Grrl Power #382 – Code black times infinity +1
I figure it’s probably about 11 pm right now, depending on how precise Maxima is being and whether she means Sydney’s wakeup call is in 7 hours or (more likely) if that’s boots on the ground exercising. I’m not a morning exerciser. I keep trying to do it, and I don’t think I get enough sleep for it. Eventually about 11 am I will be sufficiently awake to attempt it, but 10 years ago, I regularly went to the gym at 11 pm. I don’t think I would have survived a stint in the military for numerous reasons. We’ll have to see how Sydney adapts.
I assume code levels don’t work unless everyone knows all of them, otherwise if you saw one you didn’t recognize you’d assume it was fake or a misprint or something. But who knows, maybe there are code levels so high even the existence of those code levels is classified. (Existence of aliens, Smurfs, and the lizard caucus, etc.) Presumably a folder containing something with classified code levels doesn’t get left on someone’s desk unsupervised all that often.
Maxima’s existence was classified to some extent after she joined the military. In a world that already knew about Supers, she was kind of a poorly kept secret, but being classified made accessing certain information about her more difficult, like her exact abilities or her whereabouts at any given moment. Now as the head of Arc-SWAT, she has pretty high clearance. There are still certain things she’s not privy to, but if it involves Atypical Resources, she knows nearly everything. And some of the things she doesn’t know, she can guess at, like if the government has a plan to take her out if she goes berserk. She’s had the “how would I fight me” thought many many times before already.
Happy almost Xmas for those of you who partake. For those who don’t… uh, buy yourself something nice anyway! It’s not like Santa Clause Xmas has anything to with Jesus Xmas. They’re just identically named holidays that take place on the same day.
Edit: One of the dangers of working at 600 dpi is overestimating the detail that comes through on the web sized version, so here is a better shot of the picture on Maxima’s shirt: 
Some of you will recognize this right away hopefully. Special thanks to @BadPhysics for helping me extract the red from the background. I don’t have a copy of Photoshop, which I imagine could have handled it, but it turns out GIMP has a Color to Alpha function that worked quite well.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
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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.
Question: Would Maxima really wear a shirt like that that draws attention to her tits/imaginary cleavage?
Of Course she would. Especially if the first (and last) thing you see for ogling her rack is Nathan Explosion glaring at you from a blood stained frenzy.
Also the shirt design hides stains real well.
So everybody wins!
Max gets to were a fun shirt.
You get to (briefly) oogle her chesticles and then bleed on them (via spray).
She gets to hit you so hard the blood spatters onto her shirt.
She doesn’t have to change her shirt because cool patterns and Black!
An “Almost-Everyone-Wins” scenario…
No, no. Your win is included in getting to oggle Maxima.
Is it actually a “win” if you don’t live long enough to enjoy it?
reminds me of my favorite advice to give “don’t make me do something you wont get a chance to regret.”
Chesticals, really? Mammaries are not female testes. They are in fact modified sweat glands packed with fat. Why I dislike slang, gets it wrong and keeps on getting it wrong. Slovenly in thought in deed is slang. The flotsam an jetsam of language developement.
If you’re going to be an English pendant about it at least proofread.
“pendant” I don’t think that means what you intended it to mean.
A useless accessory that draws attention to chesticles? (Totally not an excuse for autocorrect *shifty look*)
You have several typos and some sentence fragments. Never proofread and critique while angry. I it makes you sloppy.
All of these comments are a glorious, typo-filled trainwreck.
what sorta shipping company transports typos by train?
I agree wholeheartedly about the ridiculous, homo-erotic nickname of the mammaries, that Stumpy and the rest of humanity should leave in the literary trashcan. Another *Bump* for Random Interloper. :)
Chesticles are a word play on icicles, you know, those vaguely pyramid shaped things that form on building eaves and caves? The word has nothing to do with testicles.
That is almost half believable, Romorat. Unfortunately, it’s the “t” in the word ruins your wannabe theory.
Why is Maxima’s shirt covered in blood? What the hell happened?
Oh, nothing. She just bit the head off of a baby super-terrorist. She totally does that when she gets bored of blowing them up. Or arresting them.
Maxima must have just been following the What Would Deadpool Do motto on Sydney’s shirt.
Yknow… since Deadpool hates babies also. Who wouldnt? They creep everyone out with those vacant little stares and chubby cheeks. brrrr.
Is explained in the text below the comic
Before the explanation, I thought the same thing but I shrugged off thinking she had an delightful supper on the hearts of her enemies…
Love the phone cord reference.
Great comic.
What is this “phone cord” thing? Is it an older way of charging your mobile? Daniel the Human says something about a “corded phone”, but keeps rejecting the charger idea. Eh, I don’t get it…
It allows the handpiece to be tethered to the base so that your children can’t run off with and lose it.
And you can track them down when they go and hide in the closet talking to their girlfriend… or get clotheslined by the cord first
hey did you know someone is making an adult game with the same name?
Rule 34, baby!
You got a reference, so that we can see it? Or so that DaveB can direct a few lawyers?
O.o
There’s already been an anime with the same name
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grrl_Power
Oh, and a merry bah humbug to all :-)
And the link to the game is here:
https://www.hongfire.com/forum/showthread.php/190318-The-Grrl-Power!-Project-%28in-development%29/page3
That… has been ‘in development’ for five years, doesn’t sound like it’s ever going to get made
Or, at least, couldn’t find a working English version… >.>
If you are ‘into’ that sort of thing, Nutaku has a range of similar games (not going to link as they are most certainly NOT SFW)
yeah rule 34 applies but it kinda goes against the message i get from the anime. and there is a working english version of the gameguesticus it is just a buggy beta version. i only know because i had to play some to get an idea what the games are like because i have a buddy who is making a game like the rule 34 games
oh and sorry about the delayed response been busy
Somehow Maxima looks younger here, NormallyI would say she was late Thirties/early forties, in this comic she look like twenty-something. Strange cause I can’t see any differing design aspects…
Welcome to my world. All the characters drift in age about 10 years occasionally cause nailing down the difference between a 30 year old face and a 40 year old face is really hard.
Just say it’s cause of the hair
Its the skin texture –hers is stuck at permanently smoothly buffed. Whatever would cause her to have wrinkles she has not yet experienced. Could imagine a trip into space sans exosuit might cause a few hairline cracks that took a while to smooth out, but little else.
Not unless she pulled her maximum mach speed and rammed every bird and plane in sight on the way there. Space is just an absence of the normal 1 atmosphere of pressure and a bit more radiation. To skin that shrugs off tank rounds that’s nothing. Max’s only limit in a hard vacuum would be the need to carry air with her. She could cart stuff into orbit pretty cheaply, really. Presumably she doesn’t have a real limit too her max v outside atmo, and she can go as easy as she wants in atmo.
Her hair is down and bouncy for one.. :)
Also, she’s usually in uniform, and that puts her in serious soldier mode. Right now she’s in kick-back mode, it would appear.
After seeing the picture below, I understood, but up to that point I simply assumed Max had crushed something to death and the blood had gotten on her shirt.
Maxima better have a damn good explanation, because ARCHON is one step away from being a worthless totalitarian regime if they’re violating the Constitution and several other very important laws by actively deceiving the public about the existence of aliens.
Announce that alien life exists and have actual proof, that sounds like a good way to have people in a frenzy. A lot of people can barely tolerate people of a different colour, add in extraterrestrial species and it’d be even worse. Keeping their existence secret for their own safety, and to remain on positive relations with someone who can glass your entire planet, is a pretty smart move. Humans are a xenophobic bunch.
As they say in Men In Black 1…
Edwards: Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.
Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.
How would that be a violation of the Constitution?
I’m having trouble figuring that out too…Where does the Constitution say anything specific about government’s limitations on that question? And yet, the government IS acting in accordance with the Right to Privacy Laws that are directly derived from the Bill of Rights (which are inalienable Rights from Natural Law, not Civil Rights created by any government).
