Grrl Power #981 – Victory pose
Ever since being given this opportunity, Vehemence has been legitimately going back and forth as to whether or not he was going to behave. After being handed such a one sided defeat, and seeing Sydney in such a good mood while she clowns on him, he figured he’d have to be a real bad guy to ruin her fun.
I am entirely enamored by the idea of horrific monsters/aliens/whatever holding mundane jobs. Like something that looks like it should be called a “Flesh Ripper” working at a box office or asking if you want fries with that. Or something that looks like an anthropomorphic spider that’s wearing stitched together human faces stretched partially over its own face working as a wedding planner. It isn’t wearing human remains on its face, I’m suggesting it has some fungal growth on its carapace that just happens to look like bits of person.
It’s even better if that thing’s boss looks like an extra from My Little Pony.
A few people were wondering how Sydney will get him back into the portal since she can only use two orbs at a time. Well, the lighthook can extend pretty far, so she could have just tossed him back towards the portal while extending it as she pushed. It would get her going pretty fast in the other direction by the time she overcame his velocity and mass, but it would work. It would work even better if she flew back toward the portal, then grabbed him and tugged, then stopped, flew back some more, tugged, etc. And some people suggested she could just body check him with the shield.
So just assume some combination of those.
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update:
Worked a bit on the final fight. Some fights in books are there to either establish something about one of the characters, like they’re especially good at fighting or they’re a coward or something, or the fight drops something in the character’s lap, like a bunch of bandit’s equipment, or he’s rescuing someone who helps them out later or joins the party. Unless the fight is a setup to establish a character’s fighting chops, (think of the punks who corner Van Damme/Chuck Norris/a modern equivalent which I’m having trouble thinking of so I’ll just say John Wick – at the beginning of any movie they’re in) then usually the fight is going to be fairly close, right? Like, the author wants there to be some tension and usually doesn’t want his character to limp away missing a limb, but he also doesn’t want them to just drop kick the opposition into the sun because that would get boring – unless the whole thing is some spoof, commentary, or comedy like OnePunch.
So Sam and crew need to knock some heads and also take their lumps in the process.
Interestingly, Victor in the original Tamer books pretty much never gets hit. That is explained to a degree in the later books, but it also kind of goes against everything I just wrote. Still, Sam isn’t Victor, but he’s got a few advantages Victor doesn’t.
September’s vote incentive is up! It’s been over a year since Max was featured in one of these, so I figured it was time to revisit.
If you just popped by to see it right when it went up, you might have missed the update. Her nipples were a touch high in the first version, and if you poke through the comments there, you can see the reference I used, only that model’s boobs were about 3 cup sizes smaller. Anyway, I flew her nipples south for the winter and updated the relevant pics.
Nude version is up at Patreon.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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They have the Futurama alien news host on one of the screens.
Probably the alien equivalent of Fox News or OANN, raving about Earth supers coming to steal their podlings.
Can you blame me? They’re delicious!…. I mean cute.
which was the plot of a Futurama episode.
How dare you compare Morbo to such filth, puny earthling, I WILL DESTROY YOU.
256 is also a cool 10000000 in base 2 (otherwise known as binary. My first EE lab teacher would call it radix 2).
I don’t know how this got here…
Morbo is his name…
Em Oh Ar Be Oh, and Morbo was his name-o :D
Yay, Morbo!!
Morbo scoffs at your praise of him, puny pathetic earthling!
Such impunity.
Knew she would embrace the punny ways, eventually :D
After even this brief weakening, never again can she bar us! Justice has been swerved!
Libel! Libelous defamation! I accuse the lot of you of sullying my good, pun-free reputation!
There, there little Pander Bear.
Fine, fine, I retract my statement and patiently await an inevitable slip-up.
Although I’m doubly amused that you routinely hire assassins, yet indignant about your sense of humor being besmirched. Gotta respect your priorities there. :D
High quality puns are beyond her mean. So are the bad ones.
*shakes fist indignantly*
See? So mean.
What? No! That was not a pun! That was clearly an homage to a running gag character on Futurama! Not a pun at all! You take that back, you!
“Only 128 km to Fracture Traffic Control? That’s much too close!” – {Several People}
The assumption being that Fracture operates on base-10 maths…
Whatever base Fracture uses is immaterial to the fact that its 128km in our units.
And while 128km is close in a cosmic sense, its not *that* close, especially on the scale of Sydney.
Maybe it’s close now seeing as she could fly to the other side of the alari homeworld pretty quickly.
The ‘much too close’ comments were generally based on the angular size of the station as seen in panel 1, combined with the previous estimate that it was about the size of Earth’s moon to within a factor of two. I’m really not inclined to derive the actual trigonometry at this time of night, but panel 1 implies (to eyeball estimate) that Sydney’s altitude from the Fracture is of comparable magnitude to its diameter. Our moon’s diameter is ~3400 km; from 128 km altitude it would be very definitely curved, but very definitely covering more of the sky than what’s shown. Even rounding down the low end of that size estimate to 1500 km diameter, it’s still a clear magnitude larger.
