & curb-stomp us, guess who’s just as screwed as the rest of us? Yeah, so lets do this temp-truce thing & stop us an invasion…”
The villain’s original plan to stop the invasion was to kill everyone with powers (herself included eventually) so that Earth wouldn’t attract attention.
She founded the anti-super human hate group. And then abandoned them when that plan proved non-viable.
Barely fill an Olympic swimming pool? That honestly seems rather… a lot less than what I would have thought.
Harem had best check what pregnancy does to her 5 bodies before she grabs some guy she has only heard of. Girls complain a lot about giving birth under normal conditions. The possibility of the problems being multiplied by 5….
How would/could she do that without getting pregnant?
Being sure is likely not in the cards, but she has access to high-quality, and maybe super high, medical care. So they should be able to give her major hints at least. as to how…
nothing certain, but vaccinate 1 Harem. If the others also develop immunity, it suggests there will be a large family.
Given she duplicates the body, I doubt all five bodies would get pregnant. Though she might want to hold off teleporting that one body or absorbing it in order to avoid getting pregnant five times over or ending the pregnancy.
Each of the five bodies is completely separate. As seen by their different hair styles and tattoos. If that were not the case, then they would end up with a blended average hair colour, and mish mash of all the various tattoos. Bodies do not get merged, rather they are put into storage. So each one comes out exactly as it went in. Hungry, thirsty or exhasted. Even wounds will remain at exactly the same stage, when retrieved as when stored.
So only one body would become pregnant, and none of the others would be affected, other than by experiencing any pain, cravings, nausea or similar feelings. If all five became pregnant, separately, but at the same time, then experiencing all of those problems, in five different ways, would doubtless be a very unpleasant experience, beyond anything that others have had to cope with.
Harem should carefully plan pregnancies to minimise this. But other than that, I do not see any problems. Unless she attempts to create an extra body, and uses the pregnant body to do that. If Harem is already at her limit, with five bodies, nothing will happen. If not she will almost certainly duplicate the baby two. Which will then be telepathically linked with its other self, the same as Harem is with her other bodies.
Harem would likely limit all pregnancies to just one of her bodies. She have the joys of maternity while minimizing the undesired side effects.
I wonder if the increased levels of Oxytocin in one pregnant Harem would enforce maternal bonding in all the Harems?
“He could try to threaten cities on fault lines and ransom them for millions with is geokinesis, but he’s not living in a silver age comic book, so why would he? It is something that bothers me about a lot of supervillains.”
So could he reverse this and *Stop* Earthquakes? Seems like some countries would pay big bucks for that as well.
He might be able to, but he’s have to do it by causing lots of mini earthquakes. And someone in tune with the planet like that would probably insist that they’re part of how the planet works and that people should have much higher engineering standards for buildings if they want to live on a fault line.
If he issued such threats in a subtle enough manner, he could have a architectural engineering & construction firm to refer them to…
On the surface of it, it would appear legal, but if it’s found out that he’s actually been causing the mini-quakes initially (& they can prove it), they could nab him a charges of Massive Public Endangerment.
British gold reserve….pfff hahaha xD Don’t you mean what’s left of the British gold reserve until we sell the rest off? :P
What the Hell are those storage shelves made of? Gold is heavy. That much stacked gold is very heavy. If you look at the video linked (of the British gold reserves), the bars in that vault re only stacked 4 high — but in panel 2, there’s a lot more gold on each shelf, and the shelves don’t appear to be much more sturdy. How are they holding up to that much weight?
Gee-oh-man-sir!!! He can make the shelves out of whateverthefuckhewhantsium
He worked for the Weapon X project before realizing there was an easier and safer way to make money. He’d just better hope Wolverine never finds his adamantium shelves of gold…
Well. The guy does control metal with his mind…
Probably the same kind of reinforce as Arc-swat’s uniform
So, uhh, my Latin is terrible but is that The Gospel of Uncle Benjamin?
If you are talking about the text around the emblem, then yes, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
‘Nuff said, True Believer.