Rainwall brought this idiotic argument up a few pages back. The argument is that the First Amendment, Freedom of Information Act and Washington Public Records Act would mean that the public would be somehow entitled to the information that extra-terrestrial/non-human sapients exist and live among us.
Fact of the matter is that Rainwall is utterly wrong on this but I’ll mutter about the specific acts in question:
First Amendment: Rainwall could be touching on two areas here: Either keeping this from the press or keeping individuals from talking about it. Honestly, this one’s easy to circumvent since the wording doesn’t forbid keeping information from individuals or the press. It also doesn’t forbid incentivizing either group to just stay quiet. So sure, find out about Extra-Terrestrials/Non-Human Sapients and feel free to report on it or shout it from the rooftops, just don’t be surprised when the spin-doctoring happens to counter you. Granted, you could be lucky and just end up being approached and offered some perks in order to stay quiet.
FOIA/WPRA: From my readings, both of them have exemptions that cover personal privacy meaning that if an information request covers anything that would invade upon someone’s privacy, that information does not have to be given. Since revealing the truth at this stage would be invading several individual’s personal privacy(i.e. the Non-human sapients’) yeah….no. If you want to argue tha they don’t have those rights because they’re not human, well then, you’re the exact reason the “National Security” exemption exists because there’s enough idiots of a similar mindset to make probable outcomes cause security issues, at least in the short-term, if the truth was revealed.
All in all, there isn’t any law that I’m aware of that says the government has to tell the people that Non-human sapients exist.
Not only that, but the Freedom of Information Act merely allows you to request government records. Even if they don’t invoke the right to privacy or National Security, it does not mean that the government won’t redact most of it.
For those that don’t know, “redaction” (also called sanitization) is when classified sections of a document are blacked out. For example, if you were to request documents about the MKULTRA project (which was back in the 1950s), this is what you would get:
1. [redacted] is being set up as a means to continue the present work in the general field of [redacted] at [redacted] until [redacted].
2. This project will include a continuation of the study of [redacted] and also a study of [redacted] related to [redacted], such as [redacted]. A detailed proposal is attached. The principle investigators will continue to be [redacted] all of [redacted].
3. The estimated budget at the project at [redacted] is $39,500. The [redacted] will serve as a cut-out and cover for this project and will furnish the above funds to the [redacted] as a philanthropic grant for medical research. A service charge of $790.00 (2% of the estimated budget) is to be paid to the [redacted] for this service.
(and so on)
Do you see the point, Rainwall? Enepttastic is correct: There is NOTHING in the FOIA, WPRA, or the First Amendment that requires the government to reveal the existence of non-humans on Earth.
Even if there was, I guarantee you that the files on those non-humans would be almost completely blacked out for national security and/or privacy reasons.
I got a whole book in my bookcase behind me that’s full of military handbooks and guides. They’re declassified, and nothing in them would be a risk to security to own them. Mainly guides to survival in the desert, exercises, and leadership psychology. This is just stuff released to the public.
I can just imagine the guides I have never, nor will ever see. The government has and always will have information they don’t just make public, freedom of information act be damned. National Security does supersede that act. Not just that, the safety and well being of the aliens on the planet is also important. Can you imagine what would happen if a Space Princess did come to our planet for vacation, some militia group found out, got all paranoid and killed her? The Intergalactic community would be in a muted rage, and if a Terran Princess was to get assassinated in real life, that would be considered an act of war. In the case of aliens, it would be the same thing. No, some information must be secured and protected.
(For the record, I am one of these people that believe that aliens exist. Mathematically speaking, they must. We can’t be the only planet with intelligent life on it. Have we been visited? I don’t know. That’s for more bored people than I to consider.)
Every government has its secrets, it’s folly to say otherwise. Totalitarian or not, peaceful or warlike. Every government knows more than it lets on. This is just the world we live in.
did you meet intelligent life before you found this comic because I have had a hard time.
Having worked with highly classified information (you can have a LOT of secret information sitting on your desk for YEARS and find nothing actually interesting) and currently am working tech support…
I often have a problem finding ANY intelligent life on this planet.
but….. the comment pages……………. intelligent lifebwhjhfdkdhduxsk,c ………………………………………. biocomputer hard reboot begun.
If you think there’s intelligent life on this planet, just read youtube comments for a while. That’ll dispel any delusions about that you might have. =P
I must be viewing all the wrong youtube channels as I don’t see that many comments of that kind. I’m almost tempted to ask where to find those, but fear for my sanity dictates I abstain. After all if I feel a need to sample the dark side I just have to google feminism, islam, racism or any number of other “dangerous” subjects and all hope that humanity will ever develop intelligence goes out the window.
Holy smokes, folks, I wasn’t expecting an outpouring of objection against the right of the American public to be kept informed of worldview-shattering information. Does no one else see anything morally wrong about hiding this information? I, for one, happen to like my governments accountable for their actions. Even if the letter of the law can be twisted to keep ARCHON in the legal clear, (arguably), there is still a moral obligation on the part of those that have this knowledge to let people know. It’s intrinsically unethical to hide such a huge revelation from the people for the sake of convenience.
Enepttastic, while the non-human sapients do indeed have rights as sentient beings, it must be addressed they do not have the legal rights that normal immigrants would have. Any judge in the world would give them those rights, of course, but such a court case hasn’t happened yet. And speaking of court cases, I would anticipate quite a few criminal charges to be brought against ARCHON once the secret gets out. Convictions would have to happen, scapegoats would have to be offered, and obeying the letter of the law and not the spirit is a very feeble excuse in a court of law.
Now, while of course no explicit law says the government can’t hide the existence of aliens, a judge could find that the First Amendment, FOIA, and the WPRA were being violated.
42.56.030 from the Washington Public Records Act: “The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the instruments that they have created.”
American Law is all about its own interpretation, and it could be interpreted that ARCHON is well within their rights to cover up non-human sapient existence. However, that’s not for ARCHON to decide, it’s up to the people and a court of law. These aliens are waiting tables in bars, so presumably they’re relatively wide-spread. Have medical tests been done? What if a human has an allergic reaction to one, or an alien has a medical emergency and passes out in the middle of the street and they die before ARCHON could get to them because the doctors in the nearby hospital couldn’t help them because they don’t know anything about alien physiology? My point is that you can’t cover every angle, and sooner or later some serious problems will arise that could be avoided if they just fess up.
Mspears, national security? These aliens are waiting tables. If their existence somehow posed a threat to national security than the government wouldn’t be letting them so close to people living their daily lives.
I am also very against the idea that some group would be motivated to attack aliens, or that there would some kind of public panic. Look at how popular Supers are in the public eye! Sure, there would be concerns, but people have been dreaming of contact with aliens for hundreds of years! Some people spend their whole lives looking for them! Think about the poor shmucks over at SETI, looking for something that’s already been found! Humanity has a lot to offer, and a lot to learn, and public contact with aliens would be quite a step in the right direction. You can’t keep knowledge like this in the dark because of how some people “might” react. We can’t live in fear like that, always terrified of ticking off the wrong group, it’s not sustainable and it’s undignified.
Also, this notion that governments are actually big shadowy organizations capable of keeping secrets from the people is ridiculous. They can’t even keep daily scandals from leaking out, let alone something as huge as alien existence. So unless they’ve been feigning incompetence at their own expense, this would reach someone whose job it is to make sure that people know. How high does it go? Does the President know? Does every Senator, every Representative, every judge? Because if not, they’re making very uninformed decisions, which quite a few people will find unacceptable.
Oh, really? Seems to me the government did a surprisingly good job keeping the F-117 Stealth Fighter and B-2 Stealth Bomber secret from the American public. The public didn’t hear about it until the invasion of Panama in 1989, in which it flew its first successful mission… but it was already flying by 1981. Nobody outside the people who work at Groom Lake (aka Area 51) knew jack shit about it.
