Grrl Power #1252 – Body lock
Dabbler’s stash probably looks like a 20 year WoW* veteran’s stash, ready to outfit any new toon of any class from level 1-99** with uniques and set items, but also neato rares and honestly a lot of trash, because she has a lot more fun acquiring stuff than she does OCD sorting it.
This technique of Dabbler’s is a variation of a known solution for Aetholiths who commit body and memory-napping, so Lapha shouldn’t be too surprised by this outcome. And if you’re like “Hey, she seemed okay with dying earlier when she ditched Sydney.” That’s because she (just her ‘flame’) was laying on a concrete floor, and not piloting a bioroid that’s injecting her with a shitload of fear hormones at the news that she needs to come to terms with her potential mortality.
* Does WoW even have a massive shared stash like that? Maybe Diablo 3 or Path of Exile would be a better example. You know what I mean. In my lifetime I’ve put maybe 25 hours into MMOs. The idea of heroically killing the evil what’s it only for him to respawn 5 minutes later and you run into the next guy to heroically kill the evil whosamajig as you’re walking back to town from the dungeon of where ever. The whole setup just kind of highlights the kind of pointless time sink of the endeavor for me. I have caught myself thinking “Is this what girlfriends feel like when they see guys playing video games?” And then I squashed that thought so playing single player games (and the occasional co-op) didn’t depress me.
My other complaint about MMOs is that often the leveling up is so quantumly incremental it just isn’t fun for me. Spending 3 hours to level up to get 1% better chance to block with your shield FUCKING SUUUUUCKS. I want shit like in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion where I maxed out my enchanting, made armor with a total of 125 bonus Stealth, on top of my maxed out Stealth skill, went into an Oblivion portal, snuck my way all the way to the end, crouch-walking within feet of demons that outleveled me by 10 or more levels, going right up to the stone McGuffin thing at the end of the portal and breaking it or taking it or whatever you did and then I think, “I have won this game. Doesn’t matter that I’ve barely scratched the main storyline. I have properly beat this game.” That shit is fun. Is it any wonder my favorite novels always involve an OP MC?
Well, okay, may absolute favorite novels are the Justicar series by Paul Kidd. Jus wasn’t OP in that, but he was wildly competent and the writing was excellent and Escalla and Cinders were funny. It’s a fucking shame it only has 249 reviews on Amazon. I’m sure the reviews of a book are a reliable reflection of sales. That series should have 78,000 reviews per book.
BUT – probably the next 9 novels in my top ten have an OP MC, or at least the MC has several awesome mic drop moments where he has his bubble gum and kicks ass too.
** I have no idea what the maximum level in WoW is at this point, and I don’t care enough to google it.
The new vote incentive is up!
Every so often I get the urge to try and draw Maxima all properly shiny, and this… isn’t my favorite attempt if I’m honest. I’ve been sitting on this for a little while doing little tweaks, and decided to finally publish it cause I’m already behind on these. The next one will (almost definitely) resume the trend of including a little mini comic to extend the scene a bit.
As usual, Patreon has some outfit variations as well as sans flagrante.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
I see SO MUCH lewdness potential in that especially for certain niches.
Womb tattoos? That lewdness potential is well exploited, don’t worry. From everyday people getting them to very extensive fictional narratives where succubi infuse magic in them that does something very different to “make you die with the body”
Considering it’s done using a womb tattoo it probably started as a niche lewd thing and Dabs is just repurposing it for imprisonment of a criminal.
Jus and Escalla rule! I tend to visualize them drawn in manga style, especially when Escalla really annoys Jus.
I think if the first D&D movie had been an adaptation of White Plume Mountain, now we would have a ten+ movie franchise and at least 15 books!
Ahem… got carried away.
Back to Jus and Escalla, it’s also one of my favorite series, and even dabbled (heh!) in writing them for a fanfic, a crossover with, of all things, Evangelion. Shinji trained by Jus is badass, add some levels of sorcerer and mixing a bit of the Shadow Chasers setting from D20 Modern and I had a blast writing!
It’s Pauli Kidd now. I know them on FB. Nice person.
A 99% that I very much doubt Dabbler belongs to, which is what really bothers me about this.
Not to mention:
1. Dabbler not a spacecop let alone a judge.
2. This is a death sentence for just body-knapping.
3. Seeing as it’s an artificial body that is meant to be swapped out it’s “lifespan” is probably FAR below the galactic average and there aren’t any real doctors for it, just repairmen
> A 99% that I very much doubt Dabbler belongs to, which is what really bothers me about this.
