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.
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Shields, life support, and propulsion–that’s three different orbs. Can Sydney safely let go of the flight orb to freshen her air with the life support orb? Can the life support orb give her an atmosphere in space without a shield to contain it?
Shield + Flight = limited atmosphere
Shield + Life Support = no propulsion
Flight + Life Support = explosive decompression?
You don’t need propulsion in the vacuum of space. Once you have a direction and velocity set, you are done.
Yeah, you would only need the Florb for alterations to direction or to avoid collisions with a planet or another space traveller :P
Remember that the only orb Sydney would need to keep a constant old on is the Shield. Everything else can be cycled as needed.
The orbs do seem to have some awareness of their surroundings, as evidenced by when the green orb jumped into her hand when needed in the pool even though Sydney had no idea what it did.
I would bet that once she is out of the atmosphere, she may be unable to let go of the shield orb, because the orbs know it would kill her.
You may be right, but would you bet your life on it? I’m guessing she’s going to need to figure out how to do this with 2 hands. At the end of the day, we’re going to find out that the Morbs were designed by a Shiva/Kali/Durga/Dabbler alien race (multii-armed) type creature.
Also, this is the first time we’ve seen her in space. Was her speed limited by atmosphere? Can she now accelerate to light-speed; how quickly can she accelerate in her shield without getting squishy (obviously fast enough to instantly launch herself into space without blacking out)? All KINDS of new Morb functions and features may activate. If her skill tree doesn’t go nuts soon, I’ll be shocked.
My money is that she gets into orbit and finds a Space station inhabited solely by Harem clones that are sitting there waiting for her so that she can send her back home with some device Dabbler left for her from the past.
+1
Well you should know Dave by now. They will be Evil Harem clones
I have a new theory about Harems powers, I think that when one of her dies, she gets to make a new one at the starter age where she first activated her powers, Thus giving her a form of immortality as long as one of her is still alive somewhere.
“Why do people always ask me that one? The only way I can find out if it will work is if I die!”
To paraphrase Harem’s reply to reporters, at Sydney’s comic shop.
Although you have incorporated another element too, namely the ageing thing. Currently all her bodies appear to be about the same age. So she is not rejuvenating as she creates duplicates at the moment.
Which makes sense because the vanilla, unchanged, body is the oldest (the one with pink hair, described as ‘strawberry blonde’). So all her duplicates are being made exactly the same age.
And, of course, even if she duplicated a ‘younger’ body (in terms of ‘creation date’) the new body would physically be the same age as all the others (because they share a common physical age, independent of their creation date).
So there is no reason to suppose that process would change if a body died. Assuming the rest did not die at the same time (with quantum linked brains they would have to, unless the quantum link broke upon death), they would have to copy one of the surviving (old) bodies, to replace that one.
Which may not be possible. We do not know what causes Harem’s upper limit on her bodies. Other than there is one, as she has only been able to create duplicates at a very slow rate (one every few years). So loosing one does not necessarily give back that capacity. Rather she may have to wait until her next creation ability comes along (unless she has already capped at a permanent maximum).
But there is a way she can do that. Namely if Harem has kept secret the fact that she actually has six bodies already. Which is permanently kept in storage. Thus unaging (as she is always in the same state coming out of storage as going in). Harem is pretty smart, so may have figured out this trick even at a young age, and decided to make her provision for immortality.
Harem started duplicating herself at an unusually young age (compared to other supers gaining their powers). And we know the sequence by which all her known bodies were created. Which had a regular pattern with no gap. So such a sixth, undeclared, body, would have to be even younger than the earliest one, to preserve the sequence.
Perhaps, once a year, on her birthday, they bring ‘pre-teen’ Harem out, and dance around, going ‘yay, I am going to have eternal youth!’, before quickly popping her back into storage.
Problem with that idea (of keeping a teen Daphne in storage to ‘bud’ from), is that Daphne (like most people) is all about the experiences, and there is no way she would not use the extra body, which means even that one would eventually ‘catch up’ in age to the others
Just figured it might be an unknown artifact of her powers even she doesn’t know about. Maybe a hard reset if one does die. Like you said, she doesn’t know what happens when one dies. It would be a nice safety feature. Or maybe it would reset to the last time that body was, untelleported, and put into storage.
Hopefully they won’t have goatees.
You can get to a significant amount of the speed of light, within a relatively short time if you can maintain constant acceleration. Even if the acceleration itself is very low.
The main problem for spaceships is bringing fuel, which Sydney doesn’t have to do (for propulsion).
When accelerating at 1G (and the human body can handle way more), you can get to the moon in 3 hours.
Not interstellar speeds, but within the same system, she can get everywhere FAST.
The flyball seems to include a localised-gravity effect (unlike Maxima’s flight power), so does Sydney even pull any Gs when accelerating?
Your’e not wrong , RobK.
However, 1g of constant acceleration for 3 hours means that
1) you’re at The Moon.
2) your velocity has enough potential/kinetic energy to make a crater you can almost see being made from Earth.
3) unless you have StarTrek “Inertial Dampeners”
Which leads to the important question.
Can Syd stop on a dime without exploding?
Given the amount of power on demand Syd’s “space being’s toolkit for knocking about a jovian system / asteroid belt for the period of time between a sleep cycle ; as built by the folks from OA ” seem to handle and tap into on the regular … Probably.
All academic if she doesn’t have a direction.
Of course Sydney can stop on a dime! She just needs to yell “SCREEEEEEE” while leaning back with her body straight and her toes at a higher elevation than her heels.
I agree that the orbs have enough safeties that may well happen. Do note though that the orbs let her drop the flyball, whilst in flight. Which is a pretty deadly situation for most muggle humans.
Kind of one of those things that is best tested under carefully controlled conditions. Whilst in the field, duct tape is a good option.
