Grrl Power #332 – Guns and no nos
I wrote this page after a few people expressed… concerned with Maxima’s demonstration a few pages back. I think it’s kind of unnecessary now after the fact, not that it’s a bad page. I think it’s a fun bit of insight into Ren and Peggy, and a little call back to the bank. In any case this is the last we’ll see of the gun range for a while. I should note, Ren’s paper target is a bit small, that’s cause their range isn’t quite full length, so they compensate with smaller targets. They have a proper range outdoors somewhere not so near by for the actual certification tests.
I can’t help but image in a relatively low discipline outfit like Arc-SWAT, walking around with the “punishment gun” wouldn’t be all that much of a punishment… well, Sydney might not enjoy it. But like Peggy implies, that’s probably on top of whatever else they decide to pile on the careless and/or gung ho.
There is a new vote incentive, it’s just pencils at the moment but I’m hoping to get it colored by the time the next page goes up. (Maybe the one after, we’ll see how quickly the current pages I’m working on get done.)
There’s a chance I’ll be switching hosting this weekend. Godaddy has been pretty solid overall, but with the traffic I get now their prices are pretty crazy, so Saturday or Sunday the page might act a little wonky, or I might lock the comments so nothing gets lost while all the databases get ported. It shouldn’t be too traumatic, just FYI.
This page colored by Keith.
Ooh, just noticed Sydney’s glasses are missing in the last panel, I’ll get that fixed at some point.
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I read comics like this and wonder how much it’s trying to placate someone who was complaining about what happened earlier.
i shouldn’t think so. it was more of a justification for characterization and exposition.
from this comic we learned
-A drawback to Ren’s powers
-Peggy’s general attitude and stance as an officer, and her mannerisms when in command
-Maxima’s speed with her gun
-a little something about the others (Vance is someone who defaults to privilege of hierarchy as an explanation, Harem attributing it to Maxima’s badassery, that tells us something about both those people.)
some of this stuff we knew already, but we learned them from the blog. this comic is several small bits of exposition and character moments in a scenario with some comedy that addresses a potenial hole in the behaviour of a character before.
Per word of DaveB:
This page was directly placating all of the nay sayers about why Max shouldn’t have been able to do what she did and get away with it. All your other points are perfectly valid, however.
well, i am gracious in being corrected. this page serves to do a lot more beyond placating naysayers though.
And for those readers who don’t have time to read through multiple pages of comments, every single point Dave made on this page (& the mini-blog below it) was covered by us readers already.
And points for DaveB for not only addressing the issues but doing so while still getting in some yummy character development. (And im not talking about the Ren/Peggy ship either)
And no punch line in this page (except harem winking in the general direction of the Fourth Wall with Machina Rex) to acknowledge how serious (Syd’s earnestly serious face ) the issue really is in real life.
I am sure that the next page will have a big funny to make up for this.
Or a “the more you know” moment.
“And Knowing is Half the Battle” …
the rest being one quarter red lasers and one quarter blue lazers
;)=)
I do like the subtle hints towards Vance’s personality too. between “the newbie gets screwed with” and “she’s the boss”, i get the distinct impression he is someone who puts stock in privilege from Hierarchy. it’s a minor thing, but its nice to see little things like that in a character.
Interesting that Ren can’t shoot through an adrenaline high. That would suggest he doesn’t have a huge amount of experience working with firearms.
There are so many things that could be the cause of this scattered shooting.
-Maybe he is (like you said) just that bad at aiming.
-Maybe he is moving (flinching) while the bullet is traveling down the barrel, this would cause the bullet to move in a slightly different direction than intended.
-It could also be his attempting to compensate for this flinch by bringing the barrel back to line up on the target that is throwing him off.
And that’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure there is a firearms instructor here who could give us a lot more things it could be.
I suspect the biggest reason for his shakes is that without them Ren would be an invincible killing machine (against anything which is not bullet proof anyhow). It would be the go-to solution in any combat situation. Which would be boring, due to being so effective.
Clearly Ren’s karma is not to be a sniper, but to explore the world in pause mode. Albeit that is a bit more figurative, as his speed does not appear to match his perception. But being able to examine a situation in detail, and then react very fast, is a very good compromise between an interesting way of seeing the world, without getting into the invincible super-speeder territory.
I think he is just bad at gun control.
Its alot like vehicle control in that to be good at it one should:
pay attention to one’s environment
develop a good muscle memory/eye-hand co-ordination
get in the habit of being in a relaxed state and only doing the smallest corrections necessary when one steers/aims.
I imagine if Ren figures out how to activate his powers without “damaging his Calm”
then he will end up looking like he is all bullet time-y to us mere mortals.
(and to him it may resemble something a bit slower than this … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NnyVc8r2SM )
It seems like he has a power that is very much like bullet-time from the matrix. Or V.A.T.S. from fallout.
That clip demonstrates invincible super-speeder in action. Of course ways can be found around any super power. But the tougher they are, the harder it is for an author to do so. Either they have to keep upping the anti and finding opponents with even tougher powers. Or they have to fudge things, retroactively, to make the power less overwhelming.
I believe this page is a hint, that would stop any claim of such being retroactive, for Ren.
Naw man, Scoville is just a natural-born Rule Lawyer and she was trying to catch Maxima with that.
We learn this right away in the comic.
This is a valid statement
“Pink Latex Gun” Heh…
I’m now completely unable to avoid thinking of a short arc (series of pinups) by SgtKlark where a female police officer had to suit up in the dark, grabbed the wrong “weapon” for her holster, and ended up subduing a criminal by beating the hell out of him with a big pink rubber dildo. I believe he eventually promised to plead guilty if she promised not to let anyone in prison know how his arrest went down.
Time to find out how many URLs this forum will let me post. I think it’s about a half-dozen pages.
https://www.sofurry.com/view/842755
https://www.sofurry.com/view/843075
https://www.sofurry.com/view/843193
https://www.sofurry.com/view/843220
https://www.sofurry.com/view/843268
(5, I was close.)
* Wonders how the police report of the arrest (which MUST be accurate) will go *
Hm. Technically true:
“I pulled my weapon and threatened the suspect with it. He surrendered without further resistance.”
:-D
I’m not so sure how quickly I’d ‘halt’ if someone said that to me.
ROFL.
If you had to, you would be hoping that it was very well lubricated!
Pink, orange, mostly blue etc. training guns are a valuable instructional aid. I have a couple and use them all the time even though I’ve carried for over 30 years.
–
Intentions, intentions, intentions…the road to hell being paved with them both good, bad and everything in between. I have an annoyed pet peeve over the phrase “Don’t draw your weapon unless you intend to use it”. My feeling is that it should read “you’re prepared” vice “you intend”
–
A handgun is not a magic wand that automatically casts a ‘caution/respect this/you’re about to die/DANGER WILL ROBINSON’ spell. How many cases have we heard of over the last few years of people totally ignoring the cop/citizen pointing a gun at them and suffering the very deadly consequences?
–
Happened to me. I interrupted a guy trying to murder my next door neighbor in his own front yard. Despite all the yells and screams from me and other neighbors to stop, he continued to choke the life out of “John”. I had to fire a warning round from my .357 which finally got his attention whereupon he dropped his victim and started to advance on me! Go figure. The light of sanity returned to his eyes and he stopped about two paces from the point of where he would have had his heart shredded and blown out through his back. Yeah, he was high on crack and PCP as it turned out later. I understand and have a great deal of sympathy to cops and private citizens who have been in similar situations.
Sad to say, but in my jurisdiction, I’d have gotten into more trouble for the warning shot than if I’d just shot the perp to start with. I know, I’ve been in the exact same position, and while it turned out the same way as your example, I had about a hour of, first, explaining to the police what happened (I fired my M1911 Combat Commander into the trunk of a tree as a warning) and second, listening to all of the various charges that they could have levied against me plus seizing my weapon as “evidence”.
Yeah, ‘Discharging a weapon within city limits’ was one of the charges against me which the judge dismissed. I have a real ‘love-dislike’ feeling for cops for a lot of reasons stemming from first hand experience. The report filed by the cops who responded (about 15 minutes after everything was over)to this incident read like it was drafted by a third grader and was factually incorrect on about a dozen points.
–
Regarding your situation Anifreik, how long did it take for the cops to show up?
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Tip: if you are ever questioned by a police officer, always have your cell phone on record if possible.
–
Tip 2: if there is even the remotest chance that charges could be filed against you for whatever reason, NEVER talk to the cops without a lawyer and NEVER volunteer information. The odds are great that the officer will get it wrong, write it down wrong, misinterpret what you say etc. I know that the natural reaction is to cooperate with the cops, but first hand experience has shown that telling them anything without a recorder or a lawyer is a BAD idea.
–
That said, always be courteous and polite to cops. Go that extra step to avoid antagonizing them. That goes doubly so with ARC team members.
