Grrl Power #1341 – The quadruple pincer gets ’em dripper?
The move was Friday. It’s Sunday night as I’m posting this, and I’m positive 6 days have elapsed.
Tired.
Itchy.
Tasty.
Deus doesn’t need an excuse to invade neighboring countries, but it sure helps with motivating his people and keeping the international community off his back if the countries 1) provoke him or his allies or placed that threw a coup in hopes of inviting his “meritocrigime” in, 2) Are “bad” and 3) are poor. That isn’t to say some rich countries don’t have specialized interests in areas he’s bringing his administration to. But when they confronts him about it, he points out the infrastructure improvements he’s brought to his territories, and then promises their particular resource will become easier and cheaper to ship once there’s reliable roadways, electricity, un-navigable rivers that now have locks and navigation channels put there by geo and hydrokinetics. And those specialized interests go, “You know? Maybe a politically stable Africa would be good for the world. I mean, my pockets.” And the guy next to him says, “You said the quiet part loud.” And the Specialized Interest goes, “We all know why I’m here. Let’s not pretend we care about the temporary meat cogs.” Which would make for a heck of a mission statement.
So that last panel. Female solidarity? Or are they thinking, “By Jupiter’s angry red spot, he’s right! And that annoys me! But him being right also turns my delicate and capricious female brain into goo. Not to mention other parts! Gosh, I bet he has a huuuuuge… bank account. Boobily!”
Okay, maybe not that exactly.
Deus does have his work cut out for him though. Honestly, toppling a bunch of ultra corrupt dictatorships when you have access to a heavily positive Super ratio, a brigade of literal demons, and advanced alien tech support… that is technological materiel support, not like aliens doing tech support. “Yes, my iPhone is having trouble connecting to the carrier?” “Phoooone hoooome….” “Yes, that’s what I’m trying to do…” Anyway, toppling a bunch of relatively poor countries is the easy part when you have a super army and supercomputer levels of tactical and strategic acumen. The hard part is convincing everyone under your new banner that it’s a good thing. And we all know that there are plenty of people out there who would willing cut off their own nose to spite their neighbor whose wife they covet. Or some other aphorism. Tribal rivalries going back dozens of generations, religious tribalism, racial tribalism, nationalism. Just tribalism in general. Promising people a better life and even showing that you can deliver on it just isn’t enough in some cases, because hate and distrust and fear is often stronger than hope. Also, Deus is white, and that can be a hell of a handicap in Africa. The distrust has been reforged and reinforced since well before the industrial revolution. So does Deus have one easy trick that metathesiophobes hate? Probably at least one. Stay tuned!
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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Is there a bigger version of the map on the first panel? I want to examine it in more detail.
The bigger map is in the patreon version. Or you just take a real map, Galytn is where Mozambique should be.
Looking closer at this version, Mozambique is still there, but there’s a discolored section at the southern point of Malawi. Guessing from where the border lines curve, I’d say the cutoff for Galtyn is from about the latitude of the IRL town of Bangula south to the current borders of Malawi and Mozambique.
I wonder if a bigger version of this map might work as a simple, already-drawn, catch-up vote incentive?
“casn’t”?
I casn’t believe it! A typo!
Nope, a region-specific contraction of “cannot”.
Nosn’t*, it’s a typo, they do happen
*that could be a contraction of “no it’s not”, but it isn’t
Looks like Dave corrected it, so it was a typo in this case. But “casn’t” legitimately is a contraction of “cannot” specific to the Bristolian dialect of southwest England. https://www.wordsense.eu/casn't/
I couldn’t’ve said it better myself.
Who said contractions have to be just two words? :)
I wouldn’t’ve mentioned it.
‘Twas corrected in the comic, so it ’twas a typo in this case. But “casn’t” legitimately is a region-specific (Bristol, or south-west England) contraction of “cannnot”. I replied yesterday with a link, but that comment never appeared. But the proof is out there.
US English keyboard configuration confirmed.
a+s multi-press
In a meritocracy, who decides who has merit?
I suppose a mertiocracy would only work as an actual meritocracy and not a thinly-veiled dictatorship if they had an objective means of determining people’s merit.
Deua X Machina, The Smartest Man In The World, will definitely have created an objective means of determining merit.
Probably six or seven of them.
He’s also a massive egotist, so the 50% that say “Maxima for President” stay in the basement vaults. Next to the magic mirror that says that facial scar doesn’t make him look cool OR sexy, actually
more like Deux X Maxima, am I rite?
Deus does the ‘scars are cool’ trope.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodScarsEvilScars
“Good guys tend to scar in an attractive, fashionable manner — usually a single neat pale line, flush with the skin and placed in one of the following strategic locations: straight across one cheek, straight down from beneath the eye (popular with tough and/or grizzled characters)”
“Perhaps the ultimately cliché “good guy” scar is two scars forming an X”
No, he doesn’t do anything cool (except maybe die, can we see and find out? :P )
Gladiatorial combat of course
The situation kind of reminds me of The Life of Brian and the discussion about Romans:
Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Attendee: Brought peace?
I’m not hearing a “no” XD
I’m only barely attracted to men but I would definitely at least give dating him a try, he’s got a good sense of humor.
It’s a “Yes, but at the same time No” situation, lol.
False confidence is often sniffed out, and where it’s real or not, and whether they’re able to tell the difference or not, confidence is only about 30%. 30% is how attractive is he, and 30% is “is his social status higher than mine”, which is another complicated wishy washy standard that’s based, once again, more in her perspective than facts.
The missing 10% is Every Other Thing women tell you about.
New idea to speed up the art until your life settles down. Maxima takes off her shirt and each panel is a gaint golden shiny spot with text bubbles. It will be the reverse of talking in the dark….
They say that men only want one thing. I find that this is understating men who can want a great variety of things. Induces case the thing he wants most at this moment is probably power. Because with power he can get control and all other sorts of things.
Men want many things, generally. THAT thing merely has priority.
“Also, Deus is white, and that can be a hell of a handicap in Africa. The distrust has been reforged and reinforced since well before the industrial revolution.”
The British ruled in India precisely because they weren’t Indian. They weren’t one of the factions in place, so they were able to tip things one side or the other. When they fought it was with Indians on their side fighting against other Indians – they never had enough troops to fight on their own.
Sub-Saharan Africa didn’t have very many white people before antimalarial measures were invented – they died too fast. There still aren’t that many. I think the attitude is mostly a consequence of communist and “third world” propaganda. Which is certainly industrial-age, and mostly twentieth century.
Deus is likely correct though. Interventions in Africa were mostly ideological. Today, they would likely mostly be anti-Chinese rather than anti-Soviet, but still mostly in the vein of “We intervene so we aren’t shut out.”
As long as Deus is more friendly to the US than whatever faction he replaces, he’s not likely to face American intervention.
