Grrl Power #620 – Shave and a haircut…
On the plus side, if Arc-SWAT breaks into your repurposed abandoned nuclear bunker slash silo, and they have the wrong address, you probably get some kind of tax break. Or maybe a voucher for a free new door.
I actually don’t know how that works, like if the cops drive one of those jousting tanks through your front door and it turns out the driver had the post it with the address stuck on his dash upside down, do the cops pay for a new front of your house and new sod squares, or do you get a booklet with some waivers that excuse you from up to 5 non-felony crimes? It probably usually ends up with someone suing the city.
So I got a little behind and was playing catch up when I did this page, hence the slightly different approach to the art on this page. Plus, I thought a slightly slower page instead of one with 47 word bubbles on it would be a nice change of pace. I don’t do it often even though it is quite a bit less work, because it leaves you guys less to chat about, but varying the pacing now and then probably doesn’t hurt.
Oh my god oh my god Star Justice book 10 is out!
Wearing the Cape Book 7 is (still) available for preorder!
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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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.
… that vault door looks familiar…
Oh dear God let that be Scionas hideout and not my secret stash of po… ordinary comics of no compromising nature at all.
You’re the guy who bought the mountain base? I was wondering who outbid me.
:-D
One firm I worked at had to move to a building where they were obliged to keep to strict decor standards. So had to sell off all the old furniture, art and so on. Opting to allow most of it to be sold by silent auction to staff.
It worked by everyone being told the original purchase price, and being allowed to submit any bid they wanted to, by email. If you got outbid, you were told that had happened, and you could choose to raise your bid. But nobody (officially) knew who else was bidding. Although folks were not barred from talking about what they bid on, so you could find out for some items.
I went for a few items, like some nice lights, pieces of art and the boardroom table and chairs.
I had no qualms about folks knowing which items I was bidding on (although I kept the sums quiet, to avoid someone putting in a bid slightly above mine). I found out that I was getting a lot of envious reactions to staying at the top for the boardroom furniture.
Eventually I found out why. I had outbid the chairman of the board!
Not ’cause I was super rich mind. He had measured up and found out that he could not fit it in through his front door. Nor could I mind, in fact my entire house was not big enough for the table! I purely intended to sell it on, in a public auction house.
You can find all kinds of things underground nowdays
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xWXBHdTsAZQ
https://wampumunderground.com
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubTropolis
Heck you don’t have to be in modern times to find impressive underground architecture. Even in antiquity there were underground cities!
don’t forget the gigantic accumulation of congealed fat and wet wipes they found somewhere in France
That happens in all cities, to some degree. It just goes unremarked most of the time.
They get those in London also. They call them “fatbergs.” Like an iceberg, but made out of congealed cooking fats (and spent condoms, used medical needles, and other unsavory things) instead of water ice.
heh that reminds me of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, with the blubber mines
don’t forget the BCB, burnt crispy bits.
From my understanding the government decides how much the damages are worth and pays you that, from the limited research I just did to check it out it seems it’s fairly difficult to get the actual worth as they just give you market value.
Actually it’s usually based on the insurance carrier. If there is no insurance carrier, then it’s based on FMV (Fair Market Value).
Luckily, since your home owner’s insurance carrier knows they will get the money right back, they will quickly process your claim, and usually it won’t result in a rate increase, especially if you are already paying a high risk area premium, which is likely given this hypothetical. Just expect to basically have a CSI team coming in to document the damages because the police insurance carriers don’t want to pay a dollar more than they have to, and the police departments don’t want their rates to go up.
Yep.
Cue stream of minions and music? My choice is BFG Division from Doom (2016).
Days of ArcSwat. Episode 1
*BOOOM*
“AHHHH”
“Oh crap”
“Sydney”
“He’s dressed teddy bears up in..”
“No, don’t say it. we’ve already seen it. Sorry sir. We’ll cover the damages and just.. leave you to your tea party”
ARCSwat on COPS!
knowing that there’s magic the teddy bears might be having a tea party with a corpse
Either before or after the incident.
I feel like this was a missed opportunity to put a big old “Whang!” in the comic.
You know, when the vault door landed.
could just be me…
That door was in ARC-SWAT’s way, and Maxima was happy to pull it off. Short “Crunch”, then it’s “Wha Bam” & “Thank you Ma’am”
What would really suck is if the landlord has an eviction clause for any police action at that address as means for immediate eviction.
