All Clear 2013-06-13

[Boxilar]

I'm late to the party. This is what I've got so far after reading everybody's posts and the comic to this point.

As to Bud clothing herself before letting Kath and 'Sali out. She may have been willing to run around nude in public at one point, but she's had character development. She's doing her best to adapt to modern society and feel more "normal". Wearing clothes in public is part of that. It makes her feel more human. She isn't the same Bud who ripped her bikini off to distract reporters who thought she was a member of the Polar Bear Club.

As far as the other stuff.

Bud and Kath's "we know". Bud is rolling her eyes, Kath just looks annoyed. They've figured out SDO/Brandi's plan to a point. The Mapami facility was supposed to be emptied out and the self destruct triggered. SDO told Katherine she would have to decide what to do with the knowledge there, so I'm going to presume that Kath was the target for the information download and that Atsali is a wild card thrown into the mix by the library who ended up with it instead. SDO planned on Bud being intercepted by the Mapami facility and held there, so as to save Katherine. I think Katherine and Acacia have figgured out that if SDO really wanted them dead (or in Bud's case, neutralized) they wouldn't be around to have the conversation they're having. Atsali is a little slow on the uptake. I also think 'Sali is the Wild Card the Biblithiki is planning to use to get Brandi's brain back in one piece, figuratively speaking.

Things that bug me about SDOs plan, beyond the fact that she sent a friend into deadly danger with no idea what she was getting into. She created Katherine on poupose. Those six extra embryos did't end up in thier mothers by accident. Someone with precision POITING ability could have made sure there were six women pregnant with quadruplets before the pre planned disaster struck. Those six "extra" infants likely had exactly the genetic make up SDO wanted them to have to combine into Katherine. They'd all have to be female, for one thing. Katherine has remarkable healing powers and likely could have taken the download from the Mapami crystal computers. In fact, i'd be willing to bet good money she was designed to. Again, I think Atsali was the Library's bid to control information and maybe force SDO and Brandi to become one personality again. Not sure how that works though, unless Brandi realises SDOs scheming nearly killed someone innocent who was uninvolved before.

Oh, and SDO manipulated someone else (Atsali, as it turned out) into killing an entire civilization just so she could continue her record of Brandi "not hurting a fly". And she probably intended Katherine to be the trigger man, it's just that Atsali did it instead.

Regarding the map of Yaxchilan to Mesa Verde, does that take into account the curve of the earth? Buds POIT route, if it were direct POIT to POIT, would have taken her directly through surface of the planet, possibly under (or nearly under) Mapami.

[Fairportfan]

I would like to point something out:

Atsali was the one who said "Brandi was trying to kill us!" It's entirely possible that our favorite birdbrain wasn't talking about her, Bud and Katherine; she was probably talking about her and the stored Ethetians/Anasazi in her brain.

THAT'S an interesting theory...

[Fairportfan]

Bud's "Okay, you nerds!" cracked me up.

A bigger concern may be lurking, though. 'Sali's head may contain all relevant info on Golem Creation. Is it wise to let the Library have it to complete it's databanks, or should they find a way to delete the secret recipe, because it definitely falls under "There are some things Man was not meant to know"?

Atsali would have to write it down before the Library would have it.

Remember - the Library didn't knw what was in Monica's Grandpa Sullivan's tape-recorded-not-written-down memoirs.

[Fairportfan]

Regarding the map of Yaxchilan to Mesa Verde, does that take into account the curve of the earth? Buds POIT route, if it were direct POIT to POIT, would have taken her directly through surface of the planet, possibly under (or nearly under) Mapami.

If Google Maps uses the Mercator projection (it does), a straight line on the map is a Great Circle route, the most direct route between two points on the surface of the globe.

This is one reason why, despite its progressively more egregious distortion at high latitudes*, the Mercator is still used.

=====================

* A Mercator map shows Greenland as being bigger than Australia...

[Timotheus]

In all likelihood poiting doesn't involve traversing the space between the starting and stopping points. So the curvature of the earth or other physical barriers do not matter.

