Grrl Power #642 – Screwed
I’ve never been good at drawing inorganic stuff. Cars, guns, spaceships – so when I came to this page, I just drew the first thing that came to me. Why the design is best described as a giant, fucked up screw is unclear. (Also if the actual layout of the ship changes slightly from panel to panel, don’t lose too much sleep over it. Like it, uh, deployed those tentacles between panels. Why a gigantic ship like that needs streamers like a little girl’s bike is equally unclear.)
Dabbler is a remarkably fast runner, between her digitigrade legs and strength to body weight ratio, she’s probably at least 50% faster than the fastest human once she gets up to full steam. Of course, we know that Max and Sydney can both go supersonic. Hiro is limited to roughly commercial airliner speeds. He can break the sound barrier with gravity assist (i.e. flying down) but even without that caveat, he’s still the team’s 3rd fastest flyer. With Harem on his shoulder, he’s probably limited to ~100-ish MPH. Maybe a bit faster if she was on his back and her head was tucked behind his. The 4th fastest is the V-22 Osprey at about 300 MPH. Heatwave is limited to “fast car” speeds.
Jiggawatt can move incredibly fast by turning into lightning, but she needs a cloud or something to bounce off if she’s not doing a line of sight hop, so her top speed is somewhat conditional. She’s never tried jumping into powerlines, she’s worried about blowing everything up between her and her destination, and also possibly getting scattered across the power grid and not being able to pull herself back together.
Harem is sort of the fastest mover on the team (when she isn’t discombobulated) but also technically not, depending on whether you measure speed as actual velocity or simply the interval of time it takes to get from one point to another. Like if a starship moves into hyperspace or the warp or whatever and isn’t physically in our dimension, then it pops out at another point, did it move quickly? In instances like this (and probably in proper science), there is a distinction between speed and velocity.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
[Please feel free to use anything I say here, I release all legal rights to these ideas. KTH.]
The way I see it… Jigawatt has 3 options at this point of being able to “spark-hop” without an obvious target point like a cloud or electrical device or something.
If I am understanding all this correctly, essentially, if she is BECOMING electricity, she is converting herself into free electrons and perhaps some electrical plasma. So, if that IS the case…
1) She can bounce off of an insulating material, an electrical insulator of some variety, which would basically act as a reflector of the electrical energy she becomes. It would essentially bounce, reflect, and/or block her electrons from passing through or being absorbed and thus she could simply bounce off of the material… hopping, from one spot to another at UP TO the speed of light. Electrons move at whatever amperage (or current as some folks call it,basically the speed at which the electrons can physically zip from point a to point b they are able to flow at.
The electrical resistance of air for example, does slow down electrons. However, in a low pressure environment, electrons are able to move farther faster. However, in an airless environment, electrons have nothing to jump TO, thus they have to stay on and travel along the surface of whatever object they are on at that time. Which is why when astronauts have tested spark-gap devices in space or scientists test them in a vacuum chamber for example, (see Cody’s Lab on YouTube) the spark tends just cause a plasmatic glow ON the conductors, near the point of origin, instead of traveling from one conductor to the other.
2) Jigawatt could electrically jump from one conductor to another, or one conductive material to another, (and even combine jumping between conductors to bouncing off of insulators and such… electricity parkour :-P ) and flow along them until she gets to another one or something. Again, traveling along the grid, as YOU have surmised, yes would probably obliterate the grid along the way or spread her out and essentially rip her apart… not good. But she could bounce along metallic objects for example, or if a rock is particularly conductive (usually shiny and metallic) she could use it to catapult herself a bit and gain some speed for example.
3) Resistors… partially electrically resistant materials may have a “focusing” effect, or may have an absorbing effect (might weaken the electrical field passing through them). Any material that has electrical resistance, depending on the material, may slow her down. Not good obviously.
For example said material may have an effect of focusing her, basically holding her back long enough for her to build up enough wattage to overcome the resistance and BLAST, burst, or fire out of the material at an even greater speed. Essentially having the opposite effect in that, yes it slowed her down for the few nanoseconds it took for her to pull back the proverbial string of the electric balista she was just in, but the net gain accelerated her momentum to a much greater velocity than she was moving before.
It may also have an absorbing effect, wherein it may absorb part of her momentum (her amperage, wattage, or voltage) and essentially sap her strength… not only slowing her down, but also possibly weakening her in the process.
