Grrl Power #1340 – The Zambia Reversal
Hah! Deus has a history with air quotes. I forgot about that but someone linked that page in the comments for the previous comic.
Deus has been working for at least a decade in preparation for his takeover bid. He’s been quietly improving the GDP and quality of life in Galytn proper for a decade, but he knew his push through Mozambique would tumble their military and allow him to step in. The fact is that a lot of the nations in Africa just don’t have the resources to handle a determined and funded enemy. Their best defense, it’s sad to say, is that no one really wants what they have, at least not when they can strike wildly lopsided resource rights business deals. When I wrote the pages where Deus pushed into Mozambique, I looked up what their military was like, and their air force did only consist of roughly 15 aircraft, including a training helicopter and several jets which were thought to be out of commission due to maintenance issues. But the fact is that if your neighbor only has 5 soldiers, you can probably defend yourself with 4. There’s always a chance they’ll roll really good, (It’s been about 25 years since I played a game of RISK, so I don’t remember how it works, but you get my point.) but it’s probably not worth the risk to them when their neighbor has 6 troops.
Taking Mozambique, Zambia and the DRC just barely cuts Africa in two, though these days, so much trade is handled by sea it probably won’t put him in a decisive strategic position, but if I was Angola, Namibia and Botswana, I’d be getting nervous. South Africa is probably safe for a little while longer, as their GDP puts them in the top 50, and is the biggest in Africa. That surprised me. I would have guessed Egypt, but they are the second largest in Africa. Well, I would have guessed either Egypt or some country that you’ve definitely heard of before but couldn’t point to on a map, like Sierra Leone, because it turns out they’re the world supplier of some niche product like Nilla Wafers or something. Anyway, it seems like a big part of Deus’s strategy is absorbing poor and corrupt nations that wealthy countries just don’t care about. So South Africa is probably okay for now.
Unfortunately for Deus, we all know his plans are doomed to failure, because he didn’t start his conquest with Madagascar. You guys remember that game?
Whenever I use google maps and zoom way out to go on a tour of, well, usually Africa as I plan Deus’s strategy, I get distracted by little speck islands out in the middle of nowhere. And then I get frustrated because more often than not, there’s no street view. I want to look around a place that has 20 houses and 4 boat docks and a strip of land that’s technically an airfield and that’s it. The fact that street view isn’t available for massive swathes of Africa, the middle-east, and Russia doesn’t bother me nearly as much for some reason.
BTW: Sciona should still be standing there just to Maxima’s right, but I’m remembering this as I’m writing the post and I had insomnia last night and got 2 hours of sleep, so… I guess in that second to last panel where she should be seen standing there, I guess she’s, uh, tying her shoe? Or re-strapping her strappy heels? Whatever. I’m very tired.
So the move back to Dallas takes place this Friday, and I’m very stressed and ready for this all to be over. Of course, once I get up to Dallas, I have to unload all this crap and find a place for it. Honestly a lot of my parent’s stuff will probably remain in boxes for a while. You know how it is when you move. I’ve been packing their house on and off for two months, and I feel like I’m so close to being done. I went out and got ten more boxes the other day, not banker’s boxes, but the Wal-mart “medium” sized box which is like 40% bigger, thinking that 10 boxes was overkill, and went to work on the master closet. Hah hah I’m stupid. Filled them all up and haven’t even touched the hanging clothes. Hats, purses, king-sized sheets, towels, folded sweaters on shelves. This is after we donated all of my dad’s clothes too. God, he had so many blazers. BTW, “blazer” is way too cool of a word (in an 80’s kind of way) for a suit jacket.
All of this is to say that if the comic two pages from now is stick figures, this is why. The comic won’t immediately jump back to the fully shaded version I prefer to do right after that. I might try for a bit more of a cell-shaded look, but eventually I won’t be able to stop myself from adding in a soft edge here and there, then some bounce lighting, and then we’re back to full renders, but this weekend is the turning point.
I’m going to try something with this new vote incentive.
