Grrl Power #527 – When I say “favor…”
Careful Sydney, some of those terms might be racist? Anyway, clearly she’s a drow. Or… maybe a dark elf… Actually what’s the difference? I think dark elf is maybe a non D&D version of a drow? Actually, hopefully she’s not a drow because most of them are buttholes. The main characters of most books about drow non-withstanding obviously. Just, all of the rest of them usually.
It’s a fair bet The Council doesn’t know the full range of Krona’s full abilities. They know she can flip a door’s flag from “locked” to “unlocked” with incredible ease, (not that a locked door is much of a challenge to any of the Vi’s) and she can reload an allies’ gun or even unload an enemies’ gun and lots of other useful but mostly cantrip level things. Time manipulation is something most sensible people should be nervous about, and it’s obvious Krona barely knows what she’s doing, much less had paradox checking code worked out.
(Sorry again about the late update. I’ll get on the horn with support and see if I can figure out what’s going on. Hopefully this will be the last late one.)
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So….
Shiney….
cannot look awaaayyyyy..
Golden Globe award goes to…..
Lefty and Righty for their heroic acts of standing up in the face of danger, intense heat, explosions, and still managing to make the A team feel envious and unable to turn away.
“Not a lesbian, not a lesbian, not a………”
+1 you have either a good memory or just did an archive dive.
Dabbler is great at creating memorable moments :P
LOLed till I fell out of my chair then imitated sydney as I rolled around holding my head
I don’t like the precedent this sets. The Council can’t protect its own from Archon. They are supposed to be allies, are they not? Yet here the Major – not even the highest authority of the organization, decides she’s going to kidnap someone whom she has no authority over back to her position of power and then her abilities – which are beholden to the Council and thus for the Council to decide what is done with them – are going to be studied by Archon.
Which is idiotic because anything they learn about her abilities is probably going to fall into the hands of Scarface McHugeneck whatshisname. She has powers that none of them need to be able to replicate. Ever. And why is she assuming Dabbler and Archon will be able to know more about what Krona can do than Krona does? Is this going to be a case of “and Dabbler teaches you how to use your powers” despite that Krona’s an adult and had them for how long? And Dabbler just busts out the three-step Universe Hacking for Dummies guide? Hopefully it won’t be like that!
Still, this is rubbing me the wrong way. Major has just kidnapped an ally to have her secrets plumbed just because the ally is ‘dangerous’. Your allies are supposed to be dangerous, there’s no point allying with someone who is of no use to you. And don’t tell me it’s not kidnapping – she has her hand on Krona’s shoulder and offered no other option than ‘you are coming with us and I’ll make the people who should be protecting you deal with the consequences of my decision later’. Not to mention that hand on her shoulder means “no matter how much you can hack, I can kill you before you get your console open should you resist”.
“Kidnap” is a bit of hyperbole at most she’s sequestering her for debriefing.
It’s an ally insisting on the presence of another ally agent. Like she said she’ll talk with Krona’s superiors and get everything OK’d and on the books and she’s not going to disappear or jail her either.
Also, she has intelligence on Sydney’s Level Up Screen. Which is a significant find and I’m sure they want to ask her some questions about what she knows about it.
Some? I wouldn’t be doubtful this will take a week minimum. First to explain what she sees, then to explain what she say, and finally to explain how that worked.
Entire conversation necessary:
Maxima: “You know the threat that almost destroyed a significant portion of your veil and would have completely overturned your world?”
Council: “Yea…?”
Maxima: “One of your more spastic enforcers almost countered it by wiping out reality because she didn’t know what she was doing, almost killing the world, including the most powerful and experienced among you, before you’d even know what happens, and she has it set up so she can make sure noone can kill her without her consent. In fact, attempting to do so, or even just getting her too excited, may destroy the world anyway. Even I wouldn’t be able to stop her from doing it. You know my record and know me saying something like this wouldn’t be an exaggeration.”
Council: “THE FUQ?!?”
Maxima: “Might I recommend we take her for some professional super-powered training so she can learn to use her armed super-nuke of a power c.a.r.e.f.u.l.l.y. without killing us all?”
Council: “…please?”
Try instead:
Maxima: “One of your more spastic enforcers almost countered it by wiping out reality because she didn’t know what she was doing, almost killing the world, including the most powerful and experienced among you, before you’d even know what happens, and she has it set up so she can make sure noone can kill her without her consent. In fact, attempting to do so, or even just getting her too excited, may destroy the world anyway. Even I wouldn’t be able to stop her from doing it. You know my record and know me saying something like this wouldn’t be an exaggeration.”
Council: “What exactly do you think our Council member did and what harm her did actions cause? Feel free to go into as much detail as you like.”
Maxima: “Well… Nothing was hurt. No one was harmed. She was working with us and we got scared is all. Actually, one of our member is certain that what she did saved her from dying.”
Council: “So let me get this straight: Krona saved the life of one of you Acorn people, did no damage to anyone or anything that you have any actual evidence of, and you thank her and us by arresting her? Please come back after you change your underpants (which we can see quite clearly at the moment. And where did you get that jacket, Major?) Until such time as you can accurately describe the crime that you think was committed, by whom and against whom, with consequences other than in your imagination, feel free to restrain yourself from arresting our members. You would think that Acorn’s most powerful member would not fall into such a paranoid delusion when they run into another powerful human, but I guess it takes all types.”
Considering your change to council response…
Change 2nd Maxima to…
Maxima: “She caused no harm, and she’s not in trouble. We just feel that it’d help both your group and ours to see her receive additional training. That said, she’s not under arrest, and won’t be unless the situation changes to where she’s a clear and present danger. However, her power puts her in a position of quickly being a clear and present danger if she uses it without training. As such, if she uses her power again without additional training, in a similar way as a person would be for reckless driving and endangering those around them, we’d be obliged to arrest her for endangerment. We just want to train her to have better control to help prevent any kind of disaster. We don’t want her to not be able to use her power, we just want her to be able to use it responsibly. Much like how I suspect your organization would normally catch new vampires who are irresponsibly feeding, and train them on responsible feeding, but wouldn’t actually be imprisoning them unless they refused to take one of several available responsible paths.”
Council: “So let me get this straight: Krona saved the life of one of you Acorn people, did no damage to anyone or anything that you have actual evidence of, and you want to thank her by sequestering her and making her take classes in a skill she has already demonstrated enough foresight to prevent a problem with?”
Maxima: “No, the reward will a fairly hefty salary bump from whatever you are currently paying her while she goes through the training and a signing bonus, and access to many lucrative contracts for her future career as well as access to top-of-the-line coding assistants to speed up the ability and finesse of her coding process. And likely a chance to meet some of her favorite actors. What you mention is just assisting with something by her own admittance she needed to work more on. Archon will also compensate the Council for the time she is unavailable during training.”
Council: “We insist that you at least include a luncheon dinner for a going away party.”
Maxima: “I’ll have to clear that, but it sounds reasonable.”
How would Archon have someone who knows Krona’s reality-hacking programming language better than she does, given that she’s its only user and might have even designed the high-level language she works in?
Actually, Maxi is a Lt Colonel (or is she a full Colonel? can never remember) and second only to General Faulk
The Council only exists because of a deal with the US Government, Archon is a fully recognized agency of the US Government, with the mandate to ‘protect people against extraordinary threats’ (as Maxi said in panel four)
Kronachrome is an independent individual, her powers are not ‘beholden to the Council’, she is free to leave at any time (just like anyone else, including Inggie and Crimson Scarlet, and Mr Barkley and his daughter)
And what’s to say Deus doesn’t already have a way to get that information, possibly directly from The Council? Who said Deus has a way of duplicating any powers?
You missed the part where Kronachrome has admitted, on several occasions, she as barely any idea what she is doing? Dabbler and Arc-Light are scientists, and they will be helping Kronachrome learn what her abilities can do and how to use them safely, not just for her but for the entire universe
You forget that that was how Sydney ended up as Recruit Scoville? Kronachrome isn’t just dangerous to her allies, but to the entire Reality some people live in and would rather it not suddenly go purple
Maxi said she would ‘deal with them (Semper Vigilantis)’, as in, ‘will let them know where you are’
Have you forgotten that just recently (as in within the last couple of hours), she caused an ally’s underwear to automagically give her a wedgie, altered her own hair colour on a whim, set up a Cosmic Save Point (with no real understanding of how it works) and messed with an ally’s bodily functions without consent!!!
Ah, yes. High crimes and misdemeanors indeed! Ready the firing squad! Next we’ll shoot Harem for planting kisses on Morpheous (He was almost raped!) and then Heatwave for attempted third degree cola-burns. Hell, if we can find a gun large enough we’ll have to shoot Maxima for cracking a window in the conference room and threatening permanent hearing loss to everyone in the room!
Krona saved Sydney’s life* and harmed nothing and no one. Unless I woke in Russia this morning her actions deserve commendation, not condemnation.
.
* And because I recognize exactly what a special kind of idiot you are I will have to add before you use the Wookie defense that while Krona herself has said that she is not sure that is what happened, Sydney is. And Sydney was there, being dangled by her wrists, helpless, while a knife was heading towards her gibblets, wielded by a being who had just pondered what might be able to be done with all of Sydney’s blood. Krona was not.
Her actions deserve, and require, further training, not sure where you are getting condemnation from. Yes, she saved Sydney’s and Pixelicious’ lives, but at what risk? What if she wasn’t able to stop the loop? What then? Do you know? Because Kronachrome sure as Hael doesn’t, and she’s the one doing it
Oh, you mean because of her ability to alter a persons biology? Yes, can see how that can be harmless
Did you forget that Harem was reprimanded (with a cascading Maxi Wedgie) for her ‘practical joke’? And it wasn’t just for the joke, but for painting Maxi in such a bad light the fledgling Archon might never have recovered from, at the least forcing Maxi out of a job. Maxi was also reprimanded, by her commanding officer, immediately
“Yes, she saved Sydney’s and Pixelicious’ lives, but at what risk? ”
Probably less of a risk than the risk of yanking out an ‘important’ part of the Superhusk which then caused a massive explosion capable of getting through Maxima’s shield.
Especially since nothing happened as a result, other than saving two Archon members’ lives.
Probably less of a risk than doing a super-duper suplex and caving in a building while Krona was still nearby, with no knowledge of where the debris would fall.
Probably less of a risk than firing a random new power at the Superhusk, causing multiple forest fires.
Probably less of a risk than punching Vehemence into a nearby construction site, destroying the whole site in the process.
Probably less of a risk than automatically always assuming that you are the be-all and end-all toughest person around, which endangers EVERYONE if the bad guy can actually counter you, like Vehemence or Death Toll.
“What if she wasn’t able to stop the loop?”
She was. You can’t detain someone for unproven, and in fact inaccurate, theories. I bring up the old ‘I know chemistry and I have access to the internet, therefore I’m capable of building a bomb. But you can’t arrest me for my knowledge and access to items…. there must be some actual guilty mind and guilty action involved.’ Even when it comes to recklessness, as soon as Krona realized there could be a problem, she QUICKLY shut it all down, and even before that, she had a lot of safeguards on it. That’s actually the opposite of ‘reckless.’