It may behoove Jigawatt, if not already done, to learn metallurgy, electrical engineering, geology, and meteorology. Possibly chemistry too just to cover all the knowledge bases. :-P
Is underground piping out of the question, or what?
I would say most likely not. That would be jighly advantageous I would assume. :-P
Even electrical conduit could suffice, so long as JW did not touch the wiring itself.
Nobody else noticed the explodey barrel in the foreground of panel 1?
Expecting this to be connected to the not-a-robot, especially given the timing. Did it send through data that allowed its compatriots to overthrow their masters? That would explain why they recognized the orbs. We’ll find out if the stuff here has laser spikes and such.
What I noticed in panel 1 is that the lights on the ground organize into parallel lines under Dabbler’s hooves but are completely random on either side of her. I cant help but wonder whats going on with that.
That’s a normal effect of parallax on a grid-aligned group (minus some inconsistency from being drawn). Dabbler is the center of the frame, so the grid is aligned to the 4th wall at that point. You get the same effect driving past fields and orchards: there will be an angle where you can look straight down one row but not others, and 100 ft later that same angle looks down a different row. In this case, allowing for the art’s imprecision, our view is far enough back for several rows to appear aligned at once.
+1
If being raised on video games have taught me anything it’s that you should always look out for the barrel of explodium.
It’s one of the barrels of “highly volatile stuff” from Sciona’s lair. The portal is depositing things from Earth as it moves, so that indicates the portal is currently tearing through the base they just left. Hopefully, they can do something about this before the portal drifts into a populated area.
Somebody probably beat me to this, but the difference, in math and science, between “speed” and “velocity” is that speed is a magnitude while velocity is a vector. That is, velocity has both a magnitude and a direction. Speed doesn’t care about direction. So two cars can be traveling at the same speed, but different velocities, if they’re not traveling exactly parallel to each other. Two objects traveling the same velocity cannot possibly crash. Two objects traveling the same speed along different trajectories that cross each other MIGHT crash if they’re very unlucky in when and where their paths cross. Assuming they cross at all. (They could be diverging, or skew from each other (like a plane flying over a highway; no plane in the sky will crash into any car on the road due to the height difference preventing their paths from having a point where the distance between closest points on the paths is zero.)
Also, can Hiro fly, or is he just run/jumping while carrying Jigs?
Hiro can fly, albeit not nearly as quickly as Max or Sydney.
Conceivably, push-assisted flying might be a scotch (which I believe is a Canadian term of measurement) faster than flying without the occasional push off the ground. I can’t imagine that wiggling your legs and pushing away from whatever you’re fleeing is going to hurt Hiro’s flight speed.
Always understood it to be ‘scootch’ rather than ‘scotch’
He was flying while carrying a bus during the press conference. Daphne is miniscule compared to that.
Dave B describes Hiro’s powerset as “Superman lite.” So, basically original 1938 Superman (bullets and small cannon shells bounce off, can lift 100 tons, tough and strong, but not the God Walking Among Men he became in the Silver Age) with a flight option added.
The ship kinda reminds me of the ship from Epoch…
Also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUzAfU8h4NU
I thought of this one
https://www.eveonlineships.com/eve-online-ship.php?navicrip=Z2FsbGVudGUtbXlybWlkb24tMy5qcGc=&nn=Myrmidon%20Gallente%20Federation&ids=24700
At first glance it reminded me of this ship.
Eh? Speak up. I can’t hear that.
HAH! :D
Or possibly the love-child of an Enforcer Drone and a Sentinel. Carrying (piloting?) an orbital lance of some sort?
Seriously? None of you considered this little beauty when you saw the ship? And you all have the nerve to call yourselves nerds……for shame.
https://www.esquilax79.com/kreons/images/orgbg/quintesson1.jpg
That looks like a space engine crankshaft :P
Sydney should try giving the newcomers the Universal Greeting.
Bah-Weep-Gra-Nah-Weep-Ninny-Bong
[Please feel free to use anything I say here, I release all legal rights to these ideas. KTH.]
To the shape of the ship that just showed up in what looks like both atmosphere and in orbit…
The massive head of the screw looks perhaps like it might be main engineering. This would, in most Sci-Fi ships, be where the majority of the primary thrusters are, and is most likely where the hyperspace, sub-space, or warp drive mechanism is housed. It also looks like it has several weapons stations up there around the rim of the screw head, and it looks like a large planet destroying “doomsday” weapon might be there as well, if the orange and red glow inside the eye like orifice is anything to go off of.
