Grrl Power #620 – Shave and a haircut…
On the plus side, if Arc-SWAT breaks into your repurposed abandoned nuclear bunker slash silo, and they have the wrong address, you probably get some kind of tax break. Or maybe a voucher for a free new door.
I actually don’t know how that works, like if the cops drive one of those jousting tanks through your front door and it turns out the driver had the post it with the address stuck on his dash upside down, do the cops pay for a new front of your house and new sod squares, or do you get a booklet with some waivers that excuse you from up to 5 non-felony crimes? It probably usually ends up with someone suing the city.
So I got a little behind and was playing catch up when I did this page, hence the slightly different approach to the art on this page. Plus, I thought a slightly slower page instead of one with 47 word bubbles on it would be a nice change of pace. I don’t do it often even though it is quite a bit less work, because it leaves you guys less to chat about, but varying the pacing now and then probably doesn’t hurt.
Oh my god oh my god Star Justice book 10 is out!
Wearing the Cape Book 7 is (still) available for preorder!
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like!
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Less talk, more vaporizing.
Now, now…. talk like that can get bridges destroyed.
and mosques
ONE Mosque
That we know about…
And a persentage of her childhood home… and neighborhood…oh and the tank
Hey that tank clearly had it coming for… not getting smashed…
Hey that bridge was obviously structurally unsound and overdue for modernising!
And asking for it.
I heard it said something inappropriate about Max’s mother.
and that tank said inappropriate things about Max’s butt!
…about MAX’S BUTT !!!?!?!
“…that there’s a fire-paddlin’…”
“…don’ chew be givin’ me no buts about it…”
“…now bend-over this-here desk here…”
“You’re all witnesses!”
“It was Self-Defense!”
“The Bridge Shot First!!!?!”
(…whew…)
Sorry, I was just catching-up on “Looking For Group”, while re-watching “Star Wars IV”…
…what did I miss…?
The broad side of a barn :P
LOL!
[Guesticus]:
“You All Saw It! The Barn Shot First!!!?!”…
…waitaminit…
…did I do that one already…?
;)
But just like Greedo, your shot missed…To be fair to Greedo though, he twitched when Han shot him, so his aim was spoiled.
But, does it REALLY count as a ‘miss’…
…if I never aimed…?
(…I’m rather well-known in my social circle as “The Aimless Dude”…)
Han shot first, you Philistine. Any version of the movie which shows otherwise is a rewriting of history by a man desperate to make his story Disney-friendly and child-friendly, despite all the Disney movies which are severely non-child-friendly themselves.
Like the murder of that sweet old lady who made a house out of confectionery, for children to eat!
That wasn’t a Disney movie, and it was never a children’s story to start with
Not only did they make one of the first adaptations of Hansel and Grettel (and other inspirations), they made it a second time, directed by Tim Burton.
”Oh my God, it’s coming right for us!!!”
There you go. I’ll throw some Southpark in the stew.
Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist.
“As You Wish…”
[Random Guy]:
“…BIRD!”
You called?
lol
Mmm, interesting question you pose, in your blog.
When looking at it for the Grrlverse, I would say that the most disabled character is Heatwave. Although the comic itself drew attention to the fact that Peggy has lost a leg, so has the greater disadvantage, that has not left her disabled.
To the contrary Peggy is more capable than I, by a long shot. Ahem … carrying on. She is clearly not impeded neither as a helicopter pilot nor as a sniper. As evidenced by taking out Concretia. Who is one of the more formidable supers we have seen in this comic.
Whilst Lucas is just short. So he faces discrimination, and a lot of daily inconvenience, in a society built for larger folks. But those are social problems, not something that makes him inherently disabled himself.
Whilst it would be understandable if he succumbed to those problems, he has not. Rather he, like Peggy, has made use of modern technology, kept a positive attitude, and risen to holding an important role in an elite organisation.
Whereas Heatwave has only recently lost her toe. Whilst this may sound trivial, it will have affected her balance. Which, as a combatant, in a front-line unit, and a serving police officer, that is a danger to her and compromises her effectiveness.
Brooke can, of course, fly. However she is a very poor flyer, and there are doubtless situations where it would not be appropriate anyhow. For instance pursuing a suspect in a house or office building. I imagine that normally she could run faster than fly. Plus indoors there would be the risk of hitting lights, doorframes or even the ceiling.
So Heatwave will need to learn how to adapt to her new disability. And get over feeling sorry for herself, as that will mentally and emotionally compromise herself even more. She is, after all, lucky to have such a relatively minor injury, when compared to Peggy, or the possibility that she could have died in the fight.
As for the other aspects of your question. Sydney does have ADHD. However I consider that to be a condition, not a disability. Whilst it does have some serious issues, it also gives her some advantages (that wandering attention allows her to spot things that others do not). Plus her medication helps her keep it under control.
So, much like Peggy and Lucas, I would not rate Sydney as being disabled.
For villains Sciona lost her body. But she coped OK with that trivial problem. Cooter is having post-living survival issues. All in all though he has received a physical upgrade. Mentally and emotionally though he is going to have to work through some severe issues, due to his shared accommodation. Beats being dead still mind.
Wyrmil, as the other half of that equation, is the one who has the greatest physical disability, having been downgraded with human bits. Not to mention having Cooter in the driving seat at times. Emotionally he should be able to cope a lot better than Cooter however. Given that Cooter will have to be coping with sharing his body with, and essentially having become, a monster (from his own viewpoint).
The assassin with the death gaze clearly has severe body issues, both from the few glimpses we have of her, the fact that she covers herself up, so is clearly unhappy with her looks and from the fact that she wanted the artefact which could grant her an improved body.
At a considerable cost mind. Killing 99 people (or worse, imprisoning or destroying 99 souls) to do that, shows that she has no qualms in sacrificing others to overcome her disability!
The only other (presently) background character, who may have a disability, is the Arabic speaking guy who was wrapped up in bandages. Possibly he is an ancient Egyptian mummy, who has survived to the modern day.* Alternatively there is a very good chance that he looks like that due to Maxima’s actions. Thus answering your final question.
* There is a really cool character in Secret World Legends, who is like this. But who does not go for the boring old bandages look. Rather he revels in his desiccated appearance, and is a very snappy dresser. Albeit with quite a 20’s theme. When you are that old though, your fashion sense is not bound by the ripples of human trends.
He is by far my favourite non-player character, who I have met in that game.
Random Guy, I am sad to see that you are ‘without’. Much like me.
“Oh, Sciona? She is in the hideout two ridges over, this is the Mechanical Four’s hideout… I sure hope you are paying for that door?”
In case anyone doesn’t know, the word “lair” is an acronym. It stands for
Low Attention Instigatory Redoubt
This one, of course, wasn’t quite “low atenntion” enough….
Any self respecting professional supervillain use the term “lair”. “Hideout” sounds kinda cowardly.
only in your mind though …anything is acronym if you can thing words for each letter
“I am sorry, but your Bloodmage is in another Lair!”
+1 Internets to you sir/ma’am.
This lair belongs to the Evil Onion.
mysterious narrator: “Welcome, to the temple of your doom. Welcome to the Temple of ALL Dooms. muhahahaha!”
Wouldn’t that just make it the Temple of Everything. Because everything is the Doom of something.
My goodness!
“Glass Half Empty”, much…?
A TRUE NERD knows that it’s Always 100% Full…
50% Water below 50% Air, you see.
;)
:)
Yeah? What about the glasses that are 50% Air below and 50% Water above?
Take a photo.
Assuming normal situations (e.g. being held in an upright orientation, well in a planet’s gravity field, with an atmosphere, at a temperature appropriate for liquid water) that occurs very very rarely.
But it can happen.
Such as (for example) in a plane that dives at the proper angle-&-speed to briefly mimic zero-G conditions.
Mmm, technically within the bounds of my description, but not really within the spirit of a ‘normal situation’.
I was alluding to the water molecules bouncing around in the glass. Some of them will be above the surface of the water, just through normal physics. Once in a while there will be a lot of them above what would normally be the surface (this is using geological time, so don’t spend too much time staring at your cup).
Now keep it in those conditions past the heat death of the universe (barring our glass and its immediate environs of course). Repeat a few times. Eventually all the molecules will be observed in the top half.
Snap your photo quick!
Or it could just be ice in a conical glass.
No cheating! ‘Liquid water’ was stipulated. :)
Rules you made up AFTER the possibility was suggested…
Whole conversation reminds me of this. https://what-if.xkcd.com/6/
*sees link they linked right beneath themselves in separate thread branch*
*is embarrassed*
Anvildude was replying to my second post. Had that been intended to counter Guesticus‘s post, I would have expected it to have been in reply to his, rather than mine.
Meaning that it is appropriate for me to have taken it as a counter to mine,* and I had already stipulated the conditions in my initial comment. Which I repeat for your convenience:
* Albeit a witty one which I should have acknowledged earlier, by more than just the smiley emote.
And what about the heads that are 50% air and the brains that have water on 50% of them?
I’m asking sincerely, because this seems like a pair of subjects with which you might have an awful lot of familiarity.
Now now. Be nice. There is no excuse for an unprovoked personal attack.
That was an amusingly posed question, and interestingly thought-provoking, at that.
XKCD has article about glasses literally half empty.
https://what-if.xkcd.com/6/
“The Temple of ALL Dooms? Really? All of them?”
“Well, ‘Temple of SOME Dooms’ didn’t quite have the same ring…”
“This one doesn’t sound too bad, the Small Bone Eater?”
“That is because they like eating small bones. Children mostly.”
“Gulp!”
“Wait, that doesn’t sound right. Let me get a better look at that name. Ah yes, there was a smudge over one of the letters, the proper name is ‘Small Boner Eater’!”
Oooo, that doesn’t sit quite right after the previous comment…
…
That’s the point, if it did, there would be something wrong with you
ᶰᵒᵗ ᵗʰᵉ ᶜʰᶦᶫᵈʳᵉᶰ TT
Mmm, Cthulhu cultist, mathematician or barber?
Sydney’s status as “recruit, with lots of training needed” should have put her farther-back from the doorway, with someone else in her place, maybe Hiro. I remind you all of #551 /archive #2597.
or she should stand in the front with the shield up. at the moment there was noting in the comic that could even dent it.
I’ve been wondering about her shield’s strength ever since #160 /archive #1041, and the page following that one. There’s a mark on the steel block where maybe a little bit of Maxima’s energy bolt got through the shield (no mark visible when she loosed it, but the block was some distance away, and the mark is not large).
And then there is the brane-ripper, which operates on a completely different level of “cutting” than “ordinary” weapons….
Pretty sure that was already there. That block was a little beat up when they first showed it.
We’ve never seen something get through her shield other than basic sound and light, the only reaction we’ve seen out of it was when Thor threw Mjolnir at it. IIRC it was described as ringing like a gong from the hit.
I wonder if air gets through or if she’s breathing whatever is available. Or perhaps it generates its own atmosphere since she has carried several people in it for long distances (without out the wind/air pressure seeming to penetrate).
That was covered in previous comics. Air doesn’t get through, and they were trying to figure out how to transport multiple people (or have her keep up the shield) without running out of air.
And then it turned out the green orb makes air…
Yup. Halo got faint when keeping the shield up for a protracted period in the Battle at the Steak House car park™. Likewise their (hypersensitive and badly in need of re-calibrating) fresh air meter kept warning them to stop, lower the shield and let fresh air in, when they were flying in the Halomobile to New York.
Check my followup question right below your reply.
Thanks, I had forgotten but that leads to another question. When she is transporting folks Sydney is holding the Flight Ball and the Shield ball….so, where is the air coming from?
Periodically Halo has to swap out the Fly Ball for the Air Ball. When they were underwater, Maxima provided the propulsion, thus allowing them to maintain progress and, more importantly, prevented them from bobbing up to the surface (as we saw in the swimming pool).
In the more recent trip Super Hiro was flying with them, so could have provided the same service. However they were up high enough, in the air, that Sydney could just angle the flight upwards, swap over the balls for a quick air refresh, and resume normal flight before too much momentum was lost.
In practice the non-aerodynamic shape of the flyball would probably cause severe air resistance, and make it drop like a stone. But with enough altitude we know (from skydivers) that such would not be a major problem (other than the loss of progress). Aided by the orbs responding instantly to Halo’s mental command. So the time taken would be minimal.
Finally, although the author did not mention this, when just needing to have her personal shield up, flying without passengers, we have several times seen that the shield changes shape to a much more aerodynamic form.
I see no reason that the same thing would not happen with the group carrying version, if air resistance threatened to slow the progress, during such an operation.
One problem with that: AirBall does not work instantaneously, it takes time to replace the bad air with the good, specially in a sealed Mr Buble
Not instantaneously, but we saw that it can generate a huge volume of air, in the pool. It instantly created a bubble bigger than Sydney (fast enough that it displaced all the water and stopped her from potentially drowning).
So fast enough that the process would work. The vomit comet can sustain low g for about 25 seconds. Even with a streamlined cigar shape I would not expect the Halomobile to match that. But it should only take a few seconds to refresh all the air.
So lots of wiggle room, to allow for the usual Sydney distractions and fumbles.
Yeah, but that was in a space that was not restricted in size: if she did that in Mr Buble, with no way to replace the current air, what do you think would happen to the squishy’s inside? Their insides would suddenly be on their outsides
Well it is what the author says they were doing, and we saw that they were not squished. Ergo it must refresh air just as quickly as it can create it.
Whereas we have never had anything to say, or to provide any evidence to support inferring, that it takes longer.
air doesn’t get through, green orb is generating air
See my followup question right above your reply.
