Grrl Power #560 – Questions of security
The Council isn’t immediately worried about Archon wanting to get their hands on anything in the vault, though there is a concern that they might claiming some sort of national security eminent domain.
But of course, Archon exists because there are supers out there who operate in a more selfish manner, and would love to get their hands on an inventory of this vault, either for themselves or to auction on supervillain.net. The average super would have trouble breaking into this vault. Heatwave might be able to burn through those doors given enough time, but Mr. Amorphous couldn’t get in there unless he had a few weeks to work at it. Sydney, Dabbler and Maxima all by themselves could crack that thing with relatively minimal effort. The Council is worried about a Magneto/Dr. Doom/Sinestro level villain out there who could crack this thing like an egg, if not rip the whole thing out from the continental shelf.
The Council has had plenty of interactions with Supers in the past, but mostly with mid level ones. They’re realizing more and more that the top end of the super scale may be higher than they’d previously realized. Bit of a blow to some egos there, if they’re honest.
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He’s got a point there.
They don’t even address the very distinct possibility (IMO) that some of “their” artifacts actually notice if/when soneone tries to destroy them – and to do something about that.
I’m fairly certain the council would know about something like that.
As with all the dialog I write, there are untold acres of word bubbles I could add to any conversation. Leaving some things unsaid is not one of my strengths, but I feel like I’m slowly getting better at it.
Why address that? Seems pointless to me. If it is a fact then it a “security measure” which already exists and which probably cannot be improved in any way. If it isn’t a fact then you don’t have a conversation about it.
This is something they did in the original Star Trek series…Some piece of 23rd Century technology just wasn’t explained in any way unless the plot of the story happened to focus on it. For example, the show never explained anything about the difference between a laser weapon & a phaser weapon…I have no idea how long it took for the scriptwriters to actually admit in the show that it works on “phased” light & even then had no further explanation on how the technology actually “phases” light.
A lot of what tech shows up in the show (pretty much the whole variety of the spin-off series & movies) is just there & it works, while the characters treat it as such.
Which is an appropriate way of handling it, unless you have a character present who needs to have such explained to them. And then only when it is relevant to their role, as opposed to telling them stuff that is necessary for the plot but unrealistic that they be told about it, at that time.
“Why are you telling me this stuff, whilst we are under attack? Are you expecting that to fail suddenly, as we try to make our escape?”
A plasma cutter? Like a … lightsaber?
*runsandhidesfromthedebrisofthefollowingargument*
Eh… Could be, could also be a gun like thingamagig
Much THOOOOM!!!
Or just letting Schlock eat and digest it.
He can eat and digest anything, that can not eat or digest him faster.
I think you mean, Matter Eater Lad, of DCs Future Legion of Super Heroes team.
I’m almost completely certain he’s the first such concept.
And yes, he saved the day multiple times by just eating problems away, such as unique super weapons, power rings, otherwise invincible / indestructible objects, many lager than himself, bombs& evil super computers. [The last one drov e him insane for while, but Brainiac 5 eventually figured out a way to cure him.
MEL… Please tell me it wasn’t his actual name… *looks it up*
Tenzil Kem… Ok… good… wait… it’s an alien name… It might be that planet’s version of Melvin…
It gets worse. His home planet was named ‘Bismoll’, as in ‘pepto’.
yes, it was the whole ‘eating things’ gag
gads, did not mean to add that last word as a pun.
so sorry.
Failing that, perhaps the ultimate “vault”…
…a black hole.
The most extreme alternative to “un-creation” — render it permanently unreachable.
…& while we’re “in the neighborhood” of this topic…
…now that we’re finally in the 21st Century, I believe we’ve expanded our vocabulary enough to find a less-unwieldy name for the 30th Century’s “Matter Eater Lad”, don’t you think…?
How do you think “Omnivore” sounds, as a superhero-name…?
Has ANY story EVER mentioned any solid-or-liquid which he COULDN’T consume?
Have they tried letting him eat Darksied or Doomsday?
HMMM-m-m-m…
…I doubt that he’d want to eat a person, no matter how evil they might be.
Also, I suspect that an inanimate object wouldn’t put up much of a fight to protect itself from being consumed…
…whereas Darkseid might be just a tad more…
…feisty…
In One Piece, there’s a devil fruit that lets its user eat ANYTHING and create new things and even new materials, even if they personally aren’t aware of the elements being fused. Could also combine whatever you ate with yourself. Eat a cannon and turn your arm into it? Okay.
There are thinks you can’t get rid of by throwing them to black hole. For example, black holes. Or anything which is not affected by gravitation … which may include demons.
Granted, but while you can’t get RID of black holes, at least you can COSOLODATE them — using the gravity-well of smaller (but still very massive) objects to steer them into safer directions.
As for the demon-issue, I tend to agree with you, but I’m fairly certain that any threat of that sort wouldn’t be found in a vault of this design. I suspect that anything possessed of a personality would be incarcerated elsewhere.
This probably is ‘elsewhere’. Who would be interested in the weak-arse non-sentient artifacts? You can get those down at artefacts-R-us.
Hmmm…My memory of the Legion is pretty old. But if memory serves correctly, I might even still have a comic in which Matter Eater Lad has even eaten Inertron.
Did you share it with Maximus Decimus Meridius? I bet you he was a closet nerd too.
