Grrl Power #1254 – Bad influence
I mean, if you do have to hide a bomb somewhere… Well, okay, if there is such a place as a museum of famous movie bombs, that would almost seem to be too obvious a place to stick it. I think a museum like that could be viable, I mean, it’d kind of have to be a wing of a larger movie prop museum probably. Honestly, there’s probably like, a dozen really distinct bomb props before you get into the bundle, or fasces if you will, of dynamite and/or the block of gray C4 with a clock or digital readout and a bunch of wires. Most movies don’t go out of their way when it comes to art direction for its bombs.
So the Grrl-verse laws regarding super powers is probably unrealistically progressive. (Some*) Humans are frightened, stupid animals that will lash out at anything different than them, but when America’s leaders in this ‘verse sat down to figure out what to do with Supers, there was fortunately someone at the table smart enough to counter the calls to “round them up and exterminate/concentration camp/dissect them” with “Well, what if we do that, (and that’s assuming they don’t immediately kick our asses) but China/North Korea/Iran/etc. doesn’t?” Nothing like fighting a little xenophobia with xenophobia.
Once past that hurdle, then you’ve got to scramble to come up with laws that 1) won’t immediately get slammed down by the courts and 2) do a reasonable job of protecting rich people and politicians, but also poors and supers, I guess. Most super powers honestly fall right into existing laws. Don’t assault people. Don’t batter people, even if your Supranym is “The Tempura-er.” Don’t cause property damage. Don’t break laws on a large scale because then you’re either a terrorist or a large corporation, and an individual Super probably doesn’t have the lobbying power of a large corporation. Well, unless that’s his super power. God, that’s a scary thought. Super PAC, with the ability to accept unlimited amounts of donated money and legally bribe lawmakers into doing basically anything he wants.
But some new laws did have to be written. Stuff involving clairvoyance and privacy. Telepathy, invisibility, etc. The ability to duplicate objects? If you’re not a mint, there’s a good chance you might be committing fraud if you mis-employ that power. Honestly there’s a lot of new, very specific laws that did need to come about, but really, existing laws did cover most of the less esoteric powers.
So as Maxima says, accessing someone’s brain without their permission is permissible under certain circumstances.
*Many.
Marion G. Harmon of “Wearing the Cape” fame has the first book in a new series out, Rising Tides (Capes Book 1). It’s set in the WtC universe, but stars a new hero, and builds on the setting established in the original WtC books. I haven’t read it yet myself, as it just came out a week before this page went up and I’m finishing up another series first, which I may or may not recommend. It’s good, but I don’t know if it’s like, recommend good. But I’ve always enjoyed Harmon’s books, so he gets a sight unseen thumbs up from me.
The new vote incentive is up!
Every so often I get the urge to try and draw Maxima all properly shiny, and this… isn’t my favorite attempt if I’m honest. I’ve been sitting on this for a little while doing little tweaks, and decided to finally publish it cause I’m already behind on these. The next one will (almost definitely) resume the trend of including a little mini comic to extend the scene a bit.
As usual, Patreon has some outfit variations as well as sans flagrante.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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I like how we are acting like season one Sydney wasn’t joking about robbing a bank. She already got some Lapha in her….
Now she won’t be able to tell :). This could be some funny content if it’s not just left here as a one-off.
Wasn’t there a short-lived comic book about a team specialising in repairing the property damage caused by super fights?
marvels ‘Damage Control’
the comics were Office based goofyness.
the MCU made a good opening cameo in spiderman homecomming;
but them subverted them in to a Hammer-esq thug force in Ms Marvel.
The DC in Ms. Marvel is closer to the Commission on Superhuman Affairs. A Marvel government agency that is kind of dickish about people with powers.
Damage Control from Marvel. DC might have had something similar but if so it’s faded from memory.
Imagine a crossover comic where Billy “Captain Marvel” Batson fights Damage Control.
Damage Control
With Asuka, Kairi, Ayo and Dakota?
Not Bailey, she’s gone BabyFace again
Probably Marvels “Damage Control” company.
Evil Halo would be terrifying.
OP’s bomb is a bundle of [dynamite] sticks.
I doubt there would be a complete and total memory exchange. I don’t know anyone with perfect total recall of his *own* memories.
Memories yes, memories are all in there, we “forget” things simply because our minds don’t work like that but it doesn’t mean they aren’t in there. Age is another factor, I’m 64 and I can remember things from when I was 6, but not something like a short shopping list. Emotions and trauma have a lasting effect on our memories too. I can remember every detail of my near fatal car accident back in ’83 (never passed out during it) right down to the rain, flying in the air, hitting the road, the cold, how much pain I was in laying on the pavement, and so on. It’s also why we collect pictures, not because they are pretty, but because they trigger memories.
Recent studies has shown that traumatic memories get glitched in our brains. Normally there are three kinds of memory, long term, short term and the super short dream memory. These studies show that traumatic memories are always presented as recent/short term memories. When people say that a traumatic event feels like it always just happened because from the brains inner workings it just has.
It’s pretty darned important to keep traumatic memories current, ’cause they’re usually memories of stuff that could kill you if you forgot about them…
In many cases that “super-short term memory” is just the subconscious that never lets you forget. About a year after my accident my wife and I moved in together and she often complained that I jerked in my sleep, I relived it in my dreams for years afterwards, but my mind was adding her in the accident.
I was paralyzed from the chest down, they almost had to put a ventilater on me. I didn’t actually sleep for 3 days because they wouldn’t give me anything for pain “you might hurt yourself” trust me lady, I’m already hurt bad!! By the second day I could move my legs a bit, they kept insisting that it was just my imagination. I had to kick off my blanket just to prove it, that’s also how i found out my right foot was broke and was the size of a foot ball. They didn’t even bother to tell me I had broke my back, I had to figure that out on my own. Yes it was a crappy hospital.