The lighting in the last panel is effin’ fantastic!
Maybe we can get an answer to a philosophical question.
We have heard “If a tree falls when no one is there does it make a noise?”
Now we can test “Are hypno-boobs still hypnotic if there is no light to see them by?”
Maxima ain’t got no time for Skyrim-esque lockpicking mini-game. ;)
As they enter the cave the following message appears on HALO’s pip boy:
“YOU ARE IN A MAZE OF TWISTY LITTLE PASSAGES, ALL DIFFERENT.”
Could be. It did tell her, “Warning. You are being punched.”
I don’t think they have to worry too much about being eaten by a Grue.
Well, no. Gruet is very peaceful. Unless you threaten Rocket.
I am Groot!
Sydney should have the force field up, breaching a door means the shit has already hit the fan.
Yea, I thought that initially, but there are two good reasons why she does not.
1. When the shield is raised Sydney may need to include Maxima in it (to protect her from magical or mental attacks). Which she could not do whilst Maxima needed to grab hold of the vault door, to rip it out.
2. Sydney is the main protagonist, and Dave likes to keep her in a bit of peril. It is not overwhelming mind, as she can raise the shield in a blink of an eye.
Most importantly on this side of things though is that it can interfere with the comedy. Sydney can get up to a lot more wacky things without wandering round like a tortoise all the time. We already saw Halo go through one major battle like that.
So this way adds drama and comedy potential. Which does take priority over strict realism. If I were in those kinds of situations the shield would be up all the time. Only being lowered when someone needs to enter or exit. Not very heroic, but staying alive is important.
Just not as important when trying to make people laugh or have other feels.
IN MY FACE.
Down the dungeon deep they go, past eerie whistling and sterile stone floors. Deeper in the mountain’s heart the party ventures in search of their deadly foe.
Past the last of vaulted doors they find,
an old vampire in his underwear eating blood pudding and toast.
He stares at them, mouth half open pudding dripping off the toast back to the plate, they had him, his eyes darting to and through.
“Um, are you here to let me out?” he asked cutting the awkward silence.
:-D
*digging a hole*
I would totally read that book!
they after a while they responded with “no”
“oh” the vampire responded “it’s been so long and i thought you were my relief, i have been guarding them for … i’m not sure how long but at least more than ten years, so why are you here?” the vampire asked looking around for a weapon or something.
“to find a murderous supernatural murderess, and terrorist wanted by the council and the government, who may have critically if not irreparably damaged the veil.”
“oh, is that all” goes back to eating toast.
*swallows*
indicates back door with thumb, “Nah, aint got nothing that low key down here. But I thought I saw some orc or what have you a ridge over doing some construction, didn’t get near…you know what’s…lock down so I didn’t pay it no mind. Buncha kids on that council anyway, doubt half of them remember I’m still down or that SOB is still down here to.”
Wait.. there is ten of those books? i have only listened up to book three. well time time to do some ebook hunting!!!
Two bits!
Can’t believe no one’s made that joke yet.
Probably because not too many people would understand :P
I don’t. But I could take a byte at it.
If you do, I will give you no quarter in the ensuing duel of puns.
psst, it’s the completion of the joke in the page title
Ahh, that. I missed the title, so had no context to associate that with the punchline.
Le duel des vingt-cinq cents.
I had nose idea that such a perfect movie scene rebuttal for the phrase “duel of puns” existed. I yield to your google-fu. And I may go watch the rest of that sometime, even with the subtitled French it looked pretty interesting.
It is well worth it. I had the fortune to originally watch it with a French friend of mine. She absolutely gushed over how both the French and the translation were poetic and perfect representations of their form. Translation is an art, in that there are certain things which there is no direct equivalent.
So, especially when dealing with something artistic, in its own right, like poetry, it takes a touch of genius to convey the intent, subtext and even (most difficult of all) humour, without making compromises that can irritate those who know both languages. So finding the reverse is a rare gem amongst movies.
If it was played as a jingle, they would recognise it. Those seven notes are just everywhere now.
Not just the notes. the beat of it is ingrained into our consciousness
I really hope Maxima remembered to get a Warrant.
“Warrant? We are Archon, we don’t need no steenking warrant!”
Butt, if you want a Warrant, you can have a Warrant :D
Read through this lot. You will probably find contingency for searching for WMD without the need for a warrant.
