Grrl Power #363 – Where are they now?
Opal could try opening up a very small portal to slowly equalize the pressure or communicate with a cohort, but of course her cell is closely monitored, and the time it would take for her to decompress is multiples of hours, and they’re not going to let on how many atmospheres she’s experiencing at the moment.
Pressurizing a cell effectively negates several problem powers. Teleportation and portals, as well as phasing. It probably introduces a bunch of other complications, but in a world without alien or magic “Power-B-Gone” tech, or some peculiar substance like vibranium that phasers can’t penetrate (not Star Trek phasers… you know what I mean) you have to start getting creative. Of course there’s the induced coma, but as far as I’m aware there are significant risks to keeping someone in a state like that for an extended period of time. To the best of my knowledge, people can live in a high pressure environment indefinitely, it’s the decompression that’s the dangerous bit. Beyond that I’m not sure how else to incarcerate someone to whom physical barriers are meaningless. Maybe a poison that requires regular antidotes? A shock collar that activates as soon as their powers do is super risky because it would have to incapacitate them before their powers carried them beyond the effectiveness of the collar, and that assumes you can create tech that can determine when a power has been activated and doesn’t knock them on their ass every time they sneeze.
People don’t get to chose their names, and most parents don’t name their children by factoring in the possibility that they will one day become a crime lord, supervillain, or vampire lord, and will therefore need a threatening sounding name. That said there’s probably not a lot of mob bosses naming their first sons Mortimer.
I like the name Kevin for Vehemence because as names go, it’s humorously non-threatening. Apologies to any readers named Kevin who are looking to dominate the MMA world or become despotic dictators or anything. The most intimidating Kevin I can think of right off the bat is Kevin Spacey just because he can play some pretty intense roles, but really if you say Kevin to me the first place I go is Kevin Smith. After that there’s Bacon, Costner, Hart… uh, Nealon, Klein, Pollak… beyond that I’d have to start googling. None of whom really strike fear into anyone’s heart. Most major supervillains tend to have cooler or threatening sounding names; Victor (von Doom) Sebastian (Shaw)… also Sebastian the Crab so maybe that one’s a wash, Lex (short for Alexander Luthor). I try to not play that game when I can, or play against the trope like in this case. Deus is the obvious example of me breaking my own rule there.
This only applies to humans who become supervillains and not guys like Brainiac, Darkseid, Ultron, what have you. When it comes down to it, Brainiac and Ultron were given names by their creators probably with the intention of making them sound cool. Darkseid, well, we pretty much have to take his word that that’s his real name. I mean he might have been born Kevin McGeoghegan, but anyone who questions his current moniker get the Omega Beam express.
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Or you could have used Keith?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LliGvt3SMsw
Tim: Timothy, Timmy, Timmers. Very non-threatening name. Ask any wizard.
I read that to the tune of the chimney song from Merry Poppins.
Uh oh. Those of us familiar with personal wormholes can find a way out of that cell, without too much difficulty. Just make a small portal, which gradually equalises the pressure over the course of a day or two. Keeping an eye open for symptoms of the bends. Only once there is no air flow through that, open a bigger one to make the escape.
Thats directly adressed in the text under the comic.
Yes a very small wormhole would gradually equalise the pressure.
it would also take a very long time before it would make it safe for Opal to leave, and you dont think the actual pressure of the cell is being monitored closely?
Yeah, beyond the glowy-edge to her portals being a dead giveaway, they just need to monitor air-pressure, and run a compressor every time it drops below a certain level…
Prisoners become adept at hiding things, so I would not count on spotting the glow from a small portal.
But the countermeasure would be a perfectly good one, used in conjunction with the monitoring that DaveB mentioned, in his blog. Sound call.
A small portal into a diving bell, or a bends chamber….
Heh, yes, *if* she knew where a convenient one was located
it would also have to be pressed at the time and she would have the same truble getting out of the bends chamber so she would just end up in a smaller chamber with no netflix while she waited for arc to come get her
Providing it was at an equal, or greater pressure to her prison, she would have one distinct advantage. Such devices have controls that are accessible to the users. Unlike her prison cell.
So long as she has enough time to de-pressurise, before they can find her, then she can walk or portal out, as she chooses.
There is one thing which will help Archon in this process. The world does not have a huge number of decompression chambers. So, until villains start building them secretly, or stealing them, there are a limited number of places they need look.
It’s not difficult.
1 pressure tank of the 500-gallon variety (normal farm equipment used for storage of various items – also normal at many less-common places, including oilpatch suppliers)
2 pressure valves (available at any welding supply – also any dive shop – also many other places)
I regulator valve and sufficient tankage to last for the whole process (SCUBA style regulators are ideal, and can be had at any dive shop, or you could fake it with different style regulator valves from a welding supply store although the controls would require much more constant attention).
Helium tankage proportional to the square of the pressure you’re decompressing from (chemical supply, welding supply, diving supply ….)
And a few minutes worth of welding.
Poof, one decompression chamber. Admittedly, one that you’ll have to know what you’re doing to use because a lot of stuff won’t be automated, but it ain’t hard to build.
I think I would prefer to put Jamie Hyneman in charge of the health and safety on that project. Having seen all too many demonstrations of how destructive pressure containers, of various sorts, can be. Those ‘few minutes of welding’ are unlikely to be up to the task, without such safety oversight and experience.
But, real world quibbling aside, comic villains are perfectly capable of undertaking such tasks, so well suggested. :-)
“…Providing it was at an equal, or greater pressure to her prison”
That’s the key point right there. It would mean that Opal would not only have to know where such a decomp chamber IS, but she would also have to know (or guess) the amount of pressure that Arc-Aegis is using right now AND that it’s set to the same pressure level as Aegis’ chamber ahead of time.
It’s an awful risk to take, based on a mere GUESS being made ahead of time…
No then you go back to the small portal option. She opens up a small portal until the two places equalize. If it’s small enough Arc-Aegis might just think it’s normal leakage from delivering food.
There’s also the exact mixture of gasses that Arc-Aegis is using in her containment chamber. Different mixtures are necessary at different levels of pressurization. For the “small portal until both chambers equalize” would either have to start off with the same mixture of air OR be essentially evacuated (in a state of vacuum), for that to work.
Even just a sudden change in the mixture of atmospheric gasses can be fatal, even if the air pressure isn’t changed.
Open a portal to a tiny chamber with a pressure sensor. They equalise in a short time, a computer mixes gasses & pressurises her personal decompression chamber, then she can portal there.
Why all you would need to do is have it deep enough under the water and when she drops the pressure it starts to collapse on itself problem solved. But then I’m a firm believer in if you are going to make a hole in the ground to toss bad guys in make sure there is only one way out.
Ahh, I see, from DaveB‘s blog, that has already been considered. Kudos.
Through monitoring, they would be aware that an escape attempt was taking place and, although they could not prevent her escaping, once the pressure is equalised, they could initiate countermeasures before then, such as sleeping gas.
And not knowing just how much pressure they put the atmosphere in the cell under, would make it a lot harder for her to estimate safe decompression times. Not a bad solution, given that, presently, they are restricted to off-the shelf technology.
Why wouldn’t they be able to stop her? There’s probably an airlock beond that door to make it easy to enter (otherwise they wouldn’t be able to feed her).
And the gasses offcourse, don’t need equalised pressure before you can start with that
You missed my “… once the pressure is equalised”. By that stage it is too late, she can step through the portal faster than they can open an airlock door.
So any countermeasures (such as the ones you and I suggested, or Chronocidal above) need to be implemented before that point. But monitoring the pressure levels allows that to be easily done.
You’re assuming that the pressure could be equalized quickly, with a small portal. If the pressure does equalize quickly, then the excess nitrogen dissolved in her blood will boil out, and if it doesn’t equalize quickly then some guards can come in and taze her.
There’s also the question of whether or not she needs to know her current location in relation to her destination in order to open a wormhole. If she does, just having her wake up in a windowless room, unable to orient herself in relation to the outside world, is a fairly effective containment as well.
Not at all. Check my initial comment, at the top of the thread, I stipulated one to two days. It takes a long time to safely de-pressurise, without the risk of the bends.
Your second paragraph is fine though. Up until the point that she finds out where she is. Say by her lawyer, fellow prisoner or visitor telling her.
Alternatively she need merely get a peek at somewhere beyond the cell, and she can open up a route there. They do need to feed her, give her medical attention or otherwise interact with her. Even if jailers are careful, sooner or later someone will slip up and she will see through.
To make an explosive decompression an actual threat, they would need to have her on Trimix, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimix_%28breathing_gas%29 In high enough pressures Oxygen actually becomes toxic. So they would have to keep her on breathing gas and would be monitoring the levels of O2, N2, and H2. She also probably has a blood gasses monitor on her so they could keep from killing her accidentally. If she decides she wants to go on a health kick, her increase use of O2 from doing yoga could throw off her blood gases enough to possibly harm herself.
Explosive decompression would not be a threat just under Trimix. While under pressure, with any combination of gasses, the body’s liquids and tissues will take up dissolved gasses to the point of saturation. Once the pressure lessens the gasses, now supersaturated, will start to be released and the lungs will scrub the blood clean of these gasses. If the pressure is released to fast bubbles will form in the blood and tissues resulting in Decompression Sickness. A Nitrox breathing mixture, air being approximately 80% Nitrogen/20% Oxygen, is often used to about 130 feet or 5 atmospheres of pressure. After only 20 minutes at this pressure decompression is required, although only a short decompression cycle is needed. If at this pressure for hours, days, longer… It would take days of decompression to remove all the dissolved gasses. Explosive decompression would certainly result in Decompression Illness and would cause “a quick but agonizing death” unless treated immediately.
It’s probably the best they can do, and should be mostly effective. The only way to escape I can think of offhand would be to portal to another pressure chamber maintained at the same pressure. That would require Opel knowing exactly where it was, and whoever is helping knowing the exact pressure of the chamber she’s held in. So it would need help both on the outside, and someone on the inside (Harem isnt based at that facility) who knows the pressure (which will be classified/need to know) and who can get mesages to Opel (You would assume the intercom and any allowed netflix etc privalidges would be closely monitored).
Yup. Solidly argued, on all points.
Actually, all it requires is her knowing where it is and that it is kept sealed. She can equalize the pressures herself – small short duration portals will do it. Yes, they will apply whatever the countermeasures are for her trying to escape, but as long as she’s willing to occasionally experience them she would eventually be able to equalize pressures and escape.
It does still depend on having a pressure chamber available though. Unlikely at the moment, but if she were to escape or be released for some period then she could set it up.
Such could be countered manually. But if they got bored with doing that they could rig up a device to do it automatically.
When the pressure gets below X, release sedative gas into the chamber. Page the anaesthetist to monitor her vitals. Once the pressure is above that point, allow it to ventilate.
