Grrl Power #898 – Ball jail
I know, this seems kind of ultra hard core for Sydney – stuffing a pistol in someone’s mouth and doing her best to empty the magazine. In her defense, she immediately recognized Concretia when she turned around. She knew this wouldn’t kill or even really hurt her, but in a situation that needs a split second reaction, Sydney was probably hoping to maybe disorient Concretia. It probably wouldn’t be long enough for Sydney to find a piece of rebar or something to whack the concretopod, but doing something is probably better than doing nothing.
In reality, I think her gun might jam doing this. If Concretia bit down even a little, the slide on the gun wouldn’t fully reset and the new cartridge wouldn’t be seated correctly. I am far from a gun expert, but I imagine some guns might have enough play to fire another round if the slide is almost reset, but then I’d assume the outcome of that would be about 90% of fucking up the gun, and 10% fixing the jam.
There’s a lot of balls being taken hostage lately. It’s not indicative of anything going on in my life, I swear.
The vote incentive is updated, and of course, the nude version is over at Patreon. Honestly, what is Sydney doing walking into a room labeled “Yoga 401?”
I keep telling myself that I’ll do these solo pinup shots, but I keep getting ideas for some group theme picture. Honestly I think the best one I’ve done so far is the Dabbler solo pic, because I could spend all my time on a single character. But… this picture has a bunch of ladies, including three Harems being all bendy, so hopefully it’s an acceptable tradeoff.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
sydney should shot the concrete surronding the orbs to free them
Hindsight is better the quick reaction.
But the concrete splintering might knock her out as well.
Really, she needs to learn to keep her shield up during missions.
You want to turn her into Bubble Babe? And never let her out, ever?
She is the only one without inherent damage resistance. So of course she should keep her shield up, if she is not using her other hands for stuff.
Did you forget what happened to Brooke’s toe?
Heatwave and jiggawatt and harem and varia (usually) do not have damage resistance either. Neither does Math or Specs. Vance probably doesnt either. Plus also sean and duke and peggy and the woman with the sweet tooth I forget her name dont either, although they have no powers whatsoever – just skills. Neither does X (probably) or zephon or gwen or Leon, tho they are not in arc swat.
The ‘lady with the sweet tooth’ is Seneca. As you say, no damage resistance beyond being near the top end of Baseline Human, but plenty of skills.
Thanks :)
That was my first thought when I saw the frame of her grabbing her pistol, unload clip into the stone ball and it would shatter, pretty sure those orbs are immune to physical harm.
Possibly, but she might have some issue with the recoil and aiming at the same spot while unloading one handed. The main reason she was about to unload the clip at the back of Concretia’s mouth was the fact she stuck the barrel into her mouth and that mostly held it in place.
There isn’t so much a convenient aperture for this use on the stone pseudopod holding the orbs.
The physics of solid concrete flowing via superpower are unknown, but I’d imagine Concretia could easily just keep the cage flowing and/or thicken it.
Coulda/woulda/shoulda, but there’s also the point where it depends on Concretia’s control– her power is manipulating concrete, so there is no real reason she couldnt be constantly reforming or making it “flow” to absorb that damage. It wouldnt be the same as a single massive strike that shatters it instantly . Its pretty clear that this is just the narrative poking its head in — someone wants to steal ze orbz and this is the first time they try — they dont know that Maxima already tried to haul them away without success.
I don’t know why the orbs are trapped, if she could yank them out of Maxima’s grip near the beginning of the story, I don’t see a bit of rock being able to stop those orbs.
I’d review that part of the story if I were you. She never yanked them out of Maxima’s grip, it was the “we can’t be taken any further than this from our owner” effect that stopped her from moving them. Maxima thought that the balls would move Sydney like Sydney moved the balls. But she was wrong.
Didn’t she “jedi yoink” them out of Max’s had right after that, though?
*Digs up Jedi Yoink scene*
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-67-jedi-yoink/
Yes, Sydney yoinked them out of Max’s hand, but it was more of a “she’s surprised so I’ll pull it away while she’s distracted” thing than using brute force. The thing which stopped Max pulling Sydney out from under the Ambulance was the same thing that stopped Sydney from getting too far from her car when she left the Orbs in there – the Orbs and Sydney can’t get too far apart from each other, or they just stop moving away from the other.