I don’t have any references in front of me, but the last I remember, the whole eternal memory thing is only sort of true. Basically, every time you retrieve a memory, it gets slightly modified by your knowledge and feelings before being put back. On the plus side, that can sometimes mean that additional details get added because you now know more about the situation. On the minus side, it’s one of the reasons why memory is can be manipulated, because what gets stored back is modified. Basically, all forms of memory are on a loop. Short-term memory is on a more constant loop until it gets stored. Long-term memory is on a much longer loop.
“petty” larceny? Given Sydney’s nerdy background, it’d be more likely that when talking about larceny she’d consider becoming like the F.O.W.L. shadow-lady and have some minions commit hilariously weird crimes, like stealing lots of rubber bands and erasers to make a remote-controlled giant rubber ball that can turn literal cars into pancakes. But obviously she’d stop herself. :-)
Giant Rubber Ball? Nah. Requires too much focus and patience to create. Sydney would totally Rube Goldberg the heck out of her evil plots, unable to decide which methods and contraptions to use, opting for all of them, at the same time. Her trope savvy-ness would try to prevent her from going off the rails, but if her meds wear off, she will totally mustache twirl.
She might even deliberately, out of loyalty to the trope, make her death traps easily escapable.
Also, F.O.L.W.? Really? Guild of Calamitous Intent is much more her speed.
F.O.W.L. has the word “larceny” in it, so they win.
Sure, there is “larceny” in the name, but F.O.W.L. is very regimented, all things considered.
GCI actively encourages “character quirks”.
So, now Sydney just got booked several thorough psych evaluations to check how much lapha affected her ? :)
Unless Dabbler can hit syd with her memory hammer ;)
I’m sure the therapist she’s already seeing will be briefed to keep a lookout for any odd behavior or differences in personality, just in case. You would think that people in ARCHON would already have standard psych evaluations every so often, since I believe the real-world military does them.
Especially considering we’re not just talking about people that have access to a bunch of weapons, but people with actual superpowers. Imagine Maxima with schizophrenia or a paranoid disorder of some sort. They would want to catch that shit early.
The military never did psych evals when I was in unless you had a mental health crisis that triggered it. I’ve been out over a decade though so maybe things have changed.
Doctor Frost, Doctor Frost, you are wanted at Archon.
She can bring her associates, Dr.s Howard, Fine and Howard.
Better than Dr. Quinzell
I like how you can no longer differentiate between regular Sydney and Mirror Universe Sydney, except for the beard.
If the memories swing both ways, doesn’t that make her a security risk if she takes over known threat actors and they may get details about Maxima and the organisation?
Good question… are Sydney’s memories now the same as Lapha’s memories, or are they distinct? A quick check would be whether Sydney now has any of Garamm’s memories from when he was Lapha’s host.
On the other hand, and double-memory-transfer aside, Lapha now has the memory of the time when she learned that the orbs are possibly Nth tech. That opens all sorts of gray area.
I think there’d have to be some sort of reconciliation going on. It would help when you look down and realize which body you’re in.
I see it as being a supersized version of when you have an opinion about something, and then you go through experiences about that thing. E.g. you don’t like the idea of dumpster diving and then you do a bunch of it for reasons. You may update your opinion (free stuff!), or you might not (free stuff…and I’m covered in slime).
Sydney would have the advantage of Lapha’s memories becoming fuzzier over time, but Lapha would have a lot more experience in integrating foreign memories and attitudes.
You have that super in your comic already. Super PAC = Deus. The man has enough wealth and political power to influence multiple countries’ politics. He is also smart enough to do it well.
Honestly, Deus is also a good reason for why the laws fell out the not-totally-stupid-we’re-going-to-create-superpowered-terrorists-because-they’re-just-trying-to-survive way.
Oh dang, you’re right.
The defunct “Comics Buyer’s Guide” had a column by Bob Ingersoll, titled “The Law Is A Ass!”, which dealt with legal aspects of superheroes. The archive starts at http://www.worldfamouscomics.com/law/archives-2000-1999.shtml
Thank you very much for the link, this should be very entertaining!
movie bomb archives exist. I walked into an estate sale for someone who worked in movies and was told there were a bunch of prop bombs in the sale. there were a few in very poor shape still there. now here’s a question… I need a prop bomb delivered to a set in Canada, I want to rent one from a prop warehouse in California. how the heck do you get that through customs? do you carry it across the border? checked bag or carry-on?
Declare it and if practical, show the Canada Border Services officer how it is just an empty prop. That also needs to be put on the customs declaration. Include that this is a rental so you can avoid duties on “owned” goods.
Or hire one of the many veteran EOD operators, such as myself (I work cheap) to make you a non-hollywood looking one.
Granted it wouldn’t look like much more than a steel box with no countdown timer or flashing lights, or a wad of putty stuck into an artillery shell fuze well and a cell phone with wires for an actor to cut, but the movies aren’t big on realism anyway.
I’m still wondering how they expected us to believe anything in that ‘hurt locker’ film, but at least they didn’t depict any actual RSP techniques so that keeps the real operators a little safer ;)
I assume most filmmakers can be talked out of using totally accurate representations of bombs in their movies as they don’t want to be responsible (legally or ethically) for widely distributing a “how to” guide to every teenage incel in the world. There might actually be laws about that, come to think of it.
That was one of the many reasons (including bad hair!) that the original MacGyver went away.
People DID try to make what he did in the show and a couple even succeeded. Eeek.
that isn’t why the show went away after 7 seasons. somewhere around season 2 or three they went full fantasy on the stuff because too many of the early ones either ALMOST work, work, or are special cases. (just so you know flagpoles are rather hollow and not made for shear force or 120lb spider people siting on them)
Burn Notice did the same thing. :)
I am disappointed by your use of the word “incel” as if it was a synonym for “terrorist”; I thought you were smarter than to accept that extremely bigoted and hateful media narrative as truth.
Aww, are you feeling called out?
They usually make bombs mostly accurate, but leave out key ingredients or parts of the recipe so that they cannot be used by anyone just watching the movie or TV show.
Mythbusters tended to do that as well.