That was the DC universe version of indestructible metal. In the Marvel universe they were ‘adamant’ about calling their’s by a different name.
Unless I’m greatly mistaken though, Unobtanium has been declared “Public Domain” so…
Looking at its background I do not think it could be classed as anything else. It is a general term, in widespread use, and not used exclusively for one product nor coined by a company for their marketing purposes.
In fact anyone trying to contest it would face serious opposition as it has been used in several different major movies, so the studios would not allow such a claim to be established. Not to mention the fact that it would contravene principles of copyright/ trademark law.
Although a few of those have slipped in under the radar, inappropriately, the courts are generally fair in throwing even registered names out, when they breach the guidelines.
how about just ‘Nom’ ?
Here’s an unpleasant thought. DC has a bizarro Superman with reverse powers. Would the bizarro version of M.E.L. be able to EXCRETE any substance?
it wouldn’t be excrete, it would be upchuck, and that one was taken by Ben 10
Achilles has “eat anything” as a secondary power. There was mention of him saving the world with it before in fact, though I forget which chapter.
It might be restricted to things he can digest in his stomach acid though, with his power only countering the negative effects from eating toxic or infectious substances. Then again maybe his stomach acid is indestructible too, though I have no idea how corrosive indestructible acid would be.
Yeah, but just because it can’t hurt him, it doesn’t mean he’ll metabolize it.
He may not have any need to eat because he can’t starve to death or anything like that, but he still eats. I think what limits Achilles would have on what he could chew up & swallow would be how much pressure his jaw muscles can exert with his teeth…He can’t break a tooth or anything, but he still may not be able to “bite off more than he can chew.”
Even so, though he might not be able to actually metabolize something doesn’t mean that he can skip going to the bathroom after he’s eaten. Everything has to come out in the end…
Yeah, there’s at least one (or more) occasions that he’s eaten Kryptonite that was threatening Superboy.
[MidnightDStroyer]:
Yeah, that kinda bothered me at the time…
…as far as we know, “M.E.L.’s” metabolism is a chemical process, which wouldn’t alter the fundamental atomic nature of the Kryptonite. It seems to me that this would just make “M.E.L.” into the newest “Kryptonite Kid”, until it was all finally excreted from his system.
Maybe it doesn’t matter, eating lad is likely to get the matter arrested and the matter will be resolved.
Or just an ordinary everyday plasma torch or CNC machine. A handheld plasma torch can cut through 1.5 inches of steel plate, and some of the industrial machines can cut through a 6-inch plate. Temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun can do that, you know.
(Industrial plasma cutters can generate temperatures of over 22,000 Kelvin. The convection zone at the surface of the sun is about 5,800 Kelvin. The core of the sun Is about 15 million Kelvin.)
And delivering something into the core of the Sun, while costly, is not THAT costly. And if the artifact in question survives, getting it back out is so many orders of magnitude harder it’s mind-boggling. I don’t think the Grrl Power universe has anyone who can reach through over 100 Earth radii of hot plasma.
If Harem could teleport objects without having to carry them in her hands, and was able to do it without looking (kinda like Dabbler does) then it would be easy.
Lightsaber should work. Errupting lava is apparently “only” 1200 °C hot.
While we saw a lightsaber melt the stuff of a fireproof door and cauterise every wound it ever cut in canon.
I just realsied, Iron and Steel Refinmenet get that much heat. Raw Iron melts around 1510°C. With indsutrial steel having something around 1370°C. So a dwarf forge would have easily created that heat.
Granted magic was involved. Maybe Mnt. Doom had a higher temperature then realworld voclanoes. Or the connection to the Rings forging somehow meant it’s magic would increase the melting temeperature drastically against any other heatsource? A 22000 °K plasma cutter could have still done it.
Well, at least within the context of Middle Earth, it’s not a matter of how hot the lava of Mount Doom was, it was a matter of that being where the ring was originally made.
Rules of magic and myth, not rules of physics.
Well, the conversation point Maxima is making in the comic that we’re discussing is the very real possibility that The One Rings invincibility MAY have been a matter of tech availability rather than location, thus POSSIBLY being a matter of physics rather than mythology, it’s more a point that some magical artifacts described as “Invincible” might only be so, due to the imagination of the creator based on the technological advances of the time period.
I rather liked it in Buffy the Vampire slayer when a Demon that was supposedly “Immune to any weapon forged by Man”, was still nice and exploded by a rocket launcher. Even if it was somehow magically still alive, it sure wasn’t much of a threat in few thousand bloody pieces.
Same principle at work as in this conversation.
To ensure the monster doesn’t reassemble itself, you have to use a hekkuva lotta ziplock bags and violate post office rules of most countries that have post offices.
That particular demon could’t act (assemble itself) while in pieces. Originally it was only cut into 5 or 6 pieces and scattered in wooden crates. With buffy’s solution, a lot more pieces. He went from a 5 piece puzzle to a multi thousand/million piece puzzle. Somebody would have to be very very persistent, have a long life span and a lot of patience to put him back together after buffy finished with him.
One of my fav lines as buffy took aim ‘what does that thing do?’
Sounds easier to create a religion of re-assembling the same one demon.
But once it neared its completion, the leader of the religion would sabotage the project to keep the religion in existence.
