Grrl Power #1008 – Yarr har fiddle dee dee…
Option 1:
“Do you have anything to declare?”
“I do declare, it’s powerful hot, suh. I may have the vapors! And not just because of the all-bean-and-Mexican-tapwater diet!”
“Seriously, miss…”
“I as serious as a German school marm! I’m at DefCon 1 over here! Where’s the restroom!”
“>sigh< Out the door to the right, past the next terminal. NEXT!”
Option 2:
“What are these?”
“Glass… things?”
“Glass things?”
“Knickknacks. That’s the word. Colorful glass knickknacks. Non-suspicious, colorful glass knickknacks. >cough<”
“>Long Pause< I’m barely cracking minimum wage here, just go.”
I’m not sure what else to say about this page because most of what I want to say is on the next page.
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update: Getting Proofed!
Still getting proofed. About halfway through the book now. This is from the first proofer who got back to me, and once I edit in all those corrections, I’ll run through it again with notes from the others. That tends to go faster, because some errors will be noticed by most, though different readers catch different things.
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I find it hard to believe that they never asked Sydney where exactly she found her orbs before now. Not sure how her taking them out of Mexico would be a problem anyway as they bonded to her and she had no option to leave them behind. Besides, why would we inform the Mexican government about where Sydney acquired them?
The US has always felt that nobody else in the Americas has a sphere of influence
sure we did. Then when they got stropy, we kicked their ass.
They did ask her WAAAAAAY back when, but they were distracted by a Harem Interrupt.
And while everyone was expecting that the Orbs were found outside US waters, I doubt anyone expected them to be found on the far side of the Gulf of Mexico.
She was a bit dishonest about where she found them, but there’s no freaking way they wouldn’t have demanded an exact location, not just “the Keys”, and checked it out.
To be fair, there was a lot going on that day. Sydney’s whole induction process was squeezed between the bank robbery at lunchtime and the massive super-melee at dinner, and the press conference and ability-testing were wedged in there too. And then she spent a lot of the time since when someone might have gone, “Oh, hey, we never followed up on this…” MIA due to space-time shenanigans.
And to top it off, they didn’t realize at the time that Sydney was going to be one of the most powerful supers on the team, resulting in her being sent out on top-tier missions before she was even out of basic. They probably thought that they’d just get around it in due time, maybe after Achilles.
Then she was revealed to be someone who could tank Maxima, who could tank vehemence, and who was a gateway to the whole galaxy, at which point they would have been dominated with doing various analyses.
Just my thought.
Well, I guess technically she should have told the Mexican government, but what would have happened then?
Aside from them flying around her there was nothing obvious at first. They can’t be moved away from her, so if she told them right away, there was a chance that she would be whisked away and depending on how ruthless the agency was in acquiring super artifacts they could have gone the easy route and do the obvious. Kill her ans see if the orbs bind to someone else. They could even have staged it as a diving accident.
With her being a US citizen and no way to non-lethally get her away from the orbs what could they do? I doubt the US government would have let the Mexican government keep her, even if the orbs legally belong to Mexico. When it comes to salvage rights (which I don’t know) it might be equally bad, as the worth of these orbs can’t really be measured, much less being paid by anyone on earth.
I’d say the only agency that could solve those problems would be the UN (with the orbs probably being extraterrestrial) as in Sydney living on UN ground, but they probably don’t have the resources to research her orbs.
Though there would be an interesting ‘What if’ scenario. What if this was the Wildstorm Universe with Skywatch still active.
The Council’s alien representative is probably best positioned to moderate any arbitration, although I can’t imagine any scenario where Sydney/Archon hands the orbs over to Mexico. Maybe some kind of ongoing partnership with Archon, or stupid-expensive reparation payments, but Sydney’s a US citizen and can’t be separated from the orbs.
I agree, Sydney had little choice here once she touched the Orbs and they bonded to her. I personally look at it this way, the Orbs liked Sydney and followed her home. And, much like a human to a cat, Sydney become their pet.
Can Maxims get gray hairs?
We will soon find out
BWAHAHAHAA!
Best comment of all time!
Two words: Finders Keepers!
that and who has the biggest guns summarizes much of maritime law.
Isn’t that also approximately the center of the impact crater from the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs?
Indeed it is. Which now makes you wonder just how fast the Flyball can really go…
Yeah, cause it was just after I realized the same spot, that I was wondering if it was necessarily an asteroid for wiping out the dinosaurs? Cause if so, I figure that it would give even more grey hairs to the higher ups for an artifact possible of creating an Extinction Level Event in the hands of… Sydney.
Assuming the orb user at the time crashed down there.
What if he was shooting at something above the impact site and the extinction level event was caused by the ‘pew’ orb? Because that thought gives me goosebumps on one side and makes me wonder how powerful these orbs really are.
With Sidney’s comment of using it feeling like she touched a sun… such a shot might not even be the upper limit.
Well if the Orbs are that old, could be their user was trying to stop the impact and got caught up in it instead.
Yet considering that Sydney got them, because the impact should’ve buried them way down in the bedrock, I somehow doubt they’re that old.
> Well if the Orbs are that old, could be their user was trying to stop the impact and got caught up in it instead.
Spare a thought for Adric, the Dr Who companion who died trying to save Earth from a spaceship crashing into it.
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Earthshock_(TV_story)
Awww. I miss that weird haircut and the gold star at Math.
Of course, if Who was a different sort, Adric could be saved any time he wants. The only history that can’t be changed is that the ship hit.
Adric being on it doesn’t change history at all.
I like the idea of the previous user being a hero who bit off more than they could chew, rather than the cause/target of the event. That’s a legacy Sydney would be much more comfortable with.
Perhaps Sydney made a time trip to defeat evil super dinosaurs.
No need to panic…Chicxulub put enough Iridium into the air to make the Alvarez’s suspect an asteroid impact.
When Sidney maxes out the Pew-Pew, she’ll probably have to fire twice
When we first saw the orbs’ talent tree, it had some entries filled in. Sydney couldn’t have been the one to pick those talent points, because she hadn’t seen the talent tree before either. It seems likely that the starting talents, then, are the ones that were picked by the prior owner of the orbs.
I wouldn’t expect the fly-ball to be orders of magnitude faster without additional talents, so “fly-ball going too fast killed the dinosaurs” seems unlikely.