That said I know a common principle in the UK is that if police have good cause to suspect that a crime is being committed, on a premises, and there is reason to believe that delay could cause harm, then no warrant is required. I would be very surprised if that principle did not apply in the US too. Various Hollywood documentaries have taught me that anyhow.
The fact that Sciona is believed to be in possession of WMD does cut through a lot of red tape. Perfectly legally.
Drug charges work nearly as well as WMDs surprisingly, and more believable in the ensuing lawsuit. It’s very hard to recover anything seized under drug charges, no warrant required and often no recourse to recovery. Loads of horrifying stories online – never cross state lines with a significant amount of cash.
The truly unbelievable part to me is that seized assets are retained to pay for expenses by the department who seized them, at their own discretion. No conflict of interest there… o_0
We call that Probable cause. It’s usually limited to personal searches and searches of a vehicle, but can even go into effect if they see something like drug paraphernalia through an open door. Mostly those are cursory searches however, usually following the plain sight doctrine. You can’t look through drawers and stuff but you can look on top of and under things, which can usually get you what you need to get a warrant for a full search of the premises.
“Oh noes, we lost New York city!”
“How the hell did that happen? You knew where they had the nuke!”
“Oh it was in a sock drawer. Their rad meter went crazy when they swept over it. But they had to go get a warrant.”
Maxima is a senior officer, why in the world would she need a Warrant, or any other senior NCM?
simple answer: Paperwork… a little bit longer answer: to made sure the charges that she says they committed STICK in a court of law (either ours or the Councils)
You would probably be surprised at the technicalities that criminals have used to get off scot-free with stuff… an early 80’s era movie called “The Star Chamber” dealt with this in the opening scenes quite nicely…
And conversely, sometimes the government uses some seemingly unrelated technicalities to put criminals behind bars, e.g. mobster Al Capone and tax evasion.
When the cops raid the wrong place, you usually have to sue them for a long time to get the repairs paid for. Sometimes it’s even harder when they decide to still arrest you and charge you with bogus stuff like resisting an arrest, and impeding an investigation, all because they screwed up, and use that as a reason to deny restitution. It’s seriously screwed up, and let’s not even talk about the times they’ve seriously injured or even killed innocent people because they were too stupid the read the address correctly.
Sadly, it’s a real life situation. :(
Check out the replies that Pander has made on points like this, on the previous page of comments.
In short though intensive media coverage, of some bad cases, badly distorts public perception of the norm. The reality of the situation is different.
“Police raid wrong location, compensation paid within the week” does not pay journalists salaries.
6:10 pretty good depending on how many other possible locations there are the odds look better and better as all the remaining locations have to fight over the remaining 4:10
If you are going to quote the Bible, you really need to specify the book name. ;-)
This one seems the most apt though:
not really quoting the bible. 6:10 or 6 in 10 odds (or cutting it down further 3 in 5), dabler was talking about being 60% sure, though the odds are 6 in 10 up until they meet scional then the odds become 1 in 1 as the event has happened (that’s the thing when someone asks what are the odds to something supremely unlikely the odds are 1:1 or 100% because it has happened)
seems like pretty good betting odds to me considering how wanted sciona is (what with her laundry list including damaging the veil, attempting to kill the council, robbing the vault, possession of forbidden artifacts, oh and the bridge thing, alongside all the things she had against her before she “died”).
So … the Ephesians were bookies?
I find this shocking!
As for the odds here, that 60% was the chance of Sciona having headed to this spot. Finding a vault door, on a cliff face, in the wilderness, at the predicted spot, rather bumps up the odds!
Ah, gambling and religion then. In that case, Deus would point you to 1st Timothy 6:10 as the best match: “For the love of money is the root of all evil”.
I thought a ratio of 6:10 meant that one side was 6 / (6 + 10) and the other was 10 / (6 + 10)…
lol why did you jump to Bible verses? Lost Question said odds in the original post
Another sad loss, to the entertainment world.
In other news, on this day in 1998 for the first time the Dow Jones stock index closed OVER 9000!
(I’ve been waiting to use that one for a while)
We actually discussed “Cops get the wrong address” Thing…
Yup. Sueing the city. Also? People have DIED due to this. It’s actually an insanely serious issue. (Apparently, right after “Police killing puppies”).
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lawyer-police-at-wrong-address-shoot-kill-unarmed-man-inside-his-home/
This is one of the stories, though it’s happened more then once. (Picked the most mainstream version I coudl find.)