Er what? We’ve no information or evidence that implies Dabbler can survive if her body dies.
> Dabbler not a spacecop let alone a judge.
Actually she *is* an active-fire consultant to a branch of the military that acts as law enforcement for supers (and presumably aliens), as well as having the explicit blessing of the law enforcement agency for the Council (The Vis). Plus she’s likely acting on the orders of someone who does have the authority to secure a hostile, dangerous alien life form.
Plus securing her like this means she CAN stand trial or tribunal. Which she may very well do so for violating US laws (Kidnapping, assault of a federal officer. To start)
> This is a death sentence for just body-knapping.
No? Considering the whole ring sequence this is likely reversable. In fact considering that Lapha should know about this common technique for containing illegal Aetholiths, it likely IS reversible.
> Seeing as it’s an artificial body that is meant to be swapped out it’s “lifespan” is probably FAR below the galactic average and there aren’t any real doctors for it, just repairmen
You mean except Frix. Who is Cora’s ship doctor. Who is shown to be pretty competent at his job. Who is one call away from being a retainer/contractor to Archon?
Not to mention that Lapha was already saved from death/suicide by hopping out of Sydney.
Yeah I don’t see what is that bothersome.
> Er what? We’ve no information or evidence that implies Dabbler can survive if her body dies.
Come on, it’s Dabbler. She definitely has some way to dodge death set up. Become a lich, swap bodies (which we know can be done, Sydney did it in the Incentive), cybernetics, deal with her master, etc.
> Actually she *is* an active-fire consultant to a branch of the military that acts as law enforcement for supers (and presumably aliens), as well as having the explicit blessing of the law enforcement agency for the Council (The Vis).
I made sure to say spacecop and not cop for a reason.
> No? Considering the whole ring sequence this is likely reversable.
Yes? You’re assuming she’ll just give up the ring.
> You mean except Frix. Who is Cora’s ship doctor. Who is shown to be pretty competent at his job
Frix isn’t some sort of bioroid doctor. There’s no reason for that to even be a thing. That’s like being a battery repairguy, you just get a new battery.
The entire idea of Dabbler’s action here is to help the US government to punish a law breaker in a way that a normal jail setting will work. As far as a bioroid body goes, we know nothing about it, so talking about “what if’s” is pointless. By definitions, a bioroid is just a lab grown/built body that has the basic ability to live, it only needs a mind to run it beyond just laying there. Flix is both a mechanic AND a doctor, how wouldn’t a bioroid not fall into his area? True, locking Lapha into that body into that body could be considered a death sentence, however, it’s not like she’s been strapped into a OR table for the next 40 years with the IV stuck in, Lapha now has a chance to straighten herself up and fly right, rather than being a money grubbing cold-hearted merc. She has the lifetime of her body to figure out if she wants to die young or to try and make a honest buck working for the right people, I don’t see the downside of this. The only other option with her IS the IV on a table, or just take her out and shoot her.
Just on the bioroid thing, I wouldn’t compare bioroid to a battery, but rather to a car. Something you would absolutely replace when necessary but also something you would likely want to keep running for as long as possible. Some might have an attachment to a particular bioroid for sentimental reasons, some might consider a certain series of bioroid to be superior and some might just collect vintage bioroids.
So there’s definitely gonna be a market for bioroids repair and medicine.
Agreed. The bodies are indicated to be fairly expensive (Lapha wasn’t able to afford anything better than the base “poverty” model until Garamm offered to contribute if she’d get a tail), so I’d imagine it’s common practice to keep them functioning well as long as possible. Of course, the “death sentence” accusation is assuming Archon will let her die if they have the chance to save her – if her current body starts to break down, she can buy a new one (or get the poverty model if she hasn’t earned enough money), and can be transferred into it (at a minimum, Dabbler would be able to use the ring to undo the enchantment, use her fancy tool to transfer Lapha to the new one, and then seal it up the same way; it’s also possible that, while wearing the ring, Dabbler can actually just snatch up Lapha’s soul-flame and put it in another body).
Of course, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if the penalty for this kind of body-snatching actually is the death sentence (with the sealing serving to keep them in custody while the investigation and trial play out), in order to really beat “You are not allowed to do this thing” into the aetholiths’ flames. And the aetholiths as a whole may well be in favor of such a punishment, as it means the rest of the space community isn’t terrified of them. Lapha may well be in more humane hands here in Archon custody.
