Grrl Power #527 – When I say “favor…”
Careful Sydney, some of those terms might be racist? Anyway, clearly she’s a drow. Or… maybe a dark elf… Actually what’s the difference? I think dark elf is maybe a non D&D version of a drow? Actually, hopefully she’s not a drow because most of them are buttholes. The main characters of most books about drow non-withstanding obviously. Just, all of the rest of them usually.
It’s a fair bet The Council doesn’t know the full range of Krona’s full abilities. They know she can flip a door’s flag from “locked” to “unlocked” with incredible ease, (not that a locked door is much of a challenge to any of the Vi’s) and she can reload an allies’ gun or even unload an enemies’ gun and lots of other useful but mostly cantrip level things. Time manipulation is something most sensible people should be nervous about, and it’s obvious Krona barely knows what she’s doing, much less had paradox checking code worked out.
(Sorry again about the late update. I’ll get on the horn with support and see if I can figure out what’s going on. Hopefully this will be the last late one.)
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Yeah, Maxima’s behavior here disgusts me. This is a kidnapping, and I do not like kidnappers. Yes, Krona said yes… after that hand on shoulder moment and implied threats.
Fucking despicable.
No, it’s not a kidnapping. She’s a cop. A military cop. She has the authority to arrest Krona, don’t you get that? If she really wanted to file charges, how about seven billion counts of reckless endangerment?
Instead, she’s asking (perhaps not as politely as she should), “why not come back to ARC-SWAT so we can help you get a handle on the full extent of your powers, so you don’t accidentally erase the universe or something?”
P.S., yes, I know it probably wouldn’t stick in a court of law, but there’s no courts set up for supers who abuse their powers. And if the Council knew just how powerful Krona truly was, and how little she really knows about what she’s doing, they’d either do the same, or outright kill her. The difference is that Arc-Swat is being nice about it.
Also, as I’ve already pointed out two or three times, it’s in her own best interest to cooperate. If she can do this much now, imagine how much more she could do once she knows how her power works, and with the confidence that she’s not going to break something (like the planet or even the entire universe).
At the very least, get her trained to enclose her universe-altering code in a try-catch loop so she can be alerted in case of errors (along with some code to limit effective scope, and some more code to make it easy for her to copy-paste that code to any place once she starts universe coding.)
I still think you who think Krona is going to accidentally delete the multiverse are overreacting.
Except that her reaction to Maxima says that she probably thinks that she can, at least, that’s how I read it.
Agreed. Krona seriously freaked out, when she realised that her code was not working the way she intended. Anyone who has coded in a work environment, or who has seen a programmer’s code go haywire, in front of their boss, will be able to recognise that.
Which was corroborated by Pixel, who is employed precisely to make these kind of judgements. Moreover she was furious at the level of risk being taken.
When both the user and the expert, tasked with keeping an eye on her,* agree on the matter, there is little point in claiming there is no risk.
* Which is why Pixel had both Halo and Krona on her team.
if she is a military cop she has no authority over private citizens off her base. That’s what real cops are for. But that’s that dernd ole law sticking its head up again. And we all know neither Max nor Archon follows the law. They make the law.
But just for giggles–
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
In the real world, yes, Archon should properly be under the Department of Justice and not the Department of Defense. In all fairness to Dave, Posse Comitatus is one of those things that not a lot of folks that haven’t had contact with the mil/LE world know about, and I don’t hold his forgetting or just plain not knowing about it when he started writing this comic.
That being said, it’s not impossible, if we’re willing to suspend disbelief enough to accept the massive number of superpowered/supernatural beings we’ve seen in the comic to date, to also accept that when Congress signed off on the creation of Archon, they also signed off on an amendment to Posse Comitatus to give Archon the authority to arrest superpowered beings (or mundane beings with the technology and/or skills to operate on that level – we have to account for the equivalents of Iron Man and Batman) and said beings only. And/or there may be a clause in that law saying that while Archon can execute an arrest of a normal person if need be said person does need to be handed over to the proper authorities as soon as possible and that the Archon member should have damn good reason for doing so (i.e. there was a literally immediate threat to bystanders).
Wasn’t Posse Comitatus directly addressed during the Press Conference?
Yes, the Comatose Possum was (poor Suzie will never live that gaff down, hope Ari comforted her nicely that night… after they made up for the punch-up during the Restaurant Rumble :P)
But at least Ms. Wen’s gaffes did cause her to give herself the perfect “stage name”: Suzie News.
Posse Comitatus proper only applies to the Army & Air Force (the Dept of the Navy adopted it by regulation). This is Archon, a wholly new branch of the military which was specifically referred to as a gendarme–that is, a military force charged with civilian law enforcement.
So yeah, she does indeed have authority over private citizens.
+1
Incidentally Krona is not a private citizen. She is a Semper Vigilantis. Whilst folks sometimes grumble about the exposition, it is worth paying attention, because we learn a lot of interesting things from the conversations these characters have. One of which is that S.I.s are all members of one or other of the federal agencies.
In other words Krona is an F.B.I. special agent (or agent of similar status in one of the other federal agencies).
Then bear in mind that Maxima is speaking to Krona knowing that fact. This is a scene between two cops, where one has made a serious error of judgement. Despite the fact that they are in different chains of command, Maxima is able to invoke jurisdiction because of the nature of the crime that Krona has committed.
Federal agent or not, Krona could be arrested by Maxima. None of this needs to be spoken between the two though, because they are seasoned professionals. Krona knows full well that Maxima is doing her a big favour by being as lenient as she is.
Especially when you bear in mind that this mission is under the cover of the Veil. So it would not go to a US court. If Krona were to be tried it would be by the Twilight Council. The historical penalty for even revealing their existence, to the outside world, is death by impairment. Just imagine what penalty there is for endangering killing all the members of the Council and everyone else in the universe!
“death by impairment” = “death by impalement”
Glad I spotted that quickly, before someone called me out on it!
Although dying by being cursed with successive impairments, until the combination became fatal, would be a nasty way to go.
Today I learned Posse Comitatus exists.
For what? For saving Sydney’s life? How did that endanger anyone at all?
Krona was messing with time, without know what she was doing. Also, Seven billion is many orders of magnitude less than what she would actually be charged with, given how many different forms of alien life we’ve seen so far.
+1
For the fear crime of being able to end the universe, an ability it is completely unproven that Krona can accomplish.
Maxima, on the other hand, could easily kill thousands. As could Halo, Dabbler, etc. Jiggawatt could blow up the planet by creating antimatter. None of these people are being arrested or having forumites speculate about the justifications for simply killing them without a crime being committed, much less a trial.
Because the others have been using their powers in a manner designed to minimise risk.
Do note however that Maxima did instruct Halo not to use her PPO, when they were at the Steak House. Because she is unpracticed so using it would create a risk to the public. So Maxima is not applying a double-standard. Public safety comes first. Personal rights to act as individuals please take secondary consideration, after that.
Whilst we can forgive Halo for breaking this restriction, when acting in self-defence, against the construct, we got to see that Maxima’s assessment was correct, because Sydney set the forest on fire!
As to your demand for proof, do bear in mind that there are two ways to obtain said proof:
1) Let Krona continue as she has done, until she does destroy the universe. This does have a teeny flaw in that it would be hard to make practical use of that knowledge, once everybody is dead.
2) Examine Krona’s coding and make an informed decision based on that. I much prefer the route that prevents everyone dying.
As to the fear of this happening, it is not an irrational one. Pixel is Archon’s chosen expert on such matters (she is the one who was assigned to make a similar assessment of Halo’s orbs and their capabilities). Given that the government has pooled all of the best available talent into Archon, that also means she is likely the most qualified person in America and probably the world.
In her expert opinion Krona was risking precisely that.
Therefore your conclusion runs contrary to that of the most highly qualified person available. Yes, it is just the expert’s opinion, rather than proof, but such is more than sufficient to justify Maxima insisting that option 2) be taken. Morally, ethically and legally.
Okay I know this is months old, but I just got around to catching up on my reading so forgive the extreme lateness, however after this chapter/page I feel compelled to say my piece.
Up until this point Maxima had been one of my favorite characters, sadly with this one page she has dropped (permanently) to the bottom. To be completely honest my feelings are that I really wish that Krona would use her powers to completely erase Maxima from existance. This blatant use of “we disagree with you so you will do what we want or else attitude” and the justification of several readers to say that this use is Morally and Ethically right has completely ruined this comic for me. No I am not going to debate the legality of the issue because legality has nothing to do with morality or ethics.
It’s moments like this in these scenarios, yes they are firction, that makes me go from supporting the heroes to realizing that they are no better than the supposed villains. They are both using the exact same tactics, just one side is better at the PR and gets the publics support to “justify” their actions. The whole way this comic started with Maxima forcing Sydney to join in the first place had me on the wrong side to being with, but hey it was part of the plotline and how to introduce the characters so I, with reservations, accepted the authors right to tell the story how they want and kept reading.
Dave, I have loved your writing and storytelling up to this point, with the noted exceptions, but, as I said earlier, this page has completely ruined this comic for me. The statements of many of the readers who support this kind of behavior, even if it is in a fiction, makes it obvious to me that these people are not ones I desire to associate with, even if it is only through an online comic. The issue would be different if there was even one reasoned response to their mindset on this issue, but all the comments I have read, both beore I worte this and all the ones after only use one common theme; “You may be dangerous so we have to control you.” The fanatic belief being described by people that I thought were intelligent people who, without being emotionless, be able to respect the rights of people. I was wrong.
Krona has already siad there is no one like her, so how could Arc have any better understanding of her power than say Halo. Arc doesn’t even understand Halo and they got these esperts who all say the same thing, “I don’t know.” The only one that seems to understand something of the orbs is Krona. There is nothing that Arc could do for Krona that she couldn’t do better on her own, no counting possibly Halo’s orbs.
To make a point of someone’s analogy that is used in later comments: Would I expect a cop to just let a little girl walk down the street holding a nuke? No. Would I expect a cop to just let a little girl walk down the street if she was born a nuke? Yes. There is a very different and distinct difference in the two scenario’s. So she has to power to wipe out the potentially universe, who knows really. So what? Whether she kills me with her power or I’m killed be Max, or any number of people, I’m still dead. To be honest I would be more afraid of my life in this universe from Max than I would from Krona.
Yes I do value Krona discomfort over the death of everyone I love, to respond to someones later comment.
In conclusion all I can say is that it was great while it lasted, but I’m now done with this comic. Dave your writngs is great and I hope you continue being successful, but today I step off the Grrl Power train.