The tip of the screw looks to have the targeting beacon for the other side of the hyperspace jump drive… taking inspiration from EvE Online for example, the “thing” on the ground that obviously alerted and called it to this planet they are on, acted somewhat like the Cynosural Beacon, for the Cynosural Drive, in EvE Online. In fact, your ship looks slightly influenced by the Gallentean Battlecruiser type, Myrmidon. Not sure that it was, but it reminds me of the bottom 2/3’s of the EvE Online Myrmidon. :-P
But yeah, the screw tip looks like it has the warp beacon for the ship to just “POP” out of sub-space into where it is now. Although, judging by the movements lines of your “VOOOM” It looks like you were going for less of a POP and more of the ship suddenly zipping from where it was, to where it is now, at the speed of light, and decelerating into its current position, possibly carrying over whatever forward momentum it had just before it jumped. So… judging by that, I would say it has either a hyper-space or sub-space jump drive. Hyperspace, if it just zipped over all EvE online/Star Trek style, or a Sub-space if it jumped through a gate to get here. Warp drive may have caused a physically visible warping of space and time, that Dabbler would CERTAINLY have noticed had it occurred, and the should would have less “VOOOOM”ed, and would have more, appeared as if coming through a gate, or as if suddenly coming closer. So as I see no evidence in your art for a gate or portal for it to have suddenly zipped through, which would also have had less a sudden deceleration “VOOOM” effect as it would be coming through a gate instead of decelerating out of a different velocity…
… it looks to me like a Hyperspace Jump Drive just zipped the “ship” from one part of space to another.
Now, the head, the two peninsulas (because when it dwarfs part of a PLANET, they get described as planetary parts :-P ) to each side of the “eye” up there, look like they might be sighting bridges for the weapon, might be focusing crystals for part of the weapon’s firing sequence, or if the ship is instead a “ship” and is some kind of organic being that is so huge it LOOKS like a ship, but is actually some kind of ginormous creature… they could simply be jewelry, or something organic, or something else entirely.
They look like either part of the “eye” weapon or sighting bridges for firing said planet destroyer class weapon.
The ring around the middle, the “washer” looks like a ship’s command bridge. The tower at the bow (or front) of it looks like perhaps the command and steerage module for the bridge… a super structure like on an aircraft carrier. I’ll bet this ship is large enough and powerful enough to either be dreadnought, carrier, or battleship class. It may have drones, fighters, bombers, ground attack, and troop and cargo transport ships it can launch from various bays all over the ship. If it is an organic creature and you wanted to do that with it… think Cloverfield maybe? The “ships” it would launch would be creatures themselves and would instead be individual fighters instead of ships perhaps.
The “washer” around the middle, has an angled edge looking ‘down” towards the jump beacon “screw tip”. This could serve the purpose of being used to line up the jump drive approach with the beacon, could serve as a ground weapon attack command platform (think the new star trek movies, when Nero fired the planet destroying weapon he built out of his mining ship) where in perhaps the eye is not the planet blaster, but perhaps it draws in energy (think the latest star wars movies where Star Killer Base draws energy from sucking in an entire STAR) and then shoots that energy out of the tip of the screw. Perhaps the screw tip is not only the jump beacon, but is also the targeting/alignment array and firing barrel for the planet destroyer weapon. Or not, that may also be the case. A ship that big though, maybe, maybe not. However, it coming flying in like that, and its shape and configuration… and the downward looking inward slope of the “washer” make it looks like the tip is probably the barrel for the main weapon, and the big “eye” is perhaps in fact an ye for a giant creature, or is made to suck in energy from nearby power sources such as stars, to power the main planet annihilator weapon in the screw head, and the screw tip serve several functions and one of them is the barrel of said weapon. In the configuration it has shown up in… that looks like the most likely.
A battle ready ship, which that looks like, would want to come into the fight in the highest possible attack ready configuration and direction… guns pointing at their target as it were… and would want their most powerful and destructive weapon facing their enemy. Thus, I think, unless I am completely mistaken, and this is a carrier class and NOT a titan, dreadnought, or battleship class ship; then that tip would most likely be the barrel and sighting array for the main weapon.