This month, I’m closing on a new house, selling my Mom’s house, finishing packing Mom’s house, moving city to city to the new house, forwarding mail, canceling utilities, all that. And after that’s done, I get to start the process of selling my old house, which needs a little work before it can realistically go on the market.
SO. I’m going to try and do this vote incentive in stages. Currently it’s just pencils. The TopWebcomics one will update with colors and detail until we get to the no clothes versions, then that will continue over at Patreon. Also there will be a comic or two in between each version to fill out the story.
I know it’s hard to tell from just the pencils, but this is Heatwave and Jiggawatt. The comics will explain why they’re doing what they’re doing. Although I feel like even saying that much makes it easy to guess, but hopefully the journey will still amuse.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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I’d expect some of the neighbor’s to start exploring strategic alliances and mergers. Start cozying up to other regimes, China, Russia and France.
Uk and France if they switch their former colonies countries in the alliance ( for exemple France for Egypt, UK for Algeria ) it could be possible.
China , they are traders by choice they will develop infrastructure but not sell aircraft , tanks or ships , not a great military partner.
Russia traditional for Algeria but Russia as a lower GDP than UK or France and in term of civilian technology is lackluster , also in military electronics and military quality control…
About the military might’s also other factors projection:
Navy for exemple
Blue-water navies List
Only US as a rank 1 blue water navy: Global-reach power projection
My country is a rank 2 blue water navy: Limited global-reach power projection (it’s UK, France & Italy)
At 3 combined they are inferior to rank 1
( 2 Ski Jump sky jump super-carriers* , 1 CATOBAR nuclear fixed wing aircraft carrier* , 2 Ski Jump aircraft carriers , 8 ballistic missile submarines in service* , 11 nuclear-powered attack submarines *,8 diesel-electric submarines dangerous in coastal defense but not blue water efficient )
*UK and France
Rank 3 : Multi-regional power projection ( India, Russia, China, Japan)
Rank 4: Regional power projection ( Spain, Brazil, Australia, South Korea, Germany, Egypt, Netherlands )
Brazil has Álvaro Alberto nuclear attack submarine under construction …
And nuclear countries with nuclear ballistic missile submarines punch above their weight population wise.
Countries with domestic submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) ( 4 : US, China, France, Russia not UK they use Trident D5 as vectors) are dangerous even for the mightiest.
South Africa is a failed state. Whose utilities are falling apart due to corruption and theft of parts and selling them as loot. And on top of that, their politician are openly calling for genocide against the white population and are systematically murdering the farmers and doing the same thing as zimbabwe did.
It’s an utterly racist, genocidal failed state. And the wokist west is ignoring it. just like they ignore muslims slaughtering Christians across Africa and in Syria.
It was a genocidal racist sate from 1948 to 1991 , eastern aligned rightard …
Apartheid was a thing and confiscation for 76% of population for the benefit of 13 % exist.
South Africa is failed state but is was one since 1948…
They switched from a white bad cop , to a black bad cop …
In Syria it’s principaly the Alawites ( suni islam ) who are targeted , but Cristians could be an opportunity target , bu the country was also a failed state since 1970, the current government is not worse than Hafez al-Assad and Bashar al-Assad – east supported dictators USSR than Russia -.
Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES) was no a democracy but is exempt of the pogroms.. Rojava is a de facto autonomous region in northeastern Syria.
For Africa one of the most stable and democratic country of Africa is the république du Sénégal , and it’s more than 92% Muslim Country …
Reminder Zimbawe is a 81.4% Christian country
Africa is more christian than Muslim if you take the entire continent and only north Africa could be considered Muslim
In this contient pogrom are of ethnic nature not religious one … and date back to long time..
Kingdom of Dahomey and the raid into they neighbor to feed the slave trade (1600-1904)
Saka Zulu and the Mfecane
The anti-woke movement is the den of closeted facists.
Africa was no better than yesterday , in 19th French had brougth droit de l’homme in some countries bu forgotten to apply them , and more than 60 years after Africa is in the majority of case illiterate and incapable to read them.