“so how could Arc have any better understanding of her power than say Halo.”
That’s exactly the point of Maxima detaining her. They don’t understand her powers, so they’re going to ask. Remember, Max emphasizes that Archon isn’t going to whisk her away to be cut up in a lab, and believes Krona is operating with benevolent intent, but she also thinks she’s walking around with a backpack full of chemicals, and no instruction manual. For all Max knows, Krona could mix a few of them together and either make a health potion, cause a Zombie apocalypse, or collapse the Earth into an antimatter black hole. She’s determined that detaining her for a few hours is justifiable.
Again, this isn’t the X-Men, “mutants” or in this case Supers are a national asset, but there is a question of public safety. If there’s a kid who sweats bubonic plague, do you keep them in school, or privately tutor them until you hook them up with some weapons grade antiperspirant?
Max is taking what she’s determined to be a sensible precaution.
lol, I do like your analogy Dave. And, in that particular case, I would agree with the neccessity of detaining said bubonic kid, but not because of being what they are, but because of what they are doing. A person like that is a very definate health risk to those around them and there would be an absolute need to protect the people from said persons active powers, especially if they can’t turn it off.
In my post I made mention of the analogy of the girl carrying/being a nuke and what the cop should do. I will obviously stipulate that if said girl was born a nuke and was emitting harmful radiation as well, then certainly something should be done. I might be a big believer in personal rights, but I am pragmatic and know that there are times that rights of individuals do need to be suppressed for the greater good of those around them.
My problem from this page came from the fact that 1.) Maxima’s “request” was only phrased as such and is nothing of the sort. 2.) Even if Max’s intentions are completely honorable, she doesn’t control the governement and it’s organizations. She can’t make that kind of promise and I’m too much of a cynic to think that there are not going to be people who will try to do exactly what she says won’t happen (ex. Deus).
Now I know many people will disagree with me and this symbolism, and that is perfectly fine and it’s their right, but when I read this page I couldn’t help, but really feel that Max should have been in a SS uniform. It wasn’t the way I’m know you intended it and I’m sure other readers didn’t see it that way. Now I know that Maxima is military and used to being direct, I also don’t believe that she seriously consider Krona to be the kind of threat that has to be “dealt” with. But, I really don’t know how to explain this well, the situation in this scene just felt wrong.
Max is only human, super or not, and not perfect. She has her flaws, unlike Superman (well most of the supermans), which makes her easy to relate to.
Also, I was typing my last response immediately after reading this page, and having had a day to think about, realize that I was being more hot tempered that I thought I was at the time. I may have been reading alot more into the page than was really there, and to be honest, I am easily triggered when I see what I believe to be an abuse of authority over an idividuals rights. I do believe that there are times when a systems authority has the right to usurp the rights of an individuals rights as I have stated earlier, but in my honest opinion, this situation doesn’t qualify. As MidnightDStroyer says a couple of posts below, I don’t judge someone on what they can do, but on what they actually do.
Now I haven’t read further in the comic from this post, so I don’t know how things turn out. So in that regards I will say this:
Dave, I apologize for responding in such a heated manner and not giving the comic a chance to play itself out. To other readers who have read my post, I apologize for calling those of you who support Max’s actions as unreasonable and not being intelligent. As I said I was pretty angry after reading this page and responded in a way that was not as level headed as I thought I was. Just because I disagree with you does not give the right to think I am better than you.
I have decided to not get off the train after all. I will give the comic it’s fair due to play out. Doesn’t mean that I agree with the actions portrayed here in this page, but it’s not my story and just becuase I interpreted these actions in a certain way does not mean that these ineterpretations are correct.
As a note, I actually got the “don’t make me cuff you” joke and did have a laugh. Thank you to Tru, near the bottom of this comments page, for making a very reasoned and thought out response.
Your comments are well reasoned and fairly spoken, from the heart. Do not worry about saying things in the heat of the moment, we all do that at times.
One thing I should point out though, so that you realise that your fellow readers are not totally one sided, is that I too am extremely protective of individual citizens rights. To a fanatical degree. And champion them extensively in the comic’s comments.
So I only agree with Max’s stance in this specific instance, when taking into account the various mitigating factors. The comic had a lot of elements building up to this scene, so Max’s decision had many layers to consider.
Whereas the principle opponents have stripped it down to a simple ‘is it legal to walk around with super powers’? Which is not what is happening at all. There have been many scenes in the comic which show that this is not what they are about. But those have been listed elsewhere, so I will not repeat them here.
However what I would offer is to correct your analogy:
To one which is fairer to the actual situation:
Krona purported to be controlling time itself. And was manipulating it in such a way that even a simple programming error could cause everybody, throughout the universe, to be trapped in an eternal loop. Which is what got Pixel really mad earlier.
You are perfectly right that arguing the legality is totally separate from the morality (although laws are codified to protect and enshrine moral behaviour, so they are not unrelated).
There is no way that the right of an individual, to play around with a super power, can possibly be morally justified, if it is doing so at the risk of dooming all life everywhere, to be trapped in an unending time loop. And until Archon investigate her powers they (and Krona) have no way to know otherwise.
Which you will note that Krona accepted. As you pointed out Krona does indeed have the power to wipe Maxima from existence. So she is not doing this under duress. She realises that she was endangering the universe, by arrogantly assuming that she knew how her power worked and that she did not need anybody else to double check her opinion.
Yes it is her power, but Archon have a very broad range of experts to call upon. Including expert coders. Between them they can help Krona to confirm whether her powers are as dangerous as they presently appear, and then help her to use them safely.
Which is exactly the same kind of thing that Professor X does. Except in this setting the cops can enforce it when someone has been doing things which appear to be a danger to the public.
One final note, Sydney was not coerced into joining Archon. There was a whole page of her deciding whether she wanted to or not, before demanding the pen, to sign the contract. She was free to walk away at any time. And can still choose to leave (once her current tour of duty is over, under the same conditions that any other soldier has).
This was reiterated several times, on different pages. Starting with Maxima vehemently insisting that “there will be no whisking away” (in the context of Sydney being taken to a laboratory or otherwise confined against her will).
Also wanted to say “Thank you” to Dave for bothering to reply to my post. I know you didn’t have to, but it did help me realize I was being a little too irrational. :-P
Thanks for sticking around. While I feel I should inject the odd bit of action or ethically challenging conundrum for the characters, the comic is and will always be about those slice of life scenes and the humor. The occasional “hmm, how would I act in this situation?” moment is good for contrast.
You are very welcome in the community. It is lovely to have someone who speaks from the heart. Likewise being flexible enough to change an opinion. In a charming and gracious way.
Traits I try to achieve. Although more often I am probably better characterised as ‘opinionated and arrogant’.
Pixel at this moment in the comic seems to be an ‘idiot with a bomb’ that could kill everyone around her for possibly billions of miles or just end everything in whatever way you think is the worst. She’s pointing a gun at the head of the universe and she uses it to give people wedgies. She either needs to learn what she’s doing, stop doing it, or have someone stop her. Anyone value her slight discomfort over the death of everyone you love.
You mean Krona. (It is so, so easy to switch those two names!) But yeah, I agree with you and Meamoi, she needs to learn what she’s doing.
Oh duh, yes, I mean, I love superheroes, but when someone can toss nukes maybe they shouldn’t be allowed to run around free, having a superpower doesn’t make it moral to use it. Like if your only power is to mind control people then you either never use it or you are a monster.
Oh? Mind-controlling a mass-murdering shooter into putting his gun down and peacefully surrendering to the police is the act of a monster? Mind-controlling a jumper into stepping back into the building and calling a suicide hotline is the act of a monster? Just two examples off, pardon the pun, the top of my head.
Here’s the real trick behind Laws & how crimes are defined by the Law. Everything hinges on one common element in the defining of crimes: Is it an action that results in the injury of people and or theft/damage/destruction of property? If the answer is yes, then there is a crime for it.
It’s not a matter of what tools are used (even if its your own body parts), or owned. It’s whether or not the use of it falls under the specific definition of a crime. In most cases that include mitigating circumstances, acting in the defense or rescue of other people can also be grounds to dismiss certain actions from being criminal.
It’s not what you are, it’s not what you can do…It’s what you actually do.
Well, I don’t think anyone would stop there if they had that power honestly. In comics, even heroes with mind control turn out to be the evilest shits, like, I love Professor X, but he does some nightmarishly evil stuff. And how long are you going to mind control the jumper? Are you going to turn them into a meat puppet for years until they have enough therapy? And again, that’s assuming that someone is going to be in violent situations, very very few people are ever in a mass shooter situation. In their everyday life that power would be evil to use, even if you think you are trying to help people. Start using it to stop bullies and soon you are just using it to get good grades, then who knows what you’ll get up to just because you can?
Most people that are foiled in their first suicide attempt do not try again.
Also depending on the level of your power you may be able to inception him until he’s well.
Think of the good a mind controller could do if he went into, say, North Korea.
Peaceful reunification anyone?
A mind controller could do a lot of good. Even with meat puppets.
So trapping someone in their own mind for what could feel like an eternity is a good thing? And maybe yeah, if you could go to North Korea and stand them down, though even then if you have to mind control everyone into meat puppets what’s really the difference between that and murder, but what about more complex issues? What if the mind controller thinks abortion is murder? Should he then mind control everyone to suit his/her morality? Should they make people vote for who they think is the right candidate? Trying to fix things by forcing the world to think like you is pretty evil. There are some easy answers, but the rest of the world is too complex.
I can’t speak with authority on the relative accuracy of those two authorities, but they’re not incompatible. The minority of foiled first-timers who try again can easily be a larger fraction than the minority of the general population who make a first attempt.
Technically Maxima will get fired or reprimanded for NOT Blowing Krona’s Head off…… However in her defence she can say she was concerned about possible save loops and chose to investigate. She WILL be facing a board of inquiry over tonight’s discoveries; Especially considering that Archon has the President directly involved…. I SOooooo don’t want to think about Trump micromanaging Archon
The scariest part of Trump in the Archon world would be:
His claims of Obama wiretapping him through his Microwave would actually NOT sound insane anymore.
Agreed. Shitty behaviour is shitty behaviour even if you are the government. Especially if you are the government.
Yeah, they’re so rude to shoot you just because you try to break into a nuke silo.
Cool so you’d be fine with a cop letting the cute little girl wander down the street with an armed and active nuke.
Because that is nowhere near as dangerous as Krona can be. It’s the Finger\Gun thing again just because she is a cute little girl you’re kinda overlooking the fact she can end the entire human race… accidently. Krona is the kind of dangerous that merely asking her nicely with a ‘possibly’ implied threat is very definitely the friendly nice way. Her danger is of the level that governments and countries would consider summary execution to be a rational reaction… and they’d be right.