Why on earth would you think Archon would save her? I assume you mean she stays as a slave *ahem* “ally” like Vehemence. That just brings us back to point one, hard, and is a great way to start a war with the aetholiths.
(and according to Cora it’s super illegal to sell earth spacetech, so no new body for her.)
– war with the aetholiths depends heavily on how many there are, what tech they have, how united they are, and what allies they can bring. And their cause isn’t all the just, at least by human standards. I know, alien is alien.
– they would be selling spacetech to a spacer, i.e. Lapha. Not to anyone who is an Earther.
I presume Cora is interested in what the xivotech(?) think because she wants to also sell in places where they’re more interested in listening to them. Maybe she has a license she could lose.
On the other hand, there’s a bunch of people on that station who don’t seem to care that they’ve sold to Earthers. They sold mostly food to Sydney, but they certainly sold tech to Executive Dude (I can’t recall his name right now).
> they would be selling spacetech to a spacer, i.e. Lapha. Not to anyone who is an Earther.
It would have to be an Earther.
Clerk: “Hello and welcome to Space-Apple wou- wait, what’s wrong with your flame?”
Lapha: “I am a sl- prisoner.”
C “Oh so that person with you is a police officer? Why are YOU buying it?”
L “They’re not.”
C “Is this a sex thing? I don’t need to know.”
L “Nope, not a sex thing.”
C “Should I call the spacepolice?”
L “Yes please, not sure why we call them spacepolice anyway.”
C “I know right? You’d think we would just call them police. Who writes this stuff?”
*Insert sirens and a very uncomfortable conversation about law, jurisdictions, and Federation vs non-Federation species.*
“war with the aetholiths depends heavily on how many there are, what tech they have, how united they are, and what allies they can bring. And their cause isn’t all the just, at least by human standards. I know, alien is alien.”
I do doubt that the aetholiths would go to war over this.
1) From what DaveB has said, what Lapha did is considered a pretty big crime among the Aetholiths. Also from what we saw with Tenri, She sees them… getting soooo much jail for this.
2) It’s not just an aetholith who was the culprit and a human who was the victim. An aetholith was also a victim (ie, Tenri). I’m pretty sure aetholith society would want to discourage Lapha’s behavior, and according to DaveB, this is close to the type of punishment aetholiths do get, although I’m curious what the difference is on this ‘variation.’ I’m assuming maybe the difference is they are usually kept body-less in one of those devices instead, but that’s just an assumption on my part.
You are aware that prisoners in civilized nations are given life-saving treatments if necessary, correct? Or at the very least they are supposed to be, but I feel the corruption, incompetence, and insufficient funds (which are largely from the first two) that causes problems in our own prison systems would be unlikely in Archon. Saving her would be basic human decency.
As for war with the aetholiths, she literally broke one of their big rules. I also get the feeling they don’t really have a nation of their own but rather are integrated into the larger space community. We also do not know what her punishment up in space would be for her crime, and it’s entirely possible (may in fact be likely, given the “Wild West” vibe space seems to have) Archon’s punishment will be markedly softer than how she would be punished up there.
Selling Earth an aetholith shell would be roughly comparable to selling Sydney grakz, so shouldn’t be a problem. Even if it is, the case of Deus indicates it’s actually legal to sell a human overwise-forbidden technology, it’s transporting it that’s problematic, and Archon has access to at least two resources for doing the transport (even if Cora is unwilling due to legal issues – which to be clear I think she cares about a whole lot less than caring about not causing societal collapse – Sydney can easily use the aetherium causeway). It’s also possible that Deus’ machinations will result in Earth being considered a peer member of galactic society in sufficiently-short order as to render the restriction null.
But maybe you’re the type who prefers the most negative take possible, in which case, sure, go ahead and assume Archon is going to enslave Lapha and work her to death in the mines, or whatever.
> according to Cora it’s super illegal to sell earth spacetech
It WAS illegal to sell Earth spacetech. WAS. Back when Cora first brought Sydney back it was illegal, since Earth was seen as pre-FTL civilization. Prime Directive and all that. However, Earth has entered the galactic community since then, even if just wading and still figuring stuff out, which is why tourism has been opening up, demons looking to sign Earth into their empire, Tyrannus D building out his starfighter fleet, Alari refugees being accepted in, much more frequent visits from Frix, etc. Those floodgates have already opened.