“Oh, you mean because of her ability to alter a persons biology? Yes, can see how that can be harmless”
And she used this powerful ability to…. give Sydney 30 more minutes before she’d have to pee. Truly, she is like Mengele.
“Did you forget that Harem was reprimanded (with a cascading Maxi Wedgie) for her ‘practical joke’?”
The big difference there is Harem is essentially a soldier under Maxima’s command and has to follow certain protocols of behavior. Maxima is Harem’s Commanding Officer… not Krona’s Krona is not a soldier under Maxima’s command and Maxima should not be allowed to force her to do squat unless Krona is doing something illegal, which she wasn’t. In fact, she was using her powers under a joint task force sort of deal sanctioned by both the Council AND Archon.
Oh, so you are fine that someone can alter another persons very biology without consent or warning?
Regarding those ‘safeguards’, you are aware that Kronachrome wasn’t even aware that anything had happened, and if Sydney hadn’t freaked out so badly, wouldn’t have even checked, and the reason she shut it down was because she detected something a little ‘screwy’ that she hadn’t anticipated
Have you ignored panel four entirely? Go back and read it again, and you will se tat Maxi is perfectly in the right to ‘detain’ Kronachrome (but, that’s the thing, she’s not detaining her, she simply informed her of what is going to happen, and why, which is simply that she needs someone to go over he abilities with her)
“Oh, so you are fine that someone can alter another persons very biology without consent or warning?”
Keeping you from peeing is not altering your biology any more than if I make you laugh to the point that you pee your pants is altering your biology. She also didnt eliminate the pee, she just paused the need for 30 minutes. Plus Sydney was not only okay with it, she loved that fact and was amazed by it. And given Krona’s predictive text goggles, it’s likely that Krona realized that Sydney would be okay with it.
“Regarding those ‘safeguards’, you are aware that Kronachrome wasn’t even aware that anything had happened,”
Yes, and when she did find out that it happened to Sydney (as Sydney was covered by the savepoint INTENTIONALLY, and thank goodness for that), she immediately wanted to know every aspect of what happened and checked the logs to confirm. She keeps logs. She isnt doing this half-assed.
“and if Sydney hadn’t freaked out so badly, wouldn’t have even checked,”
Why WOULDNT Sydney have checked. Hell, Sydney even asked if what she was doing was making a save point BEFORE it happened.
“and the reason she shut it down was because she detected something a little ‘screwy’ that she hadn’t anticipated”
Right. Something screwy that she hadnt anticipated happened, and the FIRST thing she did was to immediately shut it down, then review the code, then double check to make sure nothing bad happened as a result. That’s called being responsible, not being reckless. It’s called being CAREFUL. On top of the precautions she already had in the high level code.
“Have you ignored panel four entirely?”
No, but apparently you have. And you’re getting condescending and becoming a very rude person, and your immature, namecalling attitude is beginning to become irritating. Attack the position, not the person.
“Go back and read it again,”
How about you read it again instead, and while you’re at it (if you’re going to get all snippy and condescending and rude to me for no reason, when I’ve been logical about this and NOT calling you names or slinging insults), learn about basic human rights and bodily autonomy. Especially in relation to what Archon said both at Sydney’s interview and at the press conference. It is not illegal to have powers. And while you’re at it, stop trying to spark a flame war and act like an adult so you can have a rational, reasonable discussion instead of whatever ‘this’ is.
“and you will se tat Maxi is perfectly in the right to ‘detain’ Kronachrome”
I’ve already written lengthy posts about why she is not in the right, and I use the actual law and what actually happened in the comic to describe why, logically. Read the posts, since several of them were in response to your posts.
“(but, that’s the thing, she’s not detaining her,”
Whereas you can’t even decide whether she’s detaining her or not. Hint – she is detaining her.
“she simply informed her of what is going to happen, and why, which is simply that she needs someone to go over he abilities with her)”
You remind me of people who say things like ‘I’m not promoting censorship, I just don’t want those people to say anything that I disagree with and I’m going to prevent them from writing those things’
If you’re not giving someone a choice in whether they have to go with you or not, then you are detaining them. Don’t use doublespeak when you’re just describing the same exact thing. Krona’s been detained. Illegally. Unconstitutionally. And in rather undiplomatic fashion as well.
Just diving in on a single point, as only have a moment to glance at this page of comments, and this one stood out.
Krona failed to ask concent to take this action. It would be unethical for a doctor to initiate a procedure OF ANY SORT that affected somebody’s biological functions, without their concent. Unless they were unable to provide concent and it was necessary to act immediately, in order to preserve their life or health.
Whilst I joked about it in the raising the dead context,* there is also the fact that this DID conduct an invasive procedure (it was acting INSIDE Sydney’s body, regardless of the means used). This means that it falls under the heading of medical law. Krona does not (as far a we know) have a licence to practice medicine.
However if it turns out that Krona does, she would loose it acting in this manner! Plus would face whatever criminal prosecutions may be applicable in New York State, for practicing medicine without a licence and whatever charges would be laid for using a medical procedure on someone without their concent.
Obviously the point you made that Sydney was fine with it does mitigate that aspect here, so I draw your attention to the necessity of stopping Krona from doing this casually with anyone she wants to around her.
For her own good she needs a lesson in morality, ethics and the legal issues involved. Fortunately Krona appears to be giving her concent here.** Without it though, I feel that a court would order her to comply with that. Or face the possibility of other sanctions, such as imprisonment and/or a ban on continuing such practices.
*This was clearly justified, from a medical ethics point of view, because it was (probably) preventing Sydney dying in the first place. There was no time to ask her concent and it was reasonable to assume that she would have given it, if asked.
** Possibly ‘under duress,’ to acknowledge your other concerns in this area.
“Something screwy that she hadnt anticipated happened, and the FIRST thing she did was to immediately shut it down, then review the code, then double check to make sure nothing bad happened as a result.”
The point is that if it happened once, it can happen again and the next time it happens we might get a BSOD on the universe.
She get worried because she is aware that this is actually dangerous and may blow up the universe so she prooooooobably needs a bit of training and/or someone to check her code for buggy stuff.
Krona could shatter time and space. Pretty sure that’s worth bad PR to prevent. If Max was just randomly taking anyone, I’d agree. But taking the person who is risking all of reality, and clearly isn’t certain as to what she’s doing? I think the Council will be fine with it. If anything, they might actually want her dead, to remove the risk.
No, they’ll want her more trained. What better environment than the place with superpowers which are not you doing this?
And THERE is the gist of what I am getting. Max isn’t trying to sequester Krona, more to the point, its for ARC to get a handle on her, and help her control her powers better, at least from Max’s point of view. The Council, I am sure, can NOT provide the same level of training and council, pardon the pun, that ARC would be able to. Forward Krona to ARC as a Liaison, get her extra training, and with any luck, ARC defuses potential oopses in reality, The Council gains a better trained operative, and reality can breathe a sigh of relief that we won’t all be turned into kronenbergs, accidentally. >.>!
Eh… IDK. If it was me, I’d certainly feel sorry for Krona… But if she misplaces a bracket and destroys Manhattan, I’m not thinking anyone will care if it’s a mistake. Even if she’s trained, that will always be a risk, that she’ll do what all coders do, and make a mistake… But her mistakes have higher costs. I’d just kill her, not because of HER specifically, but because any use of her powers is a significant risk to a large number of people. Spock kind of thing, for me.
Actually, that seems more like a classically half-baked Starfleet Admiral “solution” to me.
You know, because when an Admiral who isn’t James Kirk shows up, he’s usually antagonistic and a bit batty.
I’d see it like this. The Council is a multinational body, like the UN or NATO. Even though they have a HQ in the USA , they are not USA government group. Many of the members at the meeting likely weren’t USA citizens, and likely functioning on the equivalent of a Diplomatic pass. However some of their members may be USA citizens, even for some of the Semper Vigilantis.
Which is where things get complicated. Technically a USA Semper Vigilantis could be in violation of the act that made Archon, acting as a non-government police/security. This is offset by the Archon acknowledging the Council as allied political body.
This situation would be like DHS asking a US citizen who works for the UN as a Peacekeeper, to come in and discuss their UN sanctioned backpack nuclear reactor with some DHS nuclear physicists. To make sure it’s not going to explode or leak.
Why do this now, and not when Archon was formed? Well for a start Krona demonstrated her reality breaking potential in front of three Archon agents. It’s not unlike how Archon held the restaurant fight participants, only with less violence.
Krona could refuse, demand to see a warrant for her arrest. At which point Max could likely cuff her and take her in on some kind of 24-hour “imminent super threat” clause. Then we get legal counsel involved, the Council itself, and what passes for USA supernatural relations.
They don’t have to join archon to enforce the law police or other licensed security agency’s are allowed the super just has to be properly and legally trained to provide safety by those agency’s which the super could get better of and better pay at archon
Zack Tilly! No Super has to register, no Super has to join Archon, no Super is restricted from using their powers in a lawful manner (and includes people like Barberian and that builder we saw turning down a bank robbing job), but, if they want to fight crime, then yes, they do have to join an official lawful crime fighting organisation (even if it’s their local small town sheriff’s department with just two deputies and one car) other wise they would be treated as vigilante’s and be hunted down (just like Heatwave, Morph and Les), just like any non-Super costumed clown with more money than brains (and a corrupt commissioner in their pocket)
Probably not the best example.
IF the UN had a backpack nuclear reactor on US soil, you can be CERTAIN that whomever was in charge of it would be talking to the AEC. And, if that person was a US citizen, Homeland Security, the FBI, and a bunch of other alphabet soup suits would be involved too.
However, make no mistake. This is a instance of lawful authority telling someone they’re coming in for questioning. This is not voluntary; this is compulsory. But you’re right in principle, this is NOT a good precident to set with powerful allies (especially the “I’ll clear it with them later”; most especially in the middle of a shared mission).
I agree. It’s a genre limitation that you reaaaaally don’t want to be doing what Max is doing right now–Bringing up logic & legal liabilities. Because if you make this argument you’re making an argument to permanently sequester half the frickin’ team based on what-ifs. What if our Boston Aztec shakes hands with a kiddie at an event and it makes her start emitting beta particles, melting the dna structures of the entire crowd? You don’t KNOW that can’t happen, right? You don’t KNOW how her power works. It’s daaaaangerous! Won’t SOMEONE think of THE CHILDREN? Lock her up, lock her up! …You get the idea. What if Max shows up to fight a supervillain whose only ability is to make people uncontrollably sneeze? Max could accidentally destroy Baltimore. After all, have you ever tested her abilities vs. The Five Flavor Paprika Bandit? No? Well you’d best lock Max up just to be safe. You don’t know exactly how her oyster glitter bodypaint powers works, you just know she’s immensely strong, fast, and durable. Sydney? Sydney’s severely undermedicated and zips around with two orbs that neither she nor anyone else knows what they do. Time to lock Sydney up. Better safe than sorry! So… yeah. This is a terrible twisty path to even start down.