;-)
In Zephon’s first word bubble, on the fifth line, the word know should be now or removed entirely.
Does anyone care to guess now how much is estimated to exist in total?
Ah jeeze. Thanks, I’ll get it fixed.
Thine Funding.
I don’t understand much of international geopolitics, so this is a legitimate question.
Doesn’t all this gold belong to someone? There isn’t some kind of international treaty that defines how deep a country goes? Just like territorial waters? Or that is deep enough to be considered “international soils”?
According to written law countries own the land all the way down in a cone to the center of the Earth. That said it used to be that countries owned the air and space above them infinitly as well until we developed the technology to travel there and treaties that state how high countries go (ie international space) were written.
In a practical sense since the core is spinning what he took wouldn’t be from under any specific country so they couldn’t complain.
This what makes water rights so complicated. You dig a well, or start a pump here, everybody downstream is losing some water. Now try to get Big Business and Big Agriculture to play nice with the little kids. Or each other. That giant sucking sound is your downstream well going dry.
Ahh, but who writes those laws? Individual countries. But their jurisdiction does not extend beyond their own country. As any country can claim whatever they feel like, no matter how foolish it is, international law does not recognise such claims, unless ratified by international treaty.
Notably there is no international treaty which covers mineral, or even sovereign, rights that deep in the Earth. As such he has very very good grounds to claim it as his own.
Nobody else can can make a viable claim to it, as they cannot even reach it. He found it and mined it. And it is in an area not covered by international treaties, to counter that.
Gold belongs to whomever digs it up first, just because someone owns the land it is in does not automagically make that gold theirs (or any other mineral)
Not so. Mineral rights are a type of property right, and if you don’t own those particular rights under a parcel of land (even if you own the surface rights), any gold you dig up will not belong to you.
A lot of land is sold without mineral rights today.
Aaaaand now the Duck Tales theme is playing in my head. Thanks.
You mean, this theme? o_O
I’m mostly interested in the fact that Harem plans to marry five people. (And possibly already has married one.)
Was actually wondering how her ‘sisters’ felt with her trying to ‘marry them off’ :P
Exactly the same way this one does. 1 mind, 5 bodies, remember.
Also, Raen, she was talking about marrying the same guy, four times at the same time. :)
I think a useful thing the geomancer could do would be to thin out the major garbage dumps of the world.
He gets the refined metals to sell, and the garbage pile gets smaller, including getting rid of many toxic heavy metals (lead, cadmium, etc.)
Yea, but that’d mean people know who you are
Such things can be handled anonymously, using lawyers, accountants and shell companies. A company can offer a recycling service, without specifying how it will be done, or who will handle it. Provided the relevant parties are happy to go by results, and not question the methods, that is all perfectly legal.
The only issues, to be wary of, are those where handling procedures, for hazardous substances, or other by-laws (such as with the handling of scrap metal in some jurisdictions), might require disclosure of such details.
In the USA at least, the government will demand to regulate any commercial enterprise (even if it’s entirely within a single state’s boundaries, in direct violation of the Interstate Commerce Clause; they already DO this).
He still won’t be able to pull it off with anonymity & not draw unwanted government attention.
There are ways around that, using the specialists I mentioned. And so long as the intent is purely to protect the anonymity of someone, but not to conceal or divert funds, the authorities in most countries are willing to co-operate. Taxmen more than most. If you make their job easy to collect lots of money from you, they will not be petty about exposing your identity to the public.
Likewise a regulator’s job is to ensure that the business is being run according to the correct regulations. Unless the law specifically stipulates that every party, in the process, be identified, they are not required to unmask them.
And, yes, anonymity can be found in the USA too. Shell companies, in offshore jurisdictions, can obfuscate all sorts of things, if need be. All very boring, hence passing the details of implementing that over to
minionsrespectable professionals.Incidentally, early on in my career I worked in a job which exclusively involved protecting the anonymity of the individuals involved, whilst ensuring that all interested parties (including taxmen) got their appropriate dues. And dealt with such issues around the globe, including America. So I can talk with authority, on that side of things.