A variation of the old “dog ate my homework” excuse works nicely in this situation.
I don’t see problem ; the rocket launcher likely wasn’t forged.
also coulda been made by robots!
Nope, it was not forged, and more importantly, neither was the rocket. It was the genuine article, not some cheap knock-off.
“Immune to any weapon forged by Man”
Well, in modern times most factories that churn out thousands or even millions of identical products fairly swiftly, that’s due to using robotics, which doesn’t really count as “forged by man,” does it?
:P
Way back in the early days of robotics (in the last millennium), I recall a cartoon of a factory, with the proud motto of ‘our products are untouched by human hand’.
Through the window you could see a worker on the production line. A gorilla.
That’s just a different way of getting around that “immunity” that could work as well as having the weapon forged by a woman !!
metal for the rocket launcher would have been smelted and poured, not forged, forging requires the blows of a hammer for shaping, etc. different processes.
As a character in an old CHAMPIONS campaign I was once in liked to say, “There’s no such thing as a monster that’s immune to bullets. Ya just need a bigger gun.”
Or the right ammo.
Sciona seems to have min maxed that angle.
That’s pretty much what Sydney was told about the clothing being mmore “bullet resistant” than ordinary material…
:D
the One Ring was not invincible, it just had a particular set of rules that had to be followed. Such is magic. it’s rule of destruction was it had to be returned to the place and fabric of it’s creation. Whole story could’ve just been ‘Oh, hey, i know these giant eagles that owe me a favour, we can set out tomorrow and be back in time for a picnic lunch’
That would be Chapter 1.
Chapter 2 would be along the lines of “What do you mean, the Nine have flying beasts and plenty of observant minions?”
Chapter 3 would require a change of protagonists.
One wonders why they didn’t burn the pieces and bury the ashes in different locations. Much harder to reassemble.
Because he turned to smoke, not ashes. There was nothing tangible to dispose of. Essentially he was ‘cannot be killed’ type of immortal (as opposed to ‘won’t die of old age’ flavour).
He did not even have the decency to wait until Buffy had left the premises before reforming his body (and getting staked again).
Maybe they could research some way of sucking his gas up into a vacuum cleaner and disposing of or containing him in a more long-term or permanent way.
But as there was nothing credible available, all Buffy could do was to walk away.
She could have waited there while the scoobies got 2 or more vacuums with particulate filter and there we go down for the count
That was Dracula, not the Judge. The Judge was was the one dismembered, reassembled, and blown up by a rocket launcher, leaving plenty of material left to burn at both the “dismembered” and “blown up” parts.
Ahh, I did not read far enough back in the thread and was assuming that this was one of the Dracula threads. My bad.
I did not even think of the Judge, as once he was blown up he was no longer an issue. Whereas Dracula remained an ongoing problem, no matter how they killed him.
“Rules of magic and myth, not rules of physics.”
I believe the official lore of the elven smiths states: “He who smelted it, dealt with it.”
“Founder’s keepers.”
Everybody has “rules” to deal with…All you can do is just keep forging ahead.
If a lightsaber couldn’t cut through it then you could wear the one ring and use it to block a jedi’s strike.
You just have to hit above or below the ring, it was easily cut off of Sauron’s hand in the first place.
Writes note to self:
Convert the ‘indestructible paw band artifact’ production into an ‘indestructible set of armour’.
Consider long john enhancements, for necessary functions.
That’s why Lee Press On Nails (back in the fight near the Steak House rubble) had learned that he could indeed cut himself.
Just launch them into the Sun. Even if they aren’t destroyed, good luck getting them back.
Fun fact: “Launch it into space” was a seriously considered option for getting rid of nuclear waste. Gets it right off the planet and no worries about leaks or thefts or whatever. No fuss, no muss, right? Wrong.
Second fun fact: No nation or company has a perfect track record for safe space launches. You don’t want your payload of nuclear waste (and/or powerful/evil/whatever ancient artifacts) scattered across a few states because of something like any one of these.
I think Rockhound said it best here.
What troubles me is that North Korea is learning…
Um… You do realize that this is a world where people can fly to space without a spaceship, right? And teleport? And use magic?
I’m well aware of why we don’t use that to dispose of nuclear waste, but you’re thinking pretty mundanely if you think that’s the only option in this world.
I always wondered where Gimli got another axe after pledging it to the service of the Fellowship and then breaking it trying to grandstand “It’s just a little, bitty gold ring, here’s how you get rid of it” and having it shatter his axe into a half dozen pieces.
But maybe the elves threw in reforging his axe while they were reforging Aragorn’s sword. I mean, the forge was already hotted up and that’s half the expense right there.
It is like dakka.
There is never enuff dakka.
*nods*
It is true, one can never have enough gunfood.
Plus as we’ve established a “super” could mean any number of things. What kind of security measures could they possibly set up to guard against any possible superpower other than hiring Deathttoll to stand at the door?
that is probably the most cost effective way unless a legion of villians come in and they need to attack deathtoll for his power to work so someone sneaky could by pass anyway.
While it would be impossible to build safeguards against every kind of superpower, there are things that can be done to stop or slow down a large number of different kind of abilities. And if the alarms work than stalling might be enough to have the security team arrive in time to stop the super.
Building it thick and sturdy would be troubling for anything without high end strength or a way to cut through for instance.
