Grrl Power #556 – Sydney’s Eleven
I’m at the point where Sydney is with most TV and movies, in that I’m constantly on the lookout for the tweest (cough), the twist or the betrayal or whatever antagonistic thing the protagonists are going to have to deal with for the rest of the episode. It’s obnoxious even though I get an “I knew it!” moment when it happens, it makes me annoyed that the characters in the show didn’t see it coming, like any time the good guys bring the thing the bad guys were after onto their ship or into the base and don’t immediately suspect it of being some sort of Trojan horse and place it under round the clock observation with machine guns and flame throwers pointed at it.
Of course making your characters really paranoid and security conscious presents a real challenge to the writers, because the bad guys then have to outsmart that behavior, and at some point the bad guys plans become so convoluted they may exceed the audience’s ability to understand what’s going on, or require the bad guy to have a such a crazy ability to predict human behavior and thus plan things so far ahead that it would need to be supernatural to be believable.
Of course, in a world with supers and supernaturals, who knows what’s possible?
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One of the cautions is bringing in the big gun in Maxima.
Or maybe that was the plan; get Maxima stuck here so that she’s not in the way of something happening somewhere else.
Or maybe Sciona is planning to use some mind altering device/hallucination gas to get MAXIMA to off the council.
Hypnotism didn’t work on Maxima before, which I’m sure Sciona rememebers…
But do you suppose it’d work on Sydney? Her own destructive potential was televised too, and even Maxima might have a hard time blocking the full force of her DOOOOOOM CANNON….orb….thing…
But what if it actually did work and she’s been a sleeper agent ever since?!
What if Maxima became a sleeper agent hypnotist golem?! OH MY GOD
This thread warms my cold GM’s heart…
Not enough to feel pity or compassion, of course, but the warmth is nice.
What if that’s just want Sciona WANTS them to think, in order to start bickering and infighting between supers & supernaturals, so that way Sciona can abscond with ALL of the delicious hostess snack cakes!?!
That’s terrible!
Say what now? When did someone try to hypnotize Maxima?
scionas golem did try.
Oooh, right right right.
I dunno, seemed to me that was a crack in the eye lens of the golem.
That’s why it didn’t fully work
+Actually, Maxima stated she took training against mind control – so we dont know if it works or not & she can get out if it, or she just knows how to resist it. (at least yet)
I don’t think you want ANY potential of Sydney’s mind being unlocked and unleashed in anyone’s presence. Remember the pre-bank incident.
Sciona’s golem successfully hypnotized Maxima. She was saved by the timely intervention of Hiro but hypnotism is shown to work.
It didnt work before because of a crack in the hypno lens. I dont think that will happen, though. It would be an interesting twist though if it results in a Sydney vs Maxima thing with Sydney protecting the council members with her shield.
tzeentch… Just as planned
Meanwhile Sciona is sitting in a high back chair in her evil lair and chuckling softly to herself while petting the white cat in her lap. After taking a sip of red whine she puts her hand together, smirks and says: “Just as planned”.
She doesn’t drink….. wine.
Note ro jaws said “whine” not “wine”. A whine is a complain or dismay. A glass of it is a magical concoction specifically made from the distilled lamentations of her enemies.
That was a misspelling actualy. I like that we cannot edit these comments, it makes it more interesting. But a glass of blood and/or suffering is much more fitting for a villain.
And at that point, Sydney interferes, causing Sciona to utter “did not see that coming.”
Scionas butler throws off her disguise and say: “You thought I was your butler but it was me, Sydney!”
Just as keikaku*
* Translators note: keikaku means plan
https://i2.kknews.cc/large/1cc3000aa840a46d83aa
Woof!*
* Translator’s note: Woof! meme.
Awooo!?
I never even realized that Ingsol was in a suit before now. I guess because we only saw his face and shoulders.
It looks weird, but I like it. Can I request a side by side picture of Ingsol in his council uniform, and a suit?
He was wearing a suit then too, but he had his collar popped and he also had a half cape draped over one shoulder.
And obviously has talked to Edna since then?
HA.
Didn’t she die? One of the few Simpsons characters to die (because the actress died for real)
I can’t tell if this is ironic or not….
::assumes a puzzled expression::
Ironic in what way?
Obviously ArtyD was talking a la Mode, but thought it would be funny to go with a Crabapple
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/59/13/35/591335540f3b40db1c0142b4864e45b7–no-capes-superhero-movies.jpg
He had some super fancy colours at the council meeting though.
The council suit was a very fancy one:
https://i.imgur.com/igdyOu2.jpg
Pinstripe, always fancy
Can’t wait to see what’s inside the vault….!