Most muggle humans who aren’t within easy grab range of someone who can fly at Mach 4+
Most ‘muggles’ don’t have the ability to fly without use of a machine, or shoot fire from their hands
Ive suggested elsewhere that ‘Muggle’ be used to describe humans without superpowers….days ago…so….how would JKR feel about that?
She created the word, but it is unreasonable to think that she controls how & when the word is used.
I would bet that once she is out of the atmosphere, she may be unable to let go of the shield orb, because the orbs know it would kill her.
Which goes to my hypothesis way way back at the beginning that those orbs are part of a survival gear set. Probably alien but might be from a previous civilization on Earth in the past. However unlike Sidney, the ones those were made for were fully cognizant of their function.
Although the fact that the previous owner was not alive, and in possession of their orbs, may indicate that they forgot to pack duct tape (or local equivalent), when taking a longer journey.
It was obviously not as an advanced civilisation as us, otherwise duct tape would have been given. See, this is why we are alone in space, no other civilisation invented or used duct tape effectively, unlike ourselves who has the phrase “when in doubt, duck it”
Need to get a round hole fit a square peg? Duck it (official Nasa engineering – Apollo 13!)
Photonic stabilizer about to explode? Duck it. (Megas XLR)
Need to win an anything goes last man standing wrestling match? Duck it
In the Lost Fleet novels, there’s a species Geary meets called the Dancers (aka Spiderwolves aka BUBs aka Big Ugly Bugs) which is a highly advanced alien species, ho are considered masters of technology and are more advanced than humanity tech-wise… but willingly help Geary and his fleet for what they call Universal Bonding Agent… aka Duct Tape. To the Dancers, it’s more precious than gold.
And remember that nothing shouts “poor workmanship!” louder than wrinkly duct tape. Red Green.
Do we really know what happened to the previous owner? I mean it wasn’t like Sydney found the orbs clutched in the cold dead gripping appendages of an alien corpse. For all we know they could be a brand new set that fell off the back of a delivery UFO.
We literally do not know how she found them. The discovery scene was just a snapshot memory, and we can infer that Sydney was being evasive about the details, from her own tongue-tripping dialogue. Not to mention that both Maxima and Zephan picked up on that, and exchanged significant glances.
Clearly they decided to allow Sydney her privacy, given how paranoid she was, at that time. She had not decided to trust Archon at that stage, and they were wise not to press the point.
TL/DR: Sydney may well have found a dead alien body there too. Or a spaceship. Or the lost city of Atlantis. Or a sunken ship crewed by
zombiesundead of a type that does exist in the Grrlverse.I still think the green orb jumping into her hand was a function of that one double-lined node that all the orbs have, but that is only filled in on the green orb. Only that one is smart enough to know when it is needed.
Ooh, the ‘coming when needed’ thing has been proposed before. But I don’t think anyone has linked it to that common-to-all skill. Nice call!
Particularly good because it does not break the ‘two orb limit’. If there are two orbs in hand it would either fail or have to knock one out of the hand.
Logically it also should allow unconscious use (literally, if the user is asleep or knocked out). In this case very useful if Sydney needs to sleep. If the duct tape comes unstuck she will not suffocate in her sleep.
Plus the air orb did NOT need to have the force field orb up, in order for the air bubble to surround Halo, when she was underwater. So it should be able to provide her an atmosphere even without the force field to keep it in place.
Further the flyball grants extra effects as freebies. Such as vertigo immunity and protection from wind buffeting and bug strikes. So it is entirely possible that the air-orb would also grant similar environmental protections in space.
So, even without the force field up, Sydney may be safe from the ambient radiation (but not blaster rays of course) and need not fear muscle wastage, or bone decalcification, at such times as the flyball is not providing her artificial gravity).
And it could apply to any of the other orbs too. Invisible enemy approaching, and the Truesight orb pops down to warn Sydney. Knocked unconscious and falling off a skyscraper, flyball to the rescue! Boa constrictor squeezing Halo unconscious, tentacle’s turn.
Once the appropriate ‘unconscious use’ skill has been unlocked, for each.
Bravo! Nice intuition.
Ahem… I’ve mentioned that before too :)
I sit corrected (I have to be honest, even if it does not fit the turn of phrase).
I recalled that we had many similar variations for the solo node that all the orbs have. For instance the ‘always on’ option (which I am not too keen on, if unrestricted, that would blow the 2-orb limit out of the vacuum). Likewise, as I mentioned, we get the orbs coming when there is a need, from various folks.
My absent mindedness made me forget your version (I still can’t recall it, but that does not surprise me – plus I may not have read it).
Pretty sure it was of my longer posts, so I don’t blame you if you didnt read it :)
Well… longer non-legal-related posts, anyway.
Yes, was agreeing with you, the ball she needs to tape to a duck is Mr Buble
Except that occasionally she will need to replenish air supply and simply adding more with the air orb will increase pressure. What will happen when she gets home and drops the shield?
nope. for the same reason that she doesn’t get The Bends or Nitrogen Narcosis when she changes the size of the Shield Orb, she on’t over pressurize when she uses the Green Orb, it will just suck in the bad air and replenish the same volume with good air.
Remember it was revealed a while back the the Forb also granted a limited shield when it was in use – this would be enough to hold air in and deflect micro-debris. Probably not enough to protect against Cthulhu-alien-atom-blasts, but good enough for traveling.
Umm, no, that was simply the bubble of air that formed around Sydney, which promptly rose (as air tends to do) and dropped Harem into the pool
You’re conflating 2 separate bubbles – the first bubble stayed around both Sydney and Max, at least long enough for them to notice and comment on it. The second was not cohesive but deliberately (consciously?) released under Harem.