[AmriloJim]

FairportFan, I found a Great Circle mapper that is NOT reliant on major airports as loci at http://alben.com/google/greatcirclemapper.php. The interface is a "click-start-and-end" that lacks precision, but it uses the Google API for source maps and as you can see, Bud's GC route deflects away from Mapimi.

I also tried finding a radio frequency line-of-sight tool to determine Fresnel Zone interference (i.e.: how deep would that straight path be as it passed Mapimi), but none of those calculate anything longer than about a 25-mile LoS path.

[as363]

Okay - Superman and Wonder Woman are out (I can dream - can't I). But the Library is most definitely in the mix . SDO needs her butt at least strongly kicked . Sali has a chance to become more than just a young Library assistant . Credits for extra non-library work could be applied. In fact the whole scenario to date appears to be a general clean-up situation to straighten up and improve the major members attitudes towards each other and others that they are involved with.

Any one want to make a "Friday Cliffhanger" guess ??

[Fairportfan]

FairportFan, I found a Great Circle mapper that is NOT reliant on major airports as loci at http://alben.com/google/greatcirclemapper.php. The interface is a "click-start-and-end" that lacks precision, but it uses the Google API for source maps and as you can see, Bud's GC route deflects away from Mapimi.

Interesting.

"There are no waters in Casablanca."

"I was misinformed."

[Fairportfan]

Any one want to make a "Friday Cliffhanger" guess ??

Plumbing problems.

[DilyV]

Any one want to make a "Friday Cliffhanger" guess ??

Plumbing problems.

*facepalms*

Let's hope not!!!

[Dave]

Plumbing problems.

Possibly involving toenails that Bud probably hasn't gotten around to repainting since the previous color was vaporized?

[Boxilar]

In all likelihood poiting doesn't involve traversing the space between the starting and stopping points. So the curvature of the earth or other physical barriers do not matter.

A fair point. POIT travel is instantanious and does not transit through Known Space. One moment you're one place, the next, you're another. Which means, for all practical pourposes, the Mapami facility recognised Bud's POIT signiture in the Akashic record, redirected her to the crystal storage room, then locked her in place.

All while breaking up during a self destruct.

I still don't like SDO all that much, but if the people who built this thing wanted to unleash an army of golems on the world, and beyond, I can understand why she felt she had to stop them.

Charron called the Chimera a "Titan like creature" (DOES ANYONE ELSE FEEL THAT CHARRON SHOULD SPEAK IN "ALL CAPS", LIKE A CERTAIN REAPER MAN?), implying that Bud, Brandi and Jin are a match for a Titan. Imagine an army that could challenge the gods under the control of a bunch of meglamoniacal @$$holes. The World Grid wasn't just to keep things out, it was made to keep things in.

[Boxilar]

Plumbing problems.

Possibly involving toenails that Bud probably hasn't gotten around to repainting since the previous color was vaporized?

Of the "Paul won't be posting a comic for several days because his water heater exploded" plumbing variety. Which delayed the Friday and Monday strip about four weeks ago

I had that happen about three weeks ago.

Not fun.

Not fun at all.

[Opus the Poet]

WHEW!

Umm, yes.

[Boxilar]

Okay - Superman and Wonder Woman are out (I can dream - can't I). But the Library is most definitely in the mix . SDO needs her butt at least strongly kicked . Sali has a chance to become more than just a young Library assistant . Credits for extra non-library work could be applied. In fact the whole scenario to date appears to be a general clean-up situation to straighten up and improve the major members attitudes towards each other and others that they are involved with.

Any one want to make a "Friday Cliffhanger" guess ??

Pre Crisis Supes would have a fighting chance against any one of the GGG, provided he could figure out how to negate thier POITING ability. The dude could travel through time, move planets with his bare hands and blow out stars with his super breath. In space.

The silver age was pretty silly.

Post Crisis Superman was seriously depowered, to the benefit of the character. But any one of the GGGs would have walked all over him, before Jin got reset. Bud and Brandi still could.

Wonder Woman actually got an upgrade from the silver age and is on par with the modern Superman in power. Before, she needed the invisible jet to fly and mostly got captured and rescued. Now, Wondy can fly on her own and has gone toe to toe with Superman. He's slightly better in a one on one fight, Diana is better at large scale millitary style engagements, being a trained Amazon warrior and all.