Could also be the default settings of the orbs on an ownership reset
Or that the orbs’ user getting exploded deducts enough points for the orbs to lose some levels and have a respawn delay before they get to restart the level. They did have a scrubbed savepoint.
Yes, Yucatan is believed to be the Dino killer due to a lot of evidence. The wiki page is pretty interesting, but spawning a lot of secondary articles for me.
Well-spotted. It’s in the Chicxulub crater, but not the centre.
I think that the Orbs Of Power came to Earth much more recently.
112 years ago or so.
Maybe an Alien researcher was touring all asteroid impact sites.
Checking them for Unobtainium maybe?
PS:
I said Chixilub Monday!
Nope! It’s close but not the same place. If it was that then the orbs would be WAYYYY closer to the Yucatan Peninsula, and could’ve been found by scientists combing the area.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/how-we-found-the-dinosaur-doomsday-site
With that said, it could’ve came from said impact. As you can see from Discovery Magazine, the secondary debris did go fairly far inland of the US, and stretched into the Bermuda triangle.
“Nope! It’s close but not the same place. If it was that then the orbs would be WAYYYY closer to the Yucatan Peninsula, and could’ve been found by scientists combing the area.” None of them, were found to be worthy!
The Scorpion Reef (Wikimapia) is actually outside the Chicxulub crater. The center of the crater is right on the shore line in this map. Hover over the shore line to see the crater.
It is however just past the Ring of Cenotes that follows the crater rim, which contains some prime diving caves and is well within the ejecta range. Sydney could’ve been far enough from the actual reef to be on the rim, but even if not a few 10s of miles is super close geologically speaking.
It occurs to me that the crater may not have been related to the orbs at all, but merely unearthed from their ancient and forgotten burial site.
Where they were found and where they were first deposited on Earth may be entirely different locations, though. It’s been ~66 million years since the meteorite impacted, which is plenty of time for erosion to unearth the Orbs and water currents to wash them up on the reef. Though, admittedly, the path of local water currents would make that tricky, since the general trend in that area is westerly, and the reef is north east of the impact site.
It is remotely possible the orbs were buried there. While we don’t know much about the geological history of the area beyond the start of the Cretaceous due to the 1.3 kilometers of carbonate platform formed there during that time, and the 1 km layer dumped after (apparently that region has been a reef for a really long time), we do know it’s been underwater at least that long, and been sea-adjacent since Pangaea. Actually, that raised section of plate seems to be at least that old. So it’s not “new” crust, at least. That said, it seems more likely the Orbs are associated with the meteor in some regard. It seems like too much of coincidence.
This is actually a great point about motion on the geologic time scale, although the current proximity would be a very unlikely coincidence unless Dave’s just laying ‘misdirecting fish’. Perhaps the orbs caused the separation of Pangaea, and just stayed in the same spot while the continents moved away from them.
So, did the veil exist 65 million years ago?
Well, it did after The Impact…
I guess that’s why we can’t see Syddles’ salad bar.
No, the Veil would not be more than 3000 years old, since that’s how old the Council is, and presumably the Veil was created AFTER the Council was created, not before. Plus in its CURRENT form, which likely means ‘Post-Veil Council,’ the Veil has only existed for a few hundred years, according to Tom.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-452-aw-they-packed-a-lunch/
Just double-checked: yup. And doesn’t that raise all sorts of fascinating questions…
Well, its not like she can give them back. What are the Yukatan gonna do? Force Sydney to work for them? They (seem to be anyway) stuck to her. The Yukatan or which ever of the 3 states that boarder that place might ask for compensation but all I see it doing causing an artifact goldrush if it gets out.
Alos, Orbs have a possible Mayan origin confirmed??? Or connection in someway??? Or not at all???
Look up the chicxulub crater. Definitely not mayan.
Oh! The asteroid that killed the Dinos! God, kid me would be mad that I didnt make that connection. Was REALLY into dinosaurs back then.
Nobody tell Giorgio Tsoukalos about the possible Ancient Aliens connection.
Yeah, the shock might make his hair stand on end… Oh, wait.
I have a hypothesis: He’s part of the Veil. Spread enough wild-eyed ravings, and nobody will notice actual breaches. They’ll just put it down to reading too many weird-ass conspiracy theories on the Intrawebs
“Yucatan” is the geographical region off of which the orbs were found. the Yucatan Peninsula. it does not border “three states”, the country the Yucatan Peninsula wholly belongs to is the United Mexican States, better known as just Mexico. it is a US ally and not run by a third world authoritarian despot, so there was little chance of Sydney being killed for the orbs by the government, or detained for life. it would have just caused a bit of a legal headache because the orbs would fall under the various antiquities import laws,specifically the bits about the paperwork to take artifacts out of their country of origin/finding, the fees for such, etc. the most likely result would have been that Sydney had to pay a rather huge import tax (or more likely, that the US embassy would be contacted and the US government would have to do so) and some sort of agreement would be ironed out between the US government and Mexico’s government for join research and so on. possibly with conditions that the orbs remain officially Mexican government property and should Sydney die the orbs would revert to their possession.
by effectively smuggling them out of the country not only will the USA have to now do the above process anyway, but Sydney and her family are guilty of major international and nation law breaking, which means that they’ll either have to face the courts (which would be bad) or more likely, the USA now has to smooth over a major diplomatic indecent caused by them *not* charging Sydney and family with such charges.
This strikes me as charmingly naive. I personally subscribe to the words of Sydney Poitier in SNEAKERS when it coems to uber-powerful gadgets (techno, magical, super, whatever): “There isn’t a government on this planet that wouldn’t kill us all for this thing.”
Also, making international agreements on the discovery and ownership of sunken treasure is entirely different from dealing with potentially earth-shattering weapons. No government, again, is going to voluntarily give them up to someone else.
Sydney is now a Mexican superhero, like El Santo and Chapulin Colorado. Eh, probably more like Chapulin than Santo given her idiosyncrasies.
Or they go with a time honored political tradition: lie/conceal the truth. There’s no reason they need to tell anyone in the Mexican government where the Orbs came from. I believe their origins were already stated to be classified. There’s no reason Archon needs to declassify it, or share it with Mexico. And, even if they did, Mexico is probably not going to be willing to risk pissing either Sydney or the US off by trying to extradite a superhero. One who can flee from justice to another planet as easily as walking down the street for a coffee. It’d be futile, and diplomatically unwise.