Secondary sources.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/07/26/police-shot-and-killed-a-man-while-trying-to-serve-a-warrant-at-the-wrong-house/?utm_term=.09a76fde6a4e
https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/29/us/mississippi-man-shot-dead/index.html
That said, since there’s been an argument on “Stand your ground” stuff…No, youre not allowed to stand your ground against a police officer, unless he’s controlled by Killgrave. (These are considered ‘mistake of fact’, not ‘unlawful’)
Yes, mistakes happen and the news jumps all over it because bad news sells even though it doesn’t make us happier or better in any way. It’s way easier to sell ads alongside a handful of dramatic headlines than thousands that read “cops quietly arrest the right person again.” Quite often (including the incident you linked) the issues that arise during an erroneous encounter with police are because whoever is being confronted escalates the situation instead of even trying to communicate with the officers. Tragic, but answering the door with a gun in hand and siccing your dogs on the cops is going to force an aggressive response in self defense. I suspect a review of cases would show that a vanishingly small percent people who were injured after open the door with empty hands and saying “I think there’s been a mistake.”
That’s not to say cops never respond inappropriately, or that the police force actually needs to always initiate contact with military weapons and tactics. But it is a dangerous line of work and it’s not unreasonable for them to expect the worst; they get a lot of training on how to keep potentially bad situations low key as much as possible. This article give a pretty good background on SWAT teams and associated problems pretty objectively, and includes some insightful statistics. For the number of confrontations law enforcement is involved in every year, it’s actually amazing how often they do it right.
Yes, bad news sells. But that isn’t the take away here, not unless you’re looking to hide something. Only a Republican or an idiot or both makes the claim that immediately after a mass shooting is the wrong time to discuss gun laws.
This kind of news really should be widely publicized. Without the light of public scrutiny most institutions will never change their methods. And a method which can be flawed enough to send cops to the wrong address who then proceed to kill an unarmed man is a method which needs to be changed. One error is just an error, but one which should not be repeated. Two errors are just two errors, but indicative of serious flaws in the process. Two errors which result in the death of innocents is a tragedy which warrants a complete redesign of the process from front to back in order to eliminate these errors before they occur.
Agreed.
However it is incumbent on any responsible news organisation to contextualise the incidents. Even a series of incidents, in a local area, should not be used to drum up mistrust and animosity against police nation wide.
To take it out of the USA context, as that risks getting too close to current heated political issues, I will cite something from elsewhere. I have long been aware that life as a white South African farmer is fraught with danger. I knew a lot of them, and the family still keeps in touch with some. Violence, robbery and murder are all too common.
Plus, as an aside, something which gets very little publicity nowadays, is that poor white people, in South Africa, have a hellishly bad life. There are a lot of poor folks in S.A., but efforts to counter that are focused on the (majority) black poor. If there are public sector jobs going, for unskilled workers, they will get priority.
So it is an injustice that policies which (inadvertently or otherwise) discriminate against a minority go mostly unremarked and without worldwide condemnation. White South Africans do have a historical burden, and tend to be stoic about ‘what goes around comes around’, on the whole. However racism should be countered, where it occurs. White or black.
So I welcomed the headlines that said Australia was contemplating prioritising white South African farmers who sought to emigrate. It would allow them to escape the crime and persecution, without running the risk inherent in abandoning their chosen career, and (if lacking skills or contacts that could get them jobs in another sector) ending up as one of the disadvantaged minority.
I approve of positive discrimination, and have no qualms of it being used to benefit white folks, where it is being used to counter racial discrimination.
But, here I get to the point. It turns out that although all my general knowledge was true (there is a terribly high level of rape, murder, robbery and so on), when you analyse it to see if it is especially harsh for white farmers, you find out that it is not. They have no more risk than the rest of rural South Africa.
Which takes a responsible news organisation to point out such a key fact. As that would turn an apparent (but misinformed) opinion that the Australian policy is fair positive discrimination, into realising that it would in fact be a racist policy unfairly benefiting a white population, to the detriment of any black counterparts in an identical situation.
It is vital to have new organisations who provide balanced data to allow the pubic to make well informed decisions about political issues. And to avoid undue rabble-rousing. If the police force were corrupt, nation wide, from top to bottom, it would not be undue. Whereas if the vast majority of police are honest and serving society well, then it is of great detriment to society not to emphasise that.
