Grrl Power #652 – Prepare for Warp 0.00000454
My favorite thing about this page is that when confronted with… whatever that is there in the back shooting at Sydney, let’s call it a world eater apocalypse demon god, her reaction is, “Meh, seeya.”
That thing is probably used to people either attacking it or fleeing from it, but the no look sayonara is probably a new one. There’s a part of Sydney that wants to fight that thing, but she also knows she doesn’t have extra lives to spare while learning that particular boss’s patterns, so she’s exploring other options first.
I know I drew regular word bubbles in these, but Sydney’s mouth isn’t open in any of the pictures, which is a minor comic book pet peeve of mine, and it’s certainly not the first time I’ve done it, but pretend these are all thought bubbles. I mean, she’s just talking to herself anyway.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
I’m surprised she’s so lucid.
Give it until 20 seconds after she’s safe.
[Several hours later, in deep interplanetary space] Sydney yawns, figures she’s going to need to sleep soon… and then realizes she can’t keep hanging on to Mr. Bubble and Pine-Fresh Scent. (Air Orb)
“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!”
But didn’t she have duct tape in her art bag already? – Problem solved.
But Sydney doesn’t know the orbs turn off (possibly recharge?) when she sleeps, though she does know they turn off if they’re in her tube for a while.
True, we’ve seen them go inert once she’s asleep – in which case whe’d be dead within minutes in space. Also, once she’s away from the planet, how are the others going to find her? And even if she can go on accelerating as fast as a jet forever, how long until she even begins to approach light speed?
Let’s see, pulling a constant 3 g’s, ~30m/s/s, she’ll need around ten million seconds to reach 300,000Km/s, the approximate lightspeed. Which is around four months of constant acceleration.
After that, it’s only another 699 years and 8 months back to Earth (if what Dave put on the bottom of page #650 is correct), from the perspective of Max et al. For Syd (assuming I understand time dilation correctly) it will be a measly 7 years (with a Lorentz factor of 100 @ 0.99995C). 7 years alone, in deep space in a bubble; good luck. If Syd cant get a portal back home then she is absolutely SOL.
You mean she´s only AGED 7 years.
Her experience was still 700 of them.
Why do people always get that wrong?
If she only needs 7 years to get to earth, she didn´t fly at light speed. What is so difficult about that?
You can’t age and experience time at different rates. Her experience is only 7 years if she aged 7 years.
What? No. Thats not how that works.
Time dilation neans while she experiences 7 years she will arive on earth 700 years in the future.
7 years or 700, doesn’t really matter what her experienced time was; she would arrive back at Earth 700 years from now.
Also, if she were flying “at” light speed her relativistic mass would be infinite, goodbye universe.
> Why do people always get that wrong?
Most likely because YOU are dead out wrong! Time dilation does not slow down time while you experience it at a normal rate. There is no such thing as bullet time. And you CANNOT experience time different from your body.
For Sydney the distance between her start and destination will appear to shrink (contraction of length also called Lorentz Contraction) so she can travel the entire distance in (what feels to her) seven years. For outside observers they will see her travelling over a vast distance for 700 years.
So when Halo arrives at earth, she will have aged and experienced 7 years while the time on earth will be 700 years and ~13 days after she left her starting point.
Ofcourse this assumes that Sydney CAN accelerate to nearly C, but acceleration becomes increasingly difficult as she approaches C because her mass will approach infinite as she speeds up. If we propose that she has a limit of energy she can extend (as shown by the fallibility of her shield), then we can safely assume that without warping spacetime, she will not be able to accelerate to anything close to lightspeed.
He’s being a little troll… but I get what he’s saying.
Sydney _would_ “experience” 700 years… she would experience those 700 years in a time frame that, to her, would SEEM like 7 years. From her perspective, it would seem as if someone hit 100x fast forward on the universe. But the reality is more than she’s hit 100x slow-motion on herself. The universe hasn’t sped up… she’s slowed down. Mathematically (as Einstein proved) it doesn’t really matter much which perspective you look at it from. It’s all relative. But, in an objective sense, those 700 years are still happening for both Sydney and the universe… she’s just slowed her own mind down so much that it _seems_ 100x faster from her reference point.
for clarity… when I say “she’s slowed down” I’m talking about her biological processes… not her velocity.
I hate to play Devil’s Advocate here, but regardless of whether it is 7 years, 700 years, or 2 years, that isn’t how she gets home. If so, she would be older and so would everyone else. Granted, she may look similar, but I think 1+ years in space without meds would mess her up beyond anything she was at the start of the comic.
Aname: “7 years or 700, doesn’t really matter what her experienced time was; she would arrive back at Earth 700 years from now.”
“When 700 years old you be, look as good you will not, hmmmm?”
:D
Actually, your actual mass does not increase as you approach the speed of light, that is simply wrong, and is used as the “Explaination” of why you can’t reach the actual speed of light (because it would require more and more thrust to maintain accelleration supposedly) when it’s actually the time dilation effect that limits your speed.