Max can too. It would just take fractionally longer. I don’t hear anyone freaking out about that.
But then she is disciplined right? So disciplined she threatens and intimidates normals regularly, points loaded guns at whomever she pleases, allows teammates to get injured and lose body parts at the hands of threats she could personally dispose of in microseconds (without a single instant of self-awareness much less remorse) and pressgangs little girls who are already being looked after by another group with whom the government she professes to serve has a diplomatic interest.
You guys are afraid of what Krona doesn’t know. I am afraid of what she will learn to become with that for a role model.
Difference being, Maxi has had this little thing called training!
Points loaded guns at whomever she pleases? The only person she pointed an unloaded gun at, was Sydney, to emphasize why she carries a gun at all: pointing a finger that can blow up a tank means nothing to most people, but pointing a gun? Everyone knows what that means, and Maxi NEVER carries a loaded weapon, it is always holstered empty
Allows teammates to get injured and lose body parts? You mean Pixelicious? This location was supposed to have been the least likely to have who or what they had at least seven teams looking for
pressgangs little girls? How young do you believe Kronachrome to be? And if she was that young, that’s even more reason for bringing her in to have her abilities looked at. Maybe you don’t understand, but Kronachrome is the only one even she knows with her abilities, which means she is entirely self-taught, and you feel it’s okay for a ‘little girl’ to just run around free?
As for the Council, Maxi will be letting them know as soon as she can, and, as others have pointed out, if the Council learnt just how dangerous and untrained Kronachrome is, they may outright kill her rather than risk her abilities getting out of hand, or did you miss that part where it was shown it is made of various factions :who routinely go to war against one another!!!
You’re twisting things to defend Max and denigrate the Council.
Wraithedge is talking about the fight with Vehemence’s recruits. At first Max did play eye-in-the-sky and let her team take a bunch of hits. That’s a justifiable command decision, but it did entail some permanent if minor damage to Jiggawatt and Heatwave.
It doesn’t look like the Council factions “routinely” go to war with each other.
Okay, forgot about Maxi supervising her troops, like a competent field commander does, and in a fight, there are bound to be injuries, but there were no fatalities (still no word on the blood spurt from TollHouse’s butt cheek), which could have very easily happened
Maybe the various factions don’t ‘routinely’ war amongst each other, now, but that’s simply because of the Council enforcers who would step in and stop both sides, but that doesn’t change the fact that they don’t all get along
Maxima was not just playing eye-in-the-sky. She was taking constant hits. Maxima had to stay visible, and drawing fire, as an essential tanking role, in order to protect her team mates.
Plus it did indeed make an excellent command and control position too. Allowing her to supervise the battle, train her troops, in an active engagement, and ensure that all risks were being safely countered. For example ordering Dabbler to prioritise the speeder.
Another big reason for not rushing in blindly, is that she would have been defeated the instant she engaged For Whom The Death Tolls. Such is the nature of his power that her level of power is irrelevant, his power would have defeated her. Which would have also lost the battle, because there would have been nobody powerful enough to counter Vehemence.
It is vital for a commander to obtain intelligence before committing their most significant assets. In this case Maxima happens to be both. She was taking a risk in drawing the fire of the entire enemy force, but was balancing that with having strong defense and the aerial maneuverability to avoid any attacks which seemed too risky.
Finally, as her troops were handling their part of the engagement well it was unnecessary for Maxima to take foolish risks herself. They needed to get combat experience, as Maxima will not be available to baby-sit them wherever they may next individually find themselves in a super-fight.
Instead of ending up with a totally green unit (or a defeated one, as the case may be), Maxima now has a force who have seen their first major battle and have gained the confidence and experience to make them the elite force that the country needs!
Maxima’s lack of proper discipline with her firearm should have been addressed the same as anyone else, honestly. Even if she CAN catch the damn bullet if her firearm went off.
And she’s not pressganging her, she’s going “come with us so we can make sure you don’t break reality.” Once they’re reasonably sure of that, she’s going back to the council. Plus Krona is strongly implied to have reached majority.
There was no ‘lack of proper discipline’. Soldiers are required to use firearms in training, and that was a training exercise authorised by the person in charge of the firing range (namely Peggy).
Military exercises involve soldiers running around with guns and actually firing blanks at each other. This is far more hazardous than pointing an empty gun. But it is a vitally important part of their life and death training. Likewise with Maxima’s training of Sydney.
We have seen how very hard it is to get anything to stick with Sydney (for example ‘do not talk out of turn to the council members’ which lasted about 30 seconds before she broke that). Therefore it was absolutely vital to perform a demonstration which carried the point powerfully and in a memorable fashion.
Importantly this should not be confused with ‘messing around on the firing range’ (or elsewhere). That is a serious breach of health and safety and should not just result in sanctions from the institution, it should be treated as a criminal offence, for endangering life. So it is correct to have zero tolerance, regardless of excuses, for such behaviour.
This however was not such, it was necessary to ensure that members of the public, the police officers (/military personnel) and criminals do not have their lives endangered. Failing to properly establish her authority, in a situation where firearms are necessary as a deterrent, would create a very real risk of death.
If the criminals do not believe she is credibly able to kill them, should they disobey, then they will continue with their illegal activities, thus endangering life. Learning this lesson is far, far more important than the minuscule risks involved in the exercise.
Do note that, as Guesticus said, Maxima’s gun is never loaded, except immediately prior to firing. It is custom-made and only holds the one bullet, which Maxima only loads immediately prior to firing. So it would literally require someone to teleport a shell into the gun, for there to even be a risk of it going off.
Plus go back and examine the scene, and you will see that Maxima’s finger is not over the trigger, it is well outside of the trigger-guard, to one side.
Maxima is showing all due discipline, within the constraints of a previously practiced* exercise. The gun has to be pointed, to achieve the necessary results.
* This is established by her conversation with Peggy, on the lines of ‘your method or mine’? Ergo this is a standard procedure, where each uses a different technique, due to their differing capabilities (Maxima is very fast so only needs a momentary distraction. Peggy would probably require something more elaborate to be certain of achieving the same effect consistently).
Correct. Not only that she has to be. All VI’s are federal agents. Who (using FBI special agents as an example) must have reached majority, and have an advanced degree, and several years of work experience, to even be eligible to start training!
Fractionally longer?
Maxima could destroy a city in a fairly short period of time from the power level shown, Krona is fucking with the fundamental forces of the universe and could conceivably break time itself, slightly different scale of potential damage.
Frankly if this comic wasn’t humourous I’d expect the next page to be Maxima asking very nicely and sweetly if Krona was sure she had all time loops or other ways to sidestep things turned off for now… and then when she is certain that there is nothing setup, Krona becoming a scorched patch and a slightly greasy cloud of vapor.
To Maxima and her superiors I’d expect that one persons death and a potential war with the council, only a potential war and one they could possibly win at that is much to be preferred to the potential extinction of the human race. Personally I’d kinda agree with that.
You’re presuming much with the notion that they could win. For example:
“Hi, we’re one of the Alien races allied with the council. The technologies involved in being able to quickly cross interstellar distances and arrive at specific planets means that, even if we have no other weapons, we have the knowhow to fire a projectile at relativistic speeds with pinpoint accuracy from across the solar system.”
If this comic wasn’t a humorous one (and The Council wasn’t such a “Jump-the-Shark” moment when it comes to any form of logical consequence in this comic), Max wouldn’t have been permitted to even pose the mere suggestion of detainment to Krona, much less the vapor cloud solution you’re citing.
The aliens have beem shown to have a very off hands relationship with earth.
They aren’t going to threaten one of the most highly populated governments on earth over questionable law enforcement.
We actually haven’t been shown anything of their relationship. Even if they did have a hands-off relationship, Maxima wouldn’t be allowed to do anything that could threaten that approach. Even if that wasn’t enough, the legends surrounding the supernatural members of the council would, even with only a 10% accuracy and minimal logical extrapolation, mean that any war between the Council and the U.S. is an endgame for the U.S. Add the Alien factions in and it isn’t even a shooting match.
“one of the most highly populated governments” When dealing with any weapon at small nuke or above, numbers only count in terms of killcounts.
One does not argue with an ant colony. If it offends, it is eliminated. But, as I’ve said, this is one of the many reasons that the Council rendered all discussion of consequence in this comic moot.
Yes we do: Aliens primarily vacation to earth and work with the council to keep themselves hidden.
this isnt the boys, max’s answer to krona is perfectly viable she could be an incredible asset to the team (specially if she was american) and you dont believe that the goverment wouldnt salivate at the idea of having someone that can control the universe laws on their arsenal of potential weapons
her powers could spell doom but thats more of a reason to study and understand them without taking into account that she seems to be the key to decipher sydneys powers which are also insanely powerful and are another huge asset, if the goverment was that trigger happy half the supers in this comic would be death including sydney probably
Not routinely, but it happens frequently enough that it was pointed out that sometimes the fighting takes place in the Council chamber itself.
Oh boy, you need to go back and watch MIB again
, if you think that she is a harmless ‘little girl’.
• Krona is a Semper Vigilantis. This means her day job includes killing supernatural monsters, who attempt to break the veil.
• It also means that the ‘little girl’ is a fully trained and qualified special agent in the F.B.I. (or one of the other U.S. Federal agencies).
• Krona is not ‘being looked after by another group’, she is one of the leaders of the group.
• On top of which she is the only example we saw of a Council faction which consisted of a single member. Meaning that they rate her as being of equal status and power to every elder vampire on the planet combined. Any one of which is on a par with a super, in terms of raw power.
• This gives us a pretty good indicator that they know she is as powerful as she herself claims. In other words all the key players, namely Maxima, Pixel, Krona and the Twilight Council, know that Krona COULD destroy the universe!
“Kidnapping”? That’s a little harsh, don’t you think? I see this as sort of like a police officer saying “come on back to the station, kid, and we can have a talk” Krona’s clearly safe, and despite Max insisting, is under no obligation and is free to refuse if she wants. However, the offer is also meant to serve her own best interests, and not in a threatening sort of way.
Also, the bit about the cuffs is clearly banter, which Krona initiated with her jab about the jacket.
Yeah, ‘people’ seem to have missed that part about the jacket, and the preceding favour request
Oh, she is free to refuse? Well then, that is such a relief. Because when someone who can kill you with a finger lays hands on you, tells you that you will becoming to their HQ and that their people will be looking at your code, and that if you use your powers you will be handcuffed, that seems like a great opportunity to simply refuse and see what happens next.