Also, the natural warning shot tends to be directed into the air, unless you have a lot of presence of mind. Is it any wonder that you get in less trouble if you safely direct your shot into an attacker rather than your neighbor at similar speeds via gravity?
Yes your honour, that is the human who shot me, with his M1911 Combat Commander. I was just innocently sun-bathing, at the time!
The tree-surgeon said the bullet is too deeply embedded, to remove without causing more damage, than leaving it in. To this day I still feel the pain!
I Knowl your pain. Sadly I had to learn all of your very useful points the hard way and my judge felt that I should have known better and let the 4 felonies i was facing stick.
https://www.flexyourrights.org
is a great place to start if you feel that you may at any time in your life interact with police in any way shape or form. Period.
This includes if you are a member in good standing of the law enforcment community who just happens to be off duty and/or outside of your jurisdiction.
https://www.wave3.com/story/5810411/new-jersey-police-officer-sues-2-state-troopers-over-road-arrest-that-got-him-fired
the implication from the bottom text was that the pink latex gun wasn’t an actual a training gun, but a dildo.
I do enjoy reading bottom text. Or, for that matter, examining any kind of intimate body tattoos. Ahem, for artistic merit, obviously.
Nope, it’s intend, and should be intend. So many accidental shootings occur because police draw a gun too early in a conflict. To the person you draw a weapon on, they believe you willing to kill them then and there, and will begin to respond accordingly. Now, sometimes that’s somebody backing down, but it could just as easily escalate the scenario just by drawing.
Maxima was actually being extremely reckless, despite her speed. If she’d had even 1/4 second of surprise at the gun firing, Halo’s dead. If Halo freaks and activates the wrong orb, half that room is dead. Adrenaline guy, and other trained heroes could react as though Maxima does intend to kill Halo instictively, and Maxima may have superspeed, but she doesn’t have 360 awareness, psychic powers, and multiple bodies to move with. Relying on her speed to save everything, really, is just arrogance, both on her part, and the part of ARC-swat. It will, almost without a doubt, end up in her accidentally killing someone on her own side, powers or no.
Example of point: On ship, we were getting qualed on m-14s, and one jackass decided to prank a guy he hated by drawing the m-14 on him without a clip or bullet in chamber. Here’s the thing: Several people on the course were Master-At-Arms, and along the the prank victims buddies, pretty much immediately drew down on him with guns that were far less unloaded. There was very nearly a shoot out with automatic weapons because one dipshit assumed the regs to mean what Maxima.
And there’s the super version of this: What happens ***when*** she runs into that “You lost your powers run”, and has no instinct for gun safety? Any military unit does, believe it or not, think about these things.
Kinda making a non-point there.
Max’s attention was entirely on the task at hand. There’s no reason why she would have been surprised.
And if what the author says is true, she had her super speed/reflexes on as soon as she drew the gun; meaning that time was moving at an incredibly slow pace for her.
Y’know what was a violation of proper gun safety? The Arc Agent Shooting at Sydney in the bank.
No, I’m afraid he made a good point. There is NO good reason for pointing a gun at someone in that environment. Especially the boss doing it, regardless of her capabilities. Everybody effs up sometime. What if it happened to be that time?
And if she wasn’t planning to load and fire the weapon, why would she have her super dial set to extreme reflexes? And if she was, why would she? Extremely fast reaction times are the direct enemy of good loading and shooting. To all the FPSers, I’m not saying that being fast isn’t important in combat, I’m saying that moving too fast can be a hindrance in smooth gunhandling.
There is a difference between human fast and ‘the fastest superhuman in the world’ fast. Which Maxima is, as a five-star super speeder. She loads the weapon as she draws it. She does not need an automatic weapon, as they fire slower than she is capable of doing with her purpose-built weapon. Despite only loading the single bullet, on demand.
Yes, anyone can make a mistake. But this is one-off training, so it is a single incident. Whereas Sydney will be in life-or-death situations many times in the course of her career. And this training is to ensure that she will survive those.
There is a good reason for pointing a gun at someone. The only good reason. For saving lives.
If you, or an innocent, is in danger of dying, you are entitled to do that.
Maxima knows that if Sydney is not properly trained then she will invariably get into the situation where she needed to make a credible threat to kill. But would just hold up her ‘Christmas tree ornament’ to do that. Which Maxima knows, first-hand, from her own experiences with her finger, is not always perceived as a threat.
If the threat is not found to be credible lives could be lost.
Note that I do find pointing a gun at anybody to be distasteful. Especially so, as in this circumstance was in training, not in a clear and present danger situation. But, as military and police training, it is being done to ensure that Sydney reacts the correct way the first time she finds herself in this situation.
Trouble is Sydney is ADHD, and has other issues, which go to impede regular training. Just telling her something, may not make it sink in. This is not some interesting bit of trivia. Sydney is a soft, civilian, who is too kind-hearted, at present, to survive the situations she will be facing. She needs to have her survival instincts changed.
Maxima found a way of getting the message home in a way she will never forget. Sydney will be a better police officer (and soldier) as a result. This is tough, but effective training.
There’s a serious problem with the train of thought that ‘Maxima is fast enough to catch a bullet, even if she is t expecting it to go off’. Does nobody else remember the post-bank scene wherein Sidney successfully pukes on Maxima’s boots?
That’s a process that takes *more* than a second, but Max couldn’t move fast enough to avoid it. The assumption that Max could necessarily move fast enough to catch a bullet she wasn’t expecting is *obviously* unfounded.
Max needs to carry the ‘pink latex gun’.
You fail to understand Maxima’s power. She can actively control her attributes. When she did this demonstration she had her reactions set to maximum. When she got hit by fear vomit, she did not.
Max does not need to carry the pink latex ‘gun’.
Powers be damned, everybody trains the same on the range for a reason. I see a lot of comments from people who have no military training on why it’s okay for Max to do that. I think she’s an awesome character but it’s horrible range safety and such things are how people get dead. There is only one way to take someone pointing a gun at you, and it is not a gesture that builds trust, teamwork, or anything desirable. Here’s a tip: if anyone points a gun at you, and you don’t get deaded, leave. They are not your friend. Leave the building and don’t go back.
I have absolutely every sympathy for your attitude. And would have exactly the same reaction to anyone behaving like that in real life. More than that I refuse to live in any country, where there is a realistic possibility of having that happen to me.
But you really do not get how impossible it is for a bullet to hurt anyone, with Maxima present, with her reactions maxed out. About the only mistake that she can make is getting bored waiting for the bullet to reach the end of the barrel!
Maxima could feel the gun firing, so would be totally aware of what is happening, without needing to wait for the sound to reach her ears.
See now for a normal person you are 100% right. The ‘unloaded’ gun goes off, and the person it is pointing at is dead. No second chances.
By the way, the bullet is still in the barrel. It has barely moved. Maxima though does not have ADHD, she will make sure she keeps paying attention to the fact it is in the gun, and Sydney’s life is in danger. So she will keep her thoughts focussed on gun safety and tactical options.
For instance contemplating how it would be possible to train troops, or elite security services personnel, for combat, without pointing a gun at someone? From your statement, clearly you will never sign up to serve in the military. Manoeuvres absolutely require pointing guns at each other. And firing them too! With the very real risk of some idiot mixing up real ammo for the blanks.
The bullet is about half the way down the barrel. Maxima will have a peek at the end, just to be certain though. She would not want it to sneak out without her spotting it.
Anyhow, where was I? Oh yes, dealing with your phobia about being trained for survival in a life or death combat situation. So, as you really like guns, and want to have a job where you can use them (responsibly of course), you get trained. But clearly your training will be limited to shooting at targets.
Damn, will that bullet never reach the end of the barrel?
So, one day you find yourself in combat. But you are up against real soldiers. Ones who have simulated real combat, and got used to pointing guns at people. First off you freeze, because you realise that these are real people, not targets. Then you die.
Ooh, there is the bullet. Lets just pick that out of the air and put it in our pocket shall we? Sydney will want it for her collection. Next to the one from the bank.
Apologies for handling the reply this way. But just saying that ‘for Maxima, bullets move slower than tortoises do, compared to us’ clearly was not doing the trick.
Sydney was getting military and police training that is absolutely vital to ensure her (and other people’s) survival. With her reactions set to maximum (as confirmed by Dave) Sydney was totally safe. You are basing your judgements on humans. Maxaima is not human. She is super human. And not just any super human, but most powerful in the world!
Just point out that Flash was fast enough to manually evacuate a city of 350,000 people during an atomic bom detonation by moving at 13,000,000,000,000 times the speed of light, without vaporising the planet. Granted Max is not that fast.
“Whereas Sydney will be in life-or-death situations many times in the course of her career. And this training is to ensure that she will survive those.”
There’s a general, all-purpose saying for that: “We’re training you to face the very thing that’s destined to kill you, but to survive the encounter.”