Also I think they’re estimating horizontal distance and not vertical distance. That could be 128 km straight down. Not a terrible orbital position.
It would be a good orbital position if they were in orbit. Sydney is stationary above the station. Sydney has feather fall. Vehemence does not. Hmm.
There’s no terminal velocity in vacuum. o_0
But most of the gravity may be blocked by the station piezo-gravplating, so they may be able to just float there indefinitely…?
256 is also a cool 10000000 in base 2 (otherwise known as binary. My first EE lab teacher would call it radix 2).
Oh hey! its a green Sean Connery/ Zoltar! Just missing the long braded pony tail.
Oh hey! its a green Sean Connery/ Zed! Just missing the long braded pony tail.
“Zardoz your God gave you the gift of the Gun. The Gun is good!”
On the comic: figures someone would detect that eventually. Also wouldn’t be surprised if some aliens don’t theorize Earth is a *I don’t know if there is a trope name for this* but a civilization that is actually super advanced but pretends to be primitive to be left alone. Or the related genre of being a *let them develop in their own way and we’ll contact them later* colony world (Jurain method), or the overall planet is primitive but there is a shadow organization even beyond other shadow organizations running the planet (like an elder race situation) and its just one of their garden planets or a wild life preserve for them to study a species they planted there, or they put their primitive ancestors there, or a toy factory, bio-weapons factory (Guyver style), ect…and these actually advanced ones have been checking out the Fracture and checking back in on their home base of Earth.
on the blurb: I took love this idea of making menacing looking beings have a normal civilization. Why I was onboard with Dungeons and Dragons getting rid of the all evil race idea, that just because the only members of an entire species you meet are the ones trying to kill you doesn’t mean they don’t have commerce back home, regular jobs, loving families, ect… or other groups of them that wouldn’t be so inclined to kill you on site. I mean it would be surprising to find a Yautja that wants to be a shop keeper, but shouldn’t be impossible.
speaking of the aesthetics, one idea I always thought would be funny if human’s first contact were large mollusk like aliens with shells and starfish tentacles and they landed in a place like Florida and were just absolutely horrified by all the sea side novelty decorations made of actual dead animals that resemble them. It would be just like a human going to an alien world and they just have tiny skulls everywhere that they consider cute accessories.
read this at some point. there’s a weird twist on some of that https://www.amazon.com/Diplomatic-Act-Peter-Jurasik/dp/0671578235/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=diplomatic+act+peter+jurasik&qid=1632168189&s=books&sr=1-1
That’s kind of close to my actual theory, which is that Earth is where this group of Nth went to relax and role-play. The supers are the Nth, normies are NPCs, and the Nth get their memories suppressed while they’re born and play the game. When they finally die they spend some time watching before being reborn to play another game as a new character.
The super powers are artificially generated by Nth technology.
I play around with the idea myself. A species I named Amana or Amoama, suppress their memory and power to use avatars or incarnations to play or interact with various worlds as their true forms would overwhelm those worlds or just for fun among other individual motives. One not as powerful but still ascended level being even being a superhero.
Are you familiar with an anime named Deca-dence? Its slightly similar in concept without the superhero-ness.
I am not, just googled it, the description is a bit all over the place; artificial beings using human avatars is an odd reversal. I will add it to my ever growing list of shows to check out.
Sounds like a cult.
Or just gamers playing an MMO or similar game with a lot of customization options
Would then be funny is said visitors were of the goth mindset.
and that is how worlds like (Dead Man’s Wonderland) come to be.
On another note: I have suspected and evidence suggests is true that Sydney either neglected to inform her superiors of what Cora told her about the Aetherium Causeway; or Sydney forgot it was something ultra tech (possibly both)
Knowing Sydney, yes
Can’t imagine how Sydney would’ve explained her journey from Alar to Fracture during mission debrief with Max without mentioning the causeway.
the its Nth tech and aliens knowing about it could start a galactic war part may have been forgotten with all the other excitement and she just mentions she has a personal stargate (we have seen other portal generating supers, just Sydney has the best range so far) while forgetting the brief talk she got from Cora about its rarity.
However this is why I doubt Dabbler knew because you’d think Dabbler would remind her about all that.
And Cora probably respects Sydney so left it to her.
And Cora could not have possibly anticipated Sydney using the Aetherium bookmark to chastise a supervillain.
She could just have grabbed him by lighthook, pulled some serious G’s going up, and park him in LEO.
Same effect, less chance at alerting interstellar busybodies.
And a lot less *FUN!* …..
We’ll probably have Cora Facepalming soon.
Possibly covered when she had her “we might have cameras we don’t know about Maxima” conversation after coming back followed by the two floating alone above the clouds talking about it
I brought this up when Sydney last hopped to the Fracture and then back to Earth on a whim: She originally made the hop to the Fracture because her Earth hop was all ‘staticky’ (a portmanteau of static and icky, not a typo) or whatever and she was very much afraid that it was the Earth hop that killed the prior owner of the orbs. A rational conclusion given that the prior owner hasn’t been seen and the fact that their Earth hop was their last hop ever. And then Sydney got from the Fracture to Earth via Cora’s space ship.