Well, that’s my impression. But, then again, it seems I might be reading entirely different dialogue. Instead of those “will“s, I’m seeing “We’re not going to disappear you into some blacksite” and “I don’t believe you have nefarious intent” and “do me a favor”. Yeah, Max uses language that stresses how important she feels it is that Krona come along, but she also states that this is in no way going to be a permanent thing, just a quick trip down to the station.
If a cop sees a lost kid on the street and offers to take said kid to the station and call his or her parents, or give him or her a ride home, assuming that police officer carries a gun, they can kill that kid with a finger, does that make the offer inherently nefarious? Also, while Maxima’s speed may give her a larger window of opportunity, Krona could kill her with a finger right back. Also also, I’ve seen it said in this comments section Krona shouldn’t be persecuted because of how powerful she is, yet you seem to be judging Maxima as inherently threatening because of how powerful she is.
And “Don’t make me cuff you” is such classic cop movie banter it’s pretty much cliche. Max was as serious as that as Krona was about breaking the temporary embargo to alter a jacket
Krona is definitely free to refuse.
Even worst case scenario…
Maxima: “You’re under arrest.”
Krona: [Flips toggle on her own ‘under arrest’ variable]
Maxima: “Don’t make me arrest you.”
Krona: [Changes toggle on her “causing alarm” from “6” to “1”]
Maxima: “Hey, thanks again for doing… whatever it is you do. I’m kind of impressed how well you handled the situation.”
Flips toggle from “null” to “+1”.
a cop has a gun and has the power to kill me by flipping a finger if he so desires, a huge part of living in society is to have a certain level of trust on the authorities and the system
To all the people discussing this, have you forgotten how the comic began? It began by Sydney being discovered, and brought to HQ under similar circumstances, though tongue-flipping a supposed bankrobber is significantly less dangerous than altering the fabric of reality without knowledge of the field.
Anyone remember the line where they wanted to recruit sydney just for the reason to give her training and keep a leash on her? I expect they plan to do a similar thing to Krona, and Krona’s powers have the potential for more than a few forest fires.
Imagine if Krona had been subjected to Vehemence’s anger aura before she knew it was a thing and could write a defense against it? She could have turned everyone’s bones to jelly or their skin into molten lava, and nobody could’ve stopped her (the scope of her powers is not entirely clear yet, but being able to reset time (her self-professed practical limit) is a pretty high bar).
I hate the idea as much as the next guy (I still have some anarchistic tendencies from my mid-teenage years), but she needs to be brought in if only for her own protection (and in tandem with that, the entire world). If some other villain had mind-control powers, forget about controlling maxima (who I assume has some sort of defense set up with the team against that sort of thing, if she isnt straight up immune). If you control Krona you can do it all over again any time you make a serious mistake.
” If you control Krona …” I find this comment as disturbing as Max’s behavior. I now think she might be better off with blood gorging monsters.
Not surprised you pick up on that part, and missing the preceding part where it’s a villain controlling her
We get it, you hate Maxi because she is a governmental war-dog
“governmental war-dog” Is THAT the takeaway with all this? Huh… perhaps I should clarify at least that.
I dislike Max because she is the end of the story, the end of the fun and the end the interest. She is a textbook mary sue (Maxi sue? Macro Sue?) and everything engaging about the story stops when she shows up. And if it doesn’t then the question arises, “why not”.
She is more powerful than anything we have seen and simply destroys any opposition. Even Vehemence couldn’t do more than bloody her nose and that’s just because she underestimated him. Sure you can make some argument that it’s somehow possible to place Max in peril but doing so would require something so monumental that it might devastate whole cities.. or continents.
And if the story continues past her arrival, then you just have a bunch of smaller heroes needlessly imperiled. Why? Because she said so? Do commanders send their fresh troops into unknown danger because it will be good training? Or is training something you DON’T do on the battlefield.
Watching most of the characters engage in super heroics is fun and entertaining because there is a sense of peril. Someone could get hurt, someone could get damaged and everyone has to be on their toes. (sorry Heatwave) But the gap between Max and everyone else is so huge that it makes zero sense that she would do something like hang around in the sky.
Let Peggy call the action, She can see it all. Let Achilles, he can’t even be hurt doing it. He’s a bit of a doof for that job but you see where I am going. Max is waaaay too powerful to hang around out of combat when she could have such a huge impact on it. Combat is not where training happens, its where people get hurt. Hanging around just to be tactics girl seems irresponsible.
“But a commander commands, not fights.” Ask any commander you happen to know, or email one, ask them if they were impervious to harm, could do the damage of a tank’s main gun with each hand and could move as fast as an F-15, where would they be in a battle? Where would they be knowing they could keep their own troops from getting hurt or killed.
In short, Max presents a huge storytelling obstacle that is very difficult to deal with. I am not saying that the writer is doing a bad job, not saying that at all, but that Max makes their job very, very hard. And sometimes when a job is very, very hard, things fall out.
I don’t dislike her because of anything IN the story. I dislike her because I like this story and her presence makes that story very hard to write in an engaging and sensible way. She makes it hard to write the story smart.
I think the best compliment you can give a writer is that you wrote it smart and I felt and believed it all.
I want to give that compliment. Max won’t let me.
Do you have any fucking clue about what a ‘Mary Sue’ is? Clearly you don’t, and you clearly don’t respect the author
Maxi may be fast, but not even she can’t be in more than one place at a time, and she also can’t see everything when she’s on the ground
Man talk about a freaking fanboy…
I just love how you ignored everything wraithedge said about other, lesser powered individuals as being the ones who should observe and direct the field of battle so Max can fight… Funny as hell.
Peggy can’t see it all, she is a normal human who can only move as fast as a normal human (also, as a human, she is just as squishy, which meant she had to set up camp at least half a mile away, and if Cree had been persistent, dead)
Maxi wasn’t ‘out of combat’, she may not have been ‘in the thick of it’ but she was about 100 feet in the air directing her troops and painting herself as a big shiny golden target, which several of the enemy attempted to knock off
Oh Wow! I can not believe THIS IS what actually makes me go out of Lurking.
First of all, since I saw no mention of the OBVIOUS I’m assuming you have absolutely no problem with Freakin Superman, who as far as we know is MUCH More powerful than Max but still manages to attract an impressive amount of fans and not break the narrative of the whole DC Universe(I actually do have problems with superman, mainly because Fanfics are the only place where I’ve seen his World Of Cardboard dilema done right)
BUUUUUUUUUT I think the most important flaw in your argument is: This is not a freakin action comic; This is a Sit-Com Comic, the story does not fall appart because Max can level a city on a few seconds because the story is not about that. Did you read the “About” page? Let me get you a little quote(Sorry I don’t know anything about formatting )
Yeah but what’s it about?
The extraordinary person in the ordinary circumstance.
To me, the most memorable moments in comics and shows are the scenes with amusing character interaction, you know the issue the X-men spend playing baseball, or the moments where you see the ice queen warming up to the underdog nerd character, or the scene that establishes that two tertiary characters have a buddy cop thing going. I find that’s the stuff I remember and enjoy the most, not what villain they fought that episode. If Wolverine fights Sabertooth for the 47th time, who really cares? But if the artist draws him drinking a Strawberry Yoohoo afterwards, that’s the sort of thing that people remember.
I wanted a comic that focuses mostly on those interstitial scenes I enjoy so much. So the comic is largely “day in the life” It is still a superhero comic though, and there will be some fighting of course but I suspect that any fighting Sydney gets involved in will be a little more slapstick than you’d normally get.
I could probably do a whole rant but this should suffice for now
Your unlurking is most welcomed, with such passionate and spot-on counter. I hope you choose to stay out of the shadows.
*presents a tub of Sunblock 3000*
Your reply covers most of the points raised. Although we should be fair in acknowledging wraithedge‘s sense of disbelief has been harmed. Which is a personal issue. Where I may be able to help though is to point out where a misinterpretation has occurred, which will be compounding (or outright causing) the issue.
This is simply incorrect. Maxima had put all of her reserves into defense and Vehemence was still beating her. Had Halo not intervened Maxima would have died. She had been fought to a standstill, could not spare any variable power to counter his attacks. Yet Vehemence was steadily growing stronger all the time!
Further, in the fight we just witnessed, it took Halo acting as a diversion and Anvil making a sneak attack, from above, to damage the construct. Despite this we saw that Maxima was caught in its mesmerizing ray, when she attacked. The only reason that she was able to resist it was because of the damage inflicted, on the lens it projected the attack with.
Therefore, in two out of the three battles, Maxima would have lost, if she were acting solo. And, as Halo fully realises, this latest one had a serious risk of turning Max into Evil Maxima! In which case all of your points about how strong she is actually makes the story that much more interesting, because she would be the enemy!
The potential for which has already had a clever impact on the story. Namely our principle protagonist having to make a major moral decision, of whether to withhold information from her boss. Given that this pertains to concealing a means of giving Sydney an edge in defeating Maxima, this has serious potential to harm their personal relationship!
Dave is handling Maxima’s power level extremely well, if you look at what is actually happening in the story. Your fears of her being overwhelmingly powerful is blinding you to the fact that she can, and has, been beaten. Without the use of Kryptonite.
Every veteran and /or military personnel, could be filed under that nomenclature. Such as me, I am a Vietnam Era Veteran.
You think she’d be better off with blood gorging monsters because a villain might control her? Wouldn’t that be just as possible in the supernatural community?
Especially as we’ve already seen that one of the elder vampires on the Council is covertly working with Sciona…
And Harem is working for the evil guy who set up the super villain battle, so what’s your point?
I love that you completely ignored the part where I was sketching a situation where the VILLAIN controls krona. Of course, under no circumstances would I suggest that Archon should do any such thing, and I doubt DaveB will allow them to. What i said is that Krona needs to at least have basic safeguards against being mind-controlled by supervillains. Obviously this is true for ALL supers on the team, but to the extent of my knowledge only Dabbler is so risky that she can not just be used against the team but be used to erase their very realization that something is wrong. And Dabbler, of ALL people, is the one I trust the most to be uncontrollable, due to her extensive experience in interstellar adventuring.