I don’t know if Sydney can bounce the Orbs around hard enough to break them out, but we don’t know it won’t work…
She did completely destroy Sciona’s arm (which was probably a troll’s to begin with) with the Amaze-balls, though. I don’t know how “blood mage’s troll blood-reinforced troll bones” rank against concrete (at least I’m assuming she’d have done something to reinforce them), but use all seven orbs and it should just take a few seconds to get them out.
Sci-fright didn’t even release her grip, so no, not ‘completely destroy Sciona’s arm’
Unfortunately she can not use that force to break them out either. She is tied to them, as they are tied to her.
Hmmm,
if what we are observing is true that between Sydney and the orbs the one moving from the other is the one stopped with no force exerted on the stationary of the two then; it is possible if Concretia tries to quickly and suddenly force the orbs away from Sydney, rather than Sydney sent flying the orbs may perform a sudden stop; and being they defy physics so far may exhibit “immovable object” force and the force of the concrete pseudopod trying to throw them is enough to break the concrete (it keeps moving, the orbs don’t producing an equal force), basically they get broken out as if they were moving at the same speed in the opposite direction *physics* equal and opposite reaction, pounds per square inch force, small objects….add they are possibly unbreakable Nth tech.
According to what happened when Max tried to take away Sydney’s tube, yes they just become immovable Now if Concretia were to encase the orbs (done) and throw that case off a building, it wouldn’t pull Sydney down, but would leave her stuck.
It says something about how far Sydney’s come (and what a badass she is) that she doesn’t freak out and go “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WHAT THE FUCKING BIG AND SCALY DRAGON BALLS?!” that sight. Like I did….
Note that she even closed one eye when she shot, to preserve her night vision after the muzzle flash. That’s some good training they’re getting.
I’m thinking more along the lines of which eye is dominant vs which hand is dominant, so she aims correctly. For me being a lefty, but having my Right eye as dominant, so for me if i use my left hand to point at something, and then close one eye, if I’m not pointing at the same object anymore it’s because i’m not looking thru my dominant eye, and that would cause my aim to be way off… My step-brother has a chunk of tree with an arrow stuck deep into it on his hunting trophy-wall labeled “10 Point Buck” for that exact reason… he got excited at seeing the deer at maybe 30 yards come out from hiding, and he quickly (but quietly) grabbed his bow and got off a good shot… BUT… he used the wrong eye to aim, and instead of hitting the deer, the arrow went WAAAYYY off and hit a tree instead. The deer of course serenely bounced, and fled away unharmed….
On the plus side, firing her gun should attract help from the team.
if nothing else, the local fuzz will know, thanks to ShotSpotter, or an equivalent in-universe tech; admittedly, they’re probably enroute anyway to cordon off the area, since there’s a supers brawl going down
Given that Sydney doesn’t have superhuman strength without the orbs helping her, I don’t think a piece of rebar would help anyway. Cement is pretty solid stuff. Unless Concretia’s power weakens the stability of her cement constructs, she would need a sledge hammer to have any realistic chance of breaking the pod.
Why. It’s not thick and oddly shaped. I could break that with rebar. You probably could, too; Unless it is strengthened by her powers, that is.
Yeah I’ve broken concrete pavers, about 2 inches thick, with just my boot and body weight. Concrete is actually pretty fragile unless reinforced or pressure formed.
Given that Syd’s bullets managed to, eventually, knock the top of Concretia’s head off I’m guessing that her powers don’t strengthen the material, or not by much at least.
The Barret blew her apart quite nicely last time, so i dont think there is any reinforcement going on.
That was .50 cal sniper rifle
Um, yes? The Barret Automatic Rifle (better known as the BAR) is used in both sniper anti-materiel roles. One needs a fairly heavy bullet propelled by a lot of force to be accurate at very long ranges – overpowers turbulence and random air along the way. So, yeah, it’s .50 caliber with a lot of powder behind it.
But since it *is* 50 caliber with a lot of powder behind it, you can also load it up with the teflon-coated depleted-uranium rounds and shoot through engine blocks.