Point to be made (nod maybe it already has been?) the value of gold (or anything, really) is based on the perception of its worth. Case and point is the lowly diamond, one of the most common gemstones on earth, and super common in jewelry. And yet, it is perceived to be a valuable gem thanks to a very sucessful advertising campaign by Diaamond companies. Flooding the market with gold wouldn’t actually do anything to the value of gold unless it were advertised as a horrible thing that is happening.
Well, that’s not entirely true. There’s a second reason for the price of diamonds, despite them being common: De Beers has a worldwide monopoly on them, creating forced scarcity to keep the price high.
Gold, however, is a universally used medium of exchange, and thus, the markets would adjust for an abundance of it, reeking havoc on economies.
De Beers have warehouses full of all grades of diamonds, the diamond market is completely and totally artificial, just like the ‘tradition’ of Diamond Wedding Rings (which is less than a hundred years old)
Actually, Green Goblin is a bad example. He runs Oscorp, and has enough of a stranglehold on the company that, despite burgeoning insanity, terrorist plots and such, he is still the owner of the company. Couple that to him having actually gained control of SHIELD coming out of the Skrull Invasion, and I’d say he’s made pretty good use of his time.
Pete gets chided a lot for not doing more with his mind, and capabilities, but really, Most of the stuff he’d get patents more would out him as Spider-Man pretty quickly. Same with many heroes, and villains as well.
Yea, but he shouldn’t be spider man in the first place, instead living comfortable from his patents
Actually Peter was raised by his aunt and uncle, his parents were out of the picture and in some of the remakes they were dead, while in others they were in hiding. As for Oswald, the owner of Oscorp, please keep in mind that the original goblin formula messed up his brain giving him a bit of a dual personality, literally a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde persona with the Goblin being Hyde. Hyde was indeed always a trouble maker and big trouble. All ego, and no id to control what he will and won’t do. No id means no sense of right and wrong, which means you can do anything and nothing tells you to stop. That pretty much makes the entire point wouldn’t you agree? Plus Oswald made his company from the ground up, of course he owns a lion’s share of the company.
Originally they were American agents killed by the Red Skull.
I can pretty much agree with the bit about a super who has the power to make things, or a person who does and could make a mint on it except they turn villain instead and use it to pretty much mess things up for everyone else, except in certain situations. Case in point you might want to read the D-list super villain series. He is instead robbed of his creations by an ultra rich A-hole, black listed by the same A-hole who has a group of ultra good attorneys follow him around and keep an eye on him so they can take any intellectual property he makes claiming that it was created under the company specs of this or that item he was never actually involved with so they can steal it for the ultra rich guy until the only job he can get to make a living is at a garage in the south. Then because of how badly he’s been messed over by the system he turns around, goes super villain and builds his own super powered suit to get even. Probably one of the few examples of a guy pushed into a corner by the system system and going bad guy because if he wants to be more than majorly boned he has no real choice. Its also an example of a rich guy that acts like a hero and is really a villain and causes a whole mess of bad just so he can pretend to be good. Great read too.
The flaw you have in your thinking, is that the patent would be run out. A patent lasts 20 years. Yes, the comic character was created over 20 years ago, but obviously, they haven’t been around for 20+ years.
So no, people couldn’t just take that flyer apart. Well they could, but Osborn would still have the patent.
That said, agreed that a lot of tech based heroes would change things a lot. If not for the world, possibly for a military.
20 years is plenty of time to make a fortune out of such an invention.
The example is more about the super heroes that invent something amazing and don’t do that, instead using it for secret super heroing
I was just commenting on the idea that the patents on Goblins flyer (for example) would have ran out by now. Superhero comics in the vain of Marvel/DC keep moving with the time, so the heroes haven’t been around that long when it comes to their universe. So the patent of Goblins flyer would still be Osborns.