Exact details of how tightly the bubble sticks to Sydney (and under what conditions) is all conjectural at this point though. Re: space travel, a human-sized air pocket would let her breathe but is not going to deal with micro-debris collisions. Unless non-standard orb physics are involved, of course.
There is a possibility that it might, due to additional properties. Dave has mentioned, way back, that the flyball provides free protection against low-level problems, such as wind buffeting and bug/bird strikes. But only at low speeds. The top speeds are intrinsically damaging enough, to non-aerodynamic humanoids, that the shield orb would need to be used too.
So I think it likely that the airball would provide a similar function, for micro-meteors. But, similarly, would not be able to cope with the bigger stuff. Hence if it looks clear, or if there is an emergency, Halo can chance it, and will likely be OK unless something starts shooting at her.
Gives her an atmosphere under water without a shield, so evidence says yes.
Well, no. The water has pressure, and is denser than air. Therefore the pressure outside the air pocket is greater than the pressure inside the air pocket. So to a limited extent, the water forces the bubble to form (and surface tension keeps the bubble together and spherical). [Yes, the bubble is going to rise, because of that whole “less dense in a gravity field” thing.
In space, the opposite holds true; the pressure inside the air pocket is much much greater than the pressure outside, and it will tend to want to dissipate without a structure like the force field to hold it in place. The gases tend NOT to have any surface tension, not generally being close enough for cohesive forces to come into play, so at the very least, you’d be looking at a rapid kind of “evaporation” of the atmospheric pocket. Said dissipation could be nearly-explosive in rapidity, or it could simply dissipate as fast as the ball forms it. Any way it’s sliced, she needs the force field sphere — or SOME kind of force field — to keep it around her.
Logically argued.
However I think this will be a matter of intent. The air bubble around Sydney, when she was underwater, stayed together unnaturally. Contrast it to the one that she released under Harem, which behaved in a normal way. That one rose and broke up. Whereas the one around herself just stayed there.
So that was the orb ensuring that the user had air. Whilst its job was made easier, because of the things you cited, I don’t think that it actually required that.
I believe the odds are favourable that Halo can use just the airball, when in a vacuum. Should there be the necessity.
“Shield + Flight = limited atmosphere”
Even if she did need to use it every so often (course corrections, etc) – which she usually won’t because see below – she can still switch out to refresh the air when the air gets stale. It happens quickly.
“Shield + Life Support = no propulsion”
She doesnt need to use flight except when speeding up, slowing down, or making a course correction. Newton’s First Law of Motion – An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion, unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Without a planet’s gravity, Sydney doesn’t have to use the flight orb once she’s set a speed and direction
“Flight + Life Support = explosive decompression?”
We’re actually not sure if she even NEEDS the shield in space if she has the life support on. It might just create a bubble of breathable air and a temperate climate even WITHOUT the shield. Remember in the pool? There wasn’t water filling in there. It surrounded her. No reason to think it wouldnt do the same with a vacuum. It wouldn’t be much good as life support if it wouldn’t prevent hypoxia, pressure loss, and explosive decompression, now would it?
All we know for sure is that, while in space, she needs to have EITHER the shield or the life support orb in her hand. Not even necessarily both. Her main problem is that even at Mach 4 point whatever, it’s a far cry from being able to travel 700 light years, or even 1 light year. The speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s (186,282 miles per second) …. while the speed of Mach 4 is only 1372 m/s (0.852521 miles per second).
Basically, the speed of light is Mach 874,030.
She’s a bit short on that, although if a new pip started doing Speed of light, then it would only take a mere 700 years to get home at Speed of Light 1 (lets call it Warp 1 since that’s how trek does it).
She still has the air recycler. Maxima told her to keep it just in case, so she has quite a while before she needs to refresh the air.
That too. But that’s on top of her normal orb usage. She’s fully capable of outer space flight in any case – the only problem is her speed and the distance between stars.
Remember, also, that the Flight orb grants a limited bubble when it’s in use. Not as strong as Mr. Bubble, but enough for life support during interstellar travel, I’d imagine.
The flight orb does not grant a limited bubble while in use. It just also cancels feelings of vertigo.
That’s more of just a windscreen not a full bubble.
I think the main reason she’s going to want to use the shield orb in space is to avoid getting a nasty case of sun burn. No atmosphere? No protection from UV radiation. Or any other radiation, for that matter.
Good enough point, although I think any life support system should be able to filter out harmful cosmic rays as well. Maybe not the ones that give you superpowers – that would require a shield, but the ones that prevent you from dying horribly. Wouldnt be much of a life support system if it didnt help to support you continuing to live.
You’re assuming that she’s limited to the same speed in vacuum that she is in atmosphere. That’s not an optimum assumption. Drag due to interstellar hydrogen is much, much lower than even high altitude. She should be able to push up to a significant fraction of light speed. In which case it’s still going to take a couple of years to go a light year. Although less for her.
Of course, if I were designing the orb set, and it truly is a space craft, what’s missing: There’s a reason why the Enterprise had two engine sets. That last orb may be super-light capability.
“You’re assuming that she’s limited to the same speed in vacuum that she is in atmosphere.”
The drag of an atmosphere would not be so different as to make any meaningful difference in speed from ‘topping out at mach 4’ to ‘going at lightspeed’
Not to mention even going at lightspeed, assuming you were correct (which I think you are probably not), would mean it would take her 700 years.
“That’s not an optimum assumption. Drag due to interstellar hydrogen is much, much lower than even high altitude.”
Not compared to the speed of light. Even if you’re saying her speed would be double that of her in an atmosphere (which I don’t think it is, since I think her counters any problems with friction), Mach 8 is still FAAAAAR less than Mach 874,030. The difference would be negligible.
“She should be able to push up to a significant fraction of light speed.”
