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Grrl Power #1339 - Qaplonk'
🕑 Added 2025-03-17 10:00:11 +0000 UTCThank you for the support! You guys are awesome!
SYDNEY: "Wait, how am I a danger to myself?"
MAXIMA: "Well, you did you just hit your superior officer with a deadly weapon... even if it's decidedly non-deadly to me. Still, you did just volunteer to peel every potato in..."
SYDNEY: //fidgeting with bat'leth, drops it on foot.//
SYDNEY: "Ow! Ow! OW! Back of the handle right on the long bones!"
MAXIMA: "Also that."
If you were an agent of chaos, handing Sydney a giant, awkward, heavy, bladed thing isn't the worst plan. Or giving her artifacts that grant her amazing superpowers. I'm not suggesting Deus had anything to do with that, but... if he had been in a position to arrange it, he certainly would have considered it.
I think a proper, steel bat'leth would weigh about 20-25 pounds? Depending entirely on how thick it was. The prop that Worf had on the show looked like it was maybe 1/3" thick, and almost certainly not made of steel. Maybe aluminum? I could probably google it. Hmm. I found a prop replica, 1/4" thick, made of aluminum, weighing in at 4 pounds. Honestly I thought Worf's bat'leth looked like a dull nerf weapon if not for the way it caught the light sometimes. I'd assume they'd have two versions of the prop - a dangerously sharp one for display and closeups, then a HEMA or SCA safe version for twirling around and stage fights. The Sword of Kahless looked way chonkier and sharper. I found a "full size" prop on Amazon for sale made of steel, but it weighed less than a pound, because it looked about as thin as a piece of sheet metal. If the prop on the show was made of steel, I'm sure it would be impractically heavy. At least for a human to wield in a fight.
Klingons were supposedly something like 4 or 5 times stronger than humans, but that was just something the writers said. The guys staging the fights never got the memo, because human starfleet officers almost never lost a fight to one on camera. Major Kira, beanpole that she was, won every melee she got into against a klingon if I recall correctly. Oh, but she was an expert guerilla combatant, you say? That's fine if she's lacing the hallways with claymores, but I distinctly remember her blocking an overhead strike from a klingon by holding her phaser rifle sideways, then shunting the bat'leth off to the side, then hitting the klingon with the rifle, and he went down. That was definitely just lazy "main character VS. the one-hit-die schlub" writing, but really, a woman (and it was never established if bajorans had any particular strength or skeletal advantage over humans, so let's just assume that Major Kira was as strong as a fit, slender human woman), a woman blocking an overhead strike from a man who, as most guys cast as kingons go, probably had six inches on her and a hundred pounds... Okay, sure. I can see that happening. If she meets the strike just right and yes, she has a decade of experience as a soldier. Not impossible. If her opponent was a human male and was only twice her strength. However, if that guy is 4 times as strong as her - and really - a female klingon would be 4 times as strong as her. A male klingon would probably be closer to six to eight times as strong as her, her arms would have buckled or her shoulders would have dislocated, or her rifle would have been ripped out of her grip (let's assume the rifle is made of space polymers and doesn't just snap in half) and that bat'leth should slammed into her brainpan.
So I submit to you that klingons were nowhere near 4 times stronger than humans. 40% stronger, maybe.
You know what's weird and unnecessary? You won't guess what I'm going to write, so I'll just tell you. Memory Alpha had a wiki page for an "hour." Is it a space-hour that takes into account time dilation or some sort of galactic unit of time that's different than a standard 20th century Earth hour? No. It's just an hour. Why it needs a dedicated page on the Star Trek wiki is baffling to me, but it's late as I write this so maybe I'm missing something obvious.
Comments
Aaron Mauthe
You know it feels like that but also I wonder if maybe it’s like with the mini gun. That is quite heavy and we may be overestimating her range.
Kevin Wright
Insert the old cartoon about Wonder Woman and why she uses the braces rather than letting the bullets hit her chest. The words "jiggle, jiggle" are germane, here.
Polysanity
spending five minutes in a room with Sydney would make that an open and shut case of Attempted Murder, possibly with a War Crime upgrade.
Tristan N Milner
"If she hit a little higher, we'd all hear Boiiinnnngggg!" -Dabbler probably.
Eleanor Asher
My thoughts exactly. I could totally see Sydney firing up the lightsaber and turning around without looking.
Martin Drkoš
At least he didn't give her a working lightsaber.
Martin Drkoš
Isn't he also an equipment supplier for ARC-SWAT? It's just something extra for his best customers.
TheEvilSmurf42
A valid argument but those gifts were more in the vein of courting her and he was quite clear about that. I don't think he is trying to bed Sydney though I could be wrong.
eddi_TBH
Deus is fooling around with Sydney. Even something in the two handed sword category is not that heavy. Or thick or unblanced. I had one opportunity to try a bat'leth made by a sword maker who turned out decent replicas of historic swords. It weighted about eight pounds. Not a super thick prop but definitely sturdy. I could hold and maneuver it (carefully) with one hand. Holding it by either side grip makes it tip heavy. Use two hands and it makes a slasher. A piece of steel that thick would be rejected due to it's weight. If the Klingons use stone (lava) it wouldn't be a heavy as steel. Remember Jadzia could wield one.
eddi_TBH
Max.