*complete darkness”
Oh right, the lights are also powered by the sigils!
Absolutely nothing!
It’s full of stars!
Whats in there? Spoiler alert…
Its the colonels secret blend of 11 different herbs and spices, Obama’s birth certificate, Trump’s tax returns, the complete formula for coca cola, the answer to how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop, google’s search algorithm, who shot jfk, the acting talent of steven seagal and kristin stewart, and the secret to ending reality tv forever.
Original or new?
Yes.
Yes to both, but there’s only one, and that’s the biggest secret of all.
The original recipe has been out for a while and it’s tasty!
The original recipe uses cocaine.
In fact, so does the current recipe, because grandfather clauses are sneaky like that. No joke. Coca cola uses extract of the Coca plant and the ingredients for it to convert into cocaine.
The full recipe is completely publicly available, you just have to go through FDA registrations (which are public) and notifications of alterations to put it together. Annoying work, yes, but easy with two hours and an internet connection.
The whole “secret recipe” thing is more of a PR stunt because things being secret makes them seem more exclusive and thus sell better.
That said, they do have a reputation for killing people who try to make said recipe known to the public in its entirety without having to do the legwork (how much of that is real and how much is fake to bump up that “secret” PR stunt is, I don’t know, but paying the corporate court fees for an outright murder is well within their discretionary operating budget.) So general recommendation is, look up the FDA records and the original recipes, go through the alterations, spend the few minutes to figure it out after running the paper trail, and then either…
A. Don’t tell anyone.
B. Tell everyone at once in a way too ridiculously obvious to stop you (email everyone, put up some billboards, and then hop on a talkshow and read it to an audiance).
Seems the Kiwis didn’t learn from ‘New Coke’ and introduced a new ‘No Sugar’ Coke (which has two different sweeteners instead), because having 5 different sugar-free Coke’s already wasn’t enough :rolleyes:
We just need ‘No Sweetener’ Coke, now.
That’s just cold,fizzy coffee
And?
Thing is, ‘No Sugar’ Coke isn’t even being marketed as a Diet Coke, just Regular Coke without sugar (probably because all five {or is it six?} diet varieties tastes like crap)
What if you had a story where the protagonist was the one who always planned complex stuff, and the antagonist was simply strong?
Spiderman? He usually has a knack for “lead the op bad guy into a trap”, that plays well with his “spider’s web” motif.
Heroic heist plots in general?
Like a reverse megamind?
I want to write a story with a mastermind villian as the protagonist and an unstopable hero as the antagonist.
You do know that the hero is usually the protagonist, right? Hmm, Lex Luthor as the hero? Yeah, that has been done as well (See Crisis on Two Earths).
Well, for villain as the protagonist, you might want to check out Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. NPH pulls off the part spectacularly.
Hero and protagonist are not synonyms.
Megamind being a good example. Sorta. But David Nuttall did cover himself by saying “usually”, which is certainly true. The vast majority of stories (be it film, TV, book or comic) have the protagonist as the hero. With a few notable anti-heroes making an appearance, from time-to-time.
Plus a heck of a lot of incompetent or indifferent leads who are not worthy of being called a ‘hero’. But they are still outnumbered by the ones who will behave in proper good-guy fashion, and who will probably win the day, by the rules of the hero’s union.
Also Injustice
Dr. Horrible???
As someone above just mentioned “Megamind” is basicly that in a nutshell.
A prime example of this might be the 1st “Die Hard”-film.
Villain “Hans Gruber” was the Protagonist, vs. the Hero “John McClane”, as the Antagonist who must stop him.
COPS. They spend so much effort on developing SWAT teams with military hand-me-downs, and then most of the enforcement effort is spent on drunk wife beaters in boxers.
Also drunk boxers in wife beaters.
my favorite CSI episode of all time: Ending Happy. Sorta like a comic version of Murder on the Orient Express, but at combo brothel/retirement village.
What about Sydney’s Clairvoyance Orb? I’m doubt she could even tell the difference between a regular chaos mcguffin and a booby trap mcguffin but it would be a good way to scope out the place. The Council members need not even know that she’s doing it.
Sydney: “That thing is glowing with magic! EVERYBODY DOWN!”
Ingsol: “… It is supposed to glow, it is a magic lamp.”
Sydney: “You mean a genie pops out if I rub it!?”
Ingsol: “No. It is a magic LAMP, it just glows.”
Reminds me of an D&D game once. It was an illusionist who was fighting someone with truesight that let them see through illusions. Running from them, they turned down an alley, hid behind some trashcans, and threw up an illusionary wall further down the alleyway. Rather than check out the trashcans, the villain immediately noticed and saw through the illusionary wall, and proceed to pass through it to chase them, assuming it was to cover their trail. Same illusionist would often put fake magic walls over identical real walls so those with “Detect Magic” would spend forever trying to “disbelieve illusion”, and wonder why they keep being unable to walk through the solid wall.