On page 161 the butterfly and grass are perfectly fine despite the ground melting up around the shield so I don’t think anything got through. Anything hot enough to melt the block would singe the grass at least.
Oh in 159 it shows damage to the block before they start shooting so that confirms the flat block in 160 was just art limitations.
Not to mention a butterfly was happily fluttering about with only the shield between it and Maxima’s blasts.
Excellent observation about the grass. The butterfly could have flown in afterward, from a decent distance away, since both Maxima and Sydney have had time to move to another spot for the conversation they are having.
That raises a good point — Is Halo’s shield proof against a tool that slices thru Reality itself?
We may very well need to see this, & soon!
Good question.
It may well be, given that it can rewrite reality. So the Bane Ripper is the reality cutter, but the Orbs may be reality’s band aid.
Well they cancel out magic, have a theory going that whomever designed them designed them to counter act magic specifically, with some limited reactions to technology, that magic can’t detect them, spells are broken off by the shield.
So perhaps it does a bender blade to a reality ripper, sending the effect to the other side of it or around it.
The shield may not be a shield but a selectively permeable dimensional membrane with selective optical interaction. In other words you aren’t seeing the people inside “through” the shield but rather a projection on the shield’s surface distorted so as to produce the optical illusion that you are, and vice versa an internal projection is showing things outside the field as though they were being viewed through it.
this would also explain, aside from Dabbler’s sleepy hypothesis, why light based attacks don’t penetrate it.
As such its status is more secure than the regular buffer space between spaces, so the Brane Ripper might give the impression of scratching its surface or cutting a slice in it, that may or may not be immediately repaired (some defensive barriers of this sort have been shown to do this, others not so much; granted the only examples of a dimensional barrier of this sort are those produced by high level demons and celestial beings, and usually as an internal space thing; well that and the guy who used similar barriers to crush his enemies like a disturbed little psycho…seriously collapsing dimensional contained space as a means to kill things…yikes.
Maybe Achilles would be better in-front. I’d like to see what happens if Sciona tries to cut Achilles with the brane-ripper. If he’s truly invulnerable, then nothing would happen. But is he really truly invulnerable?
Actually if the brane-ripper doesn’t cut Achilles, something will still happen. Sciona will be super-surprised!
In this case, I can imagine it going either way, regardless of whether it’s Halo or Achilles…
…either the brane-ripper is blocked by an un-slice-able obstacle…
… or it goes right thru — without harming them — because their invulnerability anchors them firmly in this reality…
…which the ripper can slice! I can picture them getting stuck-in-place, until the gash in the fabric of Reality “heals”, & releases them once again.
With respect to Sydney’s shield, we’ve already seen now it can deform to miss intersecting stuff (see the author notes under #205 /archive #1286). Maybe the brane ripper will only deform part of the bubble, should Sciona try cutting the shield with it.
Perseus, here is a sword that can cut through anything, and a shield that can’t be damaged by anything. Try not to get them too close together I forget which one beats the other.
-Zeus, Robot Chicken.
Eternity. So much to remember, so little storage capacity.
Achilles is the only super who has a six star power, of any sort. Plus his background is pretty impressive:
Personally I hope that would hold against anything. It is the guy’s only ability, and it would be nice if it remained an absolute. Unlike the dude who’s “claws can cut anything” and who’s skin was allegedly “impervious”.
That said though something which rips apart reality may be something that nothing corporeal can resist. Harold is a part of reality, and may not be able to survive independently of it existing.
Hopefully he can though.
*wags tail optimistically*
The more invulnerable is Achilles, the more he should be used as a “draw” for enemy target practice, getting them to waste their ammo. That’s why he should be one of the front line of the group in this comic.
Oh I agree. He is not being properly utilised here. And Sydney is too squishy.
But, on the other side of the equation, neither Achilles nor Maxima are immune to mind attacks (although Max does have strong will so can cope better than Achilles). That is a serious risk, given that Sciona is known to use such weapons.
Whereas Halo’s force field has shown itself to be resistant to Vehemence’s aggro aura, teleportation and (we can infer) magic. This because (if I remember correctly) Maxima makes mention of needing Sydney’s shield to protect against magic, at some point, when they were in the Council chambers. Implying that part of Dabbler’s testing included trying to overcome it with magic.
I too would prefer her to keep it up, but if the purpose is to protect Maxima from being mind controlled, Halo could not do that whilst Maxima was ripping the vault door off.
That would also explain why both Sydney and Maxima are in the front. Max to do the ripping and Sydney to stand ready to protect her from mental attacks. Dabbler rounds out the set because she has the expertise to pick up traps, magical wards and other exotic dangers.
Finally Sydney has shown that she can react even to a hint of a backstab, instantly. Likewise all her powers respond with the speed of thought. So, whilst Sydney is at risk, it is a calculated one.
Definitely…Achilles can take the best of what’s getting dished out, but Hiro is quite a bit more resistant to the force of knockback.
So, just put Hiro directly behind Achilles, making sure Achilles doesn’t get knocked back.
Yeah, that’s the one flaw in Les’ planned shieldage: he’s literally a lightweight and any significant impact will send him flying
Maybe Iron Cloth can enhance some heavy duty bungee cords for Achilles to use? Anchor himself in place, provoke an attack, get knocked back twenty yards, and bounce straight back, to return the blow!
In this vein I’d like to mention something about another character in the story, one of the bad guys that were fought at the restaurant. He called himself “For Whom The Death Tolls”, but considering that Sydney identified his power as “Nemesis”, that might be a better name for him. Anyway, if he isn’t actually a real bad guy (didn’t do outright offensive stuff at the fight, and we know all the “bad guys” were under the influence of Vehemence), he could be almost as useful on the Arc-Swat team as Achilles. The main difference is that his defense is active, while Achilles’ defense is passive (secondary difference is that Achilles can shrug off multiple simultaneous different attacks, while Nemesis can’t). So naturally I’m trying to imagine what sort of active defense Nemesis would have, if Sciona tried to cut him with the brane ripper….
Well the Periwinkle Butt Sniffer countered Anvil’s chokehold with lightning (she is protected from kinetic but vulnerable to energy). Then, when attacked with her kinetic nose boop, he drained all her stored energy, knocking her unconscious.
Likewise when Jiggawatt zapped herself, as living lightning, at PBS, he captured her and turned her against her allies.
So one option, which springs to mind, would be to make the blade cut a hole, underneath Sciona, making her fall through into a hell dimension. But with the Bane Ripper staying this side, when it shuts.
Another might be to exploit a known vulnerability. One that a sickle, boosted to apocalyptic power, should easily be capable of doing. Namely chopping Sciona’s head off!
This time doing it properly.
wonder which is stronger. skin of achilles or sydneys shield
Achilles. Without a shadow of a doubt. The description of his power makes that clear. Whilst Sydney’s shield has never failed, it does respond with stress-like patterns, when under heavy attack. Which I personally take as being warnings intended to give the user feedback as to whether the shield is approaching its limits.
That aside the author has indicated, in the past, that Sydney’s shield is on a par (strength wise) with Dabbler’s.* And we have seen Dabbler’s shield being overcome, in one fight. So it is just a matter of time until Halo comes across something that will make her force field fail.
The final point is that Sydney’s shield rates as five stars, but most of that is because it is so darned useful (e.g. helping to carry the team, protect multiple people inside or out, and what works with team members also works with hostages). So it could be taken down by relatively modest attacks.**
But even if we take the five star rating as being its actual toughness, Achilles has a six star rating. Rough rule of dew claw is that a one star higher rating will always beat the lower one (all other things being equal). It is a whole ball park stronger than the lower power.
Maxima could let rip with her blast at full power (five star) and point blank range and not so much as scratch Achilles!
* Halo gets a much higher rating because her power is fully encompassing, can protect others, blocks magic and more.
** Don’t fixate too much on it withstanding a nuke-like attack by Maxima. That explosion was near to the horizon. Much of the force of that will have dissipated (using the inverse square rule), before reaching the shield. Note that Achilles was standing outside and did NOT get knocked over (yet we have seen he is highly prone to that).
What it did have was a heat wave, sufficient to burn his clothing (on one side only mind). So it was dangerous, but Sydney was not facing the full force of Maxima’s blast.
Where have these “stars” of which you speak been assigned?
In the cast list. Whilst that is currently unavailable, they have been faithfully reproduced in the Grrl Power Wiki.
Am I the first to notice that Achilles sometimes acts like a real Heel?…And then I wonder if that was actually DaveB’s inspiration for such a character?
0.o
Bah, next tho shalt infer that Peggy’s parents gave her that name because they knew she would loose her leg in a war someday!
And surely the strongest character being named Max is also a coincidence… and Hiro being the kind of guy who jumps in harm’s way… and Clover being a honey were-badger, and Pixel having spots, and… wait a minute. Actually, I am sensing a pattern with the names here…
…okay Midnight, I know you were joking, I’m just sad I couldn’t figure out a good place for an Achilles’ heel joke. Which is probably a good thing, because puns on his name are probably the only thing he can’t stand. ;)
BTW, the page with pirate Sydney / peg-leg Peggy interchange with the repeated foot-in-mouth gags probably made me laugh harder than any other page so far. Sydney really can’t help herself sometimes.
That is a page I just cannot avoid laughing at. Mind you it is one amongst many. Hard for me to pick a favourite. But that would be pretty high on the list of side-splitters.
“…Which is probably a good thing, because puns on his name are probably the only thing he can’t stand.”
Nah, Achilles can stand for anything (& everything)…his heels are just as invulnerable as the rest of him.
;)
Grimtooth’s Traps Thirsty Too?
Kittens! Kittens were responsible for both scrolling up the screen, from the place where my reply was meant to go, and in distracting me when I selected the wrong one of your comments to reply to!
That and Feral Cat also choosing to come up onto my lap. She is getting increasingly territorial, so I have to very carefully supervise them, to ensure that she does not attack her own kittens!
Hmmm, if we strap Achilles to the Shield…will it act as a combo skill and form into a Divine Aegis Shield.
or will he just bounce off like anything else.
I think the reason she’s in front is because she has the shield orb, and can take what ever traps come their way. But if that’s the case, I don’t know why Achilles isn’t in Dabbler’s place. Unless he’s NOT there at all, I don’t remember who is and isn’t on this mission.
Her reactions won’t out do a gun turret, if Sciona has access to the same level of weaponry defending the vault.
She has surprisingly good reflexes. Remember that bone golem that guarded the vault? She already had her shield orb up to stop the weakness aura from taking her out.
Not sure if she had the shield out before or after the guardian got through the door, but as we saw at the end of the first battle, her shield blocks magical auras so I don’t think it makes much difference either way. Even 5% of Sydney’s weakling strength is enough to open her hand and summon the shield in a split second.
I agree that if Sydney is in front because of her shield, then her shield should already be up, even though it currently isn’t.
I’m pretty sure Achilles is one of the guys in the bubble bus in #613 /archive #2806. Looks like his head of hair in the second panel.
I think a good portion of the reason she’s in front is because it’s highly reminiscent of page 145/archive 955’s last panel, and the 3 in that one were Maxima, Dabbler, and Halo.
That was the one which sprung to my mind, as a call-back.
Does a hand really count though? I mean I know they are more useful than paws, but that seems to be showing off. “Look at me, even with only three fingers, I can hold a gun.”
Well, the pacing is important. A slower pacing is good for a build up. And for fight scenes as well as a slower pacing give you a more intense feeling. So yeah I am now Hyped what´s inside the Vault they just break in.
you can also have a slow paced fight. The goku freezer fight of dragon ball had about as much pages as this complete comic.
Yeah, Dragonball made the trope of spending 5 episodes of two combatants just hovering in the air & bragging at each other, before they actually start to fight in the 6th episode.
Sounds … dull.
It is,
not as bad as the ones where the characters spend the whole episodes explaining how their powers work. Seriously, Needless has like two episodes of a guy explaining and others explaining about how his powers work…only to then diverge from the Manga where THAT made sense to have ALL that time be pointless as he ends up another power copier.
-he had the power to absorb and redirect energy and got creative with it by absorbing ambient energy so fast it caused freezing then direct the heat in a way that changed air density to create localized wind. It took them 40 minutes to explain that.
Only to then tell us they wasted our time by combining that guy with a different character in the Manga to have a rushed ending *as the manga was still on going but the anime needed to end* and give him a completely different power that would have let him have multiple powers anyway.
They have just “Open” Vault 13
Ooh ooh, if that is the secure part of warehouse 13 then hopefully they can pick up the Arc of the Covenant! And maybe a spare flying saucer or two.
And a guidebook on proper etiquette with cryptozoological creatures.
Hard to get an authoritative source for etiquette on any given cryptid – even though we all know Bigfoot is a softie, most high-quality resources are focused on hunting them, though some hunters are just trying to understand them.
And sadly, the cons of using anything at the Warehouse in the search probably outweigh the pros.
the last page had only 19 bubbles. Not that bad.
I think the police has to pay for accidental damage.
Quick Pander law class stuff! :)
Yes, they do, usually. It usually depends on if there was a search warrant or not, and if the warrant was correct or not in what they sought to find (and that the police did not make a mistake in executing the warrant).
If any of that happens, the city usually pays for the damage. If there was a warrant, and the person suing is NOT the person who was arrested (ie, like a building owner suing for the damage the police caused to an apartment during a police raid), sometimes the city will pay for the damage, but sometimes it’s like pulling teeth to make them. Usually when they do pay in those circumstances, it’s because they want to encourage building owners to comply with the warrants and not be an additional block to the police. Other times, the police will say (usually correctly) that the building owner should sue the tenant instead, since the tenant’s illegal action is what caused the raid to occur.
tl;dr – Usually the police have to pay if there’s a problem with the warrant in some way. When there isnt, and it’s not the suspect/criminal suing, most of the time they will just pay whatever the insurance says it is anyway, as a matter of public policy to landlords in that city. Also, many cities have municipal laws to cover what to do in those circumstances.