Some kind of climate control could stall supers that have temperature based powers.
Insulators against lightning/electricity based things.
Flooding the room with knockout gas when detecting a breach.
Lots and lots of other ideas.
Having a room covered in explosive knockout gas that must be passed thru in order to reach the vault which can only be disabled by a specific person who is not stationed there?
Time-traveling hacker super.
Decides to break in.
Goes back in time and befriends/allies with who he’s going to rob so he’s already on the approved list when the alarm is first invented (if he didn’t build it himself!) so nothing goes off when he goes back to his ‘correct’ timeline so he can rob it successfully.
Wouldn’t stop that one geokinetic with all of the gold from just coming in through the back of the vault if he wanted to.
Even ignoring the people at the top of the power scale, the big problem with supers is the sheer variety of powers. You can look at a vampire or a werecreature or a fey and make a reasonable guess of what they’re capable of, but supers don’t work that way. Their powers could be anything, and it’s impossible to completely defend against that.
Mr Bubble disagrees.
Mr. Bubble isn’t impervious, actually. Vehemence was affected by Dabbler’s hypno-boobs, even though he was inside Halo’s shield. Some subtle effects appear to penetrate the shield (plus it may have an upper limit of strength that simply hasn’t been met yet).
Actually the ones who were fully affected by it were the rest of the Arc-SWAT team. Plus do not forget they were jiggling boobs. That does not require a magic effect to get guys looking at them!
I am afraid that your point does not prove that the hypno was getting through, only the sight of boobs.
Hypnoboobs would even work through an opaque shield, if the shield is showing you the boobs’ motion. This assumes that it is a psychological/memetic effect (actual hypnosis), not magical energy that has to ‘reach through’ the shield.
Reminds me of Hank Pym and Reed Richards in the Zeno room.
Jelad and Picard at Tanagra
Or Archer.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AFvW-7H-lzI
Thinking about that, there is an even better point which shows that the shield was working. Despite the fact that Sydney is susceptible to the hypnoboobs (per the bathroom scene in the steakhouse), in the skipping scene she was unaffected by the hypno effect herself.
Any distraction Vehemence had was down to being a hetrosexual guy.
Maybe Sydney, being aware of the plan, was able to not look and thus avoid getting hypnoboobed, because even Maxi was affected
Hey! You stop that!
It’s “For Whom the Death Tolls”! It’s a phrase portmanteau.
;-p
+1 (made me laugh).
No, he is the Periwinkle Butt Sniffer!
+8
What they should really worry about is someone with Chronokinesis and a working brain. They could just teleport right in there (via space-time folding), stop time and take everything in there then after they’re done with it just go back to less then a second after they were first there and put it all back.
They don’t even have to be a supervillain, just someone who wants to goof off.
Like Sydney?
You mean Sydney like mentality… Yes, yes I do
Ah, you also premember the storyline where the function of the last orb will be revealed? That willan on-had some shocking plot twists, eh?
Maybe…
That’s assuming such high-level multi-function chronokinesis exists…. *and* knows about the Vault.
It makes more sense to worry about known power levels than powersets that may not exist. Even our one known time ability, by the reality hacker, turned out to be more limited than previously though.
Given that chronokinetics are on the same level as space-benders and other reality warping demigods, I suspect that the plan is: hope that none of those people decide to be evil.
They wouldn’t be evil.
They’d go back in time and warp the flow of civilization and culture so that the behavior they already plan on showing was considered good.
Already done that, examples: both Bush’s and all three Clintons
Ahh, George, George and George.
No, was talking about Presidents Clinton, but that was Barry’s doing
In one of the Dr Who episodes we find out that River Song has her own key to the Tardis as well as her own journal that tells her where the Doctor will be. Once it arrives as scheduled, she often steals the Tardis to go on her own adventures and then returns one second after taking it.
Overkill is underrated.
Or as my brother likes to say: If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.
I like to say that their is no such thing as overkill. Only under kill. Because if it didn’t kill it even with overkill, then you just didn’t do the job right. The vault here is a great example of that in action with that last panel.
Pffft! Clearly, Ingsol hasn’t yet learned that there’s no such thing as overkill, simply because there is such a thing as underkill.
Maxim 37: There is no “Overkill”. There is only “Open Fire” and “Reload”.
Speaking of sluggy…. makes me wonder if Amorphous can move or act like Schlock can as his fighting sytle, or if he is stuck in the human mindset….
Well considering that Shlock tried and failed at the humanoid form and ended up failing so badly as to result in comic book death, I’d say Amorphous is probably likewise just as mentally limited in his own way by birth as a human.
actually the saying is: “there is no such kill, as Overkill” this is usually followed by maniacal laughter and the sound of a big ass Gatling gun going off.
Soloran is quoting from The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries, which is an ‘in universe’ book from Schlock Mercenary (https://schlockmercenary.wikia.com/wiki/The_Seventy_Maxims_of_Maximally_Effective_Mercenaries).