From what I can tell, the Flight orb is essentially a gravity drive, since Sydney doesn’t appear to “feel” her acceleration (her skin doesn’t compress like it would in a centrifuge) so there’s no reason to think she’s limited to 3G acceleration once she’s in space with no air resistance to hold her back, so reaching relativistic velocities isn’t the issue, it’s the 700 light year distance she would need to travel (assuming she can determine in what direction she needs to travel in the first place)
Unless the flight orb has FTL capabilities built in for long distance spaceflight, of course.
her main problem is, as stated, the need to sleep, then water, then food. As Dabbler pointed out, she could melt a comet with the PPO to get water, but I doubt there’s a handy McDonalds nearby, so food will be a problem. Her best bet for rescue is to stay near the planet so she can be in radio range of anyone who comes back since she has her choker on.
I agree that the planet is her best chance for finding food and water. But there again there is a program of systematic genocide being conducted there, and Sydney’s shields have proven to be close to failure even in the first salvo!
Sydney knows that the green orb has at least one undiscovered skill, already unlocked. Now seems to be a good time to check out if does provide the life support that she is hoping it does. If it does not, she can pick and choose where to go down again.
However if she is good, then she can keep moving away from the things that are trying to kill her.
One big advantage with rubble though is it is good to hide in. Whereas space does not provide any cover.
But it is big. Hopefully Sydney’s small size, and scanning resistance, will help to evade detection by her pursuers.
Actually you are ALL wrong assuming that she actually achieves the speed of light (an entirely different problem). If she is moving at that speed she experiences ZERO movement of time from her personal from of reference. The rest of the universe would have aged 700 years. For her arrival on Earth would be instantaneous. I actually have the equation:
t is time for the stationary observer (the universe).
T is time for the system under observation (Sydney. I can’t do subscripts so I’m depending on letter case to distinguish).
c is the speed of light in a vacuum.
v is the velocity of the system under observation.
sqrt() is the square root of what is inside the parenthesis (math typesetting is going to be impossible here unfortunately).
I’m using the caret symbol (^) to represent an exponent. i.e. x^2 is x to the power of two or x squared.
I’m using an asterisk (*) to represent multiplication and / to represent division.
Formula:
t*sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)=T
If we set v=c then we get that T=0t. No matter how much time elapses for the universe Sydney’s time will always be zero. And, yes, I know precisely where this equation comes from.
The site does not stipulate you can use the subscript tag, but giving it a test, just in case:
E= M<sub >c</sub > Hammer
E= Mc Hammer
You are not taking into account relativity. As your speed approaches c, the speed gain from constant acceleration diminishes.
No, it doen’t. You need just lots more energy to accelerate at a constant rate and that energy approaches infinite. You accelerate slower with constant energy because of relativistic mass gain.
Except the flight orb doesn’t seem to have energy constraints and needs neither fuel nor reaction mass….
….. damn that thing is OP.
We know she’s basically limited to MACH 4 (3069 mph) with additional greyed out levels on the fly ball, presumably for higher speeds. Those greyed out portions may be accessible with skill upgrades, or they may be available outside the atmosphere of a planet. If her flight is some form of antigravity which means she doesn’t necessarily need to reach escape velocity (MACH 33 or 7 miles per second) to break orbit since she can basically ignore gravity. And more of the fly all’s flight modes may become available the further away from a gravity well she gets.
I suppose it hinges on whether her in-atmosphere flight speed is limited to that due to air resistance, or the air don’t matter and that’s her current flight speed ‘cap’.
When she gets back (and we know she gets back) more testing must be done! Low altitude speed, high altitude speed, vacuum. Once around the moon with Maxima.. go!
That’s right: We know she gets back. And not in 7 years either; https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/60
She’s back on Earth in only a “few months” so we can guess she tries this stunt out, figures out it wont work, and returns to the planet in time for Dabbler to do whatever she’s planning to do. Of course that doesn’t mean there wont be some fun & games before that happens – there is a world destroying weapons system down there, after all.
it’s a superhero comic… can’t rule out alternate timelines and alternate universes.
My uninformed speculation is that the MACH 4 limit is probably set by either being in an atmosphere or within a certain distance vof a gravity well. It may be a safety feature as much as anything. The shield does have an upper limit of how much energy it can absorb/deflect, which seems to be in the multi- kiloton range. It would be awfully in inconvenient to plow into, say, a mountain or something motoring along at 20 miles per second or some such. That would likely be past Mr Bubble’s ability to deal with, not to mention being rough on the local biosphere. Hence, the MACH 4 limit within certain distance of a gravity well.
So, the Mach number is actually an object’s speed relative to the speed of sound in the surrounding medium. It so happens this is normally air for most applications (e.g. planes and near-Earth launch vehicles), so we often just equate Mach 1 with that actual value for air in mph / kph.
However, we also saw that at least one of the 3 speed gauges on the flight orb UI was done in Mach increments. The odds of this being tied to mph in Earth air instead of true Mach are pretty low, since the orb kit was probably designed to operate in a wide variety of planetary atmospheres.
If that’s the case, and she’s going to fly into space where there’s (effectively) no surrounding medium. Depending on your interpretation of the meaning of Mach number in vacuum, Mach 1 is either an extremely high velocity or completely meaningless.