He does have to make that clear though. And the Americans have to not be stupid. A lot of the dictators in Africa who ended up being toppled with American support (e.g. Gaddafi) have been replaced by factions who turned out to be *less* friendly after all.
He just needs to bribe a few USA politicians. The return on doing that is astronomical.
Luckily for Deus. There is such a thing as territory-amassing bunnies.
Take over even a relatively small country and you will find out.
Sadly for him his tastes are a bit more refined or silly that most ‘bunnies’ wouldn’t even reach his notice.
Just hope they don’t ally with the Emu’s. Then they can easily take over an entire continent.
Is Galtyn a reference to Ayn Rand?
I want an aside panel in cartoon detail (like the usual undercomic bits) of Deus looking up at his speech bubble with the misspelling, with a very annoyed face
SECONDED!!
“It isn’t an invasion, it’s a special police operation to depose the fascist government of our neighbour.”
“It’s a special operation to remove fascists from power *at the request of* our neighbors.” ;-)
Doesn’t hurt to have some of his own people migrate to the neighbouring countries a few months before the invasion starts
Are we talking Deus or Putin?
SmugD of course (who do you think are the ones calling for his help?)
It’s like the sidewalk hustlers who have a colleague in the crowd pumping up the mark
And that’s how the world takeover started: start with all the ‘insignificant’ countries the the Big Boys aren’t interested in, and before the Big Boys realize, SmugD is in control of more land than anyone even noticed
Pipe down cheer-lawyer, no one cares
Control of land is not nearly as important as control of productive technologies and infrastructure.
Which he also have: Machina Industries were already one of the most advanced in the world, as well as a US and Arc contractor, and that was before his shopping trip to the station AND the alari ship. For the infrastructure, he has been working on it for at least a decade, probably two
“Pipe down cheer-lawyer, no one cares”
Rah rah rah! Yaaaay Deus!
And lots of people care. The supporters of Deus grow each day!
That’s because the detractors keep having unfortunate ‘accidents’ and simply… disappear
Nah they just see the light of Deus.
All praise Deus, amen.
You keep telling yourself that, while having another refreshing glass of cool-aid
Oh wait, you don’t just keep telling yourself, you keep telling everyone! :P
No need. Deus’s actions and proven winning record speak for themselves so that anyone can see why Deus is the way!
You seriously need to do a spin-off comic about Deux!
Menage Un Deus Trois
Deanna or Lwaxana? or both, at the same time? :P
yes.
Does Sciona know that Maxima’s skin is impermeable to her psychoactive secretions?
When drugging Slam, she went for the face. Because she was already worried about Tricera-Were skin.
And Maxima is probably to fast and warned for that.
So Maxima is a “yeah, I won’t even try” thing.
I feel like a non-trivial number of people may object to Deus on the grounds of “you’re simply a competent thuggish authoritarian. This is a step up from incompetent thuggish authoritarians, but I would still prefer to live in a self-governing polity, rather than be ruled by someone who has declared himself my better. We aren’t children. The fact that we can’t model an entire economy in our heads and aren’t skilled at manipulating systems and people to our own benefit doesn’t mean we accept being kept as basically pets. We would rather make our own mistakes than have Big Daddy decide what’s good for us from the cradle to the grave because we’re dum-dums and he’s oh-so-smart.”
Possibly, but current world politics indicate that a larger non-trivial number of people are happy to be “pets” if their life is good/improving.
Even more people are willing to suffer if it means the people they hate will suffer more.
Bingo! (If that wasn’t the case, welfare states would never be voted into existence.)
Welfare states are not “being kept as pets.” They are “we as a society have decided to collectively look out for each other.”
If that were true, it wouldn’t need to be state-enforced, you’d just have everyone charitably giving to those in need. You don’t need SNAP if you can just go to the store and rely on all the kind souls there to pay for your groceries for you (or for the store to just give you what you need). In welfare states, it’s not that society as a whole has decided to look out for each other (again, if that were the case, the government wouldn’t need to be involved), it’s that those in control have managed to set up a system where they take from some groups to give to other groups as they see fit (and skim plenty from the top for themselves) while looking like great and wonderful people. Certainly, some of them genuinely believe in helping the less-fortunate and believe this is the best way available to accomplish that, but it’s mostly just graft.
This is a ridiculous argument. Government is part of society; indeed, it is one of the primary ways in which society organizes itself. To say “it isn’t society doing it if the government does it” is an absurdity. “If society really made this decision, the state wouldn’t need to enforce it” is likewise an absurdity. By this logic every single law ever is an imposition, rather than a collectively made decision, which, in reasonably functional democratic states, is what they actually are. Governments are formed collectively by the people, and answer ultimately to them. That’s what self-government means. Welfare states are not some alien imposition; they tend to be immensely, immensely popular, by which they derive their legitimacy and enduring function.
Your claims about graft and skimming are, by and large, simply factually untrue. The Congress isn’t taking a fat slice of Social Security or Medicare for itself. The National Health Service isn’t kicking back to Parliament. That isn’t how welfare states work. They all have a certain degree of fraud, because there’s a lot of money involved, but it does not take the form of “the guys running Medicare are getting skim.”
I think what Varyon is saying, and you are missing, is that calling welfare ‘people being charitable and caring for their fellow citizen is not a definition of charity, since charity if voluntary, not forced. Government forces citizens to pay towards welfare via taxes, with jail as a penalty for non-payment. Charity, on the other hand, has no penalty if you do not give to charity – it’s just altruistic. Forcing people to be altruistic is, by definition, them not being altruistic.
I didn’t describe it as people being charitable or it as charity, tho. I did describe it as a collective decision to look out for each other, which is true. Lots of state functions, indeed, much of the purpose of the state, are collective decisions to look out for each.
“I did describe it as a collective decision to look out for each other, which is true.”
But the decision to look out for other people with your financial contributions IS called charity. Unless it’s forced, in which case it’s not a COLLECTIVE decision. Collective decision implies that people all agreed upon the decision being made.
Which again seems like what Varyon is saying, and why he said that since most people are probably NOT wanting to pay as much in taxes that go to things like SNAP, that’s why the government has stepped in to force it (when he said “You don’t need SNAP if you can just go to the store and rely on all the kind souls there to pay for your groceries for you”).
All that being said, I don’t think Deus does the whole charity thing either. If anything, charity is ONLY possible due to greed. His entire philosophical belief is centered around how greed, when properly applied, is not only good, it’s beneficial to society (see link below). He does seem more about giving people the opportunity to help themselves. While they might be dependent on him creating the jobs and infrastructure, it’s not just a direct ‘I give you money because you need money.’ They actually provide services in exchange for that money – ie, jobs and then education to become more productive members of society. His whole meritocratic society requires people to be educated and have purpose in their lives beyond just being given items – their education and productivity allows them to provide items for themselves, and then also allows their children to have even more prosperous futures as well without it being a continual circle of dependence on handouts (whether by actual charity or by government ‘forced charity’).
