Page 14 of Legacy is now up and you can read it by voting for Magellan at Top Webcomics… on your marks… get set…! Voting helps to raise the profile of Magellan and bring in more readers.
Here’s an overview of the Golden Age superhero The Streaker, whose legacy plays a major part in this story. And here’s an overview of some of the other speedsters in the Magellanverse… which should be particularly useful with this update.
I should add that voting will also give you access to all the pages you may have missed so far!
As you might suspect, this story will include depictions of nudity from time to time – nothing gratuitous, but if that sort of thing isn’t your thing then I’ll understand if you don’t want to vote!
I like the touch in the last panels showing the lack of tan on Nadine where her bikini (or underwear) would normally cover. She is clearly a cotton-tail.
Let’s see. As she runs around the island, she: 1) runs by Kaycee and Fatima who can barely notice her. 2) runs by Jenna and Chiq, who fully notice her, but she is by them too fast for them to ask her why she is running around without any clothing (members of both species apparently have very fast senses). 3) runs by Vostok and Olga, in the middle of a training session. After she leaves the scene, Vostok asks Olga, “Wen exacly did youz notiz the yellow-hair runner? Wen exacly did youz notiz that he waz without hiz artificial covering?” Olga: “I noticed when Jenna had a thought about her running around naked, then I concentrated on Nadine. Her thoughts just kept flashing between the names Speedlines and Zac Breen; I think he is one of the upper year cadets here, but I don’t know who Speedlines is.” 4) Because she is not used to running in the last few years without a sports bra, she is going to be a little distracted giving herself a hand-bra, which might affect her balance and the enjoyment of the run.
This isn’t supposed to be (that) tittilating… Bu I have a thing for tanlines, so…
So… She needs to complete a 25k run in 5 minutes? that comes out to be 300 KpH – a mere 15 KpH faster than her previous top speed…
I can see a few things that might affect her speed in this run:
1: The possibility that the Streaker’s reasoning for his attire (less drag) is actually that effective (although I don’t see how that would be better than running on the treadmill with no wind to worry about).
2: Having to deal with a couple of weights that are usually held in place a bit better (one of the slowing factors, obviously)
3: The run dress code being what she needed to access the Streaker Synergy.
4: Her desire to NOT let Zac Breen into the Fast Club.
All in all, that’s 2 pros, 1 con, and 1 undecided. I feel fairly confident that she’ll find that last 15KpH – and that’s without taking into account plot armour.
“plot armour” I totally want to re-use that 🙂
Feel free to it’s actually a general term: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor
Yeah, I love it too!
Note however that her average speed in this complete run – including a start from standstill – needs to be higher than her previous top speed. Just matching her previous top speed is a big difference, at least as big as going from 285 to 300 in either measure. I still have no doubt she will do it, the Fast Club seems far too well informed to have misjudged such an important point. 🙂
Good point, this calls for some theoretical speedster maths!
Time to make some assumptions! I’m going to assume that her acceleration is constant, and her deceleration is the same (it makes the maths so much easier) and run through a few possibilities:
1: She needs to stop to hit each button and is spending her entire run accelerating and decelerating (reaching top speed in 6 seconds and immediately slowing down to hit the next button). Required max speed: 600KpS.
2: She needs to stop to hit each button, but only needs 1 second to reach the run’s top speed (and 1 second to stop). Required max speed: 327.272727…KpS
3: She can it the buttons without slowing and needs 6 seconds to reach top speed (and to stop at the end – again, it makes the maths easier). Required max speed: 306.122449KpS
4: She can hit the buttons without slowing and only needs 1 second to reach top speed: Required max speed: 301.003344KpS
All in all, acceleration time plays a far smaller role in her speed requirements than I expected (exept the first scenario – that one I didn’t need the calculator for). Interestingly, I did a little bit of reserch and found that the limiting factors on human speed (assuming the speed of your limbs isn’t the problem) are traction (which can be improved by going barefoot so you can grab the ground with your toes, or crawling) and your knees hitting the ground as you lean into the wind (which can be avoided by running backwards, or crawling)… I suspect actual speedsters would look rather weird going from A to B…
Have we seen that lightning bolt tattoo before? I can’t remember and for some reason I want to know all about it!
It’s a brand new addition! 😀
Did she get it to celebrate the big dragon battle?
Not likely if it is brand new here – in the future! This is their third year, the dragon battle actually happened way back during their first year. Maybe (hopefully!) we still get to see when she decides to get this a little bit further on in the main story. 🙂
Pretty much brand new. She’s 18 now so…
So. Nadine likes the beach?
We have seen her surfing with Kaycee… here
Yup, that was smaller than I expected – I failed to grab a calculator (a stupid mistake considering how many I have). It seems unreasonable that she would reach top speed in a single second, but on the other hand it’s very safe to assume she doesn’t need a full stop to hit a button.
Maybe she needs to slow down to half speed to hit the button? Assuming constant and same acceleration and deceleration that is the same number of seconds for the start and each of the 23 buttons, additionally assuming a flying finish, that is 24 times the time to full speed spent accelerating and decelerating. At 2 seconds to full speed that is only 48 seconds of the total 300 averaging half speed, resulting in 326 km/h required full speed. 3 seconds acc/dec is 72 seconds half speed, requires 341 km/h full speed. Which is a whole lot more than 285 km/h.
My conclusion: Nadine can hit the buttons while going more than half speed. Probably not at full speed, but likely at 200 km/h or so. (And I should be exercising my newRPL 50g a lot more often.)
Somehow, when taking a bit too long to write up a reply, the fact that it is a reply gets lost. I guess my browser reloads the page and retains the text I’ve written. Not sure if there is a reasonable solution to that.
In my case, I’ve got 6 calculator apps (I deleted the default one) and a slide rule.
Looks like she swallowed her pride….!