I love subtle brain f***s like that. In one of the very few d&d games I ever played, there was a magic-infested poem on the wall that said, poetically, we were trapped in a shared delusion in our own minds. We spent the entire game fretting over what was real and got chewed up because every perceived danger actually was real. We kept getting caught by the time lag in trying to see thru illusions that weren’t there.
One of my favorite evil things to do to a party:
Party was chasing down a Bard who specialized in insanely high bluff and diplomacy checks to get people to do what he wants and illusions. The last time they tracked him to his funhouse, they had illusions all over the place screwing with them.
This time, they came in loaded up with True Sight and similar effects. One of the nastiest traps was a Symbol of Insanity inscribed in an inset covered by an illusionary wall. If you did not have True Sight, it wouldn’t affect you because you couldn’t see it. If you DID have True Sight, however…
Also, illusionary wall… followed by Prismatic Wall. They see the illusionary wall as illusionary and charge right on through. That’ll be seven different saving throws, please… wait, you failed that last Will save? Hmm… let’s see which dimension you end up in… *rolls d100 on a Gary Gygaxian Chart*
just reminded me of What Good Is a Glass Dagger? by Larry Niven. I won’t spoil it, it’s short & worth the read if you can get your hands on a copy.
actually, Obsidian makes for an extremely sharp blade, and is , technically, glass.
Then you’ll just have to read the story to find out what the title means.
I’ve seen/handled obsidian. It may be harder than ordinary silica glass, but it too is brittle, which is why it’s not used as a weapon for any critters other an whitewalkers.
Actually, obsidian was used to make weapon blades for centuries by various groups, the Aztecs were particularly famous for doing so. You just have to remember to be careful with the blade and not try to use it exactly the same as you’d use a steel blade. And have a supply of replacements on hand.
But she was ordered to keep it a secret, no idea if also from the council?
Yeah, if it didn’t need to remain a secret I’d have just teamed her up with Gault to point out everything she sees magical to him… he may even have a spell to see what she sees to simplify the process… although I could imagine it even more annoying trying to get Sydney to look where you wanted her to.
But yeah. Keep the secret and that’s a particularly great secret to keep from the council. Not only can she pierce your veil… she can see your magic! Magic feels like something significant that the council retains an advantage on over everything else Archon can do.
Sydhey was looking where she wasn’t supposed to when she saved the whole damn council. So they probably shouldn’t mind so much.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2294
sigh. didn’t https used to work on this site?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2294
The whole reason Sydney was brought to the council meeting was because her truesight let her see through the veil, so the council has to know about it already.
The fact that Sydney can see through the Veil was directly referenced in the council chamber. How though was not mentioned. But given that everyone knows that she gets her powers from her orbs and that three of them were ‘classified’ it would not take much deduction to figure out how she does that (even assuming that it was not detailed).
They know that she can see through the Veil, and it’s a short leap of induction to realising that she does so via an Orb power. But the Detect Magic effect appears to be separate to the Veil-piercing Truesight, and it’s not a given that (any particular member of) the Council will be inside its particular compartment of ‘classified’.
Well she needs physical access to get the orb inside, which she doesn’t have.
Teleport or not
I dont think she needs to actually. The comm orb projection can go through objects like sydney’s projection can.
We still don’t know about the lightbee itself though. I suspect that would bump into a wall or a window, and need to find a hole or open window.
Although Dave forgot about the phasing bit when Sydney was investigating the Mars warehouse (if you check out his comment), so we will need to wait for another opportunity to confirm if it works the way I suppose.
The lightbee itself doesnt have to. A PROJECTION of the lightbee is what goes to the projection of the other Sydney.
Think about it. The orbs themselves are tethered within a short distance of Sydney. The actual orb CAN’T be the thing travelling away from Sydney that far.
The tentacle is not the orb, the tentacle is a thing that curls up inside the Hentai Orb, until Sydney chooses to unleash it. Likewise the lightbee lives inside the Truesight Orb, to be launched into the outside world at Halo’s whim.
The tentacle is not a projection, it is something that can be touched and can touch. What makes you think that the lightbee is a projection rather than a soft light emitter? It is the thing which creates the illusion, not the Truesight orb. We see that it has to travel to a remote location before that happens.
Not only that but we witnessed a conversation with Harem, where Halo describes how she can ‘feel’ things near to her, when guiding the lightbee. This very much implies that it is a physical object, which needs to avoid things that it can bump into.