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-394-philosonomics/
I guess I just flat-out disagree with the notion that laws aren’t made collectively and don’t represent collective decisions.
So many people are going to have so much trouble accepting a post-scarcity society. We could be capable of it now except for the problems of logistics and greed. Honestly I think the logistics problems will be harder to solve. But I generally have more faith in humanity than most. I assume pretty much every person I meet is a good person and that differences can be solved(or at least agree to disagree amicably) with drinks, snacks, and a conversation.
“So many people are going to have so much trouble accepting a post-scarcity society.”
I’m not sure that a post-scarcity society is even capable of existing. Ever. Even if we had something like replicator technology from Star Trek, there are still things which would have value to others – whether it’s services, land, education, creativity, skill, or simply TIME. These are still finite resources, and thus have value. Not to mention items which might have numismatic value because it is scarce by its very existence as ‘the original’ item or a set of rare original items (numismatic value refers to the price a collector can reasonably expect to receive for a coin, medal, or token, determined by factors like scarcity, condition, or uniqueness, rather than its intrinsic value)
For example, in Star Trek, which is supposed to be an example of a post-scarcity society, Jake Sisko on DS9 wants to get his father (Benjamin Sisko) a signed baseball by his favorite baseball player – Buck Bokai of the London Kings. Since Buck Bokai was from the 21st century, it’s not like he can make any more signatures. Sure, you could replicate a ball with a replicated, fake signature, but that’s a fake signature, not a real one. It therefore does not have the same VALUE that a real Buck Bokai baseball signed by Buck Bokai would be worth. Unfortunately, he has to basically cajole and beg Nog into using his money for the auction (since Ferengi still use money and humans do not).
Or, also from Star Trek, when the Federation wants to bid on something against others, or ‘bribe’ someone, the item they want, whether it’s information, rights to a stable wormhole, a house near Starfleet academy with an amazing REAL view of the Golden Gate bridge, non-synthetic romulan ale for an Admiral’s 52nd birthday party, a cardassian isolinear recording crystal, or minerals which can be used to lure two rogue Klingon sisters into a trap, has value, so they do not have as post-scarcity a society as they claim to have, and will need to either trade difficult or dangerous-to-replicate items (latinum, biomemetic gel, protection by the Federation, etc).
There will always be SOMETHING which another person wants, which there is a finite amount of. Thus meaning a true post-scarcity society is impossible. The only thing that changes is what is scarce.
The graft isn’t as obvious and amateurish as actually directly embezzling funds. Rather, those in charge essentially design policy to favor certain corporations, and said corporations “just so happen” to give them a lot of gifts, campaign contributions, invites to classy galas, etc. Consider the current situation with the MAHA agenda trying to ban various junk foods (including soda) from being purchased with SNAP benefits. One of the associations that’s pushing back against them is the American Heart Association – because AHA gets a great deal of money from the companies making those junk foods. And many of those in Congress who are fighting against it are similarly getting donations and benefits from these companies. Now, there’s undoubtedly money pouring in to the other side from corporations who would benefit from such restrictions on SNAP – this is by no means something specific to one side (indeed, while it’s largely the right pushing for the restrictions and the left opposing them, there were a good number of right-wing influencers who were recently caught clearly shilling for the junk-food corporations against the proposed restrictions). But that’s generally the way the graft works – you implement things to work in the favor of someone who gives you some sort of kickback.
All that said, I’ll readily admit I overstated the societal bits, and mistook what you were saying as being an appeal to the idea of charity (which is normally the case when I see people making such an argument, so it appears I erroneously lumped you in with those). Mea culpa. Well, unless you’re doing the thing so often done in arguments like this, the semantic argument of “Well, sure, I meant exactly the thing you’re responding to, but I didn’t actually say it like that, so I’m going to pretend you didn’t correctly understand what I meant in order to score rhetorical points over you.” But I’m entirely willing to give you the benefit of the doubt in this.
Yeah, I don’t really view the welfare state through a lens of charity. I do view it through a lens of morality and ethics, of course, but I don’t see it as charitable in the same way I don’t view “we have agreed on how to provide transportation, power, and water infrastructure” and “we have agreed on how to enforce the law” or “we have agreed on how to provide for the common dense” as charitable.
“We have agreed on how to provide healthcare” or “we have agreed on how to provide for people in their old age” isn’t charity; it’s seeing to the commonweal, same as anything else.
Fair enough, although I’ll note that “provide for the common dense” would, in fact, fall under welfare, and thus doesn’t need its own entry in your list of examples.
(Yes, I know you almost certainly meant “common defense,” but I couldn’t help but make a joke from the typo)
“I do view it through a lens of morality and ethics,”
I do agree with this part of your argument wholeheartedly. :) A couple of years ago I think I made a whole huge diatribe defending this thought process.
No, governments legitimately do a lot of things individual people never agreed to.
It’s not supposed to work that way, the government passing laws and taking actions the majority of the population disagrees with is somewhat of a governing failure, but it certainly does happen.
That’s because (most) governments are made up of… individual people, with their own thoughts and desires
People who have sworn to enact the will of their constituents, if we’re talking about the United States.
If they vote against what the majority of their constituents have clearly expressed they want, then those representatives are failing in their duties so far as the societal relationship is concerned.
It’s most certainly not ‘what we as a society have agreed to’ in that case, nor arguably is it when governments pass laws without even consulting their constituents.
well, not really? If it was just the will of the people, it would be a Democracy. But the USA isn’t a Democracy (big D), it’s a Constitutional Federalist Republic (probably throw Democratic in there somewhere).
We (theoretically) elect people that we think will do things the majority of their electorate mostly want. They don’t have to, we elected them & their ideals, not as a remote controlled robot. If enough people push at them, it’s expected they’ll cave and do it the way a overwhelming majority of their constituents want, in order to be re-elected next election. It’s not required of a Republic at all to vote the way their constituents want on any given issue. If they think it’s important enough, they can thumb their nose at us. Of course, they should be trying to convince us that their decision is actually a good one so as to not get hammered at election time. … the political parties & media have kind of broken this, as the electorate is more tribal now.
If it was a Democracy, we’d have a whole lot more to vote on, than a couple of issues every 2-4 years put to ‘the people’ each election. And it would be easy for it to devolve to the ‘Tyranny of the Majority’ it’s described as. Heh, today, probably wouldn’t be hard probably to convince a majority of people today to vote to nationalize all Billionaires’, insurance & Health Execs’ wealth (let’s be nice, and only the wealth > $50m) and give it to the people.
@ Moridin
That would be easier said than done, most billionaires would sooner leave the country than surrender their wealth.
Furthermore, it is the official U.S. government position the current system is a representative democracy. Prior to the right to vote being extended beyond male slaveowners, the word Republic was certainly more accurate than Democracy.