Specifically, Maxim 37:
[img]https://store.schlockmercenary.com/v/vspfiles/photos/P-R37-2.jpg[/img]
and: If the damage is covered by the manufacturer’s warantee, you didn’t do enough damage.
heck, if i made something, I’d want to make the manufacturer’s warranty such that if it were damaged in any way, you’d get a replacement (but the item would come with a second one, with a warning label that reads: not to be opened until the first item is damaged beyond repair)
[instant replacement]
But if you are the one making it, why spend twice as much of your precious time creating two items? Just make it better so that it is less likely to break in the first place. Saves on materials costs and storage space for that matter.
By the way giving yourself a warranty for something you made for yourself is… odd.
you give OTHER people the warranty, silly. and making two or more of one thing is less costly than just making one, in the long run (if made in bulk)
I’m just saying make it so good it shouldn’t be damageable, but send two in the case of idiots that wanna prove it’s substandard. if they break both, you can say ‘oh, only the one you paid for has the warranty, and we already replaced it’
There are two ways to do something: Correctly and Again.
my personal fave quote, which i’m surprised isn’t in the maxims is “if your problem can’t be solved by high explosives, you’re not using enough high explosives.”
What about low explosives? Gnomes like things that go “Whydiditexplode?Itwasplainwater!”
ooh! great idea: instant gnome, just add water
Beware using seeds from suspect sources though.
You may have gremlins.
You may haz cheezeburger.
*goes into garden to hunt for cheezeburger seeds*
don’t those come on the bun?
Cheeseburger is usually made from cow, rather than rabbit.
Although it would explain why Burger King chose their name (in order to entice people to come in the hope of seeing a really small bun).
News Flash!
The Dairy Queen is filing for divorce against the Burger King because he was caught munching down on Wendy’s Hot-n-Juicy!
44. If it will blow a hole in the ground, it will double as an entrenching tool.
Maxim 6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
Violence should be your last resort…If it isn’t, then you have to use more of it.
I detect some fallout influence :P
actually its the other way around, fallout was developed by a former member of the council and decided to used the blue prints of the vault as the basis for the game series.
They hired Vault Tech to design their secret lair. This could not go wrong in any way. Gary?
Garyyy!
G-A-R-Y!!!!!!!!!
Sydney! Ah Sydney. Ahaha, Sydney! Syyyydney. Sydney?
No… Please no clones upon clones of Sydney. The toxicity of the food alone would ruin the planet (and possibly the solar system) and then there’s the vocabulary power.
*puts this here* https://i.imgur.com/s0cZP6R.jpg
*and that there* https://img.sharetv.com/shows/episodes/standard/230294.jpg
It’s always a blow whenever someone proves they’re a bigger badass than you, especially when they blow it off like it’s nothing.
I really like the look of Halo just hovering around.
When you’re vertically challenged compared to everyone else, bobbing along at eye level doesn’t hurt. Plus, if you could fly, would you prefer being constrained by the whim of gravity?
Yeah, I remember one instance of a super character in the old Champions (v1) that, once she discovered that she could fly, decided that she’d never spend any more time in her life with her feet on the ground.
Just because you can fly does not mean it is not tiring. One thing many speedsters and flying heroes/villains missing that the stress their ability put on their bodies when traveling is almost nonexistent while it should be a bigger consumption than being in combat in reality.
that is implying that their physics breaking abilities actually follow the usual laws of physics, which they most likely do not considering they already break them just by existing.
“Just because you can fly does not mean it is not tiring.”
The opposite is also true – Being able to fly does not mean it IS tiring either. Especially in Champions, where one can, for a few points, eliminate END cost entirely.
There is sort of an assumption in most game systems that the power also reduces or eliminates most of the negative side effects that most likely ought to be there assuming real physics, unless of course the player chooses to have those side effects as a disadvantage.
Most flight or hyper-speed is more easily explained by specific applications of TK than actual physical adaptations. That’s usually how I justify it with any character in games I run – I’m willing to let the player think the power works how they think it does, since that usually limits the character more in the long run anyway.
Personally view flying as no more tiring than a healthy person standing (including walking and running)
yeah, i loved Champions, I made a teleporter that could only teleport while running, instantly causing a strobe effect while running. I also refrained from suggesting to the DM he put a Epilepsy Treatment Centre in the middle of the city, so, i got to stay being a Hero.
Halo didn’t seem tired after letting loose with the PPO and that must consume a bit of energy. The orbs may not drain from her but from some other power source.
Baron Harconin, ya’ll.
El goonish shive flighing girl reminded by physics teacher to put feet on ground
“But of course, Archon exists because there are supers out there who operate in a more selfish manner, and would love to get their hands on an inventory of this vault, either for themselves or to auction on supervillain.net.”
Or accidentally drill right through it doing something else unrelated. I’d like to note the existence of the guy with the gold reserve and the fact that he probably didn’t exactly get zoning from secret organizations that may or may not have had anything in his “drilling” path for his bunker. Someone doing something like that that’s totally unrelated could easily pose a security risk.
Quick we need to fill that huge gap in the market!! just imaging how many secret underground vaults/bases we could sell zoning rights to, or even insurancances!!
“…or to auction on supervillain.net.”
Or perhaps merge with Evil Inc..
I will point out that Evil Inc is a subsidiary of Metahuman Inc and does not rent out properties, but rather sell super powers to the highest bidder, preferably to villains.
And here I thought Microsft owned evil.
https://www.bbspot.com/news/2000/4/MS_Buys_Evil.html
“We feel that there are real opportunities with evil, and that when evil is integrated into our next generation of Windows products…”
Then they must have made the deal quite some time ago…Windows ’98 was already pure evil.