Quick side-note: If you ever get a chance to see an F-117 or a B-2 up close, there will be security tape or a black-and-yellow line painted around it to keep you from getting too close. There will be armed soldiers. If you try to cross the security line, and you’re not authorized to be there (such as a pilot), They Will KILL You. They don’t ask questions, they shoot first and ask questions never, because the technology inside the F-117 and B-2 is that secret.
Again: Oh, really? Do they worship God? Do they practice the Muslim faith and pray to Allah? There are plenty of religious extremists that would be more than happy to torture them to find out what they believe in… and if their beliefs don’t match, kill them.
Or kill them because they’re not tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed caucasians (Aryans… yes, the Neo-Nazis are still around, though I haven’t heard much from them in a while.)
Or kill them because they *might* be in league with our Reptilian Overlords (yes, there are people out there… about 12 million of them… who really do believe that our government has been taken over by reptilian aliens disguised as humans).
Pick your poison, there are far more fringe groups out there than you seem to realize who would be more than happy to torture, kill, and/or vivisect any aliens they can find, for whatever reason.
No, that alien is waiting tables. Other aliens, like the reptilian, might be civilian contractors to the government and/or military, like Dabbler is. So YES, national security, at least in regards to those specific aliens.
Yes, BUT. That applies only to the state of Washington. They do not yield their sovereignty to public servants of the state. The WPRA has no legal status outside the state of Washington, OR at the federal level.
Addendum: It wasn’t revealed we snatched up Nazi scientist for many years – but they got us to the moon.
Also, I don’t imagine there a many laws written with the word or definition of “human” – nots just say “foreign national” or possibly “alien” (not sure about that on, though). So… The law still applied to them.
And no we need thirsts that say “My reptilian overlord waits tables at Club Oontz”
T-SHIRTS not thirst! Man, I need to proofread before I post…
ALL HAIL THE REPTILIAN OVERLORDS!
Also, PANCAKES!
Leaks, scandals, and rumors could just be a way of distracting us from looking closer at anything else the people in charge do not want us looking at.
It is called misdirection.
Now that is a good point.
I have a personal theory that the reason the government put so much effort into denying the existence of alien corpses at Area 51 (Groom Lake) was a misdirection. They might very well have wanted the public’s attention to stay focused on Groom Lake, to distract them from some other secret project being carried out elsewhere.
For that matter, they barely admitted to the existence of Area 51 at all until photos taken by a privately-owned satellite confirmed its presence. They did have good reason to do so, though… because that was where the F-117 and B-2 were being developed.
Meanwhile, the alien corpses (if there were any) were never at Area 51 at all… they were probably in a secret subterranean base under a warehouse on Manhattan Island, or something like that, where people would never think to look. ;-)
If you had ever watched the Disney channel cartoon Kim Possible, then you would know exactly what’s at Area 51.
Oh yeah, the crashed flying saucers, the alien technology, the captured aliens… and a hilariously incompetent security force that can’t even stop a poodle.
Of course, that isn’t what is there in real life. It’s a Skunkworks base, meaning it’s where the Air Force develops and tests experimental aircraft, such as the F-117, A-12 (aka the Blackbird), the U-2, etc.
They also tested foreign technology; for example, from 1966 until 1973 (when the project was moved to Tonopah Test Range Airport), they started testing MiG-21s and MiG-17s to compare their flight characteristics against the F-4. In 1973, they began program HAVE GLIB, which involved testing Soviet tracking and missile control radar systems.
And, of course, you also know about HAVE BLUE, which was the development program for the F-117 Stealth Fighter. (Before you ask: Even though I was in the Air Force, I have no idea why they call it a fighter. Maybe because of its small size, because it has no missiles, just two laser-guided or GPS-guided bombs.)
So there you have it… at least officially it’s just an Air Force base where they test secret aircraft. If there’s anything else there, I don’t know. My security clearance was never that high. But like everyone else, I have my suspicion that there’s more to it than just that, because security is incredibly competent, and authorized to shoot.
(Having said that, if you cross the borders of the base, security is more likely to simply confiscate any cameras and hold you until the local sheriff can come to remove you from the premises; most of the time, you pay a fine of maybe $500-$600 and spend a night in jail, with a stern warning not to do that again. You even get your camera back, but without any film.)
However, I don’t believe most of the rumors; some of the myths can be shot down pretty easily. For example, in 2004, Dan Burisch claimed to have worked on cloning alien viruses at Area 51. Um… I don’t think so, because there is no way he could’ve been working as a parole officer in Las Vegas at the same time as earning his Ph.D. at the State University of New York. Not unless Harem had a sex change, went back in time, and changed her name to Dan Burisch, then a few years later had another sex change and joined Archon under the callsign Harem.
In fairness, it WAS rather a large poodle . . .
Obviously, I did watch Kim Possible (whenever I remembered that it was on, anyway). I also liked Ben 10, Teen Titans (not Teen Titans Go!), the new Thundercats (which only ran for two seasons), and Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
These days, there’s practically no good Saturday morning toons of any kind, except in reruns on Boomerang; it’s all sitcoms like “That’s So Raven” (or Pokemon or Yu Gi Oh).
Times like these, I really miss the 80s & 90s. That’s when the good stuff came on… Galaxy Rangers, Marshal Bravestarr, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Exoforce… heck, I’d even watch C.O.P.S., SWAT Kats, Dinosaucers, Skeleton Warriors, Mutant League, etc. It was so much better than the Saturday morning tripe that comes out nowadays.
If someone ever started a channel that showed nothing but back-to-back reruns of the cartoons I used to love, I’d be like a kid in a candy store. (A 45-year-old kid with hips that are starting to get arthritic, and male pattern baldness, but still…)
Set VCR to record
Play back at leisure with plenty of snacks and drinks
3 best thing next to heaven.
Yeah, but I didn’t record them back when they were being shown on TV (and by now the tapes would’ve degraded anyway). I need someone to re-broadcast them first.
official payload was two bombs but the launch system is fully capable of many different missiles rockets or bombs, and while the tape or paint may have been where you saw them I have seen them without parked on line with other fighters.
Yeah, but it still isn’t designed to be used as a fighter. I’d classify it as a Light Bomber (“bomber” doesn’t necessarily mean bombs. Could also mean various air-to-ground or anti-ship missiles.)
what I misspoke was you may have heard two bombs was the official the fighter title came from the plan that it would carry air to air payload relatively unnoticed to a point it could do syd’s badgers trick and ground the opponent.
You want to know how people would treat aliens? Go to a school. Watch how the kids treat someone that’s different than them. It’s called bullying. Aliens are very much different than us, they could only expect worse.
And as the others have pointed out, governments love misdirection. It’s like a stage magician, he’s screwing up tricks after tricks until you think he’s an incompetent boob, then he reveals what he was doing the whole time as he blows you away with a giant trick you didn’t even suspect. Incompetence is in fact, the greatest tool you can use when you want to deceive. But everyone has completely wrecked your arguments. Never trust your government to play clean with you. But sometimes they gotta play dirty.
Just a small add-on, it’s very possible that this HAS been reviewed in a court of law. Just because the general public is unaware of it doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been seen by a judge or council or whatever (not American, dunno how this stuff is handled there exactly). And why SHOULD the general public be informed? Do you expect the government to inform you every time something significant is discovered? What if there was a country of people who had lived in isolation on Earth without anyone knowing, would you expect the government to inform you of their existence when they started integrating with the American public? It’s not the job of a government to inform or educate unless it’s something that would impact every single citizen, which this won’t. If anything, I would think that you’d be more likely to find out aliens were real online than from a government report, maybe in a scientific journal or a National Geographic article or something. Something totally accessible, but not necessarily sought out by everyone. In which case the government could simply argue that you COULD have known if you just looked it up. This is all just conjecture, though, it’s hard to say right or wrong in this case.
one step from a totalitarian regime is a good way to describe “security” organizations both in the comic and in real life, that’s just what happens when you militarize your police forces. military and police have two separate jobs one fights enemies of the state the other protects the people, when the military becomes the police then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.
but that has nothing to do with this particular case as it has been heavily implied that the existence of these “aliens” is know and presumably regulated. many of them might actually be American citizens by ether birth or immigration a point I doubt has been taken into consideration since in that case revealing this information would be actively endangering American citizens.