Note that this kind of prison would always need to have someone ready and able to enter her cell, in case of any type of emergency. So there would be someone (with breathing apparatus) able to attach medical sensors to her, that the doctor could check, even from a remote location. Aided by CCTV feed. Only needing to actually come, in person, if detecting a problem, that they could not supervise remotely.
Killjoy switch. “If pressure drops below X in Y time period the cell monitor computer assumes an escape is imminent and dump ALL pressure to sea-level within 0.5 seconds.”
You can add a safety (“…unless the exterior airlock door opens first”) if you feel particularly kindly but as McGill Feighan can attest a teleporter is one of the most dangerous of all supers.
That would work. But there would be serious legal issues with that option! It amounts to automatic execution, without trial, of somebody who has not been convicted of any crime. Even worse it could be triggered by an accidental leak which Opal had nothing to do with!
Whoever set that up could well be facing attempted homicide or, if she died, homicide charges.
Sometimes in order to make a supervillain containment system fail safe for the general population, it must be decidedly fail fail unsafe for the villain.
Not that this will prevent legal issues, but I’m sure that issue came up somewhere in the design discussion for ARCHON’s containment facility.
Except that if a safer option is available and is not taken (without very good reason), then the individuals responsible for deciding and implementing that are responsible for what would amount to an extra-judicial execution.
The particular language you use to describe it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, likewise the particular charge. In the UK I imagine they would run with Culpable homicide.
Make the safety measure; “pepper cell with sleepy darts and tracers.”
*shrug*. Get blamed for a bad guy getting squished while trying to escape custody; get blamed fwhen she waltzes out and starts (e.g. and not the nastiest thing I could come up with) ‘porting satchel charges into public buildings. Plus remember, she’s as safe as houses… UNLESS she tries to escape custody.
Heh, she is as safe as houses with the original version (within a reasonable tolerance for the situation). But rather less so with your suggested modification. Any leak (which is bound to happen sometime, especially if she is in there for years) will automatically condemn her to death. Even if she was a model prisoner, and had nothing to do with it.
As such it would be the prison authorities fault, not hers. Even worse if it is determined that she was an blameless victim of Vehemence’s aggro aura. Then they will have executed an innocent person, for no good reason. And should face the harshest penalties available for doing that!
I would need to know more details about Opels powerset, but once this cell system becomes known I can see it being circumvented thusly.. though it does require, as noted, another pressure chamber. Though my solution requires two.
First, a SMALL pressure chamber. Not to port oneself into, but a small volume of the chamber’s air you are currently in. This small chamber, kept at one atmosphere, can then register the pressure at which the holding cell is being maintained, and be keyed to bring the larger ‘receiving’ chamber to the same pressure.
Once you are reasonably certain your larger receiving chamber has gotten to equivalent pressure.. port.
She would still need to know where the other chamber was to open a portal to it and comunications will be monitored. Also… do we know how accurate her portal ability is at range? She looked very accurate close up, but if you sent her GPS co-ordinates or whatever how close could she get to them if she’d never seen the place? a feew feet to the side could put the portal outside the small pressure chamber.
A thought about the small chamber to find the pressure too. They may have thought of that and there’s a way around it. Detect a pressure loss, or rise, sleepy gas her, and CHANGE THE PRESSURE she’s held at. you could do it slowly without harming her or her noticing, but it means any data gathered at the other end is useless because the chamber will no longer be at the pressure that was measured.
Just a thought but helium. Deep pressure and the bends are circumvented by helium instead of nitrogen in the atmosphere. All noise would change but would allow her to be decompressed relatively quickly the question is how long does she need the helium atmosphere to purge the nitrogen in her blood?
Um, cell pressure is probably monitorized. Depressurizing that way at a safe speed will give them hours to notice something’s up; depressurizing fast enough to fool them guarantees death by nitrogen embolia.
Lol, ninja’d
Aside from everything else, she would also have to hide the horrid whistle that the pressure difference would produce through a tiny hole.
Assuming she doesn’t go deaf from it, that is.
depending on the actual mechanic of her portals she could easely escape this cell with no trouble outside extreme boredom.
she simply open a tunnel of portals so close one another that they keep the pressure in and loop it once she is inside,, gradualy letting a little pressure out at a time.
or she could portal to deep into the ocean and create a portal inside her mouth to allow her to breathe while she goes up and decompress along the way
The portal inside her mouth wouldn’t work – she needs to breathe air pressurized to near what her current pressure is, otherwise her lungs will collapse and she’ll die.
um, yeahhh… Mythbusters tested that one… if she ended up ACTUALLY doing what you suggest… she would become an instant toothpaste tube with her insides squirting out to wherever the portal opens up at… that is, at least until the portal closes because of her death…
Okay. Let’s see if this lands where it should…
Not only do you have to concern yourself with pressure. You also have to worry about gas mixture.
For the most obvious example, you can portal to the deep ocean, but then you drown.
Unless I am completely off base, if she portaled to a convenient pressurized tank, that had a NORMAL mix of air, she’d suffer from too much oxygen.
Depressurizing in place, even if the jailers didn’t catch on, could well subject her to the wrong volume of oxygen and other gasses, resulting in the same result if she portaled herself into a helium tank.
And if she needs to be awake and aware to maintain her portals, then putting herself in a position where she can’t sleep and survive, for days at a time, possibly while relying on her jailers not to gas her into unconsciousness, would be a foolhardy proposition.
Hmm… I think that this guy might be a decently disturbing Kevin. But that’s just me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Need_to_Talk_About_Kevin
I was thinking of this guy:
thecabininthewoods.wikia.com/wiki/Kevin
He he. Love the t-shirt. One more for the DaveB Fall Collection. Fan appeal production volumes, of course.
Completely, loved that panel :D
Yeah, that shirt is great :D
The whole panel, I literally laughed out loud. when I got to reading the T-shirt, I laughed again.
It reminds me of that old Star Trek episode “Wolf in the Fold,” when the Enterprise crew encountered the entity Redjac. To beat Redjac, they had to drug his occupied host in a state much like Vehemence is…
Heh…Stoned out of his gourd.
:D
Likewise. :-D
i actually want Vehemence shirt now.
I want his cell.
…With taco pizza…Doritos on taco pizza…
Are they keeping Vehemence stoned?
Yep, high as a kite and half as harmless. Granted, odds are something will break the drug flow at some point, because super jail breaks are classic. Until then, he will be putting on weight like someone constantly eating junk food.
They will have to sober him up for any court appearances. That will be the risky stage. Remote camera of course but he may risk self-inflicted harm again to build up a charge.
They could probably bring him around to court safely, asuming Maxima looking over his shoulder.
In his current state he doens’t have enough power to resist her, she could easely rip him apart if it comes to it
He doesn’t have to appear in court in person. If it were me, he’d never see the light of day ever again. The moment you put him near anyone, he’ll throw a punch or start a fight and BOOM! He’s super dangerous.
Only oth
Crud, my thumb slipped. Sorry.
What I was saying is the only thing I’ve seen contain his power is Halo’s shield, but that’s not a practical method of containment.
…
Also, Kirby’s Epic Yarn is an awesome game! One of my favorites on the Wii.
He doesn’t power up *that* fast, he had a huge supply before the fight and still waited through most of it.
Max and Halo so Sydney could keep an eye out for the aura.
Noting that, in many places, it is legal for the accused to “appear” in court via video-link. For someone as potentially dangerous as Vehemence, I suspect this would be the favoured option.
Court appearances, and any meetings with his lawyer(s). Which he still has a right to, Supervill or not. They ‘could’ try to have him tried ‘in absentia’, but again his lawyers could raise a fuss about that.
While ARC is DoD/military, unless they are going to tag any super as an ‘enemy combatant’ they all have the right to be tried in a civilian court of law.
‘Big Fat Kevin’ has kind of less threat to it than Vehemence. Good countermeasure to make him fat and lazy.
My suspicion is they hope to keep him there long enough for his batteries to wear down enough so he isn’t self powering. THEN they can put him in a remote monastery where he can study meditation. Perhaps with Sydney.
Funny thing is, he seems like such a nice polite boy…
A remote monestary, with Sydney? You mean anything like this?
https://fav.me/d92hbfo
… Holy shit, I can’t tell you how much I love that picture!
Certainly looks like they are making use of ahem medicinal smoke. Or perhaps nitrous oxide? Although that would require the constant services of an anaesthetist, to ensure they did not overdo it.
Constant, or long-term, exposure to either would probably be vetoed. But pumping it in, anytime he looked irritated by something, would be a reasonable precaution, given the threat level he would other wise pose, if he did manage to escape.
actually, IIRC, it has actually been ruled by courts that a punishment that would otherwise fall under “cruel and unusual punishment”- and I’m fairly sure a court would consider exposing an ordinary prisoner to a constant dose of drugs WOULD be considered cruel and unusual- that if you can justify exactly why an otherwise-illegal procedure is strictly necessary to contain a prisoner, then you can legally perform said procedure.
Noted. But here it is not necessary. Ergo why I said it would probably be vetoed.
Considering that THC has (effectively) no lethal dosage, that’s actually the best method I can think of keeping Big V under wraps. (I think one study determined you need to eat 3 times your body weight at once in marijuana before you risked a fatal OD)
So in essence, you’re feeding him a steady flow of My Little Pony, Marijuana, Kirby, and other cutesy things.
GOD DAMNIT I pressed cancel reply
You are assuming he is not (/shudder) a Brony already
Now now, we have quite a strong My Little Pony contingent in the readership, no teasing now. Nor pulling of manes or pony-tails.
:-D
Tempted to add a reply about seeing many dogs chasing ponies around paddocks…
Prefer the original series from the 80’s, when the ponies actually looked like ponies… albeit talking ponies o_O
FWIW, I think the best way to contain him is with a well-stocked cabin on a lonely tropical island.
No people around means no opportunities to make people violent.
He can still get some vehemic energy from natural causes, such as a bird of prey taking down its meal, or even a violent storm (you mentioned a tropical island there? ;) ) passing through. It won’t “taste” as good as deliberate, cognitive violence does to him, but it still charges him up.
Cue a wave of muggings. Perpetrated by individuals who are caught surprisingly easily…
“I have aggo-aura powers. You must sentence me to a cabin in a tropical island paradise!”
:-D
I was gonna conquer the world… until I got high.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeYsTmIzjkw :P
Official endorsement statement, regarding Vehemence’s means of imprisonment:
SILENT BOB: ….
I was gonna conquer Everest … until I got high.
Do you think the details of his incarceration are “need to know” in order to prevent random stoners from attacking in an attempt to get in on Kevin’s sweet gig?
gotta say i LOVE vehemence T-shirt hehe
I think that’s a first for villain prison, keep them to high to do anything.
… And/or having too good a time to even consider leaving.
Welcome to supervillian super-max. Here’s your drugs and video games. Peace out dude
I might consider become a supervillain just to get in there.