Nothing changed that we poor readers were made aware of, and yet suddenly Sydney began ignoring her previous caution for no reason whatsoever and for completely trivial things like going out for lunch. Yes, she was afraid for her life to use that hop, right up until that caution was casually discarded for a throwaway “lunch at the space station” scene. Or maybe it was a throwaway “escape the fans at the comic shop” scene. I really don’t recall what the trivial reason was other than the fact that it was so trivial that it was jarring that Sydney would risk her very life (in her own estimation, not mine) to make use of the Earth portal destination.
The discarding of that caution of course also makes Cora picking Sydney up at the Fracture completely unnecessary. Just as soon as she was no longer able to pay for food and lodging, or just got bored, she could have hopped to Earth on her own.
There was initially something wrong with the Earth bookmark itself, not necessarily Earth.
She now has a new, functional bookmark.
How did she know it was safe though?
Oberon still has a point, but it is still completely within established behaviour for Sydney
we can assume because it was no longer glitchy looking.
it is safe to assume the glitch was because of the temporal distortion as she left Earth via a damaged blood powered magic portal at that time.
Something tells me: the Xevoarchy is already keeping tabs on that world :P
it has been hinted that earth is basically just one step away from joining the galactic comunity that with the alari spaceship arriving and landing on top of an africa nation, the united states getting a new and shiny FTL spaceship for their personal use, and alien tourists being free to go and… well tourist without needing to hide from the humans (that last one was done a little off the books but it still counts)
earth is now fair game for the galaxy and the universe at large so i think its imposible that the xenovarchy doesnt know about us
That stunt is going to come back and bite her on the arse.
Why?
Because the Xevonazi’s now know where to find her
they can come, it looks like the fel are pretty feared in the galaxy and earth has at the very least one being that can one shot one of their super carriers
OK, I’ll buy the Fel Supercarrier newsfeed. But the Diplomatic Efforts talking head? NAH; since no one has attempted to open formal relations yet, why would it be enough of a public scandal to warrant time on a newsfeed?
And why would anyone in their right mind want to go someplace they can and will one-shot Fel Supercarriers? This doesn’t sound like a good victim profile to me…
The Fel Supercarrier was being aggressive. The rocket that brought the tourists on the other hand was not shot down. No one in their right mind would attack Earth, but there is a long history of Earth being peaceful if you’re peaceful and discrete. Discrete being very operative here. There could be discrete attempts at diplomatic relations and it wouldn’t be seen in the comic.
I kind of hate to be that guy, but every time I read ‘discrete’ where someone means ‘discreet’ I get an unpleasant jolt in my head because I have to go back and reconstruct the sentence when it turns out to be wrong, It’s not like it’s physically painful or anything, but it’s like trying to read when something is constantly bonking the back of your head to distract you or something. And I do sort of physically wince like I got the bonk.
Please – if only out of pity for us old farts who studied math enough to know what ‘discrete’ means and manners enough to know what ‘discreet’ means – make an effort to avoid mixing them up.
For easy comparison I show them together.
Just to support Bear.
Definition of discrete
1: constituting a separate entity : individually distinct
several discrete sections
2a: consisting of distinct or unconnected elements : NONCONTINUOUS
2b: taking on or having a finite or countably infinite number of values
discrete probabilities
a discrete random variable
AND
Definition of discreet
1: having or showing discernment or good judgment in conduct and especially in speech : PRUDENT
especially : capable of preserving prudent silence
2: UNPRETENTIOUS, MODEST
the warmth and discreet elegance of a civilized home
— Joseph Wechsberg
3: UNOBTRUSIVE, UNNOTICEABLE
followed at a discreet distance
Both from Merriam-Webster.
And, as a mnemonic: “discrete” has the ‘t’ keeping the ‘e’s separate, while the ‘t’ at the end of “discreet” keeps the ‘e’s contained and hidden away.
I mean, if the Fel are that dangerous, and a primitive planet took it down while yawning, I’d imagine diplomatic efforts involving that planet would be newsworthy.
Imagine if South Sudan terraformed Mars tomorrow, and developed FTL the day after. That’s the kind of thing that would get every nation on Earth trying to get in their good graces.
That country Deus is controlling is not named Sudan …
They did. Remember that one-panel gag when Sydney got back with the twilight-council-alien-rep listening to the UN bicker and rolling his eyes?
Prediction: They think the “new player with that kind of tech” is Maxima. The Xevarchy is going to aggro Maxima, get their asses handed to them, and then find out that she isn’t using the tech they think she is. Then they’re going to shit a brick when they find out about Sydney and that she is even more powerful than her predecessor due to having leveled up the orbs.
Also the dinosaurs were killed by the incident of what it took to take out sydney’s predecessor… Which means the space station is at least 65 million years old.
Idea: the Xevoarchy gets their shit pushed in by Sydney dropping Kevin into their atmosphere with orders to HAVE FUN, OmniMan-style.