Krona is therefore a more tempting target for ANY supervillain with mind-control powers of any sort. Assuming her maximum reach through time is an hour and her maximum reach through space is 50 meters, she is still an incredibly dangerous asset to any villain looking to conquer the world. Powerful artifact guarded in a superfortress? Krona is made to change the outer wall so that there is a secret door there, repeat until inside. Then she’s made to make it so that the artifact the villain is after is replaced by something that is far less valuable but still dangerous enough to warrant such protection (say, Maxima’s origin geode? ofc they wouldnt know about it, but stuff like that). The villain makes off with an artifact that could be on Infinity-Gauntlet level, and the inner guard circle of the fortress is made to believe they were guarding something entirely different, making them fail to raise an alarm. Since they’d be the only ones allowed to check the artifact (or possibly even see it), they wouldnt notice (unlike replacing it with a fake). You could turn an entire security system against itself, and none of them would ever realize it without outside help. She could be used to make the entire council forget there’s anything like the Veil.
I could wax on about the possibilities, but there’s a reason that I name the altering of reality itself as the most powerful ability by far, even if your range and the amount you can change at once is limited.
The point is, in the face of a literal cataclysm danger, it is perfectly warranted in every way to take the person in question to your super-HQ, have their abilities analyzed a little closer, possibly teach them about it and safeguard her as best they can against all of the above.
What kills MY suspension of disbelief with your whole protest in the first place is that in the beginning of this very comic, Sydney was effectively kidnapped (with her consent, but still, same situation as here) in a much more real way than is happening here. She was literally grabbed by Maxima and physically held onto for the entire journey. Receiving an urgent and insistent request to ride in the Osprey is a whole lot different, even if there is the implication that if you refuse, they’ll make you go anyway.
The entire reason I’m even arguing against you still is that I cannot believe that THIS is the issue you have when literally the entire comic started on a nearly identical premise.
She is with/the twilight council she may be a fixture in later strips, she shouldn’t join arc-swat (to much running)
Prove it. Nothing Krona has done has harmed anyone or anything. Speculation about her powers capacity for destruction is just that: Speculation with no evidence to back it up.
Maxima, Halo, Jiggawatt, Dabbler, members of the Council, and probably a lot of other people are perfectly capable of widespread destruction. But oddly only Krona is being arrested, and oddly this arrest is based only on fear and not on facts.
Krona hacks reality. In fact, by creating a time loop, she has hacked reality in a way that defies physics on an astronomical scale. Based on that alone, theoretically she could change things like the Planck Constant or the speed of light or other constants of the physical universe. A small change could cause all matter to cease to exist as we understand it, just by a typo in her coding. Yes, the effect could be strictly local, based on the fact that her time loop seems to be local, but would be devastating on a level that Maxima could only dream of.
All of the people you list by name are already members of Archon and have implicitly agreed to limitations on the use of their powers. Krona, it could be argued, has done the same, by joining the Vigilans. However, she admits that she has no real idea of what she’s doing and unlike the others, can utterly destroy a reasonably sized chunk of local real estate by lack of spell check. This makes helping her figure things out a high priority.
Max is indeed a bit of a bully, but if she destroys a building with her “daisy cutter” you know it was by intent. Krona could annihilate a building by tinkering with her abilities.
Lastly, Krona isn’t being arrested. Suspects get arrested. She’s being asked to assist them with their inquiries, which makes her, at worst, a person of interest.
As far as I understand these kind of things(Very little so don’t quote me on this), if she does a reality-screw-up locally it would spread at the speed of light to the whole universe
I can see where you are coming from Do note thought that speed is ‘distance travelled over time’. Time is the element that Krona is manipulating. If Krona was correct and did actually turn back time,* then this would need to happen everywhere simultaneously.
To confirm this let us do a thought experiment. Krona decides to roll back the universe to the moment of the Big Bang. This is 13.8 billion years ago. If the effect propagated out from Earth 13.8 billion light years, to match this, then only part of the universe would be affected. Because the observable universe is actually 46 billion light years across!**
So there would be a doughnut-like universe, with a huge hole in the middle of it (and the big bang happening in the very centre). No matter that the effect may continue on, at the speed of light, because the universe is growing faster than that, ahead of it. The effect would never catch up with the expanding universe.
Presumably the rolled-back big bang would be smaller than the original one, given that parts of it would never be sent back in time. Which would alter the way that gravity and other forces interacted with each other. So stars would form in different ways. And the Earth would be unlikely to have formed (either at all, or if it did it may not have been capable of supporting life).
Not realising that she has already doomed humanity, before it even existed, Krona decides to restore things to how they were, and sets the clock forward 13.8 billion years. At this point she finds out that Earth is either not there or looks nothing like it used to. Nothing Krona could do would fix this.
Incidentally we have seen that things can be outside of Krona’s effect. Implying that it may just go the 13.8 billion light years but no further. In which case we would find that outer doughnut universe intruding inwards (the light from it, amongst other effects). It will have had 27.6 billion years of evolution mind. So a lot more than just light may have come this way!
Whilst that may be the way her power works, I hope not! Especially as there would be a 10-light-minute bubble sized chunk of the solar system that is now out of position. Next time Haley’s Comet comes by Earth may be in its path. Not to mention the various planet-killer asteroids which had previously been assessed as being safe, may now be a threat.
* Our indicator that she did not is that time had passed normally, without any looping, for Maxima. Sydney’s relative time-frame (including the first part pre-loop) matched that of Maxima. Ergo Maxima had not been looped.
Despite this though Krona appeared to think that this was still just a glitch, with her code. Implying that she believed she could debug it, in order to make it work the way she intended. In other words it is still potentially a universal problem, even if the effect was strictly local this time.
** This apparent contradiction occurs because the universe has been expanding during that time.
…I must admit, I’d be interested in seeing what would happen if she tried that on another nation’s citizen, considering Krona has broken no laws and already WORKS for a government (If not the american government).
I mean, it’s not like Krona is a rogue agent or lacking oversight. The Council ARE a legitimate government it seems (They are recognised by Archon itself after all) and she works for them.
This does feel a lot like Archon pushing it’s authority further than it should have and I’d rather like to see there be diplomatic consequences for such.
Why does everything think they are a nation? They are basically an armed version of the Elks Lodge.
Because they represent entire races that the American government does not? Right now, non-humans cannot openly hold public office or even walk about openly, so they can’t really be called true citizens of those nations.
And the reason why non-humans can not openly walk down a street is the same reason why humans who look different can’t
You saying the Twilight Council is a nation? What nation would that be? Where is it? Do they have passports and embassies to other nations? o_O
The issue there is that humans ARE able to do so. The non-humans are actually supposed to stay hidden/pretend to be mutants. Like how Dabbler needs to pretend to have a battle form, rather than being a mystical being.
If they ARE citizens of america, they seem rather second class.
Yeah, not all humans
It’s the same old story ,throughout fictional universes in which superpowers exist. Those who can conceal their powers do so for the sake of maintaining the status quo. The question is what you do with those who CAN’T. Who disturb the status quo and peace of mind of the population simply by existing. That’s where the Council comes in.
Does the fact that they can’t fully be themselves make them second class citizens? No. No more than supers who can conceal their powers being required to be concealed. The difference is that these are the ones that CAN’T just go through daily life as they are. The Council allows these to be represented to the government. It’s not ideal, but it’s a lot better than leaving these guys, vampires, aliens, monsters, what have you, with no voice at all and no stake in maintaining the code of silence.
Um, they absolutely can that’s the whole point of the veil. They could be doing your taxes right now and you wouldn’t know.
Disregarding the fact that they use magic to hide among us and ignore our laws, and that some of them FEED on us, the ones living here in America are more than likely registered citizens. (At least the vamps, weres, and magic users are, who knows if there is some kind of deal to give the actual aliens and constructs either valid Ids or travel visas.)
Who says they ignore our laws? o_O
I’d be hard pressed to consider a vampire or were doing there thing on the good citizens of the United States of America to be law abiding. I mean if vampires are living on donated blood and the weres are taking their wolfsbane like good citizens, that’s one thing.
That’s more a mob than a nation.
A nation doesn’t only represent a group of equally aligned people it does so on their own ground.
Krona is an atypical individual of incalculable power with little to no actual training. She is a clear and present threat to literally every being in the universe, intentionally or not.
Maxima is more than within her rights and duty to cart Krona off to be seen by someone like Dabbler, who is probably one of the most, if not just THE most, knowledgeable people in Archon when it comes to paranatural things that few other people have seen. Possibly even compared to the Council.
She’s also an allied agent of another friendly government who is not an immediate danger as she is fully capable of controlling the thing that could be a risk if used badly. The political way to deal with this would be to ask her superiors to allow ARCHON to examine and help her. Something that would almost certainly be allowed.
Maxima is very bad at diplomacy that isn’t gunboat diplomacy.
The Council is not a government
Then who would be the government for those people? As the human governments do not support or provide for them and they lack rights that the humans do.
As far as I can tell, they are the government for a Stateless Nation. As while they lack land, they very much are their own people separate from the humans.
They also feed upon our citizens (in a multitude of ways), use magic to hide among us while completely ignoring our laws (which makes it EASIER for them to feed on us), and have their own hidden military force that will “deal with” any members that get out of line, some of whom either are or were American citizens.
Acting like they get a free pass and that showing dangerous levels of irresponsibility on their part should be ignored on the grounds of ~friendship between our governments~ is ridiculous. Krona isn’t being harmed in any conceivable way, she just has to come in and reassure the people responsible for keeping the surrounding civilians safe that she poses no threat.
We may believe that Krona is no immediate danger and that her time loop that she already used without knowing how it worked caused no problems, but Archon doesn’t know that and it would criminally irresponsible not to investigate. What if the check point that just triggered caused damage Krona can’t detect? What if there is immediate danger from it? Archon’s job is to investigate, and thats what Max is doing.
In Krona’s place, I’d actually be grateful for the offer. She seems to realize how close she came to breaking the world with her little coding error. Not making a mistake like that again anytime in the near future would, it seems to me, be priority #1 by a long shot for anyone who wanted to wield that kind of power responsibly, and if ARC-Light can help, then sign me right the heck up.
The Council isn’t a government. It’s a security force at best, designed to deal with people only once they’ve started threatening the safety of the Veil, not before. They don’t create or enforce laws or policies beyond “don’t threaten the veil”.
Archon, meanwhile, is also a security force, but they are equipped to deal with potential threats to everything both while they’re happening, and preferably before they occur. Like with Sydney, or that dude with the gold.
Unless Dabbler also has access to the source code of reality, I doubt that she’ll know that completely unique programming language better than Krona.
Who knows? Maybe she’s seen something like this before. Dabbler is the most well traveled member of Archon, supposedly hitting many dimensions and planets during her adventuring career. What she has and hasn’t seen is impossible to really even speculate.
