Grrl Power #554 – Mega culpa – OR – Sapphic witch kisses
So before there are 400 comments about what boneheads The Council is, I guess I should have a slight spoiler for the next page where Gault says that this vault was hardly the only thing reliant on this system. Still. Bit of an oops there.
Something not covered on the next page is the fact that this rail riding only works for certain types of spells. Communications mostly. Certainly nothing that requires line of sight like nearly all attack spells. Actually attack spells are specifically filtered out, but that leads people to wrap attack spells inside other spells, so you open your ae-mail from that Nigerian Prince and a Magic Missile flies out and blows up your closet. You would deserve that anyway, opening attachments like that. Still, people can’t cast Power Word Death from across the continent and assassinate whomever they like. A curse would benefit from this, especially if you already have a lock of their hair or other focus, but you couldn’t place a ward or a rune on a doorjamb or chest without actually being in front of it.
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Sooo…are you saying it’s just like what happened when the feds arrived and cut power to Nakatomi Plaza???
I can’t see Bruce Willis anywhere.
Neither could the bad guys.
Of course you don’t, that’s what Willis want you to think.
Speaking of.. why is a Die Hard Year One announced complete with Bruce Willis (rumored) on imdb
Is Sydney wearing a pea coat?
No. She’s wearing a belt, which no pea coat has. The lapels and collar are much too narrow. The length should come down to the bottom of the crotch/buttocks and Sydney’s is an inch or two too short; on someone as short as Sydney, a true pea coat would probably be a little longer even than that. She’s just wearing some other kind of double-breasted coat.
Ok, no. I bow to your expertise, but… is it wool?
probably, as it is supposed to be warm.
Maybe soup then.
…in case no one else has let you know privately, “Booooo…”
Hey, Sumdumgye suggested a pea coat. A pea souper would cover that.
There -could- be some dervitive of peas used in the coating process.
If Sydney has opted for a leather version, then pee could have been used in the tanning process. From a craftsman who believes that the old traditions are best.
Or who she managed to tick off somehow.
Well, it’s supposed to be a pea coat. She was getting fitted for it when she got her field uniform. I didn’t realize they don’t have belts, despite me having a pea coat of my own. Even though I live in Texas and only have about 6 weeks a year I have any cause to wear it.
Don’t worry about it, Sydney simply added the belt herself to give a hint of having hips :D
I could easily believe Sydney added a belt on her own. I would still suggest that you draw the collar and lapels wider in the future. It is a distinguishing feature of the pea coat and contributes a LOT to how warm the coat is in high winds, as when you raise the collar and tuck one lapel under the other, it covers all the way up to the middle of the ears. I searched for a couple of examples to illustrate it.
USN 1
USN 2
civilian
Send me an introduction to the last one please.
The Veil souds like a series of Ley Lines that make the Magical Internet.
It is.
Or rather, the Veil is the spell that was used to interconnect them leylines all world wide, to provide total worldwide coverage of the spell keeping supernaturals unnoticed by the regular people. The byproduct of that was accidentally making the Magical Internet.
Word-Wide-Web
Ahh, so you recon Vance is the web master?
A similar thing has happened where I work. Any really complex layered alarm system can have this happen if people aren’t paying attention.
That’s why complex alarms should include, you know, POWER alarms. If you can cut the power surreptitiously, then what’s the fucking point of having an alarm? Any thief who has the “blueprints” so to speak will know exactly where to hit. I’m not an alarm designer but I do know this basic tenet of alarm design from reading about them.
In the case of The Veil this is somewhat excusable because they built upon systems for centuries which accidentally introduced this loophole. Still, they should’ve had an electrical engineer verify the design…
The problem wasn’t a lack of power; the alarms worked. They just couldn’t be heard because the communications infrastructure was down.
They really needed to set up an adaptor for nagios and have all the alarms report in regularly with that.
My workplace actually had this happen once, with nagios even! We had no alarm system for if nagios was down. Granted, we have veritiable static of low level alarms and when those stopped going off it didn’t take long for someone to check.
Suffice to say, we put a watch on the watcher, and a had the first watcher watch the seconder watcher. It’s a belt of ass covering!
That’s why you have Zenoss reporting on Nagios…
Let me ask you something, dkf.
If an alarm sounds in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, does anybody care?
Why would there be an alarm in the forest?
If a man is talking in a forest and there are no women around to hear him, is he still wrong?
A forest fire alarm. As global temperatures rise and forest fires become a commonplace hazard it could become routine to install such devices. Especially with rising populations and in forests popular with hikers or other outdoors pursuits.
They could be built using two different design ethos. A cheap, disposable variety, so that petty theft and destruction by fire do not pose an economic threat. Or a durable one that can survive a forest fire, but placed in locations that would make it inconvenient for thieves to locate or retrieve them.
