Wapsi Square Forum

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/pretty-satisfying/

And Luci is a math nerd as well.

"Boys, I think we have a keeper..."

There was no doubt in my mind that she would fangirl extra hard over Pickle evaporating rocks with her bare hands!

A rockin' expression of power!

I've been going through the same sort of mental exercise that Luci is now working. I haven't been able to figure out any reasonable sort of biological or chemical reaction that could be powering Castela's blaster beams. Even if she were to burn up her entire body mass in the reaction (and clearly she is not) there's just not enough energy available from chemical reactants to create the sort of blasts she's clearly capable of delivering. She isn't showing any signs of overheating (or radiating enough heat that others notice it) so her efficiency must be incredibly high.

So, it's either purely magic, or it's a "sufficiently advanced technology", like the galaxy alternators, or whatever powered the Chimera and still powers Bud and Brandi. Tapping the vacuum energy, maybe?

Happy Castela is happy.

Maybe she can scare the neighborhood dogs away from our yard, so we can properly patch it and mow it without getting stuck in a hole.

I don't know about Granite, but the calculations have been done for "the hapless Sci-Fi movie extra being zapped by a space alien ray gun."

Scroll down to "For Example."

Luci is so many things, a nerd, math wiz, one of us...

Quick, someone call Randall Monroe!

My theory and it has no official standing is that her power source is magically enhanced photosynthesis thus why she was partially plant based. Nearly 100% efficient conversion process would yield enough energy to power both a personal force field and the energy blasts. So like a Kryptonian she is solar powered. This would also explain why she did not exhibit these powers till roughly her teen years, it took time to store enough power internally to allow for the excess to be used. It also begs one to wonder how many other powers she will develop as more time goes by.

Dave wrote:A rockin' expression of power!

I've been going through the same sort of mental exercise that Luci is now working. I haven't been able to figure out any reasonable sort of biological or chemical reaction that could be powering Castela's blaster beams. Even if she were to burn up her entire body mass in the reaction (and clearly she is not) there's just not enough energy available from chemical reactants to create the sort of blasts she's clearly capable of delivering. She isn't showing any signs of overheating (or radiating enough heat that others notice it) so her efficiency must be incredibly high.

So, it's either purely magic, or it's a "sufficiently advanced technology", like the galaxy alternators, or whatever powered the Chimera and still powers Bud and Brandi. Tapping the vacuum energy, maybe?

It might be stored in the same sort of place as Shelly and Atsali store their extra mass when they're not using it, or where Bud keeps her friends when protecting them from nuclear meltdowns.

That One Website has a term called "Hammerspace" for items that come out of nowhere. I would suggest that things like Castela's power source, Bud's storage compartment, and whatnot should be considered "Wapsispace" for our purposes.


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oldmanmickey wrote:My theory and it has no official standing is that her power source is magically enhanced photosynthesis thus why she was partially plant based. Nearly 100% efficient conversion process would yield enough energy to power both a personal force field and the energy blasts. So like a Kryptonian she is solar powered. This would also explain why she did not exhibit these powers till roughly her teen years, it took time to store enough power internally to allow for the excess to be used. It also begs one to wonder how many other powers she will develop as more time goes by.

The solar constant is only about 1361 watts per square meter, with less than 1200 watts per square meter reaching the surface. Even with 100% efficiency that's not all that much... it would require a very long "soak time" to store up enough power to vaporize even a coffee cup.

And, where/how would it be stored? Normal photosynthesis uses the energy to construct carbohydrates, which have a limited energy content per gram and must be "burned" to release the energy for use.

Magic (natural, or the tech equivalent) of some nature does seem to be required.

Calista (aka Cricket) did say that there was Fae stuff that went into making Castela. Of course, we all know from Arthur C. Clarke about "sufficiently advanced technology" and all that...

oldmanmickey wrote:My theory and it has no official standing is that her power source is magically enhanced photosynthesis thus why she was partially plant based. Nearly 100% efficient conversion process would yield enough energy to power both a personal force field and the energy blasts. So like a Kryptonian she is solar powered. This would also explain why she did not exhibit these powers till roughly her teen years, it took time to store enough power internally to allow for the excess to be used. It also begs one to wonder how many other powers she will develop as more time goes by.