Also, she and Arc-Light will be working with Kronachrome, just like they are with Sydney and her balls, the same way Kronachrome hoped to get a better look at her balls
I have to ask: Kronachrome. Where the hell did that come from? Because I don’t ever remember that from the comic?
She has been in it a long time. Go back to the earliest scenes we saw of the council chamber. Krona is the pigtailed girl silhouette we saw, sitting on her own, above the Konami code banner (the one with all the up down left right arrows).
As to where she originally came from, her banner and outfit imply that she is otherwise just a normal American girl. However,with the ability to manipulate time, there are other possibilities. Krona may be:
• Cleopatra. When she reset following her asp incident, she decided to live life in a less ostentatious manner. Periodically resetting her age to that of a young adult, and using her reality-altering ability to change both her hair and her appearance, so that she blends in and is not recognised from her former life.
• Mark Anthony. Much the same as above, but without an asp. Oh, and he got bored with being a guy after a few lifetimes so now alters gender each time he rejuvenates and chooses a new identity.
• Chronos, god of time. She is just here for a laugh. Plus she did not do a good job of disguising her real name.
• Dr Krona Whoess, a time-traveller from Gallifrey.
No, I meant the name, the -Chrome part. I coulda sworn she was just… Krona.
Oh, she is. Guesticus does enjoy creating nicknames though.
*wags tail contentedly*
Aaah, okay. Got it.
“At least there’s lots of pot.”
That made me laugh out loud!
…Also, she’s a drow. I refuse to accept anything else!
“most of them are buttholes”. I agree- Drizz’t Do’urden was awesome.
It’s probably been covered, but, it’s: an ally’s gun, and, an enemy’s gun. The participle “an” indicated a single unit, one ally, or one enemy. When it comes to possessive nouns, a simple ‘s is appropriate, unless the word already naturally and nonplurally ends in an s, such as Moses has a basket, Moses’ basket. If you meant several, then it should be just allies’ guns and enemies’ guns, no participle (a, an, the, these, those, that…). If you meant singular, then it’s an ally’s gun, an enemy’s gun.
Or, if they take Neo’s approach to armament, it an enemy’s guns.
Max was taking that approach to armament when Lana Wachowski was about 14. No wonder he’s so mad… Except that I’m pretty sure Mad Max was just dialing up somebody else’s demonstration of heavy armament up to 11, and they just dialed up a previous person’s demonstration.
If you trace it all back, I’m not sure where it all originated. It probably goes back at least to the days of silent films, and probably even earlier. Shakespeare? Earlier still?
The only real issue is word choice. You catch more flies with sugar than salt.
If Max had said “request” instead of “insist” and “should” instead of “are“, likely y’all would be fine with it. She just started off on a strong foot, instead of a negotiating one.
Max really doesn’t want to negotiate about this, and I can see her reasoning.
However, Krona is an ally, detailed to assist, so a “request” would have been a better way to go, I think.
Ah, well, if Krona doesn’t complain, I won’t.
I wonder how she would have worded it if Krona was a guy?
‘Cause a guy with Krona’s powers wouldn’t likely be so conciliatory. Leastways, I wouldn’t.
And I’m pretty much a nebbish, for the most part, but if Max was talking like that to me I’d already have raised the shield I keep primed for emergencies, set up the teleport escape loop on a ‘deadman’ and told her to go F herself. Do you feel lucky, Max? Do ya?
So you would make yourself a target of the government and show them you are just the wild threat they were worried you could be?
Resisting an illegal arrest does not make one a threat.
Someone else’s fears do not make my actions or existence a crime. And those fears do not warrant the suspension of habeas corpus.
Krona isn’t being arrested. At worst she is being detained. As to the handcuff comment by Max, LE &
Sec. personnel are allowed to handcuff people without arresting them first. So all of the folks equating being handcuffed to being arrested, please stop making false equivalency arguments.
Second point that has been bothering me:
The council is not a government. They may have representatives from extra-planetary governments, but they are not, in themselves, a government. The people they watch over, are not their citizens and may, in fact, be illegal aliens. At the very least, many of them would be considered stateless persons. So please stop saying that Archon is committing an act of war against an allied government.
Lastly, people on both sides of the Krona v/s Maxima argument aren’t making an argument, they’re stating a position and refusing to hear anything that doesn’t explicitly support their position. Please, at least consider for a moment, that you might not have all the answers.
A guy with Krona’s powers would have been assumed to be oggling during the last panel and so the situation would have changed dramatically.
Also, were it me, I probably wouldn’t have dropped my defenses until away from ALL supers but then I’m a tad paranoid about these things.
If you look at Kronachrome’s eyes, she is ogling Maxi’s Golden Orbs, hence the bit about altering Bodie’s jacket
Have to admit, the “hand on shoulder” thing has a lot more dramatic effect when you know that the hand in question can fire nuke-level blasts and punch through concrete.
She did make the point that her hand is more powerful than any gun on the planet, but doesn’t seem as threatening as pointing a gun at someone.
So by putting her hand on the shoulder of someone’s forcefully ‘inviting’ back to her place to study regardless of what the wishes of Krona’s actual agency are, anyone in the know might damn well consider that a threat.
Add someone else to the pro-Maxima camp (as long as our colonel does not imitate the behaviors of a hero during Civil War II).
I am more appalled with Sydney, who has not learned from the “bindi” incident, rather than Max. At least Krona is cognizant of her actions and seems receptive to being more savvy about her powers.
Sydney will encounter an individual with less tolerance for her…quirks who might respond in a less than “won’t you be my neighbor” manner.
By the goddess, everyone is making such a big deal about this. First of all, the hand on the shoulder, that was meant to make sure that Max had Krona’s full attention because in the panel before that, Krona’s reply seemed more than a little distracted. Secondly, look at Krona’s eyes in the second panel that Max has her hand on Krona’s shoulder, along with that little sweat drop on her brow. She realizes that she is exactly the type of threat that Archon was created to deal with, even if she isn’t intentionally doing something that could end the world/galaxy/universe. As for Posse Comitatus, there are provisions that allow for the deployment of US Soldiers on US soil, and the Insurrection Act, that was passed with Posse Comitatus Act, covers the deployment of Archon. The wording that would allow this to happen is as follows: natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition and only if domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order. Judging from the superpowered threats that they have already had to deal with, I would say that the authorities of the State (whatever state they are in because I forget if it has been mentioned) would not be able to maintain public order.
Drow is a made up word wholly owned by WOTC (TSR originally). So dark elf would be the correct term.
So, is it spelled Drow™ or Drow©?
As it was explained to me, Drow™ would fit more, since it describes a product or intellectual property that distinguishes it from other, similar properties.
Nope. It’s obscure, but it occurs in Norse and/or northern Britain mythology. Variation on “trow.”
Yup D&D appropriated a lot of terms which came from myths and legends, none of which could be copyrighted. The distinctive likeness, however, when combined with the name can be, if it is sufficiently distinct to justify a trademark.
I could write a book about Thor, despite any complaints from either Wizards of the Coast or Marvel, provided my Thor was not consistently mistaken for their Thor by more than 50% of the public.
Here Dave can use the term safely anyhow, even if it was copyrighted, because he is parodying the way a nerd would behave in this situation. Satire is protected under copyright laws, despite the fact that she does look like a D&D drow.
In this case though Drow is simply not copyright and I understand it to be under open game content, so is not covered by intellectual property laws in any event.
“Supers are just regular citizens and won’t be registered” vs “You WILL have to come with us.” Discontinuity much.
Yeah basically its the SHRA from marvel but done far less militantly,If you have powers and never use them youre fine but if you commit vigilante activity or have a useful/dangerous power youre going to have handcuff in your near future.
Krona is likely different because of the risk of breaking reality in one way or another, just by using her powers normally. She’s just being brought in so they can figure out if that’s really a problem, and in the event that it is a risk, probably to train her with her powers properly so that doesn’t happen.
If this was the case why didn’t they go, “We could take you back to our place, let some of our experts see if they can help you with your powers.” or put in a formal request with her agency/handlers?
Instead Maxima gives off a distinct, “You ARE coming with me and you WILL be studied so we can decide what to do with you.” which leaves it unsaid that if they see any use of her powers somehow damages slight variables of reality, they might very well just vanish her in the interest of protecting everything. It’s in her specific interests to get away from the situation as fast as possible.
It is more than unsaid it is exactly the opposite of what was said! Maxima gave a very specific guarantee that no such harm will come to Krona:
Maxima did, in panel 6. She did not phrase it in a soft touchy-feely way though, because Krona has actively endangered reality. She has put everybody’s life in danger. Including Krona’s. It is a cop’s duty to protect people’s lives. Maxima did not pose it as a request because it is not optional. Krona’s powers have to be tested to see if the expert (Pixel) has correctly assessed the situation.
A cop who has seen somebody who appears to be drunk driving does not need to request that the driver come to the station, if it is convenient to them.
What, put a beaurocratic request, through channels, whilst Krona is even on this page, still tinkering with reality?
“Hi Ingsol, Maxima here, I wonder if you have decided to let Krona come in for testing, like I asked yesterday.”
“Hi Ingsol, Maxima here, I wonder if you have decided to let Krona come in for testing, like I asked yesterday.”
“Hi Ingsol, Maxima here, I wonder if you have decided to let Krona come in for testing, like I asked yesterday.”
“Hi Ingsol, Maxima here, I wonder if you have decided to let Krona come in for testing, like I asked yesterday.”
Psst. this is not Maxima on four different days, being stalled by Ingsol. The time-loop has kicked in, and that was an exceprt after the first fifteen billion repeats. Now just imagine that is all Ingsol, Maxima, Krona and everybody else gets to do, for the rest of eternity. Repeat the same fifteen minutes, with no chance of altering the loop.
Krona admitted to a police officer that she had made mistakes with her code. That police officer assessed that incompetent coding of a power that Krona claims affects everywhere (which is what you do if you change time like she claimed) was endangering everybody’s life.
I believe that this is sufficient grounds for the cop’s supervisor (Maxima, in this mission), if they also agree, to insist on the best available experts corroborate this.
In case you have not read the other threads, I should point out that a senior US lawyer does not agree with me on this matter. However I had a job where I regularly had US lawyers giving contradictory opinions on matters. So I am well aware that these are literally opinions and not fact.
None the less one does not ignore the opinion of an experienced lawyer. But in this case I lack an opposing council to test her arguments. So, lacking that, I have to examine them on their merits and I am still not convinced. But check out our respective opinions, and make up your own mind. She is very much in your camp though, and I am not a US lawyer, so she has waaaaay more credibility than me.