The two assymetric rings just above the yellow light at the bottom there, look maybe like they could be spread out or energized to deploy a shield of some kind, either physical or energy. They also look a little like a mouth or a foot for a starfish like creature. The yellow light looks a little like perhaps a gun sight or something targeting, sensory, surveilling, or surveying related. I might also add that the tip looks slightly like the “tip” of a rather excited horse. :-P
Lastly, the tentacles, could be useful in a LARGE variety of ways. They could be only that length for reloading weapons, moving cargo to and from the ship, deflecting incoming weapon’s fire in an active defensive array, they could also be extended perhaps to be able to reach down and grab stuff off of the planet below, etcetera.
Then again, if the “ship” is itself an organic entity, those could be the tentacles of the creature, and the “eye” could indeed be… an eye.
I like the idea of a grown, plant or fungus like ship. Biology is a form of naturally formed nanotechnology, you could in theory manipulate a self building ship, seeded on an suitably resource filled rock in zero g, and the result would probably mimic naturally grown organic shapes like mushrooms or trees. You’d get erratic results perhaps, but extremely low production costs once the initial capital investment in the basic Nanotech was done. Given how ludicrously many asteroids float in a typical system you could scatter seeds and harvest ships, maybe install some standard implanted command and communication system, and create fleets millions or billions strong. Remove the crew, reduce production cost to near zero, the only limit on the size of your fleet would fuel and maintenance costs, assuming you bothered to preserve the ship’s at all.
So basically what they do on Jurai (and I guess Ryo-Ohki is a similar idea, but with an animal instead of magic trees). Also used on Farscape and Lexx, if I’m not mistaken.
take a read thru of the “Into the Looking Glass” series by John Ringo and Travis S. Taylor. the main enemy, the Dreen, are exactly that… though they go further in that they convert ANYTHING organic into more Dreen…
I like that idea as well! It could be a full ship or it could be a giant creature. Who knows at this point! :-P
That parrot wouldn’t *VOOM!* if ya put four thousand volts through it, it’s bleeding DEMISED”
Parrots don’t VOOM, cats do.
The Osprey is a team member? Is it piloted by a brain-in-a-jar named Nick, by any chance?
Nope, it is a hybrid helicopter/fixed-wing aircraft. Nope, it is piloted by a brain-in-a-much-more-attractive-vessel named Peggy.
You know, I could have sworn I’d hit ‘reply’ when I posted my earlier (typo-filled) explanation, but I guess I am just being careless today. You can see it below.
There’s been some weird glitches in the comments recently.
Every superhero team needs at least one brain in a jar as a member.
Actually, I think the “brain in a jar” is more of a superVILLAIN trope. Granted, it is an available option for any character; be they good, neutral, or evil. From what I’ve seen, disembodied brains just tend to lean more towards the Chaotic Evil end of the spectrum.
Honestly, I didn’t think the differences in design for what I’ll call the Screw Station were art issues, but more like it hadn’t finished its weird warp maneuver yet. Possibly also utilizing non-euclidean geometry. Possibly using said geometry as a car enthusiasts would a turbocharger.
Sooo… that ship looks to be maybe 60-100 miles tall?
Not a problem, I’m sure they can take it. …
Real feels for Sydney, she looks so nervous. And with good reason!
Oh, I know that; it was a joke.
I was making a ref to another web comic, Skin Horse. One of the main characters, Nick Verhakker, is a curse-laden and anti-social video gamer who was kidnapped and had his brain disembodied by an evil government contractor, Anasigma, for a project to create a self-piloting Osprey.
Not that ‘Verhakker’ means ‘hacker’ or ‘chopper’ so he became Nick the Chopper (as in ‘Nick Chopper’, as in the Tin Woodsman from the Oz books. Most of the main characters have Oz refs to them; for example, the cross-dressing psychologist is nicknamed ‘tip’, a patchwork girl named Unity, and a clever little dog named ‘Sweetheart’ (I guess ‘Tot’ would have been too obvious).
Urgh, I didn’t capitalize ‘Tip’. Also, for those who only know the movie (and aren’t fixated on gender-bending like I am), Tippetarus was a stable boy in Oz who turns out to be a transformed Princess Ozma, the rightful ruler of Oz, who had been turned into a boy as an infant so she would be hidden from the Wicked Witches (or something like that).
Apparently, I also misspelled ‘note’ and ‘Toto’, and my grammar was atrocious. Not to mention the whole ‘hitting new thread instead of reply’ thing.