That’s the theory, anyway. In reality, it’s depressingly common for police and city governments to fight tooth and nail against paying for the damage they cause, even when their actions are blatantly illegal. Plenty of people have had their property damaged and some have been injured or even killed because the SWAT team served a no-knock warrant at zero dark thirty at the wrong address. Then there was a really horrible case I read about recently. After a fleeing shoplifter broke into a house, the police systematically destroyed the house in order to capture him. Not only did the city refuse to pay for the damage, they fined the homeowner for failing to make repairs he couldn’t afford.
And it’s not like a shoplifter would have the money to pay for those damages if the homeowner sued them.
Technically the homeowner can sue both the police (ie, the city) and the shoplifter (it’s called joint and several liability). It’s just the plaintiff usually wind up suing the city because the city is more likely to be able to pay – then the city could sue the shoplifter afterwards to recoup a portion of the money. :) Doesn’t prevent the city from having to pay the full amount to the plaintiff though.
That fits to what I heard and read, too.
Even if the police / swat-team clearly got the wrong address, they don’t pay for any damages done during their forced entry.
Actually they do have to pay if they get the wrong address. The example with the shoplifter has more of a defense, but if the search warrant was to the wrong address, it almost NEVER meets the standard of care required to beat the lawsuit.
I’m pretty sure that in the most well known case of something like this happening, the judge compared the police action to that of the Keystone Cops (obviously not a compliment) when the Appeals court agreed with the lower court that the police have no legal immunity to insultate them from liability.
There are some really upsetting cases like this though, where even when the civilian wins the case, it’s really a pyrrhic victory, like in one case where the SWAT team busted in on a wrong address, and they shot the homeowner’s dog. They paid for the damages but that doesn’t bring the dog back to life.
What you just described (and I know which case you’re talking about, is still an abberation to how things usually happen, especially in the last few years. It just tends to be over-exaggerated on how often it actually happened by ‘news’ outlets like Vox. If they bother to do any research (which Vox usually only does the minimal amount when dealing with legal research matters, I’ve found), they’d find that the city almost always loses in the end when they decide to be jerks and fight paying
There had been a LOT of bad press about the times where a wrong address warrant has resulted in damages where the city fights to not pay for the damages. In almost all of those cases, the city loses in the end if the warrant was invalid, although their argument is usually that they were executing the warrant on the wrong address ‘in good faith.’ Most of the time, that isn’t a good enough excuse for the judge, and like I’ve said in the past, the government does not have sovereign immunity against the tort of negligence in MOST cases. Causing damage by executing a warrant on the wrong address is almost always going to be seen as negligent.
The example you gave about them entering a house in hot pursuit gives the government more of a defense, since it’s not a mistake on their part (exigent circumstances are an exception to needing a valid warrant) but even then, it’s very rare for them to not pay, either voluntarily or after being forced to by a judge).
I feel a DBZ abridged vibe from this scene :)
There’s all sorts of mad scientists labs in this mountain range, Doctor Gero, Doctor Frap, Doctor Wheelo, tons of them. I’m sure they know where Sciona is.
Oh, find me in the Alps!
You stay in your Swiss Alps, Southern is off limits :P
Got a bit of that too,
but where as our guys who can punch through mountains were having a hard time with a door, hurting their wrists, Maxima did the sensible thing, chucked it off its hinges.
I have a character who is good at picking locks who comes into conflict with a tank who rips doors off.
In one scene he shreds a heavy wooden door as she is delicately trying to pick it.
“That’s real smart of you. Now how do we close it after us and keep all of them out” *points*
Eh, if the tank can shred the door that easily, it probably wasn’t going to be much of a barrier. And the enemy probably have the key anyway, if it’s their door.
I once ran a Mutants & Masterminds campaign where the first adventure started with a bank robbery. The super-strong villain ripped the bank vault door off its hinges and threw it at the heroes. The telekinetic supehero proceeded to pick up the door and place it back on the vault, thinking that the broken, loose-hanging door would somehow present an obstacle to the person that had just thrown it at her. He promptly threw it at her again, knocking her unconscious.
This set the stage for what kind of campaign it was going to be.
When the Rogue and the Barbarian argue over whether it’s better to check for traps before picking the lock…. it’s usually because the Barbarian has already demolished the door.
“+5 adamantine lockpick” was how one of my high-level barbarian characters referred to the oversized maul he carried around.
We need to open this door. Before the Rogue can say anything, the Barbarian comes up: “I cast Axe.”
Lol.
Yea. I have only played a barbarian once (in campaigns, rather than one-off sessions). And we had no rogue, or any substitute. So my guy was in charge of lock picking, trap detection and picking pockets.
let me guess: some massive two-hander to “pick locks”, detected traps by going first, and Intimidate was your substitute for sleight of hand?
Nah, lifting them up by their ankles and shake them until the loot stops falling out :D
Naa it was a gritty, realistic, style of campaign. Pockets are a lot easier to pick when their owners are dead.
The trap detecting was, due to that aspect, mostly done by hurling stuff (dead looted bodies for instance) at anything that looked suspicious. And, yea, said massive two hander for opening locked doors and chests. Quite good for dealing with the more subtle traps, like poison needles in locks.
But, if that did not trigger anything, then he did just have to soak up whatever traps might have been missed.
I seem to recall that he had a level of cleric early on, with plans to end up with a few levels. Just enough to top up incidental damage, and speed up longer term recovery, but without significantly impacting his barbarian progression.
Being able to detect magic was also useful for spotting magical traps, so he was able to take extra precautions for the more dangerous ones, of that sort. Plus, being moderately smart and wise, he could come up with good ways to either avoid the risk or use the trap to our advantage.
Living foes make just as good trap springers as dead ones. No point going to the trouble of killing them first, if there is a more spectacular way of wiping them out.
I admit I lol’d at your choice of projectile example, well done on the setup. :)
Really though,
meat shieldsbarbarians are ideal for fail-safe trap detection. After all, how bad could it be?He he.
Nicely chosen.
It could be worse than bad…The Delvermatic Dicer & Malingerer Trap (scrolling down to page 35) is worse.
Somehow, that link isn’t right: raw form is https://annarchive.com/files/Grimtooth's%20Traps.pdf
Wow, that is a brilliant list. I’m adding that to my
planningresearch material for when I become an Evil Overlord.Well, that’s not the only such book like that. It’s a series of books.
Grimtooth’s Traps
Grimtooth’s Traps Too
Grimtooth’s Traps Fore
Grimtooth’s Traps Ate
Grimtooth’s Dungeon of Doom (an entire dungeon with complete backstory, composed entirely of traps
Grimtooth’s Traps Bazaar (an entire store where GT sells traps that even he doesn’t want to keep)
Grimtooth’s Traps Thirsty Too?
Intimidate makes a pretty good substitution for stealth related checks though…
“You didn’t see (or hear) nothin!”
Lol. Yeppers.
Of course, a high strength & enough dexterity to snap a neck works to silence most people too.
Love how Maxima did that,(many points for coolness) but she doesn’t exactly look at where she’s throwing stuff, does she? Lucky it didn’t hit someone. We could have another bridge incident. :)
Don’t have anything legal to say about her breaking in though – I’m going to assume that there’s an emergency warrant in some secret FISA court or that it comes under the ‘exigent circumstances’ exception to the 4th Amendment requirement for a search warrant. Either way, she was justified to do this – and if she’s wrong, they’ll just get sued for the damage done to the… um…… secret heavily fortified bunker in the middle of the forest, which I’m sure is for entirely legal purposes. :)
Where else would the approximately 7.2 gajillion survivalist types put their apocalypse bunkers?
I’m curious about how the Twilight Council is being handled, legally. It SEEMS like they’re treating the Council as a separate, friendly nation, albeit one without its own national territory and with a bit of vagueness and tension over where everyone’s sovereignty begins and ends. I think that would in turn make Sciona some flavor of foreign terrorist which Archon (in its military capacity) is engaged in.
Obviously, the legal aspects of dealing with an entity like the Twilight Council is pretty difficult, since it doesn’t exist in any capacity that ARCHON could officially recognize. That said, it’s pretty clear that ARCHON is generally committed to giving the Council a wide berth as far as their own matters are concerned, although threats like Sciona are clearly gonna fall into ARCHON’s camp as well.
The big question is how long the tightrope can be walked. There are going to be other Scionas, and not all of them are gonna be able to be explained away as “mere” supers. Hell, Sciona herself nearly sabotaged the Council’s mechanism against public detection as a side effect of her greater plan to restore her original body- what would happen if a more dedicated effort were fielded to shatter the Masquerade? Eventually, they’re going to have to deal with the near-inevitability of a public reveal, and at that point the boundaries aren’t going to be able to stay loose and informal.
“Hot pursuit”, which is clearly the case here, is a perfectly legal and valid way for Maxima and squad to justify ripping the door off and forcing their way in. If you’re chasing a criminal with a warrant for her arrest and she is spotted going into someone’s home, the police have every right, even the duty, to enter that home by any means necessary, as the criminal is likely to endanger the residents of that home, accomplices or not. If the criminal resists… too bad, the criminal was “asking for it” when the police use force.
IIRC, hot pursuit falls under the heading of exigent circumstances.
Pretty sure it stopped being hot pursuit when Max lost the trail and they had to math out the trajectory.
However, all they need for a warrant is probable cause. A super-genious alien did the math, is probably enough given “an anonymous caller said it” flies in otehr contexts.
Yeah, can’t be ‘hot pursuit’ when the trail has gone cold
“Hot Pursuit” and “sixty percent chance” are definitely not compatible with each other.
It’s exigent circumstances, but not hot pursuit. There is no hot pursuit here.
Hot pursuit is one example OF exigent circumstances, but exigent circumstances is not hot pursuit. One’s a category that falls into another larger category.
So no, there is no hot pursuit here, but there are still other exigent circumstances – ie, an emergency situation requiring swift action which would take too long to get a warrant to achieve, during which the suspect might escape or cause imminent danger to life or destruction of evidence.
When Maxima catches up there it will be hot pursuit. Very very hot!
Stop being so adorable this instant.
Luckily the door didn’t fall on a mosque.
Unfortunately, a local farmer comes out to his fields in the morning and exclaims “My cabbages!”
(This guy can’t get a break. He moved here from China just to get away from this sort of thing)
Naaa, I hear he WAS head honcho at a Mosque that got demolished under ….. mysterious circumstances while he was away. After what the rest of his people told him, he just HAD to get out of there, somewhere safe…
…So he took up farming in China, lost a bunch of cabbages, decided that it wasn’t safe for farming there. Moved to America and, lo & behold, look what happened to his harvest of squash.
Who says she didn’t look first ;)
Because as far as we know, she doesn’t have superhuman (ie, telescopic and x-ray) vision?
People! Let’s save the after-action review for after the action is done! Heh.
Yeah, well…Since the “breaking & entering” action is done on this page, we can review that, can’t we?
Suppose this turns out to be a trap?!?!?
I think a certain Calamarian would most assuredly agree that it is.
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
The 3 leading powerhouses of Arc. Swat take point. I’m actually wondering now just how Invincible is a Achilles after all the invulnerability of the Achilles was one of captain Marvel’s original powers before they changed it to the courage of Achilles.
Oh right, you are talking about Shazam (no, not you Gomer), not Mar-Vell or Carol Danvers
According to his character description, he has “proper, aggravating invincibility,” and he has supposedly shrugged off attacks that should have torn him apart on a subatomic level. As others have noted, he is the only character with a six-star power, and that includes Maxima. So how Invincible is he? Invincible enough that they created an entire rank of power just to describe how absurdly resilient he is.
In other words, the odds that anyone will come up with a weapon that can hurt him is so vanishingly small as to be nonexistent. Although because he doesn’t have any other powers, that mostly just makes him a walking cartoon character to get pummeled at will.
Achilles soaks up damage exactly like a cartoon character – specifically, this one (for anyone who doesn’t recognize “ya hoo hoo hooey” in print form).
Okay so nothing can damage him physically does he still need to breathe or could he drown and say a pool of lava if you toss him in there?
Taking his power as an absolute (which I prefer to do, as it is way cooler than the alternative) he would be unharmed.
The one thing we do not know about his power though is if he is able to continue to function without the ability to metabolise. For most people ‘not being able to function’ would equate to being dead. If Achilles runs out of food, water or air though I believe he would just become inactive until such become available again, and his body can resume turning food into energy.
Just being in lava though would not bother him any more than it would us in water. Being fully submerged would require that he swim to a spot where he could climb out. If he is deprived of air too long he would probably pass out though.
All of this assuming that he is reliant on normal biological processes for energy. The other alternative is that his super power might sustain him even in such situations of deprivation. After all (as far as we know) all of the flyers can keep going indefinitely, Maxima and Heatwave can create energy out of nothing (Max certainly did not create her nuke-like explosion from energy created by eating her breakfast) so we know that super powers can supply energy.
We just do not know for Achilles yet. One strong clue though was that nobody was even the slightest bit concerned that he was trapped under the rubble of the collapsed steak house. If he was at risk of falling unconscious they probably would have made effort to pull him out.
I have suffocated, to the brink of going unconscious (and in the circumstances dying), twice in my life. Plus have actually been purposely suffocated, into unconsciousness, as part of my martial arts training. It is not pleasant, even when you know you will wake up afterwards.
So even if Achilles only risked the latter, I think his team mates would have tried to help him. As it was he carried on talking, and trying to get out, on his own. Possibly with enough voids to let air in. Possibly not. But neither he nor anyone else was bothered.