It was illegal, now it’s not.
Yep.
Things have changed. Deus’s advanced fighters either have FTL capability or they are junk now (imagine fighting Cora’s ship without FTL!)
And everyone on Earth with an asset to sell is desperately talking to Altari, tourists, Cora, Dabble, Anyone! about importing tech – some tech will be lifesaving, some will be deadly.
And any super villains are ramping up!
May they live in interesting times!
One: Lapha is a criminal and this is more a form of handcuffs.
Even if we were to brush that aside, well……
Two: In this topic, we feign surprise that the character who is okay with her own race being slaves and thinks consent is for wimps has a moral compass that allows her to be a slaver.
3: Humans can justify ANYTHING as long as they benefit from it. I highly doubt any advanced race of aliens who mimic humans in any way will be immune to such.
Why does she have to be a space-cop? Lapha committed a crime in the US, with a US citizen as the victim. A federal employee no less, and given that she stole Sydney’s memories, she also committed espionage. So Dabbler, as an agent of the US government, acting under orders from her superiors, certainly has the right to restrain/contain Lapha.
Plus this isn’t ‘just body-knapping.’ Lapha committed, as I said earlier, espionage at a very high level. In addition, we can add ‘conspiracy to capture a ranking military officer’ (she did this to get Maxima, remember), slavery (best match our current laws have to mind control), and the host of miscellaneous charges involved with the events at the comic shop. Not that I really feel that you should need anything more than ‘slavery’ to earn life in prison/execution.
We have no reason to believe that Dabbler actually has such contingencies. It is likely but if we the audience have not been told about it or hinted about it, we have no reason think that she actually has one. I am not sure the universe even established such things.
Dude. its glorified handcuffs. She’s a prisoner with severe flight risks. Do you know what’s changed from her being a lamp on the shelf? She has limbs now. If you smashed her little lamp stand, she would have died without another container. Dabbler is a cop. Acting under policy set by law. Also it’s not permanent probably
WoW actually doesn’t have a shared stash between all your characters, yet. That is actually one of the features coming in the next expansion launching later this year. At the moment all that junk just builds up on whatever character you were playing at the time, plenty of cool unlocks that my old mains have that my new ones don’t.
My son and I had a trick with both WoW and Diablo 2 to have storage and swapping out gear between characters, we created multiple accounts and had a few to act as “mules” to hold gear we wanted to switch to different accounts. I was running a satellite server for WoW so it was easy to set up. I just hated installing updates and debugging the data they’d send me to install on my server, each update was 10s of thousands of lines of code, and i had to read and re-read it all checking for errors. And working a full-time job, I was lucky to get any sleep. Add in the fact I had 3 computers to run 24/7 for WoW, 2 for the server, one for debugging and testing. And don’t get me started on the users….
While yeah, characters’ banks were not shared (unfortunately- glad they’re finally adding that, even though I rarely play these days, maybe sometimes in the near future with all the new stuff), Guild banks could be shared, and you could have multiple/all of your characters in one guild, so if you had a small guild (or possibly even a private guild, as some people did, by getting the necessary signatures from some people and then kicking/having them drop out once it was formed, so it was just their own characters), it was possible to have a shared loot/crafting material stash (or with small guilds, you could even have each tab of the bank relegated to specific members to share with themselves)
Emma considering that the ring Dabbler wears is clearly the control for this body lock. Is it really that different from a prison? Assuming said ring is destroyed when time is served?
What time? Lapha isn’t going to jail, the cops would have the ring than, she’s going to be their slave like Vehemence. (and I use that word intentionally. Vehemence cannot leave, there is no time limit, and he will be executed if he isn’t a good boy.)
The last panel also makes it very clear that this isn’t temporary.
It could very well be temporary, for the duration of her sentence she will be confined to one body. No reason it can’t be unlocked just like a prison cell door can be unlocked.
Again, what sentence? This is extra-judicial. Same went for Vehemence, no sentence, no charges, his ass just belongs to them now.
There was mention of filing criminal charges at the end of the parking lot fight, and Arianna mentioned prosecution in their review meeting later. I think it’s more likely that DaveB just didn’t think it would be interesting to show that prosecution, or didn’t think he could write it effectively, and that we shouldn’t assume that it didn’t happen just because it wasn’t shown to us.
