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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!

Darth Fluffy

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Posts posted by Darth Fluffy

  1. Posted

    4 hours ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

    I think a lot of the problems with "orbital" mechanics in Trek can be solved by noting that there's no particular reason for their ships to actually orbit--they can just hover over whatever part of a planet they find interesting. Say, the part with an away team on it. Would that require fantastic amounts of energy? Sure, but these guys get their power from matter-antimatter reactions.  'Orbital decay' seems to happen when something goes wrong with the engines. We would probably refer to the phenomenon as 'falling'.

    That is a possibility. It seems the ships are capable of whatever the plot demands at the moment.

    I would have to re-watch a TOS show, but I think the planets were shown rotating under them, which would say they are actually orbiting. And they call it 'orbit'. And, even with anti-gravity tech, it would still be a safety factor. Might interfere with operations to not be in line of sight. They could have deployable relays to take care of that. Good grief, we already have those, several ways.

    For Gene Roddenberry, it was a platform for story telling more than it was a technical exercise.

  3. Posted

    7 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

    I've got to write a biography for the French Horn competition into which I want to enter the sextet I've written. It's proving to be damned annoying. I don't like summarizing my life for anyone else, much less of all myself. I wish I knew how to get past this.

    Chat GPT? I've seen jacket covers that had obvious spoofs of the author's life. Write about how your parents sent you to Earth before your home world blew up, and you were adopted by traveling folk singers.

     

     

    Don Edwards reacted to this

  4. Posted

    57 minutes ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

    Wondering about this too. Has she got a cache of gold and silver somewhere? Does she plan to become invisible and just leave? Does she even grok the concept of money?

    'Grok' is probably too strong a word. (Honestly, people who grok money are not generally likable. People who are aware that there are other aspects to being human, and money is a means to an end, tend to be in a healthier place, A Christmas Carol being a readily available illustration.) ((The analogous concept of 'money-brother' to 'water-brother' seems gnarly, not the least of which reason being some folks function like that in real life, to the detriment of many; entitled, class-centric, exclusive. I'm not a fan.))

    So far, there is not a clear indication of her level of understanding. She seems to have an awareness of value, but that may be feigned. She might be out of touch with fair prices and have no idea if Justin is offering a fair deal or not if money comes too easily (like a little kid who is handed money.)

     

  5. Posted · Edited by Darth Fluffy
    Fix error

    The current arc, Hope visiting Justin's store, has me curious which cast members have met immortals. I'm only counting the young cast; if the older cast has met immortals, it happened off screen. (I imagine Edward is aware that Adrian is an elf, a hybrid son of an immortal).

    Susan and Nanase met the couple, Helena and Demetrius.

    Grace, Susan, and Sarah have met Jeremy (now rebooted as Zeus).

    Diane met Zeus, but was not aware if who he was. Zeus sends messages to Susan. I don't recall her meeting him.

    Several have been marked by Pandora in secret. Several met Pandora in a mall survey guise. Sarah talked with Pandora in her bedroom more than once. Tedd talked to Pandora in his basement. Susan and Diane had a brief conversation with Pandora at the mall. She was materialized in a public place, it is possible many people saw her (briefly).

    Magus had extensive interaction with Pandora in the spirit realm, and seems to know quite a bit about immortals, which is a bit weird, because he is from a different universe, and based on the griffin universe, the universes seem to have different rules for immortals.

    As with Pandora's mall appearance, Voltaire appeared in public at the mall. He met Ashley in a particularly unhelpful way, and then harassed Elliot (as Cheerleadra) at the lower level. Helena appeared and refuted his claims, then Helena and Demetrius assisted Elliot (as Cheerleadra) and Ashley in escaping the crowd. A large crowd saw and heard Voltaire.

    In the non-Canon NP arc, Goonmanji 2, Hanma interacts with Susan, Rhoda, Catalina, and Ashley. Though it is non-canon, Hanma has appeared in the main story line, for instance, when the immortals are listening to Voltaire rant about changing immortal law. It does not seem that Rhoda and Catalina have much awareness of a magic community beyond themselves. (This is also odd, wouldn't someone with magic wonder if anyone else did?) Probably actually non-canon . . . ?