But let’s assume they’re willing to go there. There’s an interesting legal question here that could tie up the courts for years: do objects of unknown alien origin, quite possibly never touched by a single human before Sydney found them, actually count as an artifact? Do they actually have any historical or cultural significance? What are the Orbs, in actual fact? We know little-to-nothing about their makeup, physical properties, history, or true nature. So, what are they, legally speaking? Can they even be defined under current law? They could easily be argued to be litter, albeit potentially millions of years old litter. She’s more likely to get into trouble for taking them from a National Park, though, again, if they qualify as litter, that may leave her in the clear. And then we come to the knotty question: are the Orbs sentient? If so, they’re probably illegal immigrants in the US, and could be argued to have tried to hold a US citizen hostage and compelled her to smuggle them: Sydney literally could not leave Mexico without the Orbs. If she had stayed, her visa would have expired, which would also be illegal. Now, is that all really twisted legal obfuscation? Yes, but there’s no way the US wouldn’t have their lawyers try to spin things to screw up proceedings if it did go to court.
There’s also another issue: yeah, Sydney took them from the reef…but how is anyone going to prove she did in a court of law, beyond a reasonable doubt? If she doesn’t admit it in court, they have to prove she took them from Mexico in the first place. The Orbs themselves would leave literally zero forensic evidence, even if magic was used. And finding some Orb-shaped depressions in the Reef wouldn’t prove jack. The only thing they’d have is eyewitness testimony, if Sydney showed the Orbs off somehow, or maybe video evidence, if Sydney messed up in the airport, and if they’re really lucky and it hasn’t been deleted by now. Probably blurry video evidence, that could easily and reasonably be doubted.
Basically, the whole affair would be a messy legal, political, and international nightmare. Honestly, the whole thing could, and probably should, be written off as an Act of God: the Orbs and their bonding behavior are a phenomenon outside of human control. The correct move politically would be for Mexico to pardon Sydney of any perceived wrongdoing in hiding the event, maybe some money changes hands, Sydney does some favors for Mexico, and that’s the end of it. Frankly speaking, no matter how powerful Sydney is, it’s not worth the kerfuffle, because everyone would lose.
The Law of Salvage and the Law of Finds aren’t directly relevant. It’s not a human vessel or a human artifact, and there’s no evidence that any ownership survives. No one in the Americas ever had Nth tech, so it’s not a Mayan or Aztec cultural artifact.
Also, note that relevant ocean-related treaties specify “human” artifacts having a “cultural or historical character”.
https://abj.artrepreneur.com/archaeological-treasures/
A good example of the inconsistencies and confusion around the ownership of cultural heritage artifacts can be found in the Convention for the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, which was fostered by The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2001 and ratified in 2009 after an exhaustive debate on many of the provisions. Underwater cultural heritage can be defined as “all traces of human existence that lie or have lain underwater and have a cultural or historical character.” This includes three million shipwrecks such as The Titanic, or the 4,000 shipwrecks of the sunken fleet of Kublai Khan. There are also sunken ruins and cities, like the remains of the Pharos of Alexandria, Egypt – one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – and thousands of submerged prehistoric sites.
I think the biggest concern is that she technically would’ve had to have smuggled them THROUGH Mexico, unless they actually did take a boat out that far. Plus, the location makes it hard to investigate.
ah, just looked it up, and apparently another thing complicating it all is that the Scorpion Reef is an officially designated national park.
Smuggling the orbs would be trivial to pull off since they don’t show up on scanners. Just stick them in your carry-on and you’re good to go.
She used a poster tube and confounded everyone
That raises an interesting question.
If I’m not a US citizen, go to the States for a tourist trip and find, say, a magical artifact, am I required by law to give it to American authorities? Hmmmm.
As such? probably, but if it is bonded to you like with Sydney I don’t think they can actually force you as they can’t prevent you from leaving the country unless you’re a suspect in a crime (I think). Which leads to the interesting question: if you WANT to leave them but are physically unable, are you committing a crime or not?
Fun fact. Leaving the country with a historic arftifact is a crime …
These are not historic, they’re technomagical.
That’s for the governmental department concerned with archaeological recovery to determine, not you, Mr Citizen.
Wait, so if I find a crashed UFO with something like a Green Lantern ring inside, I can’t just take it, go back to my country and start superheroing?
I mean, there are probably dozen of laws you’d break by doing that… you’re not supposed to fly at low altitudes over the city (with no license) looking for suspicious people and beat them up with deadly weapons/light constructs.
However, removing an incredibly advanced piece of technology from land you don’t own, and removing it from the country without declaring it when they asked you about whether you were transporting anything dangerous (like a papaya) would be at least one of those laws, yes.
Actually the Green Lantern ring wouldnt belong to the US. It would still belong to the Green Lantern Corps, and specifically the Guardians of Oa. They would then have the right to give the ring to the person who finds it, regardless of what the United States wants. Hal Jordan didn’t break any laws when Abin Sur gave him the ring, and even if Hal just took the ring and Abin Sur was already dead, if the Ring ‘chose him’ based on pre-existing programming in it made by the Guardians of Oa, Hal Jordan still didn’t break any laws on acquiring the ring.
Since the Guardians created it and power it, and since they can deny the use to the Green Lanterns, it is more appropriate to say that they own it and that Hal Jordan (or whoever) is merely using company property.
I’m sure that various later events change that status, but it’s the probable legal status during the silver age.
“Since the Guardians created it and power it,”
The Guardians created the Green Lantern Rings – they did not create the emotional color spectrum. That was from the creation of the universe itself. So if anyone was responsible for that, it was probably Imperiex. :) Or the Presence. :)
They also don’t power it. They just build the main lantern battery, which can siphon energy from the emotional color spectrum.
But yeah, the Guardians technically own the rings. And they do have the ability to remove the rings from a Lantern, but usually that lantern tacitly agrees that they are not worthy of the ring on some level. Otherwise you get a Sinestro on their hands. :) They just don’t seem to be capable of controlling the rings beyond that – at least not for who the ring wants to choose in the first place. They tried to choose people for the rings originally and it did not work out well. The first time it worked out well was when a ring chose a wearer on its own.
The Guardians of Oa have a bad track record of not being able to control their creations when they make their creations sentient. First the Mankillers, then the Rings. At least the Rings were not ruthless authoritarian murderers, but with a name like the Mankillers, what did the Guardians really expect to happen? :)
There are other color spectrums that other aliens have created batteries and rings for that had nothing to do with the Guardians though. The Zamorans made the star sapphires for Violet energy. The Qwardians created the yellow energy battery, after being paid to do so by Sinestro.