Also same thing with Breaking Bad as it relates to drugs. The formula they used to make Walter White’s meth left out key ingredients and parts of the process for making methamphetamines, mostly because they didn’t want to make it easy for anyone to make it.
again mythbusters is an amazing resource if sometimes shockingly snooze inducing. it turns out that it is well known that a lot of the cinema tropes are complete hogwash. the fireball explosion everyone is always making is NOT what C4 or other explosives look like- there are ‘tricks’ they use to make the booms bigger. so most directors already know that they want what the audience ‘thinks’ this stuff looks like not what it actually looks like. a good example is the classic cement truck explosion that is a relatively small explosion on the screen compared to some of the gas enhanced booms used in other myths.
I still like the scene:
‘cut the yellow wire’
‘they are all yellow’
Not really sure how they would all be yellow. Have you tried to wire up something complicated? It’s very easy to lose track of things.
So a bomb where all the wires are the same color either has not many wires, or else the maker has some other method for keeping track.
Yes, you can label all the wires, but then you have to ensure the labels don’t fall off while you’re assembling it. And then once it’s assembled, you have to remove all the labels that you securely attached – without setting it off prematurely…
the bomb with all yellow lines was built by lowest bidder and deployed to an asteroid and something odd happened and they needed to disarm it. Jack complained. Carter agreed to convey the complaints up to and including after death. (given the relationship the contractor seriously hoped Jack survived!)
stargate sg1 reference.
I so love everything about Stargate SG-1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo8mePgx4yw
that’s better than the elevator story where she wanted to hum the MacGyver theme.
I crack up where she says “You used to be Macgyver, McGadget, McGimmick… now you’re McUseless!”
Can no longer hold in the laugh anymore at that point.
A bomb with more than a couple of wires is either over complicated or is, in and of itself, a trap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SybzgNODNBM
“Bangs”, heh. Next she’ll call Max “Goldie”.
It’s an apprpriate nickname on so many levels!
petty larceny. way way back in the beginning when Sydney was still trying to run the comic shop she had access to a shrink wrap machine. this enabled her to play with some of the stuff and ‘factory seal’ it back up. Joel complained about it. Sydney has always had a flexible morality. this is required of the American business owner. Morals are for low paid employees. look at the difference between how wage theft and shoplifting are prosecuted.
I would say she is a case of very chaotic chaotic good.
probably is also a natural expert at dissociation due to her super ADHD brain. i mean, she essentially slaughtered thousands upon thousands of aliens in order to “grind”.
granted, most of it was out of self-defense and survival but she seems to have bounced back pretty quickly once she leveled up and justified it this way. and that’s just one of the sometimes dubious things she will allow from the side lines or actively participate in.
So The Museum of Movie Bombs would just be copies of bad movies?
Not bad movies, but movies that lost a *lot* of money. Mortal Engines! Cutthroat Island! Battleship!
just because a movie lost money on its release doesn’t mean it sucked.
Take Golden Compass good movie but no sequel “because it was a Disappointment at the Box office”
Ishtar bombed at the box office and it sucked.
I liked Mortal Engines :)
Reading the comic I assumed the Museum of Famous Movie Bombs would be devoted to actual films that had flopped in the theaters and become legendary financial and/or critical failures, not a building full of prop explosives. Your mad bomber could still be making a statement if (say) they thought Halloween III was the best film in the franchise.
I mean, that’s not an indefensible position. It’s totally divorced from the lore, sure, but it has some interesting ideas. Much more reasonable than thinking The Final Destination (the fourth one) is the best film of that franchise. I mean, it’s the only one that doesn’t have Tony Todd!
Is MAx implying that Lapha would be using her new position to betray Archon?!?
Max is telling Lapha that they’re smart enough to understand her real motivations, and yet still be willing to make the offer. They aren’t trusting simpletons, but instead have secrets and powers Lapha isn’t aware of. Up until the fight, Lapha obviously thought this was some rube planet where she could run amuck and get rich.
And from Lapha’s response, those were the exact thoughts going through her head.
“So the Grrl-verse laws regarding super powers is probably unrealistically progressive.”
“There is a 23% chance that attacking arc-swat will be taken as a job application.”
If you’re on our side, you get a pass on your crimes. You can’t get more realistically progressive than that. That’s the privilege we gain by willingly giving up your freedoms of thought and speech. Those who refuse to give up our freedoms of thought and speech are not on our side, don’t want our tyrannical privileges, and worse don’t want us to have them either, so their thought crimes (whateverphobia) turn everyday crimes into the worst crimes a progressive society can conceive.
Every tyrant is benevolent to their friends. Progressives are literally the villains of their own stoies.
In the context of the story I mostly disagree.
The selective lenience to which you refer in this story comes from existing rights and story bound resource limitations of the executive powers(plea deals, court martial, lack of supers, etc.).
The extra laws the author introduces are more lenient in the way that they allow a dangerous new group of individuals more rights than one would expect.
Arc Light has to research their own list of supers(no forced registering), apparently there are new laws limiting what law enforcement can do with these new abilities(they can’t mindrip all their suspects if they get access to an alien who can do such things)(I find this atypical as someone who works in tech and follows the related news), flying supers are allowed to fly at all while none of their organs have been approved by the people who’ve to approve every part of an airplane and they don’t even have to qualify for a pilot diploma.
Some of these rights are arguably autocratic though:
I don’t know whose job it’s to approve all Archon’s domestic activities, but they’re military, so domestic employment is heavily restricted. It sounds like either a horrible job or a gaping hole in USA citizens rights to security and transparency from their government.
They bombed a building, wrecked a bridge during an aerial chase and took the jobs of construction workers.
The military doesn’t do these things normally, because they’re not allowed to without the approval of a shitload of civilian stakeholders(and no, just permission from the city isn’t enough).
On Flight, it’s likely that supers with a flight ability are required to remain below a certain height and that so long as they do, and remain outside of no-fly-zones, they’re legally fine, but to fly higher they become required to wear a beacon, get a radio, and file a flight plan. IRL we allow civilians to fly drones, model airplanes, launch model rockets, launch fireworks, fly kites, and use gliders all at lower altitudes without any concern about air traffic, and only require specific training, registration, and communication while flying at higher altitudes. Ironically, flight is probably one of the few areas of real life law that,would require the smallest amount of tinkering to account for supers, as small, single person flight has been a core aspect of airplanes since, well, the first successful heavier than air craft!