You just made my morning cause holy crap Kevin becoming our equivalent of an ODST would be hilarious (But have some super sketchy legal grey areas Arianna may or may not be OK with afressing.
If hostilities are official & out in the open, it becomes either a Retaliatory Strike, or a Preemptive Deterrent, and is generally debatable. Especially if Kevin adheres to his “killing people is no fun cuz then the game is over,” principle.
Basically I see him coming in and playing ‘Say Uncle’ on a Galactic scale.
Or putting him in a point of slow time. Which it just occured to me would be a good strategy since they HAVE one of those now from when Brut’s team tried to rob it from Lapha’s team, plus they even have a slow time containment unit, which bypasses the normal Xevoarchy restrictions since it’s already ON Earth and in humanity’s possession, and there’s already precedent for it because of the Fel ship trade for an FTL drive agreement.
Or taking over Vehemence’s body (there have been a few examples of that being possible, by Lapha and by the Alari, or separating his body from his ‘soul’ (which the Alari could apparently do).
Each of which are not actually violent, but would be quite effective against Vehemence, even if he’s already pretty powerful, since I’m assuming tha it would take more than the restaurant fight to get to Maxima’s maximum speed (since she was still able to dodge him at her ‘normal’ balanced levels of superspeed during the restaurant fight and never went to peak superspeed).
Plus the Xevoarchy might have ideas on how to deal with vehemic energy users, since Malumi are not a foreign concept to them (or Dabbler) – just rare. And to have a HUMAN that somehow has Malumi-like powers?
Well… sciona would have a field day with that, since we know how she likes to use blood magic to duplicate powers.
Brut’s team SUCCEEDED in getting the Stasis gun, the unnamed flyer took off with it and no one pursued. the portable stasis chamber however was secured, although we never saw if Maxima took it after the lasagna man incident and Henchwench fight or if Dabbler or Cora were allowed to confiscate it.
Oops you’re right. I thought she was also captured but I guess the flying girl got away.
They do still have the stasis pod though.
at this point i seriously dont know why dabbler and cora are still holding out technology, the gig is up humanity is entering the galactic comunity and we already have an FTL capable ship to study, unless there is one of those things where “just because you are FTL capable doesnt mean we can just give you everything you want” i think at this point earth is a little beyond being “contaminated” by alien technology
I thinking he’s probably more on the order of a Colony Drop™, lol
That would be beautiful.
You seem to know more about the origins of Sydney’s balls than anyone else…
I’m wondering if vehemence can’t gain flight powers or if he didn’t want to cheat in the fight.
He didn’t yet have enough spare juice to burn it making new powers. He only just powered himself up and doesn’t have much extra reserves.
I think he’s at the point where he can make new powers.
He’s made powers at orange/red level:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-273-power-drain/
Well, now that Sydney has drawn the attention of the Xevoarchy, what will they do?
1. Request (REQUIRE) a Meet-N-Greet with either Sydney, or Max & her superiors, or the U.S. Government, or a single governing entity with responsibility and jurisdiction for all of Earth. (That last option is preferred by all off-planet organizations when dealing with a new planet.) If they don’t get their meeting, they vaporize Earth as being too much of a risk. In this situation, a second chance is never offered.
2. Englobe Earth in some kind of shield that shuts down Sydney’s ability to create or access an Aetherium Causeway. Gotta limit the threat, right?
3. Dig into Sydney’s orbs, understand their tech, and discover to whom they previously belonged.
4. Track the use & previous users of that particular Aetherium Causeway Orb. See who the previous (or proper/legal) owner of the orb is/was. Determine their status. Understand why they abandoned the orbs. Maybe return the orbs to them? The previous owner might have been some Inter-Galactic Marshal Matt Dillon, and now he’s without his pan-solar horse “Bigger”, crawling through the desert dust on some planet three over from Risa. Anyway, this council will investigate why the previous owner thought dumping the orbs on Earth, where a local native could find & use them, was a good idea. Maybe the previous orb-owner had no other options for keeping the orbs out of the hands (claws? pincers? tentacles? mandibles? gripping mechanisms? absorbing matter?) of the bad guys? Inquiring minds want to know!
5. Lock down her orbs so no one can use them, transport / transfer them, modify them, without the approval and supervision of the Xevoarchy.
6. Analyze her additional levels she’s accomplished on the skill tree.
7. Identify ALL functions available through the unfilled skill tree circles.
8. Maybe provide Sydney with an operator’s manual? Naw, that would be WAY too helpful for a bureaucracy.
9. Find some way to justify confiscating the orbs. “We do not take this action lightly. But the risk these orbs represent, in their ability to modify or destroy civilizations, star systems, galaxies, and even the universe, justifies our removing them as a threat to all peace-loving peoples.” And so on, and so forth, ad nauseam.
10. Sydney, Max, & friends have to find a loophole to get around that ruling. Maybe save the tadpole/fry/podling/child of the Grand Poo-bah of the Supreme Universal Governing Council. And in gratitude, that entity will grant Sydney, and Earth, carte blanche for owning / operating the orbs. Next panel, please.