Metabolized or not, we also learned at the restaurant that he loves food. So far Achilles has mostly been played for laughs, but as with most of the secondary characters I’d like to see more of their powers (and personalities) in action. Which is really a testament to Dave B, that he can keep the world-building and supporting cast interested while still running a plot.
Also Yorp, good analysis, and that’s some serious stuff you slipped in at the end there! 0_o Hope your life is a little calmer these days…
Thanks. It has its ups and downs at the moment. Battling depression being the only important one at the moment But the comic, and chatting in this community, is a great way of fighting that! Petting cute kittens, on my lap, helps too.
It would be nice if someone could come up with an inspired power stunt for Achilles. Not much to work with for him though.
Role wise his biggest failing is his lack of offensive capability. So that is the easiest angle to address. His ‘super strength’ barely qualifies, being only 50% more than a normal person. But that can be utilised in a couple of ways. Either allowing him to carry heavy-hitting weaponry (be that support weapons or demolitions) or directly use it with martial arts.
Both benefiting from his invulnerability. In a military role he need not fear harming himself from firing a missile at too close a range. Nor would the risk of a flamethrower or demolitions exploding be an issue. Meanwhile a martial artist who cannot be hurt or harmed would make a formidable opponent.
All assuming that he develops suitable skills. Imagine someone with all Math’s martial skill, but who was invulnerable to harm. And if an opponent proved too tough to damage in hand-to-hand combat, whipping out a few blocks of C5 (like C4 but better) could level the playing field.
And any bridge or vault door.
To upgrade Achilles’s offensive capabilites, litterally anything that would damage a firing platform would work… Obviously radiation would do problematic things to his Surroundings… but an exo-suit designed to use his body for structural support and use its machine parts to provide superhuman strength could do extremely well…
For example, a gauntlet that puts shaped charges at the front of his fist (or into his palm perhaps) to be detonated by impact… most of the charge goes into the enemy while the back-blast that would normally be problematic for the mechanical device to handle over multiple firings gets 90% absorbed by his bare hand.. include a reloading mechanism and suddenly the guy could trade punches with Hiro. (and win every time due to being invincible).
Heck, if property damage isnt as much of an issue… just strap grenades to him all over, have him walk into the enemy place and if anyone’s in there… And they have half a brain, they’ll surrender.
Allthough Dabbler has a thing about providing her special tech to others… I dont see why she’d be completely dead-set against using some of her science to provide Achilles with something that packs some good oomph into a melee or hand held package but would be utterly unsafe for anyone not totally invulnerable to use. (which would ensure that the device cannot be stolen and re-engineered.. since anyone who tries would go boom).
In the ultimate universe wolverene has a similar issue. Put him in a vacuum chamber his body goes dormant cut his head from his body somehow like if used the hulk to do so and he breathes through his skin it is like his mutation is all about keeping Him alive regardless of the efforts of the universe around him
I think that 60% needs upward modification. It is unusual enough to find a reinforced vault door on a hillside, in the middle of a wilderness, that alternative explanations for it become remote. Especially as the few credible ones should be in Archon’s records, as they would be things like military bunkers.
Even civilian things like seed banks, or post apocalypse time capsules, should have been easy to pick out with simple internet searches, given they know the location. Whilst the exact coordinates of such are unlikely to be published, there should be some mention in the public record. As such things do not come cheap and share holders or the general public would need to be told that ‘this vault has been built somewhere in X county’.
Except for the dozens of crazy Doomdayers and Survivalists who are all over those mountains like a tick on a… nevermind
Granted.
However not many of those could afford a vault door that big. Hidden bunker sure, but it would need to be within the resources of an average person.* Whereas building a bank-vault-like structure, on a cliff top, in the middle of a forest, above water, is going to take the resources of a major corporation to pull off! Or a super villain.
* Crazy survivalists are less likely to have devoted their lives to reaching the pinnacle of their day job profession. Given that they view society as being about to collapse. Not to mention having to spend much of their time digging their bunker and carting tins of baked beans up the mountain side.
Then again, I know a guy who, decades ago, bought a house which used to be a bank.
Big door, like in panel 3, down in the basement. So if you could find a building like that, with a walk in safe located on ground level, you’d have your door. And you would not have to totally demolish the building to get it out.
Of course transporting it to your ‘secret’ location, let’s say a suitable abandoned mine, would be your biggest problem. And the next problem is what to do with those pesky witnesses who transported and placed your door.
Seriously, did a quick search to find the weight of such a door, for example: Diebold Bank Vault Door
US $ 14,995.00, estimated to weigh 4300 pounds.
This is a rectangular door, not a round one, but who cares.
Prices go as low as $ 1800 (lowest bid).
Add in helicopter and pilot hire. And slung cargo work don’t come cheap! That takes specialist training and expensive insurance, because it is risky. Especially on a location with updrafts (cliffs are bad) and trees all around. Trees on top of cliffs will give even veteran pilots qualms.
You are unlikely to find a nice convenient mine in such a location either. So finding out a way to haul out all the earth and rock that needs to be excavated, without the aid of a road or other transport infrastructure will be mighty tough. And if you do build an access road, the worth of a secret base goes right down.
Of course you could make use of that handy river, and barge the spoil out. Throw in a chute down to it, and it even becomes possible. But that is still a heck of a lot of work. And improvised equipment (e.g. building a raft instead of hiring a bulk hauler) will only make it that much harder and riskier.
Nah, you just stumble on a house that the government already built a secret vault in* and use that. Or buy any upper-middle class house built in the 60s, they all have a survival bunker in the back yard – hopefully you just don’t pick the one with an occupied bunker.
* warning: linked comic may contain cyborgs, ghosts, and hilarious but serious explorations of moral and privacy issues associated with advanced tech. And a talking koala with as dirty a mouth as Sydney. And have an excellent book series following one of the secondary characters.
If a seed bank has that kind of physical security, I think that I may want to see just what the heck are the plant species being preserving. Just on general principles. This is a superhero universe, after all.
He he.
These are schemes designed to allow the world’s plant species (or the ones with seeds anyhow) to restore a devastated planet to life. Say if the twin rock to the one that gave the dinosaurs a bad day came down. Or if we just carry on abusing the planet the way we have been.
So they do actually have extreme defences to ensure that their precious contents stay in a perfect environment, despite any external changes (be that climate change or nuclear winter). Maybe not a vault door, like that, but at the kind of budgets those places need it would be an option they could choose.
Quite a sensible one, at that. A bunker with a stable environment would be a prime target for anyone seeking shelter from an apocalypse. The precious plants seeds just providing nourishment to some survivalists, instead of allowing humanity to restore the eco system, replenish the air and save humanity.
I would sign off on allocating a sufficient proportion of the overall budget to avoid that happening.
Here’s a seed bank with that kind of physical security. Probably better security just due to the remote and inhospitable location. You can survive a night in the woods without any specialized survival gear, after all. A night in Spitsbergen, Norway would be a challenge to survive even with specialized equipment. And this is a very real installation in out sadly non-superpowered world.
I’ve heard about that seed bank! :)
Not sure the 60% needs an upward tag yet. They are in pursuit not sitting in a library looking up locations. So verifying what is at those coordinates is not necessarily cleared yet. Then they go in the direction of the location and find one each armored door assuming it is the one leading into Sciona’s safe house.
Max is not acting very lt Colonel like here with the assumption. And even if the land is owned it probably would not be in Sciona’s name. So they may well be on private property. Not just an unknown door in public lands.
Max seems to be emotionally compromised as she is violating some of her own rules on watching what she is doing and Lt. Peggy (Sorry cast page not coming up for me to get her last name.) Does not seem to be here to call Max out on it.
Dabbler is literally connected to the internet via her cybernetic implants (and with her superior technology could guarantee reception fairly easily). Likewise all of them can access it via things like Sydney’s pip-boy. And they have a team of people, like Lucus, who’s job it is to constantly feed Arc-SWAT with critical information, whilst they are on missions.
We even saw Arc-light having to improvise that, when they were caught in the firing line, when the team came under attack at the restaurant. Normally they would be nice and secure in the Archon HQ.
The time it took for them to travel to this location, all the simple due diligence research should have already been done for them. Likewise any of the team could have done quick checks to see if the government or internet had any clues about what was at the coordinates they were travelling to.
Assuming Maxima has confidence that obvious things have been eliminated, then her attitude is justifiable. However if none of that has been done then you are right to call her out on that.
Yeah, her eye connects to the internet, but how many bars is she getting out here in the rural hills?
….
…. oh, wait, there’s no way her eye relies on anything so primitive as radio. NM.
Just so. And there is no way that Archon will be reliant on civilian communications infrastructure to keep in touch with their HQ. At least one of them will have a satellite phone, or equivalent, that will allow them to hook up (whilst in the open).
You do know that there is such a thing as satellight phones? Yes there a bit bulky. Oh. Right. Maxima and most Supers seem to have higher than normal str, so something that weighs a bit more than a cell phone is no real problem, So If you can afford it…. oh wait, a Goverment agency with a runaway budget that built a multi story office that can land ospreys on its roof and has at least one…
I’m sure one or two are Carying one of Iridiums multi channel base station units as part of there com network. Given that the entire thing is about the size of a lunch box.
Heck I think some of the AWAC can handle that kind of communication relay with minimal fuss nowdays.
Ok that came across as harsher than I ment.
Also, there’s no way Dabbler’s eye relies on a satellite, or an AWAC, or any other human tech that might be used to hack her alien tech. More likely she’s got some sort of hypercomm or ansible installed that connects to a conventional internet relay back at base.
…..
…. also, I can’t see Max choosing to fly slow enough for an AWAC to keep up in an emergency situation, but that’s not relevant to Dabbler’s eye.
You do realize that AWACS are intended to keep an eye on every single enemy aircraft in their vast area of control, right? And also on all friendly aircraft just as a matter of course. And that it doesn’t matter one bit that an enemy jet, or missile, might be moving at supersonic speeds. They don’t make the slightest attempt to “keep up” with these signal sources, they just observe them with their “well over the horizon” detection radius. Maxima’s speed is no deterrence at all to her being tracked via AWACS
The hypothetical AWACs would probably have fallen behind just keeping up with Maxima tailing Sciona. Had it not been travelling on the same bearing then it would be even further behind. But could still have been within monitoring range (depending on how long that went on mind).
Dave’s comment about the hills surrounding the valley blocking their detection of a low flying Sciona (which is true) implied that one may well have been within range, at that point.
Then Sciona teleported, so could have gone any distance. Sydney and Maxima, trying to reach her projected destination, probably flew at Mach 4* (approximately 3,000 mph under average conditions).
Unless this scene is just a few minutes after the last one, they will have passed well beyond even an AWACs aircraft’s radar monitoring range.
Of course another one may have taken over (if there had been one at a military airfield in the direction of travel, for instance) or satellites could have been repurposed to monitor the situation. But Reltzik‘s comment was reasonable, in its own context.
* Somebody linked us to a page saying this. However since I have found the one which says 400 mph. These are very different. Maybe a continuity issue, or perhaps indicating two separate tests. I would need to get up both pages, and check out their respective contexts, in order to try and resolve that.
Actually I agree with Oberon on this. I don’t think Maxima would be able to outfly the tracking ability of the AWACs, even if she can fly faster than the planes themselves.
I’m also assuming that her small size compared to a jet might be significantly harder to track, though, but I don’t know how size factors into it.
Dammit Jim I’m a lawyer, not a military technician.
NATO tells me:
Plugging this into Wolfram Alpha shows that it can detect aircraft at about 200 miles range.
Wikipedia states its performance as:
Now if there was a tracking aircraft it would need to be somewhere between 200 miles away and directly overhead. We know it isn’t the latter, as the author effectively told us that, by saying the walls of the canyon would block it from detecting Sciona, so long as she stayed low.
However let us just take an average, for calculation purposes, and say it is 100 miles away. As they have been tracking Sciona for a while it is reasonable to say that this will be behind her direction of travel by now, regardless of where it may have first detected her from.
It will take Sciona zero seconds to teleport out of its detection radius.
At 3,000 miles per hour Maxima will cover 100 miles in 2 minutes.
During which time the aircraft (at 530 mph) will have only travelled (530/60 x 2) 17 miles.
So it would only take a few seconds more than the 2 minutes for Maxima to pass beyond the AWACs detection area.
If Sciona’s base happened to be within a few miles of the bridge then it will be able to monitor the situation. However if it is a couple of hundred miles away the AWACs will have lost contact.
Now if the action in the base takes some time, it may be able to catch up. But that is a separate issue.
I think you’re leaving out an important factor, Yorp.
There is not just one. AWACs. Not AWAC. It wouldn’t be much of a defense system if it was entirely dependent on a single plane. There are at least 20 in the US alone, and other countries have them as well.
I think it fair to ignore other countries’ AWACs, on the grounds that they will likely be stationed in other countries.
Per Wikipedia:
In other words AWACs is singular, not plural. It indicates a single E-3 Sentry aircraft equipped with an AWAC system. As AWACss is a bit awkward it is better to specify AWACs network, or some such term, where required.
I did not leave that out. I specifically already covered that.
In this latest post I was addressing your contention that:
Which I demonstrated that she can. You did not stipulate the network, so I did not repeat that prior statement. I was not to know that you thought that was the plural.
Do realise though that the USA is 3,797,000 mi². Whilst a single AWACs can only cover 120,000 mi². So even if all of the aircraft were in the air at once (not allowing any to be undergoing routine maintenance, and assuming that they were all available to scramble at a moment’s notice) there would still be 1,397,000 mi² of the country that was not being covered.