However, we are no longer living in a country where slavery or denying women the right to vote is legal.
If this was a democracy instead of a republic (I’m going to be a little more specific in the last paragraph btw, go to the bottom if you want a TL;DR), we’d always be subject to tyranny of the majority. Something like segregation would never have ended or women gaining the right to vote would never have happened because the majority of the population were against each of those things at the time it was put into law.
It seems incredibly short-sighted to assume that there are no other things which the majority of the country might try to enforce on the minority of the country which are not in accordance with the ideals of the Constitution and justice. Not to mention many regulations in place are often NOT put in place by an informed populace (and often not by informed legislators, especially if you take into account pork barrel spending or other riders in omnibus bills), or even voted on at all.
Republic is STILL more accurate than Democracy to describe the United States. The Founding Fathers dismissed the idea of establishing a democracy instead of a republic specifically because a democracy is mob rule, and the mob is often never good at deciding rules since they are too easily subject to rampant change and a devolvement into anarchy. Conversely, a republic is based on written laws instead of the whims of a temperamental populace, and it actually forces people to slow down and think about the laws being put in place, lest they conflict with basic rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 39:
“We may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; . . . It is SUFFICIENT for such a government that the persons administering it be appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people; and that they hold their appointments by either of the tenures just specified. . . .”
In short, a democracy is a majority of scared townsfolk in a town wanting to hang a stranger who just arrived for horse thievery because some horses went missing in the middle of the night. A republic is the person pointing to a law saying people have a right to a trial to prove that they are actually guilty before that happens, with a presumption of innocence and burden of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Just to make it more clear, we are not a pure representative democracy, nor are we a pure republic (although when the Founding fathers refer to what we are, they call it a republic, then have several clauses in the Constitution, plus throughout the Federalist Papers, which explain specifically how this particular republic works). We are a representative constitutional republic, where the representatives are picked by majority vote but subject to certain charters or constitutions (so that it can’t JUST be a majority vote for everything) to maintain protection for the minority and to prevent any majority from eliminating checks upon itself. In a pure representative democracy, the voting majority (whether the population or the population’s representatives) would have almost limitless power over the minority. Group A doesn’t like group B, group A has 51% of the vote, group A can vote to banish group B. It would be really hard to have a system of checks and balances, if not impossible, under a democracy representative democracy or not). Republics do not have this problem, so long as people remember they are in a republic.
@Pander
You’ve been taking too much of the fiction you read seriously, there’s not many historical examples of townspeople hanging strangers without trials over their horses going missing. Especially not if you’re talking about an entire town doing it, extrajudicial killings are typically performed by a population minority and the population majority does not agree with them.
There are, however, a great many historical examples of people being imprisoned for witchcraft and tortured after being convicted of witchcraft in courts of law.
The Salem witch trials are a quite infamous example of this, and one which occurred within the colonies even before the U.S. seperated from Britain.
They are still individuals, and a lot of them are corrupt liars who will do anything to get into office (and willing to do more to stay)
@Eater of Rocks, RE: vote restricted to male slaveowners
The United States has never restricted the vote to male slaveowners. In fact, owning slaves has been illegal in the Northern States (aka Free States) the entire time the US has existed. Slavery was a rather contentious subject when the Constitution was drafted, with the North wanting it either done away with or the South punished for it, and the South wanting it basically enshrined. You may have also been informed that the Electoral College (including each State getting exactly two Senators, regardless of size) was created as a way to empower slaveowners, but the opposite was true – the Slave States had by far the largest populations and thus had the most members of the House of Representatives*, so the Senate (and the electoral votes associated with it – note you get one electoral vote for each Representative in the House and one more for each Senator) making things more equal actually diminished the power of the Slave States (since there were more small Free States than large Slave States).
*A lot of this was due to the 3/5ths Compromise. The Slave States wanted their population of slaves to count fully toward determining how much representation they got in the government, while the Free States wanted said population not to count at all. Meanwhile, the Slave States didn’t want their slaves to count at all toward determining how much they had to pay to the federal government in taxes, while naturally the Free States wanted the opposite – for them to count fully. While the Free States had some good justifications for their stance – nobody would be representing the slave population’s interests and thus they shouldn’t count toward their representation**, but the slaves were the driving force for the Slave States’ wealth and so should count toward their taxation – a lot of it was an attempt to hold power by giving the Slave States very little say (which could also help with eventually banning slavery nationwide rather than in just the Free States). The eventual compromise was that each slave would count as 3/5ths of a person for purposes of both representation and taxation, which combined with the balancing of the Senate prevented either side from having an overwhelming majority in the federal government.
**An argument could be made that the fact the slaves didn’t get a vote also meant their numbers shouldn’t contribute to the State’s representation, but at the time I believe the franchise was limited to men who owned property, so there were already people (women and men who didn’t own property) who didn’t get to vote but were counted for both representation and taxation purposes, so there was no standing for such an argument.
@Varyon:
Slavery was most certainly not illegal in the North for the entire time the U.S. existed, it was still legal in New Jersey whem the civil wat started.
The mivement to ban slavery im the U.S. started in the North and is attrubuted to Quakers who started protesting ~10.years before the Constitution was signed, but slavery was most certainly legal in Northern states throughout the American Revolution and for quite some time afterwards as well.
https://open.baypath.edu/his114/chapter/northern-slavery/
@Varyon:
Slavery was most certainly not illegal in the North for the entire time the U.S. existed, it was still legal in New Jersey when the civil war started.
The movement to ban slavery in the U.S. started in the North and ia attributed to Quakers who started protesting ~10 years before the constitution was signed, but slavery was most certainly legal in Northern states throughout the Anerican Revolution and for qute some time afterwards as well.
@Mordin
You wrote
If it was just the will of the people, it would be a Democracy. But the USA isn’t a Democracy (big D), it’s a Constitutional Federalist Republic (probably throw Democratic in there somewhere).
—
Nothing in what you used to describe the USA stands in opposition to democracy.
You can have a democratic republic (like the USA, or Germany) or an autocratic democracy (like e.g. Russia).
Republic indicates that the head of state is elected rather than appointed. It stands in opposition to monarchy, not democracy. Or not exactly in opposition as there are many different ways to get a head of state. E.g. Iran is a theocracy, where the head of state is from the clergy. Autocracies have a self-appointed head of state (as in auto – self, cratos – rule), and so on.
Having a constitution is not pro or anti democracy either. Many dictatorships have a constitution (China has one to name but one) and the UK is a monarchy without a constitution, but it is most definitely a democracy.
Democracy, or rule by the people(*) simply means that regardless how the head of state is elected or appointed, the /government/ is chosen by the people and, in theory, from the people. Some democracies, like. e.g. the USA or France, have a ‘strong’ head of state who has a large controlling and governing role. Others, like e.g. Germany, have a ‘soft’ head of state, whose role is largely ceremonial and has no real power to control or even steer the government.