Unless the flight orb has a separate mode in atmosphere to prevent creating fireballs while going full power too close to a planet, I’m betting there is a different set of gauges for interplanetary travel. I think she’ll either discover a new mode or be stuck going roughly atmospheric Mach 4, which won’t cut it for long travel (as already discussed).
Sydney’s flight is based on anti-gravity. As demonstrated here: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/479
If you look at her, if it was simple flight her hair and clothes would still be subject to the local gravity, which it isn’t when she demonstrated the flyball.
What is interesting is that when she has the shield on, that ‘lovalized gravity’ effect also affects everyone in it. See #433
the shields ‘local environment’ also effects pressure and pressure waves (the explosion)
* kinetics (maxima punches or the blast did not move her.
* Electromagnetic Radiation – eg light, radiation etc.
* I will also assume gravity at this point too
If Sydney’s FOrb is capable of FTL speeds, she’ll probably have to level up again just to have an opportunity to find out. Even so, Sydney’s best chance for now really is to wait for a rescue, as she can figure out that Archon isn’t going to risk losing a potential Apex Hero that easily & will do anything conceivable to find her.
So yeah, waiting for a rescue is good…Waiting for a rescue right here is not so good.
And levelling up disables the orbs until you spend your point. Not good for being in space, not good for being underneath a spaceship that wants to bombard you.
Well we know she can go around Mach 4 speeds, but the testing Max was doing at the time was interrupted by them needing to go to that meeting. She might be able to go faster, but that would be based on what the orbs max limit is for that particular ‘skiill’ level.
It does look like she is fast enough to avoid the blasts of the squidly weapon ATM. Hide and seek
Actually, we only know they stop floating in patterns which we also know Sydney controls, so it’s possible that it’s not related to them keeping her alive.
True, we’ve never seen her let go of them in a life-threatening situation, always in a safe environment like her bed.
We’ve seen her let go of them in one semi-life-threatening situation – https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1849
I don’t really count that as she can call the orb to her hand and if she was in real trouble, Maxima could have caught her easily.
Unless they only turn off when she’s sleeping because she’s sleeping AND not holding one of them.
How does she duct tape the second orb on?
Using the tips of her fingers, from her other hand, and her teeth to rip it.
We saw her pretty much set up to do that the first time she used duct-tape. Even though that time she only need to do up the flyball.
I’d listen to Yorpie on this, especially since he’s had to live his life without the use of opposable thumbs, and yet he somehow manages to type a lot.
That is why she carries duck tape on her. We saw on her trip from New York that this combo was taped to her hands while she slept. This time, she lets go of flight, grabs air gen for a few minutes to regenerate the air supply, travelling under inertia, and then switches back to continue guided flight.
Well once she’s in interplanetary Space the flight or should be more or less needed only for maneuvering. Once something starts moving in space it literally continues until it hits something yes that does include planets.
Newton’s First Law of Motion: An object at rest tends to remain at rest and an object in motion tends to remain in uniform motion, unless acted on by an external force. Also known as Inertia.
Right now, I am being inertial in my bed (an object at rest and all that).
not really “at rest”. just remember that you’re laying on a planet that’s evolving – revolving at 900 miles an hour…
Ah yes, the Universe Song (which I had forgetten includes a slightly NSFW animation) always helps keep things in perspective. Especially the last line.
Earth rotation of 460 meters per second is insignificant compared to the fact whole local group of galaxies is moving at 631±20 km/s compared to microwave background.
I wasn’t spending any energy to move around at 7 AM this morning, so I was at rest. :P
Well, being in a situation where you are faced with being stranded with no real way to get back might have a sombering effect on ya. Unless she has warp/wormhole capability she is shit outta luck.
She’s consistently shown the ability to keep calm in the face of danger and think things through. In fact the only time we’ve seen her lock up is when the orbs were in skill upgrade mode and unavailable when she was attacked by Sciona’s golem. Adrenaline may have a focusing effect on her.
I’d imagine it’s sorta like how some people with ADHD (like me,) are calmed by caffeine, rather than stirred up by it. Or, to be more specific, if you get some caffeine when you’re already jittery/hyper, it mellows you out.
Or it could be that she situation is actually presenting her with enough to think about that her brain isn’t getting bored with it and therefore not trying to focus on five things at once just to stay busy (again, personal experience.)
OOOOooOOOrrr, it could be that while most people start out calm, then go into a hyper mode when supplied with adrenaline, she’s already in that state all the time, so she doesn’t so much become calm, instead she just stays as hyper as always, but because you’re expecting her to be less calm, it seems like she’s more calm.
Or some combination thereof.
So, because of the way our brains function, stimulants usually have a different effect on people with ADHD. Yes, this means that often, when our body dumps adrenaline into our system, we may still have the physical effects, (Heart racing, increased reflexes, ect) however, it is possible (And I know actual in my own personal experience) that we are able to outwardly focus with an intensity not usually associated with the adrenaline fueled flight or fight response.
Ritalin? Adderal? Those are amphetamines. Not too dissimilar from methamphetamine (otherwise known as “meth”). So… yeah… stimulants. Stimulants that are used to treat ADHD.
I have adhd, and caffeine stimulates me like anyone else. Adderall, on the other hand, both stimulates and settles me down. At times I’ll skip a day or two of it. when I start up again, I usually take a nap after the first dose – I sleep *much* better with it. then I wake up ready for warp 9.