I both agree and disagree with you. Obviously tyrants and dictators need to play tit-for-tat with obsequious coattail riders, but Maxima’s approach to law enforcement is based on her take on certain historical events.
Basically, World War I was a shit show, and after Germany lost, the world punished them. The economic hardships and the wounded pride of being the world’s whipping boy led almost directly to World War II, in which 80-90 million people died, if you include all the heinous shit Japan did to China. I’m sure there were a lot of people after WWII that wanted to punish the Axis nations, but fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and we helped them rebuild. This isn’t to say there weren’t some punitive measures taken, of course, but now, Japan and Germany are G8 nations and really unlikely to be the start of another world war.
Essentially, Maxima believes in reform. Not blindly, of course. There are plenty of psychopaths out there who will always be a danger to society, but she thinks that if you give people a genuinely fair shake, and importantly, respect, they will have a lot less to rail against.
It’s worked out well with Jabberwokky so far, who wanted wealth, i.e., comfort and security, as well as the occasional adrenaline high. Lapha is an edge case. She’s been a lifelong criminal, so she’ll be watched a lot more closely than Jabber was, but Max is willing to take the chance on her.
kind of reminds me of this real life article i’ve seen once where there’s this judge in the states that also believes in reform so he tried to give out reformative…. what’s the word… civic chores?
essentially, instead of sending people who did minor crimes to jail, he would have them perform community service, clean up the sides of the road, etc.
apparently, this decreased the likelyhood of the convicted to repeat crimes, offered them a job as well as learning skills as well giving them a chance for redemption.
i liked that story.
My brother was a state park superintendent for many years. At one point the state allowed the use of non-violent offenders as labor in the park system. He often regarded them as good workers. They were usually the sort of folks who were serving time for non payment of fines, or low level crimes. The park got useful labor, it got people out of the county jail and the offenders got time off of their sentence. It was a win all the way around. But then somebody else got elected governor and that program went away.
I DOUBT that Lapha is going to get the Dabbler treatment, but hey… Never say never, right?
What’s the Dabbler treatment?
Do you mean the Jabberwokky treatment?
What Max and Archon is doing is much like what the USA has done with hackers, if you’re good enough, you get a job as a hacker for the government, but you have to be really good or it’s a cot and a pot. They don’t waste good talent IF you behave, if you don’t, well, being fired is the least of your problems…
“Hello boy, you gotsa a prutty mouth!”
Hmmm Bangs… I do not know why but I like that nickname for Syd.
Nono, it means famous movie BOMBS. You know, movies that everyone HATED, enough to make them famously hated. Like Manos: Hands Of Fate. C’mon, you can think of others!
Problem is, if you hid ACTUAL explosives in there, people might not WANT to disarm them… or go anywhere near them, really…
…or anything marvel or disney has put out in the past few years…
How much money do they have to lose before they realize that people go to the movies to see giant robots, explosions, spaceships and swordfights. If we wanted lectures we’d go to church.
You are not the world. People have different tastes, and everything does not have to cater to you specifically.
He isnt giving just his opinion. In the last several years both Marvel and Disney have been losing a LOT of money and market share value as well as more and more of their movies and tv shows bombing in the box office and in ratings reporting. When a company is losing hundreds of millions on multiple movies each year or putting out tv shows that the majority of which are losing viewership and the company doesnt course correct, its bad business practice and likely grounds for a shareholder detivative lawsuit.
And there are multiple possible explanations for that, and multiple contributing factors, but people tend to latch onto a simple, self-serving explanation, the facts or proof be damned.
I would argue that this duty to maximize profits not only creates a ridiculous obligation to do evil, but also pushes corporations to produce the kind of bland, market-research driven garbage that he’s complaining about. When people aren’t free to tell the stories they want to tell, but have to check off a bunch of boxes, they end up creating something that has no heart. It tries to appeal to everybody, and ends up appealing to nobody, tries to avoid offending anyone, and ends up offending nearly everyone.
“And there are multiple possible explanations for that, and multiple contributing factors, but people tend to latch onto a simple, self-serving explanation, the facts or proof be damned.”
Occam’s razor – the simplest explanation is most likely the right one.
“I would argue that this duty to maximize profits not only creates a ridiculous obligation to do evil, ”
If they don’t want to maximize profits, they can buy back all their shares from the public and no longer be a publicly traded company. Then they won’t have to worry about maximizing profits to prevent shareholder derivative suits, and they can lose all the money they want in favor of ideology. As long as a company uses publicly traded stocks, they owe shareholders a fiduciary obligation to reasonably maximize profits.
“When people aren’t free to tell the stories they want to tell, but have to check off a bunch of boxes, they end up creating something that has no heart. ”
It doesnt tend to go like that – it tends to go the exact opposite way, where they check off boxes DESPITE the harm it does to the story. Which then loses money because of a lack of appeal to the wider audience or the audience that actually PURCHASES the goods or buys the tickets to make the movie/tv show/product economically viable.
In either case, Oldarmourer’s point is that a company, if they want to be financially successful, should cater to the people who actually will give them money, instead of just brownie points. And when it’s a publicly traded company, you HAVE to take the shareholders into account. If the shareholders want money instead of raw ideology, you do what will sell.
Which claim is the simplest depends on the assumptions you hold.
Can the shareholders not decide they would rather pursue some other strategy than profit maximization? That’s what galls me: the claim that a publicly traded company must serve the shareholders, but apparently is not obligated to listen to them.
The problem with your argument is that you expect investors, the kind of people that buy and sell stock as their careers, to care about anything other than profit. That investment funds are advertised as anything other than “Make more money using your money!”
If investing in the stock market had to done as an individual, one company at a time, you might get more people that cared about morals and ethics than ROI. But the VAST majority of people in it are just in it for the money.
It’s a decent sentiment you push, but unfortunately at odds with the collective reality.