Kevin already left, or did you forget him leaving to fight on alien worlds?
Do agree that what Dabbles is doing is not only not ethical, nor legal, and certainly not temporary
Unless he left sometime between now and the last time you said that and were told by someone no he didn’t leave, I didn’t forget.
It’s about as ethical as you can be with a body snatcher.
Maybe V should have thought about that before starting a fight as a man who only gets stronger as he fights.
I will read this book you are recommending. You should try Morningwood: Everybody Loves Large Chests (Vol. 1)
It is very adult oriented but seeing your art on Patreon it might not be too bad for you. It has a lot of humor and the MC is very unusual. I don’t want to say too much due to spoilers.
I’m just realizing that Dabbler only has four fingers.
Tera, before the NA version which includes other regions was shutdown, had a bank similar to what you are describing. Basically, all toons on the same server shared a single bank. It wasn’t exactly massive, but it did have a large amount of space one each “page” was unlocked. You could even bank soulbound gear and withdraw it on another. Couldn’t equip it though.
WoW is getting a shared stash next xpac :D
There are many things that actually bother me about this, although there are many reasons I could probably argue that it’s justifiable also.
Against / Con:
1) Was what Lapha did worthy of a death sentence?
2) By Lapha’s species’ standards, would death by biological body be considered torture, instead of her just dying by fizzling out in the way her will die if by natural causes?
3) Does Dabbler actually have any jurisdiction to do this?
4) Does Earth have jurisdiction to do this, rather than hand Lapha over to the alien representative of the Xevoarchy in the Council for trial, since what she did is also a crime among her own people?
5) Lapha was already captured and could not escape, and could be handed over to the authorities. Doing this seems like unnecessary torture given she was already captured.
6) Somehow I think Dabbler has done many of the same criminal actions that Lapha’s done (theft, killing other sentient beings – according to what Cora mentioned, kidnapping/capture, etc)
For / Pro:
1) Earth could argue jurisdiction since there were crimes that happened on their planet as well, to one of their governments’ officers
1a) Against in tha Pro: Even on Earth, she would first be given a trial in the jurisdiction in which she was captured (USA) and it’s unlikely that it would be a death penalty (which, for Lapha’s species, the limitation of a biological body would be).
1b) Even if there were no jurisdictional problems, and she was charged with some sort of crime by Earth standards, like kidnapping (of Sydney) or even ATTEMPTED murder or assault (again on Sydney), it is not a death sentence penalty for that crime in any jurisdiction in the US.
1c) You can’t use Tenri’s kidnapping as part of the crime, since that would not be under Earth’s jurisdiction for crimes committed – Tenri is not a citizen of any nation on Earth, Lapha is not a citizen of any nation on Earth, and the kidnapping of Tenri did not take place on Earth. Also, from what I recall, the Council has jurisdiction on aliens, not the US government.
2) For all we know, their bodies are biologically immortal and can only be killed through un-natural means (ie, getting eaten, being murdered, faling out of a plane, being crushed, illness, etc). In which case it’s not actually a death sentence – it’s just a way to enforce her to not do things that are dangerous or risky (which would include a lot of different types of criminal actions).
3) It might be a timed delay on how long she has to be in that body (ie, she might be allowed freedom after 20 years of good behavior, etc) assuming someone other than Dabbler is allowed to undo the spell or whatever lock she placed on Lapha’s body. Therefore it would be considered less heartless than keeping her locked up in the flame-holding device for the same amount of time, and might be a way to teach her to be wary of the consequences of her illegal actions.
3a) This only really works if it’s not just Dabbler being the ‘warden,’ since she really doesnt have a right to pass sentence (other than the concept of might makes right, which is a bad road to go down for Earth vs the rest of the universe).
4) This might be a very typical punishment used for the very rare amount of times that Aetholiths commit the crime of body-napping (which DaveB did mention as it’s a ‘variation’). So Dabbler might be doing this until the alien representative is able to sign off on it or tell her ‘no variation on the punishment.’
5) The government of the US might have an existing agreement about stuff like this with the Council. In which case what Dabbler is doing might be in line with the Council’s rules, since we already know the Council tends to take a hard line stance on certain crimes.