Yeah, she mostly freaks out in harmless situations with comedic value – under actual pressure, she’s actually pretty level-headed. Plus, her difficulty staying focused seems to help her in some ways… we’ve seen several times that she’s the one most likely to notice an anomaly, because she doesn’t get fixated on the obvious target.
I’m not.
Mind you, I’m not an ADHD genius, but I do have ADD and her reactions feel very familiar to me.
In daily life I’m a spaz, very easily stressed out, but in a situation of a clear and present danger something clicks in the brain. Suddenly time slows down, I’m becoming detached and can observe, analyze and react very quickly, much more than other people around. There is a price in some bad reaction afterwards, when the danger passes, though…
I’ve been there, the moment when I’ve slipped on a roof and rather than panicking just had the thought of: “well… shit, that sucks”. Its not till once the immediate threat is done that the panic arrives.
I’m surprised she didn’t try yelling “Klaatu Barada Niktu” at the Skweeee monster. Every good nerd knows that is the universal phrase for “Stand Down.”
“Ba weep, grah na weep, ninni-bong!” At this point, it can’t hurt. Definately try yours first, though.
Cue Going the Distance, part 2
So what we saw before was only its head shooting at them,
hmm, something about it puts me in mind of Nyarlathotep. Or a minion of such a being.
Imagine if it was the family of Varia’s dad.
Also sorta reminded me of those human looking ancient war machine from Nausica
I believe the appropriate quote here is either,
“Sod this for a game of soldiers. I’m off.” or
“F^@k this S#!t, I’m out.”
Or, “Up, up and away!”
“So long, suckers!”
“Screw you guys, I’m taking my ball and going home.”
I have to go, my planet needs me
T-t-t-t-t-that’s all folks.
(admittedly I can’t beat the Poochie one that codebracker did, so not even going to try)
Roronoa Zoro: “You want to kill me? You can’t even kill my boredom.”
So long & thanks for all the fish.
I believe Bugs Bunny would say it best:
“Sorry, fellas. I can’t play witc’yus no more.
I gots some REAL fighting to do!
*marches off, singing*
From the halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli
We will fight our country’s battles
On the land, or on the sea…”
For reference: https://www.b98.tv/video/super-rabbit/, last minute or so
Also: does anyone know the escape velocity of this planet please?
Escape velocity assumes you are not actively accelerating after you leave the surface. Sydney is in powered flight all the way up, so she clearly can accelerate vertically faster than this planet’s gravity, which is getting slightly lighter the further she goes away from the centre of the world.
That said, everybody on the team, and not just Max and Hiro, could easily stand in the gravity of this planet and not bounce around too much (see Apollo moon walks for examples), so the gravity on the surface of this planet should be pretty close to Earth’s gravitation. Therefore the escape velocity should be about 11 km/s.
In case anyone’s wondering, the title of this strip is also 1362 meters / sec… (aka Mach Four)
Thanks for doing the calculation. Unlike Anvil, you do not seem to have trouble with Math.
The escape velocity from Earth is about 11,186 km/s or about Mach 33, but she’s not a baseball being thrown, so as long as she can keep moving in a vacuum she should be good.
There is something that we DON’T know – if Mach 4 means anything as a top speed when there’s no air. If she was in orbit, it’s really possible she doesn’t have a top speed until relativistic effects kick in.
(Also, the earth orbits at 30 km/s so she would need a LOT more speed even to catch up to the planet if she IS a spaceship!)
I interpret Mach I, as the speed it took to break the sound barrier on planet Earth. However; you need more info to actually figure it out. Air gas composition, pressure, temp etc.
Mach 1 occurs when that happens, the medium does not matter. Once you are travelling faster than the sound you are generating you are at mach 1. Which can occur underwater, at high altitude or on Jupiter (if you can avoid being crushed). And the actual velocity can thereby vary considerably, especially with the factors influencing that, such as you listed.
So it is a measurement which would be pretty useless in a vacuum.
However the fact that Halo can achieve Mach 4, in relatively low altitude flight on Earth (she has not been allowed to go above the height where she may need oxygen), does provide us a good way of estimating the amount of thrust that the flyball can provide, at maximum acceleration.
Although, of course, we must not assume that they achieve that through a thrust-like effect. In fact the flyball seems to work by some kind of direct local gravity control. Which is not something that we can quantify as easily as normal spaceship propulsion.
She has effectively unlimited deltaV. So it doesn’t matter.
It does matter, because at some point she’s going to have to let go of an orb to refill her air or try and navigate, and she’s not going to let go of the shield orb so it would be nice if she didn’t fall out of the sky in the process.
Assuming that she is constantly moving at mach 4, it would take her 12-13 mins to reach 100km high, which is considered being in space proper. Of course, we don’t know if air resistance has any effect on her top speed, which could mean that the higher she goes, the faster she can fly.
Also, don’t know the effect of being shielded while holding the air making ball – it might not be necessary to release the shield for an air refresh, as we have to assume these balls are designed to work with each other and not against.
I would be more inclined to hope the last ball is a “Do not starve” ball that feeds the body nutrients and fluids.