I’m pretty sure most of those bullet points are either beyond them, or would require Sidney’s and/or Arcon’s active cooperation.
The orbs are Nth tech, the Xevoarchy are monkeys next to them.
As the above me said, most of those would require the Xevoarchy to be able to understand and control the orbs. The Xevoarchy look to be made of a handful of tier 2-2.5 civilizations controlling mostly tier 1/ just above post FTL ,
the 3rd tier is the ascended ancient precursor glowing energy being cryptic message guys.,
Nth is above that in the (we can invent magic and manipulate the laws of physics, travel between realities…Q/Chousin/Galactus+ level beings.
which to be fair above glowy guys there could be an astronomical number of tiers from (manipulating a galaxy to we are from the era of black holes of another universe a race born from the shredding of dimensions; or we are from the space outside of the range of expanding universes, born when two universes collided, possess knowledge and experience from numerous universes and can cross reference and control the various forms of physics as we desire.
ect…
so in respect:
tier 1+: We are as to you as you are to cavemen
tier 2: We are as to you as you are to monkeys and apes
tier 3: We are as to you as you are to (mice), (insects)
above that
anything from: We are as to you as you are to an amoeba
too
We cannot compare us to you in any fashion such as we are to as you are to some life form below you, for the difference in complexity between yourselves and bacteria relative to the difference in complexity between you and us is so vast that to us there might as well be no difference between you and the bacteria inside of you/ For you stand before the impossible as far as the physics of your universe is concerned, even a prion has more in common with you than we do.
we are to you as you are (ad infinitum) the as doesn’t go in the first section of the iteration.
huh, I did write all of those like that. Weird. Well that’s getting online right after work for ya.
You really have no idea how military bureaucracy works.
Here’s the actual MLS:
Official: Does this individual seem to be engaged in upsetting any of the Space Apple carts?
Military HMFIC: M’nope.
Official: Do we have a reasonable expectation that their personal/cultural/species interests will keep them in an easily observable & monitored sphere more-or-less confined to their pre-FTL Homeworld?
Military HMFIC: Eeyup.
Official: Keep some eyes on, and let the Diplo-dorks do their thing, then. They enjoy these headaches & Entity(ies) know(s) we pay them enough to handle it.
Random Hawkish Weenie: But we need to control any potential threats to our stability!
Official: We _don’t_ need to start a fight with a pre-FTL species of largely unknown retaliatory capabilities on their home terf. Do you want us to get sucked into a twenty cycle Space Quagmire? Besides, it’s an Election Cycle, and I don’t need The Opposition harping on how I wasted a septillion Quatloos on an ovipositor-measuring contest with a tribe of primitives in some backwater neighborhood in the unfashionable part of the Galaxy. Besides, have you read the Diplo briefings on these guys? Confirmed contact with alien civilizations, and they are still unable to stop murdering each other long enough to secure themselves against invasive sentiments. And at the rate they’re going, they’ll kill of their biosphere inside a hundred cycles. If they really are a problem, they’re a self-correcting one.
Yup go out of your way to piss off the homicidal xenophobic monkey’s, yup quick way to turn your civilization into a memory. We are by the way homicidal xenophobic monkey’s make no bone’s about it we have problems with our own species and accepting the differences within it. Now imagine if you could channel all that hate at someone that say dropped a rock on us.
eh, even with supers, with so few higher class supers it becomes more a case of avenging the world than anything.
you take away the supers or access to alien tech (see StarGate SG-1), and realistically in an altercation between Earth and a civilization advanced enough to casually travel between systems (or timelines or whatever) with any interest in Earth *most likely as an expansion of their empire or to colonize it themselves*,
and humans are easily boned regardless of ego, ideology, pride, or violence. Assume the aliens won’t be following any Geneva convention rules of warfare, and that a war of attrition to fight them back won’t work when they have multi-system resources and can coordinate instant assaults across the globe.
Especially if they don’t want to rule you, if rule you then such a tactic can get on their nerves potentially and regard you as “unworthy of their guidance” sort of a “screw this we’re leaving you can all just die alone on this rock if you’re going to be like that*….however if they don’t want to rule humans and just want the land, then pray they also want the existing ecosystems in tact because if they just want the atmosphere, and climates to put their own life forms there…well…you screwed. Especially if they regard you as a damaging element; in short they don’t want termites or other pests damaging their new farmlands.
*level of civilization and relative appearance and relation to something like a human is also a factor in all the above, but we’ve seen how inhumane humans are to humans, may be better off if the alien has no ideological reason to invade and just view humans as animals…maybe..so many x-factors. Big take away…humans will be on the losing side no matter what at this point in development Seriously there are rather easy ways for something with access to high energy and complex synthetics to disable power grids, radio communications, and even fossil fuels/combustion engines (not as simple but there are some ways).
If they want to just destroy us, sure. They can just throw an asteroid fast enough and whole Earth would be history. But occupation is something very different. Even just few supers – or few people who manage to steal your technology – can make it very hard. They can block Earth technology but they can’t block their own … and they can’t block supers because noone knows how supers work.