Her having active control of her attributes is like me having active control of a gun. CAN is not “will”, and let’s be clear, Max has been hit before in a fight, by objects moving far slower than a bullet, and has been puked on previously, again, far slower than a bullet.
It’s like that time a guy saw Jackie Chan on the street, assumed Chan would absolutely block his punch, and ended up breaking his nose because Chan didn’t see the punch in the face coming in time to react. As human beings, superpowers or no, we are only ever as good as what we are ***aware*** of.
And again, her drawing down on someone, especially a super with a ring of alien devices she can swiftly activate for tactical effects that is prone to panic, is a danger to EVERYONE, period. It doesn’t matter if she fires, she brought deadly force to BEAR, and everyone in the room could’ve died, even if the gun never went off.
https://www.sharpimport.com/rubber-training-gun—pink.aspx
A pink latex training gun. They do exist.
i like the last line in the description “New improved material is not as stiff as previous models for safer, more realistic training!”
WTF!? implying that STEEL was SOFTER/MORE FLEXIBLE than the last model (with the old material) and that this one is “just right” in the amount of flexibility vs STEEL…
Mind you, from our fellow reader’s comment, in another thread, other companies are now making real firearms in perdy shades of pink. So that last point is less reliable.
Conversely if a villain is familiar with this type of gun, but not the latest fashion in real guns, then it means that reader might find a situation similar to the one Sydney was being taught about. Where the pink weapon is not taken credibly.*
Possibly requiring the discharge of a firearm within city limits, to prove it is real. With the repercussions that might follow if having to do that in circumstances where the need cannot be easily proven.
Not that I am mentioning this because I fear it is a major problem. But it is food for thought.
* My comment in that thread, about villains laughing, was tongue in cheek, but it seems that ‘many a true word is said in jest’ might actually be pertinent here.
“it should read “you’re prepared” vice “you intend””
It’s a good correction.
Where I live if you have property, you have a gun, many have AKs, grenades and worse.
Problem…due to way to may years at war guns are ubiquitous, but many (wimps) use them to showoff and to prove how big a man they are…
Although I don’t recommend the behavior to any one, is personally very satisfactory to take their guns and slap them around a bit.
On the other hand I know a few that after spending years in the bush, have 0 problems shooting someone in the leg for good measure.
9 out of 10 times you can see the difference just by looking at their eyes (physicality/age is generally meaningless).
Most sane veterans don’t have a problem shooting you, but will have issue by immediately shooting to kill.
Meant as a reply to SFCgator, for some reason got separated.
Interesting that Vance is the only one wearing ear defenders, yet they’re all in the range.
Every range I’ve been to, if there’s any firing going on, all present must wear ear defenders, whether participating or observing.
If you look carefully, they all have in-ear protection, except for Jiggs who also has ear-muffs (probably because of her prior injury doesn’t want to cause more damage by sticking anything else into her ears, or maybe she does have both)
Varia also has ear-muffs in the last panel
Yeah, everyone would need double layer protection, both in-ear and muffs.
That might be an indicator for his power set (whatever DaveB decides it is): If Vance and Jiggawatt are the only two on the range wearing additional ear protection, are they the only personnel that NEED it? Could Vance’s abilities be based around, or require, enhanced hearing?
I love fridge-logic.
or he for some reason can’t put the in ear plugs in (health reasons, trigger a power, or sensitivity that would disrupt action and yes there are people in the military that would get muffler type ear pro because insertion type would f*** up the ability to keep their head still or think)
I thought of a question based on the last panel. If Sydney is standing in tight formation with taller people next to her, do they get whacked in the head by her orbiting, um, orbs, or are they smart enough to avoid bumping into things?
i think they moved closer to her head on that last frame.
I have to reposition the orbs all the time because I draw panels and don’t consider their position, so when it comes time to put them in to the page, their default orbit would cover up someone’s face or something. So basically they’re considerate and evidently aware of the 4th wall.
Sydney’s balls have mind of their own: confirmed.
pls forgive me.
I hear a lot of Human males have that problem too…
Usually, males who don’t learn how to resist the voices of “hormone hypnosis” soon after puberty are more likely to wind up on the Convicted Sex Offenders listing…
“recently” its not necessary to get on the list. But that topic is better not to be drilled.
And Sydney has more balls than any man, too.
Just look at her raising the shield, with Vehemence on the inside! Sydney is braver than me.
They tend to orbit shoulder width in diameter, and demonstrated on this page. Their orbit can also get wider or tighter. Subconsciously they likely hug tighter when Halo is in close physical proximity… however… in theory… she could totally bonk everyone immediately around her. And then likely get a royal chewing out for it.
I could see something like this, if everyone was standing in close proximity and somebody said something to excite her:
Doc: “If I could charge by the concussion, I would thank you. But since I can’t…please don’t do that again.”
Halo: (now wearing a flashing neon “keep back 10 feet” sign) “It’s not like I did it on purpose!”
The very fact that Sydney has been in close proximity to people, in crowded situations, yet has never had a bump issue (as opposed to a punching-in-the-face issue), says to me that the orbs have good collision avoidance. Independently of Sydney needing to see what they are up to. They are above her eye-line after all.
I think the pink latex gun would be good for Sydney. Get her use to the weight in her holster, and having spatial awareness of her weapon. Plus it’s a friendly version of a gun which she might be able to get use too. I know when I was helping some folks get use to firearms, some would be initially scared of a real gun. Like, hands shaking scared. I never had to go this far, but I wonder if getting use to stages of a weapon would help, say, toy guns, unloaded guns, and then the real thing.
Also, I wonder if it would spark too much debate to pose the question of ‘intend to shoot vs intend to kill’. There is a debate about if you’re going to shoot, shoot to kill, vs, shooting to disable or wound or warn or scare. That’s a question of intent. Pointing a gun with the intent to shoot isn’t so much a problem when dealing with nerf or paintball or -dare I say- tazers or rubber bullets meant to disable, not kill. (though both can kill) but it’s a different story when it comes to brandishing and shooting firearms. I was wondering what the taught ‘intent’ is with regards to military personnel, security, or police forces. I know here on the farm, the intent is usually just to warn or scare, but, I’ve been scolded -when it comes to animals- wound is seen as cruel and kill as necessary.
Still, glad to see gun education is such a pressed matter, even in a fictional world about super heroes. I would personally be more than happy to read a few more pages about gun safety even if it had nothing to do with characterization simply because it can not be said enough. Shame most don’t feel this way about cars too.
The way I was taught, you don’t point a gun at anything you don’t intend to put a hole in, and you don’t draw it in the first place unless you plan on pointing it at something.
Its not actually a gun though.
Ha ha, it’s a dick.
When I went through Army training (NOT MP let me stress) we were only taught to shoot one way, Center Mass. In other words, for the center of the chest. Results in more kills and allows more room for shooter error. Although, point of fact, injured soldiers are a greater drain on the resources of the enemy than dead ones…
Center of Mass is the correct strategy, a glancing head wound my not even stop an attacker but a lung shot should… generally.
Also for civilian threats we’re the ones treating the people we wound.
I love this page and all, but uh… Are Sydney’s glasses not drawn in on the last panel?
Dave already pointed out that he missed it in his under-the-comic blog & has promised to fix it.
…at some time or other…
I see that! All the same, that mini-note wasn’t there at the time of my comment, :P
If I may indulge in some proofreading…?
My OCD noticed a pair of issues in The Esteemed Author’s comments:
– Last line of paragraph_1: in context, “near by” should be 1 word, here.
– First line of the paragraph_2: I think you meant for “image” to actually be “imagine”.
I just want to take a moment and thank you for honestly depicting proper gun safety.
The summary update notification was odd. I’ve never gotten one before. And the image it linked to was at the start of the last battle. lol
“In a world”? Dave, your characters are becoming self aware.
Or they’re channeling their inner Don LaFontaine. (The “In a world where…” movie trailer guy. Rest in Peace, Don.)
If you are ever driving along in the rain and break down, somewhere there is no cell-phone coverage. But the only shelter, in sight, is a spooky old building, with a faint light glimmering in one window, just remember…
… you live in a world where horror films can be ‘inspired by true events’.
+1 and Quoted.
Important real world safety tip – if Maxima accidentally fired a gun towards you and then reached out to grab the bullet, her hand (which is much larger and less aerodynamic than said bullet), would have to be moving quite a lot faster than the muzzle velocity of the bullet – probably something on the order of two to five times the speed of sound to intercept it before it hit you from such a short distance, depending on where her hand was positioned before the bullet fired.
Needless to say, the super-sonic shock wave generated by her hand’s motion would probably be dangerous and your ears would be ringing for quite a while afterwards. It might even be enough to knock you right on your ass at that distance.
It wouldn’t entirely outdo the gun blast shock wave, because that also includes the report of the expanding gas from the powder, which Maxima’s hand would not be replicating. Of course, this means she’d also have to shield Sydney’s face from the expanding cloud of hot gas from the gun at that range – she’d probably be best off placing her palm just in front of the muzzle to stop the bullet and force the gas out to the sides.