I also forgot to mention that the first client we see the team working with was Leo, a
Cowardly Liontalking lion with confidence issues. Though they do have to break some bad news to him.This whole ‘typing’ thing just isn’t working out for me today, is it…
anyone else find it odd that Hiiro is carrying Harem and they didn’t shove her; and probably Dabbler into Syd’s shield?
So. I’m gonna guess Sydney is gonna get “teleported” away shortly. Since I can’t think of another reason why they wouldn’t be using her as a transport like they usually did. More so because of wind pressures if Hiiro is going very fast.
EXTRA so if they thought about the possbility that a mountain is falling and being sucked into the portal on the other side back on earth. where Hiiro and Maxima would be fine from debris but the others less so I imagine.
So. I gotta guess that Syd’s being taken soon
I’m going with as the sandworm.. thing signaled for the floating screw-city the moment it detected Sydney’s orbs, they have decided that dropping her one active defense for long enough to scoop up the party is ill advised.
Harem would be a good one to put into the shield, but I feel like they’d avoid putting Dabbler in there when in a combat situation as they’d loose her magic and technology capabilities since they can’t exit the shield… Actually… I wonder if her hammerspace works in the shield. It is a sort of pocket dimension that goes with her or a portal to her workshop that’d be unable to establish connection in the shield.
HOWEVER, to safely get either Harem or Dabber in or out of the shield without dropping it, the simple solution is the Comm ball. Sydney simply sends out her image duplicate, makes sure they’re inside the image of the shield, then activates the teleport function. Bingo! people or things in or out of the shield without ever dropping it… although she would have to stop using the Flight orb presently.
Wait! We have your package!
Intergalactic mail is serious business.
Oh noes, it is probably a bill from the Norweb Federation!
I was flashing way back to urusei yatsura, where he accidentally picks up an alien cab ride from school to his house. Unfortunately the exchange rate to galactic money is so poor, aliens require the entirety of earths petroleum reserves.
Did that ship de-cloak, form out of that swirl of clouds, or warp/travel in at incredible speeds?
“VROOM” seems more like the latter. Plus there was no transitional partially uncloaked transition, to hint at the former.
The nice thing about having a ship that doesn’t need to fly through an atmosphere (or which can have highly advanced shields or whatever to deal with air friction and the like – which, really, you need anyway if you’re going to be flying around micrometeorites and everything) or typically operate inside gravity wells (and, again, probably has technology to compensate) is that you can build your ship in whatever shape you want. Have warp engines that primarily work along a relatively narrow axis? Go ahead and build the ship as a cylinder. Want to add observation platforms or hangar decks or just want to send your enemies the message “You’re screwed!”? Make your ship a giant twisted screw. Why not? Will retractable tentacles serve a purpose as docking ports or sensor arrays or just look intimidating? Build them. Maybe it all makes sense to your alien mind. Maybe it’s how to make the most effective use of your alien technology. Maybe you just think it’s cool. Maybe it’s a repurposed drilling platform. Whatever. There’s no definitive reason not to do it that way.
Everyone seems to be missing what a wonderful opportunity this is for some truly epic firepower displays from the team. Sydney’s barely shot anything yet in this comic, and we have an empty world and a giant evil alien spaceship to obliterate. I want to see big badabooms!
Probably best to make sure that it is an ‘evil’ alien spaceship, before starting an interstellar war, with a species that can teleport giant spaceships, at a moment’s notice. If they are evil, getting in the first hits is probably a good idea. If they are the good guys though, that reduces humanity’s survival chances dramatically.
You could argue opening fire on first contact is a clearly established human cultural trait that should be respected as part of our unique heritage. Or you could argue the scanning beams represented a violation of diplomatic protocol since it violated Sydney’s right to privacy when she should have been granted diplomatic immunity as an ambassador of humanity. Possibly you could claim exposure to bright light represented an assault since it could trigger skin conditions or even potentially fatal skin cancer over the longer turn, requiring immediate action to neutralise the risk.
Good points. If there is anybody left alive to do the lawyering. Sydney just found out that the galaxy is an unforgiving community to rogue species.
Thinking that anything with tentacles is evil is just one of our built in human prejudices. For all we know, the tentacled screw ship is crewed by the Intergalactic version of the Red Cross. Whether the disaster is a natural disaster, or a created disaster, the Octopi Cross will be there to render aid and comfort.
