Grrl Power #640 – Not really a “Badum-Tssh” moment
Maxima seems to be channeling Margaret Cho there a bit in that first panel. Just… visually. She’s not making some joke about being overweight and/or Asian.
Is there a non-ominous way for something buried in the ashes of your people to start glowing after being trod on? Cause I don’t think there is.
I’m not entirely happy with the name “Xevoarchy” but The Federated this or that has been used, as has the Hierarchy and Imperium and basically everything else because sci-fi has been around for a few years.
What Dabbler’s talking about is basically that the galaxy, or the known civilizations in it, have a collective military that enforces a collective set of rules. It’s sort of like the UN, if the UN had a proper military that was 25-50 times the size of anyone else’s. Also instead of being a bunch of representatives basically there to promote their own self interests, the Xevoarchy’s focus is galactic civilization as a whole. At least that’s the intent. There are a bunch of controls in place to prevent a race or even a collection of races from hijacking their arsenal. But you know how people are, even alien people. Stupid. So who knows.
Dabbler implies it here, but I ran out of room to state it implicitly, but Sciona’s people are, as Dabbler’s cut word bubbles said, “Imperialist dickbags.” And maybe a bunch of their colonies got sick of the Imperial Tithe and did something about it. Of course, the rules of the Xevoarchy are nuanced, and while they allow imperialistic conquest, that only applies to civilizations at a certain technological level, where the conquering force can’t just go in a slaughter the natives and take all their stuff. They’re expected to provide advanced technologies and medicine and help prepare them to join the galactic stage, and eventually return the civilizations autonomy at some point. Oy. Now I want to sit down and write the Xevoarchy bylaws.
Oh, I forgot the blood on Sciona. I should probably add that. :/
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I just want to give DaveB props for continually making “villains” multifaceted and twisting those heartstrings of mine into caring (or at least having some empathy) for them.
You would have to be hard-hearted not to. And the skill with which he drew Sciona’s expression, when she saw the devastation, puts a canine face on it.
But, in a matter of ‘them or us’, you need to avoid your heartstrings being torn. Rather stick your dagger into Sciona, and tear hers. ;-)
Hey, looks like I’m doing something right, then. I feel nothing for any of the villains thus far.
I only really feel something for Sydney though, and to a lesser degree Dabbler, Chorius, Peggy, and Krona.
Sciona does not really deserve pity, although seeing her realisation did move me (somewhat). But as we look across the landscape of the ruined city, on the previous page, in amongst that there will likely be more than one orphanage and bunny sanctuary.
And if the killing was not total, then there will be a lot more orphans, in need of a home.
In the ‘nature or nurture’ debate I believe the situation is ‘a bit of both’. Some dogs are natural hunters, others need more training. Whilst others are naturally placid and make good domestic pets. Yet if abused, not trained or encouraged to act in reckless ways, then even a dog with genes which make them sociable, can become a menace.
Alari babies and children cannot be blamed for the transgressions of their parents. And even if they are naturally short-tempered and uncaring (to those not part of their family or immediate society), they could potentially be taught how to compensate for these, and live lives which do not cause undue oppression to others.
Although much effort should be put into salvaging Alari culture too. Just suitably redacting those aspects likely to compound the anti-social behaviours.
Doubtless such censorship and teaching techniques will not be able to work for all individuals. However those who choose to go down a dangerous path can be dealt with appropriately. Thus retaining individual accountability, rather than collective. Precisely because the innocent suffer when that is done.
Maybe not a bunny sanctuary but something exactly as adorable.
There’s also the third thing. You read up on the research on children born from the women that were near the Twin Towers when they were attacked, and acquired PTSD from it? That trauma altered the chemical composition of their embryonic fluid, and their children gained the same psychosis because not their DNA, but the chemical soup that dictated cell manufacture, made it happen.
Other species might go further, especially with a different justice system, especially those with a genetic memory or hivemind. So you COULD blame a child for its parents crimes.
Regarding the latter paragraph. A hivemind is essentially one individual, in different bodies. Much like Harem. Even though her most recent body would probably still be classed as a young child (or maybe a toddler), if we go by the date it was split off. However because she gets both an adult body and an adult brain we do not consider her to be underage.