I have to admit that your link was so amusing, I bookmarked it for later reference…
:)
I thought it was originally theonion that published it; bbspot did a lotta copy pasta in those days. but it was once considered a classic article.
Too be fair, thats like taking a needle and trying to remove a specific red blood cell…. from a blue whale. The earth is really big, and his gold suction tunnels was comparatively very small. The odds of striking a secret lair or whatever are infinitesimal really. It CAN happen, but unless there are just like.. SO MANY SECRET LAIRS YOU GUYS, its unlikely in the extreme.
but still, it does happen.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Peigneur
I was going to make the correction that it’s “eminent domain”, but “imminent domain” makes a lot of sense for this particular scenario.
I was going to make a comment along those lines.. thought, “let’s search first..” and voila.
Nice, someone who knows how comment sections work :D
“imminent donain” is what you call it right before the evil overlord takes over.
That is one big door! (Flynn, Tron)
The door was made by Vault-Tec, right?
Welcome to Vault 666.
Here we test how long you can resist the one ring while nobody controls you – have fun!
I was just wondering why Sydney was complaining about overkill instead of asking why Archon doesn’t have its own Vaulttec blast door..
I think they had some help from Aperture, though that door IS a bit small by Aperture’s standards.
I love the idea of supervillain.net. A website for supervillains talking shop, henchmen looking for work, mad scientists selling of extraneous inventions (as in “don’t need that one since I have a better one now”).
Awesomely cool idea!
…and the occasional sing-along blog…
The forum for buying, selling and swapping doomsday machines would quickly become the supervillain’s version of ebay.
They could just hire the GeoMancer guy from earlier in the comic, he could build them a nice custom vault somewhere near the earth’s core, add in the usual enchantments, plus some modern accoutrements, make it as safe as physically possible…………..
Seems like they want to destroy most of the artifacts anyhow – could just ask him to send them to the core instead. Would be quite hard to remove the one ring from a ton of lava.
Or… you know.. Molten metal.
I just realized that you can rearrange Ingsol into Losing. Though I’m probably about the 17024th person to figure this out. :-)
Given how pathetic the council is that makes him a surprisingly apt representative.Maybe I wont start calling him count Chocula after all lol
Vehemence comes to mind. He could crack this vault like an egg from what we’ve seen so far.
Granted that he’s a magic type himself…
Vehemence needs to be charged first, though fighting the vault guardian might be enough for that.
If he survives the first hit. Then there is the weekness aura. That guardian was possibly built with someone exactly like him in mind.
Vehemence actively blocked Dabbler’s sleep spell, so I wouldn’t be surprised that if he realizes that there is a weakness aura present, he could counter against that too.
That may have been more of a ‘violence counters sleep’ thing.
No, he actually raised up his arm & a small magical shield appeared to block Dabbler’s spell.
Would’t an alarm clock have been a more effective counter, for something intangible, like a sleep spell?
*carefully examines allegorical shield*
I think that depends on if you need a will and ability to feel emotion to create Vehement energy.
You don’t, Vehemence makes it clear he draws energy from anything considered violent which can include a rock slide, earthquake, etc.
I’m not so sure about natural events allowing him to gain energy, though he does mention that him attacking someone else counts so he would get some power from fighting the guardian.
Was that ever made clear? I would have thought that it required deliberate effort to be considered violent. And from his final defeat, apparently just holding him and tying him up did *not* count.
Never heard of the phrases “Violent Eruption” or “Violent Ground Upheaval”?
The latter was just less violent so would not have generated as much energy. The small increase would not have been significant on top of the amount he had already acquired.
Dabbler gets similar differentials in the quality of her meals, of tantric energy. Supers provide a much tastier snack.
I seem to recall Dave blogging about the former, and indicating that he could gain power that way, but Vehemence’s preferences were to be proactive.
It is kinda boring sitting around waiting until hurricane season otherwise. He wanted to make his move straight after the press conference challenge.
*eminent domain
Well, at least they are starting to understand.
weren’t you once a man?
What’s going on with Dabbler? Sorta human and Alien at the same time? (Normal colored legs, two arms, but hoofs and head as alien?) In the last panel I actually thought it was another council member I hadn’t previously noticed.
Ok. Might be a victim of Dave draws at a very high resolution, then shrinks it down. In the last panel, it appears she had two hands (arms) in a single sleeve. Possible the legs are just flesh colored pants….
Dabbler is wearing pants that look like they’re made out of human skin, and she has both arms on either side stuck in a single sleeve; in the last panel you can clearly see both right hands.
It was mentioned last page as well and most seem to think she is wearing some kind of pink leggings.
For some reason she decided to put both her arms into one sleeve of her outfit. If you look closely at the last panel (as well as the first panel of this page) you can see two hands sticking out.
This, this is why it should be made compulsory to read comments before being allowed to comment
It was explained, that she is wearing peach-coloured leggings, similar in colour to the micro-shorts she wore when she first met Sydney (and someone even posted a link to that page last page)
Why does Dabbler have flesh colored leggings?
BTW-The final page of The Dreamland Chronicles is up:
https://www.thedreamlandchronicles.com/comic/page-2151/
Apparently, she couldn’t find them in her own flesh tone and didn’t feel like putting on a glamour.