In case it wasn’t obvious, in Army Creole BAR is a ‘backronym’ – some other words, which might me mistranslated as ‘large mule’ are sometimes substituted for the first two.
Zack Tilly!
Meaning, even without ‘loading it up with blahdy-blah-doohickery’, it was powerful enough that even if Cree had reinforced herself during the Rumble, it wouldn’t have done shit
Concrete is weak in tension but strong in compression. That’s why reinforcing rods are inserted, with the rods being strong in tension but weak in compression. Concrete also has a weakness in that rushing water can eat away at the cement between stones. That’s why the walls of drainage ditches are masses of stones wrapped in metal fencing rather than simply using concrete. However, in the final analysis of this situation is futile since using engineering analysis in a fantasy world or one having sufficiently advanced science that it is indistinguishable from magic is a masochistic endeavor.
A couple points of material science – even though, as you point out, the physics of super powers are whatever Dave says they are.
First, steel reinforcement is not weak in compression; steel is equally strong in tension and compression. It’s a balancing act to get the right amount and placement of steel in a concrete cross section, maximizing use of the compression strength of the much cheaper and lighter concrete while minimizing weight and cost.
As for concrete wear, it’s fairly resistant to water erosion, usually to the point that for anything except applications with fast-moving water like weirs/culverts, the life of the structure will expire before the water wears through it. Exposure and disintegration of the reinforcement would generally cause failure before the cement itself collapsed. The wrapped stone construction (gabions or gabion baskets) does help avoid structure erosion, but they are mainly used for other reasons. Gabion baskets are far cheaper to make and install than reinforced concrete, can shift far more under dynamic / long term loads without failing, and allow drainage of water that would otherwise build up and push retaining walls outward. In applications with moving water, they can also dissipate energy better, but would typically only be there to protect the main structure, not to provide structural strength.
It really comes down to the mix of the concrete. It can be easy to break if it has lots of voids (like concrete pavers) or high water content (like when they wash out the mix truck). I’m assuming that Concretia knows this and made decently strong stuff around the orbs. Syd would likely need a full sized sledgehammer and a half dozen swings at the same spot to break them out.
I used to bend rebar into shape for a living. I am familiar with the stuff, and it really isn’t much of a strength multiplier. Not compared to a hammer. You’re mostly smacking it with a stick that happens not to be able to break. The best you’re likely to get is the hunk of cement breaking at the greatest leverage point towards the floor and falling over. But the orbs would still be stuck inside. Whether she could manage to crack it open by jumping on it with her combat boots on really depends on how much she weighs and how thick the concrete is.
Concrete needs rebar to have structural integrity over a LARGE structure, but the blob around her orbs doesn’t seem large enough that it would likely collapse under it’s own weight.
Plus: it doesn’t matter how much damage you can do, if the enemy healer can fix it faster.
If Sydney and her orbs degrade 1 cm of concrete per second by bashing and smashing, Concretia need only Kkrkkkk the same amount back into place.
And, of course, having to deal with Cree while ‘freeing’ her balls, so going after the source of the entrapment first is the sensible course of action (if only it had worked)
Sydney’s physical damage generation is almost certainly less than Concretia’s concrete “healing” ability. If Sydney+rebar+angry orbs work together they might reasonably degrade 1 cm of concrete per second; Concretia seems very able to flow way much more concrete in to repair any damage.
At last we’ve found an enemy who’s taken the smart step of separating Sydney from the source of her physical power. Ever since it was confirmed that mittens limit the use of the orbs, it was just a matter of time before someone tried the barrier method. Sydney’s training with firearms has been justified; it might have saved her had her attacker been a simple geomancer without such strong defenses. Just because it didn’t work doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth trying.
Now Sydney will have to survive by the power of her mind , or the power of a hostage rescue team. Could get messy.
If Concretia is the source of Hench Wench’s sort-of geomancy power, the good news is the ArcSwat may have discovered the limits of her power; the bad news is the limit seems to be that in an environment filled with concrete, the limits may be “not much”. Unless ArcSwat is willing to escalate to deadly force (HW seems more vulnerable to firearms than Concretia is), the next obvious counter would seem to be a mental attack by Dabbler – but the bad guys seem very well prepared so they may have a move there too.