@ Rainwall
Troll much? Your comments have been politely rebutted. Repeatedly. Time to change the record and try another tune.
In the future, just ridicule & trollbait rainwall? It’s great fun =P
I just came down here to find the reference to Maxima’s shirt and found all this XD I shouldn’t be laughing so hard had just how much thought, effort, and research went into this possible/maybe/hypothetical XD
Seriously though, the very idea of ANY government being so open with information is quite naïve. Kind of adorable, in fact. My dad was personally responsible for the organization, transportation, and destruction of Top Secret information during Vietnam. There was an entire thing worked out to destroy the information rather than allow it to fall into the hands of the enemy should a base where said information was stored should be taken over. It involved blowing up the whole vault. There are still things that my grandfather-in-law took part in that haven’t been released to the public. On top of that, why do you think Snowden had to run to another country to seek sanctuary when he revealed all that government information? It certainly wasn’t because all that information was available to the public.
Anyway, there are far more educated folks with far more personal experiences and a bit more time on their hands to argue all this with you. I just found it way more entertaining than I probably should have. It amazes me what kind of conversations can spark from fictional comic strips.
Oh, as an aside, I’m a firm believer there’s life in the universe beyond our own. Statistically speaking, it would be far more improbable for there not to be- nigh impossible. The idea that a race so advanced that it could travel that far having any interest in our relatively caveman-ish sort of sciences seems just as unlikely, but fun to muse about.
I really like the way you drew Max in this one.
Thanks! :)
I think this is the first time we’ve seen Max in ‘about to go home and/or sleep’ mode. It’s cool how you’ve captured that.
Might you have been influenced by Sean Harrington’s version of her for the vote incentive?
Deathklok!!!!!
Nathan Explosion the gutteral, spine extracting, landslide of gravel voice of Deathklok…Metalocalypse doth rule…Maxima just garnered herself some “legitimate badass woman” points
It might be possible that there’s a code level so high nobody knows about it. Somebody created it, then everyone who knew it died.
Having once held a security clearance myself, I can tell you a few things about security levels. There are three security levels recognized by the DoD (in declining order of severity):
1. TOP SECRET – information in which the unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.
2. SECRET – information in which the unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the national security.
3. CLASSIFIED – information in which the unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause damage to the national security.
There is no such thing as Information that is “above” top secret, because there are no security levels above top secret. Particularly sensitive information may receive the additional designation SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information). Only persons with access to a given compartment of information are permitted to see information within that compartment, regardless of the person’s security clearance level. Thus, it is possible for someone with Top Secret clearance who will not be allowed to read a document that is “Classified, SCI”.
Oh, and even if you DO have clearance, you still have to be able to prove need to know.
“There is no such thing as Information that is “above” top secret” That YOU KNOW OF, which is the point by your own example you had no need to know of their existence.
No. There really is no information above top secret, in any country. If it’s “more secret than top secret”, they simply add more restrictions to who is allowed to access it and how it is accessed, and obviously the punishments for leaking the information becomes more serious (up to and including death, in some countries).
In the U.S., any information that needs to be restricted to specific people is still “top secret”, with an SCI designation indicating that it is compartmentalized. In spy movies you may see this described as “eyes only”, but the correct terminology is SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information).
In cases where even more security is necessary, they can add “Site Access Status” to the file. So not only do you have to have the appropriate level of clearance, not only do you have to be a member of the compartment that has access to the information, not only do you have to be able to prove need to know, but you have to be at a specific site in order to access the file at all. Which, of course, means you have to have a separate clearance to enter the site.
I won’t go into detail about just how many background checks you have to go through even to get “Classified” clearance. You can find those details on Wikipedia. However, I will give you some numbers: The U.S. has a population of about 313 million. Out of those, 1.5 million (0.005%) have any sort of security clearance. That should tell you something about how rare it is.
And unfortunately, due to the most severe mismanagement I’ve ever seen or heard of, millions of background check records were hoovered off the OPM database, so people with clearances have an added vulnerability beyond people knowing what their clearances are…
I wonder if, somewhere, there’s one person whose job it is to just sit there and keep track of and read all the classified, secret, and top secret information at the government’s disposal. Sort of like a Nexus of Secrets.
Or Mycroft Holmes.
I would fucking love that job.
That job would be very boring, actually, as NEW secrets are just slightly different old secrets.
What happens is documents are generated, condensed, and summarized; then go up the chain of command getting condesed and combined with other documents. Eventually, a thousand page oiece of brilliant insight becomes part of one bullet point.
I don’t imagine “OrbInt” from Sydney will be much different.
MSpears you can only speak of what you KNOW to be true.
In this country there just might be levels of clearance that you had ZERO need to know existed.
Also other countries may have a more nuanced security level directory.
The book of secrets :)
I think it’s up to 12 volumes now.
just for your country the global consolidated version is a two volume table of content.
3 volumes if you count the cross reference guide
I try not to think about it
Sorry, but still no. Once again, that falls under SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information). If I didn’t need to know, then I probably wouldn’t even be told that a particular compartment existed.
Some of them do, but even then, they’re just subcategories of those three levels.
So how do you know N.Korea’s security classifications.
Or communist China’s, Russia’s, Israel’s, or Brazil’s
You’re just not listening. ‘Top secret’ is a superlative statement, that simply means that the secret is the most damaging it can be if leaked. Whatever the labels might be, security clearance levels are either at that point or below it, due to the way superlative statements linguistically work. There is no way to make something more secret than maximum possible secret.
Sufficiently paranoid regimes might keep their exact labeling hidden, but it really isn’t necessary since knowledge of the labels doesn’t give any information as to the contents of what they refer to.
Because it’s public information, Dr. Revenge. All of which can be found in NISPOM Appendix B. (National Industrial Security Program Operational Manual, DoD publication #5220.22-M)
China: Secrets can be classified into one of three categories.
Top secret (绝密): Defined as “vital state secrets whose disclosure would cause extremely serious harm to state security and national interests”;
Highly secret (机密): Defined as “important state secrets whose disclosure would cause serious harm to state security and national interests”; and
Secret (秘密): Defined as “ordinary state secrets whose disclosure would cause harm to state security and national interests”.
Russia
Особой важности. Translation: Special Importance (aka Top secret).
Секретно. Translation: Secret.
Не подлежит оглашению. Translation: Not Subject To Disclosure (aka Classified)
Israel
סודי ביותר Translation: Top Secret.
סודי Translation: Secret.
שמור Translation: Guarded (aka Classified)
Brazil
Ultra-secreto (Top Secret, obviously)
Secreto (Secret, DUH)
Confidencial (and Confidential, aka classified)
Need I go any further? There ARE a few exceptions to the rule, but those are countries with fewer levels of secrecy, not more. For example, Switzerland has no equivalent to Top Secret. Chile only has Secreto (equivalent to both Top Secret and Secret) and Reservado (equivalent to Classified).
Again this what we are told.
Not what we have learned 1st hand.
That which a government tells you is to be held as suspect because governments routinely lie to their people.
You’re STILL not listening, are you?
“Top secret” is a superlative statement. Let me define that for you:
If “top secret” is already the greatest degree of secret, how is it possible to have a greater degree of secret?
Here’s the answer: IT ISN’T. Because “top secret” is a superlative statement. Get that through your head, please.
Figured I’d better reiterate, ONE LAST TIME, before you complain again.
There is no such thing as “Tippy-top super secret with sugar on top”. “Top Secret” is as high as it goes.
BUT… and this is important, so pay attention… it would ALSO be “Sensitive Compartmented Information” (SCI)
Let me expand on this.
There is Classified Information
There is Classified Sensitive Compartmented Information
There is Secret Information
There is Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information
There is Top Secret Information
There is Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information
Do you now understand what I’m saying? There is nothing higher than Top Secret. The difference between “Top Secret” and “Top Secret SCI” is that a smaller group of people gets to see it.