What I expect is that when a group of investors purchases enough stock to propose a different set of values other than profit maximization, the company won’t attempt to block it, if they truly are serving the shareholders. But in a recent example, Exxon didn’t just attempt to block such a proposal, but actually sued the shareholders, claiming that their “proposal does not seek to improve the company’s economic performance or create shareholder value”. It’s a bait and switch. Maximize profit because that’s what the shareholders want, but if they shareholders want anything else, that’s not allowed. So instead, it’s do what the shareholders want, as long as it’s what the company already wants to do. It undermines the whole justification for their behavior.
“Can the shareholders not decide they would rather pursue some other strategy than profit maximization?”
They could. They won’t though. Most shareholders purchase stock as a financial investment. The larger the company is and the more stock there is publicly traded, the more people will be wanting a profitable return on their investment. This is a very reasonable thing to expect of shareholders, especially since MOST shares tend to be held by companies that are investing for retirement pensions and the like.
Again, if a company wants to put ideology over profit, they’re welcome to do so, but don’t be a PUBLICLY traded company then. If the company wants money from the public in exchange for the promise of profitability of shares, then you can’t turn around after and engage in ideological decisions that are going to lose money instead. That is a breach of their fiduciary duty – it’s basically stealing money from investors. That’s what shareholders are – investors.
Also, the case you’re talking about is one in which Exxon sued certain shareholders who were demanding at stockholder meetings proposals which would reduce their profitability, mainly because it’s suing on behalf of the larger majority of shareholders who want a profitable return on their investments because the method by which the activist investor groups (Arjuna Capital and Follow This) are not making the proposals in a legal method following the rules of the US Security and Exchange Commission.
He’s trying to bomb Disney? That monster!
I’d imagine anything they find out from Lapha’s memory copying wouldn’t be legally admissible, as it seems to violate the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination, but then it’s probably something they aren’t going to do unless they already have enough to convict the target, at least with Max in charge (others may be less scrupulous and more willing to abuse Lapha’s powers). Then again, they might consider the person’s memories to basically just be personal property, so as long as they get a warrant first (and you just know Archon will have a rotation of judges on standby to grant them such warrants as needed) they would be able to access and use them, just as they can with a personal computer. Back on the gripping hand, they can probably only rely on Lapha’s testimony in situations like this (with a PC, you can present the actual hard drive and evidence that it hasn’t been tampered with; that’s not really an option for aetholith-copied memories), so it may not be directly usable but would give them critical information to get actual evidence.
And I like Max’s “Yeah, I know if you do this, you’ll be trying to figure out a way to slip the net the whole time.” Demonstrates her confidence that Lapha won’t actually be able to do that, and makes Lapha realize they already likely have means in place to make that extremely difficult.
Something about the way her horns are designed makes me think they’re made so an Aeolith can move their flame self along them to ‘look around’, irrespective of head movement.
Have we seen them do that?
Mhmm, I’m sure that’s all you would use it for. Also, that’s still super violating so if you can justify that then overloading foreign computers is nothing.
(“Y-you don’t know that! You’re paranoid!” Meh. In reality this will probably never come up again outside of a “Oh hey, there’s Lapha.” during a future storyline. Just like Dabbler will probably never suffer any real consequences for mind controlling half of #$&%ing Archon.)
I only take people who are upset about Dabbler influencing the emotions of half of Archon seriously if they were also upset about Archon drugging Vehemence without his consent.
I only take people that avoid saying very stupid things seriously, so not you obviously. Are you higher than he was? That’s not even apples and oranges, it’s apples and zucchini.
Let me suggest three different perspectives one might take: “optimistic”, “realistic”, and “pessimistic”, and compare them to the two examples you’ve brought up:
The “optimistic” perspective thinks that things will turn out ok, that the good guys either won’t cross any moral boundaries, or that justice will be served if they do. The “realistic” perspective examines the history, and expects the future to proceed in a way consistent with the past. The “pessimistic” perspective predicts that the worst possible outcome is the most likely, that nobody is really good, and that evil acts will go unpunished.
An “optimist” would believe both that Lapha’s abilities will never be misused by the US government, and that Dabbler’s unethical behavior will be exposed and punished.
A “realist” would likely think that Max will never use Lapha inappropriately, but may have some concerns with the ethical consistency of the US government, because such internal tensions have been portrayed in the comic. They also would think that Dabbler is unlikely to be seriously punished, considering the author’s positions on sexuality, her status as a main character, and the generally light tone of the comic.
A “pessimist” would believe that the entire command structure of Archon is corrupt and ethically void, and that Lapha will be used for all sorts of evil purposes, and summarily terminated should she step out of line or cease to be useful. They also would believe that Dabbler will never suffer any consequences for her actions… for any number of reasons.
Which category, then, would you characterize your comments as falling most closely under?
Why are you still here Torabi?
Shoo.
For my own entertainment, I suppose! What about you? I enjoy the comic, and the discussion it generates. Apparently this line of questioning is making you uncomfortable, which only further reinforces my perception that your intent is to gripe, rather than engage in serious discussion.
Probably best to ignore Emma at this point.
Let DaveB’s story demonstrate who’s actually right about what’s going to happen, since there’s clearly no changing Emma’s mind.
That would be nice, but don’t count on it. He’s been replying to my comments for a while.
I’m also maybe 20% sure he’s actually “Yorp”, someone else I used to deal with here and on Gyno-Star, under a new name.
You’d rather people not engage with you here? I comment and reply to many other people’s comments, and if you think that I’m either targeting you specifically, or that I’m hiding behind different usernames, well, I think that’s your paranoia talking. I remember Yorpie being really active here for a long time, and then kind of disappearing, though I don’t remember seeing you until relatively recently, so I don’t know what kind of history is between the two of you. What would lead you to think we’re the same person, other than some kind of persecution complex? I thought Yorp was kind of unserious, even when trying to be serious. Playfully argumentative, I suppose.
I’m extremely sure that Torabi is not Yorp. Completely different attitudes.
