Grrl Power #1330 – Order of order operations
Sciona panicked just a little there. She’s in a really good position and doesn’t want to have to disappear and rebuild another power base. As a professional antagonist, that’s the usual pattern. Build up a power base with some questionable yet never fully explained economics, get into a disagreement with local authorities, make some headway in a takeover bid for actual political power, then some young buck hero comes along and smashes it all, rinse and repeat, since the heroes are okay with gunning down 7,000 storm or shock troopers, but when they get a chance to finish of the main bad guy, they give some superlatively incongruous speech about how “that would make me as bad as you,” as if they didn’t already have a million gallons of blood on their hands. But it’s okay. They were faceless goons.
Speaking of the economics of bad guys… Where did the First Order get their funding? Like, the Empire was smashed, and sure, maybe a few Star Destroyers got away and rendezvoused somewhere – I’m not sure if The Remnant forces are canon anymore with the new movies, but then they convert a planet into a multi barreled Death Star and then show up with a 40 KM long flying wing Star Destroyer, and… well, we can just forget the third one. The new movies weren’t all that well written. I mean, in the second one, the rebels put out a call for help and no one shows up, and in the third movie, they put out a call for help and the whole galaxy shows up. To mention but one of many problems with those films. Like… okay? Did the use Space AM Radio the first time and Lando’s “Moustaches are Cool” podcast the second time? And another thing – did the New Republic or whatever they were called have no navy whatsoever? The First Order blows up a few planets with their Starkiller Base and, like, what? The entire NR navy was in orbit for some reason at the time? That would be incredibly stupid, but the next movie the remnant of the NR, i.e. the Rebels are down to like 5 ships? The Star Wars-verse has tens of thousands of systems. In the 30 years since the Empire fell, the NR couldn’t muster up a police/peacekeeping navy remotely the same size as the Empire managed in the same timespan since Palpatine took over? Those movies just get dumber the more I think about them.
Anyway, that’s not my point. I always wonder when the bad guys show up with a massive army of goons, all with matching uniforms and usually a bunch of high-tech gear, I can’t help wonder about the economics behind it all. How much did it cost to build the volcano lair with the retractable fake lake on top and the orbital vehicle that can swallow up other space modules? Couldn’t all that money just be used to bribe a bunch of politicians to achieve those goals?
Yes, I KNOW. It’s so the movie can happen. Or at least so the movie can be interesting. Watching a guy hand an envelope of money to a guy to get him to vote for Parliamentary Order 3281/b. It would be a bit of a slog to get through. Not that it couldn’t be done interestingly I suppose. But it’d be a harder sell than showing Sean Connery swinging a crane hook into a guy’s crotch, then the guy swings screaming off the catwalk and into garbage compactor and then Bond quips “I guesh he had Prinsh Albert in a Can.” as his feathered-haired companion in a silver onsie with flared bell bottoms looks on in horror.
The new vote incentive is up! (Finally.)
I’m revisiting a panel from a recent page, but I included some comic reactions and a few outfit swaps, so hopefully you all enjoy it. I also plussed up the art from the comic version a bit, though I suspect that despite the time I spent on that, not a whole lot of people would immediately notice that, so I’m gratuitously pointing it out here.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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Why do I have a feeling that whatever Sciona just did won’t stick on Sydney?
Because she has the passive for the makes air orb unlocked and it’s possible that makes her immune.
That’s my feeling too.
When did she get that unlocked?
The orbs came with what is presumed to be a passive node (the “encapsulated” nodes) already filled on the air orb, visible on the first appearance of the skill tree. Once the encapsulated node on the flyball was acquired, there was some speculation amongst the characters what the passive node on the air orb might be doing, and Sydney was subjected to standing next to a mass spectrometer, and presumably Digit’s company, for several hours, which resulted in them learning exactly nothing.
Until she fell off a building and learned she has permanent feather-fall.
That occurred before being subjected to the mass spectrometer.
Sorry, I misread your original post.
Probably not immune, given the circumstances. It could certainly clear toxins, as in actually dangerous ones, from her system faster. I don’t think we’ve ever seen her drink alcohol or imbibe any actual toxic substances yet. Capsaicin doesn’t really count. An anesthetic probably should count… but it could be an unconscious trigger.