I do not recall a single person proposing that Deus should be arrested for paedophilia, due to his relationship with one of Harem’s clones.
So it does not matter when an individual body is hatched, if sharing a hive mind. That body and mind is still a part of the individual, and is accountable accordingly.
Genetic memory though it depends on how that manifests. So is much more complex. If it results in an individual who is always mentally identical to the parent, then you have a good case. If though the individual can grow up with a completely different personality, shaped by their life experiences, and little influenced by said memories, then your argument gets less persuasive.
Taken to its extreme, if the memories need to be mentally looked up (rather than all of the memories being instantly available, as if they were the individual’s own memories) then there is little to separate them from us. We too can look up the memories that our ancestors wrote down in diaries and other records.
Just because we know what the previous generation(s) did, does not mean that we should be held accountable. We had no way to influence their decisions, or alter their behaviour. Especially for those events which occurred before we were even born!
If we are still benefiting from the proceeds of their crime, whist being aware of that, then there is a reasonable angle to pursue. Living off the proceeds of crime is illegal in various jurisdictions.
In that instance the person with genetic memory would be easier to hold to account, as they could not pretend that they believed the wealth to have been acquired honestly.
The type of hivemind I was referring to (your descriptors and arguments are valid) is the one seen in Dark City, with the “Strangers”.
The strangers assembly had to be told “No more Mr. Quick.” but Mr. Hand told John Murdock that the strangers are all dying because they share the same memories.
I hope that Sydney’s final mystery orb does not turn out to be the “Render Aid to Genocide Victims Orb”.
‘Cause that would be a real “bad power”! Anyone seeing her coming would be all:
“GO AWAY! We have seen what happens when YOU turn up somewhere!”
To be fair, in some fiction, that last line of yours can be applied pretty much to humans in general.
We live on a Deathworld, after all. Earth is the Australia of space. Which also says a lot about Australia.
Are you sure about that?
Australia is not the only yet known inhabited place on earth. But earth is as yet known the only inhabited place in space.
Well, that does make earth the only place in space where death happens. (Yet)
Are you sure about that?
Australia is not the only yet known inhabited place on earth. But earth is as yet known the only inhabited place in space.
Well, that does make earth the only place with death on it.
Is there a possibility to delete a comment?
Nope, but you can call it to DaveB’s attention by using his name in a post and he’ll weed it out.
That said, the latest news from the Mars rover is that it had discovered the building blocks necessary for life. Even though its masters had failed to equip it with more sophisticated tools to determine whether there is (or was) life on Mars.
So, even though it can do a happy little rover dance, it may run over a Martian, and not recognise it!
A very very small Martian, that is.
They also think that one of Saturn’s moons has organic matter floating in one of the underground seas under the ice. I forget which moon – I think Enceladus or Dione – but the temperature falls within the right range and there’s liquid water there so it’s possible for there to be the building blocks, at least, for life there.
Going a step further, there was that meteorite (allan hills 84001) that was found to be from mars, and had signs of life on it.
“In the study, which appeared in the Aug. 6, 1996, issue of the prestigious journal Science, McKay and his team presented four lines of evidence that ALH 84001 might have harbored alien life. One of the strongest was the existence of microscopic magnetite crystals that the researchers said bore remarkable similarities to ones created by microbes on Earth.
Such magnetite particles are not known or expected to be produced by nonbiological (abiotic) processes. As such, the study team members said these crystals might constitute evidence of the oldest life-forms known, with profound implications for the presence of life in the universe.”
Yup. Although the findings were disputed by some scientists.
So I am looking forward to when the life-detecting suit of tools is sent to Mars. It was already on the cards, but that find has significantly reduced the risk that it might be postponed or cancelled.
Kind of ironic, given that if they had sent a suitably equipped rover to a certain Mars warehouse, they could have discovered alien life in New York. :-D
Yep.
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/slidesets/marslife/images/slif_s28.jpg
No, JNH was referring to the fact almost everything in Australia, fauna and flora, wants to kill you, some in extremely agonising ways
This is true. Australia is totally brutal. Like Metalocalypse brutal.
