Grrl Power

Yeah, but time travel has pretty huge implications all around, and the author already demonstrated a desire to avoid those implications when it turned out that Krona's "time loop" was actually an amnesia loop with attached healing. And time loops are easy. Full-on "we accidentally traveled centuries into the future and now we're back" time travel has the potential to turn the entire universe upside down.

My first (probably wrong) thought when I read that was that the Mecha-Cthulhu entities also had quantumly entangled minds (either between each other or each has multiple entangled intelligences within it), and proximity allowed Harem to accidentally interface with that.

But the whole point about quantum entanglement is that it doesn't work like that, even when it's being used as superhero story bafflegab. Harem's brains are entangled because she somehow duplicates the subatomic particles of which they're made — after which, proximity is inherently irrelevant.

The comic may be using the term to mean "bullshit magical telepathy", with proximity somehow allowing two unrelated sets of particles to become entangled, but I'll be a little disappointed if so.

Anyhow, yeah, I reckon it's time travel. After all, FTL travel is already involved, so technically there's already time travel.

Eh, it's also already canon that powers can develop and get stronger as time goes on. I think "the situation caused Harem to level up" is more likely than time travel (mostly because I don't think the author wants to monkey around too much with time travel).

Maybe there is more than one Harem gestalt out there and the portal managed to connect them.

Harem's reaction isn't just the only reason why I find time travel to be the most likely reaction. This comic (bottom row, middle panels). Sciona mentions that she was in contact with her people just days before opening the portal.

Also, the fact that Harem is quantum entangled across her various bodies is why I consider alternate realities less likely. Quantum based technobabble is the traditional method of distinguishing between alternate realities and that would keep Harem from synching with her alternate universe counterparts, even if alternate realities are canon to the comic from the "Wearing the Cape" crossover.

Possibly the dumbest decision in Sydney's life, not that that's saying much.

I dunno; not sticking around while somebody repeatedly nukes you sounds fairly rational to me.

{nods} Although I can also understand her trepidation. "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space." If she doesn't have a method of navigation, it's really easy to get lost, and there's no guarantee of finding anything, let alone what you're looking for.

Then again, as you say, she's also under attack. It's kind of like how it's incredibly dangerous for most people to leave the trail in a forest, but if you're being chased by a guy with a gun, off the trail may be the safest place to be.

Well, it depends. The "getting out of the immediate area" part is definitely smart. It remains to be seen if the "get your ass out of this star system" part is or is not. I mean, I totally get not wanting to gamble on just how localized this planet's apocalypse is going to be.

Unless she suddenly finds out she has a Warp drive even getting interplanetary is going to take time, not to mention interstellar

A lot of it depends on what limits her top speed. I seem to remember she's one of the team's faster fliers, and without friction to stop her, she may be able to just keep accelerating. Of course, you still have that issues of huge distances, plus navigation... plus, if one of the orbs is the navigation orb, she's probably going to have to always have one hand on the Shield orb, and alternate between Flight, Life Support, and Navigation, which is going to amount to tremendous distances traveled before she can check to be sure she's on-course.

There's still the old 300 000 km/s speed limit

Also, her orbs might have built-in limiters for atmospheric travel (which would just be a sensible safety precaution), so Sydney's observable limits might be due to her previous terrestrial location.

Alternately, she might have a level-up (or two) that she hasn't spent yet.

The most obvious powerup would be that her last orb has a warp drive (presumably with a navigation passive of some type) but doesn't function in a gravity well. Plenty of ships differentiate sublight and FTL propulsion, so it wouldn't be completely redundant with the flight orb.

Maybe the last orb is ship's computer, hopefully with built in translation?

Honestly I get the feeling that since it covers a form of telepresence as well, communications functions are more likely to be in the yellow orb.

And that's not even proper *intrastellar* distances

Mach 4 is, for simplicity's sake rounded up, 5000 kilometer/hour. Distance to the Moon (if we take Earth-Lunar distance at average as standin, since it's described as similar) at 384,400 kilometer. Which means a travel time of leisurely 68.8 Hours.

(Which means she basically spends the entire time we wait for the next comic flying.)

Reaching Heliopause (assuming the system here is as big as Sol) means jaunty 18 000 000 000 kilometers, which translated at Mach 4 to a tiny bit over 41 years of travel time.

So, again, Sidney better find her Warp Drive setting, because she's not getting anywhere soon in Mr Einsteins Neighbourhood.

And yes, I am aware that in a vacuum, she'd probably not keep at Mach 4 but keep her acceleration that gets her to Mach 4 within the confines of an Atmosphere and just gets faster and faster with time. But since I don't have any info on her kps squared or the time it takes her to reach Mach 4 I did the math with what I had

Edited by 3of4 on Jul 30th 2018 at 1:16:42 PM

Plus, we don't know why her max speed in an atmosphere is Mach 4—it's clearly not using something as simple as a rocket. Meaning Mach 4 might be her max speed right now, period, both in an atmosphere and in a vacuum. She certainly hasn't mentioned anything about making her shield smaller to be more aerodynamic.

I guess this answers whether or not the orb just has a max of Mach 4 or if it was just a limiter built in for atmospheric travel (obviously, the former).

On the bright side, it seems safe to assume that Sydney, at the very least, is clear of the immediate violent danger.

Mach 4 relative to what?

The speed of sound?

Relative to nothing. Mach Factor is a unitless number.

But practically speaking, the surface of the planetary body.

So it can't be a limit in free space with no nearby planetary bodies, then.

Anyhow, new strip, and Sydney is no more clear on this stuff...

So if I understand correctly, she's going to go back down to the planet with the dangerous aliens that can actually damage her shield in an attempt to grind for experience and become powerful enough to escape?