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Thank you for the support! You guys are awesome!

Exposition by way of ignorant character acting as audience projectee is vital, you guys.

Dabbler asking "Is that something they teach in schools here?" sounds condescending on its face, but she's been to a lot of planets and it's hard to keep that stuff straight. She's like someone who works at CERN alongside people with multiple advanced degrees being selected to go to (rolls dice) Tonga and giving a talk about (rolls dice) M-Theory. I don't know much about Tonga without googling it, maybe they're insanely well educated? At the same time, maybe the average American doesn't know what transformers actually do or how they work. I'd actually be willing to put some money on that.

In the Grrlverse, just as in many LitRPG/Cultivation novels, an abundance of mana can cause several things to happen spontaneously. Dungeons is one of those things. It can crystalize in various forms and has different names depending on where you are. Magicite, Materia, Chakrum, "Dem glowy things," etc. It can also form other types of cores besides dungeons, namely monster cores, but also weapon cores, airship cores, all manner of things.

Earth is currently a "Middle Lower Class" planet as far as mana density goes. It doesn't prevent magic from being used, but mana regen/enchanted item recharge takes a lot longer, and you don't get many spontaneous mana events. Not none, just enough to inspire a lot of folk tales.

The Twilight Council want to up Earth's ambient mana to Upper Lower Class, maybe even Lower Middle Class. Enough to give them all a lot more breathing room, but not enough for Earth to suddenly go LitRPG and spontaneously install a System.

Edit: Typos fixed.

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Comments

Anton Schleef

Want, so in the Grrlverse Espers are basically living mana? Interesting.

Mike

Glad for some exposition here. This new topic just came out of nowhere. One page Max is out at a bar, the next page this. I've been so lost.

Cat Tillinghast

Sounds like a game of Dungeon Keeper. A dragon's gonna need a LOT of chickens, though

Matthew Dodgen

The exposition is appreciated. I love the thought u put into this concept of a dungeon and how it comes about. Many writers just hand waive a dungeon into existence and move on.

Marc Vun Kannon

I'd rather have more Max at the bar (or gaming with Sydney and Rowan), with occasional phone calls to Dabbler, "Hey how's that mana project going?" And what happened to Dabbler in that last panel?

Michael Obert

Dabbler has +20 in her exposition skill.

Jared

I don't recall Dabbler ever having this much trouble explaining something. Certainly, she likes going deeper into the "math" of things during her explanations, and it seems trying to avoid that is tripping her up here. Plus, I'm used to her just creating her own "whiteboard" midair.

Kenneth House

I have a question for Dave... If we are getting a dungeon in the grrlverse are we going to be seeing the MC's getting armor that is magically powered so that the groups resistance to damage is upped enough that using potions is more of an after thought. In all fairness as grandma used to say "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". And armor is definitely more than a few ounces.

Justaguy

Typo: I suspect "The heart of dungeon core..." should have been "The heart of A dungeon core..."

Aclys

Wait, so going LitRPG and Systems are a thing that can happen and exist in Grrlverse? What happens to someone from those worlds if they came to earth? What happens if a Super with LitRPG/personal system powers went to a planet with its own system? The possibilities!

Twister

Nice Niall Teasdale callout :)

BJ

I appreciate that Dabbler is basically a scientist and approached the question as one.

Thisguy

So, Dabbler is a super smart person who knows that most people she speaks to don't have her knowledge but is never sure how much or little they know. And she's not really used to teaching those who have no idea. While Zeph is likely to have a few decades worth of experience explaining magic to politicians.

codesurfer

they don't always teach about amperage here. yay Texas education system trying to condense curriculum for testing purposes

Aaron Mauthe

Almost seems like electricity is the wrong analogy to go with here, because weather seems to be a better one. Generating a low barometric pressure area would cause the planet to pull in clouds, storms, etc, because it’s a void that the planet’s atmosphere wants to fill. If you’re then harvesting the clouds for the water, the low pressure area can continuously be refilled. Downside of course is that a permanent low pressure area not only turns the area into a thunderstorm and tornado hot zone, but potentially fucks with the weather around the area too.

Town Crier

I associate the phrases "step down" and "step up" with transformers.

Jostikas

Can someone explain to a poor physics undergrad how transformers "convert volts to amps"? Because as far as "lies to children" go, that one feels so wrong it loses its purpose. Lies to children are supposed to give the right intuition for the wrong reasons... I don't see what intuition can be gained from that particular one.