Torabi
Then Max has set a bad precedent by accepting multiple gifts from him.
Anton Schleef
With the weight distribution of a bat'leth 20 pounds IS within the range of what could be effectively wielded by a human. With proper training and conditioning that is. It's when the weapon has the majority of the weight distributed away from the grip, especially at over a 2 foot distance, that anything over 10 pounds starts to become impractical.
Anton Schleef
I'm not entirely sure that 30 feet is a safe distance WITHOUT her using the molestorb tentacle. I mean, I can see her losing her grip and it potentially getting flung further than that before she reacts to grab it with the molestorb.
Simon Magid
Also they were all drug addicts. I have heard a lot of things about addiction but never that it did your long term health and physical shape any favours.
TheEvilSmurf42
you make a point that is hard to argue
Cha0sniper
Yeah, but who's gonna be brave enough to take it away from her? Not it! XD
Eric Loken
The notion that Klingons were multiples stronger and faster (yes, they were supposed to have reactions 3 or 4 times faster too) was always stupid, pretty much for the reasons stated. But then there is also the question of HOW they became that much stronger. Klingons are not that much bigger than humans on average, so they would require much greater muscle density to accomplish that strength, but without a significantly stronger homeworld gravity they simply would never develop that way, and their gravity wasn't significantly stronger. It was an idiotic writer thing that never actually made it into the scripts. They did say that Vulcans (and Romulans) were somewhat stronger, and that *did* actually show up in the scripts, but they were never supposed to be multiple times stronger, simply a somewhat higher gravity homeworld, and thus proportionately denser muscles. I did like on The Orville that they kind of parodied the stronger alien idea by having the tiny female security chief be from a super high gravity homeworld, and that she could crush steel with her bare hands (her skin would have also been so dense that it would have been extremely difficult to cut). They even did deal with some of the issues that normal humans going to that world would be crushed (even their shuttles should have been unhappy with the gravity), and that after a while away her muscles began to atrophy as human muscles do in microgravity. There would have been other issues as well, but they didn't bother with those as it would have been too much trouble (materials from her world would have been denser as well, simply due to the gravity, due to her density she would have been extremely dense - and thus heavy - as well, and she would have had to be ultra careful around others as she could damage them with a casual flick of her hand).
Tim
Bloody hell, she swung that with her EYES CLOSED!!!
JasonAW3
Btw, as small as Sydney is, and the apparent size of the Klingon Cutty Toy, (hereafter KCT) i figure that it should mass about 8 pounds, on the outside. Get her some proper martial arts training, with both bow staff and sword training, she could easily become INTENTIONALLY pretty dangerous, and significantly stronger.
JasonAW3
OK, now we KNOW something is wrong with Sydney! Considering how much Peggy, (or is that the officer formerly known as Peggy?) drilled into Sydney's head about weapon safety, I'm pretty sure the idea of a sharp pointy thing being quite dangerous in mixed company, and at close range, I'm pretty certain that she wouldn't just go aimlessly swinging around her new gift from Deus... ESPECIALLY with her eyes CLOSED! ADHD does NOT equal dumber than dirt at random times! I've had weapons safety, both pew pews, and long sharp pointy things, drilled into my head before I joined the navy, and, on rare occasions, as a refresher. (By my choice, as part of a training session for others as well). So, either Sydney forgot her weapons handling training, she's still stoned, her ADHD meds wore off and she's mentally exhausted, her ADHD meds had a weird reaction with Scionia's "drug slap" or some combination there of. Knowing Deus, he probably figured this out already, thus, the Klingon cutty toy, and the resulting Max attack...
IHazNoFace
did a quick model mock up, assuming the usage of 1045 steel, and a 4 foot total frame length, 1/4” thick, it would be about twenty lbs. source: me using Solidworks, an online image, and compensating for finer details
TheEvilSmurf42
I don't want to be the spoilsport but Sydney is Law Enforcement. A gift from someone like him is very much considered a bribe legally speaking.
Phil_M
I get the impression that those “super” soldiers ran on fanaticism and numbers rather than any kind of design quality. The Founders were arrogant twerps, after all, not noted as scientific geniuses.
Person
I seem to recall that they were deliberately designed to be awkward as a way to show off. If someone could win with a Bat'letH, they were amazing.
Hamish Clarkson
True, but Syndey is clearly swinging it with her eyes closed.
Mark Magagna
I'm not sure that Max would make noise walking unless she did it deliberately. If you could fly everywhere, why wouldn't you? Admittedly, not looking where you're swinging is careless. On the other hand, it's a construction site and there wasn't anything there when she walked up.