I mean, you’ve got free meals, free game, and the drugs are just a bonus at that point.
And happy fun children’s channel cartoons being piped to your TV every waking hour…
every day…
for the rest of your life.
Welcome to hell!
Depends on the cartoon, some of them are good… some of them are good but with music that would drive ypou insane.
constant loop of the theme to Dastardly and Mutley’s flying circus anyone?
“#So, stop the pidgeon! Stop the pidgeon……”
Gotta assume they didn’t get lucky with their required secondary powers though.
Poor Kevin’s not going to be the same after a while of that.
Not true. Being a healthy adult, it’ll take a while but he’ll bounce back. Of course if they are keeping him near constantly high then the withdrawal stage would be like super powered steroids.
But yeah, giving it to him in doses wouldn’t be a problem and the level needed to get him utterly baked, like to zombie like levels, would be frowned upon by any auditor / person who comes to investigate. Still it’s the most awesome containment field ever.
Vehemence: Ughhhhhh what did you do……..
Officer: Kept you high as a kite
Vehemence: Ugghhhhhhhhhhh
Officer: Here, take this *smashes a block of ice or something
Vehemence: *Is mostly healed up*
The atmosphere from planet Snoop Lion is quite effective at preventing most aggression and causing bouts of forgetfulness. The only issue is it makes some people anxious.
I’ve got the oddest idea that about 50% of the anxiety is causes, is because it’s illegal.
Oh my god. Is Opal brazilian? *-*
(brazilian fan excitement)
Or perhaps she’s Portuguese. Or from Mozambique or Macau. Lots of possibiities, including Toronto.
Maaaan, don’t kill my hype!
“Luana” sounds more brazilian than Portuguese. I wished there was more Portuguese characters in comics nowadays
For you, she’s Brazillian. ;)
Could we have more “proof” of her “Brazilian” status? lol
A visual confirmation of that would definitely put this comic in the NSFW category. Or were you talking about another type of ‘Brazilian’?
Remember, all supers have no body hair (unless that’s part of their superpower ie a Beast Form, or Kitty Girl etc…but that’s fur not hair.)
So in fact all super heroines have Brazilians.
And Gamesman I used to live in Brazil from 69-79. Sao Paulo, then Campinas then Souzas. I went to EAC in Campinas through 7th grade. (okay that ages me for you punks, so what.)
As they taught me in Brazil, “Brasileiras tao boazinhas. Nao? “
No body hair ISN’T [a] Brazilian….
Of course Harem would now have some clues about what to expect. I suppose it wouldn’t be a problem for her that various copies of her were in different pressures? Hypothetically, she might “unteleport” whichever copies of her that were contained, and set up a pressure chamber to teleport into at leisure.
True.
Trying to modify this for Harem would probably require sedating her until all her bodies could be captured. Once they are all in pressure cells (individually or together) then it would effectively contain her.
Of course, if she is sneaky she will start familiarising herself with a pressure chamber somewhere safe. It would require the assistance of an ally, but once she could teleport there without seeing it remotely, or a body being present, that becomes possible.
Needless to say, figuring out the present atmospheric density then becomes important. But she could do that with some improvised equipment. Such as if she can obtain some translucent or clear tubing. Or if an ally smuggles in a pressure sensor.
The latter is better, as it can be calibrated to show her the normal atmospheric pressure. The former would need to be used both in her cell and outside, to find the difference. But smuggling something out of a cell is easier than the reverse.
Or even more simply, sneaking a look at the setting in the airlock. They are bound to cover that up, but she would have time to find a way.
Mmm. Or one of her bodies might keep a pressure sensor on her from now on. If she fears being captured, that body just goes into storage. With the sensor.
In fact, just the act of putting a body into storage would be a way of overcoming this. Providing she does that before being pressurised. And also assuming that Harem can recall a body from storage at a remote location. If she can only recall them adjacent to one of her other bodies, then that is more problematic for her.
Doesn’t Harem have a weight limit for teleporting? Because if so could you just attach a bunch of weighted shackles to her so she goes over that limit and thus can’t teleport.
She teleports what she wants to teleport. She can teleport naked if she wants to.
Well.. You could make it something very heavy that is incorporated in her body, where removing it would mean you will die quickly/instantly.
Something lead (heavy)(but covered in something your body doesn’t mind), that covers up a hole in a major artery for example? Or perhaps, feed her poison and have something heavy in her body which releases the antidote.
Such strategies mean that she wouldn’t be able to teleport with the item, but she would die without the item.
It’s kind of gruesome though..
It’s how we want her to *vorp* as well ;)
Tracker under the skin.
Can’t stop her, but she’d never be able to unteleport that body without being followed.
I don’t see why she couldn’t choose to not teleport something foreign in her body in the same way as something on her body.
So I think they would have to make sure that harem could not leave the item behind..
True.
Note that Harem does have the requirement to see (or at least precisely identify the location of) something. So if it is deep enough (or squishy enough) that she cannot feel it by touch, then I very much doubt she could do anything about it. Not until she had an X-ray or ultra sound anyhow. And even then, it may turn out that she cannot separately teleport things that are part of her.
If she’s truly sneaky, she’ll keep an extra body unrevealed and modified to be even less recognisable than her regulars. Always save backups.
Yup, I always work on the assumption that there are six Harems. Possibly more, but that would be boring. So go with six.
How do we know she hasn’t done that? :D
I should clarify my comment slightly. As my previous talks both about precautions that Harem can take now, whist she is free to do what she likes, and also things that she would need to do once she is captured and put into confinement.
Knowing things like this give her an advantage, in case her double-agent status is exposed.
Actually since her teleports are instantaneous. Since she goes into a state of pure energy that’d instantly undo the pressurization process. Which is something that those who can go into a state of incorporeal being [like Concretia] can take advantage of. Well as long as they can do their entire body all at once.
We know that Harem’s bodies, when they are put into storage, come out in exactly the same state as they went in. For instance if bleeding when going in, their wounds are at an identical stage when removed. Regardless of how much time has elapsed in the meantime.
Which would imply that the same happens with her regular teleports. She uses exactly the same mechanism for both, albeit for a different purpose. If anything I would instead argue that Harem has to be very careful with long-range teleports (notably to different latitudes), or to ones at a significantly different altitude.
I wonder if we’ll get clarification on that.
I thought her whole deal was that she “teleported” by essentially creating a copy of herself at the destination while simultaneously disintegrating the previous body because she can only handle a set amount of clones at one time. thus why she is able to be in multiple places at once she just skips the disintegration part of the process.
if so she would have no problem escaping because the arriving copy would not have been the one that was pressurized even if they looked the same.
Then the new one will have the same problems: entering a high (or low) pressure zone is just as bad as leaving
As Guesticus says, they do not just look the same. They are the same. Down to every last atom, molecule and cell. Including the fact that her lungs, and the structures within it, are compressed, likewise for all the cells in her body tissue, and even the chemical composition of her blood having changed, due to the way the metabolism adapts to being in higher pressure.
So even if the copy is created in a low-pressure environment, it is identacle to the one that it was based on, in the high-pressure environment. Thus will immediately start suffering from the bends, plus whatever other nasty side effects result.
“There’s no such thing as a power damper” . . . as far as you are cleared to know, that is.
If there is such a thing as a generic power damper, it’s likely kept a secret from everyone currently in the room, including Maxima. They only get one surprise use of a power damper in an extreme emergency, and then the genie is out of the bottle, and the “wrong people” will be stealing them or reverse-engineering their own.
Also, the existence of a generic power damper would be a sign that they not only know what causes super-powers, but know how to manipulate the source of that power . . . which has its own far-reaching implications and ramifications. I highly suggest that DaveB sticks to the “no damper” rule unless he’s willing to sit down for a looooong time and figure out how many dominos would fall due to their existence.
Actually, if what Dabbler says about her origins is true, then there is no singular source for the superpowers. At least some are magic or genetic which may be entirely different from regular X-men style metahuman powers.
So there wouldn’t be a “generic power dampener”.
I mean a thing that can affect equaly all sorts of aliens, magicians and metahumans is really annoying thing in general comics. Things should not work like that.
Dabbler and Sydney are obviously exceptions to the “all supers are blah blah blah” rules, due to the origin of their powers, and the same goes for the magic-users and Math. But it has been established that *most* supers follow the same template–extra tall, gorgeous, ripped, big-breasted (if female), and hairless from the neck down. These “standard” supers are seemingly of a type, and are therefore most probably produced by the same mechanism. So if you understood that mechanism, you could theoretically create a damper it.
Obviously, Halo, Dabbler, Math, the wizards, and a couple others we are not aware of yet won’t be able to be damped that way, but the rest should.
I am sorry but Math has powers or some sort (even if DBZ Ki stuff) The way he thew Concrete woman showed a complete disregard for physics.
Not true, it remained wholly consistent with comic-book physics!
Plus, if you check out the comments pages, for the comic in question, you will see informed opinion which shows that it is easily possible under normal physics. DaveB chose his angles well to make it look incredibly impressive. But when you look at the exact situation, it was actually a lot simpler than it seemed.
So much so that even a regular martial artist could pull it off, let alone someone at the pinnacle of achievement.
My theory is that standard supers are based on the collective belief of humanity, which is why they are idealized. That could make it very difficult to block.
It could also have the effect of steering supers toward cliche/stereotypical behavior. And propaganda could have significant effects.
If that’s the case, then certain supers from Africa will have elongated necks and plates in their lips, female supers from China 100 years ago wouldn’t have feet (or at least feet the size of a baby’s)
Probably. Apart from the fact that a bound-foot woman in China would be unlikely to serve as a role-model for a heroic mental template. Whereas there were various heroic females, drawn from, for instance religious legends or martial ones, which could readily fulfil the role.
But, that particular quibble aside, it is certainly more logical for them to have appearances matching their national, or ethnic, heroic ideals, than them looking like California beach babes. Whilst still remaining consistent with the continuity that the ones in America do have such looks.
Actually, thinking about it, there could be a critical mass involved. Ancient cultures were smaller, more isolated communities. For instance the elongated neck and plates in the lip image you evoked is not common throughout Africa. Rather it only occurs in specific geographical areas.
So it would not serve as mental image for populations outside those areas. Thus if it takes a million individuals who have a subconscious image of a heroic woman looking that way, the threshold may not have been met in ancient times. Which is consistent with the Girl Power history.
Whereas, with modern population levels, there would almost certainly be enough for one or more to have been born with those characteristics. Along with others where you have very tall heroes in areas where Watusi are viewed as being the best warriors, even amongst non-Watusi.
It would also serve to explain why modern technological societies have more heroes, than the poorer non-industrial countries. Hollywood. Well, and other media. They serve to promote particular looks and ideals throughout their culture. Thus having very many individuals who would see, let us say Harem, as being a ‘perfect woman’.