Both Max and Aztec have already had their powers rigorously tested. And any accident that may occur is very slim and unlikely to have as much collateral damage as say; ripping apart space and time.
Also, she is very specifically NOT locking Krona up. She’s just requesting her presence and getting certain other specialists (ones with special scanny vision and magic/tech savvy) to take a look at her code. Which is entirely reasonable, especially after Krona herself had to rapidly shut down the potentially universe destroying code after it turned out to be doing something unexpected. That’s…definitely a clear and present reason to insist on her getting a second opinion on her code before using it.
“insist you return with us to base” is not even close to semantically equal to “request politely that you swing by and give us a briefing on your powerset.”
Plus the demand that Krona refrain from reality hacking, and the threat to cuff her if she doesn’t. Ok Max, we demand you stop being shiny and strong while we test you. >.<
You just can't prove a negative. You simply cannot prove that Krona *can't* destroy reality without trying to destroy reality in the process. It's unreasonable to demand she completely stop using her powers because they make you a little queasy to think about how powerful they *might* be.
As for our "well-tested" heroines I picked my examples on purpose. First, Max is supposed to be arguably the most powerful known Super. So that's obvious. But I picked our Aztec because in the "Teamups and Crossovers" story where the Wearing the Cape Universe met with Grrlpower, our beloved author declared it to be canon for grrlpower. There was a specific example given of a handshake-gone-wrong that resulted in significant property damage before the rest of ArcLight was able to fix things; Aztec gal and the person whose hand she is holding are generally immune to whatever power manifests but the bystanders? Not so much.
So I pretty much just think this was an attempt to make a couple jokes and was very poorly thought out as far as the implications go.
The ‘threat’ to cuff Kronachrome was just a playful teasing, and it was more like to a gentle “Gibbs’ Slap” than slapping a pair of handcuffs on her
You are correct, there is no proof that Kronachrome can destroy reality, but she has already tampered with it and admitted she had no idea what she was doing
And there is plenty she can do with her powers or ability without directly altering reality (like no more ‘hacking of bladders’)
not “no idea” but incomplete understanding, and a reasonable concern chrome will set a checkpoint or rig an escape program when adjusting other items or events around her that calls some concern of similar danger if even to a smaller area
This has been the most sane of the various opinions expressed here. Not only because it agrees point for point with my own, but because it is simply correct.
A tall cool one for Candide Scaramouche. Brilliantly stated.
The problem here I agree is that Max is arresting her, for having powers that Might be dangerous to the public. She’s been with the magic council for years, she’s been using her powers for years. While wanting to take a look at her stuff is fair and this is absolutely where you should be Asking her to come along and show some of your experts what she does and how she does it for safety analysis. But Arresting her for it right off the bat seems totally the wrong way to go about it…
I mean suppose Krona knew this might happen; that would probably make her seriously have second thoughts about using/revealing her save-point ability to the team and if she had not… Well, sydney would be a blood-drained corpse, the bloodmage Might have gained control of her halo-orbs and Pixel would be spending potentially a very long time as a blood-battery…
It’s not hard to imagine the magic community hearing about this, about one of their people being arrested for showing off something a little too fancy while Helping Archon. At best Maxima is just going to make the more paranoid and cautious parts of the community feel very justified never to stick their neck out around Archon, at worst she’s setting the grounds for a serious diplomatic incident.
And ontop of all that, it seems entirely possible here that she could just Ask Krona to come show some of Archon’s experts some of her stuff or even heck, Offer her help ala “so hey, I hear your reality-code stuff is something you’re self-taught on and its giving you trouble… We do have some people on our team with extremely wide-spread competences and expertice that might be able to help you out with that… it means comming with us and signing some NDA’s, but are you interested?”
TLDR: there’s much to lose and nothing to gain by maxima skipping straight to the “you are comming with us” imperative aproach and I agree that it was the wrong way for Max to go here.
But then the comic would not be as interesting if noone ever made mistakes I guess so ce la comic
No one is being fucking arrested!! Was Sydney arrested when Maxi ‘requested’ that she comes along back to Archon-HQ? o_O
Thank you for reminding me of the “de-briefing” situation.
Max is making it clear that Krona’s not being given any choice in the matter, and in the last panel was threatened with handcuffs. While she may not be being “arrested”, she is most certainly being detained.
Neither was Sydney, and Sydney wasn’t detained either, she even got a high-paying job while still being able to run her store
Well Sydney was either arrested or she was abducted. That she doesn’t hold a grudge about it doesn’t change the fact that she was taken away and she didn’t have the option of saying “Nah, I’d rather go home now”.
Is she currently locked up? Is she being held against her will? o_O
Max did intimidate her into taking on a new job and half-abandoning her shop. There are carrots, sure; but Max is a pretty much a Teddy Roosevelt size of stick.
I posted that comment, and realised that those who haven’t studied USA history will find that last sentence really strange. Sydney’s new job has “carrots”–good pay and interesting coworkers–to keep her there; as well as “sticks”–Max is really scary, and she’s actually nice to Sydney; what might government scientists do the the alien balls girl?
Teddy Roosevelt, once in national-level politics was an intimidating imperialist who believed in “speaking softly and carrying a big stick.” The USA grew its overseas territories very rapidly in his day.
You forget that Ari was there when she was offered the ne job? And we still don’t know what that super-secret condition for joining was (and no, highly doubt it was something as simple and basic as being allowed to work the morning shift before reporting to ARCHON)
Although it was not explicitly stated, it was strongly hinted that the “super-secret condition” (which was Sydney’s idea, remember) was that she be allowed to work at the store on Wednesday mornings, which is when the new comics arrive.
Sydney did not know at the time just how big her paychecks were going to be, so she didn’t know she’d be able to hire additional help for Joel, and “new comic day” is too overwhelming for just one person. (The comic store in my hometown makes all its employees work Wednesday mornings for that exact reason.)
This is a VERY tricky issue here… Max is going out of her way to be as friendly as possible here, specifically because of that. She thanked Krona for helping out, explained the situation, stated that she wasn’t under arrest, asked her to come along purely on a voluntary basis, and tried making a joke in the last panel in response to Krona’s own banter.
This is how you AVOID the cliched “superhero faceoffs” where two teams come to blows because of confusion. She wants Krona to come along – not just quietly, but voluntarily. She wants Krona to submit to testing so they know what she can do. And she wants to make a good impression on both Krona and the Council and on others.
IF the Council decided to complain, it would get very, very problematic… so I’m very pleased to see that Maxima is asking politely and being gracious, instead of looming dramatically and declaring, “you are coming with us. Refusal is not an option.” (which is when the issue ends on a cliffhanger and the next issue opens with the two sides coming to blows instead of talking it out)
Politically speaking, if the Vis were NOT allowed to exist that would mean that Archon would have to chase down, apprehend and likely destroy most of them. Given the number and diversity of them that might be daunting to the point of foolish. And if word got out that any number of alien species were being summarily hunted down and disposed of, that could tank global well being on an interstellar level.
So I don’t think the US Government is doing the Vis a favor by “allowing them to exist”. They are doing themselves and the world a solid by negotiating a carefully balanced deal that benefits everyone unless someone dorks it up by absconding with their members. Perhaps the Vis would like a few Archon members. That could be arranged. Would that go over well I wonder?
Nope. Because Max and Archon operate by main force, not law. They are a strictly Homeric operation using shock and awe instead of law and order. They get what they want because they can take it and nobody can stop them.
That said, Krona might WANT to go with her. She might really want someone with a little experience to talk to and get some ideas from. I get the idea the Krona is all by her lonesome where powers are concerned. And seeing as how she is potentially the only thing that can checkmate Max, the world might just need her to get that knowledge in hand.
You do realise that Zephan, a high ranking member of Arc-Light, is also a member of the Council? o_O
I’m sure this will all be hand-waved away in the interest of moving the story along and I don’t blame anyone for it. It just seems like instead of a mid-operation snatch-and-grab. Max should have gone to the Council itself and let them tell Krona she was going off to a farm to play with all the other puppies.
America: Wow that British soldier is good. He’s like freaky good…. we’re taking him.
Britain: Hang on now, you most certainly are not.
America: What are you going to do?
Britain: Well…
America: You going to bomb us?
Britain: Certainly not!
America: Gonna send agents?
Britain: Well…
America: ‘Cause we’ll just kill them if you do?
Britain: Rude!
America: That’s what I thought, we’re taking him.
Britain: We are going to protest you so hard.
America: Have fun with that cupcake.
Doesn’t seem like that’s the way its supposed to go. Unless it works as I have described above in which case that’s exactly that way it goes. Either way, I should probably repeat to myself that its just a comic and I should really just relax.
I fully agree with your line of thought, wraithedge. Max handled this by pure strong-arm tactics with no regard to alliances or decorum. It’s simply… unprofessional. But as you said, comic, so probably not a real issue, though it really would be irl. There’s also Krona’s personality to account for – which is why Max can get away with what she’s doing now… next time (there is always a next time) hopefully not so much, as I’m rather sick with her attitude.
IRL, Krona would so be dead. No matter how much training she gets, she will be a constant threat to the universe and everyone in it. Her right to be free and alive doesn’t really trump everyone else’s right to, you know… Not get obliterated because she misplaced a bracket somewhere.
Nonsense. There is no way that killing her is a good idea. You’re massively overrating her threat level while disregarding both her known positive utility and the unknowns of harming or removing her.
Remember that no one knows where her power comes from, and what happens to it if you kill the vessel.
Krona isn’t malevolent, and she does try to avoid major errors. What if her power, released from her, ended up in the hands of a less careful intelligence?
Hypothetically, suppose that Krona is a lucid fragment of an extradimensional consciousness dreaming their world into existence. Killing her could do far more damage than any glitch she comes up with herself. It’s just as reasonable to suppose that as to suppose that Krona is a constant threat to all the multiverse.
And that’s assuming you can even succeed. Antagonising a unique reality hacker is in theory a very quick way of making an incorrigible enemy who can wipe you from reality.
If assassin or virus or whatever failed to kill her (she has savestates, good luck with the killing bit!), NOW you’ve gone and pissed off the girl that can play god with reality. She can probably literally hack someone out of existence or into some hellscape of her choosing. Even TRYING to kill her is a bad idea – she might have a handy program to inform her of such things (I doubt anything is really beyond her powers, it’s more along the lines of beyond current skill – which is unknown).
Darn, meant to re:Nssheepster. /shrug
The issue here isn’t how much damage she could cause intentionally. It’s how much she could do by accident.
Most people have a limit to how much damage they’re willing to do. however the damage that krona could do accidentally because of a compilation error or a uncaught error massively outweighs the voluntary damage (let’s face it I can count the times my code compiles on the first try on both hands never mind does what i want it to do)
So on a purely logical level it’s worth risking her intentional damage to prevent her accidental damage
You kill Krona then find that the entire universe only exists because Krona exists. Essentially Krona is God and killing her destroys the universe :)
A) Her save states clearly don’t function.