She's still not on par withthe GGGs.

Going anime, I think Goku from Dragon Ball, after the Namek Saga, would stand a chance.

Planet shattering strength and energy attacks?

Check.

Tough as all hell?

Not quite. If Goku is made of Iron, the GGGs are made of adamantium.

Instant teleportation?

Check.

Flight (which the girls don't have)

Check.

Tactical and stratigic genius?

Hell no. Goku is about as smart as a bag of hammers. He mostly overwhelmed his opponents with raw force. That, and his enemies were so in awe of his success in the face of his sheer stupidity, that they often stopped fighting from astonishment. At least one really bad guy did a heel face turn when he realized Goku had accidentally stumbled upon the most coveted fighting secret of thier race.

A battle between Superman and any of the GGs starts with Clark poited somwhere rude, like the center of the sun or earth. Pre crisis, it annoys him. Post crisis he dies pretty quickly. Pre crisis Kal battles the girls for awhile, then realizes that they're in the process of destroying the solar system and calls it off. Brandi brokers a deal with him that involves him either working for them, or eventually catching a kryptonite bullet. Or both. Although pre Crisis Supes showed Batman level crazy preparedness. And pre crisis Batman could beat God with prep time. Post crisis Bats dosen't need prep time. He just needs a throat lozenge. Maybe that's just Christian Bale.

I love Diana, but no version of her stands a chance against the GGGs.

A battle with Goku starts with the opening "POIT him somewhere rude" gambit. Goku would cherrily teleport back, extoll thier fighting prowress and hit them with a planet shattering energy attack. The battle would be long and involve several episodes (or a year worth of strips) where the characters stood around YELLING REALLY LOUD and then blew the crap of pretty much everything but each other. This is because Goku was dropped on his head whe he was a baby. Seriously. It's cannon. The end game would have the entire solar system in rubble. Goku wouldn't be upset because (a) He's stupid and (b) he has access to a McGuffin that can fix everything. Of course this assumes Brandi wouldn't realise the boy wasn't running on full impulse. If she did, and had time to plan, she'd probably get him to off himself before the fight started.

Did I mention Goku's really dumb?

This has all been an exercise in fan wank by a waspi fan who has thought way to much about this.

No idea what the Friday cliffhanger will be. I do want to see Brandi punched though. She dosen't have to reach orbit. A high appogee trajectory will do.

[Fairportfan]

Actually, Superman got depowered to a great extend BEFORE Crisis - it happened in 1970 - 71 (I was in Viet Nam, so i can narrow it down that much).

The "sand Superman" stole at least half of his power...

[Boxilar]

Actually, Superman got depowered to a great extend BEFORE Crisis - it happened in 1970 - 71 (I was in Viet Nam, so i can narrow it down that much).

The "sand Superman" stole at least half of his power...

I remember that, only I read it in the 80's in those big comic digests they used to print. My army time was spent in Colorado, then in Iraq and Saudi Arabia during the "Short Victorious War". Props to all the Vets here who were in a real fight. The whole Sand Superman was an attempt to throttle back the massive power creep Supes underwent during the Silver Age. Whether it stuck or not pre Crisis depended entirely on what the writer wanted him to do in any given story. To be fair, that's true of any fictional character. In comics, especially in Marvel Comics, which hero won in Marvel Misunderstanding usually depended on who's book the fight took place in. If the Hulk fought the Thing in Fantastic Four, the Thing was the likely winner. If the Thing showed up in The Incredible Hulk, the smart money was on Jolly Green.

J M Strasynski, creator of Baybalon 5, was once asked by an ardent fan what the "top speed" of the shows Starfury fighter was. J M S answered, "They travel at the speed of plot. If it needs to get there in time, it will. If I need it to get where it's going to be too late, that's when it gets there."

As a fan of Wapsi Square, given all the "evidence", I believe the girls could beat the snot out of any mainstream comic hero in print at the moment.

I also don't take myself too seriously. I was cured of that when I found two seperate web sites dedicated to an all out brawl between the Next Generation era Federation Starfleet from Star Trek and the Empire Strikes Back era Imperial Starfleet from Star Wars. One touted the Empire as superior, the other backed the Federation. Both of them were rabid about it.