Because thats gonna be one hell of a flight home…
And if alien movies have taught me anything, the space food always sucks or is made out of bugs.
That would be part of the “makes air” orb, i.e. life support.
I have to agree. It made air when she was underwater, ready to drown.
“I need this or I will die” (thinking of air) (creates air)
Syd has life support that probably covers air, water, food. My concern would be waste elimination. (Elimination elimination?) What has not been mentioned as lacking is a medical bay/ auto-doc.
I think that it may be part and parcel with the air / life support orb. Now if we use the
USS ENTERPRISE 1701A Syd still lacks any hint of a ships computer.
On a side note , that thing behind her has both radial and bilateral symmetry, I do not trust it!
Subspace beacon or stellar map. Not sure which it might be. Though the stellar map might be included in the Telepresence/Truesight orb (as an unlock).
If she is fast enough with her shields: expand shield (so waste is farther away), drop shield, erect smaller shield (so waste is outside shield).
There’s also the questions of bodily sanitation. The human body can handle being dirty, but too much dirty will result in infections.
Infection? In vacuum? Under radiation from sun, not shielded by planet magnetosphere?
Well, it’s been demonstrated that humans can survive vacuum for a short period of time (and have about 30 seconds give or take – depending on current pulse rate and the distance between lungs and brain – before unconsciousness sets in) so it’s… risky, but feasible, for Sydney to vent into her bubble, drop shields for a moment, then pick up both shields and air again. However, that won’t be a priority for a while – namely, until she’s well out of sight of the alien of doom.
The air orb does seem to keep the air around it while active as was seen underwater
Ha!
Guess I should refresh before posting :P
Which is very impressive well. You have to pressurize a sub to be able to keep people alive, ans slowly bring them up to depressurize. if you just used normal pressure at depth the sub would be crushed like a soda can. We still have not had a person walk on the bottom of the ocean yet.
Didn’t her air orb create a bubble around her underwater…
I would not drop shields like that in space(vacuum) even for a pico second.
Explosive decompression – Sudden change in pressure – would give her a serious case of the bends and kill her.
One atmosphere of decompression won’t really cause that much damage, even with a sharp gradient. Hurt like hell yes, stun quite likely, but the human body is pretty resilient. Not that it wouldn’t still be likely to kill her, mind, but it’d be more the being stunned by the pain and panicking because the air is gone, wasting precious active consciousness time before the body uses up what oxygen is left and the brain shuts down, rather than just ‘the bends’ from the change in pressure.
Halo commented, when she first ran out of air, that she could resize the shield, without that affecting her adversely. One implication of which is that the pressure is automatically adjusted, whilst dong that, to ensure no harm comes to the user.
Alternatively, like the vertigo immunity, it may grant immunity to the bends, and similar effects.
The latter of which would negate the problem raised. The former would likely help, by equalising the pressure, in a controlled fashion. I have read more than one (science based) story where someone had no spacesuit and had to use an airlock to depressurise slowly, then leap (or be assisted, as the case may be) from that vessel to the one they are seeking safety in.
I have heard conflicting accounts, over the years, as to whether that is viable. But, on the whole, the most credible ones said it was survivable. Nasty injuries, but not dead. The specifics varying depending on whether in direct sunlight or shadow.
Either way though I think the orbs can soften the effect.
Well I think that the link between the shield and ‘eviroORB’ would be the key to stable and reliable air refresh and recycling(?). (remove co2 add oxygen+trace gases all while maintaining pressure and temp)
The Ideal Gas Laws – PV = nRT – Pressure, Volume, Temp are the useful bits here. n = moles, R is a constant.
eg if same volume as pressure goes up temp goes up.
if volume goes up either pressure goes down or temp goes down.
its a balance the equation thing
On the one hand, yes, on the other hand we’ve seen that aliens seemed to enjoy grapes when they visited and posed as gods for anonymous sex tourism. Also, Dabbler (a known alien) seems to enjoy popcorn.
I bet ARC swat has a popcorn machine in the lounge for those ‘accidental’ shirt shortages the ladies like so much.
OK, Space Pirate Mode enabled.
Now will she see the shiny space ship nearby?
I bet they have a stellar map in their glove compartment underneath the used up pens and a packet of resealable wet wipes that dried up because the last person didn’t get the seal right…
Sydney did theorize, way back when the orbs were first revealed, that the last one might be some kind of beacon to grab the attention of its creators. Maybe it can flag down her allies instead?
Just so long as it doesn’t call the brain suckers as well…
I don’t have an issue with speech bubbles coming from someone when alone instead of “think” bubbles. I am sure I am not alone when I say I often speak my thoughts or thought processes out loud when not in the company of others.
Additionally Sydney is right in taking off rather than waiting around. If there is a Skull above its head saying Legendary, come back later. This also further adds to the fact that if a meet and greet with the hostiles comes later and you find it was a mistake to fire on her as they thought they were allies with Sciona’s people, she can at least say she didn’t just return fire (and start an intergalactic war) due to a misunderstanding. Not to mention if more than one fire at her at the same time, her shield isn’t going to hold.