Much as I appreciate the “Team’s all here” pose and comedic dialogue of panel 4, Sydney should be behind her shield and the light bee should be zooming in through the door, already. In other words, two of those orbs are in the wrong spot.
Agreed. Sydney needs to have had her force field up for that moment of dramatic entry. The automated miniguns firing blindly into the forest triggered by the vault door being removed could have cut her down before she could react.
Maxima seems to never fail to disappoint if you’re looking for hubris and arrogance. “Arc-swat is not the stealth arm of Archon” doesn’t automatically translate into “We blindly rush in without a plan because I’m an idiot who is way too confident in my position as the most powerful super in the world.” Unless you are Maxima, that is.
Maxima needs someone to remind her that actual SWAT teams do attempt to utilize stealth and surprise for the simple reason that they tend to cut down your casualties over the strategy of a frontal assault into the teeth of the enemy. Forewarned is four armed, after all. Oh, wait, that’s Dabbler… Fourwarned is forearmed. Wait, that’s not it either. Forewarned is forearmed.
Heh. Foursight is important!
In principle, and in general, I agree with you. Likewise when I first saw this scene I felt it was foolish not to have Sydney’s shield up. Whilst there are good arguments to do so, please see my reply below, for the other side of the case.
Importantly we must not forget that this is a super hero story, so we should grant the author some leeway for drama. Even if it goes against SWAT best practice.
That aside though stealth simply is not an option here. Sciona knows that they are hot on her heels and may have been able to predict where she was flying to. They have managed to find a previous hideout after all. So they need to assume that she is either readying defences or, more seriously, packing up the WMD to teleport/gate them to a more secure location.
So covert surveillance, scouting out for alternate entrances and other sensible precautions have to be weighed against the risk that the delay will allow Sciona to make a clean escape with all the artefacts. Bearing in mind that they are unaware that she only has the Bane Ripper.
Therefore I agree that it is important to make use of the surprise of them getting there quicker than may reasonably be anticipated (without knowing just how smart Dabbler is). But should remind you that ‘talking is a free action’. So them chatting, and thereby giving some useful exposition for us, along with the banter, is not compromising that.
Whereas stealth simply was not an option (unless risking her escape), given that a whacking great vault door blocked their only known entry point!
Especially when the team know that Sciona’s wards and detection methods are far above any capability that they have available. Pixel is a stealth specialist, having invisibility, the natural stealth of a jaguar and expertise at magical wards and the like. Yet Sciona instantly detected and captured her!
Attempting to use stealth (in this situation, rather than in general) would be incredibly dangerous, as it would only serve to delay them, whilst exposing them to whatever counter-action Sciona chose to take.
To be fair, one of Maxima’s core personality traits does tend to be arrogance and hubris, although she does occasionally show moments of ‘maybe I shouldnt be so hubristic’ like with not flying through the ‘scab pudding’ even though she was pretty sure that she could tank any traps Sciona left on the other side. It probably comes from knowing that she’s one of the most powerful supers on the planet, in that as a result she has the automatic default opinion that no one could stop her – which probably leads more than a few times to problems.
But I sort of like that about Maxima – she’s a flawed person (definitely not a Mary Sue), and she occasionally REALIZES that she’s flawed, like when she was giving advice to Sydney, which seemed to be a lot of which came from personal experience. Perfect people are boring.
+1
You are confused about what it means to be a Mary Sue character. A Mary Sue character often has flaws. And in fact these flaws are often held up as evidence that they are not a Mary Sue. But unless the flaws have consequences associated with them, then it’s just a whitewash hoping to disguise the fact that they are indeed a Mary Sue character.
For Maxima’s flaws of hubris and arrogance to be actual flaws, they must have actual consequences. Consequences which are shown and not told. Like perhaps a bridge collapsing and several civilian deaths occurring after she holes the bridge and applies an uncertain band-aid and then just flies off after a bad guy because she thought she was perfect enough to judge the exact tolerances of that bridge and that she thought that she was the only person good enough to stop the bad guy.
Without any real consequences ever happening because of a flaw, then we’re just being told but not shown that Maxima actually has any flaws.
Did you not see General Faulk getting pissed off at Maxima, a couple of times?
Then later he ‘sympathised’ with Maxima over her punishment …
Having to personally supervise Sydney!
Yes, yes, just making a funny. I know that it was Maxima’s choice.