Otherwise all it would need is something akin to a GPS or compass so that it can remain on a straight heading to its destination. In which case the most efficient path would be a straight line to the target, regardless of whether that was through a wall or a person. Which is not the behaviour that we have observed.
“And BOOM”
Sydney looks at Maxima with the SAME look as the LAST time she was proven right after just BARELY getting her shield up in time……………..
Maxima “GODDAMMIT!”
If I were Syd, I’d be standing slightly out of the way with shields up.
++
and just being considerate for my friends, have ppo in hand also.
The closed door that seems to lack physical damage does seem to support Sydney’s statements.
Unless there is another point they could have mined their way in from, and no set off any other sensors that should have been in place.
I must confess, I don’t find Sydney’s thoughts on this all that far fetched in this instance. I mean, Maxima is right, at a certain point, they must act, and I’m willing to bet that fears of traps and further work to trick them into opening the door are exactly why they’ve invited Maxima… But Sydney’s points/fears are actually really good ones.
Absolutely! Methinks that Ingsol should have (had) the same thought as Sydney (already), after discovering that the attack against the veil was not the real attack. They may still be forced to open the vault, but they should expect that Sciona wants them to do this and should have set up measures against everything.
The main issue is that they still need to open the door either way, as they don’t know that the vault isn’t breached so they have to check.
Brainstorming all the possible ways that might be bad won’t really help much as fundamentally past the precautions they already took (summon powerful allies) there’s not anything they can do to guard against an enemy with unknown objectives.
Yeah but it’s more a case that Sydney’s analysis paralysis isn’t really analysis paralysis in this case. It’s some really good points.
I’d have actually expected the senior guys to come out and say “you’re invited here not only because it concerns you but because we’re concerned that opening the vault is exactly what Sciona wants or to assassinate those who open it.” Maxima: “Sydney, please raise your forcefield around the members opening the vault. I’ll remain ready to react.”
Now Ingsol is sort of telling Sydney “Yes, you’re right and we’ve already taken precautions… Probably should have mentioned it so you could be prepared and ready as well though… sorry”
Interesting. Ingsol seems to have a (faded) “x” scar over his face, similar to the one Deus has.
#OverthinkingStuff
Nice catch. Seems it is a recent addition though since in older appearances he doesn’t have it.
Has he been sticking his nose in the same places that Deus has? His healing factors may cause it to disappear completely with time.
I am thinking that is just shadows from the weird lighting in the cave.
he seems to have it here.
Could he be Deus?
Max has only seen Ingsol sans veil and Syd didn’t use true sight when meeting Deus.
Ingsol has very deep creases in his skin: heading down and away from the bridge of his nose, and up and away from his brows. The right (or wrong, depending on how you think of it) lighting causes these to become even more pronounced in certain drawings. In point of fact, the creases don’t even connect with one another; the shading on this page merely makes it look like they do.
Whilst agreeing that Max’s comment about “analysis paralysis” has lots of merit, I can’t help but think that Sydney will have earned a great big “I TOLD YOU SO” very very shortly. ,
She didn’t tell them enough to earn an I told you so.
She could still pull of a “I knew this would happen!” though.
If the opening of the vault is what lets Sciona in in the first place, she did.
She has genre savvy as a known power. Yet they’re ignoring her genre savvy.
Anyway, *she* doesn’t have to say told you so. Maxima just needs to recognize she shut her recruit down when she had been giving useful info.
Of course, the real story is that Maxima already knows it’s an Ocean’s Eleven gambit, and Halo gets her chomps, not for spotting that and blabbing that in front of the stealthed fiend, but for putting up her shield around everyone right as the door is opening, and thus effectively replacing the big door with a big shield that the fiend still can’t get through – but his attempt shows his presence.
They are not ignoring it. Maxima listened to the points and decided that speculating alone will not get them anywhere. They need to find out what has happened. No matter how much they delay things they would still need to open it at some point. So the risk has to be taken.
However they do have three of the most powerful supers on the planet to counter whatever may happen.
Hopefully that will be enough. If not, delaying would only give Sciona more time to progress her plot unchecked, in any event.
And now they die because the controls had poison or curses on them.
And the nuke the bad guys left in the vault goes off.
That was actually my first thought on seeing that last panel — “You guys *did* do a thorough audit of the locking spell, right? *Before* touching it? And, presumably, giving is sufficient arcane access to your person that it can verify you are who you claim to be?”
If the vault requires seven senior council members to open the vault… how exactly could anyone have gotten inside…. Sydney really should do a security sweep for invisible people. Or the succubi should drop some of that lust aura and check the corners.
A door requires a key to be unlocked, doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to get inside.