A federation simply means a group of semi-autonomous regions, or states, that have an overarching government to rule over issues that supercede individual states or regions. The USA is a federation. Russia is a federation in name only (outside of Russia the states have no real autonomy). The EU is not a federation in that the overarching government is neither independent of the states nor in power..
The fact that every four years elections are held where the American people elect a president who then runs the (federal) government on their behalf means that the USA is a democracy. A representative democracy to be precise because the size of the country makes direct democracy beyond impractical. It also is a republic (with a strong president, increasingly leaning towards autocratic as each new president grabs a bit, or a lot as is currently the case, more power to dictate rather than govern). And it is a federation of states that is suffering from a bit of an identity crisis because at least one of the major parties is openly uncertain if it wants the country to have a federal government or not.
As long as the people are willing to defend their right to elect their own government (however indirectly) and continue to excercise that right, the country will remain a democracy.
As long as the people insist on electing their head of state, who is also the head of government (which most other democracies have split into two distinct roles after painful experience), and will not accept a hereditary monarch of self appointed, or appointed from a restricted pool of candidates (which excludes the actual voters), the country will remain a republic.
And as long as the people and the states desire there to be an overarching layer of government to rule over all issues that supercede the states and the individual people, the country will remain a federation.
The constitution … that is only more than a piece of paper as long as everybody abides by it. Which is why the currently most dangerous anti-democratic movement is the people who want to either do away with it, or strive to have it replaced into something to their benefit (alone) through a constitutional convention. Sadly, that includes the current government, who actively argue that the constitution either does not say what it clearly does, should not say what it clearly does, or attempts to sidestep and/or ignore it when it inconveniences them.
Apologies for the duplicate posts and typos, here’s the clean version.
@Varyon:
Slavery was most certainly not illegal in the North for the entire time the U.S. existed, it was still legal in New Jersey when the civil wat started.
The movement to ban slavery in the U.S. started in the North and is attributed to Quakers who started protesting ~10 years before the Constitution was signed, but slavery was most certainly legal in Northern states throughout the American Revolution and for quite some time afterwards as well.
https://open.baypath.edu/his114/chapter/northern-slavery/
“there’s not many historical examples of townspeople hanging strangers without trials over their horses going missing.”
I was giving a simplified example of the difference between democracy and republic. But if you’d like you should read several of the Federalist Papers. They went into a lot of historical detail of the differences and the reasons for why pure democracies do not work well.
Also, there actually are MANY examples of ‘Frontier Justice’ WITHOUT trial in towns.
The Earp Vendetta Ride (1882)
Mass lynchings of rustlers (throughout the late 1800s, mostly in Southwest North Dakota by the ‘stranglers’ along the Little Missouri River) – which is where I was simplifying as an example.
Angelina Eberly and the Archives War (1842, Austin Texas)
And numerous instances of towns engaging in vigilante killings, especially by means of lynching.
Plus many other recorded examples of Mob Justice in Brazil (like in Salvador, Bahia in 1991 when a mob beat a man to death with bricks and clubs after being released from custody, and another mob stormed and set fire to a prison where two men were being held for murder), and Frontier Justice in Northern Patagonia (the area which was militarily annexed to Argentina between 1878 and 1885).
“extrajudicial killings are typically performed by a population minority and the population majority does not agree with them.”
That’s very incorrect. And directly conflicts with your example about the Salem Witch Trials. The majority of people in Salem went along with it, quite willingly.
The rest of the back and forth in this thread is a bit too confusing to follow since we’re at the limit of the ‘response’ options.
@ Pander
The Salem witch trials weren’t extrajudicial. That was the literal judicial court system of the town conducting them.
The Brazil examples were of people convicted in court, said mobs merely disagreed with the punishment. That’s not independent of judicial courts either.
Independent vigilantes killing suspected thieves is not an entire town (let alone state) agreeing the thieves should be killed. There was no vote or other agreement, so that’s not in any way an example of democracy.
You seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding the meaning of the word democracy here, if you’re equating any extrajudicial killing with it without considering how many people were involved in the act.
@Eater of Rocks
“The Salem witch trials weren’t extrajudicial. That was the literal judicial court system of the town conducting them.”
Nope. In 1702, the General Court ruled that the Salem Witch Trials had been unlawful and not a legitimate court.
“The Brazil examples were of people convicted in court, said mobs merely disagreed with the punishment.”
The point is that it was mob justice by the majority, disregarding the law because they were the majority. That’s the entire problem with a ‘democracy’ rather than following a republic.
“Independent vigilantes killing suspected thieves is not an entire town (let alone state) agreeing the thieves should be killed.”
Actually it was, in each of the Southwest North Dakota towns in which they occurred.
You’re wrong. You need to read up on the history that I mentioned.
“There was no vote or other agreement, so that’s not in any way an example of democracy.”
Democracy is the agreement of the majority. This is what occurred in the examples I produced.
I don’t think you understand the definition of ‘democracy.’ The literal definition of democracy is ‘a system of government in which the right to govern lies with the people. Without any additions, it is essentially like what happened in Athens, which was a direct democracy. And the Founders specifically pointed to it’s failings as one of the big reasons to have a Republic instead of a direct democracy.
“You seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding the meaning of the word democracy here”
Actually no. You are.
” if you’re equating any extrajudicial killing with it without considering how many people were involved in the act.”
You really need to look up the examples I gave. Also ‘judicial’ is a REPUBLIC function, not a democracy function. The fact that it was extrajudicial is why it was not an example of a republic in action.
Have you looked at world politics lately? Kinda seems like a lot of people are children who just want Big Daddy to make all their decisions for them, and don’t care about abstract ideals like self-governance.
“Big Daddy” imposes himself on others, whether they want him or not. The dictators always “reform” *their* countries in order to destroy civil society, too. Once personal freedoms and education is gone, even the most incompetent dictator can rule as a genius and cling to power by all means available.
Life in the dictatorships worldwide has not become better except for some elites. Look around: Turkey, Hungary, Egypt, Venzuela, USA, Russia, Cuba, Belarus, El Salvador, Israel, Saudi-Arabia. Nobody but rich people like to live there, everyone else is oppressed.
And in this case, Deus is Big Daddy. Nothing so far has convinced me that life in his dictatorship is all that great. Instead, I am highly suspecting nationwide mindcontrol, except for some chosen elites, which means his supers+alien+demon mercenaries. Nothing besides either mindcontrol or genocide in his insta-nation allows for such a flawless streak of political takeovers. Remember, he has increased Galtyns population by 100’000% over the course of this comic. Less than half a year?
Materially the people in the countries he has conquered are better off. Or at least the people in Galtyn are. I strongly, very strongly, doubt that all other countries he took over with his army of supers and demons, were ruled by a brutal dictator focussed on enriching himself as quickly and thoroughly as inhumanly possible.