Maltus of the Malthusians (who eventually split and one half of them became the Guardians) created the Orange Lantern ring as a test idea and promptly buried it without bothering to program much anything into it at all.
The other colors came into play after silver age though so I can’t say anything about that.
“if the Ring ‘chose him’ based on pre-existing programming in it made by the Guardians of Oa”
The programming was basically whatever was already written into the programming of the universe. The only real programming by the Guardians was in order to do things like universal translation and being able to limit how much energy could be wielded by the user. But as for who is chosen…. the Rings are semi-sentient and choose of their own accord (regardless of what the Guardians would prefer). The only requirement being that the person must possess great willpower, because Green is the color of Willpower.
To be chosen by a yellow ring, you must have the capability and intention to cause great fear.
To be chosen by a violet ring, or to be chosen by the Star Sapphire you must have a ‘hole in your heart and know the loss of love.’
To be chosen by a red ring, you must be filled with incredible, overwhelming rage at the time when you’re chosen.
To be chosen by a blue ring, you must possess a neverending supply of hope in your heart, even when any rational sense of hope is lost.
To be chosen by an indigo ring (or an indigo power staff), you have to either have little or no compassion in the first place (the ring fills them with compassion that they MUST feel for others no matter what), OR a high degree of compassion already. Having ‘some’ compassion will not work.
To be chosen by THE orange lantern ring, you must be incredibly greedy to begin with. If you’re not greedy enough to the point that it fills every waking thought you have, you will only be able to use the ring for a few minutes at a time before suffering from debilitating effects. Lex Luthor had this problem when he had the orange ring because, despite being quite greedy, he did have other emotions as well, some of which were compassionate or generous. Only Larfleeze is greedy enough to wear the ring and use it nonstop. Also it’s one of only two power rings that is just ONE ring, not many. A truly greedy person will not allow anyone else to have a ring like it, because more than one orange ring devalues its worth.
PS – the Orange and Indigo rings are the only ‘parasitic’ rings – they force their emotions into the user, while the other rings operate entirely based on the user’s existing emotion of that color spectrum.
The black lantern ring isnt sentient – it’s entirely controlled by Nekron, and it is basically used to make the dead come back to life. Death of the Endless seems okay with this because in her opinion, they’ll all eventually come back to her anyway, so whatever.
Also there’s a white lantern ring (the only time other than orange where there’s only one ring of that color), and it requires the bearer of the ring to give up some of their free will to become servants to the Life entity. It’s not actually parasitic though, since it requires the user to willingly do this, while the orange and indigo rings don’t require any agreement on behalf of the user.
If you were gifted the magic glowing ring by the now-deceased occupant of the UFO, and you can provide evidence that you didn’t just kill it and loot its still-warm corpse, then I guess we’ll just have to take the word of the well-built, pajama-wearing flying man, who just happened to be nearby, depending on the origin story.
People do realize this is the Green Lantern origin story, essentially, right? :)
That would be why I included “depending on the origin story.”
My references are to the post-Crisis origin story, where Kal-El is one of many potential successors brought to Abin Sur by the ring, before it settled on Hal Jordan.
Different reboot origins may differ.
I usually look at the New Earth run for the origin stories because it was what I grew up with.
I also liked the Superman TAS version, which I think gave the ring to Kyle Rayner first, instead of Hal Jordan.
Actually was there a Hal Jordan in Superman TAS/Justice League Unlimited even?
I remember that there was Kyle Rayner (the cartoonist) in Superman TAS, and John Stewart (the ex-marine) was the featured Green Lantern during most of Justice League, although there were a few episodes with Guy Gardner (the lovable but incredibly boorish jerk) as well. One of which I think involved the infamous Batman “One Punch” interaction with Guy and a very happy G’nort (the canine alien Green Lantern). But I don’t remember there ever being a Hal Jordan in that series at all.
There is some precedent actually. There was a German POW who could not go back to his home because he was afraid the Soviets would shoot him. So he escaped from the POW camp before they could repatriate him.
He secretly lived in America for 40+ years, even getting married, all without any documentation (which was more possible back then.) In the 1980’s the truth came out. It was something of a media circus because no one really wanted to send the old man back to Russian controlled Germany.
I think the Immigration department ruled that since he did not come here of his own free-will, and escaping enemy POW camps was legal (a stretch), then he broke no laws and could apply for US Citizenship. One article even said that the “FBI could not figure out what crime to charge him with”.
He became a US Citizen in 2009.
source 1: https://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A87984599
source 2: https://www.krqe.com/news/new-mexico/german-soldier-escapes-new-mexico-pow-camp-evades-fbi-for-40-years/
Of course, it helps if you are hiding in a Nation who are enemies of the people who want to kill you. Still, weak precedent is still precedent.
He probably could have easily asked for political asylum in the US, even if it was years later, given the state of the regime in the USSR for most of the time during which he was ‘hiding out’ in the US. Asylum law is actually a pretty strong precedent in his case since he wasnt in the US for economic reasons. He had a legitimate fear for his life, and he was already in the US at the time. And yes, he’s correct. Under International Rules of War, it actually not only is legal to try to escape from a POW camp, it’s considered the prisoner’s duty to do so, because doing so creates more problems for the enemy nation, requiring them to expend troops and resources to try to recapture the prisoner, thus continuing to help the war effort. :)
The law would want to know how and where you found said artifact and under what circumstances.
If you were diving in a lake or spelunking in a cave complex, and it suddenly showed up among your belongings, you’d probably be okay.
If you went into a place clearly marked as a historical site and intentionally took it, the law would not treat you kindly.
“I didn’t take them, they followed me home.”
+1
This seems plausible.
They locked on to her for being the nearest sapient being or something.
Tubie is from Mexico?
“I’d like to claim this cylindrical pseudo leather accessory bag and these cheap glass balls please.”
“That will be $28.”
“OK.”
They won’t be any trouble!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvKNF9hs9Ak
Yeah pretty much. :) We decided long ago to not argue if that happened with the boys.
It’s a better argument that it sounds. The Orbs bonding to Sydney/following her being considered an Act of God, I.E. an event entirely outside human ability to foresee or control, would probably be the most reasonable course of action. For everyone involved. Taking this to court would be a complete nightmare.