In other news, physics has a very limited place in superhero comics, and seeing Maxima daintily grab the bullet 2 inches away from Sydney’s face is much more fun (and reflects Sydney’s imagination more than what Maxima would actually do) so you may all safely ignore these dire ramifications and get on with the story.
Actually the shockwave would be negligible
Actually it would result in a tachyon pulse that would destroy everything it touches. Replacing the earth with a cloud of plasma and micro black holes.
I don’t think you understand tachyons.
That ‘imagination’ image of Sydney’s in panel eight (second last panel) was an actual memory of Sydney’s that actually happened (during the bank hostage publicity ‘stunt’)
The real answer is that Maxima is the boss, and everyone in the room should remember that Peggy said ‘she can catch the bullet’.
Not ‘she will catch the bullet’.
The other thing to note is that Maxima is immune to the one great check and balance against a corrupt officer in the field: fragging.
“…Maxima is immune to the one great check and balance against a corrupt officer in the field: fragging.”
Even though Max is not only a super, she’s also an experienced field combatant. Part of the procedures that involve gaining rank are in place to prevent that from happening; for example, in order to achieve higher rank, it involves an interview conducted by a panel of officers of higher rank.
Although an officer-corruption-in-field incident does happen occasionally, it’s a very rare occurrence in reality…Not nearly as prevalent as Hollywood tends to portray; they ARE the purveyors of fiction & fantasy, ya’ know.
Let’s just say that I don’t think Maxima would have gotten to her current rank if she had been showing possible signs of that kind of corrupttion.
We judge a person by their actions. Not by the fears of the insecure. Maxima does catch bullets. Before they hit people. And she is not corrupt.
Further Maxima is working extremely hard to ensure that those under her command are similarly moral. Note the lengths that she went to, in order to connect with Sydney, and ensure she recognised her responsibilities, both as a cop and a super hero.
And then putting it into practice, where she placed value on the lives of the villains, by ordering her troops to use non-lethal force where possible. Under circumstances where she would have been entirely justified in authorising lethal force, due to being under attack by same.
It is wise to be cynical of the motivations of those in a position of power. However it is also wise to examine the facts before implying things which would impugning the character of the innocent.
Where there is credit though, is in keeping an eye on checks and balances. However do not think that checks and balances are always a good thing. Sometimes a nation, or the world, needs someone, of good character, who is not fettered by them.
Currently people of good moral character can see the world, and every species in it, including our own, is in danger. Yet the checks and balances of our system are preventing us from taking effective action to avert that.
Avoiding going extinct is one of those things you need to get right first time (and every time).
Who checks and balances the checks and balances?
The Supreme Court.
Actually, there is a higher court. But you miss the point. Those are part of the checks and balances. Which can impede effective action in a time of crisis. It is the reason why those checks and balances are reduced in a time of crisis. Declarations of either a state of emergency or a state of war do just that.
Apparently though potential extinction does not warrant taking such steps. Sod the war on drugs. I want a war against extinction!
and since the start of the wars on drugs and terrorists the amount of both in the 1st world countries has been documented to increase. do you want to speed extinction, I say a war on morals and jobs, let the process work for people.
Your answer is good enough that it required me to sleep on it, in order to counter it effectively. And even doing so, your point remains highly pertinent. It is something that we must direct our strategy to avoid. We must aim to fight together, not against each other.
For purposes of keeping this from getting diverted (as I know we do have climate change sceptics, as regular commentators), let us just accept the body of proof, agreed by the majority of the most eminent scientists in the world.*
That lets us then concentrate on the issue of ‘can we prevent ourselves going extinct?’ As opposed to avoiding dealing with the issue until it is too late. Filibustering is only worthwhile if the cause is worthy. Such is a bad check and balance, when used to champion extinction of the human race!
Dealing with your drugs analogy is easy. People want drugs. Let them have them. There will be a social cost, for dealing with addicts. But not everyone will become drug users. And life will go on.
Now compare that to extinction. People do not want extinction. If we let that happen, everyone will become dead. Human life will not go on.
Terrorism is a greyer area, and is one that, in itself could lead to extinction. Any group which becomes dissatisfied enough could choose to develop a bio-weapon capable of exterminating the human race. And such is entirely plausible, if they feel that they can protect themselves, say with vaccinations.
As such, the two issues are not unrelated, they are interconnected.
We know that death cults are a possibility. We do not see them often, but they do exist. That combination of ideology and fanaticism must be stamped out. Note this is not a reference to apocalypse cults, not suicide bombers. For the most part, the latter are individuals who are seeking to preserve the lives, and way of life, of their own people.
But some would do act purely to ‘take others with them’. Which is something see do see, often enough that we must ensure such individuals are prevented from uniting, and organising sufficiently, to conduct biological warfare.
Note that the old axiom that ‘only big nations have the capabilities to operate laboratories capable of doing this’ is fast becoming history. Biological and genetic manipulation capability is moving out of the laboratory and into the classroom. Soon it will be in the home. Scientific progress cannot be legislated against.
We must plan for the world we are entering now. Computer viruses give us the clue as to how things can go. Real viruses will not become quite that easy to create. But they will be easy enough that we have to take it as a serious risk.
Fortunately, in the present day, such capabilities do still require significant organisation. And we can work to counter apocalypse death cults, with existing capabilities. It is nothing to loose sleep over. Provided we stay on top of the curve, as it gets easier to do.
And the way to do that, as with most social issues, is to ensure that everybody gets to live a life free from fear. Most people just want to live a comfortable life. It is only when they fear persecution, the loss of their way of life, starvation and the like, that they take up arms to defend themselves. One man’s terrorist, is another man’s freedom fighter.
What drug addicts want is drugs. What terrorists want is freedom. Give it to them.
It need not be unconditional though. We saw in South Africa and Northern Ireland that compromises can be found. The most vital of which is to ensure that the fear (regarding their various key issues), for everybody in the society, is reduced to the point where they no longer felt the need to die for their cause.
Importantly, within our lifetimes we DID have enough resources to ensure everybody in the world could be fed. Those who starved were in conflict zones, which were preventing agriculture or distribution of aid. Or were the victims of unjust allocation of resources.
Sadly that is no longer the case. And countries, world-wide, are starting to respond in a negative way. By closing borders. And those who do not are having to cope with the refugees from conflict and climate change. At the moment the former is more prevalent. But the latter will become steadily more significant. Inexorably.
IF we allow things to continue down this path, unchecked, the habitable enclaves will become more and more hard pressed. Nations will choose to feed their citizens and refuse the impossible burden of helping those outside their boundaries. So those beyond will die. Be it
through not being able to scale the walls (unlikely) or being shot by border guards (likely).
And they are not likely to die quietly.
This is an insane route to choose as the solution to the global crisis!
Twice we have united the world in war, against a common foe. Albeit that foe fought back, and was united with their allies. However, in this war, siding with extinction makes no sense.
In WWII, it took over a year for America to turn from a peacetime economy, to a wartime economy. But that happened. And everybody, around the world, tightened their belts and made do with less. It was necessary. It was a war of survival.
Yet we lack that sense of urgency now. IF we stepped up our game, and changed our economies, as drastically as we did during the world wars, we could easily turn things around.
* Note that this is not opinion, this is fact. Sceptics are allowed to debate whether the minority, of less experienced scientists, may be right, but they must do so realising that they are supporting the minority view.
I still think Max should have to carry the pink gun for a week.
So, Maxima can’t dodge unexpected fear vomit, but can catch an unexpected bullet…something seems a bit off there :)
lol this.
Yeah, when you think about it something doesn’t add up.
She wasn’t expecting the fear vomit. That’s actually a plot point.
@AndyO!:
A pink gun as big as her frigging break action, yeah.
That would show her what for.
That’s the idea though. If she can’t react to unexpected fear vomit, how is she going to react to an unexpected gun discharge?
She may not be expecting the gun to discharge but she is prepared for the gun to discharge, just in case. Fear vomit, she didn’t know that she needed to be prepared.
Isn’t she suppose to be prepared for anything though? I mean this couldn’t be the first time someones yacked in her general direction.
If it makes you feel better, I don’t like Max either, but I also know that she’s high enough rank that risking the death of a lowly recruit would not lose her her job.
And that’s the problem. People with authority take absolutely no responsibility these days! Solders and cops kill civilians, it’s written off. Big businesses make prodocks that hurt people, it’s written off. World leaders make choices that affect and take the lives of thousands, and it’s written off! The higher you’re station the more the rules don’t seem to apply to you.
It is because we live in an oligarchy. The system works when you have good people in a position of power. However we do not set up the system to get good people there. It is optimised for charismatic sociopaths. So that is what we end up with.