Either variety could transmit an alert to the forest wardens and/or emergency services. Whilst an audible alarm would be important in well-travelled areas.
I’m a fan of 24/7 satellite forest fire alarms. That way the satellites won’t be pointed at me.
In space nobody can hear the alarms. Or any paranoid grumblings.
Although they might be good lip-readers.
Giant projected holographic person signaling with flags?
I’m also a fan of forest fire paranoia. All the better to burn you with, my dear.
What we do is set up a pair of monitors with quantumly entangled photons at the vault and back at the council. Then if the detectors are triggered or if the power goes out the quantum spin change will be seen back at headquarters (even if it were on another planet). I’m sure Dabbler could get that set up in no time.
Dabbles doesn’t share her toys, well, she doesn’t loan them out anyway
not the only demon or alien the council could ask to set it up
Was just pointing out, that it wouldn’t be from Dabbles
Not sure I’d want to be entangled with even one of these, much less two of them.
So… If I understand correctly, the veil is an accidental magical internet and the Council decreased the bandwidth?
Not the veil itself but the backbone, the connection between the various sigil around the world, that the veil is build upon. Other than that, yes, that is roughly what happened.
An explanation of what happened to the council is explained by watching this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0
Specifically, the council reduced the bandwidth to keep the “Internet” running while the council tries / tried to fix it
They had a load shedding plan. Too bad they shed the wrong load…Bureaucracy in action…
There was an old caper flick starring Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole titled “How to Steal A Million” in which the key to the heist was for the thieves to trip the museum’s alarms and then hide while the security crew went crazy; and then repeat the process over and over until the head night watchman simply shut off the alarm in frustration.
Which isn’t *exactly* what happened here; but it’s still a good movie. And it stars Audrey Hepburn!
‘Stark raving mad’ movie used the noise from a rave to forcibly trip vibration sensors in a bank vault to register a false positive while drilling through to the vault. All sorts of shenanigans including slapstick jokes involving a giant dildo were included. Not the same, but definitely a dabbler approved reference. Pretty decent b-movie and one of the few action type movies that can pull of Shakespeare style monologues.
I’ve seen it.
Well, things may be getting busy for me in the near future. The producers will probably need me to help out on the details, but I will still try to participate in this comment board when I have the time. I wonder if I can get them to include those years when I sat in on the Mos Eisley cantina band?
https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/17/15704586/star-wars-obi-wan-kenobi-standalone-film-disney-rumors
Without Ewan? Not gonna happen
lemme guess – you were the guy with the beady eyes and butt crack forehead, right? :)
I am guessing he is channelling Alec Guinness (being significantly better in the role).
Being struck down only makes a powerful Jedi stronger.
I think striking one of the cantina band members would make him rosy-cheeked. And maybe just a bit turned on.
Buffy said something connected to that.
I’m still trying to figure out how Sidney was able to create a force shield, maintain the life support, and fly under water at the same time.
umm, it was explained by the author under the comic, when she refreshed the air maxima flew from inside the sphere
Not to mention that Sydney can fly at mach 4….so she could probably make the 1000 meter descent and go through the spiky entrance long before the air became too stale, even without refreshing.
Do you want to trust your life to Sydney, flying at speed, down an unknown tunnel, lined with spikes, in the dark, 1000 meters under water? o_O
C’mon! Where is your sense of adventure?
Hiding in a kennel with a comfort blankie.
And a box of Yorpie Treats… :-)
So, can anyone see what’s going on with Halo’s face in the last panel?
She’s… grinning? o_O
Indulging in some Schadenfreude?
On the other hand, magically sexting their junk to a random stranger is a mistake people are only likely to make once.
Not much actual sex happens over the aethernet, bandwidth limitations.
So you would advise a bigger packet size?
something something bestiality
With that your world/our world comment, it sounds like Maxima is claiming some sort of world-wide jurisdiction for Archon.
I wonder if that is the case of how the US/Archon-Twilight Council treaties are set up (and what other countries think about that), a case of Maxima screwing up and overreaching, or a case of the author forgetting that he explicitly set up Archon as a national agency answering to the US government rather than an international agency supported by all major powers – and one whose revealed existence was hurried up in order for the US to be the first to go public with the “supers are real, and this is how we deal with that” news.
Normally I am not keen on America’s attitude in such matters. In this instance though they are justified. Given that they are the only government in the world to officially acknowledge the existence of super powers, and none have done so for the supernatural.
However Archon/the U.S. government are conducting talks which are aimed at revealing the latter. Plus they do have behind-the-scenes direct contact between a range of world leaders and Archon.
Presently they are the only official game in town. So Maxima has every right to speak this way. Once other national agencies are set up and other nations state their official policies on both supers and the supernatural then international politics will determine who has jurisdiction, negotiating rights and so on.
Until then Maxima speaks for Humanity.