    Awareness of Adrian as a half-immortal elf seems to be fairly well known in the main cast. A few have witnessed this, and they talk. Also Diane's partial elf status, though even she seems to be unaware of her own sometimes pointed ears. Tedd has noticed she has elf magic sensing ability. Susan is apparently distant enough that these things do not manifest.

     

  6. Posted

    Comic for Wednesday, Dec 27, 2023

    I am torn between, "Aw, Dan, give yourself a break" and "Yeay! New comic!"

    Mysterious Hope is way too savvy about this card game. How does she know she needs that stuff? Do they have Internet in the Immortal realm? Why did she pick the cards she picked (that we have not seen, yet)? And why is she so painfully shy?

    Justin is spot on a bored clerk who has had too little to do for the past hour. And he's good at customer service. I suppose flaming customers in the back room might change his priorities.

    I am curious about how Hope plans to fun this purchase. Is she going to poof essentially counterfeit currency into existence? It would be more legitimate if she paid by magically extracting existing natural resources like gold or silver from the ground and formed them into bullion. It would be bad if she paid with iron and nickel and has an asteroid crash. (I hate when that happens. I would put up a 'No asteroids' sign in my shop.)

  7. Posted

    2 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

    I had forgotten how cumbersome the TOS tricorder was. (While I've seen most of TOS I don't think I've seen all of it, and I definitely haven't seen all of it more than once; it's also been a couple years since I watched any of it.) When I think "tricorder" the TNG-era version comes to mind; those are still bigger and bulkier than a phone, but not nearly as much as the TOS version (also, while it might not fit in the average shirt or pants pocket, it could fit in a large jacket pocket or something).

    I was an older child, but still a child, when TOS aired. It was ground breaking in its day. Has not aged well. I believe there are only three of the TOS cast left, William Shatner, George Takei, and Walter Koenig. I think none of them were in the pilot, Shatner was there for the full run, George came in early, maybe first season, and Walter was maybe from second season onward? Not sure, and need to get out the door, so I'm not going to check.

    Walter Koenig has caught flack for his Russian accent; I knew a translator who said it was not authentic, but he learned the accent from family that came from Russia. I suspect it is a regional thing. His surname is German for king.

    Now I need to find a station that's playing Jingle Bells in the original Klingon. It looses a lot in translation, the Earth version has very little bloodshed.

  9. Posted

    47 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

    Thanks for the kind words. I did this several years back, and it was a bit intimidating, but neither Mrs. Prof nor I freaked out. This time around it's like an old labcoat - you just put it on, and it fits. I'm about midway through my first infusion, which is vancomycin, the short infusion (just over an hour). Once it's done,  Mrs. Prof will hook me up to cefepime, which is the long infusion (supposedly around 4 hours). Fortunately, I'm not pinned to my seat while the infusions are going on. I can get up and walk as long as I carry the infusion balls with me. Much fun. :lol:

    Lab coat sounds like a variant of the basis for 101 Dalmatians. They're going to be watching for you at the rescue shelter.

  10. Posted

    1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:

    Depends on what you mean by "sophisticated". The communicators have a much greater range than the average cell phone (I'm pretty sure mine couldn't communicate with a ship in orbit without relays), and the tricorders have much more comprehensive and detailed scanning abilities than today's phones (though the gap is closing). Of course a smart phone is far more versatile than a communicator and a tricorder combined, and the design of the communicators and tricorders in the Original Series looks very retro these days (but that's more a matter of changing tastes in aesthetics than technological sophistication).

    Cell phones indeed have a very limited range. You can boost this, external to the phone itself, but it is prohibitive to do so within the phone for power consumed, and also size and weight, and has diminishing returns. Presumably, much of the communication capability of the communicators would be based on the ability of the Enterprise to send and receive the signal as an efficient tower surrogate.

    The range to a ship in orbit is ambiguous, especially in the show. Most human activity in space is within a couple hundred miles of the surface. We have not sent people beyond this since the Apollo Program, unless it has been clandestine, and we don't generally know about it. (This seems unlikely to me.) The show had images that showed 'orbiting' well beyond this; it seems likely for esthetic effect, 'We are clearly in space', but often mentions 'orbital decay' which is a significant phenomenon close in, not so much at great range. In the Gary Seven episode, the Enterprise is a large object visible in the sky. There does not seem to be more than a nod to how far away the Enterprise orbits from show to show.