Trump also never read them , is impotent in English his sole langage …
Did you ever go there? I did. A wealthy country by any standards, drawing labour from all over Sub Saharan Africa because they paid real wages in real money… Egypt basically produces dates and cotton. South Africa, even now produces agricultural produce, beef, gold, coal, diamonds, uranium…
South Africa is wealthy compared to Senegal the average salary is about 3.5 time higher
Life expectancy is 6 years higher in Senegal the homicide rate albeit high in Sénégal ( 7.4/100 000) is without comparaison with South Africa ( 46.6/100 000) …
Reminder in US it’s 6.8/100 000 , France 1.2/100 000 , Switzerland 0.5/100 000.
I’ m a french citizen.
I know Sénégal (been here as foreign worker in Dakar, speak the official langage ,know some Wolof ) but not South Africa , Sénégal had stable institutions and a strong civil society ….
South Africa is not a failed state, at least not yet.
There is official criteria for a country to be called a ‘Failed State’ and South Africa doesn’t meet it.
The Politician “openly calling for genocide against whites” died in 2002, and he had claimed it was a metaphor.
Although South Africa has a high crime rate, there is no systematic murder of white South Africans.
This proved in a South African court by white people.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyj1198wy3o
“South Africa is not a failed state, at least not yet.”
Technically correct, but it’s definitely going in that direction with a declining real per-capita income, widespread unemployment (32.1% to 33.5% unemployment rate), and systemic racism still in place, although now for black citizens instead of white citizens (and I do mean systemic – government initiatives like Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) prioritizing black applicants over white applicants, and apparently failures of the power grid due to the departure of skilled white workers being removed by the government at Eskom (the nation’s primary power supplier) which has led to frequent power outages and disruptions. And there’s of course the calls from the African National Congress (and in particular Julius Malema of its youth wing) advocating for violence and death to Boer farmers (around 4000 white farmers have been murdered since the ANC assumed power).
“there is no systematic murder of white South Africans”
Well… except for the systematic murder of the Boer farmers. I think you might be confusing the words systematic with systemic though. They’re ‘technically’ not being murdered directly by the government – they’re being murdered by people due to incendiary rhetoric made by the ANC, calls by the ANC (the government party in power in South Africa) to ‘kill the Boers.’, and a refusal by the government to investigate or punish the people doing the murdering, raping, armed robberies, and burglaries of the white victims. The murders are definitely ‘systematic’ in how it’s happening, albeit not ‘systemic’ in the most technical sense of the word. There’s also been a lot of criminal activities perpetrated by the authorities on whites, including rape and corruption by Jacob Zuma (previous leader of the ANC), but the ANC decided to disband and halt any investigations into Zuma’s conduct.
“The Politician “openly calling for genocide against whites” died in 2002,”
Jacob Zuma is still alive and was in government as recently as 2018.
Julius ‘Kill the Boers, Shoot the Farmers’ Malema is STILL in the ANC today.
“and he had claimed it was a metaphor.”
I think you probably should look up the english translation to the Kill the Boers, Shoot the Farmers song.
If you want the United States of America to wage war against every racist nation that subjugates people, then I’d be down.
But the “wokist west” inclusion makes me think you don’t actually want that and care more about taking a jab across the political aisle.
They’d have to start with themselves
“If you want the United States of America to wage war against every racist nation that subjugates people,”
Waging war is a bit much. The United States is better off using soft economic power against those nations if we feel that we have to get involved, rather than war which will cost American lives and money. If we went to war with every nation that’s subjugating elements of its own people, we’d be at war with a lot of Africa, India (although I think discrimination against the ‘Dalits’ was officially banned by law in 1989 – The Prevention of Atrocities Act), South America, and China right now, at the very least.
I’m sure Max is willing to “reshape” his fingers so they can make the curly brackets.
Yeah, the way she’s gripping his hand it kinda makes it look like he has an extra finger-joint.
I was actually holding my own hand up next to the comic, trying to figure out if I could make it bend (or at least look) like that.
Whoops, I did kind of put an extra joint in there.
To uh… mess up the AIs. Yeah. That was my plan….
Turns out, Deux is double-jointed…
Dues enjoys these moments as technically they are better than the alternative and he can legally rub it in someone’s face even while they are not happy that Dues is doing it and gaining power.