Mark Magagna
Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu.
magnumsoldier
As a longtime knife collector and retired soldier I can confirm that the heaviest and strongest blades in my collection are made of high-carbon steel
Erin Palette
I don't know if I can find it again, but somewhere on YouTube there's a video from a medieval weapons re-enactor who said "If you wield a bat'leth like a scimitar instead of [usual way] it makes a lot more sense and is far less unwieldy" and then goes on to demonstrate the technique. TDLR weapon is fine, the fight choreographers were using it wrong.
Chase the Dragon
I'm simultaneously impressed and not surprised at all that Deus had that Bat'leth tailored to Halo's dimensions. Somewhere on the internet lies a fan page that lists info on Klingon weapons, making your own at home for sparring in different materials. And instructions on measuring it like swords would be. Length of arm or parts of arms detail the length.
Tim Starliper
I think he has his distance units mixed up. Surely, that was supposed to be miles, not feet.
Aaron Mauthe
Thirty foot minimum safety distance UNLESS she weaves her molestorb tentacle into the handles, and now that’s increased to several hundred feet.
Town Crier
Yup. Worf is in her notebook, probably under back-up mates.
MrHHH
You know what would be hilarious? If Maxima found out that she was critically vulnerable to bat'leths.
Philip Brown
only one or twice times did i ever see an extended fight scene with them. but used skillfully they are IMPRESSIVE
Jonathan Hamilton
...30ft does not seem a safe enough distance when Sydney is involved...
Hamish Clarkson
Very true. Very irresponsible of Deus to make a Bat'leth for Syndey. I approve.
KnightRider007
Yeah, that’s clearly extremely reckless and dangerous behaviour. If she didn’t notice a 6’6” woman with reflective golden skin before she swung it, she’s clearly not situationally aware enough to be swinging it.
Czarzhan
My wife has a sword thats a functional replica (Museum Replicas Limited) based on Conan's sword from Conan the Barbarian. It weighs about 5.5 lbs. I bought an earlier version of the same sword (which I, unfortunately, no longer have) made from high-carbon steel, which weighed about 8.25 lbs, but due to the unwieldiness felt like 20-25 lbs.
James C
On Kira's block: blocking an overhead strike is not about overpowering your opponent's strength. It's about overpowering your opponent's *weight*. If you can block their weight, then the only thing that extra strength does for them is push them up and away from you - they have nothing to brace against. (A sideways strike would be a different matter entirely, because they would have better leverage)
Playwars
I think Deus would make an amazing uncle. Mysterious, always has the coolest gifts and the deepest conversation, but no one in the family is really sure what he does or why he does it.
Woodrobin
Klingons are weaker than Vulcans, who are stated (by two different Vulcans) to be three times stronger than a human. The main advantage Klingons have over humans is toughness: they have thicker, denser bones, interstitial rib supports, *all* of their organs other than the heart have redundancy (with humans it's just the lungs and kidneys), they can regenerate nerve tissue (human adults can't), greater pain tolerance, resistance to shock, etc. The sources I've found agreed that Klingons can get somewhat stronger than humans (they have stronger skeletons, so they can add more muscle before it stops being useful and exercise harder), but aren't any stronger than a human at equivalent fitness levels. Side note: apparently Andorian women are stronger than human men, on average, but Andorian men aren't.
William Elliott
Looked it up and some of the repros in stainless are 5 to 10 lbs. No idea of quality. On Screen canon they call for 5.3 kg [11.68 lbs] when Dax pulls one up to spar in the holosuite
Teksura
> Hmm. I found a prop replica, 1/4" thick, made of aluminum, weighing in at 4 pounds. Steel is *roughly* 3 times as heavy as Aluminum in the same volume, so a steel version of that would probably be like 12 pounds
Rens
I remain convinced that whoever invented the Bat'letH and gave it to the Klingons did so as a practical joke.
Jared Kolbly
I would not be surprised if Sydneys glasses could pick up the muttering for translation. I also wouldn't be surprised if they recorded her earlier interaction with Sciona.
Michael Obert
Beware of a Deus bearing gifts; doubly so if they're for Sydney
Simon Magid
For just a moment I was hoping that she was about to accidentally disembowel Sciona o.o
Simon Magid
To be fair, I never watched any kind of Star Trek for the fight scenes. But yeah, the alien super soldiers seemed kind of anemic compared to the main characters.
Madcat6204
Regarding Deep Space Nine, the main cast regularly got into fights with genetically engineered ultimate super soldiers, each person fighting off several of them in hand to hand combat without a single casualty. Plot armor worked very hard in that show.
Steve Ronuken
https://swordkings.co.uk/product/batleth/ :) lighter than you might think
Randy Kittelson
I don't think bat'lith would weigh that much. The largest sword known to be used in battle was 7 feet long and weighed 15 pounds. Look up the Groot Pierre Sword. A lot of really big blades come in a lot lighter than you'd think.
Michael O'Driscoll
Some good craftsmanship that it didn't shatter on contact with those abs :)
Hamish Clarkson
I haven't laughed quite so heartily as I have at Syndey immediately almost murdering someone by accident even if it did only bounce of Maxima, anyone else would have had a very sorry day. Also hell yeah, another win for Deus immediately winning over Syndey.
DonnieRamesJio
Accepting bribes already Sydney?