I’m honestly not sure what Mexico’s actual legal claim to the orbs would be if they went to court. Most of the time with salvage laws, the group that has the right to the salvage are the original owners, who then need to give the salvage operator value for the salvage, or they can let the salvage operator keep the salvage.
The orbs were not Mexico’s. They belong to some spacefaring race of Nth level aliens. If anything would have a claim on them, it would be the Council, which represents both aliens/alien artifacts on Earth, and also ‘miscellaneous’ groups, as well as ‘unique’ groups, like Krona. And the Council clearly hasnt tried to make any sort of claim on the orbs.
They are not a natural resource of Mexico.
They are not a historical resource of Mexico.
Mexico presumably was not involved in shooting down the previous orb-user (and even if they had tried, it’s unlikely they could have done anything to get through the shield. Whatever happened seemed to involve the aetherium causeway to Earth.
We don’t even know when the were left there, let alone by whom. It could have been from before Mexico was a nation or populated at all. It could have been a year ago.
We’re not even sure if they were within the territorial waters of Mexico, or in the contiguous zone instead.
And that doesn’t even get into the whole ‘they are bonded to Sydney’ part, and that happened before Sydney even had any idea of what they were.
Don’t think of them as artifacts, Think of them as their functions. Consider the pew pew orb as a weapon. What is the law concerning finding a weapon in Mexico? Or an aircraft, or a crane, or a molecular oxygen generator? What are the laws regarding those? Because if the government can’t get you one way, they’ll get you another.
‘ Consider the pew pew orb as a weapon. What is the law concerning finding a weapon in Mexico? ”
If you have an antique gun from 1890 (just to sidestep any gun control laws) and lose it while in Mexico, and another person finds it, it does not become the property of Mexico. It’s still the property of the original owner if a second person finds it as salvage, and that original owner is the one that is supposed to pay the salvager, not Mexico. Because Mexico does not have legal rights to the antique firearm.
If you drive to Mexico, and you crash your car into the ocean somehow, then go back to the states for hospital care from the crash, and you die while in the US, your crashed car does not become the property of Mexico. It’s still the property of the owner or, since the owner is dead, the owner’s next of kin. Anyone who ‘salvages’ the car from the ocean doesn’t get paid from Mexico – they get paid from the estate of the original owner.
In short, the country in which one person loses their property does not gain automatic ownership of your property as far as salvage rights is concerned.
Most countries claim ownership of shipwrecks in their territorial waters.
The relevant treaties, which aren’t particularly binding, say “Underwater cultural heritage can be defined as all traces of human existence that lie or have lain underwater and have a cultural or historical character.”
Obviously, the orbs do not qualify as underwater heritage. They similarly fail to qualify for the Law of Salvage or the Law of Finds, although the last one is closer.
“Anything to declare?”
“No Ma’am.”
“What are these?”
“Christmas tree decorations.”
“Oh, nice. Okay move along, move along.”
Actually, that would have been the easiest way to handle it. She found some Christmas tree decorations while in Mexico and decided to take them home. She would not have to clarify that she literally “took” them rather than bought them. The dollar value would be minimal if not zero so no tariff, they would fall under the category of ordinary souvenirs.
Buy 7 cheap glass ornaments or figurines somewhere, throw them away and keep the receipt.
Didn’t she specifically say they were found in the Keys in #94?
“I found them while I was SCUBA diving in Florida, uh… you know, around the Keys.”
If you want to be technical, the entire Caribbean is ‘around the Keys’. Though usually you do assume it’s an area much closer to the Keys.
“I went to Florida to do some SCUBA diving. I rented a boat, went to the Scorpion Reef and dived at interesting places along the route.”
Could have been more accurate.
She specifically lied about it. When she introduced herself to the group she had to pause a beat to remember that they were from the ‘Keys’.
Given that Sydney theorized about whisking prior to Max [strike]hauling[/strike] inviting her in for questioning, I can see her also having gaming through several scenarios and deciding that “international” was a word that could only result in tighter and faster whisking.
Well she specificallyt said ‘Um.. you know… around the keys.’
Dependent on your definition of ‘around’ :)
Okay okay, that’s a stretch.
Okay. Just suppose Sydney went to the Mexican authorities and told them that she found these strange magical balls while out scuba diving and now they are stuck to her. They cannot keep the orbs without holding an innocent American citizen prisoner. What would that have done to International relations? Would Archon be tasked with retrieving an illegally held American? What crime would Mexico be able to charge Sydney with in order to justify holding her? After all, she didn’t set out to bond with any alien artifacts that day. She wouldn’t even be taking them out of the country if she isn’t holding them while crossing the border. The orbs would be choosing to cross the border under their own free will. Even if the Mexican government decided to hold her regardless of the political consequences, how long would they be able to hold her once she knows what the shield and pew pew orbs do?
Depends how dark the Black Ops team wants to be.
American citizens go missing in Mexico all the time. American citizens go missing IN THE US all the time.
Mexico, unfortunately, is also known to have a lot of problems keeping their citizens happy, and their police away from corruption, and several Mexican presidents have openly declared that foisting Mexico’s undesirable population upon the United States is official Mexican policy, as It’s the US’s DUTY to take care of Mexico’s problems, in addition to buttloads of monetary aid to keep their economy and currency afloat.
In a word, if Mexico had heard that Sydney found those orbs off the Yucatan peninsula and laid claim to them without clearing it with Mexico first, things would have been bad, very, VERY, VEEERRRYYY BAD.
The way Ariana is rubbing her temples right now indicates that it could still be horrible.
Sydney does have a point about international salvage law, however.
A single individual not part of any official organization has the right to claim whatever they can carry if they find it at the bottom of the ocean, abandoned.*
*Be warned, that I am not actually a lawyer, and it’s best to seek legal counsel before going treasure hunting in the ocean.
So… No, Sidney isn’t correct about salvage laws. We’re talking about artifacts found in the waters of a sovereign state, on a national heritage/national park site. Mexico technically would’ve owned said orbs, and Sydney did something illegal, and could be whisked away to a Mexican detention facility.
Technically Sidney and the US gov are supposed to give them back, or the Mexican Gov. can seek sanctions against the US for not doing so. Worse is Mexico and US have extradition treaties with each other so the US would have to hand her to the Mexican authorities to be whisked away if criminal prosecutions did occur in Mexico. Not doing so would break the treaty, and again sanctions would be in order.