Further those in power ensure that they can profit from being there. And will protect themselves and their ilk from punishment.
And, every time there is a revolution, all that happens is the same kind of systems get set up, which perpetuate these models.
But, looking on the bright side, once we go extinct, nature will get to try again. Hopefully our successors will make a better job of it.
And on the really really bright side, we might even find a model that can change things before we all die. Our generation is blessed, in the choices are still in our paws to make. Successive generations will have less and less options. Such that remain.
Screw that. I’m going to become one of the lesser overlords and lord it over the people who are minions.
Heck, why do you think I set up my Antarctic base? It will remain habitable as long as the air is breathable. I want to give my minions the best chance of surviving, in the hope that the climate will stabilise, once most of the humans are dead.
Max has to set her powers to max out one stat, (speed in this case) at the cost of others. If she’s prepared for the gun going off she has moved her stat allocation around towards speed.
When the vomit incident happened she was in her normal, (balanced) stat allocation so her speed was lower, but she had more durability, strength, and possibly flight to prevent being knocked back by a surprise attack.
I’m actually really impressed with Sydney. She’s really applying herself and pouring into the gun safety book :D
Well yeah, when she focuses she really focuses, if it wasn’t for her ‘coming up for air’ to ask questions, could totally see her going through, and understanding, the whole manual before lunch, well, before she has to go home (seeing how it’s already after lunch… wait, has Sydney had anything to eat yet?)
Besides once again showing how horribly over powered Max is, all this comic seems to do is once again show how Max even having a gun is just plain ridicules.
She always keeps it unloaded because she can load and reload in a fraction of a second. She can move the barrel away before the bullet even exits the barrel. She can catch the fucking thing in mid air before it even gets close to you! Aside allowing her to just skirt any and all gun safety rules, that gun of hers might as well just be a toy and a burden all in one.
Perhaps you don’t recall Sydney’s reaction to having a gun pointed at her head a couple pages ago?
In contrast to her non-reaction to having Max’s far more dangerous finger pointed at her head?
Having a range of combat options of varying intensity is important. And some really-low-intensity ones are a very good idea.
Of course, her gun’s pretty high intensity for eliminating a person.
If I remember right, it chambers .577 Tyrannosaur, which is a round designed to make dangerous game stop charging.
You can seen people firing rifles that chamber similar rounds and getting thrown out of the chairs they’re sitting in or going flying off of their feet.
Not that Max’s finger isn’t infinitely more dangerous because it’s designed at a minimum to stop tanks from charging, but if you get hit by a .577 Tyrannosaur and live, you’re going to have a story to tell about the surgery or about how painful the graze was.
There is no way a round that powerful should be even used ageist non powered targets! Hell rounds that powerful shouldn’t even be used in a civilian environment. One stray shot and it’s liable to cause some bystander some serious damage.
Now, it’s obvious that you and I disagree about some things (see my reply to your comment about ‘blowing down an entire wall” below)… but on this we are in total agreement. That gun is too powerful to use against non-supers, and is a bad idea in an urban environment, for exactly the reason you pointed out: If you miss, it is possible that someone else is about to have a very bad day.
and we miss the stun/rubber round option, or aim in the air flare option, or the buckshot crowd counter (that also reduces leathality at most ranges and reduces overall range capabilities)
@ERWER: Not quite. “577” is the model number of the gun, not the actual caliber of the bullet (which is .585). I know, I’m being kind of nitpicky, but I wanted to point that out anyway.
I thought that the comic creator made a deviantart picture of Rex Maximus that said it should .577 Tyrannosaur.
You and I are both right. I double-checked… it *is* called the .577 Tyrannosaur, but according to Wikipedia, the bullet is actually .585
Article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.577_Tyrannosaur
Weird. I wonder why they went with .577 as a name, then.
I’m going to engage in a little Wild Mass Guessing here: It might’ve originally been chambered for .577, and then when they rechambered it for .585, they didn’t change the name because “.577 Tyrannosaur” already had name recognition.
Actually it was because, in field testing, they found that, on average, it only downed 0.577 Tyrannosaurs, per shot. Obviously they do not advertise that fact.
Firstly because it is not as impressive as the name would otherwise imply. And secondly because they would just get PETA complaining, about the needless suffering caused by wounding, rather than killing.
They WOULD do that. And it is a bad thing to advertise. Most of those guns are pretty hard if not impossible to fire rapidly, so downing 0.577 Tyrannoaurs per shot is utterly unacceptable.
It needs to average out to one.
At least it’s not a .50 AE, though. We’d have Sydney probably calling it a ‘Fifty Cal’, thinking it shot the .50 BMG.
Max’s gun is her equivalent of a tazer….
Oh I recall, and it just helps bring up again how dense she is especially considering Max blew something up with that very same finger then pointed it at her.
In addition to what Don said, perhaps you don’t recall that there might possibly be a mutant out there whose power is to negate other mutant powers… rendering Maxima (temporarily) powerless. In that case, she’d need a backup.
Also, despite the media conference and the upcoming photo shoot, there could someone out there who doesn’t recognize her immediately. There are people who choose to live isolated… for example, have you ever seen Life Below Zero on the National Geographic Channel? People like that are going to be slow to get the news.
So let’s say Maxima meets someone like that. They’re not going to say “Ooh, blue blood, blue hair, ruby-red lips, and golden skin… she has super powers!.” They’re going to say “Ooh, blue blood, blue hair, ruby-red lips, and golden skin… does she have a medical condition?” They don’t know she has super powers, so they don’t recognize her as a living weapon. They will recognize that the gun is a weapon.
And so, that’s why she needs the gun. It is a deterrent and an obvious weapon, whereas her powers are only obvious when she uses them. Also, remember what they said about collateral damage? What if she’s in a situation where her powers are likely to cause too much collateral damage? It’s a lot easier (and cheaper) to fix a hole in a wall than it is to replace an entire office tower. Sure, as an official government agency, they’re covered for the cost of repairs, but if they do too much damage too often, even the government might say “We’re tired of paying millions of dollars every time you go on a mission. Maxima is removed from the team and assigned to a desk job.”
Bottom line is, there are and will be situations where that gun is going to be vastly more useful than you seem to think.
Not only is the gun an obvious weapon, it’s an obvious threat. Pointing a finger at someone can mean any number of things… a few more if Max is the one pointing, but even for her, most of them are not a threat.
Firstly, anyone who lives in isolation like in Alaska or anywhere else that life below zero show lists isn’t likley to be in major areas were Max is gonna be working in there first place.
Secondly, why would Max be shoving her monster of a gun in that person’s face anyway? To say nothing on how bad that was when she did it to wonder spaz who is her own team mate pointing her gun in the face of a innocent bystander is even worse! Doesn’t matter if they are the cops or the government you don’t point you’re gun in someone’s face for no reason.
Third and lastly, a gun that big and powerful is gonna do a lot more than just make a hole that needs spakling up to fix. Hell a gun that ridiculously powerful like it’s owner like Max’s gun would likley take out an entire wall. And max doesn’t seem the sharpshooter type so it likely demolish the entire interior of the building. So not that much of a deturant especially when it looks like she can be allot more precise with her powers.
That’s true, but that’s not the point. My point is that the media does not have 100% saturation… there are going to be people who, for whatever reason, will not know who Max is. And maybe some of those people are dangerous people who are immune to Max’s energy blasts, or able to cancel out her powers or something. Who knows?
Okay, fair point. Even if the gun is empty, and even if Maxima can catch the bullet, it still violates pretty much every gun safety rule in the book.
Make a really big hole? Oh, definitely. Her gun is basically the most powerful rifle in the world, scaled down into a pistol. The bullets are .585 caliber (just a hair under 15mm), and have more than 10,000 foot-pounds of force at the muzzle. As seen in the link below, even experienced shooters have trouble taking the recoil without staggering back at least a step or two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrImp-ek3bI
But take down a whole wall? PLEASE apply some common sense to your argument. You will notice in the video that they are firing it indoors. If the bullet was that powerful, they’d be out on a shooting range with a 10- or 20-foot dirt mound as a backstop. Maybe if the bullet was APEX (Armor-Piercing Explosive), made with some incredibly powerful alien explosive compound…
Those are allot of maybe’s but between every news station out there being at the demonstration, and word on the street all major people will know who she is. Any random guy or girl out there that doesn’t will most likley be a ordinary cavil lion or someone who doesn’t deserve to have a giant freaking hand cannon pointed in her face. And isn’t the hole point of a team suppose to be to be able to help each other out? If a person does come along that is ether immune to her energy blasts or can drain her powers then she has those people with her to back her up in such a scenario and cover her.
Not only does it violate those rules there would be hell to pay in regards to threatening someone with a lethal weapon, abuse of authority, and mental and physical trauma.
If one really big hole won’t do it a bunch or really big holes will. Not to mention there’s the type of wall to take in. A solid brick wall could stop the round but any sheet rock wouldn’t even slow it down. And in a fire fight that kind of gun will likley do what I’m saying it will.