Your math does not work. 1- atmospheric drag will not get her from Mach 4 to Mach anything even approaching a meaningful FRACTION of speed of light. Otherwise the space shuttle would be able to travel a LOT faster than it does when in orbit. They know the speed of the space shuttle,both in orbit and in the atmosphere. In outer space, it’s limited to 17,500 mph – approximately Mach 22. And that’s with its full fuel payload. Then, even if you add to THAT, the velocity of the Earth orbit TO its max possible speed (which it doesnt normally do anyway) the maximum possible speed would be 84,500 mph (67,000 which is the Earth orbit velocity + 17,500)… which is approximately Mach 108. So that’s IN outer space, plus with the velocity of the planet forcing it in orbit (which wouldnt be an issue with Sydney, since she wouldnt be ORBITING A PLANET).
Now compare the speed of the space shuttle, while in space (17,500 mph) with the MAXIMUM possible speed of the space shuttle, in the atmosphere (17,320)…. you’ll notice there’s VERY little difference due to atmospheric friction. The main difference is less risk to the shuttle when in space travelling at that speed, due to friction not heating up the shuttle.
But lets say, for humor’s sake, that the laws of physics decides to take a vacation, and friction alone makes someone go from Mach 4 to Mach almost 874,030. Which it doesn’t, but I’m steelmanning your argument to give you the best possible chance.
In which case it’s still going to take 700 years. At your optimal scenario, which is also a totally unrealistic scenario, even in the Grrlpower universe’s set of rules.
I doubt the last orb has anything to do with flight speed at all. I think all that can be easily shown within the fly orb’s pips.
Well without drag she could accelerate indefinitely all the way up to almost light speed (thrust is acceleration, drag is deceleration, your maximum speed in atmosphere is when the two cancel out, no drag, no upper limit on speed). You’d have relativity issues still (the trip would take a few years for her but 100 years would pass on earth).
Could you explain why that hasnt already happened with deep space probes? Or why no one has ever actually done it yet? Because we have the technology to do what you’re proposing.
It’s just the physics don’t work as you’re proposing. At least not within the timespan of an average human life.
Also I literally gave you the real world speed limits of the space shuttle and the differences in atmosphere vs not-in-atmosphere.
If you’d like, we can use the speed available to deep space probes. Lets use one of the fastest probes – Voyager 1, which has a max speed of 38,610 mph in deep space, currently our only probe that has made it into interstellar space. I just used google for most of these numbers since NASA posted all of it online, and there are other science sites which also post these numbers.
38,610 mph = a little over Mach 50 (roughly Mach 50.3) It’s not even close to approaching light speed, or even a noticeable fraction of it compared to its speed in an atmosphere, which is roughly 17,000 mph (because after that point it would simply burn up from friction).
To remind you, the speed of light is roughly Mach 874,030. Mach 50 (over 12 times faster than Sydney’s current fastest speed), is .005720627% of light speed. Sydney can go .00045765% of light speed.
Voyager I also has not been steadily speeding up, and it’s not how Sydney’s orbs work, nor how propulsion in general works. Sydney’s speed of Mach 4 seems to be a hard limit, not her acceleration. It’s not like if she kept going she’d keep getting faster and faster than Mach 4 (unless she got more pips filled in on her fly orb string). Plus propulsion doesn’t just come from nowhere or increase forever out of nothing (thanks to Newton’s Laws of Motion and also and also the three laws of thermodynamics – of which the important one – the first law – is that energy cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system, just changed from other existing energy or matter – that last part’s thanks to Einstein’s theories). Sydney’s orbs have, based on the testing so far, a hard limit (at least until she gets more pips in that string, or opens up the new string of pips).
Now I’m definitely not a scientist.
…
Okay I have a major in biology but that was just so I could take the patent bar – I’m an attorney (it’s required to have a science degree before you can sit for the Patent Bar). So more specifically, I’m not a physicist. Just an attorney that was forced to get a second major in a non-physics science major in order to get a job that pays well without as much competition from other attorneys. :)
But this seems to be some pretty basic stuff about how propulsion works, and how long it would take to keep increasing ones speed from a starting speed of Mach 4 until they hit the speed of light.
It’s a mass / delta v problem.
Second, we’ll see this when craft don’t need to use most of it’s fuel breaking orbit – building the craft in orbit or orbital refueling or hydrogen ram scoops.
First, we’re already sorta doing that with ion drives. Two spacecraft powered by an ion thruster have changed velocity significantly, one by 4.3 km/s while consuming less than 74 kilograms of xenon, the other by 10 km/s, using continuous operation for intervals of weeks to years.
As far as “speed” maxing out, f=ma. In atmosphere, speed maxes out when f propulsion = f drag. Out of atmosphere, there is minimal drag. Therefore, as long as you have some source of propulsive force, you keep accelerating. However, constant acceleration takes a lot of fuel. The best, most capable craft we’ve developed so far barely have the fuel to escape the solar system with the most efficient orbit we’ve designed.
To the best of our information, however, the flight orb does not require fuel. Therefore, since it can accelerate Sydney at all, it should be able to accelerate her until such time as the propulsive force of the orb is equal to the drag due to interstellar hydrogen. Also, since we know said propulsive force must be greater than 1g (since it can lift many times her own weight), it wouldn’t take long to reach those speeds.
Because they run out of fuel. To give thrust forever you need to feed your engine forever. An ion engine could do that with electricity from a reactor that could last a long time but it’s thrust is very very low.
Possible choice.
She can use the ‘tangle’ orb (lightwhip ? Dang it can’t think of what it’s called)
To hold the orbs she will need ‘handy’. And touch the orbs / activate them.
Perhaps there’s a spot / way that she can activate ‘continual’ on the orbs she needs until she gets somewhere that she might be able to contact the team ?