Oh, btw, the President has authority to see everything, whether it’s Top Secret SCI or not, though I doubt he spends an hour or two every day reading all the new classified documents the way Queen Elizabeth does.
(That’s one thing I really respect about Queen Elizabeth. Even at 89, she dedicates herself to knowing *everything* that the British Commonwealth government is up to.)
Here’s a fact about security clearances.
When Truman became president on Roosevelt’s death the people in charge of the Manhattan project seriously debated keeping him out of the know.
So do not say the pres can know everything when history shows it is possible for him/her to be told what government lifers only want to tell.
And all any of us really know is what we have been told and there is a good chance it is either incomplete or B.S.
Here’s *another* fact about security clearances:
Until Truman became president and passed Executive Order 10290, there was no document at all that formally defined the secrecy levels. Which basically means that if it hadn’t been for EO 10290, they might have gotten away with never telling him.
Besides, I said the president has the authority to see all top secret documents. I never said that he uses that authority… I also never said that the other Alphabet Agencies (NSA, CIA, FBI, etc) always share everything with him. If the president denies that something exists, then either he’s lying, or he truthfully was never told about it (this is what they call Plausible Deniability.)
Bottom line: we know this for two reasons. The first is because this is what they tell their people, both the public and those they read into programs. And in certain instances they read foreigners into the programs – we have a category for information that can’t be revealed to foreign citizens called (wait for it) “NOFORN”
The second is because (and I know this will surprise you) we spy on them. In fact we spy on everyone. Because they don’t tell us everything. We know because we don’t tell THEM everything.
saying that it’s a superlative is relative, top denotes that something is at the highest point of a thing, it does NOT preclude the existence of higher things. the top of your house does not mean that other houses cannot be taller, the top of a mountain does not disprove clouds or Jets.
saying that top secret is the highest security clearance you know of does not preclude the existence of entire branchs of security levels you are not aware of.
and why would you spend so much time trying to prove that there wasn’t such a security level if it didn’t exist unless it does exist and you were attempting to cover up it’s existence?
The only way you could know for sure that you just were not aware of it’s existence is if you had THE highest security clearance, in which case Greetings Mr President don’t you have better things to do than argue pointlessly on the internet like deal with ISIS or fix the economy?
@ jackspades:
Because it DOESN’T exist, but some people who don’t seem to be able to do their own research, keep insisting that it does!
How do I know? Because current secrecy levels are defined by Executive Order, the text of which is publicly accessible.
It all started in 1951 with President Truman and E.O. 10290.
Then redefined in 1953 by President Eisenhower (E.O. 10501).
Then redefined again in 1972 by President Nixon (E.O. 11652).
Then again in 1978 by President Carter (E.O. 12065).
Then again in 1982 by President Reagan (E.O. 12356).
Then again in 1995 by President Clinton (E.O. 12958).
Then again in 2003 by President Bush (E.O. 13292)
Then again in 2009 by President Obama (E.O. 13526).
All of these are publicly accessible through Wikisource.
For example, this is E.O. 13526: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13526
I’m going to post the relevant bit, because it’s actually very close to the beginning of the document:
In any case, why the hell would the government bother lying to you about the different levels of security clearances? It would be a total waste of their time, because it doesn’t convey ANY information about what the documents might contain, beyond:
Classified – This might be embarrassing if it came out too soon.
Secret – This might screw up some of our plans if it got leaked.
Top Secret – This will come back to bite us in the ass if the wrong people get their hands on it.
Ah you know because of “public” knowledge.
Which can also be called spin, misdirection, or just flat out lies.
Are you just so stubborn that you assume that there must be a level higher than Top Secret? I have already explained three times that we don’t NEED a level higher than Top Secret… that’s what Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) is for.
Oh, and the reason I used a public source…
Think about it. If I had used a *government* source, such as http://www.whitehouse.gov, or http://www.ise.gov or http://www.gpo.gov, you’d be even more skeptical, wouldn’t you?
(ISE = Information Sharing Environment; GPO = Government Publishing Office)
I do not assume.
I suspect.
And as the government has put forth with vigor that there are only 3 levels, it causes me to dout their veracity.
In that case, you probably doubt the veracity of pretty much every single country on the planet and the United Nations itself. Guess what? The U.N. has a three-level system as well. So does almost every single country that is a member of the U.N., which is 98.5% now (193 out of 196 countries, with two more being non-member observers). There’s only two members that don’t have a three-level system… they have a two-level system.
Now, I’m not saying that they don’t have discreet sub-levels within each level of secrets, but pretty much everyone agrees on the three primary levels. In fact, if I was a gambling man, I’d bet that some countries do have distinct sublevels. (e.g., “Top secret grade 1”, “top secret grade 2”, “top secret grade 3”, “secret grade 1”, “secret grade 2”, etc.) I’m just saying that the three main levels are pretty universally understood to be Top Secret, Secret, and Classified.
So it is said.
But only those who are at the top know for sure.
Its pretty simple why there are no secret clearence levels.
Because people couldn’t recognize them, duh.
If someone, say a member of the government, found a document saying ‘indigo plutonium enclosed’, they could open and read it. And you wouldn’t have any legal means against them. Because you need to tell people what they may or may not read and the basics on how to treat these documents. Everything else would just go against reasonable, workable daily business. (fyi, I’m not saying all classification is reasonable or workable, too many counterexamples).
Well said. A security level is, at its heart, a legal thing. If you can’t even mention a certain security level in court (and keep in mind, most court transcripts are public record, meaning that to prove a violation you often have to provide evidence of the action of leaking information without disclosing what exactly was leaked except in vague terms), the judge is not going to uphold allegations of breaching that security level, and may well punish anyone who attempts to enforce it. Given the evidence the judge has access to, that extra security level does not in fact exist, and is in contravention of the laws (including executive orders) the judge does know about.
Few if any judges even have Classified clearance, let alone Secret or Top Secret. They definitely do not have universal need to know, so they don’t have access to everything. Therefore, they wouldn’t be cleared to know about this supposed “too secret to know about” security level that only people with universal security access could know about, despite evident need to know (in order to do their job for the government). Since they couldn’t know about it, they wouldn’t be able to enforce it – and that security level loses all meaning.
TL;DR: the security levels themselves must be public information in order to function.
There is a level above top secret. It’s called UBERSECRETZ. I know, because the floating purpe reptilian overlords told me.
Now back to eating these delicious pancakes laced with hallucinogens. Mmmmm.
Typo: that’s a ratio of about 0.005, which is 0.5%. 0.005% would be more like 15,000 people.
Is that Murderface on Max’s shirt? Would not have pegged her as a fan of Dethklok.
Nathan Explosion.
. . . .Just had a thought, and look through here to see if it had been mentioned.
Does the fact that Max knows Sydney has been using True Sight mean that Archeon is using her collar to monitor her? Is this normal for them.
Well, this is Sydney we are talking about, so it’s justified in this case
She doesn’t know. They don’t monitor her… probably.
From pure experience, Maxima knows that Sydney will be fiddling with the Comm ball for no reason all the time. She’s done so repeatedly already.
Also, Maxima doesn’t actually know that Sydney did. She called in the hope to tell Sydney NOT to use the comm ball, but found out she was to late. If they had a way to monitor as she said, she’d have already known Sydney used the Comm ball and said something else about it
Maxi didn’t know that Sydney had been fondling her balls in public, she just knows Sydney well enough to know that if she hadn’t yet, she would soon, specially with her meds wearing off
I see what you did there :)
That pun was so bad, it was PUNishing to read!
Right floating polkadotted weasel I’m seeing because I’m eating hallucinogen laced pancakes?
It’s not implied here that Maxima knows that Sydney was handling the com-ball, she’s just calling her as a follow up to the conversation she and Arianna were having with Zeph a few pages back.