The matter of saftey, again in some countries that he conquered the people are less in danger. Again Galtyn was described as a country where the dictator’s thugs could, and would, do anything they pleased. If the current state of the DRC applies to the comic, then the people there will, eventually, be safer under Deus than under the succession of warlords and their incessant wars (with all the associated war crimes).
As far as freedom is concerned though, they are not one iota more free than they were before. And for some of the countries that were conquered, they almost certainly are a lot less free. Deus is a smart, possibly even benevolent (in that he realises that a brutalised populace is not a productive populace), dictator. But he is still a dictator in every sense. As the brief scene in Galtyn post and shortly post, takeover showed… The people living there can either accept Deus as their unconditional ruler, or they can vacate their existence. And the woman whose child approached Deus made it clear that she was grateful to him for making live materially better and safer, but she also made it clear indirectly, that she was terrified of him and what he might do should he take exception to being approached by a child.
Deus is firmly in the trope of the ‘magnificent bastard’. Which is a very appealing villain type, but ultimately is still a villain. In story, it may be time to remind the readers that while Smug D certainly is magnificent, he also is a bastard. Not in a ‘kick the dog’ way (which is more suited to cement the villain as near irredeemably evil), but in a ‘I may be magnamonious and fun and super smart, but if I do not get what I demand I am also entirely merciless’.
You know, D acts like a villain who has been brainwashed into doing only good, as he understands it.
Oh, that’s absolutely true. But there’s still a lot of people who believe otherwise.
The western world is trending towards nanny states and massive bureaucracies that impose themselves on others. You don’t need a dictator to accomplish this.
Massive bureaucracies in a modern nation-state are a necessity of organization; you cannot do big things without big organizing, and we’ve yet to discover a better way to organize large undertakings, especially large CONTINUOUS undertakings, than a bureaucracy. “Develop and maintain our transportation infrastructure” isn’t a job that can ever be finished; it lasts forever.
There’s no such thing as a “nanny state.” The state in an at least halfway functional democracy isn’t some weird, separate entity imposed on people from the outside; it’s where people come together to govern themselves. They sometimes do this poorly, but that’s because people sometimes screw up and make mistakes (or are motivated by genuine malice) in the pursuit of said self-governance. That’s not being seen to by a nanny; that’s seeing to your own collective needs.
Yups
In this universe, unless those people are supers, it probably doesn’t matter what they think.
The concept of integration of supers into society is really hard. The gov loses it’s monopoly on the use of force. The masses can want things done by the supers that the supers can’t tolerate.
If Superman has the ability to take over the gov by himself then democracy might fail by him just having a bad day.
I think it would be absolutely fascinating if Deus by the end of the series (if there is one) has created world peace by just… assimilating everyone. Even the big countries!
The how isn’t relevant atm, but given that the number of super-geniuses on the planet (as far as we know) can be counted on one hand, it’s entirely plausible he has a plan on how to turn Galtyn into the only nation on Earth WITHOUT inviting some sort of massive disaster.
Or maybe he’s considered it, realized it’s completely impossible because people crave violence, and settled for just Africa and possibly later the Middle East.
He’s explicitly stated this is, in fact, his plan – start in Africa, then keep slowly but surely expanding, focusing on traditionally-third-world nations, until he’s in charge of the entire world. Granted, his plan involves a lot of countries remaining nominally independent but part of a compulsory EU-analogue (compulsory so no Brexits to throw a wrench in his plans), rather than Galytn formally taking over the planet. He went over this starting on page 1023 and continuing for a few pages.
“It’s a meritocracy,” said the rich white man. I’ve heard this before, and (despite being a rich white man myself) I’ve noticed that it’s pretty much never true.
For as far as we have seen with Deus, he didnearn what he has on his own strengths and intelligence. He may not be a “good” guy, but he earned it
Do we actually know that? Deus has kept his own history sufficiently-shrouded in mystery that apparently his last name isn’t even known (he implied it was Superion when they asked why he didn’t name the Superion Field after himself and he replied something along the lines of “Who said I didn’t?”). The bulk of what we’ve seen him do it’s mostly been his underlings doing all the work, albeit with the understanding it’s all his plan. I think the only thing we can more-or-less definitively state he earned was the loyalty of Lorlara, on account of her gushing about it (basically, his subtle and artful manipulation of the Alari houses was so masterful that, once she realized what he’d done, she immediately resigned from her position to come work for him). Maxima did also state that he was a self-made billionaire, but we don’t know the details of that.
That said, while we haven’t seen directly that Deus has earned what he has, I believe you are correct here. It’s certainly possible he inherited some of it (whenever and wherever he was born) and lucked into some more of it, but I believe it’s by-and-large the product of his own efforts. He certainly seems to have the appropriate skillset.
He didnt inherit his wealth. He got his first $7 billion by short-selling a corrupt banking industry before the financial crash. This was stated on the TV show he was interviewed in. As Maxima admitted, he is legitimately a self made billionaire. It happens sometimes without them coming from a wealthy family or making their money by inheriting it – sometimes coming from poverty (Bezos, Schultz, Ellison, Oprah, etc).
Very true. Just like how the US is claimed to be a meritocracy…
…where merit is measured by amassed money. Not deeds, not smarts. Smart people who do good things, have to flee the country.
IIRC Lex Luthor earned his money. He got his starting money by taking out a life insurance on his parents and then killing them. But that still means he earned 100% of it.
I would think Deus is the same way. He just has some kind of superintellect that made earning everything a trivial thing for him.
I wouldn’t really compare a person murdering their parents for life insurance to be the remotely in the same vein as what Deus has done to earn his fortune.
Macroeconomics actually explains how he made his starting fortune of $7 billion in comic #386, by short-selling the banks during the financial crash. It’s not criminal AT ALL, nor is it morally repugnant like murdering your family for money is. In case someone doesn’t know what ‘shorting the banks’ means, it means borrowing a security, selling it on the open market, and then repurchasing it later at a lower price to return to the lender. No murdering parents or insurance fraud required.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-386-aggrandizer-x/
(panel 3)
Rich countries would care about the DRC because it’s were most of the worlds cobalt is mined. A critical element for modern technology, especially batteries.
If they keep getting their cobalt for cheap, they probably won’t care who’s in charge, so long as they don’t think he’s planning on doing a rug-pull at some point. Heck, they may even prefer him being the one in charge, since it means they don’t have to worry about their constituents getting uppity when/if they find out much of the cobalt is mined by what amounts to slave labor (since Deus won’t be using that). I suspect he’ll be able to keep the price low while still providing the miners with proper wages and a great deal better safety conditions, simply by getting rid of the bloat from the corruption currently in play (also keeping slaves can be costly, since you need to make it difficult/impossible for them to escape; IIRC modern economic analysis of the US South leading up to the US Civil War indicated slavery was likely to become economically more costly to maintain than just paying the workers in a few decades anyway), although that probably means the cobalt won’t be making a lot of direct profit (keeping the major nations happy is probably worth mining the cobalt at a loss, honestly, so long as that’s made up for elsewhere in the economy, but a super-intelligence like Deus can probably still turn a direct profit).