Holding the high ground is a huge advantage in warfare, but even within the few supers we know about there are a few who could protect Earth from a dinosaur killer. Maxima and Sydney could redirect it, portal-girl could just move it so it misses, etc. Kevin might be able to *ka-rock-be-gone* it. Cora and Dabbler could take care of it using high tech gadgetry, etc. Krona could do all kinds of things to it, including setting its velocity to zero, reversing its direction, etc. Hell, she might be able to make it appear over the planet of whomever sent it at Earth in the first place… Several other Twilight Council might be able to do something about it.
Humanity isn’t as vulnerable as a bunch of dinos. No thanks to our current tech, which would let us see a planet killer approaching but could do very little about it, but still.
we actually do have the tech to atleast attemp a redirection mission if we see it coming with enough time, irl we have this babies waiting to be launched into space this year actually in november
https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart/
we also already bombed an asteroid before
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2198839-japans-hayabusa-2-spacecraft-just-bombed-an-asteroid/
so with modern day tech we can certainly redirect an asteroid, maybe not a dinosaur killer but if we see it coming with enough time we can probably cook up something fast, specially once this baby comes online
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship
and thats just OUR world, the grrl verse has far more advanced technolgy, magic and several supers who can get the job done
Our world is capable of redirecting an impactor given enough time, but getting that warning is the crucial part. If it takes ten years to shift a given rock safely away from a collision course, but we only spot it two years before it arrives, then we have problems. Especially if we have to build the spacecraft within that time as well, rather than having one ready to go.
I was rather expecting V’s color to have down-shifted from Red to something much lower. Green, Yellow, maybe even White. Just to indicate he had used a lot of his V-Power trying to control his situation (and to breathe) while he was Lost In Space. (“Warning, Will Robinson! Danger! Danger!) (Did you ever wonder why LIS’s Robot didn’t just say what the problem was? “Warning! Enemy Life Form preparing to attack Will Robinson, from a distance of 30 meters, coming from due South!” That would have been quite a bit more helpful.)
It’s been shifting from green up through red, I’m thinking purple is next. Then black, andthen plaid.
If sydney needed to push somebody in zero-G, she could just use the shield. Literally fly behind him and bump him through. The lighthook is for fine control, she can go full *ramming speed* with mister bubble.
The description of Vehemence not wanting to ruin Sydney’s good time from clowning on him reminds me of that line from Clarice, something like,
“I don’t think Dr. Lecter will come kill me. He’d…consider it rude.”
With how she is blocking that bottom line it looks an awful lot like she is the mighty harlot. :D
I don’t think Vehemence fought Dabbler in this sparring session, did he?
Succubi have … eclectic tastes. I literally don’t know if she might choose to interpret rough actions as some sort of Klingon mating ritual, and if so, whether this would power down V as it powered up Dabbler. I feel it is unlikely to see the answer illustrated in-comic but perhaps Dabs will make some passing reference down the line.
So now with two confirmed events of “above your paygrade”, the Xevoarchy should just send passive monitors to earth and adopt a hands off approach. Because clearly these incidents show a higher civilization is active in the Terran Solar System and might be annoyed if the Xev Civ Polyarchy interferes with what’s going on.
/or you could just watch that Bablyon5 series that Deus sold on the station and figure it won’t go well. No boom today …but there’s always a boom tomorrow.
Ivanova _is_ always right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLZW8Deq8vE
a great moment.
Sadly ruined by the whole THE first one bit, life started out immortal guy; and the Vorlons also being first ones….well the Vorlons thing now as much, there being different levels of ascended beings was an idea I hadn’t really see before and inspired me; the idea you could have some that weren’t as powerful that wanted to stay involved in the affairs of younger species and then those that reached a point that most other species were basically ants to them, I always imagined that to those giant single ship first ones the Vorlons were like the goblins to their dragons; they knew each other but the Vorlons were the pretentious upstarts.
still didn’t care for the oldest one thing though, he just felt a tad like (wanted to be Q but tried a little too hard to not be Q at the same time). Although as even he and the rest of the first ones still resided in the one galaxy and not the space between them; I always imagined we never saw the highest species, the first ones could have been just as young to other species out there that came before them,
I will listen to Ivanova.
I will not ignore Ivanova’s recommendations.
Ivanova is God.
And if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out…
And Ivanova is one of the few that is left. :(
Why is the assumption always that aliens will look at the myriad cultures and governments of Earth and see us as some kind of aberration?
Given the amount of time, energy, and resources Humans routinely waste on squabbling over trivialities, while deliberately ignoring systematic threats? When instead of uniting to address those issue at the necessary scale, their typical response is to splinter into ever tinier factions that can each blame each other while all refusing to be the first to act?
I think the thrust of the question is, “Why should we assume he that particular brand of self-destructive stupidity is unique to our species?”
I don’t think its a unique thing, its more a maturity/awareness thing. Humanity has some growing up to do.
Pfft. Humanity and the world is awesome.
Boom de yada.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at_f98qOGY0
I’d never seen this or last year’s update, but if we must have ads I wish we could have more wholesome stuff like this.