Some of you may (or may not) be asking “How much is 531 tons of gold currently worth?”
At the current price of about 1100 per oz, he has a net worth of 18.7 billion dollars.
Where does this rank him? On the top 100 billionaires he is now sitting at number 50, just ahead of Paul Allen at 17.5. Bill Gates is at the top at 79.2. Bill could have FOUR of these vaults.
hollow earth gold vault: new deepest local!
Pretty much what I’ve always said. Most supervillains could EASILY accomplish their goals by going legal.
I mean, if you want to be president of earth you might have some steep competition but if you just want to be super rich and powerful that’s easily doable with most superpowers, even EASIER than blackmailing cities or robbing banks…
Some guy making a tunneling machine to rob the Bank of Metropolis AND a chunk of synthetic kryptonite to deal with Superman? He would have made twice as much money by patenting both processes and selling them completely legally. I imagine Lexcorp would pay a shitload of money for the process at least… =p
Long time reader but i had never commended before (I am French, my English is not so good). But I had to say, reverse do exist, they are call Ig Nobel Prize. It is actually a difficult to get, and except for the Ig Nobel price of peace, people want to get it. You have to check, some are really hilarious.
Bienvenue. Nice to have you in the community.
I love the Ig Nobel Prizes and enjoy finding out what each years awards are. As you say they really are worth a laugh. I particularly like the fact that most recipients are willing to travel to the awards, at their own expense, to accept them.
In fact, it has become considered quite an honour, in scientific circles. Because even if it has been nominated for seeming silly, it is actually publicising the experiment or other work done. And when you read up why it was done, a lot of them actually have a real benefit, rather than being the nonsense it seems at first.
And one of the nicest facts is that there is one person who has won both the Nobel and Ig Nobel prize. If I recall correctly, he displays them side by side.
Were I the guy with the geokenesis powers, he said subjunctively, Why would I have to pull out so much all at once and worry about where to keep it? Why not extract as needed? All problems of theft and storage and attracting attention have then gone away.
There are several good reasons.
• It is readily available when needed. If you are lying on an operating table, and the surgeon is asking “how will you pay for this?” it is nice to be able to slide over a gold bar, rather than to hope they will accept a verbal promise to pay later.
• It is pretty much as safe in his vault as it is in the mantle. Few people without his power could either find out about it or reach it.
• The stuff in the vault is not going to attract attention, for the above reason. It only becomes a problem when he tries to spend or trade it.
• Currently he has extremely good legal title to it. But (especially with Archon now aware of it and able to discreetly advise world leaders to enact treaties) if any international treaties are ratified, he could find the rights being claimed by various countries.
Notably though the current practice under international law is not to allow retroactive claims. Which means that countries would be able to claim the mineral rights, and thereby control any future production. But they would not be able to do the same for anything already mined.
So he is very sensible in putting it all in a vault. And he now has several impeccable witnesses to verify his claim. Thus putting him in a strong legal position.
Where he obtains it, is pretty far outside national borders. I’m not sure anyone could claim it as their own. Tech isn’t even made to go as deep as he had to go to get it.
Correct, as regards the current situation. Not correct as far as what international law can do though. We already have an international treaty which defines and prescribes our actions in space, for example. Although I do not recall that it makes claims as regards mineral rights. But, even if it does not, sooner or later the world’s countries will need to sit down and hammer out an agreement.
Failing to do so, or failing to respect agreements once made, could result in disputes being settled by force.
How we handle such claims in the Arctic, will probably inform future negotiations for deep Earth and outer space treaties. It is of note that Russia is enforcing their claims, with a strong military presence.
Similarly China, elsewhere, in disputes in areas considered international waters, under present international treaties. Which they are breaking, as the basis of their claims stem from artificially created islands (by raising them from sub-surface reefs). This is specifically covered in those treaties and does not allow sovereign claims to be made for such.
Considering Dabbler’s an alien, it’s odd to have her answer the question accurately from an Earth-centric POV. Arianna’s question really ought to include the needed “In Earth” qualifier, since there’s far more gold elsewhere in the universe.