But, for a moment, let’s say that it is implied. Do you know what’s most likely? That Dabbler called her on her cybernetic earpiece and let her listen in on the conversation to give her a heads up as to what’s going on with Sydney, but did it on the down low because she didn’t want Sydney thinking she couldn’t tell her shit.
Finally, considering the fact that anytime Sydney has gone anywhere after meeting Dabbler she’s gone full terrible Bond impression with that orb in her hand looking for anyone else behind an illusion, it was a really safe assumption to make that she had been playing with it or was about to be playing with it.
Dabbler probably would have mentioned how secret this information is if it was about the existence of aliens. No need to clandestinely contact maxima and let her listen in. “Sydney, thanks for coming to me with this, but its way past your pay grade. You need to talk to Max tomorrow to get official clearance for this information since you have managed to become aware of it anyways. Until then, I cant tell you much.” Something like that.
Ultraviolet….
I’m sorry dave but knoledge of that clearence legel is above your current clearence level of green. Prepare for immediate termination.
-your friend the computer-
Friend Computer, surely you jest! Why, just yesterday, I heard that Dave was a High Programmer. Has he truly been demoted from that post so quickly?
More seriously, Ultraviolet clearance isn’t a secret. Hell, some of the High Programmers are well known (that is, only the ones that want to be well known), according to canon. Nice reference tho :) Paranoia is the best.
Seeing that he is still Dave and not David – no, he hasn’t. The High Council of the Dave Conspiracy is still in need of that particular Dave’s services as High Programmer apparently.
Though, that particular glitch in the undoubted friendliness of everyone’s friend the computer may be somehow related with recent commotion on the Island…
Just remember, if you hear “Daisy Bell”, then it’s already too late to run.
Sufficient joking has commenced to imply the secret security level is a farce to the masses. Plausible deniability. Threat averted. Cease kill order on the webcomic artist.
Trans-dimensional strike force back to stand by.
Termination order for “The Computer” on hold.
Awwww…
…Do I still get paid? Daniel the Human says my rent’s due soon…
10 Energon cubess have been deposited in to your account.
…….Thanks………
….Still don’t like you…
But I LOVE you.
But not in that way.
Give me a hug.
Warior4356
It is with great sorrow that you are here by reduced to an infrared security clearance.
Please report to the nearest termination chamber. As you are in possession of information above your clearance level.
Sincerely
The Computer
Friend Computer Dave is on clearance level polkadot and not green.Because the knowledge about level polkadot is about your clearance level prepare for termination.
Being put on Polka Dot level isn’t really that bad…It’s when you’re put on Swiss Cheese level is when it gets scary.
Asking Sydney to not touch her com-ball for seven hours, especially after determining her meds might be wearing off, seems like a stupid move on Maxima’s part. How long does she really think Sydney could sit there wondering about all the possible hidden top-secret whatevers that might be lurking around her before she really couldn’t help herself.
I’d rather buy a lotto ticket from a Nigerian carnie in a back-alley casino than take that bet.
Everyone is in there twice in a row. Is that on purpose?
What are you talking about?
“…then remind everyone everyone we have…”
I think you only wanted one “everyone” there.
Hah, whoops.
Fixed.
Now, “Horayyyyy” should be “Hooraaaaayyyy”
because it’s hooray, not horay
Depends on personal usage: some say “Ho-ray” some say “Who? Ray!”
Can God create a clearance level so high he isn’t cleared for it?
Don’t you want to know.
FNORD.
I’m sorry but you arn’t cleared for that information (heck I’m not cleared for that information but I am cleared to know the existence of such clearance).
…And I clearly don’t care if I’m cleared to see things of that level of security clearance. Is that clear? Good, now if you’ll excuse me, I got some reading to do… :P
just like with the rock so heavy he cannot lift it, Yes but only because he chooses to place an artificial limitation on himself. Solitaire would be quite a simple task if you simply spread all the cards face up and sorted them into the proper order it’s the limitations we place upon ourselves that turns it into an enjoyable experience.
My opinion is “no”… unless, as Jackspades said, He chooses to place an artificial limitation on himself. Although, according to the Bible, He can and has created a security level so high that even his own son isn’t cleared for it.
Specifically, the time and date of the Second Coming. Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:32, NIV: “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” I can’t remember the verse, but there’s also one where Jesus pretty much admits that he’s “out of the loop”.
Which is why I laugh my arse off every time some evangelist says he’s figured out the day it’s going to happen. No you haven’t, you pompous twit; I’d wager that if, by some miracle, you guessed the day, God would reschedule the Second Coming just to prove you wrong (because nobody except the Father is supposed to know).
The end of days will occur on Flernsday, on the 32nd of Pellember.
Dont tell anyone, internet.
WHAT!? The floating polkadotte weaseal said it only told ME that!?
Now back to eating these delicious pancakes with LSD syrup.
Actually, it would be possible…All God would have to do is create that security level, then alter His own memories to forget about it.
Similar to what Zaphod Beeblebrox did to his own two brains, so he could get into a position to steal the Heart of Gold ship. If Zaphod could manage it, so could God.
*Are you in the military
*Yeah, I’m black ops 6, I’m so top secret I don’t even get paid for it.
The replacement of phone receivers attached to telephone cords with nearly-featureless cordless rectangles was one of the greatest blessings technology has ever bestowed upon artists.
The replacement of phone receivers attached to telephone cords with nearly-featureless cordless rectangles that everyone carries around with them all the time making it friggin’ impossible to ever take them out of contact with other people without increasingly implausible contrivances was one of the greatest curses technology has bestowed upon writers.
It could be worse… Watching the remake of Total Recall had me grimacing at the “phone” embedded into the hand as a single injection that projected the interface across your palm. If that becomes the only option I may have to get leftie amputated so that I could have a prosthesis to handle the societal requirements of injected tech. Its bad enough to be “on call” 24x7x365 but to get “lit up” in the dark when you are trying to hide in the shadows from a killer because some Bozo updated their “status”? Nope, nope, all the nope.
Took a while to find images: https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=total+recall+handphone&view=detailv2&&id=1407D06977FFBA9F344FE368F9454C321F4D01E2&selectedIndex=3&ccid=t7v7ybmb&simid=608002713789991144&thid=OIP.Mb7bbfbc9b99bc7819740de98fc23d567o0&ajaxhist=0
And https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=total+recall+handphone&view=detailv2&id=652FFF1720FDBCC4916C75B75B862EC7ED869D9E&selectedindex=6&ccid=X0PygiQj&simid=608033912425483202&thid=OIP.M5f43f282242378e6d75f2bfe6ce2d9f9o0&mode=overlay&first=1
Not to mention the perils of having your hand set to ‘vibrate’ when you might be handling something sensitive… like high explosives with vibration-sensitive triggers.
Although the vibrate functionality has (*ahem*) other uses. And you know there are people who would use it for that.
“Call me! Just let it ring…”
“I thought you said you were going to bed?”
“I am. I have it set to vibrate.”
“Oh…”
On a more serious note, I don’t see that kind of technology happening any time soon, especially if there’s no way to turn it off when you don’t want to be disturbed. (At the very least, for people who have to be on-call 24/7, some way to stop it from lighting up in the dark or making unwanted noises when you need to be discreet.) The same thing goes for other sci-fi inventions, like the pupil scanners in Minority Report. Sure, I want to be bombarded with targeted ads every time I walk down the street… NOT!
when they scan people turned away from the camera or with hats/glasses blocking the eyes is the worst.
Yeah, that would have to be some pretty impressive technology, to see right through the brim of someone’s baseball hat. But there are already retinal scanners sophisticated enough to see right through a pair of sunglasses. Just not at a range of more than an inch or two.
Hmm, so the sunglasses don’t work?
Wait! The hallucinated purple weasel is telling me another brilliant idea! Close your eyes! All the time! I mean, it’s not like you need to see where you’re going that much, right?
Now time for some more hallucinogenic syrup…
the turned away from the camera part means that isn’t sure to work either.
Simple solution to the minority report retinal scanner ads. Just wear sunglasses.