I’m really not convinced it is a death sentence. She is trapped in this body and COULD be killed by killing that body. But they could have let her die on the floor before and didn’t. So i don’t see why they would IRREVERSABLY trap her in that body, which would indeed be an ventual death sentence. Even if they just saved her to extract information, it’s way more advantagious if Lapha doesn’t see herself as basically already dead. Someone who has nothing to lose has no incentive to cooperate with you. So it’s in Archon’s best interest to not put her in a situation like that. TEMPORARILY trapping her in the body makes her much easier to detain, though.
It’s 100% a death sentence. Barring an accident like her parents, or murder, her species is effectively immortal.
I wrote my other comment before i read your point 3, where you aknowledge the possibility of it being temporary. Sorry, i just got a little irritated with so many people just assuming this to be permanent and jumped the gun.
Death sentence means “we are going to execute you by putting a bullet in your brain on due date XY, write your last will and testament before that” not “we have disabled your body-hopping, you have to stick with only one healthy body that legally belongs to you until the legal system catches up with you”.
Furthermore, we are not told explicitly that this this is forever, meaning that this could be reversed and allow Lapha to body-hop again if Dabbler decides so.
Prisoners may have their body mobility restricted for security reasons, so can Lapha’s body have restrictions applied to them. Like the guy that jumped at a judge for sentencing him, they put him in chains and a hannibal-lecter-esque mask.
“Death sentence means “we are going to execute you by putting a bullet in your brain on due date XY, write your last will and testament before that””
Not exactly. And there are usually quite a few appeals. It can sometimes take decades.
“not “we have disabled your body-hopping, you have to stick with only one healthy body that legally belongs to you until the legal system catches up with you”.””
You’re thinking of this like a human who already naturally has an expiration date in a biological body with a bunch of side effects that occur when dying in biological body – not thinking like the actual defendant in this particular case.
:)
“Furthermore, we are not told explicitly that this this is forever, meaning that this could be reversed and allow Lapha to body-hop again if Dabbler decides so.”
I think you need to read the entire post that I wrote, because I actually write a lot about that also.
“Prisoners may have their body mobility restricted for security reasons, so can Lapha’s body have restrictions applied to them.”
Again you really do need to read my entire post. Although I will say that they can also restrict her movement by just keeping her in the aetholith holding device, which restricts her movement just as easily, plus does not have the added ‘torture’ benefit (assuming that to an aetholith biological death possibility is considered torture compared to them just fizzling out and dying that way).
“Like the guy that jumped at a judge for sentencing him, they put him in chains and a hannibal-lecter-esque mask.”
Yes but the point being made (in the ‘against/con’ section) is that Lapha was ALREADY in a state where she couldnt do anything – but read my post entirely since I go into detail of the pros and cons of what Dabbler did.
There is no legal system involved, this is entirely extra-judicial. Hence Dabbler having the ring, not a Federation cop/warden/judge. Unless Cora decides to snitch, the legal system won’t even know it happened. (Tenri isn’t in the room anymore)
Last panel also makes it pretty clear it’s intended to be a permanent state (and they have no reason to release her besides morality.)
ARC is a law enforcement organisation and police can put you in handcuffs before trial, nobody complains that being accused of drug trafficking justifies never being able to move your wrists apart for the rest of your life.
All we have seen so far is reasonable pre trial containment.
There will be no trial. There is no reason for them to even GIVE her a trial. They’re not even on Earth right now, they’re blackbagging her. She’s an alien being held by a sketchy part of the US government with no rights, the world doesn’t know she personally exists, and the only other non-earth people that know where she is are Cora’s crew, Tenri who wouldn’t care and who’s knowledge ended the moment she left the room, and her accomplice who’s also all of the above.
Her legal position makes being Guantanamo’d look like the drunk tank.
Yes, I’m over-analyzing. Welcome to the internet.
“There will be no trial.”
Unless the Council gets involved and the alien representative says that space law gives her the right to a trial.
“There is no reason for them to even GIVE her a trial.”
There’s definitely a reason to give her a trial. Especially now that humanity at large knows about aliens and that they have been coming to Earth. It sets a dangerous precedent otherwise. Also, again – the Council has had aliens on Earth for a while and I’m assuming they have some sort of trial concept for lawbreakers.
“They’re not even on Earth right now, they’re blackbagging her.”
They are on Earth right now. Last comic, Tenri thanked them for taking her to a pre-FTL world to get her body back (the pre-FTL world is Earth) and afterwards Gellen carried an enraged Tenri away saying he would get some Earth food into her.