There were phrases like, "If we use the film evidence as documentary footage" followed by complex mathamatical formulas "proving" the superiority of Turbolazers to Phazers and that theother sides hulls were made of tissuepaper and thier shields were made of soap bubbles.

This was all in deadly earnest, insults were being thrown, passions were high. I had to leave.

After all, everyone knows who would win.

BSG75, the Battlestar Galactica, under the command of Admiral William Adama.

So Say We ALL.

[Fairportfan]

My Viet Nam time was at the Navy Comm Station at Cam Ranh Bay - probably safer than Saigon.

A to JMS and "who would win" stuff - are you aware of the Finnish fan film Star Wreck?

Same crew who did Iron Sky, but better (Iron Sky was a disappointment after Star Wreck).

Which is not so say that it's genteel and refined; it's roughly frat-house/barracks humour. Basically a joint piss-take on B5 and Star Trek (all versions).

Description from the Wikipedia article:

Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning is a 2005 motion picture produced by five friends in a two-room flat with a small budget and the support of a few hundred fans and dozens of acquaintances. Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning is the seventh production in the Star Wreck movie series, the first of professional quality and feature length. It is a dark science fiction comedy about domination of the world and the universe, and a parody of the Star Trek and Babylon 5 universes.

Wikipedia says the total budget was €13,462.33, but considering that production took about seven years...

More from Wikipedia:

For most part of the production, the studio was a converted two-room apartment: one room featured the blue screen and most of the computers and other equipment involved in the shooting, and the kitchen contained the render farm. A closet was used for dubbing. A number of locations were also used, including a newly built college building, outside a Finnish government building, and most extravagantly several scenes (primarily a party scene involving Babel-13 and Kickstart crewmembers, a "stand-up comedy" sequence that was later cut from the film, and a "love scene" between Pirk and Ivanovitsa), were shot on board a cruise ship.

You can download it here.

[Boxilar]

My Viet Nam time was at the Navy Comm Station at Cam Ranh Bay - probably safer than Saigon.

A to JMS and "who would win" stuff - are you aware of the Finnish fan film Star Wreck?

Same crew who did Iron Sky, but better (Iron Sky was a disappointment after Star Wreck).

Which is not so say that it's genteel and refined; it's roughly frat-house/barracks humour. Basically a joint piss-take on B5 and Star Trek (all versions).

Description from the Wikipedia article:

Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning is a 2005 motion picture produced by five friends in a two-room flat with a small budget and the support of a few hundred fans and dozens of acquaintances. Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning is the seventh production in the Star Wreck movie series, the first of professional quality and feature length. It is a dark science fiction comedy about domination of the world and the universe, and a parody of the Star Trek and Babylon 5 universes.

Wikipedia says the total budget was €13,462.33, but considering that production took about seven years...

More from Wikipedia:

For most part of the production, the studio was a converted two-room apartment: one room featured the blue screen and most of the computers and other equipment involved in the shooting, and the kitchen contained the render farm. A closet was used for dubbing. A number of locations were also used, including a newly built college building, outside a Finnish government building, and most extravagantly several scenes (primarily a party scene involving Babel-13 and Kickstart crewmembers, a "stand-up comedy" sequence that was later cut from the film, and a "love scene" between Pirk and Ivanovitsa), were shot on board a cruise ship.

You can download it here.

I caught peices and parts that fans put together from the original version where the ships are faithful to the original models. They were well done battle sequences that featured the ships I loved from both franchises set to music. There were snippets, despite the editors attempts to mask the footage's origins, that hinted that it wasn't entirely serious. I found a DvD copy at the local Best Buy, a "Special Edition" version, where the ships had been changed just enough to avoid copyright infringement. The original renders were spot on, though, and it was great watching to franchises that would never other wise meet in an all out brawl. I still enjoy my "Special Edition" version, but it's not quite the same.

This was my first exposure to it, original designs and all. taken out of context and edited with music, it just looks like a really awsome space battle.

[Julie]

Also, as a possibly interesting side note, my son and daughter in law have informed me of the birth of my first grand child. A girl, at 4:40 AM last night. Everything appears normal.

CONGRATS!!