For instance, if a blood mage managed to obtain seven samples to fool those biometric locks.
Which she uses right after they’ve all left and are sure nothing’s missing.
which is why biometrics should be considered a “userid”, not a.password-equivalent. fingerprints, retinas, etc, have all the characteristics of userids – public, not secured, unchangeable. none of the attributes of a password – arbitrary (not relevant to context of user or site), changeable, secret. Want 2 factor authorization? use two pass phrases, or maybe a pass phrase and a challenge card/calculator.
… just a quick thing from a security guy:
Security isn’t about just confidentiality – which is what passwords protect – it’s also about non-repudiation and integrity. Among other things.
Multifactor authentication supplies confidence both that you know the required secrets to access a thing, but also you are the person who knows the required secrets. Passphrases (something you know) are about confidentiality.. but biometrics are about non-repudiation and integrity (something you are), while keys or cypher cards are about possession (something you have).
Any two of the three types gives reasonable assurance that you are who you say you are and you’re authorized to be there.
Additionally, multiple single factors (chained passphrases) are defeated by the same method of interception or compromise. This means you get no additional assurance from multiple uses of the same factor, regardless of context.
So. For the vault door:
– Something you Know, in this context, would be some kind of passphrase or code to enter.
– Something you Have would be the location and parameters for opening the vault, plus the ability to access the vault even after knowing those parameters (required supranormal abilities).
– Something you Are is the biometric lock around the council.
This vault is protected by Have/Are – multiple factors – that are suborned separately. Whether the factors are good enough or not would depend on things outside of the scope of the comic.
BUt… there’s method behind MFA madness, and understanding that confidentiality isn’t the whole point of security gives context to what MFA is and what it does.
@ alt text want to know Why that vault is so secure?
THIS is inside of it.
https://derpicdn.net/img/2012/8/1/63854/full.png
At some point each “When this happens they will do that than this happens and they will dot that” gets too convoluted. A lot of dependencies means that only one random little unforeseen thing has to happen and the whole plan collapses.
Now in this case sneaking in after them would be bad for Sciona because of those too many dependencies. Security will surely go up when the door is opened.
I think you mean “tveest”.
Before your time or mine…
https://retro-otr.com/2011/04/jack-benny-ed-and-the-vault-550403/
Though I have listened to those radio programs, they make for good entertainment on long drives.
I remember when they revived a portion of this for an episode of “The Lucy Show”.
As the door opens Sciona appears with a vial of holy water and says to Ingsol “Your vault items or your life!” After a pause she says “Well?” He replies “I’m thinking it over!”
I am just waiting for Sydney too restart a conversation with, “Oh, one more thing…”
You know, analysis paralysis is a valid concern, but really, given Sydney’s truesight orb why wouldn’t you have her give the area a quick scan? Seems like pretty minimal caution.
That orb is classified. So she shouldnt openly use it unless max tells her to outside of an emergency.
She can use it as long as she only tells Maxima and Dabbler what she sees.
The orb has no visible effects for its true sight after all, no one would know what it is doing.
Using it at all while under observation potentially reveals it’s secrets.
For example, that she called it to hand it implies to anyone paying attention to her orb management that it does something relevant. And in contexts she juts expressed concern about hidden threats and chose it over the orbs with known combat utility (PPO, Light Hook, flight). So speculating that it has some sort of detection capability is not unreasonable.
Then if she warns anyone about an unseen threat that would serve to confirm the suspicion. (and if she’s not planning on warning anyone why bother looking).
Of coarse, it wouldn’t take much to speculate that Sidney has some way to pierce the veil anyway just form her presence. She’s obviously not Maxima’s first choice to represent Archon, and her declassified power-set is not adequate to explain her presence at the previous meeting.
They might know about the telepresence from the factory incident. Since it is the same orb any questions as orb usage could be hand waved as that,
Plus they KNOW Sydney has some way of piercing the veil to some extent, and likely through her orbs, otherwise she would not have been at the council meeting in the first place. If Archon revealed everything is another question, but they probably told the council more then they are telling the public.
Her teleportation occurred outside of real time, at least as far as those present are concerned, so only whoever she reported to Harem and maybe (depending on how her logs work) Krona would potentially be aware of that.
It’s possible that the council heard from Krona but we can fairly safely assume that no one else would have mentioned the event to them.
I did not mean her teleporting, but her there but not there projection.
you know the ability that says she can have a look inside without actually entering.
I know the one but I’m fairly sure that that was still a part of the same cancelled event chain.
I think council knows or at least has general idea. Maxima openly admited that she took her to the previous meeting only because she is able to pierce the veil. In front of Scarlet.