Whereas, in South Africa, heroic Zulus might be disproportionately common, when compared to the demographic numbers of normal Zulus. Because history, and the retelling of it in popular culture (for instance the film Zulu) serve to give them the PR necessary for people, even outside their ethnic group, to view them in a heroic manner.*
In fact Sydney is now serving as a role model to the world. In due course, some natural born supers might have her beautiful ideal looks!
* Which even that film does. Being willing to take on that kind of fire-power, despite wave after wave of your allies dying already, shows remarkable heroism. Not to mention their chivalric behaviour in singing a salute to their heroic enemies, at the end of the film.
But the Zulus have a lot of other historical PR which would help too. Such as Shaka ordering his warriors to break their spears in half, so they could fight more effectively in close quarters. Invoking the mental imagery of thousands of massed warriors, all doing that on command, with the sounds carrying like thunder, for miles around!
True, but we, this side of the fourth wall know that to be definitive, thanks to previous comments by DaveB.
Always figured it was “There is no such thing as a general, all purpose, power damper”
There are always ways to counter a specific power. Fire with water, rage with happiness, and so on. But if you could develop a ‘dampener’ for one power, there is nothing to stop you from gradually making it able to counter more and more powers, albeit one at a time. Eventually ending up with either a broad-spectrum dampener or even an all-purpose dampener.
The destination is one which we know will never be a part of this setting, from Dave’s previous comments. So I do not think that he would even want to start down the path.
Seems to me that Kevin’s ‘dampener’ is pretty generic. You’d need to up the dosage for people with ridiculous metabolisms, like the speedster, and variable metabolism (like the speedster) is a whole new set of problems, but keeping someone doped on harmless happy drugs seems like a pretty generic ‘dampener’ to me. 1. They’re almost certainly going to be too lazy to use their powers, except maybe for fun. 2. Neurologically, they’re in metaphorical Disneyland. They won’t WANT to leave.
There are a couple of problems with this.
1. Dabbler, who aside from an unknown metabolism that NEEDS sex, would probably lust aura the prison just for fun and pleasant porno tingles. The person in control of the “dampener” would turn it off to go have sex with her.
2. Do NOT give Mach the Knife DDR. Or a Wii, really. Anything that can translate his power into fun will tempt him to use it, thus burning off the drugs. Once he gets over not being happy, he’ll probably be pretty pissed that they drugged him. This applies to anyone with powers that are ‘fun’, although burning a lot of calories to use your power (it has been implied by DaveB that power use makes you hungry) would actually increase the effectiveness of the drug as you metabolized more of it than usual…but if the flow is steady, and you metabolize an unusually high amount, the amount in your system afterwards is lower than usual.
3. Some people get paranoid, which could lead to escape attempts (probably silly ones, but stoners can be surprisingly clever). Anti-psychotics can counteract this, but long-term use of anti-psychotics on someone who is not neurologically psychotic, merely symptomatically psychotic, will, IIRC, make them neurologically psychotic. “That would be bad” is a bit of an understatement.
4. Cannabinoids bond to the brain’s cannabinoid receptors, as there are cannabinoids naturally produced by the body. Brain damage to these receptors makes you immune to cannabinoids. It also has severe neurological repercussions. To my knowledge, they haven’t studied damage this specific, but cannabinoids do two things: they are a tiny but important part of the pleasure system (effects are similar to chocolate for the most common) and they are used by neurons to limit incoming neurotransmissions. In theory, someone with this very specific brain damage would be super-irritable, think super-fast, and have all of their most commonly-used neurons decaying, leading to massive brain damage and death, loss of all functions but autonomic (“vegetable” status), or catatonia. Before that happened, though, you would have someone irritated, fast-thinking, and immune to your “dampener”. Still, the damage is specific enough that there haven’t been any studies due to lack of test subjects. I’m not sure how fast degradation would happen, but it’s a good lead-in to problem 5.
5. In an infinite universe with superpowers, there is a tall, well-endowed blonde with the super power of being super-annoyed and super-mean. To be less specific, eventually someone will have the bizarre super-power “never happy”, naturally leading them to a career as a villain–and making them immune to Arc-Aegis’ dampener. Oh, and if you think that being permanently unhappy isn’t a very dangerous superpower, I direct you to The Joker.
“You know what I love about a truck full of manure? It’s cheap.”
The point is that Marijuana is something which affects normal people. Thus it is only indirectly affecting his capability. It is not dampening his super power directly, which is what Guesticus was referring to.
However, I should point out that my previous comment should be reconsidered, in light of DaveB‘s comment in another thread (in reply to a comment by Kamenriderhellhound ). Where he indicates that magically countering a particular power might be possible.
Thinking on it, I can see the sense behind that. Whilst many things can be overcome by some logical counter-force (light versus dark, for instance), not everything has a neat opposite. And DaveB would not want to back himself into a corner where he creates a fascinating power set for a villain. Only to realise, when it comes time to lock him up, that there is no logical means of keeping him contained, without negating his power directly.
So Guesticus has the right of it.
It is worth noting that DaveB mentioned magic might be able to do this. Simply because magic has its own rules and is easier for Dave to say, ‘they can do it for this power, but not for others’. Thus trying to avoid sliding down the slippery path to generic dampeners, that can be slapped on any prisoner.
Albeit that thereafter every commentator will be justified in asking ‘why not just cast another spell to dampen his powers, like before?’ And that will happen no matter how loudly it is proclaimed to be only possible in specific cases.
Just like Dabbler is the go-to-girl, for every gadget that commentators want invented. Despite the fact that she will not share her technology.
“17 parking tickets? Yeah, as long as you have him handy we will take him off your hands.” This may be the cop’s golden opportunity to snag his license and set up a garnishment plan. Or make some kind of deal.
My follow up question would be “If you were just an innocent person swept up in the moment, then why do you already have a codename and matching costume?” (Boilerplate)
Dave: Please tell me he has a secret identity as a contract lawyer. And his name is Nolan Contendere :)
I suspect a super version of underground fighting matches. Secret identities, costumes and all the comic book trimmings. Monologuing, victory poses, nemeses (sp?) alliances etc. All good, clean illegal fun.
Kaiju Big Batel only more realish?
Then of course they could do all of that legally. Provided they used gloves, medical supervision and complied with whatever other legislation is applicable in their state, for martial sporting events.
The posing and monologuing is not illegal. No matter how many times I have wished for that, when glimpsing WWF (wrestling, not tree-hugging) clips.
They’re the WWE now (World Wrestling Entertainment)… at least they finally ‘fessed up that it’s all choreographed. Though depending on how old the clips are, it might still have the old WWF logo in the corner.
Well now that Arc-SWAT is out in the open Super-WWE could be a thing. Although the population counts on supers (and supers with powers that would survive choreographed super fighting) would be kinda small. I’m also not sure the environments needed to take advantage of such fighting would keep it profitable. It’s kinda hard to showcase “real” destruction of things like cars and buildings without really destroying them and having to rebuild them.
Although if one were to consider it seriously… fighting in and around condemned buildings marked for demolition would do. Decent quality wireless camera systems are fairly inexpensive, it’s not going to be 4k, but should offer great multi-angle shots or even 3D if paired. You’d need a teleporter or a good speedster on standby to yank more “squishy” fighters out things go wrong, like the building actually starts to collapse. In prep for the fighting you carefully mark and go overrun which load bearing walls you DO NOT punch other fighters through.
You then double dip on the camera hardware, by filming the actual demolition if the build is a skyscraper or similar that needs to be brought down with explosives. That way you also run a series on building demolition with 3D footage from inside the collapse. Sell it to IMAX or something.
Highly plausible. Even if you only have a pool of two or three regular supers, plus the odd guest, such as Achilles popping in. It can always be padded out with some normal wrestlers trying to find ways to take down the supers somehow.
It would even reach out to non-WWE fans, such as myself. I love watching clips of buildings being demolished. Especially if there is some other hook, such as it having some historic significance or being a noticeable landmark. Being done in a (controlled) super-fight would certainly qualify to get my attention!
With big audiences, come big budgets. I think some of the big Mythbusters specials (such as investigating if the Moon landings were hoaxed) have budgets of a million dollars an episode. So I think your proposal would be economically viable too.
Marvel already did something like that, with their Unlimited Class wrestling…Even Ben Grimm joined it for a while.
Are you telling me that if you had superpowers you wouldn’t have those things? Not even just for the fun of it?
Good point. Even “normals” like to cosplay…Halloween, conventions, etc.
There’s a very simple answer to the “already having a secret identity” thing. During the fight, Arclight was identifying all enemy supers and making estimates on their powers. Anyone that did not follow Sydney’s “silver age rules” got given a name randomly. As you probably saw, Heavenly sword was almost called “Stick Girl”, and similar things happened with other supers.
“Smoke weed every day!”
I suppose that could work on Vehemence, for a while, but it’s REALLY unethical to keep someone on any type of drug long-term unless it’s for a very specific therapeutic cause. “Keeping him stoned out of his mind” isn’t really a specific therapeutic use. At some point they’re going to have to figure out other ways to deal with Vehemence. And yes, I agree that “Kevin” isn’t a generally threatening sort of name.
They do not have to keep him doped up 24/7. They only need to intervene if they see him being exposed to aggression, or perhaps getting himself worked up about something.
Although I imagine that they can make a cell which can withstand the presumably low levels of power he can gain on his own. But the first thing they will do if there is a prison riot, or other major disturbance, is to flood his cell with happy gas.
What they are doing though is carefully controlling his environment to ensure he is not being exposed to negative things, only positive. I am sure that will be a constant thing.
His power has a positive side effect for him, that it will prevent his prison time from being too rough. Setting aside issues of getting fed up with constant exposure to cute and cuddly internet kittens, plus other tree-hugging hippy stuff.
As long as no-one shows him happy tree friends.
Which sounds like a good thing for him to watch….
Even worse would be to show him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angry_Birds_Toons
or
this: https://www.angrybirds.com/
:-/
I work in mental health, and yes, I’m with Yorp when I say chemical containment is indeed a thing that’s totally legal and does take place.
Most of the clients I’ve had are on mood stabilizers. Anti-seizure medications have been found effective to counter psychotic behavior, and are given either once daily, or more, depending on the doctor’s order.
Though I’ve never had a client that is prescribed it, a chemical restraint PRN (given as needed) would be administered during extremely violent outbursts. Probably something like a huge dose of diazepam, or at least something similar. Again, I’ve never worked in the State Hospital, though my coworkers suggest I’d do well with a transfer to the maximum security ward….
…
As a staff! Ahem!
In “Kevin’s” case, a psychiatrist has probably prescribed him large doses of, what did someone call it? THC? THQ? The psychiatrist has prescribed a very, very large dosage of Mary-Jane, administered (I’m guessing) three times daily, and as needed to counter any potentially violent behavior.
when you attempt to clobber a police officer “for fun”, or even murder him/her, the concept of “ethical” is pushed back just a little. adding super powers to the equation, which CANNOT be contained by normal means, some other measures have also to be taken, even if you normally wouldn’t do that.