I justify mouth closed speech bubbles by the fact that your mouth does in fact close (at least mostly) while speaking, so its just a sub-optimal moment for the image
I love, Love, LOVE how her face shifts expressions while technically remaining “the same sort of closed-mouthed expression,” or rather:
1. tight-mouthed Fear (panel 1) with the brows pinched and quirked just so, Oh Shit I’m On My Own / What Do I Do Now??
2. tight-mouthed Dubiousness (panel 2) with the brows arched and the eyeroll glance over her shoulder, Reminded Of The Thing Making That Scary Noise Again Behind Her
3. tight-mouthed Annoyance/Anger (panel 4), squinty-eyed/narrow-eyed fury of feeling, I Am So Sick Of This Shit / I’m Outta Here / You Are NOT Killing ME Today, Bucko!
4. tight-mouthed Determination (panel 6), not quite a frown of anger, but defintely not a quirked brow of what the heck do I do now momentary feeling of helplessness, because it’s very much I Am Headed Back Home IMmediately And YOU Had Better Help Me Dammit
They’re all technically a tight-mouthed expression, not just closed normal, but lips firmly compressed in some non-smiling way. But the tiny shifts in details of the frown-curve of those lips, the position of the eyebrows and the eyes, what she’s focusing her attention on…?
Masterfully drawn & colored, Dave. Kudos!
(Just gotta point out something, though. In that last panel’s first speech bubble, first line, she says you’ve, as in you have, instead of you’re, as in you are…so that V probably should be replaced with an R.)
Yeah, I just love Sydney more each time she does something like this. She’s brave and resourceful and funny as well. What’s not to like? DaveB, you’re really really good!
Agreed!
My only issue with today’s issue is the orb trails in the panels. In the past they were drawn as spirals behind her, denoting their motion around her head. Today they are all straight lines. So either she is going REALLY fast already, or they don’t orbit her when on alien planets.
P.S. When she gets home we need to do a test to see if they spin counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere like storms do.
She might just be too nervous to make them spin.
We know from the previous strike that the sweeeen beam explodes fast, and has a huge area of effect. She probably shot out there at maximum mach 4 speed to make sure her shield’s resistance capacity isn’t strained a second time…so they’re definitely streaking too fast in a straight line to see a slow orbital helix effect at the moment.
If nothing else we will find out if either the shield, the air orb, or one of the other orbs maintains a safe temperature for her in space. Doin’ Science and I’m still alive!
Hopefully there will be cake.
Oh, I should hope not, after all, The Cake Is A Lie!
I’m guessing that each of the orbs alters her mental state based on their function. We already know that the fly orb cancels her vertigo so she can fly without fear of heights, so maybe the shield orb lets her think calmly in danger, since it protects her from it and her fear would be irrational in that case?
We have seen that a minor first shot from that Thing almost broke through the shield.
Her fear is not irrational anymore.
We’ll its official.. Halo has taken the fist steps on the Epic grind to unlock the “The Unflappable” Title.
Among her other titles are “Super Geek”, “Geek Lore Master”, “Flinger of Epic Insults” and “The Tongue Grappler”.
I want to hug Sydney and tell her everything is going to be fine, but mostly I WANT HER HOME RIGHT NOW!
Work on that shit Dave!
So now she puts on the ruby slippers, clicks her heals three times and says, “There’s not place like home.” over and over?
I would Uni-X ship her a teddy bear, and tribble treats!!
Hm wonder if Syd will find a tribble on the way back.
Am I the only one who DIDN’T expect us to scene smash after leaving such a massive teaser last page?
warp 0.00000454 works out to be about 4,899.808 Kph or 3,062,38 Mph not bad going
Actually, warp factor is an exponential scale, so warp 0.00000454 works out to <2 microns per hour. Mach 4 would be closer to warp 0.025 and most people can walk faster than warp 0.003.
And back to Sydney. Called it! :)
LOVE Sydney’s reaction by the way.
KKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!”
(Had to get that out of the way.)
Maybe there’s a Siri function that could tell her something useful.
Siri needs a working network connection. The interstellar internet is not working yet (that we know of anyway) to allow that.
H: Siri.
S: Space!
H: Siri…
S: I’m afraid…..
H: Siri!
S: ok? Local planetary network connection not found… Searching… Quantum linked router not found… See feature for future upgrade??
H: Grrrr
H: Siri it’s ok. look for closest stardollars
S: Alari Prime connection found… Searching… Closest Quasarbucks found … Oberon station…setting nav.
She can only use two orbs at once and she will need to keep up the shield orb constantly. So she has either propulsion or life support but not both. Now she also needs navigation…
It will be interesting to see how she can juggle all the orbs.
From a design point of view this makes for a very poor starship. Imagine getting into a battle, she couldn’t fire her weapons without letting go of the fly orb. Not to mention that at least one PPO mode opens up her shield.
Maybe their hypothesis is wrong and it’s not a ship at all?
Or the ship was designed for an alien race with more than two upper appendages.
remember Varia? ;)
put those two together, and the ship will become much more viable ;)
Can varia even use Sydney’s orbs? When they were introduced to each other it seemed almost like varia could not utilize Sydney to unlock any sort of power though they did not test her using Sydney’s orbs while they were in contact I don’t think
When they were in contact, the halo didn’t orbit Sydney, it orbited both Sydney and Varia. The implication (unconfirmed) is that Varia would be able to use Sydney’s orbs as well.