The tricky part is that they’re attached to her, and can’t go far from her without going dead stop. It’s likely that trying to remove them from her would cause bodily harm to her, and that’s where it could be treated as herself, and that get’s messy to say the least. Mexico could go after her for damaging a national heritage site or theft, but with a good lawyer (Ariana) she could get off with a slap on the wrist (fined for damage to the reef).
It would strain Mexico/US relations, so if the Orange president is in power that would be problematic to say the least. Needless to say the situation is bad.
Concerning the Presidential situation: Back in #313, Sydney barged in on a meeting between the leadership of Archon and the North American leadership. The president of the US was Obama, the Prime Minister of Canada was Harper, and the Mexican President was Nieto. This places the comic between 2012 and 2015. So it’s unlikely that Trump would be president in the comic.
Not sure if Obama would have done much to help Sydney out if she was just an American tourist caught up in the Mexican legal system. He wasn’t much help in the real world incident involving former U.S. Marine Jeromie Slaughter.
It gets even more complex, because these orbs are probably extraterrestrial in origin, might predate humanity (if my theory is correct) and fully slotted they may be WMD’s on a planetary scale with at least galactic reach.
the orbs are not Mexican artifacts. The orbs are not human artifacts. The relevant treaties all have to do with human artifacts or traces that are of cultural and historic significance.
The orbs do not qualify.
Mexico’s only claim to them would be based upon the orbs choosing Sydney in that particular state park. There is no evidence as to how long they had been there. There is no evidence as to who owned them. They are Nth tech, clearly non human works of art or science or magic. And they have some kind of volition, and they decided to go with her, not vice versa.
Without a legal determination that they orbs are related to Mexico, there is not duty to repatriate something that does not in any way belong to the government of Mexico.
Realistically? The US government would pounce on them like a priest on an altar boy. International agreements between Mexico and the US would be pulled out from the depths of Section 358 subparagraph 191.2 with words like “mutual” and “strategic” and “joint curation of assets”. Money or diplomatic favors would change hands. Sydney would be read in on pretty much the same stuff she ended up being read in on, and she would be slotted into her place, but with a lot more stern talkings-to by Serious Men with Briefcases.
The problem isn’t that she took them. The problem is that the *US military* took them.
Which is why you never tell anyone. Because if you are willing to lie about time travel, space aliens, magical species, magical alien species and so forth… Lying about where you found it can just be another secret you keep secret.
Sydney was a civilian at the time.
Yes, but now the US military owns them, in a way.
That might cause severe diplomatic issues if it ever comes out.
No legally they are Sydneys property max said as much
And presumably she COULD quit (Once her first tour of duty is done), though she doesn’t want to. Sydney and her orbs are nobody’s “property” other than Sydney herself due to the 13th amendment to the US Constitution.
Does American law apply outside of America?
Ask 20 different lawyers, get 20 different answers. But all agree with the caveat “It depends on the circumstances.”
I’m pretty sure “no slavery” has become international law since 1948 (the USA was an early case, Vermont made it illegal in 1777, but it took 87 more years for the entire country to make it official countrywide, and the UN didn’t make it official international law until 1948.)
Actually, it was considerably earlier than that, try 1848 at the very latest when the Poms made it internationally illegal. However, I will admit that the Poms of the age rarely if ever bothered consulting anybody on matters like this.
OTOH, if you are only talking about the UN attitude to international slavery, then it does make a warped kind of sense.
No. No more than Algerian law applies in the US
They do depending on the Law of Comity, international treaties, multinational treaties (like extradition treaties and trade negotiation contracts), or international maritime law.
And there are armies of civil servants whose entire life’s work is to make sure that strategically important stuff runs on rails. There are treaties and clauses, and liaisons who make sure there are procedures for dealing with it. There might be some irritation, and concessions might need to get made, but with a certain amount of money and invocation of clauses and precedents a hole will be found and filled with pigeon. That’s how diplomacy works, mostly quietly and behind the scenes.
Oh, Sydney might get spanked, and Mexico might need to get some money and a few more slots in the School of the Americas, ‘scuse me the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation and maybe an option on two minor league supers with Spanish surnames. but the salient things are
1) Possession is 9/10 of the Law
2) The US gets all the strategic thingies
3) Someone already thought of contingencies like this and made them part of a treaty
Is the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation an actual thing, as in something that exists in our world that you’re assuming is paralleled in GP’s world? Because in her initial interview, Sydney was rather concerned about being WHISCed off for intrusive study…
It’s how they renamed the truly evil “School of the Americas”, friend of dictators, torturers, and human rights abusers from Tierra del Diego to the Canadian border. Yes it’s a real thing in our world
Sydney was not US military when the orbs picked her.
The orbs are not Mexican artifacts.
There is no duty to notify of the unknown origin of the orbs or of the location that the orbs happened to select Sydney as their new owner.
To be fair… They look like cheap glass orbs so they would be seen as junk which could be shrugged off as no big deal… The moment they became attached to the to the point she can’t leave them… That would be a lot harder to explain to customs.
Especially when you are worried about EVIL GOVERNMENT EXPERIMENTS like Sidney was slightly worried about. So a bit of paranoia and trying to keep it a secret would make perfect sense.
Nobody told her super powers were “common” until the golden woman popped up after all.
Halos mistrust of both the US and Mexican governments is quite understandable.
well, that maybe a problem… an international, and probably extragalactic, problem.
Make where they were found classified information and don’t let on. That will solve a few problems.
Also, have some researchers go on “holidays” around there.
So Sidney became one of the most powerful humans on Earth by taking stuff from another country’s sovereign waters. And a UNESCO site. That is specifically under the protection of the Mexican federal government. That requires a permit to even -go- to. That has specific areas even permitted tourists are explicitly -not- allowed to go to.
Arianna’s gonna have an aneurysm.
Only if they don’t keep it a secret
That stuff is not a Mexican artifact, under the normal definitions. It’s not of human origin and has no cultural or historical significance to Mexico.
As one person pointed out, it could be considered “litter”
On the other hand, the orbs chose her. She did not take them out of the country, they refused to stay in the country without her.
At least she didn’t find them along the shores of……..C-U-B-A!!!!
Cuba, the country the US hates mostly because the CIA failed to take them over in 1961.