No matter how extreme the need, never resort to ‘cruel and unusual’ until all other options have been exhausted. Choosing to lower yourself to being worse than the offender is neither wise nor moral. Down that path lies things like extraordinary rendition, water-boarding and other torture.
DaveB has shown that it is possible to find solutions to extraordinary problems without having to compromise on morality.
Of course if there is literally no other alternative, then you do what you have to, if there is a clear and present danger to the rest of society. But even then you do everything that you can to minimise the negatives that come with the actions you are taking. Rather than justify any cruelty with ‘well they deserve it’.
yeah… torture.
IF there was a crime, that justified that punishment, you might as well just end it there and then.
No one benefits from someone being tortured, and if you are going to do it anyway, you can just save yourself some time.
if you are not going to end it however, you risk the person escaping, and possibly repeating its crime.
but yes, if you do have a “better way” (THAT WORKS), i suppose its worth avoiding a riot because “cruel”.
What people don’t seem to be thinking about is that keeping him high, when he clearly is experiencing no ill-effects from it, isn’t CRUEL. It’s not Punishment, either, even if it is unusual. Cruel and Unusual Punishment is more like turning fire-hoses on someone acting up, or withholding food, or ripping off a toenail every time they did something wrong.
You’re basically saying that getting someone drunk because they’re less likely to kill you when they’re drunk is cruel and unusual.
Hmm what is stopping Opal from making a really big Portal and simply taking her whole cell along ? ( and then gradually decompress in safety.
The fact that she probably can’t?
Remember that cell is part of something BIG. Unless she can use portals to rip apart people (which would have made her WAY more powerfull than she was during the fight, where she could only use it to redirect people), there’s no reason she could do the same thing with structures
And even if Opal ‘ported out the entire cell, she probably can’t bring the O2/Helium pressurization system on the far side of the building with her (Nitrogen narcosis is a thing with prolonged high pressure exposure), so even ripping out the cell would be a Bad End.
Helium would negate the deadly effect of decompression.
It’s the dissolved Nitrogen that causes The Bends.
Unless you think ARCSWAT is bluffing about escape being fatal.
And the Donald Duck voice would give it away.
That would mean they were using a helium/oxygen mix or a helium/nitrogen/oxygen mix in her cell which I’m sure they’re not doing. Besides helium does not negate the effects of decompression. Helium will saturate and desaturate the body’s tissues some 2.7 times faster than nitrogen. So you can decompress somewhat faster using helium but you still have to decompress. The only reason to use helium in her cell would be to ward off the effects of nitrogen narcosis. However, keeping the pressure below 4 or 5 atmospheres would also reduce this effect while still providing the threat of explosive decompression.
From what I can tell you could try this with Hydrox (96% Hydrogen 4% oxygen blend) at about 10 to 12 atmospheres. Not sure if Hydrox has the same tell tale “Mickey Mouse” effect on voices though. The advantages of going with a high pressure is that any decompression will be violent unless it’s carefully controlled, something usually not possible when trying to escape. The Hydrogen mix is not explosive when used in a Oxygen lean mix like this. It will however become extremely explosive if the oxygen content gets a bit higher, which is likely to happen if you try to flee by way of portal.
It could also be used for a self destruct for either the cell block or even the entire complex. Just pump in some oxygen and the slightest spark will blow everything sky high. A bit extreme for the blue team though. Perhaps there will be some really dangerous criminals in the future where something like this could be considered necessary. Granted an explosion wouldn’t be more than annoying to some supers we know of…
You could do this… But why complicate matters if explosive decompression at 5 atmospheres is, if not instantly fatal, can cause “a quick and agonizing death”, certainly if not treated immediately. Especially after you body’s tissues have become saturated.
Also there would be far less chance of HNS (High-pressure nervous syndrome) at 5 atmospheres. HNS is associated with Oxygen intake under high pressure. The risk of HNS grows due to the Oxygen saturation of the tissues and the higher the pressure the greater the risk. So at a high pressure, it’s not question of if, it’s only a question of when.
Not to mention having to switch mixtures during decompression at some point as the increasing Oxygen levels required to sustain an individual would make the mixture explosive. So switching to something other than Hydrogen is a must.
Not knowing the structural integrity of the cell, mostly. She really doesn’t have any way to gauge how much of the cell is necessary to keep the pressure steady, and if they are maintaining the pressure in her cell mechanically, she’s have to grab the pressurizing machines *and* their power source.
If you were really worried about this possibility, you could build the cell within a multi-layered shell of decreasing-pressure environments, with each successive wall having a known weak point that’s tough enough to withstand the pressure differential between those two layers, but not tough enough to withstand the difference between the inner layer’s pressure and ambient pressure at sea level (1 atmosphere). That way, if someone suddenly relocated the innermost cell to an external (1-atmosphere) environment without breaching its integrity, its weak point would fail, and it would explosively decompress through the resulting hole. And Opal wouldn’t be able to relocate the whole multi-layer assembly (even if she could make a portal big enough), because she wouldn’t know how big it is.
Others have raised good points, which I will not repeat. But there is also a very simple mechanic which prevents her even attempting this. The portals are static, and used by individuals passing through them. Unless Opal finds a way to get her cell to move through a big hoop, she cannot use her power the way you are describing.
Mmm. Gravity could help there…
Ok, refer to previous rebuttals provided. :-D
Actually, her portals are not static.
Reference.
Explained in the third paragraph below the page.
Conceded.
What if Opal were imprisoned on an oversized Merry-Go-Round?
Being in motion constantly she couldn’t form a wormhole.
(Yes.. Earth is constantly moving also, but she’s compensated
for that somehow or for short distances aren’t a factor.)
I’d argue that if she can adapt to the earth’s perpetual movement, enough time on the marry go round, and she’d probably adapt to it as well.
I kinda want to see Kevin acquire a skinnier physique as he powers down.
Court date rolls around six months later and Kevin is scrawnier than Sydney …
He might get a chubbier physique as he powers through the munchies.
Might stop him becoming an immediate threat if the ‘medication’ is stopped and an argument breaks out near by. Have to get his lardy backside in to gear before he can get moving.
dont supers have that whole inbuilt perfect body thing?
Good counter.
Could be that V’s method of incarceration will test some limits of that claim.
If he emerges months from now STILL looking ripped, then Myth Confirmed (or at least Plausible).
If he emerges months from now looking like a ‘Before’ picture for ‘The Biggest Loser’, then Myth Busted – AND he’ll probably be rather annoyed about it.
Also he let himself be put to sleep but did he expend his stored energy from the fight? Who knows how long that would last fighting obesity but in theory it should be cheap to make the body burn fat instead of storing it.
Hmm, I can only tell Harem’s the talking head in the 2nd panel because of her choker. Otherwise it looks like Arianna’s talking to herself.
Agree. And it makes more sense for Harem to ask this, considering she’s wondering how *she* might be incarcerated if caught double-agenting.
Very well spotted and you are totally right that they look way too similar there.
Which makes me realise that Harem has spent her life suffering from a serious female problem, that us guys do not experience.
No no, not that one!
The turning up to a party in a special dress, hoping to be the belle of the ball. Only to find someone else already wearing it. Five times the bodies, each trying to pull of their own unique look, and she has five times the risk!
Five times the solutions, too.
Pop in a different look, take the first “special” dress home.
Or pop in for a look-see before Arriving.
Or send in Peggy in cammo gear with a high power scope at the start of the party to check out the attendees from the surrounding terrain and report back with the details. I’m sure she would like to get in the extra training time. Just make sure to call her off when Harem gets there and starts talking with the guests.
Harem: “That’s a very interesting story. We should continue this later. I’d like to take you out.”
Peggy in the bushes (over Harem’s earpiece): “Repeat. Did you say take out the target?”
ROFL.
Isn’t ordering a sniper radioing in a repeat order, rather an over-reaction to deal with duplicated dresses?
Thought that as well, but remember: Ari always carries her chop-sticks in her bun :P
Love Kevin’s T shirt i want one myself. Speaking of the name here’s a little song about a Kevin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omYH2MFEERw The other way to deal with Vehemence would to isolate him and restrict his oxygen flow. Somemthing like they did to Redstone in Supreme Power.
That recording announcing that Opal’s cell is pressurized… is it triggered by her waking up, somehow? Because if not, the only way to make sure she hears it before she does anything that might get her killed would be to put it on a constant loop until you’re sure she’s awake and can understand it.
I wouldn’t want to be the guard stationed outside that cell while she’s asleep, is what I’m saying here.
One would assume that there is a video surveillance at all times.
That is an excellent idea for holding teleportators.
Not entirely foolproof – once idea gets out, teleportators can prepare their own baro-chambers to teleport to and depressurize safely, but still, it is very, very clever.
I will definitely use it in my superhero settings/games
Such things do not come cheaply. A teleporter without means might have to resort to a life of crime to do that!
Mind you anybody with teleportation, who wastes their ability on criminal acts is so dumb they need to be locked up! Nations would pay millions per jump to put things in orbit. Assuming the teleporter has the range.
But there are plenty of lesser applications which would be highly lucrative. Say, if you have a porter who has short range, but does not actually have to handle objects, just see where they are, then they would still be invaluable in dealing with emergencies.
Nuclear plant melting down? No problem, just show them the CCTV and have them port the fissionable material out to a safe containment pond nearby.
Miners trapped underground? Just get her as near as possible and ‘here comes your radio and supplies to keep you alive’.
Other teleporters might have different restrictions, or capabilities, but any could find roles.
Industry could develop additive or subtractive techniques that would be impossible by other means. Although volumes would be limited, I am sure that specialist use equipment could offer more than adequate recompense for an in-house teleporter working on the line. Say making components for aerospace applications or expensive medical equipment.
Not to mention that a teleporter, who trained as a surgeon, could treat conditions that would be impossible without super powers. Say removing a tumour, or bullet, embedded deep in the brain.
Depending on the specifics of the T-Port ability:
Delivery services come immediately to mind – pizzas, furniture, office supplies, packages, whatever. Heck, just being able to employ a T-Porter in your warehouse instead of an expensive forklift could be a real money and time-saver.
Ferry / taxi services. Mightn’t be able to haul multiple people at once, but the T-Porter could charge more than taxi fare or a plane ticket to get one person cross-town, or cross-country INSTANTLY. I’ve no doubt a service like that, once established, would be quite popular.
Heh, I am sure Disneyland would offer higher fees for short-range services than a city taxi company could. A teleportation based attraction would have customers booking up years in advance, regardless of how high the price is.
Just look at Virgin Galactic’s bookings for their flights, which will just barely qualify as getting into space. Ignore the space bit, the attraction would not be offering that. But it would be offering an equally unique experience.
