Grrl Power #1056 – Dabbler cheats at Missile Command
Dabbler: “One big shield is too much work, but I can mass produce these little ones that last a tenth of a second.”
Foreman: “We need something watertight.”
Dabbler: “Oh. That sounds boring. I’m going to make these instead.”
Foreman: “But… the underwater city… the water is rising…”
Dabbler: “I wonder what I could use these for. Oh! They’d really ruin someone’s day in a car chase! Or just clog up a hallway. Or if someone was in a swimming pool and you tossed a few dozen in. Yuck, I’d hate to have to clean the filter afterward.”
Foreman: “Thousands will die.”
Dabbler: “Huh? Oh, uh… how about a bunch of rings of waterbreathing that last for a tenth of a second each.”
Foreman: “What possible use is that?”
Dabbler: “Oh, all right. I’ll help you fix your stupid dome.”
So Dabbler helped fix the dome. And then she made a weapon that converts a volume of space into an abattoir for a tenth of a second. It also happens to be great at stopping rockets, jets, light shuttlecraft, NASCAR races, turbines, extremely large spider webs, extremely large spiders, rooms full of zombies, rooms full of… not zombies, etc.
Extremely observant and persnickety readers who also have esoteric knowledge about Mil Mi-24s may feel the desire to point out that Hinds don’t have one of those flippy up safety things on their control stick, to which I counter with, “Yes, but that’s dumb because firing a missile is less dramatic without one, so I added it.”
And yeah, if I was in those helis, keeping just in front of that storm would have me pretty nervous. Unlike a regular storm, you don’t have to worry about it overtaking you on purpose, but, who’s to say the Super who can turn into a kilometer high sandstorm is great at keeping his perspective centered when he’s like that. If you could just become like 10 cubic kilometers large, it might be pretty easy to think of everyone else as ants.
The June Vote Incentive is up! What’s that dripping down Sydney’s face? Uh… well, actually, clicking on the link won’t actually give it away necessarily, cause the thumbnail is from one of the, er, advanced pictures in the series, if you take my meaning. Yes, I mean there is a nude version of Sydney (and guest) over at the Patreon version.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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This arc is really interesting because I legitimately can’t tell if deus is a good guy who uses evil methods because they are more effective or an evil guy whose agenda is prosocial.
Yes.
He’s just a smart guy who isn’t afraid of going beyond the limits to get his work done plus make a crap-ton of money doing it he’s not a hero nor is he outright evil more like chaotic neutral? It’s been ages since I played that game the point is he’s willing to do shady things to reach his goal doesn’t make him evil just untethered.
Does Deus know which he is?
I’d say good guy. With the exception of his stance on free speech by missionaries, he tends to be good. Sort of like The Boys, but with a lot fewer (if any) innocent people dying as collateral damage.
Oh, get off of that. You’re far too culturally crippled by a blind elevation of the US first amendment. You claim to be a lawyer, so you should know that there are a crapton of ways in which the freedom of speech is abridged, by law, in the US.
Those ‘missionaries’ were ‘preaching’ lies that can get people killed or diseased or burdened with carrying an unwanted child. Just because the USA turns a blind eye to horrific cries committed by churches is no reason Deus should put up with the same horrors within his own nation. If preaching death is illegal and bears the death penalty in Deusland, I fully endorse their deaths. Or if being an agent provocateur posing as a missionary is also illegal, which was at least hinted at in the prior conics in this arc, then I again approve their snuffage.
So until we know the law of Galytn, I suggest we all withhold judgement on whether or not a few maybe missionaries deaths were ‘good’ or not.
Could you explain the distinction? I’m pretty sure that’s external labeling, and internally, it’s just “I want this, and that, and that, and some of this…” and many of the things he wants are good, and his methods for getting most of them are lawful neutral — Deus’ law, not anyone else’s — and none of the goals or methods are particularly evil, compared to the status quo.
If your question is “Does Deus plan to bait and switch?” The answer is probably “Yes, several times an hour.”
If the question is, “Will Deus turn out to be torturing babies or selling extended car warranties by telemarketing,” the answer is clearly “How does that crap make me money?” and “No, I’ll be selling the high tech cars and the warranty will be on a continuing subscription basis so it keeps running perfectly as long as they pay the maintenance fees.”
Compare the average life of a person in the bottom ten percent under status quo, with under Deus, and you will realize which one should be considered “evil”.
“flippy up safety things” = “mollyguards” No, really.
An IBM engineer had a toddler named Molly who liked playing with the Big Red Switch, so they put a plastic cover over it. The rest is history.
And the weapon release button is called a “pickle switch” No, really.
Apocryphally, this came from a pilot saying that gripping a HOTAS controller felt like holding a pickle.
As an aside, a pickle switch is what an LSO holds when guiding an aircraft in to land on an CV with an OLS.
Other sources { a retired Eagle pilot} say it goes back to WW2 and the accuracy of the Norden sight in B-17s.
I dont think anybody really knows anymore. “pickle switch” has just been around a long time.
Another source was a Nam pilot who said “pickling” was an emergency ordnance release before crashing or a method of getting maximum weapons on target.
God I love you needs for your esoteric info that won’t help you in any situations other then arguing facts.
Not wishing for it to happen, but situations can arise where you might need some “esoteric” knowledge.
Hypothetical: You are out bushwalking in a remote location and the weather turns on you or someone in your group has a medical emergency; just some reason that you have to evacuate in short order.