That the enemy gang’s shown every sign of having thought things through carefully suggests their exit strategy may involve not killing anyone on purpose. That would be good news for the hostage.
Now would be the perfect time for Marble Maiden to make her debut appearance!
possible plot twist concretea is marble maiden OR sister to her. like she does all the work while marble is the face type thing.
Agreed, in both cases!
Would love the confrontation (and there are too few stone made heroes out trheere anyway-….)^^
To think of it, does Jabber have an “octopus style” that makes her more flexible?
She’s actually a good guy, calling it now.
I had to go back and actually look up who this was. From the Vehemence fight, where he was kind of aura-controlling people to fight. So… maybe she’s not so bad normally.
Or she’s just the most inconvenient person to have around. Also possible.
Be fun if she was a spy on the bad guy team for ARC-Dark or something.
Oh, it also occurs to me, arc light might want to, if they haven’t already, set up some kind of system to automatically detect an agent who is in danger. For example, a tracking device which activates if the gun is discharged or removed a certain distance from the body. It would be rather useful for situations like these where an agent is ambushed away from other members of arc swat.
Definitely feels like something Dabbler would want to put on her friends. Techno/arcane wards of some kind.
“Alexa, save my @$$”
“Certainly sir. Will you be able to look after yourself while I get your mount out of the area?”
After-Action Review: “We have to work on that AI. It failed to recognize the sound of gunshots as a call for help.”
Removal of the communications device would be an obvious trigger.
I honestly feel that you rant to much under the page,. But the comics is still good.
He has to preempt the nitpicking by demonstrating that he thought of it.
You call that a ‘rant’? :thinking: o_O
It’s way easier for someone to not read something they’re not interested in or don’t like than it is for someone else to read something that doesn’t exist.
TL;DR … jk :P
Sidney needs to stop letting her orbs floating around like that. Something like this was just waiting to happen.
She should bring her in a bag somewhere close to her body when not in use, the shield one should be in a netted bag hanging from her wrist so she could use it on a moment notice.
The return of the tube!
A weird top with massive baggy sleeves. Generic chinese stereotype businessman garb.
I see three options here,
1) She screams for help. (lame Option.)
2) She activates the upgrade mode, forcing the orbs into the config breaking the concrete. (Meh Option.)
3) New power awakens, when operator is in mortal danger the PPO activates overwatch mode and blast concretia breaking the other orbs free. (Hopeful awesome option.)
she’s wearing her comms choker, why not just use that to let Max know situation has escalated
She is now defenseless.
Serious as a heart attack this is when she should die or have a serious and terrible attack done to her.
If she lives, and is healthy…..this will teach her a lot.
Unless she has the Luck of James Tiberius Kirk, The luckiest man among the human race during his lifetime. / alt universe.
Star Trek Role playing game example:
***Character generation***
Like most role-playing games of its era, players had to roll dice to determine the beginning attributes of their character. Star Trek: The Role Playing Game characters begin with seven basic abilities – Strength, Endurance, Dexterity, Intellect, Luck, Charisma and Psionic Potential. Though generated prior to the commencement of play of the first gaming session, these attributes are adjusted depending on the character’s species. (Vulcans, for example, gained a natural bonus to their Psionic Potential score, a measure of their heightened psionic skill.)
**************************************************************************************
Kirk’s Luck in role playing game was 97% in his favor. It had to be very high in the fictional universe we know of.
**************************************************************************************
#Sidney has to be in the 80 percentile at least#
After all she has been through, i can’t wait to see either her go through another harrowing experience (like the alien planet) or for the final Orb to give her a level up! Either way she has the luck of Captain James T. Kirk, lol!
Would be funny if Concretia was a red herring, not part of the LLC and her power is only Petrakinesis not Geokinesis; and Sydney just stumbled into something totally different happening away from Times Square, like maybe Concretia was on the run from some local super hero…or Concretia spotted Sydney *being the glow bug she is* flying into this building with a strange cylindrical device and planting it somewhere to avoid being easily spotted and is assuming Sydney is up to something nefarious (typical government distrust, like planting an anti-supers device…or a bomb, I mean it would sure look like a bomb to anyone who doesn’t know what it is…if the Boston police can mistake a lite bright for a bomb this sure qualifies as being much more bomb like.