The best kind of victories really.
Really… It was their fault for not working out a reasonable agreement with a lawful aligned demon army that was lawful rather than evil.
For packing clothes in a closet, push the hangers all together on the rods. Take a big trash bag and lift it from bottom to top, fitting as much clothes in as possible. It takes just a few bags to do the closet.
Aww, they’re holding hands….
And I do wonder if either of them can extract information about the other while doing so that would not otherwise be readily obtained?
Hey Dave – pro tip for packing and moving house, on hanging clothes – bag them up, 4-6 at a time, with bin (trash) bags with the pull tie things, on the hangers. Then just put them into piles in the back of the van.
Then you can just hang them up in the wardrobe straight away when you get to the new place.
Trust me, I have moved MANY times (9 times as an adult, 4 as a child). To different countries as well. When we paid a company to pack things up for us, they did something similar, but not quite – they had a special box with a rail, and just put the hangers on the rail, and closed the box. Bin bags are a low-tech solution! Plus you will need bin bags when you get to the new place anyway, so it’s not even wasteful.
Another pro tip is taping post its to the side of the boxes, and colour-coding them by room. Then you don’t have to read anything and anyone helping you instantly knows which room the boxes go in and they don’t have to ask you anything about it. Slap a post it of the right colour onto the door of the room at the new place.
Good luck!
Wait… Maxima would “know” what his fingers are like when they get into high gear?
I’m sure Harem does
Democratic Republic of Congo joined? Deus just took control of about 70% of the world’s supply of copper and cobalt.
Bets are he goes for Angola next which gives him a full East to West line for rail and easy ports to the U.S.
For cobalt it may be that high, but copper they are not that critical on the world stage.
Chile is the largest copper producers by a considerable margin.
And demand for cobalt has decreased in recent years. To the point that it is not inevitable to deal with DRC for it. There are battery chemistries that are nearly as good as the ones that contain cobalt, and some that are preferable for certain use cases like storage of electricity that don’t rely on any of the rare or unethical minerals and metals like cobalt. Cobalt is easily (relatively speaking) recyclable and because of the problematic nature of its production in the DRC, industries are looking for alternatives. Because of that the usage of cobalt has decreased in recent years and it is expected this trend will continue.
The implications are horrifying.
The DRC is notoriously ungovernable with a ridiculously powerless “central” government. The Congo river is basically the largest non-navigable river of the world; the ethnic groups in the Congo Basin often do not align well with each other. In geopolitical terms, if Deus has the two Z-nations in his pocket, his wisest move would be to push into the region from Katanga to Kabinda, and leave alone the Congo central government in Kinshasa.
IRL, there is a covert conquests by Rwanda into Congo, too: Deus could just ally with Rwanda, split the DRC into three parts and eventually betray Rwanda later.
But rather, he’s just “taking over” the DRC, and the two Zs??? How. This is not “you cannot do that” in a moral sense, it’s “you cannot do that” in every practical way.
This breakneck expansion speed only makes sense if Deus is actually the King of the Borg and has replicator tech to quickly turn “his” population into collective drones who are obediently working for him without question 24-7.
Let’s assume he started with Galtyn=Malawi, 20 million people, and he managed to “uplift” them having worked on clandestine projects for a decade or so. Deus then annexed Mozambique last week or so (let it be a month, or even six months… no difference) – Mozambique has 40 million people. Which he has to process and assimilate. Infrastructure does not build itself.
Deus has NOW announced that he gained dominion over 200 MILLION people in a fell swoop, in a territory larger than half the contiguous US. And these people do not see eye to eye. Either, he and his goons are really mindcontrolling 200 million people, or there are (heroic+villainous+regular) rebel groups already at work to sabotage this multi-ethnic empire from within.
I do understand that Deus is using demonic magic, native supers and alien tech to industrialize Galtyn, but even super magic alien tech should still have limits.
And if Deus HAS the ability to just mindcontrol hundreds of millions of people in Africa with the snap of a finger, he should have had a much easier time to just start in the US or in China – with the benefit of an industrial base, and with the infrastructure already in place for global expansion.