Advice courtesy of the hallucinated floating purple weasel.
YAY LSD PANCAKES!
Heh, they keep track of you by your cellphone. Much cheaper and easier than scanning everyone’s eyes.
that and your car and bank card or shop card use and if you have a laptop you use on public wifi and what was that other one? they have alot of ways to track and monitor you not that they are happy until they chip you with a constant gps/audio feed and video on demand.
Public transport swipe card? Contactless bank card? In-car black box? Facial / car number plate recognition linked to CCTV cameras?
So many ways to help the authorities cure their chronic lack of information…
Well, there are still places with no cell reception, for a couple of reasons:
(1) Geography;
(2) Such a sparse population that nobody’s bothered to put up a cell tower;
(3) In some cases, the tower would have to be built on private property, but none of the locals will cooperate (this often, but not always, coincides with #2);
(4) The structure of the building you’re in. If there’s too much metal in the structure, it can act like a crude Faraday cage, preventing cell phone reception. (I’ve had this happen to me personally.)
(5) Not to mention, cell phone jammers do exist. Our local theater has considered installing them, and turning them on from the end of the previews until the credits start scrolling. I have no idea if they ever did install them, though. I don’t take my cellular with me when I go to the theater.
Having said all that, finding a place with no cell phone reception is becoming harder and harder, especially in countries where it’s more convenient to put up a few towers than build a landline infrastructure from scratch.
(6) None of the cell companies will put up a tower because the possibility (probability) exists that they would be required to allow competitors access to the tower, in which case they would have spent the money and the other companies would benefit, without having spent that money.
(7) There is a tower in town, but it is leased by a company with no actual presence in the state (they acquired the lease in a buy-out) and they maintain the lease and keep the tower switched off in order to keep any other company from having access to it.
1, 2, 3, 6 and 7 for my town. WooHoo!
Right. Which means that “Taking people out of contact with other people without increasingly implausible contrivances” is actually not as implausible as it may seem, as long as the writer chooses the locations in his story carefully. For stories set in the modern era, anyway. For futuristic stories, it does become more implausible.
(8) the system has not been updated to handle modern phone demands making 20 new phones overload a tower built to handle 1000 10 year old phones and reducing bandwidth to drop call for dialing levels.
That one kind of overlaps with darnkitten‘s number 6. If there’s no bandwidth to spare, then the cell company that owns the tower doesn’t have to share any of it with competitors.
“So sorry, but that tower’s available bandwidth is already completely utilized. We don’t have any to share with you!”
9) Cell phones work by magic and the wizard that normally powers them is sick with the flu
I know, right? Man, this hallucinated purple weasel is smart.
Now the hallucinated purple weasel is telling me to eat more LSD laced pancakes…
you are headed for an OD with the amount your consuming please cut back.
10) It’s New Year’s eve, and due to unbelievably poor planning, the phone networks haven’t installed enough capacity for everyone in the city to use their phones simultaneously. Σ;-)
Maxi looks super adorable when she let’s her hair down :D
Hmmm, is the reason why Maxi can’t super-mach speed herself to Sydney to explain in person because she is having ‘quiet-loud-sweaty-time’ with Ari? o_O
Welp, THAT made my Christmas Eve, thanks!
You are welcome :D
Normally, I would point out that being a strident feminist does not mean being a lesbian or bisexual. However, it’s pretty clear that you’re joking :-). But from what I’ve read on the comics so far I think that Maxima is a feminist but also heterosexual. I could be wrong, but even if he was interested in the same-sex, I think that Arianna would be at the bottom of that list :-). I apologize if I have ruined any fantasies.
Personally I think Max is attracted to Hiro, but won’t follow through because it might cause disciplinary problems.
If she is attracted to Hiro, then yes. Maxima is, first and foremost, a military officer. Military rules regarding fraternization would prevent her from following through. You cannot have a romantic relationship with someone in the same chain of command.
Archon in general seems to be less restrictive than other military branches, but Maxima is still a stickler for the rules (most of them, anyway). Furthermore, General Faulk could put a stop to the relationship if Maxima didn’t.
The fact that Ari seems (in most readers’ opinions) to be the least likely to be found attractive by Maxi is what makes the teasing so much fun (besides, we all know that Ari is getting ready to give Suzie her first ‘private interview’ ;) )
One thing: Sydney may not be lying in panel six, has anyone other than Sydney ever touched them since she ‘found’ them? For all she knows, they will disintegrate anyone other than Sydney, but she doesn’t know, so she said that they could be (Les may try, but even if they did, would they have any effect on him? or would he turn to dust until he regenerated in about ten years?)
Touch them, no.
Been bashed in the nuts with them – Yes.
That guy with the Nega-Knuckles didn’t disintegrate, but maybe it was because he had his pants on.
Been bopped in the head with one of them – Yes.
Dabbler didn’t disintegrate either, but maybe it was her hair that saved her.
Been smacked in the face with them – Yes.
Math didn’t disintegrate and there wasn’t anything in the way that might have saved him.
Conclusion: You probably won’t be disintegrated because you touch them.
:D
Remember that, for Sydney, the orbs only have any effect if she grabs them with her hands.
For that matter though: Math did touch one of them with 1 finger:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/838
but, ooooh, wait, that last one was a knowing and deliberate contact so there goes the syd can make them touch you but you can’t touch them idea. joking response.
I think parts of Nega-knuckles may, in fact, have disintegrated upon contact with Sydney’s orbs…
HOMERUN!!
Yeah, apparently Human males feel great pain when stuck there. I may be atanomac, atomec, atomne…….I may be fully equipped in Pretender-normal mode, but it is a suit of armour so I don’t have that problem… :P
“Baseball wrong. Man with four balls cannot walk.” – Lo Wang
“Three strikes, with the proper amount of force applied in the proper places, certainly does make a man ‘out.'”
~Sun Tzu
Yep. Something like: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1942/comment-page-2#comments
I’m still wondering just how condescending SCP-056 would act with everyone, but especially Maxima.
No idea what that means
SCP-056 is an individual who is automatically ‘better’ than those around it to the point of invoking feeling of inferiority and envy. It’s an inverse vegan, they don’t have to tell you about it, you just know that they are, and the fact that you do automatically irritates you. It also seems to know it has this effect on people, and is very dismissive and condescending towards them as such. Think about when Maxima got mad when she couldn’t move Sidney by proxy of the orbs.
Here’s the link to the SCP foundation article:
https://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-056
They’ve got some good creepy pasta there. The floating purple weasel especially likes the the hallucinogen flavored ones.
Write the story up in the wiki sandbox, ask for comments and feedback, post it to the main wiki, get a positive score so it won’t be deleted…
…and it still won’t be canon. But at least people will know.
please people do you know how many fireballs I’ve swallowed from laughing at your posts. I know I have been in a joking mood but be kind to many more today and I may hurt myself.
That which does not kill you makes you stronger.
Except for that one guy I mailed a chainsaw as part of a weight loss plan.
Hey, he wanted a way to lose 15 pounds fast. And it’s not like he really needed those limbs anyways, right?
So a while back I commented on your improving style, and how when you started some characters didn’t feel like they were in the same style as the rest. (mainly Max, Sydney, and Dabbler) So i think this is the first time Max has looked like she fit with Sydney I noticed you dropped some of her constant shine and gave her a less angular face without destroying her look. her face reminds me of Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones) but with more chin.
DaveB has mentioned a few times that some characters are done in differing styles, in particular Maxi, Sydney and Dabbles (and no, Maxi does not have the same jaw as Ritter)
Different styles can be good when they “fit” see onepunchman as an example. However DaveB’s early work was not good enough to make it fit. He has made serious improvement over the course of the comic and deserves to be praised.
When i say Max has never “Fit” before I’m talking the old uncanny valley effect. Ever watch a movie with a cartoon character added in badly. That was Max, Dabbler, and Sydney back in the first comics. It honestly almost put me off the comic, but the story was interesting so i stuck around.