B) There’s no reason whatsoever to believe her power is separate from her.
C) Every time she uses her powers she endangers the universe. That’s not going to change.
D) I hardly think her utility or motives justify constant endangerment of the universe.
A) Her save state clearly DOES function. It worked. It’s just local though, not universal.
B) There doesn’t need to be any reason for her power to be separate from her.
C) Prove that.
D) Prove that the universe is endangered. Seems like the universe is still working and she’s had her powers for quite some time if she has been on the Council for a while, long enough to come up with all that advanced code.
She just messed with time, and didn’t realize what her code was actually DOING. So, no, her save states don’t function, this one sort of worked once, and she’s not clear HOW. She’s not even certain it’s local, that just seems to be her first guess. If her power isn’t separate from her, then there’s no consequences to killing her, power-wise. Endangering the universe? Proof is she messed with time, isn’t clear as to what happened, and has no real way to test these things without messing with TIME.
Her save states DO function. She just didn’t realize that it was local and not universal and doesn’t know whether that’s because of Harem or some other reason. Also, she’s used it before. She said she’s used it before. DaveB said she’s used it before as well.
For all we know, the reason she didnt realize it wasn’t universal was because of Harem’s quantum state messing things up as an undefined variable. And as soon as she realized that there was a problem that she didn’t account for, she QUICKLY undid the save state because she’s being RESPONSIBLE.
“If her power isn’t separate from her, then there’s no consequences to killing her, power-wise.”
Unless her power exists because she’s tied to the universe, and if something happens to her, something happens to the universe. OR the power might get passed on to someone else who’s far less stable perhaps. The idea of ‘kill what we don’t understand’ is a pretty ignorant way to go about things. For all we know, she could be a Bozhmann’s Brain (see the short story called Funny Business). Or she might be from a race of beings who created Sydney’s orbs, or from the same dimension as Sydney’s orbs and just doesn’t realize it, and doing something to her will be bad for this universe.
Proof is NOT that she messed with time, because just messing with time does not mean she did something negative to endanger the universe. She took precautions to prevent things like paradoxes, and other common time tropes. What specifically has she done that has endangered the universe? Nothing. You can’t name anything. You can only make uninformed guesses based on no data. The empirical evidence, on the other hand, shows that she’s had these powers for sometimes and the universe is moving along just fine.
Actually, I’m thinking that Maxima was really rather polite. She started off by thanking her, then explained WHY they want her to come, and emphasized that she’s not under arrest, they just need to make certain she’s not going to destroy the universe. (Which is a major improvement on the standard comic book trope of “Pose dramatically and make a big declaration before waiting for the next issue and the big fight between two superhero teams who would never have come to blows otherwise.” For that matter, it’s the kind of polite and authoritative behavior the police should always demonstrate… and rarely do…)
There’s a geomancer with a huge amount of gold that he keeps in a fortified vault miles below the surface, who received similar treatment. They confirmed he’s not a threat and now they’re leaving him alone. They might some day ask him to help out with a fault line or something, but otherwise his right to live his life as he desires is being respected.
Hell, look at Sydney. That’s basically what Krona’s in for – a tour of the base, free lunch at one of the several nice restaurants onsite, and a testing of her abilities before they say, “thank you very much for your cooperation, we’re sorry about the inconvenience.”
Thank you, glad someone was able to explain things better than me (always have trouble with ‘words’ and ‘explaining things clearly’)
While you make a cogent argument, that’s all it is. I mean, you’re well ahead of people who have problems with ‘words’ and ‘explaining things clearly,’ but you’re still wrong. Your argument is at odds with US Constitutional law and probably state and local laws in most places as well. And for the places where it is not at odds, the US Constitution does trump them all. No reference intended… No law enforcement agency can suspend habeas corpus on the grounds that someone who has done nothing wrong might possibly do something wrong in the future. No matter how big or scary their “gun” might be to other people. And let us be clear that not only has Krona done nothing wrong but she has in fact saved the life of an Archon member while on a joint operation with them. Being a polite kidnapper does not make it any less of a crime. Claiming that her fears that Krona can “destroy the universe” justify her actions is not only incorrect but it is completely speculative regarding Krona’s capabilities. Fear does not justify breaking the law, nor does it justify infringing on the liberties or rights of anyone else.
We don’t know much about that geomancer, so we don’t know if he was arrested on the mere suspicion that he might crash the world economy by releasing a few hundred tons of gold into it all at once. And while his doing so might be inconvenient for people, companies, and nations. But it is not a crime. Nor has whatever assurances that he had no intentions of doing so been shared with the readers. His ability to level a city via an earthquake dies not make him a criminal, and I’d like to know how Archon even became aware of his capability to do so. There is simply too much left out for this to be used as an example or a precedent for or against Archon’s illegal treatment of Krona.
Your assertions about Krona’s anticipated experiences at Archon HQ are speculative and fanciful. What we actually know is limited to what Maxima did and said, which includes making intimidating threats (And when a 6’6 woman who can throw a tank 100 yards lays her hands on a 5’0″ woman who can’t and says “I insist,” about anything, that is a clearly intimidating statement) about arrests and cuffings, and “Our people are going to look over your code and get a better handle on what you’re capable of.” They have absolutely no right to do either, just as they have no right to subject Sydney or any other super who doesn’t have “code” to be “looked over” to government sponsored vivisectionists in lieu of “looking over” their “code.”
That would be true IRL…It’s not true in this world. Archon’s establishment changed that.
Archon’s establishment is still being based on RL law and the Constitution, as evident from the press conference questions and the interview with Sydney in the ballroom. Grrlpower seems to be largely a deconstruction of superhero tropes by a genre-savvy supehero (Sydney).
if the council indicated ziggy was harming people by how he performed magic and wanted him to receive an analysis /evaluation by much more capable people on the council, archon would ask if they could arrange such for other magic users on archons payroll because as I said elsewhere free power up and the individual can calm fears of those expressing concern.
Yeah, well, not the first time Max has overplayed her hand. She’s a bit power-mad at times,
Wait, I reread the actual comic, and Max is actually being relatively restrained this time.
The discussion was getting pretty heated in comments. What some posters were suggesting she do was out of line and counterproductive. Max is being pretty friendly in the actual text.
Yes, a lot of commentators seem to have not even read what actually happened and simply assumed she was on a power-trip and forcibly kidnapping someone without consent, whereas none of that is true
Not really. She’s using strong-arm tactics against an ally – that is simply unacceptable in any diplomatic circle, minus the mafia. I where Krona, Max would find her powers missing for a bit, just to force some respect out of her, and then politely accept the tutelage – Krona really shouldn’t let Max walk all over her like this. Then again… well, that’s just not in Krona’s character as it seems.
Yes, you are that person you describe. You are a commentator who has either failed to read the comic or deliberately chosen to ignore things like “I insist,” “Arec-light people are going to look over your code,” and the laying of hands on Krona by Maxima.
All of that is true.
Maxima has solid evidence to justify asking Krona to return to ARCHON so that her code for fiddling with time is a danger or not, she obviously hasn’t got full understanding and control over her checkpoint code as she created a localised time loop that is not the greatest when you’re out of sync or stuck in a bubble of repetition while time flows normally outside of it. The consequences for messing with time without full understanding of what you’re doing are unpredictable to me, she could very well fuck the universe royally with a big ‘ol spiked bat piece of code. The council will undoubtedly understand the inherent dangers of what she did and will allow ARCHON to do their thing, it’s a good outcome to collaboration if she learns of hard limits to reality hacking to make sure there is a reality to hack.
Another good point is there no implied meaning she has to be forcefully be taken to ARCHON if she doesn’t want to at the time, she could very well say no and promise to avoid certain hack she can do until she wants ARCHON to examine her.
Also Krona is not to be trusted. She gives an ally a wedgie in the middle of combat for the grins of it.
There’s lots of distracting uses for risque underwear in battle, similarly it worked for Jabberwoky when Math saw her boobs via the power of a jacket and fishnet top. Although since I’m a guy that’s turned on by sapients sporting natural fur coats and any woman looking sexy, my viewpoint is as sensible as a screen door on a submarine when it comes to her mischievous underwear swap.
You make a good point. If the vampire is an ally. Considering that is interesting mind, because there is no reason to assume she is. The Twilight Council is rather like the U.N., but for supernatural races and different types of groups (like mages). Some of which are outright enemies of one another. Just as with the real world U.N.
It is entirely possible that there is an ongoing war between Krona and the Vampires, for example. And here she is just taking the opportunity to make life uncomfortable, for one of their leaders, but without outright breaking of the truce not to attack one another in the council chambers.
Of course it is more likely that she is just mischievous and does stuff like that all the time. In which case your comment is fair. In support of which, we did see her doing something similar, by interfering with Sydney’s bladder function after all. But, at least that was well-intentioned, even if Krona did fail to get her concent.
First Max is a colonel not a major, second we as a country can and have arrested our allies personal in the past. Nothing new there but she isn’t being arrested she is being detained and questioned about her abilities. This would be like finding out on the battle field one of your allies has a laser weapon you would question much high up the chain but the effect would be the same.
This is just preposterous. To suggest that the US would arrest some Lieutenant of an allied foreign nation and subject them to questioning about the weapons systems of that nation is to suggest that a state of war is ready to break out between the two nations. Nations including the US have acted “preemptively” in the past. In many cases those preemptive acts have caused more troubles than they would have solved even if the information they were supposedly acting upon was accurate.
For example, even if Saddam Hussein was actively making chemical weapons, neither he nor his nation was any threat to the US or its allies in the region. Even if Saddam Hussein had provided aid and comfort to the 9/11 hijackers, instead of that being the role of our ally Saudi Arabia, invading Iraq was not going to prevent an attack that had already occurred nor was it going to contribute to stability in the region or a lessening of terrorist activities. History has proven this very clearly to anyone who isn’t living with their head in the sand or up their ass.
If I am mis-reading you and your reference to things being handled “much high up the chain” means that Archon would request of the Council that they loan then Krona for a while for a debriefing on her abilities, then I disagree completely that “the effect would be the same.” Making that kind of request is exactly what Maxima and/or Falk should have done. And such a request allows the Council to politely refuse. Krona is being arrested, plain and simple. It’s being sugar coated, but she is being told that she will be going to Archon HQ, that Maxima will talk to the Council at some later date about this abduction, and that Krona will be handcuffed if she attempts to use her natural abilities. The same natural abilities she had been using while working with Archon during the investigation of this warehouse.
None of them raised an eyebrow or quaked in fear when she demonstrated her abilities in other ways. Archon members suddenly learning that Krona’s “gun” is bigger than anticipated does not reduce her to being a criminal and subject to arrest and interrogation.