It is entirely possible that from the viewpoint of the mystery aliens Sydney with the orbs looks exactly like a toddler playing with a land mine would look to us.
I nominate “The Tentacle Screw Ship” as this ships name from this point on.
I nominate “The Tentacle Screw Ship” as this ships official name from now on.
“Giant fucked up screw.”? I thought it was more like a weird, alien outboard motor.
A few conclusions can be drawn from examining the ship.
It’s probably old. Engineers tend to design simple things so they can keep them from looking impossible to build, later modifications kill simple. This thing has obviously been modified all over. Whatever that thing in the middle is, nobody of any race ever stuck that on a design. It’s a later add on. If it was from earth, I’d say it was some kind of flying bridge, which would be crazy because it’d have no possible use. Weapon housing or break away flier, it’s not original.
The deployed “dangly bits” appear flexible and relatively weak. Most likely purpose, part of a communication or sensor device/array. Can’t be meant for use in battle, unless they are enormously stronger than they look.
This thing is going to be a fuel hog. Least efficient shape for a flying vehicle ever. In or out of atmosphere. Not easily manuverable either, the laws about torque and long axial shapes won’t change to suit aliens. Which is yet more evidence for old.
(Ok, if it was like this new, imagine the sales pitch. It’s hard to turn, it’s ugly, it’s hard to maintain due to the shape, the comm array is easily damaged, and it’s a total fuel glutton due to having a horrible shape for combating oncoming gas or radiation resistance of any sort. And it can be yours for only ten billion zinni!)
I will be surprised if they can actually travel back through the portal since the Earth side sucking things in suggest’s it’s one way.
Good point.
Mind you it is entirely possible that bits of the Alari homeworld are being scattered around Kansas now. If it is bi-directional.
You know, this is a silly thought, but I kind of envision the ship “drilling” through space. Like it just finished screwing itself into their local space-time.
Sadly the speedlines don’t support that interpretation very well.
There’s a B grade Sci Fi movie from the 50’s titled “Teenagers From Outer Space”. The alien Teenagers’s ship is a screw shaped Christmas tree ornament that screws itself into the ground, conveniently leaving a small portion on the surface for the film crew to build. Alien teenagers also conveniently look just like middle aged human actors. The town they land near has one cop who has to bum rides. The alien high command decides to attack the town with a giant lobster for reasons that are unclear. There’s also a disintegration ray that looks suspiciously like a hair dryer with a flashlight on the end of it.
It looks to be accreteing to the beam rather than down jumping. The Vroom could be the fusion of billions of bang/pop sine waves. While an FTL can go from infinely large to normal visually it wouldn’t display a somewhat assembled interim structure. Interesting thoughts while running away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTwtZrtmOCU my be the sound it has when entering along witht he music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfjjXVnEWEo is what plays when capital ship warps in and changes the normal battle theme
Another possible explanation for the odd shape of the alien spacecraft would be that it exists in more than our familiar 3 dimensions. What we are seeing is simply the part that protrudes into our 3 dimensions. In 11 dimensional space the ship might be perfectly streamlined. This would also explain changes in appearance from one panel to the next, as different aspects of the ship rotate in and out of our space.
…I’m getting a strong vibe that seems similar to the summoning of Galactus here…Either a “Budget Galactus” or a space-alien mothership at least. I can understand why Sydney is nervous about it because she’s the one that triggered that critter’s “summoning mode.”
DaveB: “Why the design is best described as a giant, fucked up screw is unclear.”
It’s not worth sweating over, Dave…After all, the “Galactus” that was presented in Marvel comics looked absolutely nothing like the one that appeared in the second “Fantastic Four” movie. A huge cloud with tendrils? sheesh
In the comics Galactus was a giant armored humaniod that would show up in his own ship, bring equipment down to the surface & assemble it (telekinetically, of course). Once completed, the machine would send out beams that would create the “boreholes” from which it would extract the planet’s bio-energy. In the movie, the Silver Surfer made the boreholes before Galactus arrived.
Granted, Galactus didn’t need the machine but it was designed to make his natural energy-consuming process more efficient, less wasteful…I dunno, maybe Galactus was a sloppy eater & the machine was giving him some table utensils to use, or something.
Don’t feel bad about it because Hollywood has a much bigger budget than you & even they went cheap on Galactus.