    Tricorder  *  Tricorder  *  Tricorder  *  Tricorder

    Canon is the 'tri' is GEO(LOGICAL), BIO(LOGICAL), and MET(EROLOGICAL). This is a fantasy ensemble of capabilities that make more sense for the ship itself to have than for a handheld device to have. Realistically, in a Star Trek-like setting, meteorological data would be analyzed from the ship before sending an away team, and would be kept up to date; even in our era, the military keeps track of weather that affects ops. The away crew would get updates from the ship. Bio would be done in a lab or in sick bay because precision and verification is important, a local suite of sensors would augment the data and keep it up to date. If you wear a bio-sensing watch, that does not mean you do not visit a doctor. Geological data is trickier, but any observational data would likely occur from the ship, because a larger lens resolves smaller details. Anything close up looking through material would probably involve deploying bulky sending units and bulky sensors that are actually on the surface.

    Our phones cannot come close to the imagined capabilities, but we can use them to access the information, assuming you have a good signal and internet access. You can get auxiliary components to monitor health variables, and meteorological data is within the grasp of a cell phone if the demand was there to incorporate the sensors. You could also feed your phone from your own weather station.

    Direct geological observation through material is beyond the reach of your cell phone. However, ground penetrating radar has become an available technology for some public services to ensure they to not cut buried lines and pipes. Sonar is available to fishermen wanting to spot schools. these could be linked to a cell phone through Blue Tooth if the demand is there; I'm not aware that this has been done or not.

    So, what can a cell phone do? Baseline modern cell phones sense rotation (at least two sets of three axis accellerometers), inclination, can listen and record, can record images and video, can sense location via GPS, keep track of time, and report their charge. They can store internally, to the cloud, on a removable flash drive, or to an attached device. They can access a vast wealth of information through the Internet. With a health monitoring auxiliary device, the combo can record various aspects of one's well being.

    A TOS tricorder is also technologically inferior in several ways. It is bulky, heavier than a cell phone, and the attendant storage items are a fairly large item, a disk somewhere around the size of two nickels or quarters stacked together. Yes, it fit the esthetic of the era the show was aired; gear was still bulky, and at the time the tricorder appeared to be less so. But you weren't going to fit it in your pocket, like you do with a cell phone.

     

  11. Posted

    7 hours ago, ijuin said:

    IMO, the “sweet spot” is somewhere around Ellen/Elliot’s default boob size, and sizes larger than that are more for the novelty value.

    I recall a short Sci Fi story, I think it was by Kieth Laumer, where one of the protagonists was an alien lady agent sent to assist humanity against a threat that I do not recall. In her effort to pass as human, she observed that humans like boobies, so she opted for three pair. Most of the rest of what she did was equally well intentioned and inappropriate.

  13. Posted

    9 hours ago, ijuin said:

    The way that I read it is that they were already girlified, and then Larry absentmindedly casts the boob/figure-enhancing spell.

    In light of what I said above about Larry, and rereading it, I think you are correct. That is a second shot from the wand, kind of explaining the enhanced flotation package 'kind of', because it should be a separate spell. On the gun, you have to dial in v5. The sticks should basically have one enchantment for an untrained user. But perhaps Tedd made these progressive. Don't tap again, you may regret it.

    Boobs are an important part of an attractive girlish figure, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. YMMV; to me, Larry's look painful. Hopefully, the elf suit gives them some serious support. Of course almost worth it for Rich's reaction and George's amused apathy. (Is it directed to Larry, Rich, or both?)

  14. Posted

    19 hours ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

    I took it as an indication that she still remembers a time when candles were high-end illumination tech.  So she probably remembers quite a lot.

     

    18 hours ago, ijuin said:

    Practical electric lights were only developed about 140 years ago. The typical Immortal Regeneration cycle is every “200 years and a bit”.

     

    14 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

    Pandora has been in Sarah's room, Tedd's basement, and the Mall, all recently. If Hope remembers 'fire' she should remember 'lights'.

    Plus, a good deal of her extended life was voyeurism into the EGS world. I don't think she gets a pass for not knowing.

     

    13 hours ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

    Sure, but Hope was regenerated at most a few weeks ago, comics time. That she thinks of electric lights as something exceptional indicates that at least some of her retained memories predate Edison. It seems unlikely that Zeus, for example, would think that way.