If this is what is going to happen every time some powerful super is introduced then we’re going to either have a lot of relatively uninteresting “flying brick” and “beam of energy shooter” type supers and less interesting ones like Krona. Or a lot of unlawful abductions, or battles. Because at some point one of these potent super-humans is just going to look Maxima in the eye and say “No, thank you.” It is inevitable, given human nature. And no, the fact that this might happen and the potential fallout to the several city blocks surrounding such a conflict is not a valid reason to preempt their rights and incarcerate them in advance of any wrong doing.
I am kind of expecting Krona to solve this issue with a bit of “hacking”.
Maybe the next strip will be as if none of this happened :D
It is an issue that best girl might join the team? Heretic!
Which would just re-enforce how dangerous she is and how much she needs to be watched
The only one here who has demonstrated that they are dangerous and need to be watched is Maxima.
Name Krona’s crime. I dare you. I double dog dare you. Name the crime. Not a potential crime, not a thought crime, not a “Well she could maybe someday do this horrible thing I invented in my headso she suddenly has no rights” crime. And not a “Damn, that’s so scary I just shit my black lace panties” crime. Making someone else afraid without uttering a word, offering a threat, making an action is not a crime.
Name an actual crime for which Krona can be subjected to this kind of arrest and questioning. And especially attempt to lay out your imaginary crime in the context of two law enforcement agencies working together on a case, and one of them suddenly subjecting a member of the other to arrest. Krona is not a private citizen, not that that would make Maxima’s actions any more legal, she is a whatever Semper Vigilantis is of the Council, and she was working together with members of Archon before being summarily arrested, threatened with being handcuffed, and told not to use her natural powers.
lets list 2
1 reckless endangerment of the space time continuum
2 assault (yes sydney did thank her for the bladder hack but it was an authorized intimate action on her body)
1 Reckless endangerment HOW? What did she actually DO to the universe that’s endangered it. Name something specific.
2 First, you’re confusing assault with battery. Assault means there is an imminent apprehension of immediate harm. Krona clearly did not do that. She also did not commit battery, which is an unlawful physical contact with another person by an aggressor.’ Krona literally meets NONE of those criteria at all. There was no physical contact, Sydney was okay with it, so it was not unlawful, and giving someone a temporary reprieve from having to pee is not aggression, by any legal standard, in the same way that a comedian making you laugh is not the comedian committing battery.
1 check chrome’s response to harem remembering and her panicked work with the interface to protect reality.
2 thanks for agreeing krona committed the crime (even if I had to mind game you for it)
Three years later, I noticed this response to my post while looking over past comics.
And I did not even remotely agree that Krona committed a crime, mind gamed or otherwise. I literally stated that she did NOT commit a crime, since she does not meet any of the criteria for committing a crime. Also, by any legal standard, she did not commit a crime.
The only reason I had not responded was you posted a day after the comic was no longer current, and this was long before I realized that people could do that. :)
Krona has interfered with the memory of two police officers, whilst in the middle of an investigation. Fully for Pixel and incompletely for Harem. Memory is stored by physical changes to the brain. Krona has harmed these connections. This is actual bodily harm.*
It also means they have no means of reporting on whatever crimes they discovered whilst in the course of their duty. This carries the charge of interfering with the duty of a police officer.
Krona knew that this would happen, yet informed nobody and did not seek their concent, despite having the opportunity to do so. Meaning this was done knowingly, regardless of her good intentions.
Krona is casually and repeatedly interfering with the functioning of other people’s bodies, and even potentially (in Pixel’s assessment) their ability to live life the way they chose, without their concent. In doing so she is breaking numerous laws. Whilst she may not have considered these implications, ignorance of the law is no defence.
This gives them enough to get her into custody, if they choose to go down that route. Given that Maxima is very up-front in her dealings, I think we can rule this out though, unless Krona leaves them no choice.
If forced that way though further charges can follow, from any traffic accident that has occurred. We saw that some people (this team) were affected, whilst another (Maxima) was not. We do not know how far the affected area might extend. But they are close to New York city. If part was included and part was not then hundreds of vehicles could have been ‘reset’ into potentially deadly situations.
One example given by a reader at the time of the checkpoint being done was the case of a vehicle passing through a junction when the checkpoint was set. At the reset it returns to that point only to find that a vehicle, which was outside of the reset area, is now in front of it! Resulting in an unavoidable collision.
The same thing with aircraft. Additionally though their internal clocks and navigation will put them in a different place to their GPS. Potentially leading to a crash. Regardless of whether it does or not though, this is another crime, namely interfering with the operation of an aircraft
JFK for example is very busy. Having the aircraft on one approach thinking they are in a position ten minutes from where they actually are could cost hundreds of lives in a collision, before they get the chance to figure out their correct position, with their GPS. Or thousands if that is with a sky-scraper.
Ordering Krona to stop, until this has been assessed, is not an unreasonable course to take, when the lives of everybody in the universe are at stake! And they cannot assess the risk without her co-operation.
Hopefully it did not affect anybody other than those in the immediate area. In which case all is good. Unless Pixel or Harem choose to press charges, of course. I doubt it, but that is their right.
* Speaking personally, memory loss (even temporary, which this is not) was the worst experience of my life. So this is not something which should be hand-waved away. It was done without their informed concent. Something that Krona has done frequently, on a whim, without any consideration of ethics, morality or legality.
Maxi is being watched
You want an actual crime? shenron already repeated the bladder hack (that Kronachrome didn’t even ask permission to perform, she simply did it), but she also gave Vampire Viking a creeping wedgie simply for daring to stand on her platform
KRONACHROME IS NOT BEING ARRESTED, and the only meantion of being cuffed was when Kronachrome suggested using her abilities to alter Maxi’s jacket (which doesn’t belong to her) after Maxi just requested her to not use her ‘natural powers’, her powers that she is able to function without using, just like with Maxi’s ‘natural power’ to cause tanks to explode
Is Sydney pressing charges against Krona? No? Then there was no crime committed.
Krona is being arrested. She is having her freedom of movement eliminated and her actions curtailed. Both of these are things that Maxima has no authority or right to do, and especially not to a member of an allied force who was working in cooperation with Archon on this investigation.
The same damn thing happened with Sydney, what makes Kronachrome so different? Someone who actually used their powers whereas Sydney just happened to be in possession of a strange tube
I was going to comment to a page that was a year old so I’ll just say it here: Maybe Krona’s power has a constraint on computing power. Maybe she can only use her own brain’s computing power or something, and godly feats like copying superpowers or something would need a matrioshka brain.
To get away from the anarchistic morons for a bit, anyone else get the impression Ms Elf is thinking to herself in the first panel “Ya know what? Being strung up and unconscious wasn’t so bad after all… Is there any way to get her to stop talking?” :D
Very likely.
Are you struggling with ‘words’ again? Failing to ‘explain things clearly’ again?
Let me help you out: Anarchy deals with the removal of governing bodies and the rule of law. Maxima is doing exactly what you are calling other people morons for protesting against. She is removing Krona’s rights for no lawful reason, but simply because she happens to be a powerful threat who can do things like “insist” that someone come back to her HQ and probably get away with it. And so, moron, “might makes right” is far more like anarchy than anything anyone protesting Maxima’s actions has suggested or even hinted at. Do you understand now just how stupid you are? If not I can explain again using smaller words. I would be happy to help you fully understand the breadth and depth of your ignorance.
can we move this bridge, like to where there isn’t interweb.
For no lawful reason? Did you not read panel four, at all?
Like her or not (clearly you and your ilk do not), Maxi is an agent of that governing body and upholding the very law her organisation was created for, what you are calling for is the ignoring of that law because you don’t like it, which is the definition of anarchy
Maxi may be insisting that Kronachrome return with her to HQ so the same people who are assisting Sydney in understanding how her balls work can assist Kronachrome, but there are several readers who are suggesting that Maxi should simply blow her head off, and that she would be reprimanded for not doing so
I’ve read panel four. No operational mandate of any organization trumps to Constitution. No mission statement can be interpreted in such a broad manner as to suspend habeas corpus. You are arguing that those words or that mission trumps everything else, but that is the thinking of a tiny brain.
Next why don’t you point at some police force with a mission statement of “protect and serve” and then claim that the cops have every right to break down doors and confiscate firearms? Because firearms can be used to kill people and that clearly means to an idiot like you that the cops have every right to follow their mission statement and break a solid dozen laws in pursuit of that mission.
No matter what Archon has as a mission statement, they can’t simply arrest and interrogate people who have committed no crime. I know this is hard for you to understand because you were dropped on your head as a child, but it is true. And really? You’re going to point at people with an even more idiotic position such as “kill ’em all because that’s the only ways to be sure” and use that to try to make your own idiot position seem reasonable? Another idiotic position does not magically make your own any less idiotic.
You really seem to have a problem with anyone who actually understands the law, with how you insult and curse out other people who are coming at this debate with logic and reason.
She’s definitely not a shadow elf. Shadow elves are as pale as you’d expect subterranean people to be, and have disproportionately large ears. (Their culture is also completely different from drow.)
BECMI D&D, Mystara/the Known World. Underappreciated classics.
Less ‘kidnapping’ and more ‘bringing in for questioning.’
So far they have been pretty good about letting people go, but when someone can accidentally rip reality itself apart that is the kind of thing that needs a little oversight.
Personal freedom just can’t trump the integrity of the universe.
So specifically after holding a press conference about how supers are not required to register their powers, Maxima is basically arresting someone for having a power they did not reveal to anybody? More specifically, a member of an allied organization who just revealed said power by saving a teammate’s life.
This is after Maxima repeatedly responds to suggestions that something might be more powerful by immediately punching it really hard, telling the entire world that anyone who opposes her will be jailed, crippled, or killed, maintaining an air of authority over teammates while physically assaulting and threatening them, and arrogantly ignoring the advice of teammates leading to her being almost mind-controlled and presumably killing everyone. I… really hope we’re at some kind of arc where she realizes she needs to make some changes.
She is not arresting her for not revealing her powers. She wants to just stop her from accidentally deleting the universe.
She’s taking her to a military facility without asking permission, explicitly stating she’s willing to override her rights as a member of a fellow peacekeeping organization and using tons of implied threats. “Arrested” might not be the right word, but it’s somewhere in that vicinity.
And yes, there is possibly some kind of threat to the fabric of reality here, but ARC were the ones who said you don’t have to register your powers. This is the first time that rule has been tested, and it is already broken! If this comic wanted to be light-hearted and not have to deal with the weird authoritarian nightmare of people with reality-breaking powers, it could have not written them in! But they did, and it’s kind of getting bad!
I mean, there’s already limits being written into the checkpoint system. If we wanted to avoid this, all it would’ve taken is somebody asking Krona “Couldn’t this break all reality?” and her to respond “Naw, I checked it with some magic stuff I borrowed/”borrowed” at the council. It can only (insert limits to make storytelling work here), but on the upside it won’t kill everything everywhere.” Unless it is vitally important to the story that the checkpoints can break reality in some way, we’re going down a bad path here for no reason.
Kronachrome is having her powers registered, just tested and trained, just like Sydney!!