“Normal supers who can control their powers and won’t destroy the world accidentally won’t have to be registered” vs “You should come with us, you are very reckless with your powers that you can’t even control perfectly.”
Not really. If Krona said “I will not use this power anymore, or will use it only in a safe and responsible way,” then they’d leave her be. But since she’s with the SV, and thus is going to use her power, and she CAN’T say she’ll use it safely and responsibly since she doesn’t know how, Max has a pretty good justification for asking her to let Archon’s experts take a look and see if they can figure out how she CAN use it safely. As for the ‘cuffs’ bit, that’s clearly a ‘we have established that we’re all okay here and I can respond to your joke with a joke of my own to signal that the tense moment is passed’ situation.
Also it’s been pretty well established that “vigilante” isn’t Arc-SWAT’s favorite word either, so this is starting on the premise that Arc is prejudiced to feel like Kronachrome has been MISUSING her power by using it for vigilante work. Combined with the fact that the power itself is almost literally godlike and she doesn’t have a firm handle on it… it’s pretty much Maxima’s job to step in here.
In any other story Maxima would be causing a massive diplomatic disaster by outright arresting an ally,How can anyone see this as anything other than a blatant power grab from archon?(10-1this wont post-i think ive been blocked or something of late).That said archons honeymoon period should be truely over when they finally get round to violently arresting free range supers for stopping rapes and such(using it as an example since its a crime archon would never ever even think of wasting resources on).
You know, that is someone that always bugged me, if you only have, say, super strength and flight, how are you ever going to come across something like a rape? It’s not like people advertise where and when they are going to commit crimes, would you just be breaking into parties and private homes hoping to catch people committing a crime? Seems like something better fought with police resources, education campaigns and abuse hotlines.
There have been some amusing articles pointing out that Batman’s true superpower isn’t money; it’s timing. If the police were watching as a mugging took place, they could intervene too. The problem is that they tend to only find out after the fact and have to go figure out who the bad guy is. They don’t get to just punch someone in the middle of grabbing a purse. So Archon might get involved in a super-criminal, but only after it’s been clearly established that one is operating and can’t be dealt with by the regular police.
You must be having local problems. Unless you get seriously offensive, you would not get blocked by Dave. I used to have problems posting when my system was seriously out of date and/or had problems with poor service from my ISP (when they had a problem or at peak times).
The other thing that can happen is triggering the automatic spam filter. This can be done, for instance, if inserting numerous links within a single post. However you do get a very clear message if that happens, saying that the post has been sent into arbitration (or whatever the term is).
Whereas the earlier problems I listed would not give any message or just get a ‘server did not respond’. The latter simply being because it cannot handle very very slow requests. If neither of those seems likely, let us know what other symptoms you may be having. We have loads of folks who could point you in the right direction.
Which would not be the door, honest.
It may well do in this one. Do be aware that the things the characters say are what they believe to be the case (other than those who are lying of course). So just because Maxima thinks she can smooth it over does not mean the Twilight Council will take it lying down.
However Maxima is speaking with several points that will support her case that she will make to them.
1. Max (and Archon) will already have a very good reputation with the Council. I judge this from what we have seen of Archon’s extremely enlightened attitudes. Too many to list them all, but a very early one was Maxima’s making it cleat, to Sydney, that they do not ‘whisk supers away’.
It was totally Sydney’s choice whether to join. Plus it is a pointer that Archon do not have a habit of obtaining power regardless of the cost. They make a fair offer, and if it is turned down, they accept the decision, in good grace.
2. The Twilight Council has been in existence for about three thousand years. Which means that they are very good at prioritising things which preserver their existence. Krona has demonstrated that she does not have adequate control over her powers.
If she really does command time, at the fundamental level that she thought she did, then a mistake by her could get them (for example) trapped in an endless loop. It is in their own best interests to have someone make sure that she is reined in, and checked out.
Clearly whatever protocols they had themselves were inadequate for this purpose Hence, whilst they might prefer to sort this out in-house, they will realise that getting it right, and fast, is the greater priority here. Archon are already on the case, which will count.
3. Do not forget that the Twilight Council has seriously dangerous internal politics, which can result in inter-factional fighting. Krona has god-like powers. There will be a great many members who are very happy to have Archon taking the risk of provoking her, rather than themselves!
4. Archon already have one of their senior members (Zephan) serving as a Twilight Council faction delegate. Meaning that they will be privy to even very sensitive Council information.* This is an opportunity for Council to get one of their own leaders in a similar position within Archon.
Do note that this is not me backing the author’s stance. It is an honest assessment of the balance of power. Just as I consider Zephan as likely to be more loyal to Archon, the Council will likely consider Krona to be more loyal to them. Given that, even if she did choose to join Archon (which she may not), it would be as a normal member. Whereas she remains the leader of a Twilight Council faction, which gives her considerable status and power in their organisation.
* We do not know where his ultimate loyalties lie yet, but the fact that he is the head of Arc-Light VERY strongly implies that he is implicitly trusted by Archon and they consider him to be 100% loyal.
cleat = clear
Don’t be ridiculous. Of course they would allocate whatever resources was necessary, to stop a rapist! If it is someone using super-powers, then it is wholly their job to do that. Various powers would render any regular police … ahem … impotent, in dealing with such a crime.
Modern Western society will allocate hundreds of police officers and thousands of people-hours in trying to stop a rapist. I believe Archon would give this similarly high priority.
Of course there may be a ‘time to save the world’ crisis going on too. In which case it might limit the available resources, but not any longer than was necessary. It is a serious crime, which would get serious attention!
Where’s the violence? Where’s the arrest?
I think a random crime-stopping samaritan is pretty low on ARC-SWAT’s priority tree. On the other hand someone who can literally bend time at will and has only moderate grasp of their powers going vigilante? Once they realize just how serious the situation is EVERYONE is going to pay attention to that
Maxima’s stepping in with the “I’m from the government, we’re here to help” routine serves the dual purpose of offering assistance to help Krona understand her abilities and gain better control over them, and ensuring that people with much more nefarious purposes than just keeping the streets clean and the laws of the universe undisturbede making a similar offer.
Sometimes the G-man’s offer really is the best possible deal. At least all the government usually wants is for the clocks to work right and traffic to run.
maybe this has been asked already… but does anyone else feel like they’ve seen that elf before? maybe not in this but I swear I’ve seen her before.
You mean other than when she was hanging upside down?
yes :P
Superjail, huh? At least it’s not Ultraprison.
Who said anything about jail? I mean if Krona decided to run for it it wouldn’t make her Maxima’s favorite person, but this isn’t an arrest. She’s being asked for her own best interest to work with the government to help understand what she can do. Considering she just seriously screwed right the hell up, she really isn’t in a position to disagree.
I see lots of people arguing about the legality and morality of Maxima’s action here, but I think there’s something many are missing:
Krona is the only person with access to the source code of reality. How would Archon have someone who would know that completely unique programming language better than its sole user?
Every programmer needs someone to check over their code. Even if they created the language themselves they should teach it to someone else, and go through other best-practice procedures too (such as testing in a sandbox, with alpha and beta testers).
This will not be a quick-fix. But if it is similar to other languages (such as the magical programming languages) or relatively simple to understand, then they could clear her for the basic functions relatively fast.
Just as a note Krona does not actually know the most fundamental language. That is the one employed in Halo’s orbs. Which Krona clearly does not use, even if she could recognise what it was. So she is one step removed from that.
…So are Sydney’s orbs going to eventually reach god levels?
I mean, the PPO went from an anti-materiel weapon to infantry support with her recent upgrade, she can teleport to her “hologram”; Who knows how far those abilities could evolve? Lighthook upgrades could eventually include something like fingers, or phasing through things it doesn’t want to grab, Orbs could maybe combine into orbs with all the same abilities as the old ones…
That’s small potatoes, and even if you just looked at it as pure stat upgrades, giving the lighthook enough range and strength to throw the moon at Jupiter could make it the equivalent of a superweapon;
Or maybe she could have the telepresence use it’s own orbs and have it with flight and PPO (still invincible) while she uses telepresence and shield
Perhaps lighthook eventually counts as a free action useful for being only a third (or gripping) hand for the purposes of Orb holding; so you can just use the lighthook for the purpose of grabbing a third orb without actually holding it…
The possibilities are endless, really, it just depends on what and where you want to go. Sydney is theoretically capable of taking on people like high-end Superman (Which would crush Max like a bug) depending on how far she scales and how her abilities evolve.
The “Primordial Code” is reality’s operating system whereas Krona’s code is more like Java; she can alter the program but not what it runs on; to my knowledge she can’t change fundamental rules, just screw with values a bunch
I might be totally wrong here and I doubt DaveB is taking Syd to this level but it could be a thing.
Whats wrong with java are you dissing java java is cool java is awesome
…what
I code a little
Possibly. Maxima could already do a fair impersonation of a god, if she chose. Say planting a field full of crops, in the blink of an eye. Or filling the nets of fishermen likewise. Or destroying a city, with a single attack.
Dave has already stated that Halo may be more powerful than Maxima, when she is fully trained, and has fleshed out her skill tree.
This is not something to be too alarmed about though. We have a long time with Sydney, at her more modest power levels. Plus I have every confidence in Dave being able to tell an interesting story even with characters who have god-like powers. He is already doing that, after all.
I find it fascinating that the debate about Maxima laying a hand on Krona’s shoulder and politely insisting, on a sensible course of action, should raise a more impassioned debate than that over the powers themselves. This is a very good sign that DaveB is engaging the readership deeply about the morality and ethics. Even above the super-powers, which drew us her, in the first place.
I like the places you went to with your examples of places the skill-tree could lead to, by the way.
In a word? Once it’s clear that it’s code, I imagine that a whole bunch of people can help. All you need to understand code is a grasp of the syntax, the “language” the code wants you to speak. Even if only Kronachrome can actually manipulate the source code, Dabbler or that coder kid on Arc-Light should be able to make themselves useful interpreting the code once Kronachrome gives them the data she’s collected so far. Dabbler in particular already does things with quasimagical technology that makes her an obvious choice to consult first, but any reasonably well-meaning coder can probably supply non-useless information.
I really do think that Maxima is overplaying her hand here. During the “Incident” itself Krona was freaked out because the application didn’t seem to be working like she had expected and took it seriously shutting the power down in case it had the potential to become a problem. So no one was hurt and funny enough no damage to property occurred due to the use of her power. On the other hand Halo started a forest Fire and Anvil nuked a building.