As the art has improved that Valley has been disappearing. That is no little thing for an artist to pull off without a major overhaul.
As to max looking like Ritter I could have easily said Eliza Dushku. I think it’s those eye rolls she has going on in the scene along with her thankfully gone ‘Liefield-ish’ rage wrinkles. I don’t think her look is done evolving but, I do feel it’s closer to her personality. Full of of hard earned seriousness, wicked sarcasm, and begrudging kindness.
Kay: All right, kid, here’s the deal. At any given time there are approximately 1500 aliens on the planet, most of them right here in Manhattan. And most of them are decent enough, they’re just trying to make a living.
Jay: Cab drivers?
Kay: Not as many as you’d think.
Finally found the quote i was looking for :). Still kinda relevant, considering it was kinda mentioned, just not more-so due to not-as-secure lines…
Hey, wonder if I’m in that count. I know I didn’t check in with anyone when I got here…
they have a file on me that I keep telling them is wrong as I was born on earth but being nonhumanoid native they refuse to believe me heck even have a copy of my hatching certificate in there and can’t get it right. going back again jan 1st can check for your records then if you want?
Contact the nearest Reptilian Overlords secret embassy. They’ll promptly fix your problem for you.
they banned me after one picked a fight and I picked my teeth with it’s femur, it has been using that story to get snu-snu since it recovered.
You know, as more proof, or just possible proof, that the big secret isnt other aliens on earth, Dabbler doesnt have the slightest issue with giving all this info to sydney. Yeah she is pretty laid back about secrets and such, but even so, I would expect a quick, “Ok Syd, this is something beyond your pay grade you stumbled over. Talk to max tomorrow and let her know you know and you will likely get the clearance (cant put the genie back in its bottle after all) Until then, i cant tell you much.”
I’m sorry sydney even though you already know I’m an alien who disguises herself in order to live among the human population I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of aliens living among the human population using disguises…
Yeah that secret is pointless and out of the bag within ten minuets of meeting Dabbler. but this really should have been covered for everyone in the first team briefing just to prevent unfortunate “mistakes”.
On this, you and I are in total agreement. Not just at the first team briefing, but any new members should get that speech as well. Or something very much like it, anyway. “If, at some point in the future, we discover the existence of aliens living among the human population using disguises, you may neither confirm nor deny their existence. Here, sign this Non-Disclosure Agreement.”
Actually, in hindsight, that should probably be less specific and more generic. Something along the lines of:
“In the event that you encounter something that you are not 100% certain is public knowledge, then you are to neither confirm nor deny it to anyone who asks you about it, until such time as you have spoken to Gen. Faulk, Col. Leander, or myself, at which point we will inform you as to whether or not you are allowed to confirm that information.”
“Neither confirm nor deny” is a non-denial denial called the “Glomar Response”. It dates back to the 1970s, when the government contracted Howard Hughes to help recover a sunken Soviet submarine (a Golf-II class diesel-electric sub designated K-129) from the ocean floor. That mission was called Project Azorian. The ship that Hughes designed to perform the mission was called the “Glomar Explorer”, which allegedly was mining manganese nodules.
The CIA first used the phrase “neither confirm nor deny” in response to journalist Harriet Ann Phillippi of the Los Angeles Times, who requested that the CIA provide disclosure of both the Glomar project and its attempts to keep her story unpublished. At the time, the FOIA request stood, but after President Carter took office just two years later, they confirmed both her claims.
In fact, the Glomar Response has become so memetic and widely-recognized that when the CIA created a Twitter feed, their first tweet was “We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.” It looks like someone at the CIA has a sense of humor, but I can neither confirm nor deny that fact. ;)
“Neither confirm nor deny”
Has been used by the military(navy mostly) when discussing the location of nukes
It makes for an interesting shorthand for “I wont tell you if we do or dont, as either answer could damage our power or reputation in some way, therefore back the eff off.”
It’s sorta like someone telling you that ninjas don’t exist…Just ask any of them & they’ll tell you.
Well, yeah, it’s pretty much used by all the Alphabet Agencies (though the CIA has been veering away from it). At least we know where nukes were, but aren’t anymore. The government has been selling off decommissioned Atlas and Titan missile silos for a long time now because it’s too expensive to maintain them if they’re not being used for their intended purpose.
The last time I checked, there were nine up for sale. I’m not sure how many of them had already been repurposed and put back on the real estate market (a “house flip” if you will), but if you’ve got the money, you can buy one and turn it into a pretty cool home (or other things)… for example, the Jackson Heights High School was built on the site of one of the missile bases near Holton, Kansas. The missile bay is now a bus garage, the command center is now a classroom, etc.
Be very careful if you’re out doing some urban exploration and stumble across one that hasn’t been used in 50 years, though. The ones that haven’t already been repurposed are in pretty bad shape. You know: rusting metal walkways over cold, stagnant water 20 feet deep; 100 foot drops into 50 feet of the nastiest water you can imagine, that kind of thing.
The old Atlas E silos are in high demand, actually. The missiles were stored horizontally until they were raised into position for firing, which makes the silos easier to convert than the Atlas F silos where the missiles were stored vertically.
I saw on tv where a silo had been repurposed to teach scuba.
*nods* That makes sense. Also, kinda awesome. In SCUBA diving, the deeper you go, the colder and darker it gets, until it’s pitch black unless you bring your own lights. So there are few places better than a cold, dark, repurposed missile silo to learn SCUBA.
best I ever saw was one repurposed to be a nuclear fallout/ meteor apocalypse shelter for hundreds.
Gimp? I suppose that explains the why it’s so arduous to turn out a page…
HOOYAH MORNING PT!
GOOD FOR YOU! GOOD FOR ME! FALL IN LEFT, LEFT, LEFT-A RIGHT A LAYO! LEFT-A LETS GO, KEEPIT IN STEP! C-130 Rollin’ down the strip! ARCHON’s goin’ on a lil’ trip! Mission Top Secret destination unknown, I dunno if I’m gonna make it home! And when the bay door open wide, out we go onna couta five! And if my chute don’t open wide, Iaaah Gota reserve by my side! And if that one should fail me too! Lookout ground, I’mma Comin’ through! And if I die in the combat zone, box me up and ship me home! Pin my medals, on my chest, and present arms for my final rest, I saida LEFT, LEFT, LEFT RIGHT LEAYO!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWgsdexkv18
‘Nuff said.
Just wondering after reading this after the holidays, if one of Harem can sleep, will the others be rested?
I could not help but laugh at the “rescuer of kittens”.
But what about puppies? :-O
Well, I can tell you that there is a security clearance rating in the military that is above the president’s. The military doesn’t exactly advertise the fact that the clearance level exists, but it isn’t a state secret either. It’s used mostly for the intelligence work surrounding black ops missions that don’t exist, people who work with the militaries nuclear power hardware, and the more hush-hush R&D programs. Officially, the public is allowed to know such things exist, they just aren’t allowed to know what any of them are.
Good thing Sydney’s a comics fan instead of a wargamer, or she might have said “vermillion level” instead of “code plutonium ultraviolet.”
Shhh! That code must not be spoken!
There actually is a number higher than infinity. As infinity is a concept, not an actual number.
For example, if you take a logarithmic curve, eventually reach its Asymptote. But you can still see the graph space continue afterward. This is the same thing that happens for Infinity. It has a point it can never reach, but yet if you look at a graph from the side, you can see there is clearly more space after the Asymptote.
It’s basically the space for another “infinity”.
So infinity is a concept of regions, not really a number, as defined with Set Theory.
But that can make some people upset, in theory.
It’s kind of like telling a “PC master race” user, that eventually the visual experience and control meta will be surpassed by VR consoles.
PC: I refuse to accept it!
VR: But you must! For I am your father!
PC: NOOOOOOOOO!!!!
I wonder if the orbs would react to somebody trying to grab one and use it? We know they don’t do anything special for incidental contact or use as bludgeoning weapons, but maybe they’d shock you or something if they felt you were trying to steal them.