Yes, I have the original FF comic issues for that story arc. Yes, that story first recounted the origin of Galactus, as told by Uatu, the Watcher. Yes, I’m that old; old enough to already be capable of reading even that long ago.
Now get off my lawn, you pesky kids!
Oh hey! Look its the Friendly welcome wagon.
I’m glad Hiro and Harem were mentioned. Also where’s Achilles?
He never made it, it’s been mentioned on almost every page since this mess started
Achilles is presumably still pinned to the ceiling by a pillar, just hanging out.
No, we saw Maxi knock him down, it was Hiro who was last seen still pinned until he showed up on this side of the Worm’s hole (and Morph hasn’t been seen since they broke down Sci’s front door)
Looks like whoever made the scanner beast not only knows what Sydney’s orbs are, but considers either their recovery or their destruction to be a number one priority.
Didn’t Sydney find the orbs in the water off the coast of Mexico? Maybe we now know what actually caused the Chicxulub crater and killed the dinosaurs… These guys, and they squashed the previous owner like a bug… If so, this does NOT bode well for anybody in the team…
Unfortunately, we know that both Maxi and Sydney survive
Why is that unfortunate?
Drama!
Oh oh, maybe this is where Sydney earns her title as “the big guns“! By demonstrating her interstellar diplomatic prowess and saving the world from destruction, no doubt.
…or maybe blowing up this giant spaceship in a spectacular fashion, which I’m sure none of us have been expecting since the very beginning of the comic or want to see happen at all in any way because what kind of people would we be then?
Let me rephrase… it does not bode well for Earth…
Am I the only one that’s thinking this is a mobile space elevator?
Look at the size in panel 3 where you see mountains and clouds, and panel 4 where you get the scale perspective relative to what are apparently burning cities! Also in panel 4 we can see the rather curved horizon and what appear to be continents. The perspective in that panel seems to indicate an elevation at least similar to mid-level satellites. Methinks this is the invasion ship.
Unlikely, but it could also be Alari reinforcements.
Any guesses on whether Sciona reappears, begging to be arrested and taken in custody to Earth?
…a ship whit tentacles?
Hentai much?
Panel 4 supports at least a couple of suppositions.
1: The devastation observed locally isn’t restricted to their immediate area. (visible evidence: the multiple glowing areas over hundreds or thousands of miles, as implied by the visible curvature of the planet.)
2: The devastation was not in the immediate past, such as the timescale of days. (visible evidence: the type and distribution of weather patterns suggests that the glowing areas aren’t acting as massive thermal plumes, which could either disrupt mass weather patterns, or even create localized chaotic patterns.)
In an anime, I have seen a space ship that was armed with monofilament whips. These could be something similar.
I remember when this was a gag based webcomic.
This page has a good gag, with the final panel being the punchline. The fact that it is intertwined with the ominous ship, and the fear that it evokes, makes it powerfully emotive. On several levels. The distinction though is that it is more of a dark humour, rather than the light humour characteristic earlier on.
There have been a few darkly humorous or ominous moments before though. For instance the intense pain, through Sydney being hit in the eye by the super-spicy noodle, was done in a funny way. Likewise when Sydney found out about vampires and werewolves, it was an ominous scene, but which Sydney’s antics totally inverted into farce.
See? This is how a ship can perform with an nice, extra-hot cup of tea.
If the ship were to chase them, and Sydney were to stop suddenly right before the ship caught up to them, would her shield stop the nearby armor?
There’s three answers I can think of for your question.
1. Yes, it stops the armour and the ship tips over like its been tripped, little tentacles flailing as it indicate “Nononononono!!!” before it faceplants into the dirt.
2. Yes, the armour crumples on impact leaving a Sydney sized hole in the ship, and Sydney being inside somewhere she really doesn’t want to be.
3. No, given the reaction of the scout before summoning the ship, this vessel might be the exception that completely ignores Sydney’s shield, slamming into her and then crushing her against the inside of her own shield… thus allowing it to retrieve the orbs it seems VERY interested in.
I have seen that design for ships before. I love them.
I’ve seen them called Quintesson starships or Junkion starships.
The large elliptical-screw ship which pierced Unicron’s eye.
If you are going to go all Quintesson level of evil and introduce Transformers-level drama, deceit and betrayal, I bow to your efforts, sir.
The heroes are going to need a little energon and a lot of luck.
ORB ORIGINS!
THE PREQUEL!!!one