     

    This train of thought raises good points. I think the deal is that as a people, in a world building sense, the Immortals were not well thought out when introduced. Not trying to cast shade on Dan here; this is more or less normal. Fictitious people are as detailed as the plot needs them to be. As the milieu grows, the need for detail grows as well. It can, to some extent, grow organically, but often reaches a point where much is uncomfortably grafted in, or more jarringly, is retconned in.

    In EGS, immortals were initially a pervasive, significant side show. They've grown in importance, an now a main character is one. It would be odd if this went smoothly and did not require adjustment.

    Think Klingons on Star Trek. "We don't talk about that."

    At some point, Dan will have to decide on an overall back story for immortals, 'what are immortals, exactly?' Did they evolve in their spirit realm? Or did the ascend to their realm from more mundane origins? Are they universal - touching all multiversal realms? (It seems so, Magus ended up in Pandora's realm.) Do the ones from different universes communicate? (Apparently not; we've seen they have different rules.) Can they travel between these universes? (Corollary of previous, it seems unlikely, or they'd communicate.)

    Taken as a whole, the scant parts we already know are inconsistent. Magus, from another universe, was thrust into a non-material realm that adjoins the EGS universe, yet the EGS universe immortals have different rules than the griffin universe immortals.

    We are watching different shows based on the same material, and the Klingons on the new one do not match the old show.

    Hopes observations are not untoward, but they don't match the old show. She is currently fascinated by the muggle technology. Hmm.

    Another inconsistency is mind reading. Zeus was pretty clear that he does not. Yet Hope was shown as overwhelmed by the shear volume of surrounding thoughts.

    Re: Did they evolve in the spirit realm, it seems highly unlikely that they would have a default human-like form if they had.

    Related; how do aberrations happen? Is this like a failed ascension?

    Why was Magus unable to cast spells in the Immortals' realm? Why would he need his body to do so?

    Why is Steve, the crystal turtle frog, considered to be a deity? What does that even mean in this context? Just an order of magnitude more powerful spell caster? The griffins know of him, so I guess he is multiversal. That seems to place him above the Immortals. Is he one of a race, or is he unique? What is his origin story?

    Re: planning; a lot of Dan's non-canon eventually becomes canon. The Q&A crew are this.

  15. Posted

    You don't want to be exposed if you are compromised.

    We have a minor version of what you have going on. One of the disease vectors . . . excuse me, grand kids . . . is ill. We are gathering anyway. Honestly, though, if we dropped events because a kid was sick, we''d see each other in twenty years. (Of course, if THEY start having kids, we'll never see each other.)

    Fleas on your dog, man. And a prosperous angle on your fleecy dad.

  16. Posted

    Sketchbook Comic for Saturday, Dec 23, 2023

    YAGTSB - Amusing, I suppose, and it has a nice Christmas theme. The 'girls' are cute.

    The action, Larry has just transformed himself (zap background by his head), does not match the timeline of the narrative in the commentary, where he transforms first.

    Their body styles do not match their canon bodies, which the commentary narrative also points out. Particularly disconcerting to me, Larry's massive boobage does not make sense with his normally skinny frame. That would make more sense on either of the others, even both.

    Dan has a flare for drawing nice legs, and he does very good hands, which to me are difficult to draw well.

    Some of the choices are interesting. The outfits match, and are all green with white trim, very seasonal, but a little unusual. Typically, for a Christmas theme, you want red and green. Dan covers this with the candy striped wands.

    Dan also seems to favor miniskirts for non-canon artwork. There are a lot in the Sketchbook drawings. <sigh> There are things I miss about my high school years.

     

     

  17. Posted

    4 hours ago, ijuin said:

    Practical electric lights were only developed about 140 years ago. The typical Immortal Regeneration cycle is every “200 years and a bit”.

    Pandora has been in Sarah's room, Tedd's basement, and the Mall, all recently. If Hope remembers 'fire' she should remember 'lights'.

    Plus, a good deal of her extended life was voyeurism into the EGS world. I don't think she gets a pass for not knowing.

     

    4 hours ago, ijuin said:

    Pick up a hand-sized device and talk to anyone, anywhere in the world in real time?

    Seriously, that seemed unrealistic on Star Trek when it first aired. Mine seems more sophisticated than the communicator and tricorder combined.