To prove it… here is a picture of a dingo eating a shark in the background, while in the foreground two snakes are locked in a battle to the death.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DbWYm-RVAAId5tF.jpg
Zookeeper, zookeeper! The snakes are fighting! =D
Pander, that looks more like the snakes are mating, rather than fighting.
No, it’s Australia. They are fighting. To the death. And probably are about to grow arms just in order to be more lethal. Knife arms.
ROFL.
With laser eyes.
It’s the crocodiles that have laser eyes. Common mistake.
I dunno, I’ve survived 33 years in Australia so far (34 in a couple of weeks, yay for levelup) and I’ve still got most of my limbs and haven’t had a near death experience for at least 3 days. So I’d say Australia’s deadliness is a bit exaggerated.
Well it is different as a native, especially if staying in a relatively safe urban setting. Your survival routines are so ingrained you don’t even think about them. Check under the loo seat for bum-biting deadly spiders. Make sure that you tip out and check shoes and boots, every time, to make sure nothing venomous has climbed in.
You will have housing designed to be as creepy crawly as possible. With anything particularly vulnerable being in suitably secure cupboards, as a second line of defence.
Plus doubtless your exterminators will be former special forces, and be equipped with flame throwers and rocket launchers.
These are Australians?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L5JgTkxAkg
Yeah, it’s just like the book “Deathworld”, natives (or at least those born and raised there) have the survival instinct ingrained into them
As a fellow survivor i used to agree with you… until i had a conversation with a foreign friend that went like this (some exaggeration added):
Me: not everything here wants to kill you.
them: what about the snakes? (rattles off a few types).
Me: they usually won’t bother you if you don’t bother them.
Them: what about the spiders?
Me: you just check your shoes and besides they generally won’t kill you it’ll just be really unpleasant.
Them: and the marine life? sharks, box jellyfish, blue ring octopuses, stone fish ect…
Me: you just have to respect their environment and don’t be stupid.
Them: this is the short list, even platypuses can mess you up. and don’t get me started on drop bears.
Me: all right you may have a point.
While Australia has many venomous creatures, I still think it’s an exaggeration. Granted, my sister-in-law was chatting with my wife on the phone when a spider suddenly dropped from the ceiling onto the lizard she had been describing, grabbed it, and ran off with it.
North America has rattlesnakes, bears, scorpions, various spiders, ticks that give you slow death, lots of fun stuff as well. Those of us who run around in the outdoors tend to not push our luck. (And then a tourist gets gored by a bison in Yellowstone)
I think we just compare stuff to Europe where the wildlife is outnumbered.
All the other continents tend to have way more death from nature. Maybe not Antarctica, but it just kills by weather.
Yes but you’re an Australian so you’re immune to seeing the dangers.
Maybe they are like werewolves or Spider Man? Those who survived the initial transportation, got bitten, stung and poisoned, by so many different things, that they mutated and now just look human.
I bet those corks, dangling from their hats, are just to disguise the tentacles and/or snake hair!
I’ll let you know when I take a trip to Sydney. The city, not the character.
Wow, you are brave!
Don’t forget to take extra crampons, and other climbing gear. You don’t want to fall off the under-side of the world!
When you go, make sure you eat something with a Scoville measurement.
Do it for us.
Do it for all of us.
Ooh, ooh, there is ‘House of Scoville’, which does free delivery throughout Australia and Middle Earth!
In particular you can order a ‘Scoville Lover Box’!!!
https://www.houseofscoville.com.au/products/scoville-lover-box
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.
Ahh, that is a moving quote.
I dunno, is that the only way to be sure?
Whatever turned Alari civilization to rubble seems to use that kind of logic.
Well, you could also place the nukes, set them on a timer and then take off.
Rookie evil overlord mistake. The resistance forces always finds a way to stop the countdown.
(except for Alderaan, but they had intel that Jar Jar was visiting, so it counts as acceptable losses)
And the timer always stops at 1
There is a documentary about that.