That aside though we have seen flaws and consequences. Most notably Maxima’s anger. It has real story consequences. Note that the comic is a comedy, so it avoids the boring traditional route (formal punishment) which you seem to be after. Those are purposefully kept behind closed doors (Sydney is our main vehicle to see events, and she would not witness her boss being punished).
Rather it focuses on the social consequences that Sydney very much is privy to.
There is the guy who likes taunting Maxima, then when she angrily reacts, he takes a snap and ‘adds it to the wall of shame’ (paraphrasing loosely from memory). That is a serious repercussion for a commander. One that she has to, grudgingly, tolerate, as it is appropriate to remind her to work on her anger management.
Similarly her prudishness sees her frequently being provoked by Dabbler, in an attempt to get her to ‘loosen up’.
Then her high-handed dismissal of the Comix guy ended up (in a roundabout way) with Sydney backing her up by showing him a picture of Hiro and indicating that he did not stand a chance against that kind of competition. In this case ending up with media speculation that they are an item.
A potentially career ending problem, if Maxima is indiscreet at the wrong time! So presently it is just a social embarrassment, but because Sydney had intuited Max’s feelings (and fancying her second in command is clearly a flaw, even if she has the good character to resist acting on it) we can see that it could escalate.
So not just consequences from flaws, it is also driving the ongoing plots. We are seeing the Max and Hiro relationship deepen. And it may even result in one or the other being reassigned to another post!
But General Faulk is not likely to rush that, as he needs both of them too badly at the moment. Likewise the country clearly needs Maxima. Badly. In situations like that they are likely to give Maxima the benefit of the doubt, in any situation where that is reasonable. She will get way more lassitude than a typical officer.
That however is not a consequence of her having a unique favour. It is due to supers being rare, the private sector having deep pockets, and the world having become a scary place due to the rise of super villains and hostile states with their own (presently unofficial) super groups.
common example of a Mary Sue having flaws, in anime and manga, is the klutzy pretty girl; she trips over her own feet but is so beautiful she could get away with murder
Your suggested course of action has four flaws:
1) You are leaving everybody else exposed.
Dabbler, Mr Amorphous and (presumably) Harem are all squishy and need protection too. Then we have both Achilles and Maxima who have no special defence against magic or mental attacks (other than Max having strong will, which only has limited use). Yet Sciona is known to utilise both magic and items which create mental attacks.
Clearly Sydney could not protect Maxima whilst she is ripping the door off. Granted Sydney could just protect herself.
However that would then double the delay in responding to any threat (at the least). First she would have to lower her shield (bearing in mind that this would be whilst under attack, so being incredibly dangerous) then adjusting the embiggening option, to encompass everyone, then raising the shield.
Whereas at the moment Sydney could have the shield set to embiggened mode, and thereby she would be able to raise the shield, to protect everyone, without delay.
2) The last we heard about the lightbee was Sydney contemplating keeping it secret, so that she would have a trick up her sleeve should Maxima ever fall under enemy control, or otherwise go rogue. Albeit that explaining Krona’s logs would be problematic, we simply do not know how that panned out.
3) Even if Halo did decide to reveal it to the rest of the team, the lightbee is not something that she has practiced using. Worse she has shown that she can accidentally teleport, just by pushing the wrong glyph. Last time that she tried that it resulted in her being captured and possibly killed by Sciona!
Likewise the team has not practiced this, so all sorts of complications ensue. Importantly Halo cannot both control the lightbee and her own body. Even worse she is completely oblivious of whichever location she is not paying attention to! So the team would either have to stand around waiting for Sydney to (inexpertly) explore. Or they would have to pick her up, and take her with them.
4) Sitting around, after having likely triggered alarms and wards, and certainly having alerted anyone nearby, who is not deaf, from ripping the vault door off. So keeping the momentum going, and trying to take the enemy by surprise, before they get a chance to react is the better of the two options.
However this will be conducted with a raised shield preventing them from attacking, opening doors, putting handcuffs on villains or splitting up. Amongst other handicaps. Critically the only person who can lower the shield, to allow any of these actions, would not be aware of the need to do this! Not until Halo had reached a point in her exploration where she could switch her senses back to her real body.
+1 (although I’m pretty sure that Mr Amorphous is not quite so squishy – if we compare him to other ‘stretchy heroes in comics, like Plastic Man, Elongated Man, Kamala Khan, and Mr. Fantastic – and Dabbler does seem to be able to create magical shields too from what we saw in the ballroom/interview room during Sydney’s interview at Archon)
Achilles does have good defences. Which are very strong versus blunt attacks (so can safely intercept thrown cars or Achilles), but weaker against piercing attacks. However his base line defence is weaker than Sydney’s shield.