     

  19. Posted

    This comic is troubling from the aspect that it portrays Justin as particularly unobservant and clueless. Hope has come into his store, appearing unsure of herself and easily startled, and he has reached out to her to reassure her. All fine and dandy. But Justin has magic, and is aware of magic, and has interacted with less than benign supernatural beings, so his Spidey sense should be alerting him to 'something is not right here'. This already strange girl is fixated on a normal illumination device, then makes a statement indicating that it may not be within the realm of her common previous experience. That's not, 'Gee, I should be more introspective', that's a red flag, 'What the Hell is up with you?' Hope's use of the word 'summon' for turning on a light is another red flag, dude. And referencing fire as a source of illumination? . . . When is the last time you lit a candle to read by?

    Panel seven should have Justin asking, "Who are you?"

    Hope is not very good at this hiding in plain sight thing.

  21. Posted

    Dan must have posted fairly late, I checked last night. Or I screwed up, very possible.

    4 hours ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

    Her reaction on realizing that she let slip to Justin that she knew his name suggests that she intends to keep her past hidden for now.

    It isn't clear that she knew his name. She may have stumbled on it reading a 'These just in' sign out loud.

    I'm taking Justin's explanation at face value for now, she appears to be subject to some of the same magic effects as the humans around her.

    7 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

    She didn't want Justin to know that she knows him, so she carelessly calls him by name.  

    Hope really needs to talk to someone about a whole lot of things. 

    But whom can she trust? 

    Three may share a secret if two are dead. 

    Or

    One may keep a secret as long as that one is not Hope.

    I think Justin is earning her trust at this point.

     

    'Glurk' is not a common word, but I believe I have see it before, in the Dr. Seuss book, McElligot's Pool. One of the kinds of fish swam in a line, all saying 'Glurk'.

  22. Posted

    46 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

    This probably isn't a huge factor in her seeming vulnerability towards humans, but she's not overpowered relative to other Immortals any more.

    (And that may actually play a small part in her being so cautious in her interactions with others; she can't afford to gain the attention of any Immortals which would be hostile towards her. On a similar note, while the new Immortal Rules are supposed to grant them more freedom, it seemed like Zeus wasn't allowed to actually talk about those new rules with humans; it may be that in some ways the new rules are actually more restrictive.)

    That is a good point. She made enemies as Pandora, and she may have ticked the immortals off when she cast the final spell through them.

    It begs the questions, "Can immortals identify the reset personage as such? Would fellow immortals know Hope was Pandora's reset? If not, is that something she is actively hiding? Or is there perhaps an understanding that they are not the same person anyway (which is weakened in Pandora's case, although they may not be aware of that.)"

    She is not great at stealth; she had elf ears a few comics ago.

    Also, what's up with hearing everybody's thoughts, and then not? Can all immortals read minds like that? We've had some weak indication that they do in a general sense, but she had a much more intense mind reading ability going on. (Might have something to do with the elf ears.)

     

  23. Posted

    32 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

    Still no power.

    One of the downsides to living in the middle of the woods is that buried lines aren't really practical for the most part - and there are a lot of trees and branches to fall on the lines. I'm pretty much used to our loosing power at least a few times a year, though usually it's only for a few hours, or at most a day. It's only when a really big storm causes damage across a wide area that we wind up without power for days; the last time was three or four years ago, and prior to that it had been a couple decades since it had last happened.

    Our soil is shallow clay in this region. Trees do not root deep, and they fall fairly easily. When I moved here, I wondered why the homes had few trees nearby for shade. Can't do that; they fall on the homes way too often.

    We had outages from above ground lines coming down. Over the years, they've been burying the lines. More of a problem still, the further out of towns you go. Points for investing in the infrastructure, though. It's cheaper for the utility as well, in the long run.

  24. Posted

    Normal immortal resets were said to leave a memory of the former life 'like reading a notebook'. Hope had a clear impression of marking Justin, even though we have no indication that she thinks of him as family. She is retaining a lot.

    And is apparently overwhelmed by her former life, as several have observed.

    My take on this is that even though her actions were often extreme and hurtful, she was more stable than the situation warranted because she had a good foundational purpose for lingering. Not saying it was overall a good idea, just that her outcome seems better than most immortals would have achieved.