So options:
Concretia is with the LLC and followed Sydney here, which means just prior to the mercenaries stepping into the fight in Times Square (Sydney should have no idea the enemy back there has switched from alien mercs to super mercs).
second option Concretia is a criminal and spotted Sydney and has moved in to take whatever it is she is hiding or was on the run from someone else and has mistakenly thought Sydney was after her.
third option: Concretia is a good guy (but a vigilante) and thinks Sydney as a government stooge is up to something.
“Don’t do that. It’s slightly inconvenient” is one of the most frightening things a supervillain can say!
Or, as was said in Wishmaster: “If it’s any consolation, that hurt like hell.”
The most frightening supervillains are the ones who don’t bother with the banter and just kill the person they got the drop on.
But, for those who do, hell yea, that was an awesome put down!
And I am glad that this comic does follow the traditions, as it is one of the most entertaining aspects of the superhero genre.
Remember way, waaay back when Sydney was worried about having powers that would force her into situations to use those powers for narrative purposes? Like how Wolverine is always getting maimed to show off his regeneration?
You just did that. You did the thing.
Like I guess maybe Sydney might recognize Concretia, but it feels off.
Hardly. Sydney was unable to use her super powers. This was a concrete mitten. Rather Sydney was having to resort to using a mundane weapon. Which, as you can see, was mostly harmless.
So if you wanted to draw an analogy to another super, you would have been better opting for Super Man, because mittens are Halo’s kryptonite.
Regarding your final point, about recognition, that is one area where Sydney differs from the Super Man comics, where Lois Lane cannot recognise her own boyfriend, when he takes his glasses off. Despite being an otherwise astute investigative journalist.
Namely one of Halo’s defining traits is that she is very observant (when not distracted by any of her foibles). Initially she was caught up in her imagination. But when she realised that someone had deprived her of her ability to use her powers, she followed her training and made her weapon ready, as she turned. The reason being that this was clearly an attack on her, regardless of who the culprit was.
But do note that at that point (panel 7) her finger was off the trigger. Halo was clearly making sure that she assessed the threat and confirmed that firing was justified, before engaging. This process took as long as it was necessary.* Be that a nanosecond, a second or a long stretched out pregnant pause. Before jamming the gun in Concretia’s mouth.
I grant though that the pacing of the frames strongly implies a near-instant response. But that is totally consistent with Sydney’s past history. From whacking Dabbler with a chair, the moment that she revealed her demonic form, to directing the orbs to smash the guy trying to backstab her.
Even though Sydney has been reduced to the capabilities of a normal person, she is still a normal person who is superb at assessing a situation. Then makes the first response that pops into her head. Fortunately that has now been honed by her training to make the responses more appropriate to the situation.
* Which, at that close range, would easily also allow her to recognise Concretia. Especially as Arc-SWAT extensively debriefs its personnel, and their personal electronic devices constantly record the action and stream it to Archon HQ. Meaning that she will have watched the scenes with Concretia numerous times, from different perspectives. And will have been told all her known powers. Along with the techniques that Peggy used to drive her off.
I was actually referring to Concretia’s powers, not Sydney’s. The situation feels orchestrated to showcase her weird rock-ghost thing.
Also, man, seriously, cool it with the wall of text.
Regarding concrete strength and weight, people seem to forget (or never learnt in the first place), that that is down to theaggregate used
For example, if you use pumice (floaty volcano rock), it will be just as strong but weigh much less than an equivalent slab of concrete made with normal stones and shit (that was how the ‘ancients’ were able to put concrete domes on buildings)
Why do I get the suspicious feeling that the slot that didn’t appear to do anything now enables here to control them remotely…?
she can make them fly around mentally, but using their powers we know thanks to events that occur further in the timeline (a cross-over) *granted questionable canon* that she always retains the limitation of needing them to be in her hands.
Still say that was a incredibly badass moment for Sydney. We’re talking Clint Eastwood Man with No Name drawing and firing.
In response to the incentive: LIEFEEEEEEEEEELD!!!
She needs more dakka
Sydney’s competent gunmanship is delightful. Though Peggy would snap her for holding her gun like that.