I think most superpower abuse would fall under some existing law. Duplicating objects would fall under counterfeiting or trademark or patents. X-ray vision is just spying through a window up to 11. It’s B&E if you go through a window, walk through the wall or teleport in. Telepathy and mind control would break new ground in criminal behavior, though, and need new law.
Precognition would be a tricky one. It’s the ultimate in insider trading and would get you banned from every gambling establishment in the world, but how do you prove someone isn’t just real good at picking stocks/the ponies, especially if they’re smart enough to deliberately pick a loser now and again?
I also recall an Astro City issue where a lawyer gets his client off for shooting someone in a room full of people by arguing they live in a world with shapeshifters and evil duplicates and all kinds of craziness, so how can you prove that was Mr. Jones holding the gun? I vaguely recall it ends badly for the lawyer, but I can’t remember exactly how.
Precognition, at least good enough precognition, should also allow you to predict what actions would get you caught. The opening sequence of the Nic Cage movie Next gives some idea of how that would work, and that’s with precog limited to two minutes.
he ended up being forced to be the lawyer to all the major crime families for decades, and when he wanted out and to retire, they decided to kill him instead, and the good guys had to rescue him and his family.
Honestly, that now makes them not only the baddies, but likely not allowed in court.
Not only are they invading someone’s mind, they’re basically forcing them to say things they wouldn’t say.
Would they like it if a telepath kept secretly reading minds and releasing their secrets?
They’re doing nothing different than torture. :p
Might not be admissible in court, but if its the difference between saving the powerplant, or having to build a new one because you could not find the bomb in time….
Max is certainly the type to let the lawyers figure out how to answer the question of how they found the bomb after the fact.
Yeah, but when law enforcement says “We’ll only use this power to do (limited, unobjectionable actions)” they’re lying. They’ll push the boundaries as hard as they can.
If they know enough to know to stick Lapha on the bomber’s head, then they probably already have enough evidence to convict. The forcibly-removed knowledge of where the bomb was located (and hopefully how to diffuse it) could be excluding without affecting the case.
this is probably a big part of the new laws. its not really new crimes, more how do we present evidence that someone puts out a lust/aggressive aura and what are the responsibilities in those cases.
Then they use it on an innocent by mistake. All the evidence pointed them that way, then they ruined someone because of their use of violating powers.
And Max has come to not look like the type to care if she screws up and ruins a life, as she not only has the powers to not care, she has authority and the government fearing to lose her on her side.
Max is a government agent with more power than anyone else can deal with. She’s Superman without the morals or care of others. She’s likely better than Homelander tho.
If Lapha likes you it’s a red flag about your moral compass …
Maxima is a special operation US agent, a civil servant hitwoman … and du her status of general staff commissioned officer and special operation agent … a specialist of ethics “understandings”…
Due to her civilian background and her young age Sydney is a less stained soul than Maxima…
Maxima had killed and probably in not so honorable circonstances , she was more akin to a real knight than the iconographic one … More like Gilles de Rais than Galahad …
Wise to keep her on earth.
They can probably have their cake and eat it too if they recruit Garamm for intragalactic espionage.
Smaller criminal record, easier to keep grounded with Lapha under the tumb and of lesser subtlety.
Not something I would communicate with our galactic “friends”: Cora, Dabbler, etc. for it’s still galactic espionage.
It seems someone has forgotten about the famous bomb in the Bond movie, Goldfinger. That would be one worth saving, yes?
Honestly, given that many supers using their abilities are able to become very wealthy, the U.S. embracing them and writing laws to protect them makes perfect sense.
We still seem to be stuck in a capitalist version of ‘might makes right’ where your net worth equals your strength stat.
“We still seem to be stuck in a capitalist version of ‘might makes right’ where your net worth equals your strength stat.”
And yet, it’s still an improvement over “your relationship to the current tyrant equals your strength stat”, which is 99% of human history.
Times and places where “rule of law” is actually true are vanishingly rare, and as best I can tell, largely depend on individuals with the power to become tyrants (or at least, a group of people at the top tier right below that) deciding to make it so based on their own moral convictions.
So, what should such a society look like, in which the rule of law is actually true, rather than “might makes right”, and how might we achieve it?
The inherent problem you are running into is that, legally speaking, might literally does make right, to a very large extent, because if you are mighty enough, you can force changes to the law.
Therefore, “the law” must have a lot of force behind it, or there is no chance at any meaningful “rule of law”.
But then, you end up with people corrupting the processes of law, and they have that mighty force on their side (the side of corruption).
This is a dance as old as humanity. It’s why “politics” is spoken of with such spite and hatred, and why the “strong man” politician is ever tempting at all to anyone.
I honestly don’t think there IS a solution to the problem, because welcome to humanity. The closest I’ve seen, looking at history is about what I described above – those with the might CHOOSE (for reasons of their own morality) to support the rule of law.
About the only time that seems to be untrue is the relatively short period of time after those people die/retire/whatever while the system goes on working decently well from inertia/habit/tradition*, but even then, it’s still largely because of the moral choices made by those individuals.
* Whatever forces you want to call it when people don’t change stuff simply because change takes effort and people are lazy. “Tradition” is the nice word and has some positive connotations.
Sorry to be so pessimistic, but I don’t think we can achieve it in any meaningful sense, short of the method I just described, but that’s not really a satisfactory answer, is it?
I think the problem is bigger than humanity. I think might very well be inherent to any possible universe, to any species that would survive long enough to develop intelligence. Here’s my framework for thinking about the problem: I see three competing forces or motives in the universe, which I roughly refer to as “reason”, “power” and “community”. People and systems are driven by them, or serve them, and systems fail if they’re out of balance, in distinctly different ways depending on the particular way they’re out of balance.
Power is anything that lets you impose upon the universe. It’s necessary to survive, and is the source of the survival instinct. It’s the mechanism that drives the evolutionary process: that which seeks to continue to exist, and is willing and able to do so in the face of other things trying to destroy it will persist, while that which does not will not. But power, unrestricted, will eventually consume everything in its desire for absolute control.