Well, all righty then – I wish they had been able to finish the story using the original art style (i.e. 3D rendered), but good to know they finished it. Story kind of dragged a bit at the 2/3 done mark.
I see some graphic novels in my near future…
Thanks for the heads up, Black Rose.
Theoretically, if Maxima’s powers can change the tensile strength of her skin, it could be within the realm of possibility that she could fine-tune her own hearing by messing with the membranes in her eardrums.
…Or maybe, since they all are in a straight-line hallway, it could be that voices are being channeled right to them…
You know…acoustics.
Or a medium (Ingsol is dead after all).
Did y’all notice the vote incentive has been updated?
The preview needs to be updated, then. The new incentive is awesome.
He updated it last month, just having trouble with the site and can’t change the preview
Wait, do people still only vote once a month? o_O
The door was definitely overkill, Ingsol. It’s the offensive security measures that are not enough kill.
A swarm of golems would be much more effective then a single admittedly impresive one for one thing each could be built to take out a spesific supernatural but if they all look the same how would you know wich
is the real threat to you
Indeed. The mannekillers held up for nearly six times as many pages.
Call me Ms. Silly, but what could be in the vault that would be worse than the power to “rip the whole thing out from the continental shelf”?
Time travel. Mass mind control. An Old Ones pager. Sentient virus. Crystal Pepsi.
The source of all magic. The originator of every ancient supernatural race. (Think Blade 3, with the first vampire, or maybe those underworld films) The Anti Life Equation.
The Ultimate Nullifier, dragon eggs, the user’s manual for 7 orbs of power, a blue 2m by 1m by 1m box that is bigger on the inside (person inside not included), Ralph Hinkley’s red suit (again, person inside not included), the instruction manual for the suit (it’s around here somewhere). The possibilities are endless.
One of the Great Old Ones. Abholos sounds nice.
No, Abholos doesn’t sound very nice at all. In fact, I would wager He/She/It/Other is downright unpleasant.
*sniff sniff*
Nope, not nice!
the killing joke, esp. if already weaponized by Monty Python.
The omnitrix, the lament configuration, the keys to the various hellmouths, the dragonballs, 5 rings with odd symbols on them for earth, fire, wind, water, and heart.
Do not combine the power of those rings unless you want a planet sized problem.
BTW, Pinhead called & said that he’s coming to pick it up.
Max’s sense of humor and deuce’s morals
“The Ultimate Nullifier”
BTW, Galactus called & said he’s coming to take that back…
You’re Ms Silly.
(Looks like everyone else already put up my thoughts on what could be worse).
Oooo! Planet-wide depilator!
::attempts to cover his silky ears with his hooves and falls over::
The question to the answer 42.
What is 4 + 2?
No, it was What is seven multiplied by six?
The answer was the question, but people assumed it was the answer to the question
Knowing that that particular answer and that particular question were a pair meant to go together tells you a lot about Life, the Universe and Everything. Just not what you were hoping for in a mathematical sense; it’s a philosophical answering more than an arithmetic one.
I don’t haz that many paws.
[glum]
They must be kept secured & separated at all costs…The fate of the universe depends upon it.
Well Ms. Silly there is such a person gaining the power to rip the whole continental shelf away. Or the continent itself, for that matter.
Hey isn’t that door copyrighted?
Vault-Tec doors open inwards, while this one opens outward. Completely different! :-)
The faults with the vault are said plainly by the Gault.
And speaking of weaknesses, have these guys ever heard of teleporters?
Note: The potentially toxic black vapors leaking from the inner sanctum may be a defense against this exact sort of intrusion.
My personal critique to whoever designed their door would be that he missed something. Vault doors usually have locking pins that come out from the door into the frame to hold it in place. Maybe that function is done by magical means in this case.
There might also be magical defenses similar to the ones Archon has set up in their weapon supply.
It is. in any practical or theoretical sense, impossible to design a security system that will stop any threat. Especially when your world includes people with arbitrary powers and arbitrary power levels. Hell, none of these measures would have even stopped Concretia and she was a scrub level villain.
Frankly when you have to defend against that many types of threats your primary defenses are secrecy, deception, and co-opting the enemy.
Is “super” short for “super-powered human” or does it just refer to anyone with abilities beyond those of an ordinary human? If it’s the former, Halo, Maxima, and Dabbler might not be the most appropriate samples. Halo is (as far a we know) an ordinary human wielding a artifact; Maxima is a super who was kicked up a few weight classes by a symbiont; and Dabbler is a cyborg-alien-demon-adventurer, not a super-powered human.
(Tangent brought to mind: if Grrl Power ever does any parallel universe shenanigans, we need to see un-bonded Maxima.)
Then there’s Harem, who might just be able to teleport in. Sure, they probably have anti-teleport magics up, but the question of whether there’s an incompatibility that lets a super-powered teleporter bypass them is of reasonable concern.
Nine digit passcode, entered by Ingsol = his Social Security Number.
000-00-0013
Nine symbols. Probably ‘password1’. Totally unbreakable.
I haven’t been able to place the runes used on the keyboard. It looks like some kind of Greco-Nordic mashup of symbols.