Meaning that even under perfect conditions there is not continuous cover from one AWACs to another. Especially as those assumptions are unsustainable. Crews are not stationed on high alert in peace time. So only a proportion would be manned, fuelled and ready to launch at a moment’s notice.
Likewise aircraft spend a lot of time being maintained. And the AWACs regularly have one component or another upgraded, which would take more out of the rotation.
Then you must consider that the entire US network is not going to be dedicated to just tracking Sciona. Especially if Archon have done their job and informed the Air Force about Sciona’s tactics (in general, if not necessarily detailing classified information). Namely that Sciona has already pulled one world-class diversionary tactic.*
Bunching up too many of the aircraft, to cover the different directions Sciona may go, would be leaving ever bigger gaps in the rest of the network. Possibly for some dire scheme. Given that she is known to have accomplices, constructs and WMD, there would be a strategic necessity to ensure that major cities, and strategic military sites, also kept their coverage.
And to cap it all off Sciona has cheated and has teleported. So even if they were re-positioning aircraft to plug the gap, Sciona will have made it far harder to do that successfully.
So yes, there may be another AWACs. But no, it is not guaranteed that the coverage will be contiguous. Rather it is more likely that there are gaps.
* Attacking sigils and thereby tricking the Twilight Council into turning off the magical internet. For the purpose of ensuring that the Dark Reliquary’s alert would not reach them.
“think it fair to ignore other countries’ AWACs, on the grounds that they will likely be stationed in other countries.”
20 AWACs are more than capable of covering the United States. There’s only 15-20 for the entire Soviet Union, which is a significantly larger area of land. I only mentioned other countries in case Maxima went outside of US borders to another nation which also had AWACs.
“Do realise though that the USA is 3,797,000 mi². Whilst a single AWACs can only cover 120,000 mi²”
Multiply that number by between 15 and 20 (assuming staggering for refueling) and include that the position of the AWACs move in their respective areas.
“and assuming that they were all available to scramble at a moment’s notice)”
You don’t scramble AWACs, as far as I know. They’re meant to be an early warning system. You don’t scramble an early warning system. That would defeat the purpose of them being an early warning system.
“Then you must consider that the entire US network is not going to be dedicated to just tracking Sciona.”
It’s dedicated to tracking ALL incoming objects. That’s the point of an early warning system. They don’t need to just focus on one object in the sky at a time.
“So yes, there may be another AWACs. But no, it is not guaranteed that the coverage will be contiguous. Rather it is more likely that there are gaps.”
It’s exceedingly unlikely that there would be gaps, actually. That would make for a very poor early warning system, and also the US has more AWACs than are needed to cover it, given the US has more than the USSR (which has a much larger amount of land to cover).
Also pretty sure that he was talking about tracking Maxima, not Sciona, since Sciona’s teleportation would not be trackable in the same way. There’s also satellite surveillance, which covers a much larger area as well.
It sound like you are envisaging all 20 AWACs being in the air simultaneously. That isn’t how things work in the real world. I would be surprised if more than a third of them were in flight, at any given moment, in peace time.
One example that I know, off the top of my head, is the Trident nuclear submarines, in the UK.* Despite having a fleet of four of them, only one is ever at sea, ready to fight, at any given time. Another will be in dry dock under maintenance. The remaining two will either be in port or conducting training exercises.
Whilst the ratios may be different with AWACs aircraft, the principles will be similar. But if there is a nutter flying around with a WMD, and there is an AWACs based within a few hundred miles, even if the crew are in a classroom, you will scramble them (as quickly as may be possible).
* Yes I know that the UK is not one of the US states, and submarines operate in water not air. It is just to show how systems designed to protect us from nuclear attack actually work.
I have shown mathematically that there must be gaps. That however does not equate to being a poor system. Because the aircraft will patrol the areas that attacks are most likely to come from.
So there will be comprehensive coverage in Alaska and Washington state (and others in that area). In the present day to protect from both Russia and North Korea, but in the comic period just the former. Likewise there will be fair coverage down the Western Seaboard, to guard against submarine launched nukes and possibly China.
Note that these high priorities are on the opposite side of the country to where the current action is taking place.
Although it is reasonable that an AWACs might have been in that area, as the Eastern Seaboard is another area that needs guarding. Again from submarine launched nukes. Even if it was 100 miles out to sea it could have picked up Sciona flying up from a coastal town.
However there are not many nukes likely to be coming from the middle of America towards the West coast. So I think the further inland you go the less likely you are to find an AWACs stationed at an air base. And that is where they have been heading.
Whilst leaving the well-patrolled coastal region behind them.
There is one notable area, deliberately placed inland from the coast, for strategic reasons, which is likely to have AWACs though. And that is Washington DC. But would air command want to strip coverage from the capital?
You are assuming that Russia (the USSR no longer exists) gives a damn about protecting all of the country. It does not. All it is bothered about is the key bits necessary to survive a total war.
Stalin demonstrated the principle, in WWII, by ordering the vulnerable people (children and the elderly) to NOT be evacuated from Leningrad. On the principle that ‘soldiers will fight to protect a living city but not an abandoned one’. This despite the fact that he knew that the city was about to be cut off from supply, by siege, over winter. The more people you have to feed in a siege the more will die of starvation.
Likewise when NATO troops deploy armoured units by parachute (yes scout tanks can be dropped this way) the crew jump separately. That way when the tank’s chutes fail to deploy you do not loose the crew as well.
Russia just accepts the fatalities. They know that even in a training exercise a certain proportion of their crews will die. But it does mean that their (surviving) scout armour will be operational quicker than NATO counterparts, in a similar situation.
Similarly they will not be concerned about protecting vast parts of Russia. And bear in mind that Russia has an awful lot more virgin wilderness (e.g. much of Siberia) than even the USA. Which means they are justified in not bothering with that.
Notably Sciona currently appears to be in a wilderness. So if the USA use a similar principle then you would be relying on satellites. And there is a reason why NATO uses AWACs, because they are more suited to tracking aircraft and missiles than satellites.
Specifically they are designed to pick put such objects when they are low flying. They can distinguish them from the ground clutter. I seriously doubt that a satellite would be able to pick Sciona (or Maxima) out. Not in real time.
In order to be able to see a wide area of the country you need to zoom out (and thereby loose small details). Conversely, to see small details, you have to zoom in. So do not have the coverage that you want. And zooming in is something suited to static locations, like battlefields or camps. But a darned sight harder for a supersonic target.
I am just speculating, off the top of my head, mind. As I imagine it would be harder to find accurate data on spy satellite capabilities. Especially the ones which are pointed at US soil.
So much you wrote, I’m going to just respond the pertinent mistakes you made and mischaracterizations of my posts.
“It sound like you are envisaging all 20 AWACs being in the air simultaneously.”
No, it does not. I specifically did NOT say this, in fact. I even mentioned they have more than necessary in order to deal with refueling and maintenance. I also mentioned that the US has more than the Soviet Union, despite the Soviet Union having 3 times the land mass to watch. Please don’t put words in my mouth if I said the opposite – that’s too close to strawmanning for my tastes. :)
“I would be surprised if more than a third of them were in flight, at any given moment, in peace time.”
It doesn’t matter if it’s war time or peace time – it’s an early warning system specifically because we don’t know when an attack is actually coming.
“I have shown mathematically that there must be gaps.”
Your math is flawed and assumes the planes stay stationary in the area and never move in any direction.
“That however does not equate to being a poor system. Because the aircraft will patrol the areas that attacks are most likely to come from.”
Again, it’s an early warning system designed to guard the widest area possible, combined with the planes moving and having MANY of them up at the same time. And again, your math was flawed because it did not take any of that into account.
“However there are not many nukes likely to be coming from the middle of America towards the West coast.”
I agree here. Although it does cover population centers. For example, cities big enough to have large bridges. But your assessment that they are ever ‘scrambled’ like fighter jets is incorrect.
“So I think the further inland you go the less likely you are to find an AWACs stationed at an air base.”
They are usually in flight, not stationed at an air base unless they’re down for maintenance or refueling. They’re not like fighter jets that are scrambled at a moment’s notice to intercept – they’re up in the air as an early warning system to begin with.
“There is one notable area, deliberately placed inland from the coast, for strategic reasons, which is likely to have AWACs though. And that is Washington DC. But would air command want to strip coverage from the capital?”
DC is actually heavily covered airspace already, and not just from AWACs. It’s actualy the most heavily surveilled airspace in the world.
“You are assuming that Russia (the USSR no longer exists)”
I meant to say Russia, not USSR.
“gives a damn about protecting all of the country. It does not. All it is bothered about is the key bits necessary to survive a total war.”
They care about protecting its population centers in addition to its key bits.
“Stalin demonstrated the principle, in WWII, by ordering the vulnerable people (children and the elderly) to NOT be evacuated from Leningrad. ”
Stalin didnt have AWACs. Also Russia is different than it was during Stalin, and uses different measures now vs what it used during WW2.
“Russia just accepts the fatalities.”
You’re basing this opinion on how they were during WW2, not how they are today.
“They know that even in a training exercise a certain proportion of their crews will die.”
Like most nations, they’re going to want to have an early warning system warn of threats to population centers. They’re not going to say ‘oh well, these few million are so expendable that we won’t even bother to check on it – lets have a huge gap in security here.
“And bear in mind that Russia has an awful lot more virgin wilderness (e.g. much of Siberia) than even the USA.”
There’s a difference between areas which have small population centers and unused areas – like where a lot of their nuclear launch centers are located, which are NOT high population centers.
“Which means they are justified in not bothering with that.”
They aren’t leaving their launch centers and power stations unguarded without an early warning center, same as the US. They just have more than us to guard, and a smaller population over a larger land area (the US has 325million+ people, Russia has 144 million+ people). Both countries have large areas that are mostly uninhabited, but are still important because they house infrastructure and militarily important areas, like power stations, launch sites, and tracking stations (none of which tend to be in heavily populated areas).
“Notably Sciona currently appears to be in a wilderness.”
She’s pretty close to a population center, even if she’s in the wilderness. She would be more easily trackable if not for her ability to teleport.
“So if the USA use a similar principle then you would be relying on satellites.”
They’d be relying on both.
“And there is a reason why NATO uses AWACs, because they are more suited to tracking aircraft and missiles than satellites.”
They are suitable for tracking both, although I’d agree that satellites are more useful.
“In order to be able to see a wide area of the country you need to zoom out (and thereby loose small details). Conversely, to see small details, you have to zoom in.”
Computers don’t have to do that. People do. Computers can track moving objects even without ‘zooming in.’
“I am just speculating, off the top of my head, mind. As I imagine it would be harder to find accurate data on spy satellite capabilities. Especially the ones which are pointed at US soil.”
It really wouldn’t be. Check out Google Earth some time, Yorpie :).I’ve been able to not only spot my house from satellite, I’ve been able to locate my car. :) And that’s not even a spy satellite.
Sorry, either I forgot to check the ’email me when new comments are added to this thread’ or gmail pushed the messages out of my inbox and into a promotions folder. The latter has happened with a number of things and has me fuming. I never asked for such a feature and have made every effort to turn it off, short of going round to Google HQ and executing the executives introducing such features.
Given something like that happened recently I can see that others are not as restrained as I am. Hopefully such incidents will encourage the faceless executives not to push their agendas onto others.
My math is simplified, as the algorithms that defence systems use, to ensure adequate coverage will be very complex. However the debunking is itself flawed. Because the area covered does not change as the aircraft move. What area is being scanned due to the AWACs having move to a new area has left a corresponding gap behind it.
Whilst the flight patterns will attempt to take advantage of this, for instance by flying towards the locations that missiles could be launched from (thereby meaning that missiles will not be able to reach the blind spot, without passing through the area presently being scanned), there are corresponding times when they cannot do that.
For instance once reaching the limit of their fuel, they have to turn around and return to their base. So much of their scanning is being wasted because they are moving into areas that they know are safe. Meanwhile if a missile is behind them, it will be following them, in their blind spot!
If there were enough AWACs to blanket the whole country, that would not be a problem. You just launch the next one to get into place before that blind spot approaches key places (such as AWACs airfields!). However my math showed that it is impossible to blanket the country.
So the scarce resources have to be used carefully in the most critical locations.
Nonsense. My math accounted for every aircraft (going by the figure you supplied). So capitalising “MANY” is irrelevant. The calculations included ALL that could be used.
Again I stress that mine is a simplified estimation. I am sure a qualified mathematician would take a different approach. However your counter does not address such refinements.
I provided my calculations. You have failed to show how you could create more aircraft than I allowed for. Significantly without providing alternative calculations to support your assertion.
It is lax thinking, like that, which allowed Pearl Harbour to be successfully attacked, despite a functional early warning system. The operational differences are hugely different between war time and peace time. Not least of which is complacency. The single biggest reason why the system failed in WWII.
And yes, I am aware that you will say that this is 2018, not 1941. And that they did not have AWACs then. However it is an example of an early warning system which was thought to be adequate for the threats of the era. Which was not.
Do bear in mind that I am not claiming the AWACs are not fit for purpose. However your statement that because they are designed as an early warning system that they will work is proved false. They may work, they may not. But just because they are intended to work does not mean that they actually will.
In particular those planning an attack will take into account the capabilities that the defender has and will exploit the gaps. We even saw an example of this with Sciona beating the defences of the Dark Reliquary.
The aggressor always has the advantage, whilst surprise is maintained. And complacent thinking, that there is no way to subvert it, increases the ability to maintain surprise over the over-confident defender.
The cast page is down indefinitely. However you can access all the details (and more) from the Wiki.
Clearly this vault is there to protect its inhabitants against … Y2K and the commies, when Kremlin Joe lets fly the nukes.