Part of what I am thinking is that one of the ‘jobs’ of the ‘tangle’ orb is to hold onto the orbs that she wants to ‘keep’ using
I’ve been thinking. So far all of Sydney’s orbs have proven to be extremely useful and very powerful. So, based on the law of averages, the last one is highly likely to be almost entirely pointless and nothing but a complete embarrassment.
That’s quite a serious misuse of the law of averages. The orbs are not a random set to begin with so the law of averages probably doesn’t enter into it in the first place.
Someone made them. That means, someone designed them. It stands to reason that someone designed them with the intent that they were supposed to be useful. All the other orbs do things that are at least situationally important. Ergo, the last of the orbs will do something that is useful, but it might be a niche application, like the life support orb
I had a theory once upon a time that using the alien space ship model, the remaining orb was the hyperdrive (weapons/sensors and comms/shields/life support/impulse drive/warp drive). I guess we’re gonna find out soon
Perhaps, but what if whoever made the orbs really, really wanted a confetti dispenser?
A misuse of the law of averages?! Say it ain’t so! ;-)
Holy moly, took me a while, but I caught up on this comic! I started about 2 weeks ago on strip one. This stuff is brilliant, I am totally taking some of this stuff for my Mutants and Masterminds game. :D
Welcome to Grrl Power! I’m sure you are now impatient for more (just like the rest of us) – if you just can’t wait for the next strip, go read all the comment threads for every strip to date*. Or just the last 100, either way you’ll get a lot of interesting discussion on the comic and have plenty of reading material.
* I also plowed through the archive in a week or so, but I use an RSS reader and didn’t even realize there was a comment section until a couple months ago. If I’d known during my initial binge, I’d have never got caught up.
Heh, yea, there are just a few comments here. Might take a while.
Welcome Garebear. I think you would prove to be quite popular with Sydney. There is evidence of cuddly toys in her bedroom.
That must have been two fun weeks. Do you have any favorite comic yet? Welcome to Grrl Power.
Hmm…
If that is a navigation/stellar cartography orb and Sydney does manage to get back to Earth by herself, will she end up leading the world eater apocalypse demon god straight to Earth?
Doubt it, ‘snot like aliens aren’t visiting Earth on a regular basis already
They fired on her and she just stood there. Then they fired on her again, and she just zoomed up shortly thereafter, annoyed. If I was said aliens, I would be concerned about following such a being to anywhere.
I would. Tame ti eat pesky neighbors and Telemarketers.
Considering that thing managed to wipe out an entire highly advanced (in both tech and magic) civilization, I’d say it’s definitely the smart move to just run for it. It’d be interesting to see if she, Dabbler, and Maxima all together could take it, but it’d definitely be pushing their limits.
Doubt it, for one thing, there is doubtlessly more than one Skweeeener, and Dabbles is only a dabbler in things
Worth pointing out that there’s no direct evidence that that thing was what wiped out the Alari. The Alari were wiped out, and sometime later Sciona and ARC showed up to find this guy present. There’s correlation, but no direct evidence of causation.
I am thinking there could be a fleet of those things; they wiped out the indigenous population and instigated the “nuclear winter” scenerio.
It shoots 2 cotton balls per month.
Or maybe it’s a headache orb with the ability to both cause and cure headaches. Useful if you get hungover or want to really annoy someone!
The traveller’s companion orb. Beta testing version.
Currently unlocked powers:
• Translator. (Known bug: audio translations only work in languages known by the user)
• Companion. Automatically invoked if encountering any unfamiliar written language. It is a holographic paperclip, which asks “Hello I am your emergency translator. You appear to have encountered an language you do not know. Would you like me to transcribe it into the language of your choice?
You are required to acknowledge that you have read the terms and conditions, in each galactic language. I can be of help to translate that as soon as you have confirmed you, your race and all your decedents will be bound by them.”
As long as the EULA started with an oversized “Don’t Panic” I bet most people would still accept it.
Or maybe, following the assumption that the orbs comprise space-ship functions, the unknown orb is a cargo bay. Essentially a bag of holding, but with the restriction that you can only put objects in it that are fluffy and no larger (when squished down) than a pea.
Ooh, so that is where all the fluffy tick-tacs, which get lost in bags, pockets and down the back of sofas go.
Mmm, Sydney will never go hungry!
Well, as I have said before, I truly think that the last orb is the controller orb. Every spaceship has a helm so to speak, the helm also has all the navigational requirement for the spaceship. This would allow her to access all the orbs at the same time. Think about it using two at a time is not very efficient, what advance race would do that :-). So Sydney is the main computer so to speak as it is attached to her nervous system. I am not sure that my thoughts are clear on this but I sure would like to access all the orbs at the same time.
DaveB limited her to just two at a time to stop her from becoming completely Over Powered, doubt he would change that (he had also planned out what all Sydney’s balls did from the start, just waiting for her to get into a situation where they would be needed to reveal what they did)
Perhaps it will be a Map Orb/Compass Orb that helps her navigate the multiverse? Not that it can open gates, but rather just tells her how to get to her desired destination… Kind of like the “Broken” compass that Jack Sparrow uses that tells him where to find whatever it is he wants to find most… That would be useful wouldn’t it?
From the way the tree looks I suspect that the nodes on the lines linking the orbs will unlock the master control function. Flight and shield are linked so now you can access the shield from the flight orb and vice versa.
If true it would force you to make a hard choice when leveling them for more power or greater convince.
Time for Sydney to turn up, on the remains of the mountainside, next to the team, and ask …
“Ello Ello, what’s going on here then? Oh, have you had a makeover Maxima? I didn’t know you could change colour like that.
… EEEEK!”
*punches, with ruby and emerald orbs, at Dabbler*
“DEMON!”
If it turns out that they have been dimension travelling, rather than time travelling, then there might have been quite a few alternate realities where rogue wormholes were created. And various different team members could end up displaced from their home dimension, at either end of the wormhole.