Reminds me of the beginning of the more recent Battlestar Galactica. Basically a bunch of nukes were secretly installed on the planet and then detonated.
Definitely not. In fact, using nukes in ineffective. Purely kinetic orbital bombardment is better.
I have two thoughts:
1. The tendril is a”cleanup” failsafe, so that if any Alari survived it’s job is to make sure that’s temporary. Or
2. Return of Cooter-merge dude to exact revenge on Sciona.
Either way, it attacks Sciona, but is prevented from killing her by the heroes because… The meme demands heroes do dumb things to make them look noble, like save the life of someone they were trying to kill only moments before, and who will probably betray the mercy they received the first chance they get.
How did that man pretending to be a bat put it?
“I’m not going to kill you. Doesn’t mean I have to save you…”
…And Daniel the Human is glaring at me for not knowing that bat guy’s name…
His name is Michael.
Michael Batman.
Michael Evan Batman
No, it’s “Ivan Michael Batman” (I.M. Batman)
I get the feeling it wasn’t who they think it was who destroyed the Alari. Civilizations like that do tend to make lots of enamies, and not all of them are “nice” about dealing with other conquering civilizations.
Could be some other galactic threat that the peacekeeping group might need to be made aware of.
Could also be an Alari superweapon the developed to deal with mentioned peacekeeping force, that they lost control of. Those are always fun to deal with.
Someone woke up Alari Akira.
I suppose it’s a matter of definition, but you don’t need what I’d think of as “superweapons” to horribly damage a planet.
For example, assume you have a normal space drive capable of accelerating at a few gees for months at a time. Lots of stories assume that, scientists design things that might be able to do it, the British Interplanetary Society publishes articles on those types of ideas constantly.
One megaton is equivalent to 4.18 x 10^15 joules.
A ten gram mass, moving at 280,000 km per second has a kinetic energy of 1.6 x 10^15 joules.
The fireball from such an impact would be expected to be about a mile across.
A barge capable of moving 100 metric tons to that speed would be able to carry 100,000 such masses. Plus, presumably, a device to scatter them at the proper point to strike across the entire planet.
One such would be more than enough to damage the planet beyond repair on human timescales. A few dozen would strip it down to magma.
As Howard Taylor put it, “at [relativistic speeds] you can use little cones of tin-foil as weapons. Technically, a non-exploding missile is a sabot, but at these speeds, these cee-sabots would explode pretty impressively.” Which relates to the earlier statement (using the analogy of a brick thrown out a car window at near-c speeds), “When the brick hits its target, most of the brick’s kinetic energy will get turned into heat, and the brick will put a noticeable hole in the world.”
Yes, but the point is that a relativistic bus isn’t usually regarded as a superweapon. I’d reserve that designation for something that can fire black holes or a super powerful teleport system, or beams that convert half of whatever they hit to antimatter. That sort of thing can crack a planet into bits and vaporize the bits. (At which point I usually get a “how does a teleport system do that?”. Oh, teleport a few thousand cubic meters from the core of the sun to the core of the planet, teleport away a few hundred cubic kilometers of the planets core to elsewhere, teleport one meter sized blocks of the planet away until nothing is left but a really symmetrical asteroid belt, etc.)
Max never wanted Sciona dead. She was trying to capture her.
To hand her over to the Council, who will then execute her. She’s already had the trial and sentencing parts.
Double Jeopardy: they already executed her, not her fault it didn’t ‘stick’
I don’t think the council works with that kind of laws. I think they work with the “we said you’d die and you will. however many tries are necessary.”
Double jeopardy applies to trials, not executions.
There is actually an ancient custom, which may still persist to the present day, as a legacy law (one of the type that carries forward the customs which predated written laws). Namely that if there were three separate attempts to execute someone and all three failed, then they were automatically set free.
Essentially this dated all the way back to ‘trial by combat’ and ‘trial by ordeal’. If man tries to execute somebody, and repeatedly fails, then it is deemed to be by God’s will. In other words, it was not just ‘getting off on a technicality’, they are considered innocent, as God has intervened directly!
Here in the US we have a Constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy. Unfortunately the powers that be have a few creative ways of getting around that.