I know this because of the wisdom espoused by that great American…. Yancy Fry, Sr.
It could be Hope County, Montana.
Quick, rescue Deputy Pratt!
Who needs to own a video game, when you can read the wiki?
Really hoping they got the wrong bunker, butt that would never happen in this webic
Like never walking into a closed door meeting only to find it is being hosted by the President? Or swearing enough to make a sailor blush, only to find the scene being observed by three nuns? Or trying to attack a villain only to end up with a bridge blown up?
No things never go wrong for the heroes in this webic. [disengage S mode]
I remember that swearing! But mind linking me to that specific page so I can review. For educational purposes of course; how long a lung can be overexerted before exhaustion.
My pleasure.
*wags tail amiably*
The vault door was a fakeout, the actual entrance is the secret tree entrance.
Sydney will be so excited! …and hopefully just a touch less enthusiastic this time.
Sydney has to be the one barging in for things like that to happen.
….. and she needs to be able to learn a super-strength ramming maneuver with fly-ball and Mr. Bubble so she can get some “OH YEAH!” references going until everyone else screams at her to shut up.
Bah, forget that. I am waiting for her fist hamster ball attack!
:-D
Oh yeah! … I mean, oh, yeah. Er… okay actually Reltzik I have absolutely no idea what you might be referring to, but I am curious.
Culture is dead.
Handy tip, thanks.
So, the moral of the story is, that if you end up in a desert, find yourself a rock. Then utter “Oh no!” three times. And thou shalt have liquid refreshment.
Oh yea!
Use the rock. Pawy way to ‘get blood out of a stone’.
Okay, is that one of the Harem in the back? The one with the blonde hair? Thought it might be Deco at first, butt can’t see her horns or glasses
The hair is too long for Decollette. The only other Arc-SWAT member who has hair long enough is Heatwave. But her hair has more body and is red. Likewise Crimson and Scarlett’s hair does not match. So I think it probably is Harem, as you guess. Pixel and Krona being too small, in addition to their hair styles not matching. Although Krona can vary hers at will, we have not seen her tinkering with her physique.
Whoever it was wasn’t visible in the bubble bus but they could have been sitting down or something. If it’s a flyer that could only be Heatwave and she would have been helping with the bridge.
When we saw the bubble bus the author mentioned that not all the people being carried were visible in the initial shot.
Likewise he has a policy that only people who play a significant part in a scene get depicted (unless he has time to spare to draw them all in). The others would by standing (or hovering) just out of shot.
You will note that any long shots always had a spot where someone could be nearby but not in view.
So it could be anyone who might be assigned to such a mission.
Not forgetting of course that teleporters can cheat. So Jiggawatt and Harem can get to a mission fairly fast. If need be by looking in an appropriate compass direction, to where they want to go, and teleporting to the horizon. Jiggawatt got across the city, from a social function, to still take part in the big fight. And Harem is the more capable teleporter, so should be able to replicate that easily.
These days, I assume the cops will arrest you on charges of being the wrong guy.
If he is purposely impersonating a known criminal, in an attempt to aid and abet them evading justice, there would be charges that could legitimately be used. For instance ‘attempting to pervert the course of justice’ and ‘wasting police time’.
Of course if the person just happens to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and has no provable association with the villain, then they would need to plant some evidence to secure a conviction.
Nice page! And beautifully drawn night landscape. :-) Took me a moment to realize Maxima had ripped -off- the door and not that something had been dropped out of the sky. Love Sydney’s orbs and glasses in the last panel too.
I love Sydney’s orbs too!
And I much prefer her glasses the way they are done here (compared to the imagined scene where they arrest Batman for being a vigilante). Here they look realistic and nicely compliment the silhouetted figures. In the other they were too stabilised anime and seemed odd to anyone not used to that.
I love the artwork too :)
If the police have immediate evidence of a crime being committed at a location or have reasonable grounds to believe an active arrest candidate (with or without arrest warrant, depending on jurisdiction) is in at a particular location, then in most jurisdictions the police have the right to enter the premises to effect the arrest. It is generally incumbent on the police in such a situation to cause as little property (and other) damage as possible while effecting the arrest. If a structure has been illegally modified (does not meet building code, violates fire code, etc.), then the police are generally not liable for damage to those elements of the structure that are illegally placed. e.g. If the locked floor-to-ceiling gate barring the front door gets damaged while the cops open the door, they will not have to pay for it as it was considered a safety hazard. The damaged door itself, they may have to pay for. Also, most insurance will not pay for illegal modifications or damage caused by law-enforcement actions against your illegal activities.
The need for legal warrants vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but are generally not needed when there is immediate evidence of a crime in progress (e.g. cops see someone breaking into a house), even if the crime is happening with the permission of the property owner (e.g. illegal drug use). They may also not be needed when there is strong evidence that the arrest candidate has entered a location and may leave prior to obtaining an arrest warrant, especially when the police are already in pursuit.
They have a 60% guestimate based on some shady “maths” which were being interrupted by a cheerleading squad. So yeah, it’s a sure thing.
Give me an “H”,
Give me an “A”,
Give me an “L”,
Give me an “O” …
HALO!
*bouncing up and down, with pom poms tied to paws*
How do you find these pictures?
Just… how?
The google-fu is strong within me.
This is one of those pages where I think all the word balloons are a mistake.
Seriously, it would be so much better as a comics page without the pointless need to try and have the characters “say something funny” on every page. Imagine that last panel with all the word balloons stripped away and the characters standing there silhouetted and impressive and letting the art speak for itself.
The conversation doesn’t even fit the situation. They would have had this conversation back at the bridge or right before Max ripped the door off. No way they would be squabbling like that once things are actually in motion and they have to be alert for Sciona’s defenses. If Sydney tried, Maxima would have cut her off with a quick, “Quiet Scofield”.
Fair point.
Check out the author’s blog though. It is hard to go cold turkey and even reduce the word balloon count (note that anyone not scrolling down to the final panel would think you were taking the piss). Let alone get rid of them all together.
But, that said, I agree that it would have worked strikingly well without a word.
You really expect Sydney to be silent during this operation? … Have you read this comic at all? Point out one page where something big happens and Sydney has no word, or even a thought, bubble.
Besides, compared to ripping that door off its hinges, Sydney seems pretty sure her voice won’t carry down the corridor as far as that noise.
Yeah the entire team likes to crack jokes at serious moments, like keeping score during a battle – it would be out of character for them to not say anything. Although I agree, no bubbles would have made for a nicely dramatic moment.
And yes, the vault door made for a pretty dramatic entrance, which is a good way to keep the enemy off guard when you kick down the door. Running commentary is hardly going to give them away at this point.
Sciona: “Do you guys mind? I’m taking a shower over here. And you’re paying for that door!”
:-D
Really missed a chance to have Max’s eyes glow there.
Knock, knock, ARC-Swat calling.
Dabbler, playing ‘Make Maxima say’ is a good fun team building game. You really should not get into swatting!
Heh, swatting, nice ref. I was going with Avon calling…cause Im like old n stuff.
Considering a job I had oh, so many years ago, I would have gone with “Pizza delivery!”
About Maxima and lock-picking. Her zero range telekinesis would be great for that, if she ever encounters a door she cannot force open and it has a susceptible lock. Sounds like an interesting future event, as the team tries to find where she has been hidden, she calmly probes the limits of her powers on a small scale.
Ooh, a well deserved gold star!
I don’t think anybody has suggested such a power stunt for Maxima to develop.
I second the nomination.
I had assumed Max’s energy field was automatic and involuntary, but fine control would really allow for some interesting applications.
Assuming Maxima’s zero-range TK is that refined. All evidence so far leads to the assumption that it’s very basic, like Superman or Supergirl’s biomatrix, or Kon-El’s (Superboy) Tactile Telekinesis, which cannot do what you’re describing. It’s basically a way to explain how certain superstrong brick-type heroes and villains can lift exceedingly heavy things without the mass of those objects causing them to collapse on themselves or break apart when lifted, why they don’t just sink into the ground when trying to lift something heavy if the ground is not solid rock, or how they don’t just punch straight through an object that they’re trying to lift.
Oh for sure that is her present limitation. But Maxima is actually using one power in four very different ways. Lifting herself up, to provide flight. Augmenting her muscles to exert massive force where she is pushing. Moving things very fast* to get super speed. Plus resisting attacks by forming a static barrier (yet keeping it flexible, and selectively permeable, so that muscles, lungs and organs can still function).
Not to mention that the force field aspect has three distinctly different modes. 1) personal protection 2) clothing protection 3) reinforcing the structural integrity of objects and people carried.
So the power is hugely adaptable already. And it is not all subconscious, as Maxima can consciously choose which aspect to boost, on demand. Or suppress (if she wants to let a surgeon or chiropodist cut her for example).
Meaning that exploring if she can extend that conscious control, in specific ways, is something well worth attempting. And the lock picking is up close and personal enough that the ‘zero range TK’ limitation is not being stretched too far either.
Maxima may turn out not to be able to do that mind, as you say. But it is plausible enough to warrant testing.
* And having a bunch of secondary powers to allow Maxima to see, think and react well in bullet time.
Well, we already know that when she grabs that ambulance, her tk field extends to the entire car, sparing it from the structural integrity issues of being grasped by its rear bumper.
What we havent seen her do is apply that TK effect to Move specific items, like, say, if she grabs the ambulance… could she make the doors open using her TK effect? If yes, then yeah she could poke a lock by touching the exterior… if not…
On the other hand, another possiblity even if she cant do the above, is selectively applying her TK field to Parts of an object, like.. We have seen her foot-nudge a concrete pillar, causing it to leap into the air to be caught by her hands all without snapping in half… and yet when she grinds it into Vehemence… the parts further down are getting ground down slowly. We also know that her personal field protects better than the field that also protects her clothing.
The above suggests that her field loses potency the more distance is put between her skin/body and the part of an object she is touching. It also suggests that her field can be made to apply greater force to protecting one thing (her body) over things very close to her body (the clothes). This suggests that it should be Possible for her to be selective about how strong the tk-effect gets on specific parts of an object she is interacting with. This in turn suggests that she could, for example, apply her TK effect to harden the lock, but not the surrounding material of the door… then just pull the lock out of the door, while leaving the main portal intact… not exactly a lockpick per say but certainly a way to selectively damage it. (of course she could probably do this with her bare hands or a precision-particle blast anyway… ah well).
Well thought through.
Similarly with Harem, could she grab the lock and teleport it and its mechanism out of its housing? There is a bit of ambiguity around objects with multiple interlocking parts that aren’t solidly fused together.
Odds are that since harem seems only able to teleport things she is touching and how she needs to See where she is going unless she is very familiar with the target location that she cannot selectively teleport parts of an item that she cannot directly percieve. This would make it difficult though not impossible for her to use her power to access components not accessible to her bare hands/eyes.
On the other hand if she Can selectively teleport parts of items like this… That’d make her even more of a nightmare to keep out of secure places.
I think she would need to see it. Plus may be able to teleport away parts of a whole (we simply do not know either way on that aspect). So could disassemble a lock a bit at a time. Or just excavate her way through the door or wall for that matter.
Mind you Harem does have super strength too, so does have other brute force options at her disposal.
There is an interesting secondary power that Harem has though, which could potentially be abused for this purpose. Namely her ability to sense if there is something at her target destination (yet still being able to abort her teleport before arriving). Now if that also qualifies as Harem having ‘seen’ the obstruction, that opens up extra options.
So Harem sees a door, and identifies the spot where the lock is, then attempts to teleport to the centre of the mechanism,* senses that it is (unsurprisingly) blocking her arrival and aborts. But, in the process, will get a fix on that obstruction. Thus allowing her to target that for teleportation.
Quite a stretch mind. The precognition may simply not have an equivalency to seeing a location. Plus just knowing that something is there may not allow any fine understanding necessary to identify what it is, how big it is, its orientation or any of the clues she may actually need.
Likewise there is a distinction between being able to teleport herself (with some equipment going along for the ride) versus being able to teleport external objects without moving herself too. Harem may simply not have that capability. Or, if her power is flexible enough to allow that, she would need to practice the skill first, as we have not seen her use that capability yet. Nor has she mentioned it.
All worth testing out though.
* We know Harem can do stuff like this, as she only saw the outside of the ambulance, yet teleported inside it.
I would just like to point out that they just opened a vault door, and Sydney already has her PipBoy on her arm. If she comes across any bobble-head figurines, she should definitely pick them up!
And any magazines.
Sydney is not even trusted carrying a fully assembled fire arm of her own yet. I do not think she should be encouraged to try and carry a load of munitions!
Trust in Sydney! :)
I am trying to figure out by what handhold was Maxima able to grab onto the door to rip it out of the frame. The sides of the door were still seated in the frame when closed, and the wheel handle would have just popped off in her hands if she pulled on it. Maybe Dabbler sprayed some space goo onto the outside to make a handle and we are seeing the door lying inside upward on the ground.
At Maxima’s strength level she makes her own handholds.
+1
+1 to your +1.
Upon zooming in on the image, it seems like Maxima tore it off WITH its frame. The scratches on the right side may suggest she grabbed those silvery bars and twisted it off. Or she managed to grab it across both sides and pull straight out to prevent any bending.
Yep, the keyhole shapes on the sides of the opening are where the anchors holding the frame ripped through the rock on the way out. Which would have had to happen really fast given their tidy, uniform shape instead of having the entire outer layer come off. Thinking Max had both strength and speed dialed up for that performance.
I don’t know why people make a fuss about picking locks. Picking locks is easy. All you do is extend your index finger and say clearly “THAT is the lock I want.”