It’s actually from 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbu0rMFH-OM
But it made a big resurgeance in 2019 and became a really big meme back in 2019, and the beginning of 2020.
In short – Discovery Channel commercial that sort of became really big on youtube. There were a bunch of versions of them for a lot of different areas, like Marvel, World of Warcraft, etc.
And Discovery Channel made a second one again in May 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_6v-jh1Z5k
:)
Wow! Videos about the world being awesome, and it’s restricted to certain countries… :slow_clap:
From some people’s perspective, that’s the sort of thing that makes the world awesome.
In case it’s not clear, those are not good people.
What are you both talking about? Its featuring shows on the Discovery Channel.
Certain YouTube videos may be banned in various countries because of certain government policies, international copyright, etc. It’s generally not YouTube’s call, they don’t make the rules, just following them (with varying levels of success and accuracy).
Yeah, and two of the clips were restricted and not allowed to be viewed in this country
“The uploader (Discovery) has not made this video available in your country.”
I’m sure it’s not unique to us. But I’m also sure that it’s a self-imposing filter, and that those who have it generally do not last long enough to be noticed by the Galaxy at large.
Our world is barely at the point of ‘noticeable’ now, if you’re close enough and happen to be actively looking in the right direction with a suitably sensitive detector. It’ll be a few decades yet before ‘close enough’ reaches anywhere likely to have its own People, and I would not take any bets on anyone at this end being in a state to recognise their response if/when it comes.
Sydney and Maxima have just drawn a lot of attention, with stunts that should be way out of Earth’s league. That sort of capability is beyond even the higher-level Galactics, and yet it’s in the hands of single individuals of a species like Humans? For someone accustomed to ‘normal’ Galactic tech levels and responsibility levels, that’s when ‘just another boring pre-civilised pre-FTL species’ becomes a matter needing urgent resolution one way or other.
I’m old I’ve reconized the homage to Sean Connery , the green alien cameo in Zardoz outfit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zardoz
hold up…
are we finally gonna get some lore on the orbs?
it is implied they are something even the Xevoarchy are unfamiliar with, so unless they try to take and the original owner shows up to prevent this I don’t see much lore coming from the Xevoarchy.
that said the fracture was bookmarked so the previous owner had been there before *or set up the bookmarks ahead of time for the next person to find for whatever reason.
Actually it just occurred to me, despite all that we actually could learn something, although probably not much outside something vague and potentially ominous. If someone in the Xevoarchy suspects they are Nth tech and has contact with a 3rd tier civilization (likely a small group or individual), they could ask them about the orbs (possibly low 3rd tier like the Vorlons from Babylon 5), and get something along the lines of *we recognize them, and have seen a user of them, but we were as mice staring up from the tall grass into the shining faces of gods*.
The command officer in the station operations room may look small and non-threatening, but he can be dangerous when pushed. His name is Mack Fly and is short tempered about avians not being shown due respect. Whatever you do, don’t call him chicken.
Whoever does is clearly a Booby.
Show him (her?) respect; never flip them the bird.
I’m just waiting for Vehemence to flip to the good guys. This’ll most likely happen relatively soon when news of Sydney’s nth tech gets out. Because while Maxima is the strongest hero, she has a few weaknesses:
One – she’s only the strongest earthling.
Two – she’s only one person
Three – she’s shown what she’s capable of. The aliens just need to throw two (or more) ships at opposite sides of the globe.
It occurs to me that when Sydney is saying ‘okay okay hold your horses,’ it’s totally lost on Vehemence since he can’t possibly be hearing him since there’s no sound IN most of space until you’re in an area with particles/molecules/etc in the air to vibrate, thus causing sound to be heard.
At least I think that’s how sound works. :) And why Babylon 5 was so awesome from a hard science fiction perspective – the space battles were completely silent aside from orchestra playing. No ‘booms’ and explosion sounds.
Gotta hand it the Mighty Harlot, being able to write all that backwards, because it starts with the ‘T’ and ends with the ‘C’
We all assume they now know earth has aeritherium causeway tech, but couldn’t this also be caused by a scheming existing player.
Not showing your face, while causewaying seems hard and important, so maybe some causeway civilization could have used earth as a hop to hide the fact that it’s actually them, much like you use proxies to hide your ip.
With relativity and all that stuff, she didn’t need to move V at all. She could have established a new aetherium causeway in front of him in a frame of reference that was moving compared to him.
I’m sure someone probably said this, but I’m not reading 200+ comments to find out:
Sydney’s lighthook doesn’t seem to be connected to her for purposes of Newton’s 3rd law. Otherwise, when she pushed against Max to determine she could exert 3 tons of force, her body would also have felt that 3 tons, which at best would have put her in the hospital.
I choose to believe that the near end of the lighthook is anchored not to Sydney but to the orb, which can shunt the equal and opposite force off to some higher dimension where it dissipates harmlessly. Ergo, she could easily fling Vehemence without flinging herself.
the base of the light hook is hovering above the surface of the orb. and if this is Nth tech they don’t need to worry about weight and resistance and such like Squidgirl did when explaining how she can lift and move things heavier than her without moving herself in the process in season 2; instead as Nth tech they can probably just snub physics and the strength is all a pre-set. Not mattering how long or what angle the light hook is in, even trying to reinforce its leverage, just (it lifts this, period).