Importantly we saw that the basic constructs were able to overcome Dabbler’s shield,* with their Wolverine’s claw-like attack. We can only speculate on how (possibly it was an anti-magic feature, or it may just be armour penetrating).
So Mr Amorphous would be potentially vulnerable to those foot-soldier stabby devices. Along with other top-level attacks. And he is just as exposed to magic and mental attacks as the others (barring Dabbler who does have mental powers, and maybe pertinent counter magics).
* Which we have been told is about the same protection as Halo’s shield (albeit rated a lot lower as it is not as versatile as Sydney’s).
I don’t know how weak a stretchy person would be against ANY kinetic attack, whether blunt or piercing. I suppose it depends on how much he can stretch without being punctured. If it’s like Elongated Man or Mr Fantastic, he’s probably pretty invulnerable against that sort of thing, but not against energy blasts or temperature.
Darn it. That first “Achilles” should read “Mr Amorphous”.
I would do a Sydney-style brain reset, but know it would not help.
1) I had considered everyone inside the shield, but quick action might be required once the door was popped so I think it best that everyone else stand behind Maxima or Sydney, with the exception of Dabbler (blink spell) and Achilles (impervious). It takes time to raise/lower the shield, perhaps too long. So, Only Sydney in the shield.
2) The light-bee would be zooming down the cave, providing advance scouting. She wouldn’t be using it for teleport purposes, and everyone in the group is aware of this capacity (Sydney told them about it when they first officially met). Teleportation would NOT be on the table, and since they all have radio comms, she wouldn’t need particularly to be carried along with. Sciona has already encountered this effect, back at the Wars warehouse lair, so no secrets are being revealed there.
3) Halo “accidentally” teleported when she did the stereotypical “Hmm, I wonder what this button does?” trick – she now knows what the button does, so she won’t be pressing it while scouting.
4) See above. The shield does not follow the light-bee, just the visual illusion of the shield does. I refer you to the first conversation between Vehemence and Sydney, as proof. So, it won’t be getting in the way.
The lightbee cannot do that. Whilst in that mode all Sydney can do is sense if there is a gap for it to travel through. Check the scouting scene at the Mars warehouse, and Sydney’s conversation with Harem about how her teleportation has a somewhat similar functionality.
I refer you to Halo flying with Maxima and dropping the flyball. Something she determined not to do again. And immediately repeated the error.
What you are proposing would get Sydney killed.
There is a reason why the military conduct exercises and train people extensively. And then do drills and retraining. Simply because people do make silly mistakes, all the time. Especially in the heat of battle. Confusion, smoke, sweat in the eyes, panic and dozens of other likely factors all contribute to these risks.
Most importantly it is a glowing button with a mental ‘DO NOT TOUCH THIS’ sign on it. Sydney is bound to poke it!
You misunderstood my intent. The team has two options. Stand around waiting for Sydney to scout. Or pick her up and hope that the shield will move with her as they carry her around.
Sydney has already pointed out that the noise of the vault door being ripped off its hinges will have alerted the villains (not to mention setting off any silent alarms and most importantly the magical wards that we know Sciona uses). As such Sciona is likely dispatching constructs to deal with the intruders. And this is presumably her main base, so it is likely to be a major force.
Sitting still is not a good option when your enemy know where you are! And, even if there is no counterattack coming, Sciona can be packing up all her precious stuff and be making a clean getaway. Whilst they sit there playing cards and waiting for Sydney to report back.
Even worse if the shield turns out not to be mobile without Halo there to command it. So the entire team would be trapped in the shield, unable to move and unable to contact Sydney!
Alternatively Sydney could just put up her personal force field, then send off her lightbee to a remote location, manifest her illusionary self (which is the only way she can actually scout) whilst the rest of the team follow at a swift pace, to storm the base, as soon as Sydney has given the all clear.
But when they return they could well find that Halo has been killed. Even the basic enemy troops have shown that they can bring down force fields. So all it would take is one of them to approach from a different direction than the team set off in (coming in from outside for example, or using a secret door) and Halo would die without even knowing about it!
I know I’m a page (and/or several chapters) late with this, but it seems like Sydney’s a serious force-multiplier for Dabbler’s genius just by frequently reminding her what crazy-hard problems she’s able to solve.