I can only assume there where no hostages or bystanders in the building during said nuking since there was no mention of it. So to recap no one was hurt by Krona’s powers in fact the use of her ability saved Halo’s life. While the actual members of Archon had a hand in leveling a building and starting a forest fire. Yet Maxima is insistent that Krona needs to come in to get A once over at Arc to be safe. Yea, I don’t buy that. She is either wigged out by the potential of Krona’s powers or is recruiting, maybe a bit of both.
So everyone using a bit of sophistry to argue that Krona is the ender of days so she must be arrested and is lucky that they don’t just waste her right there need to actually look at the score. There is nothing to prove that she could in fact erase let alone inconvenience the universe. Now that isn’t to say that she doesn’t have very powerful abilities. However if that was all it took they would need to go and arrest/waste pretty much everyone at the council because they have the potential to be dangerous.
Krona is not being arrested and she might have the power to destroy time and she admits that she might not now what she is doing with her potential time stopping power.
Sydney started a forest fire and agreed to be trained.
I didn’t say that she was arrested. I said that all the people saying that she should be arrested or killed because she is like a walking nuclear bomb ready to blow should check themselves since what has been laid so far doesn’t actually prove that in fact it would seem to prove the opposite since she didn’t actually effect the whole universe or even the whole planet just a small area of it. Since she amended what she did immediately after seeing that there might be a problem I don’t see the issue and to be totally honest I haven’t seen anything so far that indicates that Archon is any more qualified to help Krona with her powers then the council is.
Also since you brought it up, she was brought in under the threat of arrest which is pretty much the same thing minus the handcuffs. I actually like Krona and hope she becomes a regular character in the series but I am not crazy about how Maxima handled this. Its especially annoying since Krona was acting in concert with the Archon from the beginning as an agent from a different group. All Maxima had to say was that they needed to have a debriefing about what happened and that they need the council members that participated. That is pretty standard procedure for an alphabet agency and the military after a major action.
Honestly, I wish the Council had never been introduced. This whole comment section would have been a lot more fun if everyone involved was just various branches of Archon and the Veil was just a government supported way to allow supernatural citizens to lead normal lives.
Everyone has good points, the problem is that everyone is RIGHT and the situation is just really murky given the nature of what we know about the relationship between the Council and the Government (very little)
So the FBI snatches someone from the DEA? That seems a bit lacking in moral turpitude. Not nearly triggering enough.
I might posit that these comments have been a rather lively discussion. I think Max is a big ole bully that will never get her comeuppance in the way that no bullies really do. But there are plenty of people who have different opinions and see things a different way.
I mean they see a drawn and colored panel, the exact same panel, a totally different way.
I think that’s really pretty cool. A diversity of critical thought and perspective right here in the comments.
Pretty cool.
Diversity of critical thought and perspective is good (coupled with the ability to discuss in a spirited but civil manner): Yes! You get it.
The people that are defending Krona seem to miss that she doesn’t completely understand her own power work and that she is actively using them. I repeat SHE DOES NOT COMPLETELY UNDERSTANT HOW HER OWN POWERS WORK AND SHE IS ACTIVELY USING HER POWERS.
I don’t know about you, but if a police officer sees someone acting unusually with a gun and the person admits that they don’t know what they’re doing with the gun, I would hope that the police would at least sit that person down and talk with them. Which is exactly what Max is doing.
” SHE DOES NOT COMPLETELY UNDERSTANT HOW HER OWN POWERS WORK AND SHE IS ACTIVELY USING HER POWERS.” Syd doesn’t know everything about her powers either and she is actively using them.
But then we can circle back around to the “juggling nukes” argument. But it might not be what any of us imagine.
Max might be a collector. Maybe she has to catch them all.
And Sydney was brought in to Archon to have experts have a look at her balls and help her understand them
And one of those ‘experts’ wanting to study them closer, is Kronachrome herself
As far as I know, ‘Drow’ is copyrighted by Wizards of the Coast, however, the copyright might be obsolete as (I think) the term has been used freely by other companies as well as other stuff they had the original copyright to. ‘Dark Elf’ is the easy way around the copyright.
The lapsed copyrights might also be due the ‘Open Gaming License’ from Dungeons & Dragons 3 and 3.5.
I am not a lawyer, but I don’t think copyrights work that way. The US is signatory to the Berne Convention. The Berne Convention states that all works except photographic and cinematographic shall be copyrighted for at least 50 years after the author’s death, but parties are free to provide longer terms, as the European Union did with the 1993 Directive on harmonising the term of copyright protection. For photography, the Berne Convention sets a minimum term of 25 years from the year the photograph was created, and for cinematography the minimum is 50 years after first showing, or 50 years after creation if it hasn’t been shown within 50 years after the creation. Countries under the older revisions of the treaty may choose to provide their own protection terms, and certain types of works (such as phonorecords and motion pictures) may be provided shorter terms.
I think you mean Trademark, not Copyright. Trademark must be defended, lest the trademark enter the public domain, like aspirin, escalator, and thermos.
Sounds about right.
I’m not sure if ‘Drow’ was a copyright or a trademark.
And the ‘Open Gaming License’ makes things a bit iffy at least for me. I’d have to look up if they used ‘Drow’ in a product and see if it falls under the License or not.
Drum roll guys. This is when we find out if they found the glitch in the system for the site yet. Fingers crossed that they did.
The funny thing to me about this discussion is that everyone actually agrees with the main point: Max should indeed ask Krona to willingly undergo some research to find out if they can help her understand her own powers better.
The only real point of disagreement seems to be how politely she should have gone about it.
There is an additional complication here. Pixel is a member of a covert organisation, which is hiding the presence of supernatural monsters, some of whom prey on humans. This is not something that either party wishes to come into the open. Which may very well be revealed in the course of a trial over this matter.
This is just one of the reasons why Krona is willing for this to be handled discreetly. She is a member of Twilight Council and if her actions threaten to expose them, their mandate (which SHE has signed up to, to get the position she has) requires that they kill her.
Maxima is doing Krona a favour in not bringing this to open court. And likewise in not demanding that the Twilight Council punish her. The only example we have seen of that, so far, involved sticking stakes up the bottom! Having to sit through an assessment and training course seems pretty mild by comparison.
Damit. That first “Pixel” should be “Krona”.
To everyone saying, “She had to be detained/arrested, she might have the equivalent of a superweapon on her”, that’s EXACTLY the mentality that gets unarmed black men shot dead every month in this country.
PS – antagonizing someone who admits they’re “not particularly brave” and can warp reality is dangerous to the point of lunacy and I’m surprised Max was crazy/ignorant enough to do it. That is exactly the kind of person who would make whatever “edits” are necessary to ensure they’re safe, regardless of how many Archon members have beating hearts and in-tact brains afterwards. The risk Krona presented just went from “might screw up and trap us in the Endless Eight to might screw up, and might also decide we’re too high a risk and erase us.”
I have not had time to read all the comments. However I certainly have not said that. Krona possessing a super weapon is not the problem. The fact that she does not know how to use it properly is however. It would be very easy for her to accidentally end life on Earth, with her current level of incompetence!
On top of which she has violated several people, in intimate ways (such as affecting Sydney’s bladder and wiping Krona and Harem’s memory). All without their consent. She needs a good talking to about morality, ethics and legality.
As for your P.S. do have a re-read of the comic page. Maxima is being firm but polite. Krona realised she had messed up, and is being given an opportunity to learn how to avoid doing so again.
Plus read her facial expressions and body language. Once Krona got over the surprise at having a hand on her shoulder, she is showing guilt, contrition and, in the final panel, coy hopefulness. Matching her dialogue. Nothing to indicate that Maxima has read her wrong.
Normally I LOVE reading the comments, but frankly my brain is starting to sputter and buzz. People, please remember that first and foremost, THIS IS A WEBCOMIC and even though DaveB does his level best to “keep it real,” the primary purpose is to entertain the readers. For that reason alone, it should be obvious that the “don’t make me cuff you” was intended for a laugh.
I would have hoped that by now people would have gotten a handle on Maxima’s moral character. She takes her duties very seriously and would probably have considered herself to be derelict in the performance of that duty if she didn’t make sure Krona took the time to work on her skillset with people who, even if not familiar with he skills, at least are familiar with the process of how one can safely experiment with unknown powers.
The hand on the shoulder, I will agree, seems like something she shouldn’t have done, though I’m pretty confident that the intent was more “paternalistic” than “authoritarian.” Looking at that panel again, I think that the H.U.D. gives a subliminal impression of movement. It’s like you SEE the hand come down on her shoulder, and her wide eyes-right look accentuates that, plus giving Krona a very alarmed look.
But lay off on the “I’m disgusted with Maxima” remarks. DaveB didn’t work this hard to craft a rotten person. And however super she might be, she’s still a human, and the universe knows we make mistakes.
+1
Stupid question: do we know about how old Krona is? She’s even shorter than Sydney, so it’s hard to gauge.
She is old enough to be an F.B.I. agent (or other federal agent), as all Semper Vigilantis are required to hold such a position. An FBI special agent must be 23 to 36 1/2 years old. Assuming this holds true of special agents* in the other agencies too, and that Krona is not an exception to the rule, then she must actually be older than Sydney.
Per the cast list Sydney is 21. So their anime style does make them look younger than their actual years.
Krona could actually be centuries or millennia older than Sydney mind, as her power over both time and biological functions would make resetting her age to ‘young’ a trivial task. Likewise she could give herself whatever features she wants, just as easily as she gave herself multi-coloured hair.
Krona may have been born as a Hutu male, one hundred thousand years ago, in what is now South Africa.
But we do know she does also have, at a minimum, a U.S.-accredited bachelor’s degree, and three years full-time work experience. As those are further requirements for being an F.B.I. special agent.
* This is the term which distinguishes those with arrest capability from those who have lesser powers. As such, I would expect all S.V.s to be special agents.
Hypothetically if she refused, what could they even do to hold her? She can alter the state and attributes of anything around her. Hers is a power that is not going to be overcome by clever tricks like the others we saw earlier.
Kinda reminds me of that Boy Scout who nearly built a working Nuclear Reactor in a shed.
She has potentially the power of the universe in her hands. A few questions, and a brief lesson in temporal mechanics is in order.
Going back to my OG Dragonlance books, I believe their references to a Drow was as a female Dark Elf. That may or may not have been undead. So not sure if in that universe a drow is simply a female dark elf, an undead dark elf, or an undead female dark elf, but they seemed to indicate that a drow was in fact a dark elf of sorts. No idea if that offers clarity, but always fun to dig old references out of the recesses of my mind, lol!