AndrewRP8023

Sorry, but that's not how transformers or electricity work. Amps and Voltage go hand in hand. They both can be manipulated - increased or decreased - But they are two separate things and cannot be changed from one to another. Think of electricity like a body of water, flowing from a lake in the mountains to the ocean. Now, pick any spot along the river that connects the two. The volume or size of the river at that spot is your Voltage. The speed of the river is your Amperage. Assume it's 20 feet across and 20 feet deep. Decent size river, but if it's trickling along at a leisurely pace, a decent swimmer can cross no problem. This is high voltage, low amperage. Now let's drop a water wheel on that river at this spot. It's deep so we can use a big wheel to turn a big gadget. But the speed/ amperage is slow/low so we're not spinning that gadget very fast or hard. The volume/voltage of the river is big, so there's lots of potential, but without the speed/amperage it's being wasted. Now imagine the speed of the river at that same spot picks up. It's flowing much faster. Faster undercurrents. It's now more dangerous to cross. This is high voltage and high amperage. That same large wheel is now spinning that gadget much faster and harder. The volume/ voltage of the river hasn't changed, only the speed that it flows, i.e a increase in amperage. Let's move up the river to a different spot. Here it's much shallower. Maybe a foot deep, and the speed is slow again. Anybody can walk across no problem. This is low voltage, low amperage. We can put another wheel in the river here, but it's so much shallower (low voltage) that the wheel has to be small and can only power a light bulb, and it's dim. Now let's speed up the river. Still only available foot deep, but now much faster. This is low voltage, high amperage. That wheel, though small, is spinning much faster. Your light bulb is much brighter as a result. Now let's imagine a town is built next to the lake. And the people want to control the river, so they build a dam. This is the transformer. Using that dam, they can control the volume and the speed of the river. By building multiple gates, they can open them all a little bit and release a lot of volume/ voltage at a slow speed/amperage. Or they can open them all a lot and release a lot of volume/ voltage at a high speed/ amperage. Conversely, they can open one gate a little and let the water trickle (low volume, low amperage), or they can open that one gate a lot. (Low volume, high amperage). This whole process allows them to control how many wheels, and what size wheels, they put along the river to spin their gadgets. The river is your conduit or wiring. Given these examples, you can see why having the right size wire is important. Having a small river/ wire limits how much volume or speed the river can handle. Too much volume/voltage or speed/ amperage causes the water to spill over the banks and is how you get shorts and sparks, but amperage is the more dangerous of the two, which is why wiring and extension cords are labeled with maximum amperage ratings. It's not a perfect analogy, perhaps a little clumsy, but should get the idea across to anyone who's curious about electricity. This is how those folks with the chain mail suits can play with electricity with nominal danger involved. They're using high voltage, but low amperage. They're less likely to be 'swept away.' Same idea with those Van De Graft generators that are safe to touch and raise your hair. Tl;dr: Transformers are like river dams, they control the speed and volume of the river; They are linked and can be manipulated together or separately, but don't change one into the other. Thank you for attending my TED talk. ☺️

J. Kevin Carrier

Whoosh. That's some pretty heady stuff. I was initially confused, because I was assuming that "Dungeon Core" would be some kind of aesthetic or lifestyle choice, like "Cottage Core". ;-)

Shadracht

With a lecturer like Dabbler, dressed like Dabbler, I would've either remembered everything, because paying attention, or I would've remembered nothing, because not paying attention to word, but still paying attention. Regardless, "hot teacher" Dabbler for the win.

BearWithBoots

A hydraulic ram pump might be a better analogy. It is a water powered pump that uses high flow low pressure to create low flow high pressure. If mana is moving at a steady rate on a neighboring plane it could be pushed into the material plane with using a relative higher pressure than what is created from normal mana osmosis. Similar to how the hydraulic ram is placed in a river to pump water to a field for irrigation.

Tristan N Milner

"Enormous expense and potential catastrophic danger" A great phrase to post while Oppenheimer is still fresh in people's minds.

Fogel

I kinda need to ask; why is Kat here? Why is she part of the ruling council body when she's only been Were'd a short while ago?

Xavian Starsider

I know what transformers are. They're robots that disguise themselves as cars! (lol)