My bet is that the squidwards nuked earth when the previous carrier of the orbs was on earth and in doing so, wiped out the Dinos. Seeing how they like to nuke sites from orbit to be sure, it would explain the crater on earth, the orbs being present in said crater, why there are no other known examples of orb level tech, and why no one knows who the squidwards actually are.
This calls for a US-backed survey of Alar to test for elevated iridium levels near the Squiddy attacks. And maybe to claim some territory, as long as we’re there.
It’s traditional to bring flags to plant whenever you go somewhere new.
And her other option was to do what Maxima? the artifacts bonded with her she can’t be more the a foot from any of them so her options were become an illegal aluen when her visa exspired or “theft”
She’s likely irked that Sydney lied about where she found them way back when.
Syd didn’t lie.
She said HOW she found them.
She NEVER specified exactly WHERE.
She said off the coast of Florida (#129), around the keys. And while you can kinda stretch it to be technically true, that still leaves her as being intentionally misleading at best. But with the amount of hesitation she showed about it (which was almost certainly just taken to be nerves/Sydney being Sydney at the time)? She was actively lying.
Is it possible to tell the truth by omission?
Yes. People do it all the time. For example, if someone was to ask what Dabbler actually was, someone could say “She’s a very mixed up girl, and horny.” Thus conveying she is not just one catigory.
Have you WATCHED Politics?
Unfortunately, yes. Comparisons have been made between Kindy and parliamentary sessions… Kindy kids routinely have better dicussion and debating skills.
When a comment like “Couldn’t lie straight in bed” is held to be a true description of a pollie, you have to wonder.
Well, they do say politics makes for strange bedfellows . . . .
Some people hold that Guy Fawks was the only man ever to enter Parlimiment House with the honest intention of improving this.
For a good beginner example of how politics work, I recommend the British comedy series Yes Minister, and its sequal, Yes Prime Minister.
Related to saying something by not saying it (conveying information via ommision) is to say something by using referances they get in a conversation. This is called double talk (talking on two seperate levels at once)
Why, I once told a couple of casuals at work that I could insult one of my co-workers right in front of him, in a conversation he would consider innocent, and he would not even realize it. I said it in front of the co-worker and he said I couldn’t. He only realized I could do it, or even attempted to do it, when the casuals cracked up after about 3 minutes of the insults. (3 minutes after he said I couldn’t) Then they explained the insults to him.
Guy Fawkes (yes, the “e” is compulsory) is one of the most unfortunate people I have ever come across. Not because he was tortured and then executed, that was bog-standard for the times. But because — like most of these things — his plot attracted the most wild-eyed stupids in the nation. When you get people warning you not to be near a certain place at a certain time, it happens you may mention this to “law enforcement”… Fawkes was probably the smartest person in the gaggle. Even so, his plot bloody near succeeded. Mythbusters (I think) tested his setup, and found that yes it would not only work, but leave a flaming hell-hole where the bang happend.
The whole thing is full of stupid. First they rentedthe house across the road from Parliment House and dig their way to the parliment’s basement. This required going under a road and was hard, so they brought in a fair few other people. Then they discovered they could just rent the basement. (Major security flaw, but the fact no-one checked?) One of the conspiritors warned a cousin who was in parliment not to attend the opening of the new parliment House. NEVER TRUST A POLY! That is how things went bad.
Guy held out against torture for 3 weeks to give the others time to escape. They were being chased, and after rain got their gunpowder wet, they chose to dry it by laying it out in front of a fireplace at the farmouse they were holed up in. Talk about ironic deaths
Moral, NEVER trust politicians!
Forgot to add they discovered they could rent the basement when they were only halfway with the tunnel, having used up most of their time
She didn’t tell about it to the mexican authorities for the same reason she didnt tell about it to the US Authorities (until they found out), only more.
I’m now just wondering one thing.
“What if there are more orbs there?”
Could be that Sydney’s set is incomplete, hence why she can’t access certain upgrades, or that there maybe another set of Orbs in the Scorpion Reef.
I think some investigating is required, as we don’t want them falling into the wrong hands.
(Imagine if they did!)
Not likely this only a partial set, as the orbs only allow a certain distance from Sydney before either the orbs or Sydney can’t move.
The orbs she has are orbs that have bonded with her; if there are more orbs, sufficiently far away, they may not have been able to bond with her, and so may still be out there. That raises the question of whether such notional orbs could bond with someone else, or if, whenever they get close enough to Sydney, they will automatically bond to her.
Personally, I expect there are only the seven, as the skills tree has 7 quadrants, but Dave may have other ideas.
Who is this Lucas bearded man that makes his cameo?
We met him before
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-431-manual-censorship/comment-page-1/
It’s not like they can be taken back from her.
Not while she’s alive. Which I’m sure someone further up the chain considered and rejected.
…More likely “Was proposed and then soundly rejected by everyone above him, followed by “Shut the EFF up!”
Probably along the lines of “Son,” said the General to the Operative “you have GOT to stop smoking those funny mushrooms ‘fore you come in to work.” :)
Could be worse “And that’s when they knew they done effed up” *screaming assassin gets chased several blocks by sentient globes nobody knew were alive until Sydney died*
if the orbs were related to the extinction event of the dinosaurs, would the Mexican government per se want to be involved or be the target in something that could happen again?
remember also what Cora said, Even knowing n-th tech exists could cause you to be the target of galactic war.
enen miyagi-san said “best defense, no be there”
At that point, they’d already bonded with her.
I seriously doubt they’d have been useful to anyone else at that point.
Also, given the fact that the orbs have a physical tether on Sydney, any country trying to keep them or take them away would be engaging in imprisonment.
Well it’s not like Mexico was even a thing whenever the orbs got dropped there. 65 million years ago, or only 1000 years ago, they’re clearly pre-columbian in origin, and there are no Aztecs or dinosaurs around to object.
Isn’t one of Sydney’s classmates Aztec? Maybe that is why she can seem to get joint custody of the orbs.
Nice catch. Note that the actual center of the Chicxulub impact crater is quite a bit south of Scorpion Reef. If you look on Google Earth, the center of the crater impact is right where there is a gigantic cruise ship dock (that thing is big enough that it’s obvious from SPACE) – Scorpion Reef is actually just outside the inner ring of the impact crater, so if the owner was killed by the impact, they weren’t right at the center, which would explain why the orbs wouldn’t have been buried, but that doesn’t explain how the orbs would be near the surface of the reef, which grew long AFTER the impact. So they’re either not impact era, or they were somehow dredged up and wound up closer to the surface (maybe they have a “don’t get buried” feature that makes them seek ground level (or in this case bottom of the sea level) if they’re not bonded to an owner.)