Reason is the pursuit of truth, for no other purpose than truth. That which accurately perceives and responds to reality is likely to make better judgments, better predictions, which also leads to better survival outcomes. But a system pursuing truth for its own ends is simply engaging in the pursuit of power. A person or system can pursue truth even to their own destruction. This is embodied in ideas like “Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death!”, or “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. And truth is alluring because it is universal: power can suppress it or hide it, but never actually destroy it. But the pursuit of truth is endless. It rarely produces answers in a timely fashion, and a system dominated by reason will die while trying to determine what it should do. Problems sometimes require immediate solutions, rather than endless debate.
Community is the desire for agreement and peace, order, rules, cooperation. It provides both stability and novelty, because it mediates interactions with others who are different than yourself. But it has no necessary connection with either truth or power. People can agree upon falsehoods that are convenient to them, or even on things which are inconvenient to everyone. People may agree upon a system that serves them all poorly, that actually leads to their own destruction, because they value the stability of agreement itself. Or, as you put it, “inertia/habit/tradition”. A preference for the familiar, because it requires less effort. But community can lead to stagnation, as it prioritizes the past over truth or individuality.
Each force must be met with the same force, as a more general case of “you cannot reason a person out of a position that he did not reason himself into in the first place”. You can reason with the reasonable, must subdue the powerful, and engage with a community.
I think the state of our world is a natural outcome of the nature of those forces. Reason tends to look inward, power tends to grow, and community tends to be easily manipulated. Community would dominate early in the history of a society, because no matter how strong an individual is, they tend to be weak in the grand scheme of things, and a species is more likely to survive if its members cooperate. Reason is also a path to power, because a community that understands the world better will develop technologically faster. But as the community stabilizes, and develops technology, individuals are capable of amassing more power that doesn’t require personal connections. They don’t need community anymore, and it atrophies. Reason either withdraws, or is co-opted by the powerful in the pursuit of more power.
So I think that for a system to survive, long-term, it needs to be balanced. That power needs to be suppressed, because it’s the factor that grows most readily, community needs to be fostered, and reason, as the naturally weakest of the three, needs to be cultivated and empowered. And I think what’s critical is to encourage developing minds to think about things without making their survival dependent on it, because the moment you insist on them producing a certain answer, testing them on it, grading them, it just becomes mimicry, a survival strategy, rather than the development of reason or the pursuit of truth. We need to instill an appreciation for solving problems just for the joy of it, before we make it into a survival skill.
The Museum of Famous Movie Bombs has a giant statue at the entrance of Adam West’s Batman holding aloft a comically oversized round bomb.
“Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb!”
Those impulses can’t be much worse than Sydney’s own, and she has worked basically her entire life to get along with those.
Some ideas for the Museum of Famous Bombs
* the Holy Hand-grenade of Antioch, with the excerpt from the Book of Armaments of course
* the subway car from V for Vendetta
* the refrigerator from Die Hard with a Vengeance
* the C-4 little man King Shark made in Suicide Squad
* a copy of the Adventures of Pluto Nash
Leia’s thermal detonator.
The atomic bomb from Dr Strangelove.
The nuclear warhead in Planet of the Apes
Not famous bombs, but there are literally hundreds of military museums across the USA and the world where weapons systems, and yes bombs, are on display. The Springfield Armory comes immediately to mind and every branch of the US Armed Forces has their own museum. Humankind has a well documented history of war and violence that might make some alien species blanch. Ooo that might be a marketing thing for Arianna. Just think, a tour package for alien races to the best Military Museums in the world. Big bucks, lots of gold, filthy lucre. Also, it seems in the Grrlpower universe there are several ‘aggressive’ alien species that might have eyes on trying to exploit Earth and humans with eyes on the ‘Supers’. A peek at humans response to an aggressor might give an alien ‘predator’ (heheh) a pause. Earth has certainly handled extraterrestrial bad actors pretty well so far.
If you would enjoy spending an afternoon with every nuclear weapon* developed by the United States (and part of one Nazi nuclear attempt) then The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History – at Albequerque, New Mexico – is the place to be.
The parking lot has planes and missiles.
*minus the physics packages of course
The museum of famous movie bombs would definitely purchase and restore the “Alpha/Omega” bomb from Beneath the Planet of the Apes.
Okay. the list is on.
Candidates must be bombs designed to detonate, not other things rigged to blow up.
My candidates come from The Fifth Element, That Dark Knight Rises, The Abyss.
With the list of lasting damage from possession getting longer and longer, I’m starting to feel like this whole mind-rape thing should carry something like the death penalty.
“Capes” got auto-delivered to my Kindle. Don’t ask me how I read it, I just read it, it was good.
seems redundant, nothing a regular mind reader or mind controller couldnt do
but she has access to the tech sidney has and how to use and what they do…
actually… we ignoring the huge fact several aliens know of sidney orbs and what type of tech it is…
I don’t see Lapha’s memories effecting Sydney to the point she considers kidnapping, but she might have a conflict or two now and then, while Lapha might have second thoughts while trying to escape her captivity. Besides, Max did make a valid point, Lapha can gather intel that might bring her a pay-out (in a hundred years or so) down the road. I’m having a thought about what if she got a hold of Deus? Max, you sly dog! BIG payday there!
Sydney will still have the winning memories, because Lapha will find herself accidently eating the hottest food available. That will be a memory to remember for her.
Welp, good to finally know that Maxima is just basically an evil, power-hungry government, stooge.
This seems extreme. Evil? More like an extreme degree of “ends justify the means”, which can lead to evil outcomes from good intentions but is generally pretty neutral, as long as it’s not clearly being used by a psychopath as a paper-thin justification. Government stooge? Maybe kinda, but she did practically bully her general all the way back in the ballroom scene, and since then has shown considerable willingness to push back against anyone short of the president (note for instance her very firmly not siding with the guy who wanted the fel carrier). She’s definitely pro-government to the point of borderline jingoistic, but I’d hardly agree with stooge. But the most hilarious idea is calling her “power-hungry”, when she is literally the most powerful being on Earth, and high on the list for the wider universe. Yes, she’s a bit excited at the idea of getting access to a tool that can help her solve problems that normally lie outside her domain, but “power-hungry” is at best an extreme simplification there. Are there a lot of potential risks for compromising ethics and morality here? Yes, and I’m not going to pretend that Max’s conscientiousness when considering those risks is infinite. But overall, she seems like she has her heart in the right place, and certainly has passed up a LOT of opportunities to cause spectacular amounts of harm which very few people could possibly stop her from doing, if all she cared about was ruling from on high as sultan (or playing vizier to some warlord-in-chief).