A helicopter ride you can book at any city in the world. But people still pay a premium for the experience, it may be the only time they get to do it in their life. Even if others do it all the time. However experiencing what it is like to teleport? Big bucks for that.
Depends on the teleporter and how much tv tropes they know.
Portals? Probably fine
Quantum state teleportation? That would be murder or in Haloes case serial suicide, if it’s a determined that you are broken down and you patern retransmitted to form a duplicate copy of you. In fact due to how Howard Talor originally explained it, use of his teraport* also qualifies as murder.
Ironicaly red rio 3 would be borderline, 4 and 5 would be Identity theft regardless of living will.
Incidentaly, do not. Ever. Get into a debate with ONE Pastor who has doctorates in theology and is also a massive D&D and sci fi fan, let alone the 3 I know. Or there wives.
And if you do don’t bring up Superman Red Blue.
How about Super Woman pink?
You could even cheat on the range a bit, if you have a teleporter capable of even just coast to coast ports. Put the porter and the packages to be put into orbit on a cargo plane, and push the plane to the upper edge of its envelope. The porter should be able to get the packages up into at least a LEO then, and with relatively modest boosters (as compared to a ground launch) do the rest of the climb to a MEO or higher.
On the subject of the profitable legal and illegal uses of teleportation and an in-depth look at how to restrain teleporters I recommend the works of Steven Gould (Jumper, Reflex, Impulse, & Exo — Griffen’s Story is set in a different world: the mechanics of teleportation and the amount of violence in dealing with teleporters differs; though the mechanics of teleportation there appear to be closer to Opal’s).
Yorp, if you’re interested, they appear to be available through Fishpond…
Thanks for the info. Presently my budget keeps all purchase restrictions to the free bracket. But it is nice to be aware of good stuff out there, for when my circumstances change.
There’s also simply the possibility that some teleporters might have a automatic compensation for things like atmospheric pressure. Misfit, from Birds of Prey, had ZERO restrictions on where or how far she could teleport. Granted, this was also expressly discussed as breaking all the rules.
Air looks nice.
* Ari
I’m glad you corrected yourself there; it got me confused at first. How can air look nice when you can’t even see it?
;)
That can create a sticky problem.
Especially if you can’t see the point I am trying to air.
MATH: Sticky air is cheating!
To preface this, it is entirely possible that Opal does not have any of this information, and the warning given to her is simply a bluff. My personal recommendation would be to clarify this as the case at some point soon.
Pressurizing a location would *not* be effective in this instance, and only marginally effective for other forms of teleportation.
At higher pressures, the gas mixture of the ‘air’ needs to be altered to avoid toxicity, and would need to be continually monitored in a closed environment such as that. Even when maintained appropriately, at greater than ~33 atmospheres of pressure, the gas mixture becomes to thick to breath, and such pressures have significant risk of permanent damage from prolonged exposure. That is under 500 psi.
Opening a full sized portal at 500 psi will cause a mildly explosive decompression of the room, but would be highly muted due to the overall size of the room, and Opal appears to be able to control where the portals open around her, so she can distance it and/or change it’s facing – at worst, she would be thrown around a little.
The real problem for any teleportation would be decompression sickness (‘the bends’), which at that level has a real chance of permanent damage or death if untreated, but is honestly not that difficult to deal with if treated correctly, just very uncomfortable. In Opal’s instance, she can create a much smaller portal to decompress the room over a moderately extended period (say ~15 minutes) to largely avoid the effects, with the option of opening a full portal at any point if there is a response. Additionally, any teleportation abilities that are regularly used to significantly change altitudes would presumably have some form of built-in pressure mitigation to some degree.
The author’s note explains that surveillance is present to spot her attempting to depressurize the room with smaller portals.
“The real problem for any teleportation would be decompression sickness (‘the bends’), which at that level has a real chance of permanent damage or death if untreated, but is honestly not that difficult to deal with if treated correctly, just very uncomfortable.”
Er… no. The Byford Dolphin accident shows that a drop of 8 atmospheres is instantly fatal, with effects ranging from “multiple hemorrhages and fat dropping out of solution as your blood boils” to “your torso explodes, scattering internal organs across a wide area.”
Explosive decompression, as seen on the Byford Dolphin accident, is potentially lethal for two reasons – decompression of air in the lungs, and potential shrapnel.
The risk of lung damage can be largely mitigated by *fully* exhaling before decompression, and a teleporter can choose an underwater destination, say ~100 meters, as an additional safety net.
It would be remarkably easy to avoid entirely for someone able to create portals of varying sizes.
The key part is how fast the decompression occurs. So you are right to say it would be easy to control this. That incident had instant decompression. But well-read science fiction fans know that it is possible to survive exposure to space, provided the decompression happens in a controlled fashion. Including the trick of exhaling, that you mentioned.
Provided you are bundled into an airlock, within a couple of minutes, and it is swiftly re pressurised, and you get immediate medical care, it is possible to survive. Probably with serious sunburn and/or frostbitten extremities and other injuries. But still being alive. Theoretically. We have not had volunteers to try this out yet.
Decompression would be quick and deadly, but agonizing? The Byford Dolphin accident from 1983 seemed fast enough, that there was no time for the participants to agonize.
A lot of pain can be crammed into a short period of time…
Seriously if getting baked, in a room full of videogames, My Little Pony stuff, and weed + free food. Is what you get from being a super villain. I seriously want to be one ^_^. Still that is a good counter. Sure he’ll still be soaking up ambient violence. But giving doses every time it looks like he’s going to get annoyed by something / getting any ideas and it’s perfect. Just as long as they limit his internet connection to porn, https://www.fimfiction.net/%5Bwell pre-approved stories. Some comment sections / stories can be actually more worse than the comment sections of youtube + 4chan], and youtube.com.
Especially since LSD50 is at 20k – 40k in 15 minutes. It’s practically impossible to OD on, and that shirt is funny.
____________
That being said. Seriously good thinking on the super cells. Good thing her room is being monitored, although if it was being monitored by a guy, that’d be kind of super creepy.
Although that wouldn’t do anything for phasers. Since all they’d need to do is go completely shifted, and bye-bye bends. After all they’ve been known to go through planets, into and out of outerspace, and all bunch of goodies. And teleporters like Harem would easily get out of that problem since for a moment in time they don’t have a body, but raw energy. So any Super who can get out of having a physical body instantly will be fine.
Portal users though, and those who can only do incremental phasing. That’s a good way to keep them in.
Harem comes out of her teleport phase just as she went in. Meaning when she get out of her cell her insides are the wrong pressure.
The most dangerous Kevin of all is the Kevin in Schlock Mercenary. He started a pan-galactic war, destabilized several civilizations, started a war with the Andromeda Galaxy, helped one AI become a galactic power, allowed another AI to have their very own unstoppable super-weapon, turned a wormhole device into a weapon and managed to cheat death at the same time, and a whole bunch of other things. He’s still running free, despite the fact there’s a large number of governments with very good reason to want him dead.
He also commonly walks around with antimatter hand grenades on his shoulders. He’s used them.
However, technically, he’s a Kevyn.
Also there’s more than copy gate clone of him by Howard’s admission.
drafted he is not as massively duplicated as the Gaves.
So, Kevin is in a mist filled room of drugs? Happy, happy, joy, joy to him. If it’s not none addictive he’s going to need more and more to keep the same effect, which I’m guessing would be quiet high. Coming off the drugs, oh, that’s going to be fun to watch. But on a more thought provoking note, turning him into a couch potato, that seems a bit cruel.
With the decompression, well, that’s another one, go too deep and nitrogen can kill you, but It’s simple to replace it with another gases, her sounding like a chipmunk makes me smile.
The most likely candidate for this would be weed. People use weed for the specific purpouse of relaxing, all stereotypical reactions to weed are exactly how Vehemence seems to act (and most people can tell you that it really does work like that).
Weed also doesn’t breed physical dependance (addition), though it may be different in long term, near permanent dosages as we see here
Also the Lethal dosage is far beyond blackout range.
A lethal dose can’t even be found in Nature…The THC has to be distilled & concentrated far beyond what Nature can do, to even come close to fatal.
Yup. To reach a lethal dose by smoking, you would literally need to smoke so much in such a short amount of time that you would die from lack of oxygen first.
Poisons that need regular antidotes are right out; they’re as bad as drugging someone, with more likely bad side effects. As far as I know there are no materials that work like your classic TV-Melodrama poison, where the guy’s just fine up until time’s up; it’s a slow but steady degeneration in most cases, so basically you’re talking about keeping your target deliberately more or less sick and threatening them with death.
Insofar as high pressure, there are several potential consequences of sustained high-pressure environments. If you use air as the gas, rather than helium-oxygen, there’s a danger of nitrogen narcosis and other nitrogen-associated effects. Nitrogen also increases the decompression time needed, which is real important in an emergency (what backups are in effect for her cell in case of, say, power outages, etc.?). High pressure has also been associated with ill-understood joint pain and some other more severe consequences.
Could do an implant that autoreleases either poison or an extremely high dose of sedatives (enough for an near instant knockout/coma) if certain conditions are either met or not met, sort of like a dead man’s switch, only in this case, it would be tied to a signal broadcast continuously by the cell. If the power goes out, anyone with the implant goes down, if it’s an accident, uncoscious prisoners aren’t goig to cause any problems, while if it is an escape or rescue attempt, uncoscious prisoners aren’t going to be escaping very well. Basically an implanted version of the bracelets.
Probably include some sort of locator in the implant.
Not perfect by any stretch, but to effectively contain supers without some way to neutralizer powers, you need to compromise between the wellbeing of the super and the efficacy of whatever means you are using to keep them contained. All things considered, they could probably be going a lot further than they are.
Opal, if she’s released, probably won’t be in long enough for anything particularly serious to happen, and would presumably be monitored for health effects as she was going through being outprocessed. If, on the other hand, she isn’t released, and gets locked up for an extended period of time, she will presumably be monitored for health side effects, but also is an extremely high escape risk supervillian captured in the act, and compromises need to be made if she is to be incarcerated and not executed, which is probably going to be the case. Presumably, though, Arc-Aegis is using a carefully calculated environment, so as to minimize the health risks of sustained exposure and a slow careful decompression process. On the other hand, if whatever environment mix being used means a decompression process othet than the approved Arc-Aegis process means the subject is at high risk of death, that’s an acceptable compromise, in my opinion. Obviously, you don’t want to mistreat your prisoners, but neither do you want to not make them as securely contained as is feasible.
On the cage business, prudence for supers able to manipulate energy or matter in different ways would be a simple bubble, magneto style cage. Dabbler can teleport things, so setting up an oxygen recycler and a way to get things in via teleportation should be simple enough. Then, you use a magnetic field to levitate the bubble and hold in in place. Then, using a secondary magnetic field, you surround the bubble with another bubble… Made of antimatter. That’s literally the best containment structure in the known universe. Using magnetic fields to contain matter within a hollow sphere of antimatter means that any attempt by the matter contained within results in annihilation. Which is fancy scientist speak for, prisoner touch wall, prisoner disintegratie
Dabbler doesn’t share her tech. You can’t build a structure that relies on hoping the Alien Succubus feels kind enough to let you borrow some toys.