Actually, it’s Varia’s Gestalt power (powah?) that made the orbs widen their circle to include her. Because Sydney doesn’t have powers of her own, it only makes sense that Varia’s power would allow her to use the orbs as well while touching her. Though at best, if Varia was holding onto Syd’s wrist, it would only let them use 3 orbs instead of 2 (or that’s how it seems to me, at least).
She gets powers touching non powered people too.
What this has made me realise though is that the power she gets from others can CHANGE.
Because I find it incredibly unlikely that the power to use the orbs would have manifest before anyone knew of their existence.
Iraq and Kuwait “weren’t a thing” however many millions of years ago the sediments that would eventually process into oil were deposited. Didn’t stop the oil becoming the trigger for a full-scale war, when one side started pumping it out from under the other. (If there’s any controversy over whether that’s a true accusation and the true cause, then consider the previous sentence modified with ‘public trigger’ and ‘allegedly pumping’ accordingly.)
Oil is very different from artifacts. There is oil all over the planet. As far as is known, these are the only orbs of their kind in existence.
Syd is a Smuggler , no wonder she gets along with Cora’s crew.
But since Mexico never owned Halo’s Artifact (those balls function as a space ship) , the right of salvage for a sunken ship means she owns it by first claim. Mexico has an agreement with the US that allows it to salvage any Mexico ship (From Spanish times onward) anywhere in the Gulf even in US waters. And this is outside the Mexican artifact agreement that any artifacts found in Mexico lands are property of the government.
/so Halo 1 – Mexico nada
Okay, so officially, she still found them “off the Florida Keys”. Nobody outside that room needs to know is 1100 km off the Florida Keys.
The tricky part will be getting permission to further study the area looking for additional clues or even more orbs. Sydney randomly finding them while on vacation is legit, but the US armed forces sending agents to snoop is quite another kettle of fish.
more like 720 KM. I measured it on google earth. Still a respectable distance from the FLORIDA keys.
If the father/daughter boat trip started from the Keys though, that’s the location that would show up on their financial history so it would be very defensible (not that any foreign government would trust records from an American company on such a matter). Any further payments would have been in cash or other fungible, non-traceable goods.
703 Km if you take it from the little reef just off Tortugas, measured on Google Maps. But that still raises a very interesting question.
You CANNOT make this trip in a 6 or 7 meter boat, you simply do. not. have. enough. fuel. So, Syd sen. is wealthy enough to own (or rent) something in the 20-30 meter class that would have sufficient fuel reserves, _perhaps_ to the extent of doing the entire 1400 Km round trip without refuelling, which seems to be likely given the entire circumstances. I cannot see the possibility of simply rocking into Progreso to refuel without filing some sort of official papers.
Do some arithmetic on this jaunt, and it gets worse. Hence, “Uh Oh.”
How do you know they didn’t take a sailboat with an auxiliary motor? You could theoretically sail all the way there and back without using ANY fuel.
‘Tis possible, yes. With Syddles Jr? Um. And looking at a 1400 Km round trip, maybe not so attractive.
BUT. A good alternate strategy has been aired in this chapter: by road to the border, thence drive to Progreso, hire a tinnie for the afternoon and splash around on Scorpion Reef. The Orbs would not attract attention packe loosely in a duffel bag, return by car whence they came, and none the wiser.
Ports.com said that Key West, FL to Progreso, MX was 604 nm, which Wolfram Alpha said was 1119 km, hence my distance. I guess there is a lot of the keys west of Key West.
Basically why you need to quote references :)
You are technically correct which is the best sort of correct
DaveB, many customs offices have holding facilities where the contents of somebody’s “discharge” can be examined, usually looking for contraband, like drugs. Mind you, if Sydney did have her normal meal prior to using that facility, the customs officers would likely do a very cursory search of the results.
It’s none of Maxima’s business what Sydney did as a civilian, anyways.
And I’m pretty sure it can’t count as smuggling because there wouldn’t’ve been a single piece of legislation to define them as illegal or contraband either.
By the way, at the scale that map is at in the beginning, she would barely need to scroll the map to get Scorpion Reef on the map. I checked on Google Earth by scaling and rotating so it looked like that map does in the corner of the screen, and Scorpion is barely off the edge of the screen.
To be fair, she didn’t just simply “steal” them or anything like that. She found them and they bonded to her. Sidney couldn’t exactly leave them behind after they effectively became a part of her.
It’s like eating exotic food. It becomes part of your body and countries don’t ask you to send them any part of your body or anything leftover after your body finishes processing it. ;)
The TSA says you can’t carry more than X amount of liquid on a plane. They make an exception for liquid that has passed through your kidneys. Otherwise, well, they don’t pay them enough
Went back and reread the scuba diving page (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-94-the-step-mother-of-all-origins/), and her lie about where she found them is (for her) quite smooth; at the time I just assumed she had forgotten the word “keys.” It might be the only convincing lie Sydney has ever told!
Remember how well she cleaned up at poker?
Max has really deep blonde roots, Sidney mentioned way back when that she got them while diving and only now max has her tell them where she got them?
Actually, Sydney explicitly said she was scuba diving “IN FLORIDA” and then said “around the keys” The “in Florida” part was clearly a lie. Unless she was underwater for more than 500 miles.
that image in the lower left panel, wearing her suit against the ceiling panel backdrop reminds me of Max…. Headroom ;p
Right, as if the US/US military would even care about stealing something from another country, specially somewhere from the south of their border….
Personally, I like Option 2 best. As someone who’s actually worked in government security, Option 1 would just make me far MORE suspicious, where Option 2 is seriously on point.
Okay, first: Sydney is going to get a citizenship od the Estados Unidos de México, and be a double-team super-hero. There’s no way around that, given she is a United States of America resident and wields a United States of Mexico artifact.
Second, WHAT are two civilians doing in the ArcLight map room???
In this case, two other witnesses (since, having been with Sydney on the trip, presumably pretty much know where she’d have gotten them (though might have several “suspects” instead of just 1).
Also, I bet that map is set to basically Google Maps (the classified layers are turned off – there may be some interesting extra layers, but nothing publicly available sources wouldn’t cover).
And why is the map in a storage room / lab? I guess it’s more of an ArcLight workroom than a strategic planning room.