>since it means they don’t have to worry about their constituents getting uppity when
Lol, why would they worry about that?
That hasn’t been a political issue in years.
And that is where you are wrong, rich countries care about Rwanda, not the DRC.
It is Rwanda who controls the mining business in the Eastern DRC.
Just the mere suggestion of the DRC trying to launch an invasion of Zambia (as suggested in this comic) made me laugh out loud. The DRC is utterly incapable of such a move, being threatened or not.
And similarly, Zimbabwe is unlikely to attack Zambia either, even in a changed world where Zambia tries to join an emerging super power. Whether Zambia joins Galtyn or not, changes nothing in Zimbabwes security considerations.
This whole scheme only works if all the leadership in these African nations have already been fully suborned by Deus, and he just plays out a military theater for the world observers. Meaning, he’s just playing marionettes.
Instead, Deus could just start an intiative through the African Union, and all these leaders could be peacefully bribed into joining. You know… like Europe, China and Russia are doing very successfully since the US removed itself from the continent over the last decade. Without any air-quoting “charades”.
“Gosh, I bet he has a huuuuuge… bank account”
Maybe Maxima has to guess, but Sciona has measured him in every possible way, and the effort left her unable to walk. In the more recent past we saw how her vitamin D deficiency (every possible pun absolutely intended) made her quite careless…
No, that was SmugD’s own thoughts, all of that was his ego assuming they were leaking over him and just deciding who goes first
Boobily sounds like the female equivalent of Giggity.
or a rather buxom ghost (the female version of the one with the marshmallow cereal)
I haven’t seen that cereal in forever. :)
it seems to reappear around Halloween here, and this year a new green candy apple one popped up as well…was almost tempting to get it
The last time I bought a ‘specialty’ cereal was when I saw Peeps cereal in Target and bought a couple boxes. Before that I think the only time was when I bought an Avengers Age of Ultron cereal.
I hope you mean “the citizens’ benefit”, unless you’re saying two countries have a combined population of one.
Solid Resident Evil reference in the personal update, there. :-D
I’m pretty sure that Max probably has figured out who Sconia is, but probably needed a bit of time to compose herself to avoid a major “incident” (World War 3) at the construction site. Deus probably deployed to keep her busy until Max could composed herself and show up.
But, ya know, I could be wrong…
Sconia is hardly a threat to Max, she might still have her blood-magic, but her superpower will not effect Max. Plus she’s in a human body, no toughness or regeneration capabilities to speak of. So if Max knew for certain, Sconia would be bagged, tagged, and shipped off. Max suspects something, but not sure what, as yet. Don’t discount Sydney yet too, her “super” ADHD could kick in and get through the fog suddenly, or Max might remind her and the clues will come crashing in.
dunno how he is gonna stop the demons from taking over.
Kinda making me think of “Tulsa King”, when that grey-haired weasel brought in the Triad as muscle and menial labour thinking he could control them (spoiler, he can’t and now lost everything and running to his former rivals begging for help)
IIRC, when questioned about this very thing, it was indicated that Tom is opting to play the long game and take over Deus’ empire once the latter has retired or died from old age. Or maybe it’s more appropriate to say he intends to merge his holdings with Deus’ when that day comes – he’s been expanding his own territory away from Earth (with help from Galytn’s supers) while also helping Deus with his own conquests.
If Deus turns out to actually be as long-lived as he implied to Sciona, however, then things could get interesting.
so, Galytn was a breakaway region of Mozambique that swallowed Mozambique?
it’s a little confusing to me, since on Macroeconomics, it was stated that “those territories really belong to the Democratic Republic of the Congo” to which Deus said “The DRC didn’t exist back when General Indinge took over what is now Galytn and seceded from ZAIRE.”
And since no part of Mozambique was ever part of Zaire, I figured that Galytn was located closer to Zaire, possibly overlapping part of Malawi.
I’m guessing that either:
1) In the Grrlpower universe, there was a point during which Zaire had control of Malawi, which would have included Galytn; or
2) DaveB made a mistake when he wrote comic #387, although he knew the general-ish area, and probably should have said Malawi instead of the DRC/Zaire; or
3) He confused Zaire with British Central Africa/Nyasaland, which was previously part of the Maravi empire, which included part of the area which would later be called Zaire, although that would have been a mistake of about 300 years so probably not that one.
I’m most likely guessing #2, but all those reasons are plausible.
I *did* wonder “wasn’t Galytn supposed to have seceded from DRC/Zaire?” but when the map said Mozambique I figured I simply remembered wrong.
I’m not sure if I added this link in my other post (since it’s still under moderation) but this was the link to where the lady from Macroeconomics mentioned Galytn being a breakaway state from the DRC, then known as Zaire.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-387-a-noble-investment-embiggens-the-smallest-wallet/
…The next expansion is going to provoke a response? Judging by the neighbours, I suspect the next target is South-Africa (let’s face it, after DRC the only border neighbour of the expanded Galytn that someone outside of Africa might care about more than they’d care about DRC is South-Africa)
Maxima and Sciona could be good friends if they weren’t such bitter enemies.
Wow I was right on the money about the location
Oh wait no I was off by a bit, never mind
Planet Earth. You were close enough
I’ll take the win. lol
I was actually on the money. The big thing was just to follow the river of his invasion route. He was upriver is all.
Congratulations then. You win 1 internet. :)
I got thrown off by the whole ‘Zaire claims rights to Galytn’ thing stated in the comic.
Based on where Dave says Galytn is located, how did the news say that it broke away from Zaire during its civil war? Just wondering. Seens more like it broke away from either Malawi or Mozambique based on its location on the map.
Pretty sure you’re deluding yourself if you think the “Specialized Interests” want working conditions to improve in the countries from which they’re sourcing their labor. International corporations maximize their profit margins by buying low from regions with lower standards of living and less-stringent worker protections, and then selling high to regions where the people are better off. It is in their direct financial interests to keep some parts of the globe under the thumbs of despots who don’t care for the welfare of their citizens or the sanctity of their lands.
Of course, I’m sure their consciences keep them doing their utmost to rectify such systemic and situational injustices. Yes.
Not to be that guy to bring up the elephant in the room, but it is curious Deus hasn’t brought this up yet. Seeing as how he has Alari as allies, presumably Alari that fled the decimation of their home planet. The Alari who were well known as “grabby aliens”, and we don’t know if the ones that attacked their world did so a “ultra tech species just clearing away the local flora and fauna for terraforming” or was a retaliation for something, or another grabby species invading them as rivals. And the question should come up if their motive was personal against the Alari themselves so might seek them out.