Exactly, thank you they might not know or understand the ability to see magical auras (see the parking lot fight, the council storage room) but the fact that it revealed the cloaked X, dabblers true form, also the server at the club was a green skinned individual.
personally, if I had a true sight orb, I don’t think I’d ever let it go (except, of course, when I needed two others). I wear a jacket with a pocket just so I could hold it all the time.
Have you forgotten that there are gorgons wandering around this world? With all bystanders being completely safe, as they cannot see their true form.
You would be able to though.
Does Sydney’s air creating orb stretch like the shield one does? If so do they stretch together? Or could she create an oxygen deprived environment inside the shield that only she/her allies have air in, thereby depriving the others she can trap inside of it?
Seriously, the MOMENT they said “It requires a quorum of senior council members to open” That should have created a rather sizeable warning klaxon to go off in everyones mind. If thats the only way inside, then sydneys “Its a trap!” sense is seriously important to pay attention to right now. Had I been her I would say, “I agree with you commander, that actions need to be taken eventually, but as a simple method of added security, im going to wait out here, just in case this IS a trap so at least you have someone on the outside of its likely range.” There, reasonable basic precaution, no paralysis, and the opportunity to say I told you so forever if they scoffed at her and something happened.
Also, totally fiddle with the truesight orb. She doesnt have to visibly do anything with it like create a copy or teleport or whatever, but it might help spot anyone hidden in the room. Just her “nervously” playing with the orb in a way that doesnt give out its capabilities, then if she sees something, quick text to maxima again. “INCOMING!”
I, too, was thinking something like that. ❗
Yeah. “Tell you what — I’m gonna be over here inside my shield with my, er, usight-tray active.”
In fairness, I expect Maxima to order Syd to put her shield up — I assume she didn’t do so already because she wasn’t expecting the council members to just *open* the blasted Reliquary without being really clear that they were about to do that. (It’s sort of an interesting insight on Ingsol, really. “Okay, we’re all in agreement that we have to proceed. So I’m proceeding, right now.” Objections later can be met with “Vot? Should I have said ‘mother, may I’?”)
I first processed “tweest” as “most twee.”
Silly Steve, that would be “tweeest”.
I processed tweest as something you do with a screewdreever
Has Ingsol always had that X on his face, or is it just the odd lighting?
seems like it’s just an art thing (for masculine grumpyface, anyway) – the black guy (do we know his name?) had something similar:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2602
” … it makes me annoyed that the characters in the show didn’t see it coming …”
Well, they could always hang a lampshade on it. Like in “Marvel’s The Defenders”, where Iron Fist’s actions in the climax make a lot more sense if you realize that, as Stick points out in an early episode, that he’s “a colossal dumbass”.
Nope, still annoying. Never mind.
See, the trick to making good suspense in the face of sufficiently prepared Heroes is to do things in one of three ways. (Oh, and I’m going to be using a lot of Batman examples, among others, because he’s a prime example of ‘paranoidally prepared hero’)
A: Make the villain incredibly strong. This has been mentioned before, but it bears repeating. Consider Batman villains such as Solomon Grundy, Man-Bat, Killer Croc, Bane, or Poison Ivy. They’re not particularly strong or clever, preferring to act in a straightforwards manner, but their sheer strength allows them to do things that mitigate Batman’s preparedness- the Bats is hiding in a building? Level the building instead of searching for him. Ignore the explosive batarangs, break the bat-line grapples, be fast enough or tough enough to be able to effectively ignore his abilities in hand-to-hand combat.
B: The villain has a Mole in the organization. This brings in an interesting level of emotion to the table, and can handily bypass a lot of protections, even in sci-fi or magical settings. If one of the guards refuses to press the alarm, or turns the alarms off, because he’s been brainwashed, bought off, or has a loved one being held captive- or is just convinced that whatever the villain is doing is for the greater good. This can be seen in the Avengers movie, or when Batman takes in that little girl who turns out to be part of Clayface. It allows for twists and turns, but based on emotional decisions instead of logical ones, which can be much more easily followed by the audience. You don’t have to get into a Vizinni-esque “I know that he knows that I know…” if you interrupt it with “But I don’t care, I have to do it for little Suzy!”
C: The antagonists are just plain CRAZY. Again, Batman has a lot of these villains. It makes it so that the preparations just can’t cover the full gamut of what the villain might do, and allows the writer to employ villain actions that might not otherwise be used by sane individuals- things like forcing civilians to have a huge Macarena flash mob all around the building while wearing bomb collars that actually just explode in confetti (maybe), or poisoning the water supply for the entire city to get at a single target. In some situations this might also cross over with having a sufficiently ruthless villain as well.