Bollocks! *Is not having her powers registered*
There’s another character with a similar “worldbreaking” power that’s already been brought up. He can pull up minerals from the earth’s magma. Not to break it, but to pull up… valuable minerals. He could destroy the world economy if he sold too much gold. They talked with him, confirmed that he wasn’t going to do more than harvest enough for all his immediate needs, and have left him alone ever since.
Yes, but that one isn’t a part of an allied organization. This is the sort of action that kills alliances – she’s basically violating diplomatic immunity, especially if Krona isn’t even a USA citizen. If she asked instead of threatened, it wouldn’t be this bad, but it really is. Thankfully Krona is… well, look at her – she doesn’t strike me as someone that would tell Maxima to fuck off on principal alone (and raise this to an ‘incident’ level), but I wouldn’t begrudge her in the slightest if she would teleport away via reality-hack. Max should have gone to Krona’s superiors or simply ASKED, not TOLD. Strong-arm tactics aren’t how allies deal with one another.
Given that Maxima saved all of their lives just a short while ago, they will probably overlook the fact that she is acting swiftly in case of something that could, and let me stress this point, DESTROY REALITY. She’s not abducting one of their members for casual curiosity, shes going “hey, I’m told you theoretically could have just killed everyone everywhere accidentally with your powers, and I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t bring you in to go over that incident.”
Which is the only smart call. If Krona’s near reality breach were to go to the higher ups BEFORE an accompanying report gong “Okay guys, dont worry heres a forty page analysis of why we know that tomorrow is definitely still going to happen.” Then they will rightfully ask WHY Maxima didn’t get further information on a possible threat to ALL LIFE.
“I didn’t want to possibly mildly offend the potentially dangerous militarized group operating on American soil, some of whom feed regularly on our citizens, so I decided we would wait till the request for this individual’s time goes through proper channels” Isn’t going to be a good enough reason to the generals. The council shouldn’t have anything resembling “diplomatic immunity” regardless, but diplomatic immunity wouldn’t keep the cops from bringing you in for questioning if you were playing with a live nuclear device in central park.
And I stress mildly offend because Krona is her own faction, there is no one but her to speak up for her and we saw some definite lack of unity between factions.
Krona is a Semper Vigilantis, that makes her part of the Twilight Council – an allied organization, not her own faction.
Mildly offend? She’s coercing a high-ranking officer of an allied faction into what is essentially detention until they vet her. Try this with a foreign allied agent and you’ve got an international incident on your hands.
Max can apparently blow up half a city, and she wasn’t going full power either. Clearly we’re beyond scouters at this point so I don’t see why Krona’s potential creation of wibbly-wobbly fallout is so much more scary then Max’s potential for actual fallout.
Lastly – this wouldn’t be an issue if Max had some damn tact – thankfully Krona doesn’t hold it against her it seems, but many would, given Krona’s powers and position.
Actually, she is also in a Faction of her own (remember the Council scenes? with all the flags representing the various factions? Kronachrome was the only one under the Konami Code banner, every other faction had at least two or three members)
Was Sydney in detention?
There is a HAEL of a difference in blowing up a city, and coding a loop that could effectively erase the entire Universe
“wibbly wobbly fallout”? Potentially destroying time and space by accident is “wibbly wobbly fallout”? Sounds more like a Literal Disc One Nuke to me. Kaboom, everyone dies. Sorry, but I’m with Maxima on this.
Until they know that Krona’s powers don’t have the potential of accidentally destroying the entire planet (or the entire universe), they are well within their rights to detain Krona for testing.
P.S., I should point out that while it’s true that Krona is a high-ranking officer of an allied faction, she is NOT a high-ranking member of an official government agency. The Council exists solely at the sufferance of the government(s) where they have a presence.
So Krona is not a “foreign allied agent”. Not even remotely. (In order to be a “foreign allied agent”, you would have to be a member of an official government agency of a foreign country). And inside the borders of the United States, anyone can be detained for up to 72 hours without any criminal charges being filed.
If Maxima needed to arrest her, Krona has already essentially confessed to an extreme case of criminal negligence, by virtue of not knowing exactly how her powers work, or what side-effects things like the “local time loop” could cause. However, Maxima is NOT arresting her, or she would’ve said so.
And I don’t think this detention is going to last 72 in-universe hours. Considering that on the previous page, Harem finally got the joke that Sydney told 24 hours (and more than 2 years of real-time) ago, it’d be 6 to 8 years before we saw the results.
the UN is a foreign power, even if the UN personnel are also citizens of that nation, the person is a foreign allied agent in the position of UN personnel. the council is a recognized equivalent to a supernatural UN.
I should point out that the Council predates the United States government by centuries.
Macima has specifically told Krona that she must go with them to Archion HQ where Archon people will be investigating her code. This is the exact opposite of what you just said.
And as for deleting the universe, Maxima has no idea whether Krona can do that, and even if she did it would make no difference from a legal standpoint. The ability to commit a crime, no matter how heinous, is not a crime.
She is being asked because of a very serious case of reckless endangerment.
What case is that? Saving Sydney’s life is now a crime? Really?
Hacking space and time while not having full understanding of what you’re doing.
If Max were always right, this would be a different comic. Max means well, but she’s clearly full of herself.
yeah…i’m getting less and less comfortable with Maxima’s using her authority like a club.
Max lacks any sort of diplomatic finesse. She shouldn’t have the rank she does precisely because of this.
She’s showing a LOT of finesse right now, IMO. Krona is apparently a permanent threat to all of existence… Just because she exists. By any name, she’s a walking weapon of universal destruction… Without even having to intend to. If she misplaces a bracket and suddenly triples the size of the sun, I don’t think I’m going to look at her, as I die, and say that that was okay, it was just an honest mistake. If we’re being realistic here, Krona is exactly the kind of Super that justifies all those stories about governments shooting dangerous super-powered people. IRL, Krona would reveal what her powers did, and an IRL Archon would be told to kill her, so that we don’t all die when she makes a coding error, or when someone mind controls her to do something awful and/or murderous.
IRL Krona would never reveal her powers, precisely because of your argument. That said, Max would be killed off for the exact same reasons. However, neither can reliably be killed, hence this situation.
What really irks me is the lack of respect Max shows to someone that actually dwarfs her own powers. Krona could easily bitchslap her for it, but she’s remarkably nice to someone that just shanghaid her. Props to Krona.
Right. Because politely insisting that someone accompany her back to base so they can make sure she’s not a global threat is (sarcasm) so rude. (/sarcasm)
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe Krona realizes that this is a benefit to her, too, by giving her a better grasp on how her own powers work?
By that logic Maxima and other members of Archon are also existential threats. Let’s kill Jiggawat right after we kill Krona, because she can make antimatter and destroy the Earth on a whim.
Jiggawat didn’t even get a lecture after that little maneuver, it was just ignored entirely.
Technically speaking Drow are usually, atypically only an evil race. They are considered evil because as a whole race they have consigned themselves into the service of a dark god. Sometimes you may have one who is good, but this is a rare event and they are often outcasts of their race as a whole. Dark elves however do not have this limitation because their race never consigned themselves over to a dark god like the drow have. They have some other differences here and there, but that’s the main one.
Can’t Kronna just open her Scibblenaut notebook and add the adjectives ”guilible” and ”trusting” in front of ”golden super hero”
Yeah, way to reinforce how much of a threat she is
Way to equate a threat with a crime. A threat is not a crime.
Sydney could level a city. Maxima could level a city. Jiggawatt could destroy the planet. Dabbler could probably destroy the planet. IGetStronger could cause mass rioting. Opal (I might be misremembering her name, the portal super) could destroy the planet. Superhumans, aliens, vampires, wizards, all can do lots of bad things with their powers.
And so can any idiot with a modern sporting rifle.
None of that makes their mere existence a crime.
Only a person with a very small brain would continue to try to make such an obviously failed point.
And Kronachrome can destroy all of time and the universe, out of all those people mentioned, which one isn’t even being watched or supervised?
You, and Pander, are the only ones who keep bringing up ‘crime’
there is no certainty that she can “destroy all of time and the universe”.
if her “save point” ability is more like a trek transporter pattern thing, then no time travel would really be involved.
And you are certain that it is safe then? Despite Pixel, the expert on assessing such things, being enraged at the risks Krona was so casually taking!
But if your analogy is true, how about we ask Dr McCoy how confident he is that such technology is safe?
would be more funny to add “garments() thongattribute:”indestructable” clothingsize:”0″”
or however that’d look in code
Dark elves are older than D&D by about a millennium – Svartálfar (Norse – dark elf) or Myrkálfar (Norse – murk elf) are mentioned in the Prose Edda. Crafted Sif’s hair and Thor’s teeth. (Thor had false teeth – something that Marvel seems to leave out….)
The post I was looking for, to make sure I didn’t post the same thing.
To add to it, there were two types.
Light and Dark, the dark were said to be beings made of solid shadow, darker than darkness. While the Light elves were bright luminous beings.
In other words “Dark Elves” should be what today are called “Shadow People”.
Technically, Svartalfár means “Black Elf”, and Dökkalfár are the “Dark Elves”. But Norse stories actually don’t distinguish between Svartalfár, Dökkalfár, or Dwarves. They shared much of the same origins, attributes, and lived in the same place (Svartalfheim”. They were if used interchangeably in the myths.
I wanna see Arc-Light do work now!
That is one way to bring Krona in more.
Though I’m kind of surprised Krona doesn’t have some other “aw shit, memory erase!” program.
Yeah.
This is what I wanted to see actually.
Team tiny.
If she did that, she’d be showing she can hack the brain of the currently most dangerous person on the planet…. And suddenly Archon, the Council…. Basically everyone, really, would realize that they can’t stop her from doing that to THEM, so they’d do their level best to kill her before she could stop them. If someone can mess with the minds of major organizations and can’t be stopped? Yeah, those organizations kill them, that’s how it goes.
The real question now is ..can Korona Hack Matt in a fight.. >:D
There goes the military forcing itself upon the civilian. I hope she hacks the universe and gets away!
Yeah? And what if there is someone, or thing, that is immune to her hacking?
Civilian? What Civilian? Kronachrome is a member the Twilight Council (unique enough to have a faction all. to. her. OWN!) and a member of their version of Arc-Swat, where do you get the idea she is a ‘civilian’? o_O
She’s not a part of ARC. She’s a part of a group that isn’t a military group. She helps them out and their answer to that is, “We’re taking you in! Whether you want to or not, because you have abilities.”
Abilities she didn’t use as a vigilante btw.
In fact, as it’s been shown, any one who has powers, seems to be on their shit list, if they’re not working for them.
Guy has the ability to mine all the gold in the world, legally btw, and they put him on a list to keep a watch on.
ARC is showing it’s not the good group they want to say they are.
You just confirmed that she is not a civilian. Are you now saying that the Super Police are only allowed to question Supers who are part of ARC? Do you also believe that regular police are only allowed to question fellow LEO’s? o_O
They are taking her in because she has certain abilities that haven’t been tested, and she, this may come as a shock to you, so brace yourself, agrees with this!!