Dave explains this in his comments. She is an alien, but one with experience of many planets similar to Earth. So can speak with confidence.
Inadvertently Dabbler is telling the audience one of several things:
• Earth’s composition is fairly standard for planets like this.
• Or she has sensors which simply tell her the actual value.
• Or she reads the same sources as Arianna does.
Possibly more than one, or all, are true. And Dave’s comment would indicate the first to be accurate.
But isn’t Dabbler also part human anyways?
Nope.
No fraction left for any human component. Unless the unidentified bit turns out not to be alien, after all, but human (or part-human).
It is of note that those ratios above are… odd. But only if you consider Earth reproductive statistics to apply to alien reproduction too. And it does say “roughly”. So Dabbler could simply originate from a population with those sorts of ratios. Much like most of us have a few percent Neanderthal DNA in us. Despite not having any immediate Neanderthal ancestors.
Dabler mentioned she has cybernetic eye. I would imagine this sort of tech granting instant access to google.
Yea. Although I imagine accessing galactic records would be far more useful than relying on humanities feeble knowledge base. They probably have up to date survey records. Not to mention being able to look up ones from a few billion years ago.
If you can trust folks who like to make crop circles and mutilate cows, for a laugh, that is.
just as i’m pretty sure you’re capable of determining whether or not you will believe all of those “i need help getting my money out of an evil bank in an evil country… but only if you send me some money to bribe them” scams… i’m confident that she is capable of doing the same
“Hey thish alcohlz shtuff, ze lasht shervey team shaid aboutz, ish evenz beshter now!”
“Ya, but zey shaid noffin aboutsh tele… televe….televeeshion. Et mosht be new.”
“Iyesh beens watshing some of eet. Dat shtoffs … hic… deys saysh aboutsh us and cows ish sick!”
“You knowsh we …we ish goingsh to heff to do shommit about dat?”
“Oh yesh, for shuresh! … mmm… Ish feelsh fonny.”
“Dangsh why ish it sho hard flyingsh dish thing? OOPSH! Wvot vash dat ve ammmosht hitsh?”
“Didntsh see. I vosh puking. Looksh like all doze cropsh.. hic… ish harveshted.”
“OK, cowsh it ish!”
There are a couple of ways to control the impact of gadgeteers on the tech curve. The easy way is to have the gadgeteer be what amounts to a technomancer: Someone else following the gadgeteer’s blueprints ends up with a device that simply doesn’t work, (possibly even extending to having the gadgets only work for the gadgeteer).
One that applies to my main fursona is that shi is pushing the tech curve but not as fast as you might think. What hampers the impact of the bleeding edge stuff is that much of it simply isn’t practical for general use due to massive maintenance requirements. Sure she carries a ‘neural disruptor'[1] as hir standby weapon but shi also all but rebuilds it every week or two of regular use with half of the core components landing in the scrap bin. Shi also avoids hauling out the flight harness because it makes the Canadian Forces’ Sea Kings look easy to maintain.
[1] For those who know the Hero system: 6d penetrating EB, does no BODY. For obvious reasons, police forces would _love_ to have something like this, everything tazers promised without the occasional deadly heart attack.
Not being judgemental or antagonistic. Your repeated use of “shi” and “hir” seems intentional. Am I correct in assuming your fursona is of a “non-standard” gender?
I find such concepts intriguing. Mostly due to the fact that, as bog standard, cisgender, hetero, male, hairless ape, my mind doesn’t grasp such things easily.
(Sorry for the delay.)
Firepaw is of the standard gender and sex for a chakat. Like all of them, shi is a hermaphrodite.
Looking at the motto on the emblem behind Zephan:
“Cum Amplus Potentia Venti Amplus Onus”
My Latin sucks, but doesn’t that mean: “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility”?
Nice reference! :)
Yup.
It both resonates with history and upholds the spirit, and principles, of true heroes.