Grrl Power #1062 – Jalapeño, Jalapeño, Jalapeño
No, Leon didn’t just summon tech support.
I really wanted to title this page “Zulu Zulu Zulu” because I am almost positive there is some scene in some movie or TV show somewhere in which someone sends that message, and the message means “Invasion imminent.” Only, I can’t recall where I saw that, and I just don’t remember if the message was actually Zulu Zulu Zulu or Zebra Zebra Zebra or November x 3 or X-ray or Oscar or what. My brain is whispering that it was someone like Spock or Data, but I don’t even recall if it was Star Trek or even Sci-Fi. It’s very frustrating and you can imagine that googling “zulu zulu zulu invasion” produces results about, you know, the actual British attempts to conquer the Zulu, and “zebra zebra zebra invasion” give results about invasive zebra mussels. Like, the mollusk things, not buff furry zebra dudes. Though honestly those probably show up on page 2 of the results.
Anyway, since my brain wasn’t cooperating to recall the exact reference and I couldn’t think of anything else, I went with “word that should definitely not be on a Military Phonetic Alphabet list” just to make sure no one has any idea what I’m doing.
Edit: Ah hah! Kizik Ucalegon over at Patreon cracked it. “Zulu Zulu Zulu” is from On Basilisk Station, the first Honor Harrington book. And my fucking brain went from hearing an audiobook of the scene to trying to tell me it was Data from an episode of Star Trek. No wonder I can’t remember if an anime I’ve watched was subtitled or dubbed half the time.
Snippet: ———————
“‘Mr. Venizelos, you will commandeer the first available Junction carrier to relay the following message to Fleet HQ. Message begins: Authentication code Lima-Mike-Echo-Niner-Seven-One. Case Zulu. I say again, Zulu, Zulu, Zulu. Message ends.'” She heard McKeon suck air between his teeth at her shoulder. “That is all, Mr. Webster,” she said softly. “You may transmit at will.” Webster said absolutely nothing for an instant, but when he replied, his voice was unnaturally steady.
“Aye, aye, Captain. Transmitting Case Zulu.” There was another brief pause, then, “Case Zulu transmitted, Ma’am.”
“Thank you.” Honor wanted to lean back and draw a deep breath, but there was no time. The message she’d just ordered Webster to send and Venizelos to relay to Manticore was never sent in drills, not even in the most intense or realistic Fleet maneuvers. Case Zulu had one meaning, and one only: “Invasion Imminent.”
Edit 2: Ironically, or… serendipitously? Anyway, I upgraded to fiber internet about three weeks ago, meaning there’s a 50 foot fiber cable running from the curb to the side of my house because they haven’t gotten around to burying it yet – and my neighbor just clipped it with his weed whacker. So I’m on “tethered-through-my-phone” internet for the next week. :/
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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Well you’ve said you’ve read a few of Weber’s Honor Harrington series of novels, so that may be where you remember this. For the Star Kingdom (later Empire) of Manticore, case Zulu is the code for “invasion imminent.” It is never used in any exercise or simulation. Honor sends this signal in the very first novel in the series On Basilisk Station, warning of an imminent invasion of the Basilisk system by forces of Haven.
And now I see from the edit and just about every post on page 1 that everyone knows this already, lol.
Nice to see so many Weber fans are also following this comic.
So, any bets on the money behind the supes and non-powered mercs attacking both Galytn and ARCHON? We all agree they are connected, right? That coincidence is enemy action?
Since Weber, I know of least three writers who have” borrowed” the Zulu phrase, including one of the
‘Wearing the Cape’ novels, specifically ‘Recursion’
Its always the skylights. If you want to keep your building safe from villains (or heroes alike) don’t have skylights!!
It was established early on that Archon has skylights to allow their flying supers an easy egress route.
Easy does NOT mean ‘safe’.
This IS Archon we are talking about and they HAVE to have defenses as well as their garrison supers.
1st rule I ever learned about navigation (and life!) was from my dad when I became a Boy Scout way back when. ‘The easy way is always suspect’. If it is road, it is likely mined. If a trail? Boobytrapped. If a clearing? Zeroed for artillery. If a highway, idiots rubbernecking near an accident site. If a parking lot? People on their cell phones. If work? People smoking weed.
NEVER trust what seems to be the ‘easy’ way.
I’ve been trying to figure out what ww2 film used it. I don’t think it’s a proper ww2 code though.
You’re probably thinking of Tora Tora Tora, the signal to launch the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the movie covering said events.
Two or three things. 1: Honor Harrington FTW!
2: holy crap Krona is adorasexy…sexorable…adorable and sexy! 3: have we seen wall-vandalizing, topless-yet-hooded dude before? And how does a hood work without a top? Is it like a weird hat?