When Sydney discovered that the FlightOrb also negates vertigo, her balls ended up orbiting both her and Maxi
Implication… DENIED!!!!!
Incorrect, the orbs did NOT orbit Maxima. Further it would have been a lot easier for them to do so, because Sydney was wrapped around Maxima. They actually had to turn their orientation to AVOID Maxima. So totally the opposite behaviour you are claiming (again).
Whereas the behaviour with Varia was remarkable, because the orbs had to significantly widen their orbit. Varia and Sydney were at arm’s length, so this was not a minor adjustment. And we have never seen them behave like this elsewhere.
Other than them adjusting their orbits (usually making them tighter) to avoid bumping into people (such as with the Maxima link above), the nearest I can think of would be the way they brought themselves down, in a controlled landing, when Sydney went to sleep.
The commonality between that and the Varia scene being that the changes were not being made at Sydney’s command. Which makes me very confident in agreeing that Varia is likely to be able to command the orbs. Should they test the gestalt again someday, that is, and then only if they spot the orbs’ behaviour.
Too bad Varia did not actually try to use an orb
Too bad they both had their eyes shut when Varia was touching Halo, so nobody’s aware of what the combination power is.
It was strongly implied that she can. Orbs’ orbit shifted to encircle them both. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1751
Once she gets moving she can put away propulsion for life support.
Well, she has one advantage… and that is that in micro-gravity, something set in motion stays in motion, in the same direction and at the same velocity, until acted on by another force (such as getting caught in a planet’s gravity well).
So, it is not a big deal to occasionally swap out propulsion for life support (once refreshed, the air inside the shield is good for several minutes) or navigation (assuming one of the orbs has that function).
Sure, but the fly orb isn’t just propulsion. She has no way to steer without it, which makes her a sitting duck the moment she switches to weapons.
the need to sleep means she tape the airorb to her non-shield hand at times – and can’t navigate or accelerate for hours at a time.
But she will not loose velocity, whilst asleep. Whatever speed Sydney builds up she will keep going. And her heading will not change, other than subtly by whatever gravitational field she may be affected by. As she is dead-reckoning at the moment that does not make much difference.
Unless she does have an interstellar suite of options, on her orbs, the most she may be able to do is point herself at any other planet she can eyeball, in the same system. So probably best not to nap on final approach, if she does have to take that option.
Newton’s First Law of Motion: An object at rest tends to remain at rest and an object in motion tends to remain in uniform motion, unless acted on by an external force. Also known as Inertia.
Right now, I am being inertial in my bed (an object at rest and all that).
Oops, that was meant to be a reply to e_voyager above.
Meanwhile, Sydney decided to take some action while Maxima and Dabbler continue their little debate…
Closed mouth + speech bubbles — as long as there is an m, b or p sound in the speech, just figure that the artist captured the instant of that phoneme.
She wouldn’t be able to fly through space she can only use 2 orbs at a time, ie Flight and shields; shields and air; shields and tentacle… so she cant fly and breathe and have forcefield in space
Not a problem. She doesn’t need to keep the air system working continuously – she just needs to activate it periodically to clear the air, and if the shield is at maximum size, she’s got a lot of fresh air stored. And if she has to let go of the flight orb occasionally, one assumes she’ll be carried along by inertia.
The shield is the only one she really needs to hold onto to keep the air in… running the life support orb in vacuum seems a bad idea…
Depends on if her life support orb could fill the entire UNIVERSE with air. If it could… well that brings up a huge pile of questions.
so, has anyone made a shipgirl joke yet?
Personally I believe that Sydney has made the best choice possible considering her situation.
It’s really debatable. First rule of getting stranded somewhere is “Stay where you are”. That way, any people looking for you at least know where to look. Of course, the rule normally implies being stranded in deserts or surviving a plane crash, not getting stuck on an alien planet with atomic murder-genocide in progress. But still, I think Syd would have been able to give the alien destroyer thingy a fair runaround, without completely leaving the planet.
Well is you state there are exceptions to the stay where you are rule. The stay where you are rule generally states that if you are not in immediate danger or there is no immediate hazardous situation when/where you are stranded than you should stay where you are to make it easier for search parties to locate you. And Halos case she is currently being bombarded by an alien that wants to kill her presumably for no other reason than possess the orbs that give her her power.
actually the first thing is to remove yourself from immediate danger. After that it is the rule of 3. 3 Minutes without air, 3 hours without shelter, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. Air she has so next is shelter. She needs to find a place to shelter her from whatever threats the environment has, in this case, genocidal aliens. Her orbs will protect her for the short term, but she needs to get away from them before they can hit her shield again and possibly penetrate it.
Called it! (Well, not aloud.)
I always thought the orb set must be a personal spaceship for some multi-limbed species. We already have hull, sublight propulsion, weapons, remote manipulator, commo suite and environmental. That would make the last orb… FTL drive?
FTL is likely an unlock somewhere late on the Flight orb, it would fall under propulsion/movement.
I say Doorknob. No tardis mind ya.
swap the inside of the orb shield space with ‘air lock’ of her orbs ‘home/core etc’.