This is a terrible idea, for reasons which the page is exploring, but does not seem to be taking into account.
Sydney is right, this is a “Are we the baddies?” moment, which Maxima is straight up failing. Maxima notes that the use of Lapha’s abilities in this manner likely constitutes abuse, but that it can be justified in certain situations. Maxima also has a history of ignoring such petty niceties whenever it is inconvenient. Less sliding down the slippery slope, and more jumping off the slippery cliff.
More than that though, consider the nature of Lapha’s abilities, which she points out here. She gets a perfect copy of her victim’s memories. But as she points out here, the door swings both ways. Her victims get copies of her memories as well. Lapha already has perfect copies of Sydney’s memories. Ie. the people who are dangerous enough (or simply inconvenient enough in Maxima’s case) for the group to violate the law to get a crack at their memories, are going to get access to Sydney’s memories via Lapha. And the problem will only compound every time the abilities are used.
Say a perfectly innocent person gets Lapha’d because of a mistake. They have no secrets to reveal. However, they are now a security risk that may never be able to be released, because they just got a head full of classified memories (things Lapha has been exposed to her in time of employ, Sydney’s memories up to the point she got nabbed), and memories from everyone she scanned previously (which might include anything: weapon caches, forbidden techniques, etc.), and (per Lapha here) may be corrupted by those memories.
Just find a regular telepath. It’ll still be (probably) evil, but at least it won’t be self defeating.
We haven’t seen any evidence of Sydney getting access to Garamm’s memories from back when Lapha was hitching a ride in his body, so it might only be the aetholith’s personal memories that can bleed over. There’s also the fact that Lapha was in Sydney’s head a lot longer than she would need to be linked up to a mad bomber or whatever, as well as the fact that Lapha abandoned ship rather than doing a proper transfer to a new body. It’s possible time is a factor, so someone who is only possessed for a short while will only get snippets of memory from the aetholith, and it’s similarly possible that an aetholith can normally clean up after themselves when leaving. And, of course, while Sydney had total recall while Lapha was cohabitating, since then she seems to mostly just be getting weird dreams rather than having even flashes of insight (but we’ll have to wait and see what the longterm effects are). I also suspect the “corrupting” aspect of the memory-fragments are going to be more impulses rather than fundamental personality shifts – Lapha is inclined to like Max because Sydney likes Max, while Sydney may be (more) inclined to engage in petty theft because Lapha enjoyed doing so.
Finally, I suspect anyone who they need to mindjack is going to be someone who is never going to get out of prison anyway, regardless of what secrets they may get access to.
As for the morality of the issue, this is decidedly a rather gray area, and a bit dark gray at that. I think so long as it’s restricted to legitimate emergencies it’s justifiable, but the real risk here is abuse of power. I think Max can be trusted not to do so, but I don’t think Lapha is going to be under her direct control. We’ll see how it plays out.
We have seen evidence of Lapha recalling Sydney’s memories though. At which point she would perfectly recall the recollection. So even in the (in my opinion) quite tenuous case that other people’s memories are somehow special, if Lapha has ever interacted with the memories, they become fair game for memory transfer as has been explicitly shown.
I agree that we’ll need to wait and see regarding the long term effects, and Lapha may even simply be joking here. But if there is a last effect, I don’t think that it’ll be (or at least wouldn’t be if it were treated realistically) as benign as you make out here. Considering that Sydney and Co. are interacting with literal supervillains, you’d have people picking up traits like: more likely to exterminate a population, dominate the planet, etc. Even if the changes only nudge people towards those behaviors, they’re still behaviors that one really wouldn’t want to share.
Regarding “I suspect anyone who they need to mindjack is going to be someone who is never going to get out of prison anyway”, I can only point again to the case in which an innocent person gets Lapha’d. Maybe they were being remotely controlled, or maybe there were multiple suspects, or maybe Max and co simply made a mistake. Max suggests that this will only happen in emergency cases, so there won’t have been any investigation, much less a trial. Depending on what they pick up from the transfer, such a person may now be a security risk. What happens to them? Hopefully nothing.
As to your trust in Max, it’s a difficult issue. Several events of the comic seem to characterize Max less charitably. As you say, we’ll see.
Given that she’s essentially a magical AI, and an artificial being, I’m not sure we can assume that her memory will work in any particular way. Though I would suggest both that if they have perfect recall, they would not make redundant memories like that, and that it’s also possible to remember the event of remembering something without being able to remember the details of what you previously remembered.
Also, memory manipulation via magic has been in the comic since Dabbler first pulled out her amnesia hammer, and I don’t think finer manipulation has been ruled out. Lapha may have threatened to wipe Sydney clean, but that doesn’t mean she’s not capable of being more selective.
Your argument can be summarized as: we can’t assume anything about how her memory works, but here’s an assumption about how her memory works.
Perhaps? I disagree with your statement that someone with perfect recall would be unable to recall the details of a previous recollection, as it seems a contradiction of terms.
It may eventually be expressed that Lapha’s memory system is utterly alien, and works with clearly defined rules that prevent the problem. But none of that has happened yet, even out of universe. As far as I can determine, the reader has no reason to assume it would work like that, and neither, seemingly, does Max.
Circumstances suggest that the team doesn’t have access to fine grade memory manipulation abilities. For one thing, they’re trying to hire Lapha, so they presumably can’t read memories. And if you can’t read, targeted erasure would seem problematic.
I just noticed that the new color of Lapha’s flame is a particularly pleasing shade. I hope she keeps it.
Given that the colour shift is related to the magic lock Dabbler put on her body, I think she’ll be keeping it for the foreseeable future. :)