+1
On the subject of where superheroes get their energy to do these things: a simple answer… E=MC2.
When we eat a morsel of food, our normal metabolic processes are able to turn that food into energy. However, there is a lot of waste, and the conversion progress is far, far less efficient than a direct matter to energy conversion would be.
What if Supers are able, when needed, to convert mass directly into energy? We all know that some supers have forms that are essentially coherent energy… if you could turn the energy from munching a single hotdog, or if the calories burned were burned nearly as efficiently as direct energy conversion, you’d have more than enough power to power some of the antics we see.
Hopefully, that wouldn’t make all of the Supers radioactive, but that gets into how they *channel* all of that energy, which is a much more complex mental puzzle.
Yep, that is a good source. Others include tapping into energy from another dimension.
Whereas folks like Sydney (who can rewrite how gravity works) and Krona (who could learn from the orb code and potentially really change time) universal laws have less relivance. With powers like that you can turn E=Mc² into E=banana or Universe=ham sandwich.
Then Dr. Gero pops out and yells at them.
+1 billion
Today on legal discussions inspired by Grrl power, it is illegal search and seizure and unlawful invasion of private property by law enforcement.
previously we recently had: accidental destruction of property, and the definition of consent.
What will come next episode, wait and see, same super hero law time, same super hero law channel.
:-D
Similarly if you get a call allegedly from any organisation, you can ask where they are based. Then look up the number to call (rather than trust them) and check with the company. Plus, googling the company name, especially with key words like “fraud” or “con” may pick up if this is known pattern that has been reported on or complained about. And, if still suspicious, calling the cops.
WARNING: The above sensible procedure can still find you being conned. There are now ways for villains to keep your phone line open (but playing a fake dial tone, so that it sounds like you hung up successfully). So that when you call through to make your checks (complete with fake ringing sound) you will actually still be speaking to the villains!
Bearing in mind that, as with the recent Facebook scandal, your personal details could be in the bad guy’s hands. Even if you are fanatically careful yourself, a company you deal with, or your friends, could easily have leaked them or been hacked. So just because they know your bank account number or date of birth does not mean that they are the real deal.
Of course sophisticated cons like this will likely use an accomplice, to make sure you do not realise that. And they will play their part well. Congratulating you on double checking. Plus will warn you that you should always do this, to stop con men. Then will confirm that, in this case, you are perfectly safe, because they are authorised employees, working in your best interests.
They may even tell you the badge ID number to corroborate their identity. Or perhaps tell you a security code that you can ask the employees for. Which will, of course, match when you call back the cold-calling villains.
Of course I am just talking to the community in general. But it is worth knowing that even security conscious professionals can fall foul of these cons, due to their sophistication. Last year a UK barrister compromised a group of clients because of such a trick. Each of them loosing tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds, as a direct result. Not to mention the barrister’s reputation.
The additional step that needs to be taken, in this case, is to use a different means of communication to the one that you have been contacted on. So if you were called on your landline you should use your smart phone to do any checks, or vice versa. Whilst if the contact was via your computer, you should assume that anything on it may be compromised, and use your phone to check.
Plus do not give any clues about who you are calling. They may ask ‘which department do you want’, so just say ‘I want to check for a potential fraud, what department should I be put through to?’ And pay attention to what the people say. Unless they recognise the number you called they will not know if you phoned the police, the company or some other organisation.
So, for example, if they quote your bank account number, but you were calling the police, and have not provided that, then you know that they have compromised your means of communication.
When you got super strength like Maxima, you never need to pick locks. Just rip the damn door off like it was made of paper. :P Although something tells me that IS the right spot, also Sciona has made Max mad… so I imagine this fight will be VERY short namely cause of the super who will probably Falcon Punch Sciona into oblivion an then some. XD
A good real world physics thing to keep in mind when writing about strong doors and barriers. The super human or creature doesn’t need to be strong enough to break what the door’s made of, just what its attached to/by.
True that.
Sadly, it looks like the real-world version involves losing in court.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/10/30/police-blew-up-an-innocent-mans-house-search-an-armed-shoplifter-too-bad-court-rules/
Also that cave/door combo looks an awful lot like the entrance to Dr. Gero’s lab from the android/cell arc…
The old Barbarian’s Knock spell. For when you don’t want to wait for the rogue and don’t care about stealth or surprise.