“She’s an alien being held by a sketchy part of the US government”
ARCHON is a publicly recognized element of the US government’s armed forces. There was an entire press conference about it.
“the world doesn’t know she personally exists,”
Both the fight in New York and the aftermath of the fight with Sydney were televised, so the world does know she exists.
“and the only other non-earth people that know where she is are Cora’s crew”
And the group that was with Lapha when she was in Tenri’s body. And one of them is a good friend of Tenri, who Tenri would likely tell as well.
> Unless the Council gets involved and the alien representative says that space law gives her the right to a trial.
and they’ll tell the council they did this, why?
> There’s definitely a reason to give her a trial. Especially now that humanity at large knows about aliens and that they have been coming to Earth. It sets a dangerous precedent otherwise.
Second verse, same as the first. Humanity doesn’t know about this, the Council doesn’t know about this, and we’re talking about the US government here.
> They are on Earth right now.
Ok, was wrong. That makes it worse, not better though. Whole thing is nice and hidden now.
> ARCHON is a publicly recognized element of the US government’s armed forces. There was an entire press conference about it.
The CIA, FBI, DoD, NSA, DIA, DHS, etc are all also publicly recognized and we know they’re just lil’ sweeties. First day here?
> Both the fight in New York and the aftermath of the fight with Sydney were televised, so the world does know she exists.
> Both the fight in New York and the aftermath of the fight with Sydney were televised, so the world does know she exists.
They know there was a random purple alien with a funny fire thing on her head onscreen for a few seconds. That’s the sum total of their knowledge.
> And one of them is a good friend of Tenri, who Tenri would likely tell as well.
and they will know, at most, what Tenri knows about Lapha’s current state. Which isn’t much.
and the next comic confirms most of what I just said.
No trial, Federation doesn’t know she’s there, and if she doesn’t want to get thrown in a off the books hole (with the empty promise they’re let her out in 20 years) she’ll have to do sketchy shit for the US government.
This was the third kidnapping she was involved in on Earth (Maxima, Tenri, Sydney). Tenri wasn’t kidnapped on Earth, but she was forcebly detained on a location on Earth.
I’m pretty sure that if I kidnap someone in Belgium and then keep them locked up in the USA I can be detained in the USA.
In this body she can very easily escape just by kissing (or maybe just physical contact), and in the other gizmo she could escape through the internet. Since she has already escaped the Earth jurisdiction once, making her untransferable is the only option if you don’t want her to have a way to escape.
That this might might involve her dying, as this body (or even the gizmo) could be broken, is an unfortunate consequence at the moment and unavoidable unless you can put her in something that is absolutely indestructable in any and every way.
And it is shown (through the death of her parents) that her race are not immortal even when able to leave their body.
“This was the third kidnapping she was involved in on Earth (Maxima, Tenri, Sydney). Tenri wasn’t kidnapped on Earth, but she was forcebly detained on a location on Earth.”
No, she was not forcibly detained on a location on Earth. She was at a demon university on another planet. That’s why Cora and her crew had to get Garamm, instead of ARCHON.
“I’m pretty sure that if I kidnap someone in Belgium and then keep them locked up in the USA I can be detained in the USA.”
Because you are from the USA, and the detainment took place in the USA. But if you are from Germany, and you kidnap someone from Belgium and keep them in Bolivia, then the USA doesnt have any jurisdiction for that particular crime, just because the criminal later did something else in the USA. The USA would have jurisdiction for the crime committed in the USA, to USA citizens, but not to the crime committed in Bolivia to a Belgian citizen.
“In this body she can very easily escape just by kissing (or maybe just physical contact), and in the other gizmo she could escape through the internet.”
The argument to that being to keep her in the device which Tenri and Lapha were each being captured in, which also does not involve a potential biological death.
“That this might might involve her dying, as this body (or even the gizmo) could be broken,”
And according to DaveB, Lapha doesnt care about that as much as ‘piloting a bioroid that’s injecting her with a shitload of fear hormones.’ The main reason for putting her back in the biological body is arguably that it would be considered a more torturous possible death because of the inclusion of biological hormones which would induce fear.
Now.. there is of course the possibility that this is the intended reason for locking an Aetholith in her own body, both by galactic standards and Dabbler’s own reasoning (or at least part of the reason to do that). But I put that in the post I wrote as well, I believe. My post had both pros and cons on Dabbler’s actions.
“And it is shown (through the death of her parents) that her race are not immortal even when able to leave their body.”