It looks sort of like Atlas from DC Comics. Who also did the ‘topless but has a hood’ thing.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/86/04/76/860476d3627a475053df5cc1e9165396.jpg
“People kept telling me I looked like a thumb with my shirt off.”
“… and you thought a phallus was an improvement?”
I assumed you meant ‘Tora, Tora, Tora’ which was the Japanese attack phrase for Pearl Harbor.
theories.
A: Either a way overconfident group attacking a federal building
or
B: A test being run by Arc Dark or another agency on the readiness of the rest of the team with Maxima gone. to see how they handle a crisis without their S class leader available to bail them out.
Or C: Whoever is attacking where Sydney and Co are currently at are the diversion to keep the US forces from rushing back to base when the alarms go off…. Pretty Sure if Max wasn’t busy with Durude she could be back there in a manner of minutes, and whoever is breaking in needs more time than that to do their thing… (I’m calling it now, Max is going to derail their plans by warp gating back there even though she isn’t supposed to…)
Actually … at Mach 8 it will take Maxima about an hour and a half to fly back (depeding a biton where exactly in the USA ARchon HQ is, but it is no more than 2 hours)
Of course with the help of Sydney she /can/ be back in a matter of minutes, though she would do so wit a detour of hundreds of thousand lightyears.
Sydney could fly that fast but she’d have to get way up there or the shock wave would cause massive damage to any buildings or people below and I think even Max would freak out at first when Sydney would pass Mach 10+! Wait… that’s a thought if she swooped down and through the sand storm the resulting suction could drag most of it to the stratosphere!
Even at mach 16 it would take Sydney still the better part of an hour to get back to Archon.
But … she can gate to fracture station and then turn around and gate back to the waypoint she created for her hometown. That would take only a minute or two for the entire trip. Including the 100.000 ly detour ;)
We know she can access a map to make check points, Cora’s crew helped with that.
there is no reason at this time to assume she can only make one location tag per planet. While leaving the gate open negates this being an issue on the return, it may be possible she has been making multiple trips to Fracture station (if she has she is most likely closing the door behind her and then able to return).
So it is not unreasonable to assume she may be able to use the causeway to gate between different points on the same planet like any other teleporter or tele-portal’er (or however you distinguish between the two variants),
Fair enough, but even if she only has a single waypoint on Earth (behind her store) she still can get Maxima back at the HQ in minutes (and only a small number at that) instead of well over an hour.
Actually, given the potential concerns over people thinking she has Nth level tech, should she be creating jump gates in public?
a collaboration more so likely than a diversion, by some over zealous *see: super wealthy idiots who think they run the world from the shadows) attacking both Deus and Archon for upsetting the status quo, or just because “demons, demons bad”, able these guys have celestians backing them secretly,
It seems that all top priority “this is not a drill” messages are single word repeated in tripplicates:
Tora Tora Tora (Start bombing attack on Pearl Harbor)
Zulu Zulu Zulu (Invasion Imminent)
Canopy Canopy Canopy (ejecting from jet fighter)
Go Go Go (Paratroppers jumping out)
Hut Hut Hut (American Football)
There are only very few “this is not a drill” announcements that are not in tripplicate:
Four (golf ball is flying)
Bombs Away (bombs have been released from the launch device)
I say it once to get your attention, twice to make sure you were listening and three times to hammer the point home. In my previous life when I had to chair committees and meetings I tried to stick to a “Three Times” rule. Once you state your point three times you aren’t adding any new information to the discussion. It’s time to yield the floor and move on. There are also various rules of three in math, literature and magic.
Another one, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.
Civilian aircraft making a mayday call in United States airspace are encouraged by the Federal Aviation Administration to use the following format, omitting any portions as necessary for expediency or where they are irrelevant:
Mayday, Mayday, Mayday; (Name of station addressed); Aircraft call sign and type; Nature of emergency; Weather; Pilot’s intentions and/or requests; Present position and heading, or if lost then last known position and heading and time when aircraft was at that position; Altitude or Flight level; Fuel remaining in minutes; Number of people on board; Any other useful information.
And Pan, Pan, Pan, which is also an aircraft distress call.
“Jalapeño, Jalapeño, Jalapeño” is just a jab at Sydney’s idea of a light snack and saying a critical command in triplicate is pretty common I think like on a submarine it’s “dive, dive, dive” to crash dive to avoid a depth charge attack.
As a member of the fanclub, I am just pleased as punch at an Honor Harrington reference. :D
And there is the Pearl Harbour movie “Tora! Tora! Tora!” that fits the 3 times one word for invasion topic.