Well sure, you can pick one that looks purdy. But will it be secure. You need to research and find out what ones are resistant to rocking, bumping, picking and so on. Then you need to check that it, and its door and frame, can resist brute force entry.
I … uh … don’t think they make any that go up to Max One.
But wait! This door wasn’t meant to keep someone OUT, it was meant to keep something IN!! *dun Dun Dunnnn*!
Actually, looking at the cast aside door, and the doorframe, not sure which way this door was supposed to swing as the edges on both look perfectly square. I am inclined to believe it was a locking ‘cap’ more than a door.
No, big vault doors are like that. The hinges are done up to allow it to swing closed, then push in flush. Hinges on the inside, of course.
Direct me to any evidence of hinges on either the frame or the large square Frisbee, sirrah! ;)
I think the hinges are likely external – with the circular array of spokes (which you definitely want on the inside), it doesn’t matter if hinges are exposed because their only job is to swing the door when it’s unlocked. Unlike a regular door, where the hinges are helping to hold the door in place even when closed.
This is why your exterior house doors all have the hinges on the inside – pulling the pins makes the best lock irrelevant if the door just falls off from the other side.
Thank you Maxima!
But our super villain is in another hideout!
Never say never, there ought to be a situation where she will have to pick a lock because otherwise someone dies by her (violent) actions.
In which case I imagine she’ll use super-speed, so that she can tinker with the mechanism (using her accelerated reflexes) until it yields.
Naw, super-speed wouldn’t help much if you couldn’t pick a lock at regular speed, and at a certain point the springs wouldn’t be returning the pins fast enough to keep up. I think she’d just poke her finger through the cylinder and/or crush the entire lock. Or rip the whole mechanism out. Or just melt it in her hand.
There could be some sort of Blofeld-esque failsafe where Bad Things™ happen if the door was opened and lock wasn’t reporting an all-clear signal, but otherwise Max could probably brute-force just about any lock. I’d like to see her make a test run through the Black Reliquary’s defenses when they get if fixed up again actually.
Technically, she could just hold the pick, thus endowing it with superhuman resilience much like how she can pick up an ambulance by its bumper and not have the car fall off. Then just use that reinforced pick to CRUSH the pins completely flat against the end if their respective cylinder… or just shove two pinsinto the lock… reinforcing the pins and twisting the lock untill the pinsmeant to stop it from turning snap under the irresistable force. It’d be a little like shoving a screwdriver into an older model lock and forcing it to turn. Not sure if modern locks have ways to resist that kind of thing… but the maxima-equivalent of drilling the lock out would also be an option of precise (rather than brute) force.
Heh. Both of you make good points.
So, that way, can Maxima.
In my limited experience from having researched it in the past, when SWAT breaks in to your home because they got the address wrong, and they tear your house apart, causing massive property damage, the compensation you get for it includes the following:
1: An unsincere apology.
2: Your humiliation posted to their personal social media accounts (optional, at police’s discretion)
3: Killed (optional, at police discretion)
4: Nothing else
In one case in Mississippi, the prosecutors wouldn’t even listen to a family who got raided by accident. In many civil cases brought about because of it, the judges ALMOST invariably sided against the person whose house was torn apart, and they had to cover the damage themselves.
Clearly Maxima wouldn’t let any of that shit fly should it happen. I can see her defenestrating and curb stomping subordinates for posting to social media, and especially killing innocent civilians when getting an address wrong.
Mind you, that list is just what I normally see happening. SOMETIMES they give compensation, but it takes forever. One family in Chicago was given a sincere apology and the city’s insurance adjuster was sent out to cut the family a check, but the family was poor and couldn’t afford to fix the door on their own. So until the check was cut, which took forever, their home was open to everyone without a need for a key because there was no door. Furthermore, they received no compensation for the trauma of being shoved around and barked at by rabid police officers who were treating the innocent family like suspects.
Basicaly. It usualy has to be something egregiously bad, like being in the completely wrong part of town, or have a recording show that the police screwed up.
This is what happens. This is what happens basically any time the police make a mistake. As we’re seeing more and more, police seem to have no problem planting evidence when they can’t find anything, so they’d just plant something and even if they can’t make anything stick, you’ve just lost any chance of compensation unless you catch them on camera planting it, and then you’d probably still almost break yourself in legal fees to get anything back.
“As we’re seeing more and more, police seem to have no problem planting evidence when they can’t find anything,”
Actually that’s VERY rare (planting evidence) and usually when found out, the police are arrested and prosecuted for that… very severely (in addition to being fired and losing their pension obviously).
You’re also making the assumption that the police planted evidence, rather than actually found evidence of a crime.
No no, really, cops are almost all corrupt, I saw it on TV. What could an entertainment program possibly get wrong about police work?
Those links are gloriously perfect. Thank you :)
:D I have a few cop friends and thus a little vicarious insight into the realities, and just how wrong the TV stereotypes are about… well, almost everything to do with police work.
Can’t find the article or survey, but as of a couple years ago most Americans thought that about 5-8% of the US population was employed in law enforcement, mostly based on impressions from TV shows, and that there was a moderate level of corruption (something like 10%?). The actual number of people in law enforcement is about 0.3% of the US, and studies show that overall they are more honest than ever and more trusted by the populace.
It’s way too easy to hold onto preconceived ideas from unreliable sources, instead of focusing on factfulness and proactive self-education about the world.
“1: An unsincere apology.”
Whether sincere or not, it’s going to almost definitely be followed up by payment for damages, either voluntarily or forced by a judge. It usually costs less if they just do it voluntarily and deal with the insurance carrier.
“2: Your humiliation posted to their personal social media accounts (optional, at police’s discretion)”
Pretty sure it’s the police who are humiliated at breaking into the wrong address. :) Not to mention a police officer posting it on social media opens themselves up to additional lawsuits, depending on the state’s use of public exposure of private facts, intrusion of solitude, false light, or other invasion of privacy law claims (if you’re in NY, you’re out of luck, but most other states you are still able to sue and win)
“3: Killed (optional, at police discretion)”
Police do not execute you as punishment for them breaking into your house on a wrong search warrant. I’m assuming you’re meaning the exceedingly few cases where they break into an old person’s house and the person suffers a heart attack as a result. That usually comes under damages (wrongful death) – and I’ve yet to see a case where the city does not lose there. Badly.
“4: Nothing else”
It’s really the other way around. Most of the time, they pay voluntarily. The few times they fight it, most of those times, they lose in court or they lose on appeal. It’s exceedingly rare for the police to win in cases of a wrong address warrant because of the standard to show that they acted in good faith on something as easy to discover as the wrong address.
“Mind you, that list is just what I normally see happening. SOMETIMES they give compensation, but it takes forever”
No offense, but I don’t think you actually have that much experience with this happening. More likely you’ve seen a few cases of this happening on the news or on Vox, which exaggerates the frequency of wrong address warrant raids by SWAT teams. It’s exceedingly rare, and when it does happen, most of the time it’s paid out. Even when the city fights it and it takes years, they lose almost every time in the end, and it usually ruins someone’s career as a result of the media exposure (which is good – they should lose their jobs when they do something that negligent). I’m sure you can find a few examples, but with 20,000+ no-knock raids a year, the amount that result in what you’re describing are less than being hit by a bolt of lightning in your lifetime.
“Furthermore, they received no compensation for the trauma of being shoved around and barked at by rabid police officers who were treating the innocent family like suspects.”
THIS I believe. It’s much harder to sue the police for emotional distress than it is to sue them for negligent actions. Intentional infliction of emotional distress is, as the name implies, an intentional tort. There’s also negligent infliction of emotional distress, but that isn’t what you were describing :).
And to rebut all of the above using only two words:
civil forfeiture
Do a simple Google search, and educate yourself about your actual property rights when you are up against the government, regardless of your complete innocence of any crime or wrongdoing at all.
…. are you seriously telling me to use google to understand about civil forfeiture and property rights? :)
Or that it has nothing to do with anything that was being discussed above? Not sure how it ‘rebuts’ anything I said.
Ooh, a ninja Pander!
I just found it amusing that he told me to educate myself about property rights by using google (rather than my law degree, bar certification in two states + federal certification, or years of practicing law :))…. and that ‘civil forfeiture’ does not in any way rebut anything I’ve said about how in almost every lawsuit where the police raided the wrong house because of an error in the warrant, the city usually pays the insurance carrier outright, and when they don’t and try to be jerks about it, they get sued and lose almost every time, in almost every state. The few times it does not happen is usually when the police can show there was some connection with the criminal or some MAJOR judicial errors being made (which then almost always gets shown in the news and blown up waaaay out of proportion compared to the amount of times it actually happens.
Civil forfeiture (for those who want to know what it means, btw, since I have a few free minutes) is where the police seize assets of persons suspected of involvement in a crime or illegal activity (it usually gets auctioned off after being held for a period of time, during which the lawsuits usually occur) – 18 USC secs 981-985 and 21 USC sec. 881 While they don’t have to charge the property owner with a SPECIFIC crime, they do have to have a proponderence of the evidence to show that the property was involved in a crime. After it HAS been seized, the lawsuit can happen where the owner can prove that it as NOT obtained as the result of a crime – usually by just showing a receipt.
Personally, I find the entire concept of civil forfeiture to be a violation of the 4th (and 5th) amendments to the Constitution, but that sort of argument isn’t needed here anyway, since we’re not talking about ‘any time the government tries to abuse its power – we’re talking about what sort of thing happens regarding property damage after the police make a mistake.
Just to be clear, even with civil forfeiture (for which the police cannot just take stuff willy nilly btw – that would be theft) there needs to be a crime attached to the property to even try to do it. And it’s not a regular thing the police do, primarily because of all the Constitutional arguments that are brought up when it’s used. They usually only use it when the evidence of a crime attached to the property is overwhelming to begin with, just to cover their backs (like with a crackhouse/drug dealer).
Again – nothing to do with negligent actions by the police resulting in property damage, Oberon.
“educate yourself about your actual property rights when you are up against the government, regardless of your complete innocence of any crime or wrongdoing at all.”
Also love how he misread the highly controversial procedure to make it even WORSE than it actually is, by saying even if you’re ‘completely innocent of any crime or wrongdoing at all’ – as if the government can come in, take all your stuff without any cause whatsoever, and you’ll be standing there bewildered as to what happened.
That’s not even how the law works to begin with :) If you have ‘complete innocence’ and no wrongdoing at all, they’re not going to be able to show to a judge a preponderence of the evidence to begin with. I mean, there’s violations of due process…. and then there’s VIOLATIONS OF DUE PROCESS IN BIG NEON LETTERS.
Yes. This. Exactly. It can and has happened. Multiple times. And the rights of the citizen are completely bulldozed by the government, with zero recourse and zero oversight.
If you are ignorant about a subject you might just want to refrain from speaking on it. I suggested that you use Google to educate yourself, since you clearly know nothing on the subject, so why didn’t you do so?
This isn’t “chem trails” or fluoridated water conspiracy theories we’re discussing here. Well, at least it’s not what I’m discussing. You might be discussing something like that, especially given your comments above.
Btw just to be clear I have no hard feelings towards Oberon, just because we’re in mild disagreement here, just like I havent whenever I’ve disagreed with anything Yorp has said or Guesticus has said on the occasions where we disagree. I just found it humorous that he told me to look at google to learn a legal term given the past couple of weeks’ posts :)
Yes, I am. When you share your ignorance with the class you get called out for it.
It partially rebuts it. The abuse aspect specifically. The basic principle though, without that, is fair. If a person is involved in crime then it is reasonable to allow police to seize assets involved in that. With rights of appeal being allowed for innocent people to claim restitution. This aspect supporting Pander‘s case.
The conflicts of interest (in allowing them to raise funds this way) and potential for corruption though are serious issues, well worth raising. Not to mention that it operates under a ‘presumption of guilt’!
The far safe route would be to replace that principle with ones similar to the UK’s Proceeds of Crime Act. That avoids the presumption of guilt, which civil forfeiture relies upon, and keeps the powers under the control of the court. Thereby minimising the risk of an injustice being committed.
Pander, I don’t really care whether you believe it or not, everything I said, there is at least one example. Take the social media thing for instance. There are countless examples of police posting mug shots on social media, videos of raids and arrests, etc. In late December of 2016, just days before Christmas, the NYPD busted down the door of a family in a warrant sweep looking for drugs, except they busted into the wrong home. They posted humiliating photos of the innocent family to SnapChat.
Simple fact of the matter is that for EVERY SINGLE scenario I cited, I can back it up with actual incidents. So you know what? Reality is under zero obligation to conform to what you find to be incredulous.
In the UK such abuses result in the dismissal of the officers from the force. Not that they happen very often, as there is a very different culture. I always find it surprising how much information police in America release. For instance pictures and names of underage victims of crimes. Likewise the press cooperate and redact such information, when they get it independently.
The only exceptions being when a court specifically rules that the identity of the minors may be published, or if they died, and there are no other surviving siblings, who could be compromised if the family’s privacy is breached.
So it is quite shocking to see such in UK reports on US crimes. But, if their privacy has already been stripped away, by US media, there would be no point in blocking it in the UK.
Ooh! Ooh! Have SYDNEY learn to pick locks! Make that one of the things in her utility belt, a set of lockpicks!
If I can walk around with a set of lockpicks as part of my EDC, she certainly should be able to. It’s legal practically anywhere in the country anyway. I got into it a couple of years ago as a sport, joined TOOOL and everything (The Open Organization Of Lockpickers) and have started making my own custom picks. It’s a lot of fun, and totally legal if you own the lock, or have the permission of the owner.