Also… We can’t make more than a few micrograms of antimatter at a time. It’s a little ambitious to want to make a bubble of the stuf big enough to hold someone (it would also have to be in a perfect vaccum, otherwise the matter in the air will touch it and corrode it. Voilently)
Leaving aside RobK’s valid points, if you have enough anti-matter and both the magical perfect vacuum and a magnetic containment field, you still don’t have the prisoner disintegrate. Matter/anti-matter reactions are explosive energy releases; whatever portion of the prisoner makes contact explodes, the vacuum and the containment field rupture, the rest of the anti-matter reacts with the surrounding matter, several hundred pounds of each are converted to energy at 100% completion, and Krakatoa is dwarfed into insignificance by several orders of magnitude…
So what you are saying is that they will escape? In teensy bits. :-D
It would be an effect roughly analogous to crossing the streams…
Well no. They’d escape as gamma rays. That’d be all that’s left after the annahilation
I did say “roughly analogous,” not “equivalent” or even “similar.” As “roughly analogous” it’s meant to describe the body’s reaction…Everything just goes everywhere at near-light speed.
Gamma rays are in the same family as visible light, albeit with a far shorter wavelengths. Therefore I feel happy in assuming that, under appropriate, albeit very different circumstances, they will exhibit a similar characteristic. Namely that of behaving both like a wave and a particle.
Therefore it is reasonable to argue that there are bits of her, escaping into the universe, at the speed of light! *
Further, linguistically, it is acceptable to say, “Open the curtains, to let in a bit of light.”
I therefore stick my tongue out in your general direction. :-P
* As measured by the speed of light in the medium that the bit is traversing. Other mediums are available. The fact that past observations have not detected this speed being exceeded, does not mean that future advances will not allow a means of bypassing it. The existence of mediums does not prove the existence of an afterlife.
And, yes, gamma rays probably do not slow down as much as visible light, in some mediums.
*sigh*
Yes, the medium in which the energy wave/particle stream is traveling has an effect on its speed, just as you implied:
In Einstein’s formula E=MC^2, the “C” is the constant to compare the relationship between the other two variables & that constant is “the speed of light traveling through a vacuum.” *
* Everywhere in the universe where a vacuum is present, light will travel at a constant speed…If there’s something other than a vacuum then even the speed of light is variable.
What I read about it, is that the actual speed of the photon doesn’t actually change. It’s just that, in a medium (that’s not a vaccum), photons bounce of of molecules, and thus have to travel a longer distance. Basicly, they zigzag.
Actually ‘the same family’ is underselling it. Both Gamma rays and vissible light are the exact same particle/wave: Photons.
Just at different energy levels/wavelenghts. Gamma rays have some of the highest energys of photons, which is why they penetrate skin and can damage atoms (radioactivity)
And yes, they travel at lightspeed
Just to put some perspective on what RobK said about making antimatter…. With current technology (and don’t say “but Dabbler bla bla bla”… it’s already established, multiple times, that Dabbler doesn’t share her tech with humans), it costs around $25 billion per gram to make. That’s approximately $11.34 trillion per pound (~0.45 kg)… exactly how heavy does that hollow sphere of antimatter need to be again? ;)
And as Wanderer points out, matter / anti-matter reactions don’t cause things to disintegrate. They cause things to explode. One pound of anti-matter would produce an explosion equivalent to 19.5 megatons of TNT. That’s the equivalent of a “tactical nuke”. So your idea of using “magnetic fields to contain matter within a hollow sphere of antimatter” is only practical if you’re willing to risk destroying a big city if containment fails.
Now, I’m not sure how an antimatter explosion compares to a nuke in terms of the explosion itself (aside from not having to worry about fallout and elevated radiation levels), but here’s what a 20-megaton nuke would do:
Within 1/100th of a second, a fireball would form in every direction from ground zero enveloping downtown and reaching out for two miles. Temperatures would rise to 20 million degrees Fahrenheit (11,111,093 Centigrade), and everything — buildings, trees, cars, and people – would be vaporized.
At 2 to 4 miles (3.22 to 6.44 km) from Ground Zero, the blast would produce pressures of 25 psi (1.75 kg per square centimeter) and winds in excess of 650 mph (1,046 kph). These titanic forces would rip buildings apart and level everything, including reinforced concrete and steel structures. Even deep underground bomb shelters would be crushed.
At 4 to 10 miles (6.44 to 16.09 km) from Ground Zero, the heat would vaporize automobile sheet metal. Glass would melt. At this distance, the blast wave would create pressures of 7 to 10 psi (0.49 to 0.70 kg/cm^2) and winds of 200 mph (~322 kph). Masonry and wood frames would be leveled.
At 16 miles (25.75 km) from Ground Zero, the heat would ignite all easily flammable materials – houses, paper, cloth, leaves, gasoline, heating fuel – starting hundreds of thousands of fires. Fanned by blast winds in excess of 100 mph (~161 kph), these fires would merge into a giant firestorm more than 30 miles across (~48.3 km) and covering 800 square miles (~2072 km^2). Everything within this entire area would be consumed by flames. Temperatures would rise to 1400° F (760° C).
Beyond 16 miles, the blast would still produce pressures of 2 psi, (0.14 kg/cm^2), enough to shatter glass windows and turn each of them into hundreds of lethal missiles flying outward from the center at 100 mph (161 kph).
At 29 miles (46.67 km), the heat would be so intense that all exposed skin not protected by clothing, would suffer third degree burns. Even as far as 40 miles (64.37 km) from Ground Zero, anyone who turned to gaze at the sudden flash of light would be blinded by burns on the retina and at the back of their eyes.
If the city had a population of three million people, roughly 700,000 would survive… and 500,000 of those would receive major medical injuries from which they might recover if they receive adequate medical care. And that isn’t even counting the ones who will die later from radiation poisoning.
Now, that is for a 20-megaton nuke, not an antimatter explosion, but are you really sure you want THAT kind of destructive force anywhere remotely close to a population center? Remember, 1 pound (0.45 kg) of antimatter = 19.5 megaton explosion.
The TL;DR version:
“…here’s what a 20-megaton nuke would do:”
“Within 1/100th of a second…out for two miles…” = “It’s just…Gone.”
“At 2 to 4 miles…” = About as crushed or flat as the human eye can recognize & define the words.
“At 4 to 10 miles…” = Everything is melted or turned into charcoal briquettes. Anyone got a BBQ grill handy?
“At 16 miles…” = Everything’s burnt, but may recognized for what it used to be.
“Beyond 16 miles…” = Reduced to ruins. Human remains would be ash, not identifiable without detailed chemical analysis.
“At 29 miles…Even as far as 40 miles” = Jumping into a bonfire & staying there. Architecture is obviously burned, as if by a professional arsonist.
;)
TL;DR version of the TL;DR version.
Very big boom!
TS;R
Very bigga bada boom!
So, Vehemence is in the hotbox?
(I apologize abjectly for this terrible joke)
This has me thinking of alternatives for ways to hold people they could try that I’ve seen in movies. At this moment, only two have sprung to mind.
The first is from Arnie’s flick “The Running Man” where prisoners wore collars that exploded and took their heads off if they tried to escape. Given that Archon is supposed to be the good guys, I think we can safely say that no one is going to get one of those collars.
The other is from the Stallone film “Demolition Man.” If I’m remembering rightly, they basically froze the criminal for the duration of their term, while playing tapes at them that were supposed to indoctrinate them into becoming good guys. It seems a bit unethical to try to reprogram someone, but I can see people wanting to try this of the bad guy were dangerous enough.
It was supposed to be subliminal education, to make sure the inmates would have a usable job skill when they were released. Though obviously it could be subverted to include brainwashing.
Well, the thing about Darkseid is that his parents were two tyrannical dictators and evil gods/god-like aliens, who had a family history of picking evil sounding names, so, much like Braniac and Ultron, his name makes sense in universe because the people doing the naming had the same motives as the writers.
Guys like Victor Von Doom and Professor Power are a little harder to explain.
Actually, Doom & Power ARE valid & known surnames, even in the real world we’re living in right now. So it’s not really that hard to explain…
;)
https://sites.google.com/site/travisdoom/ Behold… Doctor Doom.
Ahh, I think I read his paper on nominative determinism. Entitled “If only I had super powers”.
I knew it! Darkseid was born Uxas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkseid#Fictional_character_biography.
Yep, real scary name there, no wonder he changed it.
The Who’s Who seems to be incomplete. There are two characters on this page with faces in-frame and speaking roles (okay one’s a floating head on an overlay, but she’s the only blonde in the conversation wearing a choker) who aren’t in the sidebar.
The floating Head is Harem. Yes, seems to be missing.
The Ticket Collector is just a random super, not yet named. At least I don’t recognize him. So he is not missing.
The guy with the tickets is probably Boilerplate. Not that I can connect his name to his face, but someone mentioned the name, elsewhere in the comments, and the armour breastplate he is holding seems to match that. With both a speaking-part and a name he should be in the Who’s Who too.
I don’t think Boilerplate is an official name. It’s a fan-made name. Maybe that’s why DaveB hasn’t put him on the Who’s Who.
Ahh, I have… issues… with recalling names. So will just have to trust Yo.
Not only that, she’s in her Mini-Ariana look, to make things more confusing for readers who might actually need the Who’s Who
So what happened to Vehemence’s metallic body parts? When he regenerated those parts were turned metallic and he claimed that it made him stronger. So why are they now no longer metallic? And if he can change it at will, why not during the battle?
Maybe the metallic thing was just temporary while the real thing took more time to regenerate underneath it
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1590
In the comments under this page, DaveB tells us: “I’d liked to have one more row of panels showing Vehemence slumping to the ground, reverting back to his original size, his armored arm clanking off in strips, showing a regular arm underneath.”
Presumably, this happened off screen since he’s back to normal.
Interesting that all this (without a few details) will probably be made public. Unless they forgot to, or it was off panel, there’s supposed to be “This briefing if classified as…” Which could have been on a screen behind Max.
When I think of Kevin, I think of Home Alone. That kid was quite threatening. Seriously, tar the stairs and put a nail in the middle? Put a hot iron on a door handle? Light someone’s head on fire with a homemade flamethrower? I would not want to get on Kevin’s bad side.
Solution*: teleport to an undersea habitat. You’re unlikely to go down in pressure, and if you do the difference will be minimized. Then ascend/decompress normally.
(* May require some prior assembly)
This solution requires a couple of things in advance. One is knowledge of the pressure you’d be held at, and the other, an undersea habitat constructed at that pressure that is 100% known to be safe at the moment you happen to be in this sort of fix.