Or it would if they had skater rounds. But still pretty bad.
Coincidentally, they don’t make “scatter rounds” for the .577 Tyrannosaur. It’s a 750-grain “Solid Monolithic Projectile”.
Another “maybe” here: What if the person in question happens to be immune to all energy blasts (but not kinetic damage), or if their power-damping ability is an aura that drains the powers of *everyone* who gets too close?
Regardless, you and I are both in agreement that the gun is probably way too big, and she shouldn’t be carrying it unless she *knows* she’s likely to meet someone tough enough to survive it (like Vehemence). Sure… she’s powerful enough that the recoil won’t bother her, but “because I can” is not a valid reason.
skater rounds? gives me a mental image of a bullet coming out of a gun on a skateboard, like a boarder rolling in a fullpipe
Meant scatter rounds. Like from a shot gun that weapon of max’s kinds resembles.
Just as a quick note – that whole mini-range is probably in a sub-basement of the complex… between regular trainees and our quick view of ‘Ol Painless with the blender on the front, I’d say they probably need it.
But that being the case, it would have plenty of dirt behind the targets. Probably specially reinforced too, for special ammunition testing.
That gun is pretty useless if Max gets depowered, though. Too hard to load, too much kick, etc. An ordinary gun would be much handier in that situation.
What she could really use to supplement her powers would be some form of non-lethal ranged weapon. Maybe a gun (minigun?) that fires rubber bullets, so she still has the intimidation factor (assuming the intimidatee doesn’t know the nature of the projectiles launched).
Someone needs a cookie. Again.
I wish I loaded ammo, I’d make a wildcat .666 Nebuchadnezzar. Just to say I’d done it. “Nebuchadnezzar” is seven sizes larger than a “Magnum”…but still leaves room for a 1.0 Melchior. I think it’d require trunnions.
I imagine if ARC SWAT is anything like my Marine Platoon, having to carry a pink latex pistol is also a sign that it’s okay to fuck with you (only to a certain point of course), which in and of itself can be a punishment.
Good on you for switching away from Godaddy. I’ve heard some pretty horrible stories about them in the past.
Most of their bad reputation revolves around aggressive marketing. At every step of the process, they try to upsell you to a more expensive package. Once you actually set up an account, they usually give you pretty good support (and then try to upsell you.)
If you can stand the constant upselling, though, the fact that they’re still in business after 18 years should be the proof that they’re better than the “horrible stories” would lead you to believe.
Gives a whole new meaning to “This is my rifle, this is my gun…”
If you have to change whatever program you use for comments, if you have to go with Disquis, could you please ensure the Guest posting option is turned on?
What are you worried about? You’re not just a Guest, you’re Guesticus.
AND ALLOW EDITING OF COMMENTS!!!!!
If we are putting down a wish list, a ‘like’ function would be nice.
Either feature though would probably require setting up an account. Which would reduce the number of commentators willing to join the community. For example I probably would not have taken the plunge. Although it would not stop me now, of course.
Plus we need to remember DaveB‘s concern about messing with the system too much and loosing our comments history. Something that is justified in being cautious about.
I am just mentioning these points because, despite the flaws, the current system is hugely popular, and has doubtless contributed to the growing dedicated fan base. Obviously the art and story are the primary draws. But the strong community helps in several, very tangible ways. So any changes need to be carefully considered.
The most subtle of which being that the comments are always visible here, right under the comic. Separate forum based communities can thrive. But it would be sad to loose that distinctive feature here. Although changing hosts may not imply any of this, it seems a pertinent time to mention it. You never know when one change might spark another.
“…a ‘like’ function would be nice.”
If you’re going that far, there should also be an “unlike” function too. If us commenters have an idea how many likes or unlikes we get, then we can adjust ourselves for better behavior. It could also function as a “flag” function, as a means to weed out ‘bots & trolls too.
I’ve heard downvotes / unlikes can actually encourage bad behavior as even a negative acknowledgement can be interpreted as a form of validation.
Very good point.
Here is a system which might minimise that. Have a dislike option (and a separate warning flag, specifically to alert the admins directly, if it is actionable, as opposed to just distasteful). But have an ‘in good standing’ rating associated with each log-in.
If you are in good standing (having a significant proportion of plus votes versus negative ones), then you can view the negative vote totals. Notably a new account would not default to being in good standing. The user would need to contribute positively, to some degree, before earning the privilege.
Admins should be able to distinguish between ‘new accounts’, ‘in good standing’ and ‘potential troll’ accounts. Nobody else should though, to avoid precisely the kind of problem raised by Lady Pentrose. We do not want trolls to proudly wear their black hats.
The actionable notifications should only ever be viewable by admins (Dave currently or, if we attract enough further patrons, his staff).
Of course a troll can simply set up two, or more, accounts, and use one to get into good standing. But at least they are then learning the benefits of contributing positively to the community. And paying attention to when they do so.
In due course they will, hopefully, find that logging in with their white hat on is more pleasurable than with their black hat account.
What are those “non-judicial” punishments Peggy spoke of,would one of them be kitchen police? Peeling potatoes? What???
AKA “office hours”, meaning a punishment that doesn’t go on your record.
…but it does go on the record…
Rack up enough NJP’s on your record & that alone would eventually lead to a Court Marshall or even Dishonorable Discharge.
think out the words.. NON Judicial Punishment… it is a PUNISHMENT the does NOT require going before a JUDGE…
when you get in trouble NOT for something that requires you to go to Mast, and is not something the boss can just ignore and they need to “do something” about it, they give you NJP, things like cleaning the bathrooms with a toothbrush, extra PT, things like that. not really “official” stuff, but stuff that’ll make you NOT want to do whatever it was that got you this punishment in the first place… however: a record of having done something that needed NJP to correct DOES go in your record, and is supposed to only be used as a record of events UNTIL you do something serious enough to warrant going to Captain’s Mast (I’m ex-Navy, no clue what the other services call it) THAT’S when the list gets called up again and used as evidence of how screwed up you are and whether or not the punishment you receive should be more or less than what is called for in the regulations IE:, no prior NJP and this is your first offense, they might reduce the sentence they would give out and put you on probation for 6 months, if you screw up again for ANY reason inside that time then the normal full punishment goes into effect otherwise you’re good to go… on the other hand if your list of NJP is long, they may say that since NJP didn’t work, then they’ll throw the book at you and give you a harder punishment than they normally would have.
if your the kodachi BR maybe a visit from you would be used but it can be anything from reduced pay, to cleaning rooms, to physical training, to humiliation by some required attire or act (e-6 salute everyone over e-4 for an hour is one I saw), quick change drills (return in specified uniform or mix of uniforms every 1/2 hour to hour for a period to be specified in the punishment).
the only one that is should NOT be on your list is the one about reduced pay… for that one you HAVE to go before a judge, therefore it is NOT “NON-Judicial Punishment”.
as a side note what is “the kodachi BR”? i only found references to a bronze medal in some game statistics site, not even sure what game it was for either, possibly WoW…?
ranma 1/2 kodachi the black rose kuno. the reduced pay is possible with an article 15 along with reduced rank and restriction of movement. all occur without court/judge involvement at the discretion of the ncoic at time of infraction the action is taken for.
I wonder if they could make a gun someone like Maxima can use that channels her ki-blasts instead of firing bullets.
Interesting technical exercise, I’m sure.
Thinking the big question for Max would be what advantage this gave?
Besides the previously revealed fact that a gun is more intimidating than a finger(even if that finger can blow you to kingdom come), it might allow her to fire her ki in ways she cannot do just by hand like for example; a narrow laser-like beam, fire loads of small ki blasts like an SMG or even transform her ki into an ultra bright flare…
Maybe! But then what would it look like, multiple barrels? One big barrel that splits into smaller ones? a big transforming blob of nanites?
And it also begs the question: wouldn’t she then be able to do that herself if she tried?
Probably not, that would probably cross the line, huh.
not if the weapon did energy focusing for her or controlled the pulse release that did not show her how the process worked or was mechanical process she couldn’t copy. but this would be putting dab’s tech in another’s control where it could be stolen to be reverse engineered or just misused by someone other than dabs. all of this neglects the fact that leander carries specialty rounds her power can’t reproduce to expand her abilites.
How much of a Mary Sue IS Maxima? Do you even need the rest of them?
The answer to that is to be found in the Big Fight that just finished. Do you even READ the strip?
Maxima is powerful, but one power she doesn’t have is to be in several places at once. And as the Big Fight showed, ARC-SWAT has underestimated the number of supers in the world (though as far as we know so far, most of them aren’t bad people… most of the “bad guys” in the Big Fight were under the influence of Vehemence’s aura).
Even so, the fact that there are more supers than ARC-SWAT realized, means that ARC-SWAT is eventually going to need not just one team, but several teams, just in case super-crimes occurred in multiple places at once.