I’d love to see you rewrite that using as many malapropisms (a la Norm Crosby) as possible. It would be hilarious! You’ve already got a start, where you (accidentally?) wrote ” . . . they are still unable to stop murdering each other long enough to secure themselves against invasive sentiments.” I think you meant “invasive sentients” (or sentience), but it’s sweet as “sentiments”. You could go a step further and make it insulting: “invasive sediments”! Go for it! (Also “home terf” is “home turf”, but I liked that, TOO! It goes with the silly theme.)
So does Detla recognize an Aetherium Causeway by sight? And if she does, is she more impressed now by Syd than she was by Max being the living artillery that took out the supercarrier?
In fact given the several demonstrations she’s seen today, Is she having a righteous “holy shit what have I got myself mixed up with now” moment?
In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the writers made a point of not introducing the Really Big Bad of the series except in little snips for two years. The Dominion finally made its present felt in the season two finale.
I’m starting to wonder if Dave B. is doing the same with the Xevoarchy.
That makes me think, in all of Star Trek has anyone every gotten their hands on Q tech, I kind of think the Traveler helped in some tech stuff but didn’t actually have anything anyone could use.
heck the Organians are below them at the ascended level and I don’t think anyone Federation or other has even gotten their hands on organian technology.
Okay, but… can we talk about the space thing? Because the lack of oxygen in space isn’t the only thing that will kill you. The abrupt lack of atmospheric pressure would cause your organs to explode, the temperature would make you freeze to death, and the radiation from any nearby stars would destroy possibly faster than the first three issues. Inability to breathe is like the LEAST of your problems. My question is not only how did Vehemence survive that unscathed, but did we ever address how Sydney can? I would buy that her green orb gives her air, and we can even assume the bubble keeps the air at a lovely comfortable atmospheric pressure for her so her organs don’t explode. But still, how does she maintain a temperature she can survive, and how does she prevent radiation damage? Her shield is see-through, so, as was discussed in the first couple pages of this comic, she should have to take light damage. And Vehemence doesn’t have ANY of those protections.
She has Nth tech and he’s an S-class super with adaptoid powers and recently had a big power up,
she can flip the finger to physics as far as trying to figure out how the orbs actually work (as far as we know her shield could be a dimensional membran and what an outside observer sees and what she sees are just projections along its surface making it appear to be clear when it isn’t and is in fact encasing her in a tiny pocket dimension), and he is burning through power that he gains from emotions (anger, aggression, intent to do harm, ect…), aint either of them playing with a newton deck here.
Freezing would be a lot slower than the other causes of death, as vacuum is a pretty good insulator. There’s a good writeup on the various effects here, along with some notes on experiments done in the 60s that found chimps could survive for about 3.5 minutes. Sydney has an air pocket, and the station is blocking most of the radiation, so I’d expect a super with healing powers to do just fine with only 10-20 seconds of exposure.
Her shield is see through, but it still blocks lasers.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-294-sydneys-mighty-need/
I want to petition to call the many eyed snake dude “Chad” Chad the Security Guard, She’s been working there for decades and this is her opportunity to shine!
No one has mentioned the background silhouettes.
Looks like Batman, Robin, & maybe Space Ghost or Gatchaman.
The planet’s name is “Earth”, but one of the names, how Marvel-fans knows it, is “Asylum 8”. A place , what even intergalactic criminals afraid to approach, if they get another choice…
Dang, I thought it was Urath. Allen’s gonna be in Soooooooooooo much trouble for this mix-up.
kevin aka vehemence is going to end up with a sydney based trauma. though maybe these sparring sessions are moving him towards agreeing to join arcswat (… probably not arcswat, or arclight, but arcdark could use him for less than savory black/classified ops)
He’s never been good in his whole life, but he’ll do his best…to be sweet.
I think Sydney’s skywriting in the last panel is a new record for the lighthook’s length.
shit’s about to get real for the earth.
Okay so the bets, what conclusions/theories may Xevoarchy officials come to as to what is happening?
1: An existing power is masking their point of origin by first gating to Earth and then sending a probe via a new small Causeway to the Fracture.
2: Earth is actually an ultra tech civilization pretending to be low tech for some reason (see: Organians from Star Trek)
3: Earth is a colony/experiment/observed world of something else that is ultra tech and THAT has also been visiting the Fracture recently for some reason.
4: Earth IS a pre-FTL civilization but found ultra tech in an abandoned ruin and learned how to turn it on (See: StarGate *like a lot of things from that show from the gate its self to the Antarctica Ancient base to a time machine…the Ancients are lazy and hypocrites leaving their dangerous crap lying around, but I digress), Also Babylon 5 with how most species find hyper gates.
5: Earth has made contact with an ultra tech civilization or individual that for unknown reasons is giving them a leg up.
am i the only one who noticed the news monster from futurama? i forget his name