So Sliders instead of Quantum Leap.:)
It would actually be fun to see at least one page of throwaway
gagsdimensions, with Sydney meeting various versions of the team.either that, or this is the start of the “wearing the cape” cross-over episode?
Sort of like Stargate SG-1, episode 200, titled “200”.
well we do know that the multiverse scenario is canon Sydney did after play a part in a book about a dimension hopping Super.
Sydney636 has the ability to pronounce the U of colour.
Anyone else notice that the creature following Sydney has six yellow points of light attached to tendrils? Are those Orbs, perhaps being held all at once?
Umm, those are the lasers it is SKWEEEENing up
More interested in the red lights in the middle
I have been taking them as most likely just being eyes. But have not ruled out them being other things.
They seem to emit more light than eyes normally do.
Yeah, remembered that about them being eyes when going back to the page where it first SKWEEEEN’ed at Sydney
I just noticed for the first time that Sydney leaves a rainbow in her wake as she flies at high speeds.
I expect a 20% cooler reference in the near future.
Cool. I’m hoping in the future she could go plaid at ludicrous speed. :P
Seriously; that would be even cooler.
Lol ! Brony reff.
lol you think that is a reff to Brony? It is the Mel Brooks classic Space Balls.
May the Shwarts be with you!
lol no that isn’t a Brony reff. Mel Brooks classic Space Balls.
DaveB already used ‘20% cooler’, back when Sydney was testing Leo’s nerd cred.
Sydney is a My Little Pony fan though, so there have been several references squeezed in, through the course of the comic. Her MLP ringtone, the poster (or plushy, I forget) in her bedroom. Plus her overwhelming desire to buy a real pony!
Then there are the ancillary references which doubtless spring from Sydney’s cuteness aura having a MLP aspect to it, subtly influencing events around her.
Hence General Faulk thinking that there might be ponies (complete with rainbow trails) coming out of Tubey, when Sydney opened it. Then there is the DJ at the nightclub (one of the ponies/unicorns in humanish form).
As far as where the Orbs get the power to operate, I sure hope is not based on car fuel, that would be one ‘expensive’ fill up. :P)
They are filled by an interstellar service depot which supplies a quantum energy link for reasonable monthly rates but harsh late payment penalties. The problem is, Sydney unknowingly took over an account that is waaay over its limit and was sent to collections over a century ago. The collections agent noticed her during its routine scan, saw her insanely high overdue balance, and summoned their mecha-cthulu to carry out the repossession.*
* Ironically, Sciona’s soul army almost beat them to it.
That suggestion has the ring of truth!
Whelp, now I feel dumb. I just clued into the possibility of this being alt earth, post invasion, post interstellar response to successful invasion… Normally I’m quicker to jump to the most convoluted and easiest way to mess with people’s heads.
Now that Sydney is shooting off to space like a spaceship, am I the only one who thinks her uniform reminds him/her of Star Trek’s TNG/Voyager uniforms?
Dang, was hoping to find out information about a grandfather who was in either Bulgaria or Poland about a hundred years ago working on heating the underground soil for farmers before Yorp left the comments, butt couldn’t find any information about him (butt then again, not that great at looking stuff up, certainly not people, and will not use Google!!!!! absolutely refuse to ‘google’ anything or anyone!)
Well I would be happy to help. But, without googling, the limit of my knowledge is the people of this village. And I have a severe problem with names, so only know a few of their names.
And none of them are over a hundred years old. So really doubt that I can be of much help.
Although it would be interesting to know what heating technique he used? He would have had to be a very early pioneer, if it was electrical heating. So I would assume it might involve ventilation tunnels being drawn out from fire pits?
Such historical details would be new to me too though.
Like said, it was about a hundred years ago, so either just before or just after World War One, in either Bulgaria or Poland
Something like this would have been revolutionary anywhere in the world (like electric fences), butt unlike electric fences, it doesn’t seem to have gotten off the ground (you may groan at that pun :P)
His name was “Charles Cameron-Brown”
By the way, didn’t say that you couldn’t use Google (or any other search engine of your choice), just personally won’t use Google
Well it looks like I have become a whizz at googling, I actually got a hit!
https://books.google.bg/books/about/The_electrification_of_highland_agricult.html?id=FQbiAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y&hl=en
Positive matches on both the name and the specific work you mentioned. Looks like he ended up in ‘the University of Wisconsin-Madison’. Where he published ‘The electrification of highland agriculture’ in 1945.
Poland and Bulgaria were not nice places to be, at that time, so it looks like he made some good life choices.
That? That is just fantabulous information! Mum had known he had done the research, butt had no idea he had had it published :D
And had no idea he played a part (even minor) in changing Oxford University from a predominately Artsy University into a Sciency University :)
My absolute pleasure.
*tail wagging frantically*
EEP! How thoughtless of me!!
*proceeds to fill a bowl of Yorpie Snax with a few extra Yorpie Bars*
Foodies!
*munch munch, guzzle guzzle*
Lost more time out of my schedule, and my going dark date is fast approaching.
Last week had lightning which took out every router in the village (and two other villages and the regional administrative town), and blew up a number of computers, including all the ones at the village hall. Fortunately I have all mine protected with continuous power supply units. So once the repair monkeys had eventually fixed all the boxes in the streets that blew up, I was back online.
But today we had another lightning strike. My CPS protection worked fine, but lost today waiting for stuff to be fixed again. And had to move all my computer setup upstairs, when it was sorted, because it turned out it has also blown a circuit in the house. No time to get it repaired. And not going to pay an electrician emergency callout fees just to keep power on in part of the house for a week.
Not when that money can be left to provide food for Feral Cat instead! She just gets too violent towards her daughters, to be able to risk bringing her with us. Especially stuck together, in a cat carrier for several days, as we drive across Europe.