Personally, just felt Maxi was talking like this because wherever they are, they are technically still on (under?) US soil
And again, the Council brought Archon in on this. What? They thought Archon would just ‘toe the line’ and simply act as extra security to mop up the shitstorn the Council inadvertently caused without asking questions or getting pissed that it happened in the first place?
Whilst they may be within the exclusive economic zone (those extend out 200 nautical miles from the land) that would not give the US any particular jurisdiction other than over oceanic economic activities, such as fishing.
For the base to be within US jurisdiction it would need to be within their territorial waters. At most these go 12 nautical miles from shore, but only includes the continental shelf. The continental margin is considered to be a boundary that would reduce this distance. Ergo as the base is clearly beyond that, being on the continental slope, it cannot be in the territorial waters of any nation.
Countries, even allies, tend to keep their secret facilities secret. So it is not unusual that a problem would only become wider knowledge once it had reached the point where either external help was needed or it may impact on other nations.
This is just part of the normal things that happen in international politics. Appropriate grumblings and protests get made, but those who’s job it is to solve problems just have to get on with the troubleshooting. It is up to the politicians to decide if policies need to be changed.
They had to go out that far to get to the entrance, but we don’t know which way the tunnel went or how far it extended
No, but if it went on for miles that is noteworthy enough that I am sure it would have been remarked upon.
Yorp, we don’t know idea whether Archon is the only official game in town by now, it being a few days since the US went public and the procedure was rushed (with sartorial consequences) to be the first to go public. It may well be – but it may not, and after that huge public demonstration, fight scene, and partying, I’d have to assume that some other countries, particularly amongst the western democracies, have gone public or have a real hard trouble explaining themselves to their citizens.
Regardless of whether other countries have gone public or not since then, some of them will definitely have organizations devoted to the issue or there’d have been no reason for the US to rush to be first. I find it highly unlikely that the Twilight Council, having been around for centuries as far as we know, hasn’t been engaged in discussion with other countries’ organizations and making treaties regardless of whether those have gone public or not – just like the Twilight Council’s treaties with the US government predate the official revelation of Archon and possibly the existence of Archon as well.
Either way, it is no big deal unless the author decides to make a storyline out of it, but in the real world being the first mover on any issue or the only country that has a public department dealing with an issue does not give the right to speak on behalf of the entire world on the issue – at least not a “right” that other countries will accept. :D
wow and I just took it for an american military officers pride and a honest public safety concern to cause her to exaggerate her authority
naw, the US and other powerful countries always throw their weight outside the borders that strictly defined for them. The US was arguably one of the worst since WWII, but that’s changing now.
Took a second to figure out that first witch (sending the kissy-mail) wasn’t Sydney in a witch-hat for some reason. Trying to identify the second witch and wondering when Sydney was ever into girls was a bit of a mind-twist, then I realized it’s just a random stranger with similar hair…
Thought it was Deco actually
You know what? I want to know the story of those two witches. How long has their long-distance relationship been going on? How did they meet? What are their dreams?
Would they like a sophisticated English dog companion?
What? I can always keep my hopes up. Someday I will luck out on a two-for-one arrangement. Unless Sydney catches me first.
I second this. My eye keeps getting hung up on background characters who have little to nothing to do with the story, turning them into a bigger focus than they should be. I guess that’s why background characters in my stories end up having their own novel length backstories in my head.
You guys upthread are overthinking this big time.
The phrase “your world” and “my/our world” is a casual colloquialism where I am. It’s often used to refer to things like “the world of geekdom” or “the world of my religion” or some such.
There is a tangible difference though between those who are protected by or aware of the Veil and everybody else. Those who know how the world really operates versus the muggles.
Agreed. I am merely saying that I can refer to, for instance, the World of Geekdom as “my world” without actually asserting ownership over it or even dominance within it.
Indeed, sometimes a turn of phrase is just that.
That moment when you realize that the Veil is essentially a magical equivalent of the backbone that supports the internet…
Since to work the veil would have to be anchored in reality as well as allowed to freely tap the ambient magic field (The aethersphere) and it would have to be able to distinguish what to filter out, it’s not just a super handy backbone for other spells, it’s also the DNS service of the magical world.
That is to say, if someone was clever enough they could probably backtrace the information it needs on each and every magical being to its source and slap a curse on any of them without additional bonded materials. It’s thaumaturgy, hacker style!
Not sure if it was mentioned already, but in the Who’s Who, shouldn’t Decolette’s description read, ‘A decorous succubus’? As decorous means prim, polite, and proper.
Wait, that’s not simply the yank spelling? o_O
That word probably isn’t even in most US English dictionaries, nevermind has it’s own local spelling. :P
She is. By Succubus standards anyhow. Although I am sure sometimes she will have fun and take the pee. In which case she would be rim, olite and roper.