Well, the DRC didn’t join. They “volunteered” for “joining.” It will be an ongoing… acquisition.
Wait.
Gal-tyn.
Tyn-gal.
Did Deus frikking name his country “tingle?”
Why is Zimbabwe in quotes? I get the quotes on “Democratic” but, Zimbabwe is the actual name for that particular country.
Many people don’t consider the Communist victory in the civil war as legitimate and prefer to think of the country as something like “Communist-occupied Rhodesia” rather than “Zimbabwe.” Deus using air quotes for it doesn’t necessarily mean he agrees with those people – as he said himself, he can get a little out of control with the air quoting – but may just be a reference to those who hold that opinion. At least, that’s my assumption here.
Well, he operates literally as a “White Saviour” type. And that is not a positive thing.
I think Deus’ fingers have gotten “into” “high” “gear”, “so” “he’s” “air-quoting” “everything”.
Yeah, I just thought it was funny if the air quotes were starting to get away from him there.
Deus has awfully loose lips when it comes to Maxima. He can’t stop himself from yapping.
I’ve tried to stick it out, but I’m done with thus racist Tarzan-ass character and the whole “I can buy Africa” storyline. I was one of the first paytons, but I am out.
Sounds like things are unfolding as he had hoped, avoiding wasteful wars and inciting the corrupt governments to self-destruct and join up with Gaylyn. Sure he’s white, but racist? Skin color doesn’t make a person racist. That opinion IS racist. Deus is a Super-smart person, stupid people tend to be racist, and it isn’t a one-way street either. I grew up in Gary, Indiana area, back in the 70’s and I’m white. I didn’t see skin color, just people, struggling to survive a rescission.
Deal with it.
I’m thinking back through all what we’ve seen him do and I honestly can’t think of anything that would be considered legitimately racist. Well, unless you think “white guy kills black guy” is always racist, but Deus killing the former head of Galtyn had nothing to do with race and everything to do with the guy being unwilling to give up his corruption and work with Deus. Sydney commented on the slavery parallel with the Galtyn supers (who are almost all black, but that’s because Galtyn is almost all black) being assigned to work for Tom’s army, but they made it pretty clear that it was a voluntary assignment with awesome pay and benefits (think of it as being like a company you work for offering you an opportunity to go work with a client company in another country, with you getting a sizable pay raise for the duration of your time there).
I mean, I get not liking the “Great White Savior” trope, but that doesn’t really seem to be what’s in play here. I mean, Deus [i]does[/i] seem to have the goal of “civilizing the savage barbarians,” but the savage barbarians in this case aren’t the black population of Africa, they are the bulk of the human population of Earth, of all creeds and nations. He’s just starting in Africa because it’s actually a pretty solid place to start – the large amounts of corruption in many of their governments (which is by no means an Africa-specific thing), combined with their economic insecurity, makes it easier to get an initial foothold, and when you take over and actually start improving the lives of the common people (instead of just the elites at the top), that’s going to make the populace actually prefer you being in power. The large amounts of available natural resources gives you a good starting point to start building things up properly, and turning such a nation around in a relatively-short period of time is going to turn heads.
Yeah, the whole Deus storyline would play better if he were black.
I’ll bite. How so?
Because White Man Bad, obviously.
More seriously, my guess is that people are seeing Deus as falling into the “Great White Savior” trope. I feel there are some critical parts missing for that, however. The White Savior typically removes all agency from the POC that he’s saving, while Deus’ MO seems to be more guiding and empowering (possibly literally, given the high incidence rate of supers in Galytn). Additionally, there’s normally an element of “White Man’s Burden,” but Deus’ actions here are not altruistic – this is a stepping stone to World Domination, it’s just that he’s realized helping people is a lot more effective than directly conquering them for that.