Well enough de-stressing. I best get back to making up for lost time. I think you will see me here again in a while though. I chill chatting here, better than any other alternative I try. Well of the ones that can be done in short bursts, in between other tasks.
Kitty de-stressing is always available though, whatever I am doing. Although it is going to be a bit harder having them on my lap, in my improvised garden chair setup, on the landing upstairs. Heh.
Giggle news that Maxima would approve of (behind closed doors, in a private giggle session).
There is no way those names are legit, question is, are the villages themselves real?
I would be very surprised if a member of parliament was to be making false representation to his parliament. You can’t get a much more credible verification of their authenticity, than the person representing them in government saying ‘these are the names’.
Considering how many Ghanaians hadn’t heard of those villages…
You have never heard of a member of a government giving erroneous information? Not saying they deliberately lied, just were given wrong information and nobody double-checked the facts
True. And possible.
But, given what a fool he would look, if he did not check. He would be pretty naive to trust an intern’s opinion on those. Whilst politicians can make some pretty dumb mistakes, that one is just too obvious.
It is not like the list of seemingly genuine foreign names, that are phonetically obscene when read out. He obviously knew their meaning. So I would still put my bets on those being legitimate.
Lots of old English place names are pretty vulgar, and some of them with genuine roots, as such. As opposed to just being phonetically similar to modern vulgar terms. E.g. :-
Brown Willy, Cornwall
Nob End, South Lancashire
Fanny Barks, Durham
Scratchy Bottom, Dorset
Penistone (South Yorkshire)
Mooball (NSW)
Rooty Hill (NSW)
https://www.estately.com/blog/2016/09/the-complete-list-of-lewd-sounding-town-names-in-america/
Panel 3.5: Team Archon is blasting off again!
I just noticed…. this time there were SIX points of ‘SKWEEEEEEEM, not 4 like last time. Which means the first blast was NOT the most powerful blast it could do. That last blast, which almost collapsed the shield, was a ‘starting attack.’ I was right :)
Mmm, yea, it looks like it has trained another couple of tentacles on Sydney, judging by the number of glowing lights we can see above, compared to the previous scene.
Interesting physiology. It has ‘climbing tentacles’, that extend some distance away from its body, which it used for the previous four attacks. But also has a bunch of ones around its head, which appear to be the source of these six attacks.
The initial blast above easily filled the previous crater, then subsequently went beyond it. So I think we can take it that the ‘head tentacles’ are not firing weaker secondary weapons. Rather they look to be more of the same, as you concluded.
Which gives a hint that the weapons may be one-shot type attacks, like torpedoes or missiles. Although they may just have a long recharging time, thus explaining why the initial tentacles have not been used in this attack.
On the plus side it makes it less likely that it will be able to fire ten shots, in its next salvo. Rather, if it is an alternating firing pattern, then the next salvo should be back down to four KA BOOMs.
No idea why you think they’re one shot attacks. Four of them have already done two attacks. Everything you’ve said in the 4th and 5th paragraphs – there is no reason to think they’re DIFFERENT tentacles, when 4 of them are even in the same exact position. I think it can just keep adding more tentacles for additional blasts of greater power.
But Pander, why wouldnt it just do all the tentacles it has from the get-go? Maybe because it’s a drain on energy, since energy is not unlimited, so you start with something that won’t do so much energy that you have no more energy to spare? Maybe once it has 20 energy tentacles up, it’s the ‘planet buster’ level. No idea. Not going to make that assumption. But what I can say is 4 is very powerful (enough to weaken the shield), and 6 would have been more powerful had Sydney stuck around. Eventually it probably would have gotten through the shield, which means this alien race is EXTREMELY dangerous, even to someone like Maxima.
The first attack emanated from limbs that were raised away from the body/head. The second one (above) has the same glowing, but clustered around the eyes. To the extent that I thought it was actually firing from its head, until I spotted the head tentacles on the first image, and decided it must have come from them.
However, now that you have pointed out that you disagreed with that assessment, I zoomed in on the image above, and realise it was a perspective problem which was making me interpret it incorrectly.
It was indeed the same tentacles firing.
Where I had been thrown was because we can now see a further set of (what I now realise are huge) tentacles, which I was mistaking for being the ones that had fired previously. The fact that their apparent positions had changed was consistent with my assumption that they were now being used for climbing again.
But I was wrong. Staring at the computer practically non-stop, for every waking hour, has left me with a 1000 yard stare, that makes it hard to pick out one set of tentacles from another.
And it doesn’t help the fact it appears to have five ‘climbing limbs’
Those darned aliens are always so alien with their tentacle lasers and whatnot, arent they? :)
Just be glad it didn’t try and shoot Sydney with one of its ‘leg’ tentacles…
It cant use leg tentacles to fire at Sydney because Sydney isnt wearing a japanese schoolgirl outfit. Thats basic science.
She doesn’t/hasn’t fly nearly fast enough aren’t we talking light years to the nearest inhabitable planet? She would starve, she would have to get lucky with an actual spaceship (assuming they don’t kill her on principal)
It would be long for her, but her rate of acceleration is fast (assuming her propulsion works like jets, which it may not) and Halo needs no fuel. So she could get up close to light speed fairly rapidly.
The quirks of that though mean that the rest of her fellow recruits would be seasoned veterans, by the time she got back. If the Alari homeworld is pretty close. It may be 100,000 light years away, if it is on the other side of the galaxy!
Plus there are the problems with navigation, water, food and waste disposal.
Sydney is pretty much counting on the orbs being space-rated and that she will be able to unlock the skills faster than she needs them.
With nothing else to do it is plausible that Halo can figure those out with systematic testing. Ignoring the PPO and shield testing (which were just to figure out their potential strength) they had barely started looking for unknown powers, before figuring out one of the air-orb’s properties. So it probably is not hard, now that she has figured out that they may be space-travel orbs.