Zooming in on the Patron version shows 15-16 symbols entered from a 25-button pad. This is what I see (approximately):
ʃ , 山 , ⊢ , ⟀ , ⩗ ;
∼ , )- , ⊃ , ⫘ , ‖ ;
, ◸ , ∪ , ？ , ⑊ ;
⋌ , ┌┘ , / , ∩ , ⩘ ;
？ , ？ , ≫ , ◹ , -( ;
One of the ？s is probably ⌵
Code:
ʃ ∼ )- ⊃ ◸ ∪ ◹ ⟀ ⫘ ⌵ ≫ ∼ )- ┌┘ ⩗̵
Replacing MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF CAPITAL F with LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F
ʃ , 山 , ⊢ , ⟀ , ⩗ ;
∼ , )- , ⊃ , ⫘ , ‖ ;
F , ◸ , ∪ , ？ , ⑊ ;
⋌ , ┌┘ , / , ∩ , ⩘ ;
？ , ？ , ≫ , ◹ , -( ;
One of the ？s is probably ⌵
Code:
ʃ ∼ )- ⊃ ◸ F ∪ ◹ ⟀ ⫘ ⌵ ≫ ∼ )- ┌┘ ⩗̵
that’s not overkill…those are the correct proportions for a door, specially if you are a Fallout fan or have been afflicted by the horror of “In-laws”
If there’s an unicorn in there Sydney will definitely be coming back to break into the vault.
If there is a unicorn in there, The team might find out that Sydney is not only a vegan but the other “V” word.
I wonder if Dabbler can detect such things? Furthermore, I wonder if they “taste” better or provide her with more/better power?
Dabbler does have porno sense. All our key senses can pick up a lot of nuances. We can see a spectrum of colours, spot something a hair’s breadth out of place, hear if something is approaching or receding, tell if it is off-pitch, associate a smell with events we have not thought about in decades.
For Dabbler not to be able to tell if Sydney is a vampire would probably be like being ‘tone deaf’ or ‘colour blind’.
Vigilant? o_O
Valiant, valued, varied, venerated, versatile, versed, very nice, veteran, viable, vibrant, victorious, viewable, vigorous, VIP, virile, virtuous, visionary, vocal, voluptuous vision, vivacious, vivid, vocal, volunteer and vulnerable.
Don’t forget ‘Verbose’, specially when she gets started painting the air :D
voraciously vegan, vibrant, violently verbal, voluntary
Volcanic vesica
Still just vegetarian (arguably pescatarian) but I appreciate the joke.
1) It’s eminent domain, not imminent. (Sorry, I know, it just bothers me.)
2) The principle of eminent domain requires just compensation for any item taken by the government, based on its fair market value. So how do you determine the price of, say, the Hand and/or Eye of Vecna? Or a magic lamp? And if the item in question contained a sapient being, would that have civil rights implications?
Man, magic makes things hard.
What about the Head of Vecna?
Look that one up, it’s a classic.
You forgot to mention his eye.
MrInsecure already did
Aye.
The Head of Vecna? That was what wound up getting Morte killed in the Planescape: Torment rpg single-player game.
Fall-from-Grace: Morte, I’m curious… what happened to your body?
Morte: It’s a long story involving the Head of Vecna. I don’t want to talk about it.
Fall-from-Grace: (Laughing) That was you?
Morte: Could we *please* change the subject?
Needs more kill.
Ingsol said “wasn’t!” The accent is fake! Freakin’ poser. I bet it turns out he’s like from freakin’ SoCal or something…
Waaaay, back in the Council meeting Dave mentioned he has picked up some current speech patterns to fit into day to day interactions with the hew-mons. It tends to revert back to his native habits when he is stressed.
Thor could probably draw less attention to himself while ‘under cover’ on Earth (sorry, ‘Midgard’) if he dropped the thees and thous.
But then how would he be able to subtley show that he views us as inferior, since “thee” and “thou” are the informal form of “you” rather than the formal. Kind of like the difference between “tu” and “usted”
It should be eminent domain, not imminent domain (a common mistake though).
-Begin Rant-
It’s somewhat unlikely that the US government could claim eminent domain over the contents of the vault anyway. Eminent domain usually applies to the property of citizens or land within the country’s boundaries. So, unless the vault is owned by a particular person who happens to be a US citizen or the US wants to try to claim a portion of the ocean (which is its own political nightmare) the US has no domain in which to claim the vault. Also, (in the US) eminent domain involves “just compensation”. For an artifact that could reasonably be described as “priceless” it may be hard to get together enough money for just compensation.
-End Rant-
The US might be able to justify military action if they declared the item(s) as a W.M.D. and had information that some person or group was planning to use it against US citizens or territory.
I once got a priceless mouse pad at a tech seminar. It was truly without price.
I’m not sure giving Sydney access to shiny, powerful and possibly evil artefacts is a good idea.
She has eight already. Zephan agrees with you.
All I’m saying is that she might go Dee Dee on us.
Direct quote: “Eat whatever I just bought!”
Which is number eight? Headband?
Yup, given to her by a demon, at that!
*wags tail affirmatively*
No her lunch or dinner
her “gifted” vocabulary when angry.
Sydney, Sydney, Sydney…. sometimes, OVERKILL is the ONLY choice. So Ingsol is right on that point.
Don’t mention ‘point’ around Ingie :P