Having the wrong pressure in your habitat seems like it’d be hilariously awkward.
You miss Jules Morrison‘s point, which is actually a very clever solution. Whilst several commentators have realised that teleporting (or walking through a portal) to an equal pressure environment is a safe way to escape, that is not actually necessary.
Her point is that humans only experience fatal problems with rapid decompression. Due to the bends. We do not suffer from such severe problems with rapid compression. For instance, when you fly, your ears pop, but you can clear that by several techniques.
What she is proposing is likely to have a much greater effect than that, so there could be various medical issues. But none so dangerous that they turned up when googling for such.
Provided that the escapee does not go to such a depth that the pressure alone can kill them, Jules Morrison‘s technique sounds fine. Such habitats (typically maintained by evil megalomaniacs who would be happy to assist… for a price) will have a means of gradually decompressing inhabitants, when they return to the surface.
Indeed. Have you ever noticed how many Air Force pilots and civilian airline pilots habitually chew gum? That’s what I always did.
Also, you could pop your ears by yawning. If you do it right, then you can practice achieving that effect without gum or yawning.
I grew up doing a lot of air traveling.
It’s a completely different muscle set for me – I can pop my ears basically whenever I want, with no effort or visible indication.
Yeah, when I do it, I can feel the muscles moving at the far ends just above the upper jaw & in front of the ear-cartilage.
Simplified version: Keep a SCUBA set ready and filled someplace. (Probably with a heliox mix, to maximize depth you can go to.)
Grap the SCUBA set, and teleport to some deep ocean location, then surface normally. In fact, if she’s a decent swimmer she can invert the order there – as long as she can get the SCUBA regulator into her mouth within a minute or so, she can put it on underwater. She’ll probably want a wetsuit as well, but she can grab that and put it on underwater as well.
The hardest part is keeping the SCUBA set near the portal you’re grabbing it from while the pressure differential tries to push it away, but there are solutions there as well. (Simplest is probably two portals – one above and one below the set.)
Oh no, simply not feasible. Not unless you are gambling on the air pressure being at the lower end (just enough to cause bends, but not to require a long de-pressurisation period). Or manage to get information which confirms that, somehow.
Scuba gear is only good for a short stay underwater (an hour or so, without looking it up). Whereas decompressing takes many hours. Extending into days for deeper dives. It is strictly impossible to safely ascend from such depth, without one of two things. Either staged chambers, where you can live until you have gotten used to the pressure at that level. Then swim up to the next stage (or the surface, once done).
I have only heard of such being done with a single stage, as it would simply be too costly to build lots. So for deeper dives the alternative option is always used. Namely decompression chambers (or submarines, as these could do the same thing and move you at the same time). Essentially it is not too different to the above technique, but it allows you to push it a lot more.
The process involves breathing a different air mix (sometimes a very different mix, for deeper dives, thus requiring even more specialised gear). Which you are fine with descending (no risk of bends that way). So can dive deeply fairly fast (but not too fast, as there are medical problems that can occur, especially with the different air, but none that are intrinsically deadly, like the bends). But, when coming up you need to rise very slowly, then stop off at the decompression chamber, whilst still at depth.
You then can gradually adjust your air mix to ones used at normal dive depths. Taking hours (or days) to do this. With the decompression chamber helping in the process. Only once you have acclimatised to the pressure at this depth, and breathing normal air, can you then, slowly, ascend to the surface.
Done from my layman’s memory of such, so my details might be a bit off. But SCUBA gear alone will not cut it. Not if the prison is being pressurised to an unknown pressure and you want to ensure you exceed the upper possible ranges.
(I’ll admit my initial idea with this was to grab depth/pressure gauge first, then head to the ocean, now knowing how deep you need to be.)
There is specialized SCUBA gear where you can swap in tanks underwater, I believe. Yeah, it would not be ideal, but you could do it with enough tanks or large enough tanks and specialized gear. If she has different tanks at different mixes (or a system that can adjust mixes from two tanks) she can even swap in the right air mixture.
Also, at that point, you could rely on more common commercial diving gear to decompress, if you have some arrangement to get your hands on some. (A standard contract and being able to pass a note might be enough. This is less costly or unusual to set up than an underwater base, and the person renting the equipment could use it for other – legal and already common – purposes 99% of the time.)
Last variant – depending on how her portals work (and exact depth she needs) – she might be able to use a modified surface-supplied-air rig. Keep the ‘surface’ section on the other side of the portal, and have the portal seal around the hose so there’s no leakage, and she can take all the time she wants, as long as the rig can get power. (And she can hook it up to utility power with whatever backups she wants at that point.) This would only likely work with depths she can use a normal air mix at though.
The main point of the decompression chambers while ascending if you’re underwater the whole time is that they are a place you can rest while your body adjusts. If she’s willing to give that up though, the limits she has are the amount of air (or mixed air) she can grab and her knowledge, training, and endurance.
For measuring pressure.
Open a pinhole to an anemometer in a (relatively) known pressure.
Close the portal.
Calculate the pressure differential based on the wind speed.
Write your note on a spitwad. Open your portal to the room of a lackey. Imbed the note in the wall next to their head, informing them where to put the tank, how big of a tank, and how high to charge it, (and possibly with what.)
Getting messages OUT is easy, provided you have any writing materials at all.
Getting a sample of the air mix out is also easy, but you need someone on the other side to read your note, (shot through one portal and embedded in the wall…or desk,) and follow your instructions to have the gas in the convenient pressure tank analyzed for mix.
Convenient pressure tanks…
2 liter bottle, emptied and capped.
50LB air tank, at “0” pressure. The type you buy at wal-mart.
The hard part would be getting someone to analyze your sample…without telling them why.
With a GOOD air tank, you can do both at once.
Fill a discharged tank, via a small hole, until the tank is full. Your lackey can check the gauge on top to determine how high to charge the one he’ll be fetching for your use.
When you portal into this equalized tank…be sure to take your blankets with you. Also, you’ll be portalling out of this tank after the pressure has been dealt with. Better start stocking up on water and food.
Good thinking there. Several sound ideas.
Except for the fact she’s being monitored by video & audio, just to try most of those steps is bound to be noticed. Then all they have to do is add some anesthesia to her atmosphere mix…Then also add “attempted escape” to whatever other charges they want to indict for.
;)
Sound. Not ‘impossible to counter’.
It is necessary to recognise which tactics are valid, in the first place. Those which will fail, of their own accord, do not even need to be countered. All you need do is dispatch the guy, with the bucket and mop, to retrieve her remains.
Your counters are sound MidnightDStroyer.
But they can be counter-countered.
They are also likely to be monitoring not only the pressure, but the exact gas-mix constantly. Even a pinhole-sized portal used for only a second or two might be detectable. Then they would also have to compensate while searching for the exact cause of the change…The “portal test” would be done, but they WILL be looking for ways to prevent it from happening again, even on small scale. Chances are pretty good that any attempt that makes a large-scale change in the atmosphere would be caught & prevented very quickly.
Sound. You omitted to mention the sound that is. Pinhole-sized portals would emit a very distinctive sound, given a pressure differential. Thus audio monitoring would provide an additional counter-counter-counter, to the one you suggested.
Kudos goes to the commentator who mentioned it elsewhere, rather than myself mind.
Actually, for most of SeanR’s ideas, adding anesthesia wouldn’t help – Opal can do the test, including sending the results back, in under a minute, so she can just hold her breath. She’ll be subject to the anesthesia afterwards, of course, but the test is done.
But does she know whether the environment has changed, or not, by the time she regains consciousness?
If I were the prison guard/warden I would twiddle the pressure dial and adjust the gas mix. Plus remind her that I may, or may not, have done that. So that she is fully aware that she remains at risk of death, despite her attempt to prepare to escape.
Mmm, I could quibble with some of the details, and the practicality of staying submerged all that time (one mistake and you are dead, and both fatigue and lack of experience make that much more likely), but will grant that if you can obtain an unlimited air supply, it becomes theoretically possible.
Tis a bit more than just needing a scuba tank though, as initially pitched. An interesting solution though, none the less.
I’ll admit I over-simplified at the beginning. The ‘surface normally’ was meant to theoretically cover those details – the point is that once she’s in the water with the SCUBA set, she’s effectively escaped and surfacing doesn’t take any exotic constructions or other items not currently available – all she has to do is surface like any diver from that depth would, which is a solved problem, in general. Depending on what she’s got set up and who she can count on there are several options. Yeah, it would take set up and isn’t exactly simple, but it doesn’t require a fictional supervillian style hideout either.
If she wanted to set this up, probably the simplest setup would be to have a shed someplace with 30-40 air tanks, already mixed with different air mixes, with hoses and regulators attached. That’s not an impossible purchase (especially if she partnered with a SCUBA rental someplace in a tourist area – probably a good idea so you cycle the tanks occasionally anyway), and all she would have to do is grab the tank for the depth she was at.
And I’ll agree the worst part of it is that she’s actually in the water for a long time, and a single mistake could cost her life during a lot of that. She would have to make sure she stayed awake, even while staying at depth, without eating drinking or resting for up to about 30 hours depending on the depth – not impossible, but certainly dangerous and difficult. If she’s partnered with a dive center that can help it would be a lot easier – a decompression chamber delivered several hours in would make the whole thing much less risky.
Also, it does depend on what the pressure is in that cell. If they’ve taken the (reasonable) measure of pressurizing to the max with standard air (instead of switching to expensive and more complex specialized gas mixes) then she doesn’t need to spend days decompressing – just hours, and it can be done without specialized gas mixes, making the escape a lot easier. (But still requiring setup and work – and still fulfilling their warning at the beginning.)
How about Kevin from Desert Bluffs (WTNV)? True, he’s just a radio host, but he’s a radio host who likes to decorate with viscera and human teeth which he scatters about with a vastly higher concentration then most hockey rinks.
VERY curious now on how they’ve incarcerated Vekter. …. The fact that he is also in traction with lotsa broken ribs would help some,
…Can Vektor move organic materials or living tissue? No examples of him doing so.
After the injured ARC members got treated by the in-house super doc (who really needs a code name by now) did any of the injured combatants get a turn? In addition to Vekter, Max said the fire guy who got body slammed by Halo was in pretty bad shape.
Fairly sure that Harem mentioned the Docs name (and it was Harem, again, who mentioned about the fire guy’s injuries)
Yes, this is basic medical ethics.
Doctors flatly refuse to work on combatants if restricted to working on/for just one of the sets of combatants.
Even in war zones, enemy troops get the same medical care as troops from the same side as the doctor. Maybe the doctor works on friendlies *first*, but if they agree to work on friendlies *only* then they aren’t doctors any more – at least not as far as the rest of their profession is concerned.
[sadly contemplates the lack of opposable digits]
*grasps a pen in teeth, and crudely draws a hand, with a raised thumb*
Impressive drawing for someone without thumbs