Sheilds, Life Support, propulsion … that is three Orbs and she only has Two Hands. The creator of these Orbs must have had many hands, as many as Octopus. has tentacles.
Guess as long as she keeps her shields up she can pause to switch to life Support, then go back to propulsion.
I wonder what the range on her communicator is.
I mean, presuming they open a portal to the same area then how close would she need to be for them to easily locate her or communicate?
…hopefully her comm is direct and not one of the new, digital type ones used by some of the local government services in some countries. Those relay (which is handy in a city with lots of buildings blocking line of sight.)
Considering that she had limited options, flying away is perhaps the best idea. BUT that damn thing will still chase her, why didn’t she at the VERY least flip that thing off yell some profanity THEN leave?
Am I the only one who cares about the fact that the monster she’s running from has more than four limbs? If she does end up going for the spaceship, I feel like that will be important.
And a quote from a certain book comes to mind: “Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Ah, if only our remaining unlabeled orb was the Electronic Thumb.
Whenever life gets you down Mrs. Brown
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you’ve had quite enough…
Just, remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour
That’s orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it’s reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power
The sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm at forty thousand miles an hour
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way
Our galaxy itself, contains a hundred billion stars
It’s a hundred thousand light years side-to-side
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick
But out by us its just three thousand light years wide
We’re thirty thousand light years from galactic central point
We go round every two hundred million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whiz
As fast as it can go, the speed of light you know
Twelve million miles a minute and that’s the fastest speed there is
So remember when you’re feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space
Cause there’s bugger-all down here on Earth
(courtesy of Monty Python)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buqtdpuZxvk
Am I the only one that wants an avatar from a high-res crop of the top right corner of panel 7 (including the entire shield and some light trails)?
*Panel 7…? I demand more panels, I only got 6! Where’s that Patreon button…*
I presume you meant panel 5, which would make a cool avatar or even a poster (at higher res), as would #4. DaveB, have you ever looked at doing some high-res versions as posters?
Yep, 5. Scrolling past 3 and 4, I counted them twice.
whatever creature used the orbs first probably had more than 2 arms
Kind of like the giant creature with several arm-ish appendages ending in glowing points (orbs?) she is running from.
Exactly what I was thinking. The Skweeming Kaiju’s lights are all monochrome, though.
Can’t decide whether to use that name for my company softball team, or my garage band.
Paintball team definitely.
I love how the EMP emitting, sensor blocking mushroom blast of the attack is now blocking the world killer from seeing her fly off.
With luck, this will fool squidbilly into thinking it vaporized Sydney, so it doesn’t pursue her.
Maybe in space her flight is different, she might be able to fly faster when not hindered by a planets gravity or something, with the same power level… (probably not though)
Is that supposed to be you’re instead of you’ve?
Yeah, I think the phrase should either be:
“I really hope you’re some sort of stellar cartography orb”
or
“I really hope you’ve got some sort of stellar cartography feature”
“I hope you have some sort of stellar cartography orb”, she’s talking to the orbs like they are a person, and not for the first time.
That sentence doesn’t make sense as talking to the orbs when using the word “have”, the orbs don’t *have* orbs, the orbs *are* orbs.
You could argue Sydney is talking to herself in second person (as I’m sure she does sometimes), as Sydney does *have* orbs, but that’s debunked when she says “my life” instead of “your life”
The Voice Of The Book – And since this is, of course, an immensely frustrating and nerve-wracking moment for the narrative suddenly to switch tracks again, that is precisely what the narrative will now do.
He he. Keep positive and keep moving. Go for it NCC Scoville!
A recruit in motion outranks a general who is not there.
Say, Sydney, you do realise that you are now Captain Scoville? And, as the only representative of the United Stated Government present, you are also entitled to lay claim to this deserted planet, on behalf of your country and of Earth!
How does “Captain Scoville, Governor General and Queen of the Planet Salt” sound to you? That queen bit you can grant yourself, once in command. You can create laws, declare war, and do all sorts of fun things! Mostly running away, for now.
Stop daydreaming – keep moving!
And an ordnance technician at a dead run outranks everybody.
She’s already the Queen of the Salt, but thinking of her as Earth’s sole ambassador to the rest of the universe is nearly as frightening as Sciona being the sole representative of the Alari. Though for entirely different reasons.
Heh.
That incident was, as you probably guessed, the inspiration for the name. Sydney would need to name the planet though, as neither Sciona nor Dabbler thought to mention its current one.
Unless she can get someone to tell her that. Which has a couple of problems:
1) She doesn’t have a babel fish, to put in her ear. Although one of her orbs might be able to provide translation services.
2) Nobody around here presently seems to be in a talkative mood.
Space… the final obstacle.
These are the voyages of the Starship Scoville.
It’s five-hour mission:
To escape strange new worlds.
To run away from strange life forms
And destroyed civilizations.
To boldly find her way to where all Mankind have lived for centuries!
He he he. Nice riff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnrogbZC3b0
some other really nice riffs
You have good taste. That video already had a ‘dew claws up’ checked against it, in my YouTube. I enjoy watching flashmob videos, so have seen quite a few of them.
Almost looks like the Artisan of Kozilek