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More Alice revelations

Ardent hits on their attacker

Their attacker is another Alice

Gavia walks

More exposition

[TinPenguin]

Pretty sure Malice knows she can't do more than slightly annoy Alice with her bullets. But she sure as hell isn't going let her approach her freely. And if 'slightly annoying' is the only way to make her point, it'll do.

I guess it's a bit like hurling insults at someone you know to be thick-skinned. It's not for them, it's for you.

[BenRG]

@mikmaxs,

It's just pure anger. Anger that has possibly been stewing for centuries to the point where causing Alice even the most trivial pain or inconvenience is an end in itself.

Oh, and I also suspect that the 'who's faster?' thing is an old, old rivalry between them. Possibily dating back to when they were in training together.

[mikmaxs]

Okay, other question: Do they have super strength to go with their indestructibility? Alice at least has the ability to get through a nanobot shield, but was that superior strength or some other effect? I'm just wondering if, since bullets are ineffective, a fistfight might at least cause some real harm.

[BenRG]

Okay, other question: Do they have super strength to go with their indestructibility?

Super strength has been implied but never explicitly shown in a way that couldn't be explained away by training or some special ability. For example, if Alice is telekinetic, then she didn't break her counterpart's gun, rather she flash-disassembled it. This could also explain the fact that she seemed to levitate when she confronted Gavia. However, that would require an explanation as to why she didn't deal with her adversaries at a long distance.

I think that Jeph is deliberately keeping lots of things about Alice ambiguous. She has shown enough extreme capabilities that it's unlikely that she's just a 'woman-plus' super-soldier at the very top end of what is possible for a human body to achieve. However, there are enough inconsistencies to make it difficult to pin down precisely what special abilities she may have. Then you have the issue of her personality that could further disrupt evidence. For example, what if she just prefers up-close-and-personal and consciously chooses not to use longer-range tactics, even though she has the ability to do so?

My guess remains is that she is an augment. Her biology has been genetically optimised, making her incredibly long-lived and nearly ageless as well as close to physical perfection as it is possible to get at the very top end of physical attributes (strength, durability, perception and intelligence). She may also have synthetic augmentations to make her muscles, skin and bones even tougher (nearly unbreakable) and give her things like active night vision and the ability to generate energy fields to do things like fly or create telekinetic effects (using actual generators built into her body rather than an external nanotech skein). As I already noted, her personality is far from perfect and I'm wondering if her psychotic episodes might be a consequence of something going awry when she was engineered... or if she was designed to be aggressive and possibly even psychopathic because that's what the military end users wanted for their cloned Amazon Warriors.

[Neko_Ali]

She's been shown to punch, or at least knife-hand her way through the bodies of people, animals and wood walls. Being indestructible alone doesn't really explain that, if that's all she has. I can see her being able to put her fist through a wood wall if she was just really tough. But not just casually punch her way through someone's body. She does seem to be able to disrupt technology at a touch. Malice's gun and Gavia's shields just fell apart when she wanted them too. If she can extend that to living things or non technological devices that would explain why she can punch through whatever she likes. It could also be super strength, or something like the tactile telekinesis that a version of Superboy once had. He was telekinetic... but had to actually be touching something to affect it. There are many ways to achieve the feats we've seen Alice performing. But she normally doesn't seem to have more than a human level of strength. She pummeled Gavia bloody instead of just crushing her her spearing her with one punch. We've never seen her casually hefting huge loads around. That's not to say she can't... It's just something she doesn't do.

[Method of Madness]

That last sentence, I think she just has an exceptional level of control over her strength even when it seems like she's let loose. If she'd let loose, Gavia would be dead.

[Kugai]

This is getting ridiculous.

What next?  A TOW Missile??!

[mikmaxs]

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2860
I'll just leave this here...

[BenRG]

Look at that smile! She's got issues... and a recoilless rifle.

[improvnerd]

(Meanwhile, Ardent had touched the submachinegun pieces, causing them to reassemble into a ginormous mecha.)

[wlewisiii]

Look at that smile! She's got issues... and a recoilless rifle.

No, not recoil less. Wouldn't need that muzzle brake. Kinda looks more like a Boys Anti-Tank Rifle from early WWII  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_anti-tank_rifle

Given the weight and recoil of those, it would be a strong (heh) argument in favor of superstrength.

[katsmeat]

If the round that hit Alice could knock her off her feet, then it's a given the recoil from the weapon firing it would knock gun-lady off her feet - conservation of momentum, I'm thinking. Super strength wouldn't help her.  Sure, she would  be firmly holding  the weapon , but super strength would not stop her flying backwards. She would only be able to stand there if (a) she weighted about 500kg or (b) her boots attach to the floor with  some kind of hyper velcro.