That the presence of the Alari on Earth, especially if they are part of any expanding nation, could be seen as a threat to Earth if these planet wrecking aliens have said personal vendetta and followed them to Earth.
Glad somebody brought it up
I think that cat might already be out of the bag, Alari or no Alari on Earth.
The kaiju species that destroyed the Alari homeworld already seemed QUITE interested in Halo’s orbs, and it’s now become known in the galaxy that Sydney is from EARTH.
At that point, the Alari survivors would at the very least provide intel on the kaiju aliens, which would be necessary in conjunction with whatever Halo stated in her report to ARCHON, in order to formulate some sort of defense for Earth.
Yes, but the Orbs weren’t why they were on the Alari world, their motive there is something that should be considered. They reacted to Halo but didn’t seem to give much chase after she left (as far as we can tell, given Cora could tell where the Aethereum Gateway connected to while it was open, it stands to reason so could the kaiju aliens, yet they never showed up on the Fracture Station. They seemed content based on this to just chase her off. Which in of its self is suspicious.
However, again, they had to have some motive to attack the Alari, and if that motive was more personal than (we destroyed your planet, now scatter among the stars) and more (exterminate all Alari life forms) which we don’t know if it was those or the Alari just got caught in a land grab (if this species is a Builder class and just viewed the Alari as a land developer views squirrels on the property, that is a different concern for the Xevoarchy having someone like that in the galaxy, might need to call in some 2nd tier and 3rd tier species to negotiate. But going back to the personal, if this was retaliation or a personal vendetta there is a chance they could want to stamp out any attempts by the Alari to rebuild their strength, such as an increasing presence on Earth.
We don’t have proof of any version, but in universe neither does Deus or Archon and these are the sorts of things one might take into consideration knowing what happened…at the very least someone needs to ASK the Alari if they know WHO that was and WHY they attacked as the very least to try and determine if this will be a threat to Earth, and just general (who was that who could wreck your empire, and why did they?) after all allying yourself with someone with a potential enemy of consideration is something of a concern.
I hope Zambia puts the boot in Galtyn exceedingly effectively.
I think I’d win a bet to say that such a thing definitely won’t be happening. :)
Zambia, one of the poorest nations on the planet with:
1) 65% of the population (almost 13 million people) living on about $2.15 a day,
2) with 55.5% of the population not having access to electricity (as of 2024, much lower during the Grrlpower timeline),
3) 1/3rd of the entire population (6.4 million people) not having access to clean water,
4) with an army of 13,500 personnel, 10 tanks, 35 Tgr armored vehicles, 41 aircraft (8 Shenyang J-6’s, 6 L-15 Falcons, 12 MiG-21 Fishbeds, 15 K-8 Karakorums – although that’s 2024 numbers, probably a lot fewer during Grrlpower’s timeline) – of various states of repair
will not be particularly effective against Galytn should they try to attack Galytn and ‘boot’ them.
Especially since a large amount of people in Zambia might be very accepting of the wealth, infrastructure (including electricity and clean water), and technological/medical/educational advances which Galytn can bring to them like they have for Galytn and are doing for Mozambique.
Even disregarding the army of demons, supers, and alien tech that Galytn posseses, there is still the matter of the cutting edge human technology that rivals or surpasses the United States’ technology (at least according to Deus).
Also considering Zambia’s neighbors are attacking Zambia according to Deus, they might WELCOME Galytn’s help.
Ooooooo DaveB ACTUALLY committed to the physical location of Galtyn! It’s on the map!
Also, that Panel 7 double sigh clearly translates to, “unfortunately, yes.”
I’m genuinely wondering if DaveB is going to go back to the Macroeconomics show comic on #387 and change it from DRC and Zaire to Malawi or Mozambique. He tends to be rather good about consistency in the comic.
BTW, Panel 5… he has his eyes on South Africa, doesn’t he?
I think you might be underestimating the fear that would be generated by something like actual Demons/Devils conquering parts of Earth. Some guy in a country conquering parts of Africa.. no problem. Now he has aliens?, well that’s a bit weird. Devils/Demons working with him to conquer???… I think you might get a collective freakout of a decent part of the world. If you want to see Iran and the US on the same side.. that might do it.
“Demons” in this case seem to be a subclass of “aliens”. As opposed to “supernatural entities of malign intent”.
After all, they have physical bodies. At least some of them breathe and can be rendered unconscious using the same means as for humans. There does not appear to be any reaction to spiritual weapons.
So I’m sure there is a bunch of discussion as to whether they’re actually demons.
On the other hand, people do accuse each other of accidental witchcraft (among other things).
to be fair if the mythology and folklore of this setting is like that of our own, it wouldn’t take a historical theologian too long to connect those dots from Demon-Daemon-Daimon-Shedim, and the Shedim were described as living beings who had to eat, breathe, drink, have children, and could be killed.
There were also spirits, but the root of the modern demon concept comes from a reconceptualization of the gods of the neighbors of the early Judaic people. Basically synchronization, something from a prior culture, neighboring culture, new culture, doesn’t fit into your belief as is, buts its too popular so you reimagine it in a way that it fits into your culture. In this case, “those gods are real, but they aren’t “gods” they are powerful living beings with magic that makes them equal to the angels, but they can die and aren’t a pure spiritual presence like the god we worship”.
So yeah, see living demons, and just go, “Oh those are demons like what our ancestors wrote about that tried to offer humans worldly powers and wealth and such in exchange for taking their souls” (fun addition there, that is basically taking the regular worship of pagan gods and turning it evil (daemon was originally used to refer to other gods even across Europe, by Christians, before the term was made to mean something pure evil, and the temptations were the regular, worship a got of commerce to get wealthy, god of war for power, god of love for love, etc…, history is funny that way.
It just occurred to me that, in order to maintain Lorlara’s fanatic devotion to him, Deus probably has to boink her occasionally. And to maintain his place on the weird pillar she’s put him on, that’s not going to be any kind of vanilla experience. This is just the sort of thing an Alari PA expects of her boss, I suppose.
We already know he’s not particularly opposed to boinking people he doesn’t respect, and Lorlara is, yes, I’ll admit it, hot. But her personality has about seventeen kinds of ‘Nope’ written on it from my point of view. Just managing her craziness in ways advantageous to himself would require every bit of his supposed superintelligence to pull off.
It’s unclear if she is crazy by Alari standards, nor if what you’re suggesting is needed.
I cannot believe that I am reading a webcomic whose author has actually thought out a plan for conquering Africa. That is so cool.
Dammit, I want to conquer Africa. I would probably rely more on political subterfuge than military conquest, because I don’t have access to all the cool toys. Still.
Actually, I did have a plan for taking over the world, way back 20 years or so ago. It involved setting up in Ukraine, and using that as a base for making a move on the Russian political elite. You can imagine how I feel *now*.