I kinda wish Sidney wouldn’t Orby-Sue her way out of this one immediately.
After seeing Sciona slap 3 at once I now imagine her voiced by Tress MaNeille
MacNeille*
I still say what I really wanted in Last Jedi was for Kylo’s first scenes to be of him being dragged along by Snoke to visit rich fascist grandma’s to ensure them that their continued financial support was important, and would not go to waste.
(Also, not only did the First Order have the resources to build all their stuff, they ALSO had the resources to loose so, so much of their very expensive stuff and still casually take over the galaxy for the last movie, but are also desperate for Palpatine’s stuff…?)
If only Sydney’s memories had been copied to someone else’s brain. (!!!)
Yeah, but not the bit where she made the connection, unfortunately. It would be enough to tip them off about the mind-wipe, though.
The First Order was covertly funded by businessmen desperate for the “glory days of the Empire” – mostly military equipment manufacturers – specifically, the glory days of their extremely profitable business contracts with the Empire. The New Republic was complacent in the face of space fascism too, allowing ex-Imperial personnel to hold logistically important positions.
That’s it. That’s how it happened.
That makes less sense than what I saw of the movies.
So, businessmen had contracts to supply military equipment at high profit margins. They lose those contracts when the New Republic takes over and scraps the Empire’s fleet etc.
So they supply lots of military equipment at a loss to the losers of that fight, hoping the losers will win a new war?
Yes, it’s at a loss since the First Order can’t pay for it with anything other than the equivalent of Confederate dollars.
The movies claim that the Order is paying in loot they’ve plundered from the Outer Rim worlds, but that raises plenty of questions about how much you can actually extract from worlds that are weak enough for the Order to effectively overpower and loot.
Where is Sydney’s handler from ARCHON? Did they really let her go out there unsupervised?
ADHD to the rescue, she forgets that she had to forget.
For what it’s worth, no-one turns up in film VIII for the same reason she’s General Organa not Senator Organa: she gets basically ostracised after the First Order decide she’s a threat and leak the fact that she’s really Darth Vader’s Daughter.
Oh, the New Republic had no federal military forces to speak of, so far as I know the Disney canon. They took Mon Mothma’s pacifistic tendencies and exaggerated them to the point of total disarmament after the Empire was sorted out.
For all the many reasons TLJ sucked, though, it did at least touch on the point of funding with the casino planet. I believe supplementary material expanded on that: the Imperial aristocracy managed to hold on to most of their assets and quietly funded the goosestepping LARPers in the First Order as they slowly built themselves up. Which they wouldn’t have been able to do if the New Republic had maintained military or intelligence agencies, like any functional government would. Only a handful of ex-Rebels bothered to do anything, so the heroes could still be a fringe movement of paramilitary mavericks.
Most of this has probably already been said, but the comment section here is always MASSIVE and I’m not going to read through everything checking for remarks about the lore to Disney’s half-assed fanfiction.
Your rambling made me realize the potential for an Evil Overlord movie. Most villain protagonists are serial killers or thieves, and we had Megamind, but that was more a subversion that did its own thing. I’m thinking a standard fantasy Hero’s Quest but shown from the villain’s perspective. There are a few books and games but I can’t think of a single movie.
There is.one.interesting point that I think might be escaping everybody’s notice.
ADHD brains don’t work quite like normal brains… Stimulants like caffeine and others like it act as depressants and depressants tend to stimulate the brain.
I don’t exactly understand why, nor do most people studying the affliction, but it does seem to be.because of odd brain chemistry.
The scary thing here? What Sydney got.slapped with just might have the effect, after the initial high, of causing her to have extremely high focus and.accelerated thinking, possibly raising her to near Batman levels of intellect…
Just saying…
I for one, enjoy the look of a woman with feathered hair wearing the silver onsie with flared bell bottoms.
If you want to see bad guys being interesting while handing out bribes I suggest Korean thrillers. Try K2 for starters. You think Americans are cynical and hate their government…..no one in politics in that is a good guy. No one.
I will concede they have a cool ubersuper computer and the hero probably had some offscreen enhancements done, but it is really cool all the while being boring about politics….except it isnt.
Its how stories used to be told