Time scale is a bit off, but this is an avenue that might be worth exploring. http://wapsisquare.com/comic/something-bad/

Considering, IIRC, that the World Grid is powered by the relative motion of mass in the galaxy, our little not-so-potted plant could be doing the same thing even using something like tapping the Moon's relative motion to Earth.
When it comes to energy the statement "It's raining soup, what we need is a bucket!" comes to mind.

sheik wrote:Considering, IIRC, that the World Grid is powered by the relative motion of mass in the galaxy, our little not-so-potted plant could be doing the same thing even using something like tapping the Moon's relative motion to Earth.
When it comes to energy the statement "It's raining soup, what we need is a bucket!" comes to mind.

I thought the WG was powered by a network of Vimana cells. The stresses that triggered a global seismic/volcanic catastrophe happened when the last one was put in place. Dave and I hypothesized that a properly functioning Vimana runs on an “Island of Stability” element of extreme atomic mass, to account for the immense amount of energy they output from such a small device. Basically, a tiny but very powerful and very efficient nuclear reactor.

I believe the Chimera, Golems, and the Calendar Machine were built to harness the galactic angular momentum - the Calendar Machine seemed to accidentally Zeno Lock the whole Galaxy or something. Golems do seem to be capable of plugging into vimanas as an auxiliary power source, as Jin did to rectify her simulated mental illness.

It never occurred to me before to think much about the term hammerspace, and reading it a little while ago, it dawned on me almost immediately, without actually looking up anything about the term, that it just might have something to do with where a lot of old cartoon characters suddenly pull hammers (or other objects) from thin air.

Dave wrote:The solar constant is only about 1361 watts per square meter, with less than 1200 watts per square meter reaching the surface. Even with 100% efficiency that's not all that much... it would require a very long "soak time" to store up enough power to vaporize even a coffee cup.

And, where/how would it be stored? Normal photosynthesis uses the energy to construct carbohydrates, which have a limited energy content per gram and must be "burned" to release the energy for use.

Magic (natural, or the tech equivalent) of some nature does seem to be required.

Though given the number of portals, pocket universes, and wormholes that have been shown or mentioned, Castela could theoretically have millions of square miles of vines somewhere, soaking up energy from a very high energy sunshine. Not that that is too likely, of course.

GlytchMeister wrote:

sheik wrote:Considering, IIRC, that the World Grid is powered by the relative motion of mass in the galaxy, our little not-so-potted plant could be doing the same thing even using something like tapping the Moon's relative motion to Earth.
When it comes to energy the statement "It's raining soup, what we need is a bucket!" comes to mind.

I thought the WG was powered by a network of Vimana cells. The stresses that triggered a global seismic/volcanic catastrophe happened when the last one was put in place. Dave and I hypothesized that a properly functioning Vimana runs on an “Island of Stability” element of extreme atomic mass, to account for the immense amount of energy they output from such a small device. Basically, a tiny but very powerful and very efficient nuclear reactor.

I believe the Chimera, Golems, and the Calendar Machine were built to harness the galactic angular momentum - the Calendar Machine seemed to accidentally Zeno Lock the whole Galaxy or something. Golems do seem to be capable of plugging into vimanas as an auxiliary power source, as Jin did to rectify her simulated mental illness.

Yeah, the world grid is powered by or triggered by the vimana cells, which somehow harness plutonium. The Calendar Machine and the golems were galactic-rotation powered, though Jin has been switched over to vimana powered. And Monica is custard powered, or something like that.

No, Monica has Phoenix blood. Something different.

Oh, and in case y'all didn't get the memo from Pablo, he has essentially said that Monica is no longer the main character of Wapsi Square.