He’s on the list because he has the potential to destabilise the economy of the entire world!
You heard what happened to Greece a couple years back? And what happened to Zimbabwe in the decade after it became Zimbabwe? Now imagine that happening to every country in the world
Brand X did NOT confirm that Krona is not a civilian. Brand X specifically said, and you specifically ignored, that Krona is part of a group that IS NOT A MILITARY GROUP. Therefore, she IS a civilian, and does not use her powers as a vigilante, which is the ONLY thing that Archon is allowed to arrest people over, based on the press conference – another thing you’ve conveniently ignored, as you seem to ignore anything else that doesn’t fit your worldview. Why is that anyway?
Brand X made pretty good points.
“Archon was created to protect people from extraordinary threats”
Krona has not shown herself to be a threat. She has shown herself to be of help.
I mean, sure, some can believe it’s better to enslave, take into custody, over all strip someone of their rights, just because they scare others. I just don’t happen to be that person, so as I see it…they’re over stepping and trying to use the “Best for everyone, even if you haven’t done anything wrong.” route, because face it, simpletons get scared easily and ARC while high on tech and power, may just be simple.
Krona has accepted that her power is at risk of shattering the universe accidentally. As such I do not see why folks are complaining about this matter still.
Trying to help one person is praiseworthy. But not if the cost of that is then killing her, along with everyone else in the universe!
Archon has no problems with anyone having powers.
You have a weird take on the guy who can mine gold, for instance. He is being allowed to carry on about his business. There were plenty of suggestions, by readers, at the time that comic was produced, that America or some other government SHOULD kill him off, because he is a threat to the global economy.
However because Archon are not a totalitarian force, that give in to such, and because he is not doing anything illegal, they have not arrested him. How though can they protect him, from the threats that he will face from thieves and other governments” assassins, if they do not keep an eye on his vault?
If you recall the geomancer appeared to be quite happy showing them around the vault, for precisely that purpose. I certainly would prefer to have the super police on my side if I had a vault of gold!
Separately to that though, Archon do also have a duty of care to the general public, to warn the treasury, if he intends to flood the market with gold. In this respect however it is Arc-Light, who handle that kind of thing, as it is not a matter for the cops.
Governments do need to stay abreast of things that can cause stock-market crashes and destabilise the world economy. They faced an awful lot of stick for failing to prevent the previous one, due to the sub-prime crisis.
So it would be hypocritical of us to complain about that and then say ‘oh but you are not allowed to keep an eye on any individuals or institutions which could cause this to happen again’.
This though has nothing to with his super power. It is purely a matter of what he is going to do with all the gold he has. Provided the treasury (or whatever the US department calls itself) can satisfy themselves that he has an attitude similar to DeBeers and just intends to make himself rich, but without crashing the economy, then they have no problems with him and can let him carry on.
Guesticus is perfectly correct in citing Archon’s mandate, as mentioned by Maxima above. They certainly are not limited to just arresting vigilantes. That was the only new crime added to the statute books. The act did not overturn all other laws. Murder, rape and reckless endangerment still remain crimes. Which as cops, Arc-SWAT have powers of arrest over.
All that said, I agree that fear of a power being misused is not a justifiable excuse to arrest someone. However what they have here is a person who’s powers do not function the way she intends them to. As this can result in deaths, it is the police’s job to take action.
Not that they even chose to arrest her. But Maxima has insisted that Krona helps them to make her power safe.
Krona is like someone who has taught herself how to drive and is going the wrong way up a freeway. If the cops ignored that we would be demanding they were fired. Quite rightly.
In this case they are being very kind in not arresting her, but sending her off to be retrained and take her driving test, before being allowed behind the wheel again. They have not even impounded her car. And most importantly of all, she agreed that it was for the best!
“.. that makes sense…”.
Accepting your powers are a risk, is like accepting a gun can kill. You don’t arrest someone for using it, when they haven’t killed anyone with it.
They don’t just take someone into the police station, because they fired their legally obtained gun.
As her powers are hers and they haven’t caused any deaths and they haven’t said powers are illegal, they never should have even “insisted” she come with them.
Especially since it feels Max intimidated her into coming along, maybe out of fear, that the one person who can beat her is the one person who can rewrite the universe and put her out of a job :p
Did you not follow the freeway analogy? Police are not required to wait until after someone has been killed, before they act! There are a whole host of laws, in the US, and every country in the world, specifically to cover this kind of behaviour.
For the freeway example it is ‘dangerous driving’. A more general one is ‘reckless endangerment’.
Just google ‘arrested gun fired’ and you will get page after page of results which show that cops DO arrest people for firing a gun, WHEN it endangers people! Here is ONE example.
The fact that he had an illegal firearm just meant that he had an additional charge. He would not have been let off from endangering people if the gun had been legally registered.
If Maxima was to follow the letter of the law she should be charging Krona with seven billion counts of reckless endangerment!
Because her powers are not illegal. Using them in a way that can kill is.
Krona has accepted Maxima’s assertions as being factual. I suggest you believe her, even if you do not believe me.
Have you not noticed the flaw in your logic? Krona IS ‘the one person who can beat her’. Krona IS the person with the power here. Which means she IS NOT intimidated.
Bear in mind that this is the girl who plays practical jokes, on elder vampires, during a deadly attack, just for the LOLs!
Plus she leads a faction equal in status to that of the Olympians (or whatever name they have). Recall that scene we saw of an army of gorgons impaling enemies on stakes, all the way to the horizon? They are one of the armies which fall under that banner!
Others in that faction will be folks like Jason (of the Argonauts fame) and Hercules.
Krona is more powerful than all of them combined! She doesn’t give a s**t about a hand on her shoulder, or being spoken to brusquely.
Maxima was fully aware of this and was speaking to a peer. Firmly. Relying on Krona accepting her social authority, not her force of arms. Krona realises that Maxima is in the right , whilst accepting that she did do wrong. So is co-operating, as a civilised member of society.
She did not agree. She said “That makes sense…I guess.” The “I guess” is more like “I guess I don’t really have a choice in this, do I.”
Krona didn’t break a single law that was put in place for those with powers. Yet they’re taking her in anyways. Basically pre-crimeing her. You have abilities, must take you in.
Just like the had a discussion with the guy who could mine gold. The only difference is, the guy who could mine gold obviously didn’t want to ruin the economy and just make himself comfortable…forever :p
ARC has not shown itself to be a good group at all. It has cool members for sure. However, it’s a group that wants to take away liberties and go against what they said “Don’t use your powers for evil or vigilante means and you are not going to be harassed by us”
Neither Krona or the gold miner ever did anything illegal and they went in and talked to them. ARC is all about putting total government control over anyone with abilities.
If Halo didn’t want to join, how much do you want to bet they would have tried to force the orbs from her?
Komiyan from Darken (https://darkencomic.com/?webcomic_post=20040102) was pretty decent, as I recall. And his sister. I think it’s just bad marketing. :)
You Sir!… are an EEEEViL Despicable Person…. :D you made me binge-read the ENTIRE archives in one night… argh!… and i gotta get up EARLY for work…
So I shouldn’t tell you about that author’s new series Widdershins?
You should war of spide queen. really good six book series about drow sociaty. and yes they are all assholes.
Dabbler checking Kronas code is funny. Sure she’s probably the most qualified to do it, but then again, she’s also the most likely to have some fun with it as well. ;)
Dabbles and Ark-Light will be working with Kronachrome, just like they are working with Sydney
I’ve noticed that the comic looks really bad on Retina displays. Is there anything you or I can do about that, Dave, or am I out of luck?
…I just read your name from your avatar before realizing that your name is up there. But yay me I can into Hiragana! Hey btw, what does 典 mean?
Yaaay, Kitteh Tittehs is back! =3
What a Dark Elf is sort of depends on the setting, In Warhammer Fantasy (before it was ruined) Dark Elves aren’t dark skinned at all, they are just evil elves that use dark magic and worship the god of murder exclusively
Drow are a D&D thing exclusively. They are elves that were banished underground worship the spider goddess Loth and have been mutated by the magical radiation that permeates the underdark. They are called Dark Elves as well in most settings where they exist.
Skyrim Dunmir or Dark Elves are High elves that were cursed by a Dadrea to have black skin and red eyes.
Because if anyone should have access to reality altering code. It’s Dabbler.
OH GOD!!!!!! max suddenly slinks into xurials bedroom to play because it’s just to much fun to be a succubus’ plaything. that is one of the crime things they want to be sure krona doesn’t or can’t do on a whim.
David, with all due respect, you NEED to expand the cast page to include both past, and current, major non-olayer characters…
Got enough money to allow him to hire some help?
the hell’d the drow come from?
Presumably she was one of the prisoners mentioned last week.
We actually saw her hanging up beside Pixel Panther
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2406 The one hanging to the left of Pixy appears to be a nekkid drow. My question is, “Is that a blanket, or a robe she had before?” I ass-u-me it’s a blanket, which means Hiro is probably covered as well.
The last words of many a D&D character…
Something people who keep invoking the Twilight Council are forgetting is that it’s not really what we’d call a government. It’s a paper-thin fig leaf to keep everyone from killing everyone else. Their default mode for dealing with problems is to murderize it with enough overkill to make Maxima’s heart go pittapat.
So if they find out Krona is one “Oops” away from erasing their pretentious butts, they will kill her most thoroughly. And since there’s no one else in her gente, they don’t even have to worry about payback.
Besides, they’re much more concerned about multiple damaged/destroyed obfuscation towers than one human mageling.
… this. the main reasons to have Krona go back to let Dabbler + Co. check her coding (other than the ones beaten to death w/blue monday sledgehammers further up the comments ) is 1- check to make certain her time loop didn’t further damage the Veil 2- her powers may just be the key to repairing / restoring /updating the Sigils.(on another topic, I sorta figured the SV to be a mix of the BPD+MHI with no gov interference or bounties – and the less than last thing they’d do is serve one or more members of a killspreeing faction with a arrest warrant!)…
A paradox that arises in continuities where it’s theoretically possible to break the universe:
It’s unfathomably huge. If it’s possible, why hasn’t someone, somewhere in its billions of years of history done it already?
I think that being eaten by anti-virus clock roaches is a more valid concern here.
Who says the Universe hasn’t been erased, once or thrice? Were you there when it started? Probably, if it started twenty years ago
Well, yes, there are continuities where that happens too. It starts to strain credibility that it can ever go that long without it, though, unless the characters in the story are among the first intelligent life to exist in the current version of the continuity.
If the universe is infinite (as is typical in most settings where it can also be broken) then any given broken off piece of it would still be infinite itself. Realistically the universe could have been broken ANY number of times and the only assumption that we have to make is that the portion we see in any given story is one contiguous fragment.
It would be highly unlikely (again given the premise of an infinite universe) that any given “break” would affect something where the characters we follow would or could see.
All of that throws out the window with a limited scope universe, but again in my experience that is the extreme minority of these types of settings.