But yeah, in all these methods, there’s a single commonality- the Villain has some way of ‘cutting through’ preparations. In that situation, it’s not so much a question of if the Protags have the RIGHT preparation to stop the villain, but whether they have ENOUGH to slow them down or luckily cover their bases.
Poisoning the water supply for the entire city to get at a single target has nothing on the animated Joker’s plans. He poisoned the entire city’s water supply just to claim royalties from gotham’s seafood industry.
There are several supers in various super hero shows with the ability to know what will happen when they do a single action. And use that to set up some scary traps.
The two biggest ones that show up in my mind is Fringe and Alphas. https://fringe.wikia.com/wiki/Milo_Stanfield did so through advanced mathematics to predict what a person would do.
https://alphas.wikia.com/wiki/Marcus_Ayers did so through being able to see all the outcomes of cause and effect. And able to manipulate future events through that knowledge. He was a pretty cool antagonist.
If you’ve ever seen the Espers comic (a low-issue run independent comic) set in a world with a Masquerade concealing the titular Espers a villain working for main evil organization can see the future and would use it to arrange perfect ‘accidents’ to eliminate people, like setting a marble in JUST the right spot on some stairs so his target slips, falls, and breaks his neck.
There’s a couple sci-fi stories like this.
In one, the guy with the ‘prediction machine,’ which basically enables him to watch history and the future as if it were on a TV, usually uses it as a sort of insurance. He will contact his clients if and when he needs to give them something, usually mundane in nature. An egg, for example. Sometimes his prices are small, especially when the item is small. But when the protagonist discovers how he’s doing it, he wants the prediction machine, and the guy who owns it sees this – so allows the protagonist to become one of his clients. As he walks away from the man, who has just given him a pair of very slippery shoes and told him it’s important to wear them everywhere (he immediately complies), the protagonist is thinking of all the ways he could use the machine to dominate the world… and doesn’t notice a ‘wet floor’ sign. At the moment he slips, he realises that he is heading straight for an open lift door (I’m American, but I put ‘lift’ instead of ‘elevator’ anyway. Quit getting distracted!) which he already knew was there; there was maintenence work on them all along. And thanks to his extra-slippery shoes, he was in for a long fall down that shaft.
In the other, the owner is using it to make movies about history – but there’s no sound! And when the protagonist realises that WW2 was planned ahead of time, agreed to, he feels compelled to tell the world, and prove it. Which results in a corrupt USA taking possession of it, and now, from his death row prison cell, he’s the only one who knows that unless anyone who wants to take the corrupt USA of the story down, they must converse in a completely dark room, and never write anything down – or as soon as they do, what they said will be known.
As you can tell, neither of these stories had a happy ending.
That first one was also a Twilight Zone episode. A guy with a suitcase full of junk gives people what they need, and when bullied by someone who wants to abuse it, gives them shoes that don’t fit right. He stumbles in the street and gets hit by a car. “Those shoes weren’t what you needed, they were what I needed.”
“Never underestimate your enemy” Sidney is right in running various scenarios in her head and giving voice to them.
I’m curious, we know Maxima is the strongest super-powered being that we know of…. Who’s the Maxima equivalent for magical beings?
If you consider the divide to be ‘natural born super’ versus ‘member of the supernatural’ then it would be Krona (of the individuals we know). Krona could easily defeat Maxima.
Whereas if you are looking for a spellcaster then Sciona seems to be in the running for the top spot, at the moment. This being on the basis that elder vampires are considered to be on a par with mid-ranked supers, and Sciona has one of those as her lap-dog. Plus she can create constructs capable of copying super-powers, so has a range of super-powers at her disposal, by that means, over and above her magical powers.
So what does Ingsol’s accent do to Quorum to turn it into Qvorum? How does that even sound? Does he just drop the Q and pronouce it like “Vorum” or does he just say Quorum and it gets a V in text because why not? It’s not like it was a “W” sound being replaced there.
In American English it is more like a “w” than in British English.
A couple of hundred years hanging around with colonials had degraded Ingsol’s European accent for certain words.
Is it tho? It always sounded to me more like Core-um than Cworum. And even if it is, Cvorum should get side eye. The W-V swap accent for the ancient vampire is cool. I get it, it’s funny, but that was a U. I read it and at first thought it was a weird font artifact for a pointy U, then I realized it was his accent and I went… huh?
Someone needs to get Ingsol to say Nuclear vessels.
Sydney tried, at their first meeting
Try harder!
Thewe is no twy. Thewe is only do or do nowt do.
or doo bee doo bee doo, zen as music ;p
The last “do”, is redundant.
And this is how I find out? On a comments board. In a comic?
*cries*
What about my wife and children! They will starve! Have mercy please, I am begging you!
