PaRARGdox 66
Rochelle vs Rarg: Nice try, Rochelle… back to the drawing board!
For those of you who have joined us for the very first time… you can get a sense of how Ambrosia’s power works on pages 7.16-17.
Patreon: By the way, should it be a thing that interests you, my Magellan patrons over at Patreon have been getting full previews three updates ahead of schedule. And you can too for as little as $1 a month… 😎
Families/Cемьи: Page 16 is now online. Sorry for the delay to this… hoping to restart from September, it’s been a crazy couple of months and it’s dented my productivity. Stay tuned! By voting you not only get a new page of this story but you help raise Magellan’s profile and help potential new readers find us.
Next update: Sunday 20 September: Rochelle vs Rarg… pt 2
THAT’S what only a minute can do! 😤
Paz slips back a few seconds early and informs Rochelle NOT to hit the helmet glass,but to try something different…!
Odd that she chose to attempt a swing rather than a thrust with that rebar. I’m not an expert, but I believe one would have greater potential to break something by applying the same amount of force in a compact space rather than spread out.
Yes in theory but no: By using just the tip, you’ll have a much lower force. Most of the inertia will pass by the glass. By using the middle of the crowbar, all the inertia will be passed into the contact area. I did not test this on glass, but when using a random object as a hammer on nails.
Also and somewhat related: If you want to break a stone by a hammer, you should use the broad side:
This [XX> not this.
That way it works better. In my reasoning, it should at least be equal, but I observed that effect myself.
The reason is twofold.
A)Direction. Whatever you do, only the normal force will go to breaking the glass. Any amount of tangential force will be wasted. Since this glass is domed, a swing will have greater accuracy than a jab in this regard.
B)Leverage. With jabbing, you only get so much speed. With a swing you can increse this speed with longer weapon. And since E=mv^2, higher speed means greater chance of breaking the glass.
These advantages may negate the disadvantage of having a bigger surface area.
Related: Assuming the glass is relatively thin, it is likely bent, rather than compressed. This would mean the effective surface is thickness*border_of_contact_area.
Then a smaller contact area would be better, but not by as much as with compression or tension.
In total, I think trying to swing is correct, but she should be trying to hit at 4/5 of the length, rather than at 1/2.
Dang. I’ve always loved Rochelle but to have the wherewithal to go through with this plan, even knowing Ambrosia can time-slip…..that’s hardcore and takes quite the level of mental fortitude. Were it not for her emotional state still being the same as the other young cadets, I’d say she’d be just about ready to graduate (assuming there’s still an academy left to graduate from at the end of this all.)
At this rate she’ll have it solved by the day after tomorrow.
Or a planet left to live on… you saw the flash-forward!
I’d suggest aiming for the ‘pod’ on their backs – strikes me as some sort of life support, like on human spacesuits. Damage that, and the Rarg might be in trouble.
Eventually it will take more than a minute to describe all the failures.
Don’t discount Rochelle’s advanced mentality. I’m sure she would have considered this already and prepared several tactics stored sequentially in her memory, so that she only needs to know what the *last* one was from Ambrosia.
Or Ambrosia can jump back to just after she warned against the previous attempt.
If they want to do this right, they will have to make sure each failure has Ambrosia return to the past after explaining the last failure. Otherwise Ambrosia has to download the entire list of mistakes each time.
Rochelle has probably mapped and numbered out at least the first ten tests in her head already. She’s just getting Ambrosia to check which predictions work.
Rochelle’s comment this chapter (Page 20) about life and death decisions needing to be made in the field really gets put to the practical test here huh?