“Mary Sue” a term used by trolls who wish to stop writers from creating works they enjoy. Being of such a nebulous definition that it prohibits constructive use. Thus it is a perfect use for the troll. Making responding to it’s use an act of feeding a troll.
“Mary Sue” has a clear definition and an appropriate and fair way to be used, and while as with any label it can be used with bad intention, I think that still a constructive discussion can be made around it as far as the participants are willing to.
Not really, no. Even TV Tropes has this to say (emphasis mine):
“… the advent of the Internet allowed the term to migrate out of the Star Trek community to most fandoms, losing pretty much any real meaning in the process. There are dozens upon dozens of essays that offer interpretations of what the term means, generally basing it off of some usages of it, but none of them are truly comprehensive or accepted.“
Incorrect.
Sorry, the amount of bad usage is such that the reasonable assumption is it’s used to troll or complain unfairly about female characters with Power.
Not necessarily just female characters, either. The male variant is usually referred to as “Mary Stu”, but it still amounts to the same thing… whining (unfairly) about a character that seems to have too much power and no apparent flaws.
Marty Stu.
I agree.
Thank you for saying that. It is much appreciated, as I value your opinion. Likewise for kindly avoiding further voicing any reservations you might still have.
Freedom of speech is good. Judging when not to exercise it is gooder.
Unexpected but not surprising :) Thank you as well.
One of the attributes of a Mary Sue is that, if she has any “faults” at all, they only serve to make her more endearing or more likable as a person.
Maxima does indeed have a serious fault: She can only advocate so much total energy among her powers & bumping up one power leads to a deficit in other powers. That was demonstrated when Vehemence had Max in a choke-hold & started pumping electricity into her. Max has to bump up her invulnerability & cut down on her strength…Which left Max stuck with no escaping from the choke-hold.
Well, that and being a complete psychopath. Not a hardass, a psychopath.
“… teleport bullets into a gun…”
That would really suck. If loose bullets would suddenly be teleported inside the frame of AK -style assault rifle, they could jam the hammer or knock off the dust cover during firing. If a bullet would be teleported inside the barrel, the resulting barrel obstruction could cause bulge or split the barrel when the next cartridge is fired.
Sometimes people will confuse the concept of “bullet” and “cartridge”. Bullet is just the projectile part of cartridge; a complete cartridge contains casing, primer, propellant and projectile. Since Halo is just learning about real firearms, this kind of mistakes are to be expected.
PS. If you go to base supply and ask for “300 bullets for your 7.62×51 mm rifle”, you will get a brown paper bag with 300 loose bullets, and they will ask if you want to use their re-leading bench.
Well, yeah, if you had the ability to teleport bullets into a gun, you could just as easily teleport small rocks instead. Nobody could ever shoot you because you could jam all their weapons with a thought. Not sure how else that power could be abused, but I’m sure you could come up with a few things…
If you could teleport ammo (sic) into a unloaded gun, what’s to stop you from teleporting ammo out of a loaded gun?
maybe the comic-book-physics of HOW your power operates?… maybe you can only do one-way teleports from stuff you are touching to places that you are NOT touching… IE you can’t pull a bullet/cartridge OUT of a gun unless you are TOUCHING the bullet FIRST?
That said Max’s gun is a single shot breach loader so no spring so you could teleport a bullet into firing position.
In all honesty, Maxima’s display is still a big no-no.
at the very least it sets a precedent that there are some things that make the rules null and void
I’ve heard the term “rule of funny”. It seems to be the cardinal rule for comics, but everyone has their own standards for what’s funny or not. Therein lies the rub.
well, I was reading it as “rule of funny” until they decided to explain out why she was allowed to do so in this strip. There are sometimes that trying to explain it in the actual storyline leaves a bad taste.
Just telekinesis is scary. Think about it they can move things with their mind. That means that they could move your brain and pretty much anything else that they want to. Resulting in a pretty fast death if they smash it against your skull. Or they could move your bones or if their telekinetic abilities are powerful enough they could rip them out. Another scary one is the ability to speed things up or slow them down at will because that gives them control over temperature and a whole lot of other things
And another thing no one thinks of is that anyone who can phase through things needs flight other wise they will fall through the floor
Don’t know about that. If, in the phased state, you no longer have “mass”, would you still be affected by gravity?
actually EVERYTHING has mass, even a beam of light. (this is why rainbows bend towards the earth, btw)
…You do know that rainbows aren’t beams of light going from one side to the other, right?
https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=2195 – this is why rainbows look like curves.
It is true that light has mass, but Earth doesn’t have nearly enough gravity to bend light in any meaningful way. For gravity to be strong enough to bend light enough to actually be measurable, you need something like a quasar, a galaxy, or a black hole.
Gravitational lensing is one of the methods we’ve used for years to detect quasars, binary star systems, black holes, and galaxies. More recently, we’ve tried to use it to measure the amount of “dark matter” between galaxies. Look up an article on “gravitational lensing” on Wikipedia.
The bottom line, though, is this: Yes, the Earth’s gravity bends light… but it bends it so little that even our most sensitive instruments can’t detect it. If the Earth had enough gravity to bend light enough that we could measure it, we’d all be crushed into a red paste.
True. The Sun’s gravity, however, is strong enough to bend light by a measurable amount (as used by a famous confirmation of General Relativity).
That’s sort of a given, since we can detect binary stars through gravitational lensing. When one of the stars passes in front of the other, it causes a lens effect on the light coming from the second star.
In hindsight, if we had a way to edit old posts, I would’ve changed the first paragraph to say “For gravity to bend light enough to actually be measurable, you need something with at least the mass of a star.”
Not quite. White dwarfs trap light in an orbit around them at/near their surface, and they have less mass than a star.
Huh… whaddaya know. I guess it’s true, even at my age you learn something new every day. Well done, Existor.
This NASA page reckons “a typical white dwarf is about as massive as the Sun”, the Sun being a “medium mass star” (but not the largest in that range): https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/objects/dwarfs1.html
Like stars of similar mass, they certainly bend light, but I’ve never heard, and can’t find, anything that claims light orbits them, unless you regard gravitational lensing as a “partial orbit” as the light passes them. While small and dim, they still emit light.
That’s one of the reasons why “you have to have line-of-sight to it” is usually one of the restrictions of telekinetic powers in the comics. They can’t see your brain unless they smash your skull open first (at which point you’re probably already dead) so they can grab it telekinetically.
As for people who can phase through things needing flight… as anifreak pointed out, it depends on whether or not you actually have mass when you’re phased. If you have no mass, gravity has no effect on you. Though, if you were going to phase your entire body through the wall, you’d probably want to build up some velocity first. It would suck to run out of momentum while you’re still inside the wall.
(So, yes, flight… even if it’s slow flight… pairs very well with phasing.)
Forgive me for being a bit morbid, but does this mean that the only way someone on the team can get shot is if Maxima doesn’t detect the gunshot/bullet? (I.E. a Hollywood-level silencer and/or an invisible bullet)
Only if they’re within a range where Maxima can reach out and grab it, and isn’t otherwise preoccupied. Maxima’s fast, but her speed is not limitless. I don’t know what her maximum flight speed is (though we know it’s at least 400 mph), but most bullets are supersonic… she’d have to:
(1) Be aware of the bullet
(2) Be aware of where it’s going and who it’s aimed at
(3) Be able to stop whatever she’s currently doing
(4) Fly fast enough to catch up to it, and then (of course)
(5) Catch it.
And there’s the other problem, as I pointed out in my reply to Emma: as the Big Fight showed, it seems like ARC-SWAT has underestimated the number of supers in the world. This means that ARC-SWAT is eventually going to need not just one team, but several teams, just in case super-crimes occurred in multiple places at once. What if Maxima’s stopping a super-bank robbery in California? Can she fly fast enough to catch a bullet aimed at Jiggawatt, who is stopping a super-crime in Florida? Probably not!
“…her maximum flight speed is (though we know it’s at least 400 mph)…”
Max is capable of flying at supersonic speed (ie: faster than sound), because she’s broken the sound barrier when making a fast trip from the bank to Archon HQ. At worst, Max’s reflexes” had also better be “up to speed” even while flying that fast, otherwise she couldn’t react in time to avoid any obstacles in her flight path.
Possibly. Although I would point at the grabbing the bullet, or the super wedgie, as being more accurate gauges. The problem with the flight from the bank to Archon is that attention was specifically drawn to live broadcasts having a delay of anything up to five minutes.
So Max could have travelled at impressively fast (to Sydney) but still sub-sonic speeds. Stopping off, at Starbucks, for a coffee. Yet still make an impressive entrance, right on cue.
Mmm, mind you, I will let that stand, but have just had a counter-thought. The inside the ambulance scene, where Arianna saw Sydney’s interview, via TV, and wanted Maxima to ‘intercept!’.