Dave — that happens to me with “police mystery” shows. I used to watch so much Law and Order, Castle, etc, etc, that all the narrative contrivances are transparent and the “twist” is obvious most of the time.
Sydney, you think like me.
*awards Sydney a gold star*
What, no Sydney Snax?
She does look delectable, in panel 2.
They’re too hazardous to make.
The simplest trap: the bad guys drilled into the opposite side of the vault, so that when you open the door, literally tons of water backed by deep sea pressure cuts everyone waiting outside off at the knees.
More seriously, if the vault alarms are saying the vault has been breached, and the front door is still locked in place, then the next thought is some kind of teleportation or gate spell was used to rob it. But *that* makes you wonder why set up the ruse to mask the alarms, if you can just rob the place whenever you want?
Really, the only plausible ploy I can think of at the moment is exactly what Sydney said: Sciona (was she ever a Council chair?) is present and likely one of the people opening the vault at the moment, with some means ready to deal with the other Council members and escape. She may not have anticipated the presence of Maxima, though.
If not, that could lead to a cool scenario where they open the vault and nothing is stolen, because Sciona aborts her plan. Cue paranoia all around.
Of course, what would be really awesome is if they open the vault, go in to inventory it… and get locked inside.
It’s one thing to Gate into a locked vault, obtain your artifact of choice, and Gate out again. It’s quite another thing to do all that and break your trail before Security can track you down. If you can arrange matters such that it’s a few hours before Security even know the tamper alarms have gone off, you have that much more opportunity to disappear from view. Or have the break-in team offload the proceeds to the ritual team and become the decoy team, depending on how you want to play it.
I had a horrible moment thinking Rick Astley is performing live on the other side of that door.
Was going to suggest that Sydney should have done a quick sweep of the area first, but others already pointed out that that ability is supposed to be Secret
She could still futz around with all of the orbs if she wanted and only Maxima would know what she was doing… She could not report on her findings in any way without alerting the others to that ability, but one person knowing is better than 0 people knowing.
If you have a sufficiently paranoid opponent, a viable trick is to post them a 3×5 file card with “THIS IS A TRAP” printed on it in block capitals. While they’re trying to figure that out, walk in and grab whatever it is you need for your plan…
You know, I just realized who Sydney reminds me of: she’s practically a female Edward Elric! The bangs, the eyes, the Napoleonic inferiority complex, it all practically fits!
Love of spicy food is also an interesting parallel to the hatred of milk.
Still no bionic arm, though, much as she may have wanted it, and her coat’s not quite up to length.
Napoleon, was about 5′ 7″, about average for his time.
But Wellington was about 5′ 9″, so taller than the merely average Boney.
Having his butt kicked twice by Wellington is more than enough to give the guy an inferiority complex though. Being looked down upon just adds to the ignominy.
Alternatively, there is the trope of the Mock Trojan, where you intentionally make some minor item or location LOOK like it’s important for some unknown reason, making your enemy waste tons of resources trying to figure out WHY it’s important and potentially drawing resources away from actively plotting your downfall.
So you can bend tropes in both directions.
Unbelievable human prediction is the ending of death notes.
– I made a trap!
– I knew you would make this trap so I did this!
– I knew you would predict my trap and do this so I did that!
– I new you would know that I would predict your trap and do this so you would do that so I did the following…
– etc.
You’re thinking of Dr Who: The Curse of Fatal Death.
Just as planned.
I knew you’d say that!
Dave, you missed a word in the second panel. “…ploy to allow her ‘to’ sneak into this vault…” You forgot the second ‘to’ and ‘in to’ should be one word.
So with all the tech and magic available to the council, why are there not any failsafe surveillance cameras monitoring the inside of the vault?
Just a guess, but…
…if it’s been 30 years or so since the last time the Vault was opened, the technology of the time would not have been up to snuff to send a wireless signal from under a hundred meters of water and solid rock.
As to why there are no magical monitors, I am going to have to go with some kind of similar limitations on clairvoyance spells, further limited by the current state of the Veil network. Spellweb.
OK, I’ll give you that possibility but remote monitoring is not he only option. Onsite monitoring with screens just outside the vault was certainly feasible. They’ve got lights so there’s power available. Schedule onsite inspections every month? year? whatever. Just to kinda check up on the family jewels since some might think they were important.
What if the Bads *added* an artifact to the vault?
(Not sure why they would do that. Surveillance? Tracking?)
Present.
“Do not open before Christmas.”
Sometimes even the bad guys need to secure something so dangerous, so powerful, so contrary to their goals that the only choice that they have is locking it in a vault somewhere (like the Sealed Good In A Can trope).
… you mean like Sydney herself?