It might be nice to know how to attract the attention of a passing helicopter, so learning about things like FLIR, emergency radio frequencies or just the identification and capabilities of various types of helicopters could be handy. Other bits of information generally come along with that, like pickle switches.
TLDR: Knowing odd shit is not a bad thing.
I THINK I remember something about Billy Mitchell talking about ‘pickling’ bombs prior to WWII, but I am not sure the source. It might have been any number of tests that he ran with bombers.
He was all about bombers, so it might have been from him or just about anyone else who was developing such. at the time
I think this might now be my second favourite piece of esoteric naming information, behind the Thagomizer.
When it comes to someone transforming into something large and particulate like Mr. Mighty Wind here, he can likely feel the aircraft in his “personal space,” feeling a bit of feedback from the loose sand before it’s out of the range of his “body.” They probably feel something like a fly buzzing around you, while anything on the ground he ignores like walking through a field of leaves. Though a significantly powerful superhuman could feel like stepping on a Lego piece.
mmmh, I suspect all this attack was organzied by Deus himself, i am not yet 100% sure why (maybe to show his enemies “Hey, look! if you attack me Maxima will defend me”?) but I think at how coincidental is that the attack happen exactly when Maxima and the other are visiting his country.
It is all a Xanathos Gambit.
I suspect the same, except he orchestrated the attack without his enemies knowing he secretly pushed them. But not to have Maxima defend him, but to show off to her and the rest of the world those defenses he was bragging about. I fully expect Dabbler’s assist here to have been completely unnecessary and the hangars and factories to be fully defended.
When he isn’t a sandstorm does he walk about like the fantastic fours thing?
Pretty sure he’s the guy with the turban from the villain splash page
Those short-term shields remind me of something similar from John Ringo’s Legacy of the Aldenata Series:
The Galactics gave modern day humans a bubble shield that worked close to the skin of the user, so one day a soldier was screwing around in the barracks and set his to briefly project a flat plane shield, that ended up cutting through his bunk, the pipework, entire barracks building, and incidentally both of his buddy’s legs (thankfully, regen tech is now available). So of course, humans take that, and turn the defence shields into mines that jump a metre in the air, then project a shield for a brief second to cut enemy troops in half in a 50m radius.
How old is this series?
I’ve seen something like this in anime, manga, and comics, usually called a cutter shield, does the same thing, a defensive shield that also slices through anything in its way as it forms so can be used as a weapon.
-also the explanation I think in Phantasy Star or another series for “Force Blades”, basically the same thing but shaped like swords, daggers, and other weapons.
Book 1 (A Hymn Before Battle) came out in 2001 (think I made it sound like a TV show, oops) it’s one of those 20 minutes into the future settings where we get first contact because the peace-loving galactics are desperate – they are getting invaded a planet at a time, but can’t fight back due to aeons of conditioning. Their AIs aren’t allowed to fire a weapon without direct authorisation from a sapient, and the few races they have capable of giving the order go catatonic after doing so. Humanity has been observed, but never contacted as we are too warlike, but now they are in need of someone to do their fighting for them. Trouble is that earth is also in the path of this invasion, so if they wait for us to become more civilised, they’ll be too late.
It’s a good book series, though I would also recommend his other first contact series: Troy Rising, where aliens having found earth as a low-tech backwater begin to screw us over by selling us their obsolete computer hardware for large portions of each countries GDP in trade goods. Until the MC finally figures out a product the aliens will buy at a reasonable price, then with the profits manages to bootstrap the earth’s space industry to the point we can resist an invasion using old science concepts because we still can’t make / afford energy shields or high tech armour.
And I would suggest not purchasing anything written by Ringo because he is a loathsome human being and should not be rewarded financially.
I agree with you. I think of his stuff as republican porn. His worldview is completely fascist
Wasn’t aware of his leanings, and I’ve only read those two parts of his work. I don’t automatically assume stories reflect an authors worldview – I mean who would *want* the warhammer 40k future for example. I thoroughly enjoyed the Troy Rising series, but then again, people still love the Harry Potter series despite finding out how objectionable JKR is. I’ll read up on him and spend my money more carefully in future. Of course, if you want to read something without paying the author, there’s always second-hand or a library.
I like the vote incentive – Sydney makes a tasty amuse-bouche.
Dabbler is only a civilian according to USA law. Under international law she just preformed military action and is thus military. I think that her international status would be “USA allied military”.
That’s not how international law works. If she’s not in the military, she’s not military. Although they could probably argue that she’s a hired mercenary by the United States. Mercenaries are not covered by a lot of the laws OR protections that soldiers are covered by, including the Geneva Convention, because they are not considered legal combatants.
A non citizen civilian paid by and acting in combat zones with a US military unit. Yep , mercenary, legally speaking. Funny enough most adventures as she calls herself would also qualify as mercenaries for this or that kingdom and so on, it just doesn’t sound as “cool” or “heroic” to call yourself a mercenary rather than an adventurer , hunter, hero for hire, and so on.
Small Nitpick, the Ka-52 on the first panel has two main rotors and no tail rotor, as it’s a Coaxial Attack Helicopter.
I’ve seen enough of them flying and/or crashed in pieces over the past three+ months to know that well.
I wanna be on Dabbler’s “good” naughty list…
…OK, whose bright idea was it to use a Ka-50/52, an aircraft currently only used by two countries, of which Egypt almost certainly wouldn’t be deploying theirs’ thousands of km away from home just to pick a fight with an American billionaire?