I never said they are immortal in that way. But they might be ‘biologically immortal’ – ie, they don’t necessarily die from old age – they die from other means instead – such as not being able to get into another body before the body dies (like certain crustaceans are biologically immortal, but that doesnt mean lobsters never die – they die when it takes more effort to shed their exoskeleton and grow a new one than they have, or they die from being eaten, etc.)
Attempted to kidnap Maxima – On Earth.
Bodyjacked Tenri (elsewhere) and then used her stolen body to commit crime – On Earth.
Attempted to bodyjack Sydney, in a plan that would have disposed of Tenri’s valuable body – On Earth.
I am not a lawyer but if I were writing this as a story, I’d guess that our legal system (although it is not actually being applied in this case) would regard the ‘bodyjacking’ crimes as a form of kidnapping. I would guess also that the use of “stolen property” (Tenri’s body) in a crime is probably enough to justify prosecuting that “theft” in the venue where the additional crime was committed.
That said, Lapha is an undocumented alien mercenary whose crimes have included attacking ships. If our piracy laws are invoked then she is legally “Hostis Humani Generis” (Literally “The enemy of everyone”). That is a pretty unique status. That would mean any nation which captures her has an active duty to prosecute in its own jurisdiction regardless of the jurisdictions of her citizenship, the jurisdiction of her victims’ citizenship, or the jurisdiction of the location of her crimes, and that failure to do so could be construed as an act of war against other nations.
Con-6 is what most resonates with me. We know that Dabbler has done a lot of things that would be considered criminal on Earth, so what gives her the right to do this?
Hypocrisy does not rule the world.
She kept trying to kidnap and enslave her friends so Dabbler took away her ability to keep trying. It’s as simple as that.
Still wondering why not just keep her contained the way she was already being detained? She couldnt keep trying that way either.
Dave,
Long time reader and fan here. Your work is great, your art is very solid, excellent even, and your humor level is awesome!
I was reading your “below the comics” notes, as I always do, and heard you banging away at the grind and frustration of MMOs. I was wondering if you had ever tried City of Heroes? It’s a free to play game that might just fit your predilections. 1000 character slots, over 5 quintillion costume options (not an exaggeration), levels 1-50, with every level being either a new power, or new customization abilities for that power, a robust, non linear story line, with the ability to write your own stories built into the game. If you are curious, please ping me, and I’ll be happy to share more with a fellow DFW guy. Anyway, thanks for your awesome comic. Many happy years man!
You can check it out at
https://forums.homecomingservers.com/
Note that “free to play” here means “zero cost”, not “will nickel-and-dime you to death”. After the official servers shut down, a group of people set up a private server, and recently managed to get NCSoft’s blessing to operate openly. You can donate to help cover the operating costs, but other than that, there isn’t any possibility of spending money on the game.
You need to try Ultima Online. Going on 25 years now, they are just adding more and more stuff to the game. They have free accounts you can play up to a certain level, but it give you the basics for the game.
On the “death sentence” issue,
a special note should be made that Lapha says
“if this body dies”, not “when this body dies”.
potatoes tomatos
Too many people seem to assume that this is some sort of life sentence instead of pre-trial containment. The author has explicitly stated “This technique of Dabbler’s is a variation of a known solution for Aetholiths who commit body and memory-napping, so Lapha shouldn’t be too surprised by this outcome.”
Yes, very hyu-mon is effectively immortal, unless there body shuts down
There is semantics and then there’s just being dumb.
That’s like throwing Michal Phelps in a lake with cement shoes and saying “I’m not killing him! *I* can’t swim so water would kill me too!”
Uh, ok, cool? Unlike you Mikey could easily get to the shore if it wasn’t for the insurmountable limit you’ve placed on him.
~…and in the spellcast Bind Her!~
I am not okay after that first panel.
A few commentors here are giving off big “Hey now, she only tried to kidnap and sell your friends into slavery! How dare Dabbler resort to restraining her ability to do so.” energy.
If you use exceptional abilities to cause needless suffering and mayhem, expect exceptional consequences.
I’m just giving the pros and cons of all arguments for the results and punishment on both sides.
I only just noticed that the straps on Dabbler’s vest are a pentagram. Nice touch!
Re: the MMO stuff.
Just… FFXIV. If you haven’t tried it (since 2.0, 1.0 doesn’t count at this point), do yourself a favor and give the free trial a spin.