If it is a Boys Anti Tank rifle, she must have been doing something quite funky with the cartridges. I assume the British would not have dropped them in World War 2  for being generally crap  and useless (so says Wikipedia) if the rounds carried that kind of energy. Even Tiger tanks would've been quickly looking like 60-ton colanders if shot at with one of those.

[Method of Madness]

It's clearly an explosive round, isn't the blast what's knocking Alice back?

[katsmeat]

It's clearly an explosive round, isn't the blast what's knocking Alice back?

You're completely right, of course.  It's currently 2.53am where I am and it's been a long day. I'll blame that.

[Kugai]

I am seriously beginning to get pissed off with Malice at this stage.

[BenRG]

It's clearly an explosive round, isn't the blast what's knocking Alice back?

Kinetic energy transfer. Those fifty-calibre shells have a lot of kinetic energy

If it is a Boys Anti Tank rifle, she must have been doing something quite funky with the cartridges. I assume the British would not have dropped them in World War 2  for being generally crap  and useless (so says Wikipedia) if the rounds carried that kind of energy. Even Tiger tanks would've been quickly looking like 60-ton colanders if shot at with one of those.

Actually, you're overestimating the armour penetration here. A 50-calibre bullet that has evolved into multi-mile range anti-light vehicle munition bounced off of Panzer mk.3 armour like soft rubber balls. You needed a three-inch armour-piercing explosive shell to penetrate that.

[Is it cold in here?]

Alice said that if the Praeses invaded she could inflict severe losses. To do that she must have long-range offensive weapons.

[BenRG]

Alice said that if the Praeses invaded she could inflict severe losses. To do that she must have long-range offensive weapons.

Probably long-range offensive capabilities that don't strictly fit into our concept of 'weapons'. Energy casters, super-power tasers (more like lightning throwers) and a variety of kinetic capabilities. Just imagine what sort of devastation Iron Man could inflict on an invading army and you've probably got a good idea of what she could do.

She was, after all, very obviously made to be a weapon. She has chosen to be a protector and a builder instead. That's a very positive example, I think.

[katsmeat]

Actually, you're overestimating the armour penetration here. A 50-calibre bullet that has evolved into multi-mile range anti-light vehicle munition bounced off of Panzer mk.3 armour like soft rubber balls. You needed a three-inch armour-piercing explosive shell to penetrate that.

Alice is well built - lets assume she weights 65kg. Gets knocked backwards at 3m/s. Amazingly, Wikipedia tells me a Boys bullet weights 61g. Holy shit - the round was moving at 3200 m/s. It was carrying 0.3 MJ - 18 times the energy of a real Boys round (thanks again WP).  Yeah.... colander time.

If course as Method of Madnesss said, this is an explosive round and she was knocked back by the explosion, not the impact. The calculation is therefore irrelevant; fun thing to do instead of work, though.

[BenRG]

Alice is well built - lets assume she weights 65kg. Gets knocked backwards at 3m/s.

Where did you get that figure for Alice's post-impact velocity from? She could have just as easily been knocked back off of her feet at an initial veloocity measured in centimetres per second. For an object with a high centre-of-gravity like the humanoid body, that's enough to knock us over.

What about the flash? Well, the bullet struck Alice's exo-armour, which I suspect is an 'immovable object'. Thus, I suspect that a lot of its kinetic energy may have been turned into thermal energy, so what we're seeing is incandescent copper and lead radiating away from the impact point.

[katsmeat]

Where did you get that figure for Alice's post-impact velocity from? She could have just as easily been knocked back off of her feet at an initial veloocity measured in centimetres per second. For an object with a high centre-of-gravity like the humanoid body, that's enough to knock us over.

True enough. And I'm only guessing. But it does look like she took a big old thump and was flying through the air, limbs flailing.

What about the flash? Well, the bullet struck Alice's exo-armour, which I suspect is an 'immovable object'. Thus, I suspect that a lot of its kinetic energy may have been turned into thermal energy, so what we're seeing is incandescent copper and lead radiating away from the impact point.

I think a hyper-velocity projectile, going fast enough to vaporize on impact, is superficially indistinguishable from being an explosive round, as already postulated. Besides, we probably won't find out if its one or the other as guns aren't really Jephs thing - I get the idea he just finds a reference picture of a cool one, draws it accurately, does some cool explosions,  then just leaves it at that.

[BenRG]

We round out the month with a very artistically-abstract action sequence (for added alliterative appeal).

(click to show/hide)

I don't know about super strength, but Alice obviously has lightning fast reflexes to be able to catch a just-launched RPG mid-air like that!

I'm wondering what upsets her adversary more: the fact that Alice is beating her or the fact that she's breaking all her toys!

[Kugai]

Well, now that that's settled .............

[Method of Madness]

Notice that she says "stop trying to shoot me", not "stop trying to kill me".

[Kugai]

Alice is immortal


Her last name is really McCloud