But Arianna might just have been picking up the beginning of a five minute long interview, whereas Maxima could have been coming out, at the end of it, to Sydney doing a reprise of her earlier comments. Although it looked like an instantaneous transmission, that may not necessarily have been the case.
*sniffle*
We might be fast approaching lock-down time, when comments get disabled. And the RL people who I speak to the most, are going to all be off on holiday this weekend!
I think my dog is going to be very hard pressed, to fulfil her most demanding job. That of keeping my loneliness at bay.
*tail stops wagging*
well, I hope neither of you will bay about it.
For everyone’s information they sell pink guns as “womens guns” all over. However;they are NOT in .22 or .25 caliber. I’m seen them in 9mm,.357,and even in .45. I wouldn’t laugh at any of them,I might find myself breaking out in bullet holes,ouch.
As the orbs rotate around they should brush Varia and have her shift through a number of powerless just visible enough that Leon notes it –then forgets to tell anyone. My thought is that Sydney only found one object in the ocean, a sentient computer made of nanotech (many times mere complex than anything going by that description here) that absorbed into the palms of her hands as she grasped it. The potential for seven power sets was already _in_ Sydney. The interface allows her to express two of them at a time by changing her DNA to the “powered” version. The orbs themselves are light/field representations of the AI program, linked to Sydney. Eventually she will be able to retain a power set without holding the orb. In theory, ability to use any of the powers at low level without focus on one may be achieved. The AI was able to unlock seven (hence that many orbs) because seven of her eight grandparents had a trait that could be expressed into a power.. (or maybe two of them shared the same power).
And then the seventh ball is shown to be able to sample powered humans and duplicate them –and Halo becomes Minima ! The golden mini me of Maxima…
Spellchecker: powerless -> power sets just visible
an interesting theory, one worth delving into… As long as we also assume that the balls are still solid, as they have certainly hit Sydney and Math at a minimum, plus the whole thing with Maxima failing to pull the tube away from Sydney.
Also, as far as Varia is concerned she touched Sydney and the balls orbited both of them… but she noted no change in powers. That tells me that they are not encoded in her DNA, per se, so much as the “trigger” is in her DNA now.
I’m not sure how I feel about the bloodline aspect, for a variety of reasons… for one, what kind of trait would be expressed as the PPO? Or the lighthook? Furthermore it seems rather muddled rather than what has so far been a very straightforward description/origin for every power introduced. And yes, the Halo power set is still quite the mystery, but I think if it’s going to be a good mystery it’ll go whole hog, rather than half-mundane.
Just my thoughts though.
I like this Idea. +1
As long as we also assume that the balls are still solid…
They this can go either way. Physics is funny like that.
For all we know they are merely an interface/channel for “the power within” that exists as a very strong field of some “unknown to science atm” force. they can thus physically interact with objects and people but only while active. this field effect need not especially consist of any particular particle(s) and as such can be beyond detection. (given certain definitions of detection)
Perhaps being observed is what makes them exist. When Syd sleeps, so do they.
Oh the vivisectionist lab boys would have a field day with her…
“As long as we also assume that the balls are still solid…”
Her orbs are solid enough to deck Math…And to turn Shadow Boxer into the Nutcracker Suite.
Just to be pedantic about a different topic: Peggy is wrong when she says “focus on the target”. A person firing a weapon with open sights should focus on the front sight and allow the target to blur out-of-focus. Focusing on the target is what causes “groups” like Ren’s.
shhh shhhh ssshhhhhh there is always someone wrong on the internet. Always.
Just stop struggling and go to sleeeep
Am I the only one forgoing the gun safety argument long enough to notice that the 1776 post happened the week of the 4th of July? Anybody?
Just me then.
” ! ”
Yes. You are!
Good eye!
You win a cookie!
Hmm, amusing co-incidence. Almost makes me want to rent the musical, as historically inaccurate as it is. (among other things, painting one of my ancestors as a wishy-washy guy who didn’t want to be remembered.)
Thank the stars this gun trype is (just about) over with. I almost stopped reading this comic, as it’s getting all real life preachy. And that’s pretty gay for a comic book that isn’t sponsored by some church…. And what’s the use if Maxima can catch a bullet if she has already thrust the barrel of her gun threw a perp’s (or Syndey’s) head? Anyway, like I said, Good riddance to preachy text. “Because guns are dangerous, M’kay.”
Curtis, if you’re going to sound like a troll, expect to be treated like a troll. Go ahead and leave; I doubt anyone here would miss you. (Or me… I haven’t been here long enough. They might miss Yorp or Guesticus, but not you or I.)
Frankly, you should have expected at least some firearms training to appear in the comic; ARC-SWAT is, after all, a branch of the military, and not everyone who serves in ARC is a super. I don’t know where you get the idea that it’s being preachy, because it’s really not. If it was obviously pro-gun or anti-gun, then it would be preachy. It’s just a slice-of-life that happens to be about the recruits going through gun training, because all military recruits get gun training.
And the gun training is going to be realistic, because if the comic demonstrates improper gun training, someone might get the wrong idea about guns, and go do something stupid, and that leaves DaveB open to a lawsuit. It wouldn’t surprise me at all in a country where a woman can sue a shopping center for not warning her that squirrels live outdoors (she was on her way back to her car and was attacked by a squirrel in the parking lot… fortunately the judge threw the case out.)
I would miss you!
[enable preachy mode]
We try to avoid chasing away commentators. Although too many negative comments can make someone’s presence much less appreciated.
What is very nice though is when people realise that having a constructive debate is a better way of getting their message across. And that even negative points can be raised, without causing offence, if done in a polite way.
curtis79 can come across with a very abrasive attitude, at times. But not as bad as some. Where possible I prefer to interpret everyone’s comments in the most favourable fashion possible. For instance some people are simply not aware when they are coming across as being rude.
Of course it does not hurt to point that out. One thing to bear in mind though (and no implications towards curtis79, as I am just speaking in general) is that this comic and comments board can attract a number of individuals who have conditions which result in low empathy.
Although ADD and ADHD do not incorporate this, the tolerant attitudes fostered towards those also extend to other conditions.
Out in the wider internet they will get used to people treating them harshly, because of making rude or insensitive remarks. Then defending themselves, using the anonymity of the internet as a shield, by resorting to troll-like replies. Somebody with low empathy (be it due to a condition, personality type or simply due to being young) may be ill-equipped to deal with such accusations, without doing that.
If we cut them some slack, hopefully they will find more constructive ways to voice their opinions.
And on that vein, everyone should feel free to point out if they feel unhappy about things. Sometimes others will express that they feel the same too. Other times we can point out where there are flaws.
[unenable preachy mode] (as if I can!)
*laps up some ice-cold chilled water, and puts on Fonzie-cool sunglasses*
“…that’s pretty gay…”
*reads none of the above* I originally came here of a comic, not a sermon. Regardless, I will express my opinion and ignore others who are annoying. Or, sometimes, just for the fun of it, throw some salt into the wound of ignorance. Because, you know, constructive criticism is all about attack the person and not what they said. Maybe I’m the only one who makes music around here and understand pacing and flow as part of rhythm and not ham-fisted stupidity in the form of “I like this comic so you should shut up, stupid head!”
Oh if he does not read comments, then I rather wasted my time saying anything in support of him.
On the plus side though, it means there is no chance of him being offended, if anyone tells him to go ahead and f*ck off! :-)
I need not read a 10,000 words essay about me when I honestly critiqued the comic with one small paragraph. Where I come from, I know what sugar covered bullshit sounds like coming from egomaniacs.
Honest critique is always appreciated here. Doing it rudely is not. Expect to reap what you sow.
The essay was in defence of your right to make such a critique. It had to be long because your being rude made it hard to do that.
Egomaniac? Yep. And proud of it. :-D
I woke up thinking of this thread, and decided I had done you an injustice by not mentioning some things.
• Your avatar is eye-catching, and I enjoy seeing it!
• I find your writing style to be interesting and entertaining.
• You have a refreshing attitude to life.
I• I hope that you take these comments as constructive criticism
• Please accept my apologies for both my lengthy posts (here and elsewhere) and my preachy style. I tried t joke about the latter because I realise it is how I come across, a lot.
• Finally, I hope that we are all able to set this heated debate aside, and not let it interfere with our enjoyment of the comic and making comments. I, for one, bear no ill-will over it.
as long as the pink latex gun’s holster isn’t a rifle holster and it didn’t come from saints row i wouldn’t mind carrying it around…what? latex and other rubber products hurt like hell when you hit someone with them and they have to be close for the psychology thing!
@ DaveB
I just found a page elsewhere with a reference to Sidney which I could not resist linking here right away :-)
oops, the link did not get through, trying again: https://www.tmi-comic.com/comic/tmi-kids-hot-linked/#comment-26158
Oh, I just saw that AndyO also posted earlier in this thread ;-)