Naturally, if he were black, I’d imagine we’d have plenty of people complaining about that. “Oh, he’s a black man lusting after white women, tell me you’re a racist without telling me you’re a racist, Dave;” “Why does the black man have to be a horndog who apparently fucks everything with tits;” etc. Heck, it may be that part of his backstory won’t work very well with him being black – maybe he was originally a Norseman who went Viking and found something akin to Maxima’s implied geode symbiote that turned him into a super, or a Trojan who escaped the sacking of the city (or he’s actually the guy that inspired the stories about Prometheus), or any number of other things.
Even though it’s *never* going to happen,I’d support these two as a couple. Because Deus , as we have seen have seen him, is someone you can trust at his word. He’ll do what he sees as ‘the right thing’ and for the majority of people it will be . He’s as goofy as Syd and Max could do with someone who encourages her more human aspects, even though in too many ways she denies having them.
South African here – it’s gradually phasing out as the internet is a thing, but you still get the “what, you mean you don’t have lions roaming the streets?” sentiment, particularly from Americans for some reason.
Nice to have some recognition. The country’s certainly got some problems (bad crime, large-scale corruption, and power infrastructure that’s barely coping with demand) and definitely a lot of barely-inhabited space populated by some few remaining indigenous tribes, but it’s pretty much the same as many other European countries some would consider “first-world” in many regards, the closer you get to the more populated areas.
I’m French did you have an idea of your homicide rate…
in South Africa it’s 27,272 intentional homicides for 62 millions population (2022) with a density 50.8/km² rate: 45.534/100 000
in France it’s 887 intentional homicides for 68 millions population (2023) with a density of 108/km². rate 1.335/100 000
In South Africa you have about 34 times the chances of being murdered … It’s a lot, in US compared to France its only 4,3 times the chances of being murdered.
The statistic used is United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports, and France is in general trustworthy of his data to the UN.
In the most violent territory under French administration Collectivity of Saint Martin in the West Indies in the Caribbean 35,334 inhabitants and 10 homicides in 2016 a rate of 28.727/ 100 000
Even if I cherry pick statistics in France ,it’s much lower than in South Africa.
You have a proble about homicide rate
Only Turks and Caicos Islands , United States Virgin Islands , Jamaica and Ecuador have an higher homicide rate than South Africa.
Number wise only Brazil (-2022- 203 millions of inhabitants 44,367 intentional homicides), Nigeria (-2019- 230 millions 44,200 intentional homicides) , India (-2023- 1.3 Billions of inhabitants 40,130 intentional homicides ) and Mexico ( -2023- 130 millions of inhabitants 32,252 )
US has less intentional homicides than South Africa ( -2023- 337 millions of inhabitants 19,796 homicides )
Appart Jamaica and Ecuador South Africa is the most homicide prone sovereign territory.
France as comparable population to South Africa and the difference of voluntary homicides number 887 vs 27,272 is gargantuan …
So Deus is playing ‘Risk’ for real, eh?
Also, I love his taste in music = Holst is awesome!
… I really think Deus & Maxima would be a great couple, if only he would REALLY be a white hat.
Maxima is not a small woman, but Deus is huge, tower several inches taller than her and his hands are almost twice the size of hers.
“I forgot about that but someone linked that page in the comments for the previous comic.”
That would be me. Last comic. Yesterday. :) Although I was pointing out Deus’s history of giving gifts.
PS – again today’s comic is particularly well drawn, shading or no shading (ok there actually is some shading with the hat, etc, but you know what I mean). ESPECIALLY with the facial expressions of both Deus and Maxima (panels 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8…. wow), how he can draw hands so well (hands are freaking hard to draw well), and the size comparison of the different characters. When I look at how the comic used to look versus how it looks now, I’m astounded at how amazingly good DaveB’s artwork has become (on top of how the story has always been great as it is).
“Filled them all up and haven’t even touched the hanging clothes. ”
I’ve moved about…. 6 times in all. At least 6 times since I started living on my own, that is. Last time I moved, I think I used almost 80 boxes, although MOST were banker boxes (plus a few non-banker boxes from previous moves that I had kept).
Two moves ago I bought two wardrobe boxes so that I could pack all my hanging clothes. Did you use a U-Haul or a moving company or have you been doing this all in your own car/SUV/van? I wound up keeping the wardrobe boxes because they were SO useful.