Most people don’t know how easy it is, and worse, don’t realize how incredibly insecure the locks they buy actually are. Master padlocks in particular are practically useless to provide any significant security, along with the cheap wafer locks on desk drawers and a regrettably large number of other things, such as those gun locks that secure a shotgun to the dashboard of a cop car. You can pick one of those in SECONDS. You can pick a Master padlock, especially the cheaper and more popular models, with a dried chicken bone, or the end of a zip tie.
One of the most popular models of shotgun lock, the ones on cop car dashboards, can be picked in a half a second with a strong magnet. So can many home safes.
It’d be cool to have a scene where someone says “we can’t just break the lock. Does anyone know how to pick a lock?” And have everyone looking around, shrugging, until Sydney sighs, fumbles in her utility belt, walks up and fiddles with the lock, then the lock opens a couple of seconds later. “What?” she says “I can’t have a set of Bat-Lockpicks in my utility belt?”
Check out http://www.lock-lab.com or learnlockpicking.com. It was a real education for me, let me tell you. I thought it was illegal for the longest time, but it isn’t.
but sydney already knows lockpicking… it was stated she wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life as it is in videogames
I would say it is NOT legal in practically any part of the country. Many jurisdictions consider walking around with a set of lock picks and not being either a licensed locksmith or law enforcement officer to be prima facie evidence of intend to break and enter.
Here is a map showing where they’re legal and where they’re not. If it’s not a blue state, you can’t walk around with them without a very VERY good reason.
imgur dot com slash Xnr2mZA
Your link shows a total of 8 states that aren’t blue (16%), which is completely refutes your first paragraph.
It’s not illegal to learn how to pick locks in MOST states. Nor is it illegal to own a set of lockpicks, even if you are not a ‘licensed locksmith’ in MOST states.
For there to be illegal possession of lock picks as burglary tools (rather than as a hobby or some other non-criminal use), almost all states need to be able to prove criminal intent – even most states that actually have any laws hinting at banning lockpick ownership. That’s pretty difficult to do given mind-reading isn’t a real thing. So… unless you have a history of burglary on a rap sheet, it’s unlikely that the state would be able to prove criminal intent.
Yes, the link given states that ‘possession of lockpicks is evidence of a crime!’ (which it can arguably be in 4 states) or ‘some states have specific laws about locksmithing tools, where you’re required to be licensed to own them!’ (in 4 different states), but 1) that’s why I said ‘most’ states, 2) even in the very few states where there are laws on the subject, most of these laws are exceptionally ambiguously worded and it’s exceedingly rare for there to be prosecutions for merely owning a set of lockpicks. (they’d basically have to make almost any bobby pin and paper clip illegal, given simplistic lockpicks are not difficult to fashion), and 3) of the 8 states which do have some sort of laws on the subject, Illinois doesn’t actually mention lockpicks (only bump keys, which are easier to prove intent), Kansas only mentions fingerprint impressions (not lockpicks), Mississippi requires them to be concealed, and Virginia’s law is INCREDIBLY vague (to the point that I can’t find a single case of anyone ever being prosecuted for owning lockpicks without proving intent like in every other state).
Most of the time, if you’re being charged for possession of lockpicks, it’s because they already have intent (ie, you were arrested burglarizing or attempting to burglarize something, so they throw on that additional charge).
Recently I watched a female survivalist advocating carrying lockpicks to ensure that if you are kidnapped that you have some means of escaping. Rather a paranoid attitude, but in her case she had personal experiences which more than justified the attitude. Likewise folks preparing for the zombie apocalypse want to carry items like these.
For those who do want preparedness, but wish to minimise the problems from run ins with the law, there is a useful compromise.
This is a credit-card sized set of emergency lock picks. Importantly be sure to keep them in the state that you bought them. Then there is no chance that you can be accused of having used them in any crime. Whilst it does not eliminate the chance of being accused of intent, if you are an honest citizen, with no relevant priors, it does help to corroborate your statements that these are for emergency use only.
As per the picture it does include a key suitable for opening handcuffs, which is useful against the kidnapping scenario, but is unlikely to endear you to any police examining the set! So judge your personal circumstances and weigh the risks you face between kidnapping or run-ins with the law.
Setting aside any legal or moral qualms, if you are building an all-purpose utility belt (or ‘get home’ bag*) this is really light weight item that takes up negligible space.
The reason why it is a compromise is because the tools are lightweight (so have to be used carefully), their handles are not as long as regular lockpicks (making it a bit harder to manipulate them) and only has basic extras (whereas a full set of lockpicks would have lots of specialist items for different types of locks).
Of course, for anyone lacking opposable thumbs, these are useless. So all this information is gained second-paw.
* This is different to a bug out bag, which has different priorities. Unless you are bugging out to, or through, urban environments this would not be as useful an item as a set of fishing items or an extra fire making device.
Although, if you are in a life-or-death situation, and you need to access a locked building, for shelter, or to search for a means of communication, or to find items useful to survival, this is a better option than throwing a rock through a window. If you only need the shelter, you can even leave it the same as you found it.
They literally sell lockpicking kits at wal-mart. :) With a padlock to practice on :) They don’t ask for your lockpicker license, nor do they ask your intent for buying it :) It’s under $15. I think Amazon sells for less. Just saying, with the exception of maybe 2 states (from the non-lawyer link given above) the chances of being arrested for owning them are negligible (and honestly, the chances of being successfully prosecuted even in those two states without some underlying additional crime to show intent would very likely not succeed due to vagueness issues).
I’ve literally checked Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis because I was curious about this, and I can’t find a single bit of caselaw where someone’s been prosecuted for the mere act of owning lockpicks (without some other crime, attempted crime, or casing a place with priors in their record, to show intent) in any state.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/DANIU-Locksmith-Tool-Transparent-Practice-Padlocks-12-Piece-Unlocking-Lock-Pick-Set-Key-Extractor-Tool/478311374
But gosh darn it a credit card sized lockpick set is cute! Your logic is not going to dissuade me from thinking it is a useful way to reduce the risk of hassle. ;-)
For info I picked up on it when researching gear that passes through airport inspections without creating incidents. That featured in a ‘TSA approved’ list. Although they did stress that the rules change all the time, and that border security guards have broad discretion.
Given that terrorists would like to have tools to break into cockpits, I think we can see that their bosses will likely support lockpick seizures. Not to mention possibly using that discovery to justify more … invasive searches, if they feel you look shifty.
So whilst you might not get prosecuted for carrying lockpicks, I think avoiding hassle (and in this case potentially missing a flight) makes it the safer option.
I believe that cockpit doors have been upgraded in the last few decades to use electronic bolts and a keypad, in addition to a manual bolt that can only be opened from the inside. So you can’t just lockpick the cockpit door.
Did a quick search and found this – which seems to confirm my belief.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhwUgCTljgo
Interesting piece. I have kind of lost track of such developments (I used to be very much up to speed with aviation practices).
I decided to delete details of how to bypass that, within the ten minutes they had. On the grounds that a terrorist might read this information.
Not that any of our regular readers might be so inclined! But modern spies, criminals, terrorists and counter-terrorism officials probably all monitor the internet for keywords that might give them useful information.
Well not from me buddy!
I swear, stop being adorable this instant. It’s difficult to discuss with you when you’re posting things that make me go ‘awwwwww!’
Small locks don’t usually need to be super tough, they are mainly a deterrent to making an undetected entry rather than actually keeping things secure. Especially at the level of consumers, home owners, and most companies. It’s possible to get a high-end lock that’s hard to pick, but the price point is usually enough that you have to weight other options (e.g. a small wall or gun safe, keeping your bike inside) because most people don’t really need something truly secure bad enough to pay the premium.
Sure, someone may install a steel door with umpteen deadbolts, but it’s pretty easy to smash out the front window 3 feet away. Or if there are bars on the windows, one could cut a new doorway in most (non-brick) houses with a $150 power saw in about 30 seconds; they could even use the external power outlet provided by building code. Or on something portable like a bike, there’s bolt cutters and cordless grinders (neither of which are subtle if anyone’s around).
Generally speaking, unless you really really need something to be secure, you’re just trying not to be an easier target than the next guy.
Plus, of course, if you have a real fancy top of the line lock, someone might just realise that is valuable in its own right and nick it. ;-)
POLICE I’VE BEEN ROBBED!
“What did they take?”
THEY PICKED AND REMOVED THE LOCK!
“Okay, but what did they take?”
I JUST TOLD YOU, THEY PICKED AND REMOVED THE LOCK!
“Okay… but…. what did they TAKE?”
:)
Probably should have kept that valuable lock in a safe, locked with a better lock. :)
“My great-grandfather invented the burglar alarm. Unfortunately, it was stolen from him.”
– concert pianist / comedian Victor Borge
:-D
Eh even if its aht 40% this is clearly an evil lair like set up
So its.. probably gonna work itself out logistiaclly
Well general, Sciona got clean away. But we did find out where that mafia guy, who had been hiring supers, hid all his loot!
Actualy there are two currently unsecured and abandoned record repositories located in Missouri, that used underground quarries or mines for off sight secured record storage for a bank and an investment firm that closed in the 1940s. I don’t think either used bank vault type doors however.
are they about to get their asses kicked by 2 androids/cyborgs?
Possibly. Or maybe they may have just triggered the mind-control beam beyond the door.
Next week Arc-Sciona conducting diplomatic relations with the Twilight Council. Using nuke-like attacks, rail guns and the PPO.
Well, most likely an abandoned nuclear silo still belongs to the US government, and the government is perfectly free to enter its own property to check for squatters. If it were private property, the owner would sue Arc-SWAT for damages.
Maxima’s about to break into a filming of Doomsday Preppers! :)
“I actually don’t know how that works, like if the cops drive one of those jousting tanks through your front door and it turns out the driver had the post it with the address stuck on his dash upside down, do the cops pay for a new front of your house and new sod squares, or do you get a booklet with some waivers that excuse you from up to 5 non-felony crimes? It probably usually ends up with someone suing the city.”
Frankly you’re probably be mostly SOL. You might squeeze a pittance out of the city but the cops sure as hell wouldn’t get in trouble.
To remedy the situation the cops send someone out to the house to change the number to match what was on the note. Problem fixed.
Happy little trees!
Well I guess that is the lesser of two weevils, stacked up against the threat of being shot at with a minigun!
Locks are to keep honest people out.
“I can’t pick locks, but I can pick my nose.”
“Well, choose more carefully this time. The one you have now makes you look like you’re eating a banana.”
The whole wrong address thing happened to a friend of mine about 15 years ago.. Turned out he had moved into an apartment that used to be rented by a known drug dealer. After the police broke his $2000 stereo/DJ equipment he got a “we’re sorry” and a phone number to call about complaints. Four YEARS later he got a voucher from the city for $150 to “defray damages”.
Heh. I had a less horrible “sort of wrong address” experience a few decades ago.
I had rented an apartment in an apartment building and one morning while I was getting ready for work the doorbell rings. This was really very unusual since you have to have the building code to enter or to contact a tenant to sign you in at the front desk. No pushing the “unlock front door” button to let in any random solicitor in this building. I look through the peephole and see two guys in jeans and polo-like shirts. Neither of whom I knew, and either of whom looked like they could give me a hard time. So I slipped a pistol into the back of my belt and opened the door. I was 13 floors up and that was my only way out to my car to go to work, after all.
They asked me who I was and I answered, and asked them who they were and they answered. They identified themselves as police, here to arrest a person who wasn’t me. The landlord had told me that he had had to evict the prior tenant, and there was some damage to a couple kitchen cabinets that he very slowly got around to fixing that he said had occurred during the eviction. I related this and said that perhaps that was the guy they were looking for, but that I’d never been told his name. I offered to give them the landlord’s contact info, which they declined. They asked to see ID, which I provided by reaching behind my back to pull my wallet out of my back pocket, right next to the pistol I had secured earlier. And then after they looked at my license that was the end of it.
As it turns out they were wearing their badges on tethers around their necks. But that wasn’t at all obvious to me as I looked through the peephole, their shirts were not monotone and the badges blended in a bit, nor was I looking them up and down as I tried to keep eye contact on the two big guys who were asking me a lot of pointed questions way too early in the morning. Nor would I know a real police badge from a credible fake. I was certainly very tense, and they were there to make an arrest and were also not exactly relaxed. Nothing at all bad happened, but it wasn’t a good situation despite that.
I’ve heard a retired cop say that there are three kinds of people in the world: Cops, criminals, and regular citizens. And that when regular citizens interact with either of the other two groups it usually goes badly for them. The cops understand the criminals, and the criminals understand the cops. But the average citizen doesn’t have much experience interacting with either cops or criminals in a way which isn’t detrimental to them. And I believe that retired cop to be a wise man with a good insight into this set of social interactions.
Just so you know, you can actually request to know their names and badge numbers, then just call their station to confirm that they are who they say they are (since civilians can’t be expected to know if a badge is real or fake, so you’re justified in not automatically assuming its real).
Just a little hint for you or anyone else if this was to ever happen in the future. :)
Police in my area are known to lie about their badge numbers, what the laws are, and what their duties actually entail. They have done so to me personally. They said It was a civil matter when a neighbor threatened to ‘shoot me in the head” and tried to climb over my fence. I tried to press charges and the officer refused.
“Police in my area are known to lie about their badge numbers, what the laws are, and what their duties actually entail.”
Okay um… my advice was to prove that the police are actually police. If the police were to give fake numbers, you’re obviously not going to open the door – a robber pretending to be a police officer isn’t going to have real police numbers, and a real police officer isn’t going to lie about their number if they’re wanting to get the homeowner to open the door when the homeowner is claiming they only don’t want to open because they don’t know if the person is a real police officer.
Aside from them needing a warrant to enter or exigent circumstances to forcibly enter without a warrant.