Plus, even if they do require ‘experience points’, as Sydney seems to think (being an addicted gamer), she has earned a lot of those just recently, so doubtless should have some level ups to choose.
She better hope that the orbs decide its time for her to spend her next point while in space. Don’t they essentially shut off and go into the skill pattern and wait for her to spend the point? That would be bad. Real bad.
The final orb is a projector for the in-flight movie.
Lol.
“Now playing: ‘Space, the Final Fontier’, ‘Lost in Space’ and ‘The Halo Show – LIVE’.
Watch how the action unfolds after our guest Mecha Cthuloid won the ‘Skweeen torpedo’ upgrade. Remember you do not have long to put in your bid, for the lucky draw.
What will our next guest star choose to do? Kill, mate or play chess. Call now and it could be you!
And now a public service announcement from the Xenovarchy. I hope you have not been invading any planetary systems? You know that never ends well!
Here he is, the Angel of Death, the Archangel Gabriel.”
No. All in flight movies involve Ernest P. Warrell. Thats why the orb is so underused. Its an evil orb.
I don´t know if someone has already point this out in any of the previous 440 messages (you all are crazy), but shouldn´t the orbs leave a spiral tail instead of a straight one when Sydney flies that way?
Depends on her speed
*gasp*
Continuity error! Send up the DaveB signal!
Although the slow rate of rotation versus the very fast acceleration could account for it appearing to be straight, for the relatively short distance we can see.
Yes, I´m sorry. The rotation of the orbs is very slow. No changes are needed. Everything is perfect.
Oh, no need to apologise! I was genuinely agreeing with you, then going on to thinking through an alternative.
Re-reading it though, I can see that it would be easy to interpret that as a sarky comment. Your observation was a good one.
I just thought that the streaks looked so purdy that I needed to explore a justifiable rationale. And it usually is not too hard to find. Dave puts a lot of thinking time into getting such details right.
Here’s hoping that the ‘atmosphere’ orb is more of a general purpose life support system; air, water, sustenance, waste removal…Could be a long trip.
Still gonna be a long trip (even longer once she realised she was looking at the navi-charts backwards… )
A bit off-topic here, but have any of you been following Order of the Stick? It just had an amazing profound “gotcha” to top off a very long story arc – reversing total defeat of the heroes via self-realizations.
People keep suggesting that the unknown orb could be a translator. Thing is, that doesn’t make sense. Her Com Orb should have the translation capabilities, either already unlocked or as a future purchase. I don’t recall a time when they have tested it for translations of speech, people are always speaking English around her. Dabbler has occasionally gotten some English wrong, but to my memory, she hasn’t spoken any alien languages in the comic, and especially not while she was holding the com orb.
Good points.
Say, now that Archon have been able to directly speak to aliens, and a broad selection of them at that, clearly from many races, and they also know about galactic politics, such as with the Xenovarchy, does this mean that your equation is now redundant?
No need to guess whether there are aliens, or how many there may be. They can just ask them directly!
Do you have a new project in mind now?
So, I just had a thought relating to how for some tasks you’d need to use more than one orb at a time if we’re sticking with the ‘spaceship’ metaphor. Space combat for example, you’d need hands on flight and weapons, leaving you without shields or life support or sensors. Unless it turns out Dabblers race invented these things there needs to be a solution to this.
It’s possible one of the upgrade points allows for the use of some or all orbs without holding them, a ‘fire and forget’ mode. Grab the shield orb, turn it on, it stays on even when released. Only need to pick it up again if you wish to adjust the settings.
Flight in context of interstellar (or even stellar really) travel could be the same, lock your course and speed in and then you don’t need hands on the Flight Orb unless its time to change course.
Likewise life support, set it for ‘I’m doing space travel’ mode and away you go, no more tweaking until you land.
Because lets be realistic, everybody sleeps and ‘duct tape the shields and flight orbs to your hands’ its terrible design.
Remember the power-up diagram and all the open slots in cross-connects and the central circle. There could well be a fully functional spacefaring set-up she can eventually unlock.
Yup, it casts ‘Summon bigger spaceship’.
*wags tail like a Jedi master*
Is that wagging to hit or miss all the ornaments on the shelf?
Tails always aim for those, instinctively.
That’s what I was thinking, full mastery allows hands free operation.
Speaking of skill trees, can we get a poster of that? I would love a poster of that.
Nice page. I neither noticed the lack ‘o open mouth before reading your comments nor cared at all upon re-reading the page after reading your comments. I’d probably be talking to myself if I were ever in Sydney’s situation. But the comic page for that would probably have to be thought bubbles with Sydney’s words as my thoughts and speech bubbles with me just repeating “Shit shit shit” over and over again.
And while yeah, the potential lack of stellar cartography is a severe limitation on Sydney getting herself home on her own resources, and possibly even back to the former portal site, if you recall the helecopter-asking-for-directions incident, it isn’t a limitation on her getting herself out of combat AKA the fuck out of Dodge!
A thought from a conversation I had yesterday: is Sydney a commissioned officer? I can see humour in her not knowing what a military batman is.. (Either being assigned one, hearing that they exist, or even having to be one for a week or something: “We have a General visiting to run an inspection, and he needs a batman. Can I have a volunteer for training?”)
As of this moment, she is still a recruit (hasn’t even finished Basic)
In the flash-forward, at the start of the comic, Sydney was a corporal. So only an NCO.
Skweeny-Alien has lots of hands. I wonder, how many orbs it could hold…
Um, it looks like the title of this strip is wrong; according to https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=mach+4+in+warp+factor and https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=mach+4+in+warp+factor+tng the values factor is either 0.01656 (original series) or 0.02495 (TNG and later).
Ack, I messed up the grammar — its really hard to proofread around gigantic URLs :-(.