Okay, understand the ‘rim’ and ‘roper’ part, but ‘olite’? Is that anything like an ‘o-ring’? o_O
Oh, and IronDino was referring to the spelling (it’s missing ‘u’)
Oops no, it’s not missing ‘u’, it’s missing the ‘o’
yorp said take the p then re wrote the descriptors without the letter p that starts the word as a joke (I explain only for if you arn’t teasing)
only they could fail so bad they disabled their own alarms
Uhh, nope. That actually happens quite a lot. I can think of three big heists, in just the last year, which were pulled off because museums and collectors had disabled their own alarms.
not counting false alarm cases, as happened in a town near me, where criminals deliberately triggered a bank robbery false alarm at one end of town to distract first responders from the real bank robbery at the other end of town. Halo wasn’t involved, but they got caught anyway.
You’ve all failed me. All of you. Especially Yorp.
It took me until about five minutes ago to realize this was a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale
That has been mentioned several times over the last several years, both in-comic and in-comments
didn’t we talk about this every time Sidney and food get together?
The earliest reference to it in the comments that I could find (with just a minute of searching) is on page #28, and another one in the comic itself on page #30, both back in early 2011!
Dave has informed us, in the past, that the name is a total coincidence.
Is Decolette wearing a collar? … for fun, or are collars the new administrative / military ID/accessory for women only, that I’m just now hearing about?
It is popular in this corner of the galaxy. Some rustic tourist planet has an organisation which recently publicised the native decoration (concealing various utilitarian functions). This has since caught on via space sex tourism and the ‘in crowd’ are following the fashion.
Panel #3 looks a lot like Sydney to me…
On a lighter note – the internet can’t really BE shut down anymore. The last attempt was the RTFM worm, and even then, most of it stayed up.
The reason that this one can is probably because the para community is so much smaller – and unlike the internet, it doesn’t use common infrastructure (phone lines) OR have an almost parallel structure (MILnet) in place.
Unlike the internet, I don’t think ParaNet was designed to survive nuclear war…
I hope someone is foresighted enough to ensure that cockroach friendly controllers and maintenance kits are made widely available.
The infrastructure will only last so long without anyone maintaining it, and even with accelerated development from radiation mutation, it will be hard for the cockroaches to evolve fast enough to make use of it, before it is lost forever!
Sapphic witches are the best kind!
I feel like there’s an extra omake/extra/non-canon scene that could fit in here and be a bit of fun..
Following Decollete’s disarming explanation in panel 2, Maxima just stares at her for a moment, blinking. Then she smirks and leans an elbow on Dabbler’s shoulder.
Maxima: “So… THAT’S the masterful level of diplomacy you get from GRADUATE of your ‘succubus finishing schools’ is it? Very impressive. I’ve NEVER heard it’s like.”
Decollete just smirks, as Dabbler’s eyes narrow sharply, and her mouth opens, about to speak–
Sydney: “WHOA! TIME OUT! Need some one-on-one convo time with my CO, right now, can’t wait! Seriously Com-ere!”
Maxima: “What is it, recruit?”
Sydney: “You’ll have to bend down for me a bit; you’re too tall for me to do a proper ‘gimme your ear so I can talk some sense into you’ half-headlock thingy.”
Maxima, looking more amused than offended, bends down. Sydney then speaks quietly into her ear, but not below the hearing of the two curious succubae listening only a couple paces away.
Sydney: “Okay boss-lady, I need to know, have you really taken a minute to imagine all the things that could go HORRIBLY foully, PERVERSELY, and stickily wrong for you if you stick your head between two pretty high-end-power-scale sex demonesses with a social-class-based rivalry going on between them? I’m just saying, wouldn’t it be tactically the equivalent of sticking your hand between two fighting cats… except utterly filthy?”
Maxima has difficulty paling with her glass-like golden skin, but she makes a valiant effort. “You… make a good point.”
Sydney: “Now here’s my second point; given that you and I are –at least compared to them– at least slightly prudish (and comfortably so) do you really think EITHER of our imaginations (even mine) could come even CLOSE to accurately guessing all the awful things that would ACTUALLY go bad for you if you stepped into the middle of their feud? There are a lot of things about succubae we don’t know about — and probably shouldn’t!”
Maxima shudders.
Decollete gently leans in and stage-whispers. “She has a point; about 30% of the possibilities on that list are sordid acts of carnality that humans simply aren’t anatomically capable of performing… but either Dabbler or I can find ways to work around that if sufficiently motivated!”
Shuddering again, Maxima straightens stiffly, turns to Dabbler, then bows. “I formally apologize for my comments. I was out of line. Let’s put this behind us… PLEASE!”
Dabbler pouts. “Aw… I don’t think I like this even-less-fun version of you.”
Maxima: “Perfect.”
As far as I’m concerned, that’s canon.
Thank you so much for this wonderful Post and all the best for your future. I hope to see more posts from you.
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