I wasn’t thinking of that as splitting it into pieces, but more as destroying the entire thing or altering it so heavily that it’s unrecognizable, as is usually what’s at stake in plots involving the concept. See “vacuum metastability event” as an example.
Where are you getting your data from? You’re basically just making things up to justify immoral and illegal actions. Not cool. Not cool. You have no idea how not cool that is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f18Dp9_IZ3g
Good to see you already know about vacuum metastability events. I was going to have to explain them otherwise.
The thing about metastability events is that they happen at (almost) the speed of light. And the thing about light speed is that the universe is expanding faster than that. There could be one or more metastability events ongoing right now, and they’re just so far away that they’ll never reach us.
Even some of the worst-possible disasters (metastability events and electron moons) are limited in scope. That’s why the universe can be so big without having already been destroyed.
The only remaining question is whether Krona’s powers have a light speed limit. They certainly could, since they seem to have other limits, but given that FTL travel exists in this universe, maybe they don’t.
There’s the solution given in one of John Brunner’s books: because time-travel can break reality by altering timelines, it does so until the newest timeline created is one in which time-travel never gets invented…
Those damn goggles have purple lenses again. Right after I pointed out in the last page that they had just changed back to blue. I think Krona is doing it deliberately by setting her fourth wall filter to ‘aggravate’.
There were a dozen better ways for her to go about this. The militant speech, the aggressive posturing, and the policing threat, “Do as I say or else.” is far too easy to pick a fight/foster hostility. You’d think Maxima would know that, but apparently she doesn’t care.
Suppose someone who really doesn’t like bullies had that power and decided to recode her brain the moment she’s not looking just to spite her? Maxima, regardless of intent, is being a bully here, and that behavior is a quick way to make enemies. She’s not invincible, she knows very well knows this, but goddamnit she acts like it even with her allies and friends in non-hostile, even social environments.
She isn’t being a bully, shes being a law enforcement officer doing her duty. Krona was playing with forces she didn’t understand that could have potentially killed literally everyone. It is literally Archon’s JOB to investigate.
Also her posturing isn’t really coded as aggressive. We’ve seen her be aggressive and her body language is a lot more arms out, head back, kind of thing.
This body language is more that of a confidant. She’s bending down and getting as close as she can to eye level with Krona, her arms crossed both to convey quiet seriousness AND to keep the too small jacket closed. In addition arms crossed is a much less threatening posture than open hands for someone with projectile energy beams.
Shes trying to reassure Krona. Hey. I have to take you in, its my job and we really have to discuss this but nothing bad is going to happen to you because of it.
And then they finish with what is clearly a joke, which Krona would know because this wasn’t Max’s first excursion with the Council and this has been her sense of humor for a long time.
She could destroy the universe, by accident… And Max hasn’t killed her. That’s way, way nice, especially considering that no matter how much training she gets, she will always be a huge threat to the entire universe, even without intending to. The “better” way to go about this, logistically… Is to snap her neck. I mean, I LIKE Krona, but she’s a massive danger. She seems nice and all, but if she accidentally destroys Manhattan, or the Moon, or worse… Her being nice really doesn’t help with that, now does it?
You’re not helping, and you’re really not command material with that attitude.
Well, except in Starfleet, where they’d kick you up to Admiral, where you wouldn’t be in direct control of the big guns, and the ship captains would have to defy you.
Or in any big corporation. If there’s an employee who’s incompetent, but they can’t fire him for whatever reason, they promote him to a position where he can’t do as much damage. Such as “Vice President of Paperclip Allocation”. Or, if he’s close enough to retirement age, it’s “Golden Parachute” time.
“Helping” depends on the goal. Also, commanding what? Generally this is the kind of attitude that’s expected in government/military command. You don’t endanger many people for the sake of one, you protect as many as you can. Krona being alive endangers everyone, her being dead harms only her. Simple choice, that.
I am actively confused as to where all these people are getting the idea that Krona is being “bullied” or “harassed”… Or even needs defending. She almost destroyed time. She’s being treated like the incredibly dangerous weapon that she has shown herself to be. She’s also being treated like a LIVE weapon, because she can cause damage by accident, and nobody knows what’s required for her to use her powers, or what she’s set up in advance.
Her right to be treated nicer kinda went out the window when she used untested time altering code and risked everyone’s lives and/or continuities. She’s too dangerous for kid gloves.
Actually, she IS being treated nicely. Think of some of the incidents of police responding to possibly dangerous situations with sudden and extreme violence. Maxima is polite thanking her for her contributions and saving her teammates, then explaining that they need her to come in for testing. Which is… pretty much what they did with Sydney, and we’ve already seen what that entails. Free lunch, tour of the base, and a testing of her abilities.
No, Nssheepster‘s comment was aimed at those who believe Kronachrome is being ‘bullied’ or ‘harassed’ or even ‘threatened’, and that, even though her ‘right’ to being treated nicer went out the window and that she’s too dangerous for kid gloves, she is being treated nicely and with kids gloves (made from 100% authentic kids), because Maxi is not as bad as her detractors are portraying her
Yes. That’s what I mean. Even though Krona could very well be an extreme danger, Maxima is very pointedly NOT making a potentially bad situation infinitely worse with aggression and demands and setups for a big battle. She’s being polite, friendly, but firm. Much like they were with Sydney – who was also a potential threat, was treated politely and well, and ultimately allowed to choose her own fate.
I notice Maxima is still calling the Super Husk a robot. Sydney ought to at least let her know that it claimed it wasn’t a robot. What it really is instead of a robot might be relevant.
Maybe Sydney didn’t get to that part, and just because it claimed it was not a robot doesn’t mean it’s not, and it may simply prefer the designation of ‘automaton’
Would I personally take on Maxima’s job and responsibilities in exchange for her powers? Hmmm… nope.
If you are talking in terms of Tolkien elves, any Silvan Elf is a Dark Elf because they’ve never seen the light of Valinor. But most of the named elves you see in Lord of the Rings are Sindarin or Noldor.
Tauriel was silvan and thus a dark elf, but the kind of the wood elves was a Sindar that arrived and said “I’m your king now, do what I say.” Legolas is a Sindar elf. Galadriel is a Noldor, one of only two in the Lord of the Rings and only one in the movie. Well, actually, Galadriel is mixed blood of the three sorts of High Elves. Elrond is Sindar (yes, he’s half-elven too, but he choose the Fate of the Elves so, for all intents and purposes, he’s an elf…Tolkien noted that elves and men in Middle Earth are biologically identical species and it’s only spirit that differentiates them,)
Galadriel’s…I’m not sure they’re married, consort?…is Sindarin…also, counter to Thranduil who decided to establish himself as king over the wood elves (whom he saw as inferior), Galadrial and Celeborn arrived to live with the Lothlorien elves and just started using their power to protect the place because they lived there and slowly people began to look to their wisdom.
The elf that the Fellowship speaks to at the border of Lothlorien I think is Silvan, but he may be Sindarin.
Drow are a D&D version of some vaguely mentioned things in Norse and Finnish mythologies, I believe…svartalfar.
I think the named captain
Blah, blah, blah, Dave, you should write the comic this way! No! Dave, you should write the comic that way! That NPC must be Scottish/Germanic/Norwegian/Tolkeinian/D&D type of elf/dwarf/other, because I Read About That Sort of Thing! Lt. Colonel Maximillia “Maxima” Leander is not behaving properly for a military officer/policewoman! She is exceeding her authority and stirring trouble with their allies by arresting Krona! She is perfectly within her rights and exercising her duties and obligations!
Let me check my skill set. Nope, I don’t have the ability to write and/or draw Grrl Power. Nope, I don’t have the balls to violate your copyright and even try. I like what you do and the way you do it. Keep up the excellent work, your way. I’ll keep reading.
In my opinion, Krona could just sit there and type. When the time comes to return to Archon for debriefing, picture a short golden female with short purple hair and goggles. And that would be cool, because the Mars warehouse was (I think) the first of several stops they were supposed to check.
It seems almost all the greats eventually attract some arsehole who outright demands the author write the story the way they order them to, if they don’t they are stupid and should stop writing and cancel the comic (someone recently did that to AndyO! over in “TMI”)
Hence the preemptive rant, here. I like both comics, and by extension, their creators. I hope Dave is amused rather than offended by the fifty shades of drow discussions. It’s all the shades of invitation/detention/arrest/kidnapping of Krona that make me grind teeth. It’s a comic. It’s Dave’s universe. We’ll know more about what’s happening as the plot unfolds next Thursday and the Monday after, and so on and on.
Yeah, the origins of the word ‘drow’, so far, have been polite and informative (if repetitive sometimes, as in, some one repeats almost exactly what someone else posted an hour or so earlier :P), it’s this whole “Maxi is overstepping her authority slash threatening a member of a foreign government” rubbish that is getting out of hand
…+20…
HPMOR shows that you can use time paradoxes to break RSA in O(1).
Hypothetically that code only executes when the time-stream is stable. You might use it to try to check the stability of time manipulation code.
Hmm, my personal guess (losing, obviously) is that the young lady is a Forerunner. ;P
https://andre-norton-books.com/archive/Titles_F/Forerunner/Forerunner_1981_48500-X.jpg
Maybe I missed out on something, but the only comments so far were about Krona`s powers, her (un)willingness to follow Maxima to Archon, how unnatural and potentially dangerous her powers are, and how very alike she and Pixel of all people are.
Did nobody wonder …
1. why a relatively new character stole the spotlight a couple of times already, not unlike a co-protagonist ?
2. why she is the fourth A-team member after Sydney, Peggy and Pixel ?
3. why she is a tomboy of the same build as Sydney ?
4. why her powers and Syndeys appears to have a lot in common since Krona can read her code and both appear to be evolved past regular laws of physic ?
5. why both Syndey and her are pretty green if it comes to using and understanding their powers ?
6. how both essentially got called into Archon the same way ?
Honestly, Krona appears to be somewhat of a Twin sister to Halo, or originated from the very same template at the least. I wouldn’t be surprised if she actually were an alternate universe version Sydney / Halo or something.
Is this some really worrisome friendship in the making, or the birth of not just the a-team but something like the maelstrom-team ?
I can’t wait to find out ! ;-)
… huh. Color me intrigued.
I hope that she’ll join the team. She’s the best girl.
I can’t help but feel that unleashing Sydney on that poor traumatised elf-of-many-names is just a bit unkind. Hopefully they’ve explained what’s actually going on; it’d be terrible if she was left in the dark
iirc my D&D lore, “Dark Elfs” became “Drows” when the got exiled by the Seldarine in (aprox) -10’000 DR and forced to flee into the Underdark.
The whole exile was half-framed and affected the whole race, including all the innocent ones that had nothing to do with it, hence the race-wide hateof drows for “surface” elves.
I’ve modified this comic in my head so that, when Maxima tells Peggy to make sure there are spare clothes on the Osprey, she says: “Mamms. I mean *ma’am*.”
+1