Someone gets exonerated for violation of a Federal law? Well just retry them for violating an identical State law.
Can’t get a conviction for murder? Retry as a violation of the victim’s civil rights. Not as severe penalties, but you can still hammer them with some jail time.
Still can’t get a conviction for anything? Then at least drag their name through the kangaroo court of public opinion. They won’t go to jail, but you’ll still effectively destroy their lives.
Can’t get a conviction for being the leader of a mafia organisation? Get him for tax evasion.
Except for at the bridge. Saving the lives of those on the bridge was a higher priority, so Maxima was using force that may have been sufficient to kill Sciona.
Since then though we have seen the team try to get Sciona to surrender twice though, so you are otherwise correct.
And, even then, we did have Maxima lamenting, after Sciona got away, at the bridge, that she should have vaporised Sciona. Which does indicate that Maxima was not striking with her maximum lethal potential, under the circumstances. Meaning that (given Sciona’s toughness), Maxima was using a less-lethal option.*
Clearly a nuke-like attack was not a viable option, which gives us a hint (if that was not just venting with hyperbole) that Maxima may have an intensely powerful, yet contained, version of her energy attack.
* I am mindful of the debate with Guesticus, over Sciona allegedly using a less-lethal attack. However Maxima has consistently opted for less-lethal options, whenever possible. Whereas Sciona has never demonstrated leniency. Hence why I am happy to give Maxima the benefit of the doubt.
I see Sydney, suddenly coming to scoina’s rescu in case 1.
Only if Maxima does not beat her to it. She was trying to take Sciona alive. Cops have a duty to protect people. Even villains.
general order 24.
for when fighting for peace gets tiresome.
damnit! shoulda said “ultimate diplomatic peace gensture”
If you don’t like general order 24, try rule 34. (I think Dabbler has)
Her favourite is probably 69.
There are only two laws in the Succubus dimension and they are numbered 34 and 69.
No rule 63?
There are only female succubi, no males. So their society will not mirror the drives in our society.
Of course there may well be transvestite succubi, or just those who get dressed up for roleplay or fetishes (like pandering to those who like green skinned females).
However they will likely have something similar for aliens/alien males. As succubi have to mate outside of their own species.
Males are incubi. They’re pretty rare, I think. Dabbler was talking about them a bit, back in the Vehemence fight, I think it was.
That is as per legend. However legend diverges from the Grrlverse. Dave has stated, in his blogs, that there are only female succubi and no male equivalent.
I suspect you are thinking of Dabbler realising that whilst her power (as a succubus) is derived from Tantric energy, Deus’s comes from Vehemic energy. Various commentators took this to mean that he may be an incubus. However that is not the case. He is super human, rather than alien.
“I’m not entirely happy with the name “Xevoarchy” but The Federated this or that has been used, as has the Hierarchy and Imperium and basically everything else because sci-fi has been around for a few years.”
I’d drop the o. “Xevarchy” has one fewer syllables and just generally flows off the tongue better.
*paw print of approval*
We must have consideration for the actor’s dialogue, in Grrl Power the Movie.
How about ‘Xenarchy’, for ‘xeno-‘ and ‘oligarchy’? A bit easier to say, and the pronunciation carries some weight.(always good, per Maxim 16).
Plus, it has the added benefit of also calling to mind “xenophobia” and “anarchy”, although I’m sure the Xenarchy’s critics would never imply they rule through the sort of racist chaos we are seeing on the Alari homeworld. At least not to their faces.
*inks another paw, and marks approval*
I actually prefer “Xevoarchy”. I think it sounds better, and I don’t agree that “Xevarchy” flows off the tongue better. Also, “Xevoarchy” echoes the four-syllable “hierarchy”.
Well sounds better at least than calling them.
The Galaxy Police *which for Tenchi Muyo really under-plays what this really is, a peace keeping force comprised of officers from every major civilization in the Galaxy including from species that otherwise don’t get along but have agreed to an inter-galactic set of rules when it comes to affairs between each other and in space*,
And way better than the alternative.
the enfolding scene is entirely too plausible for a police force if someone like Mihoshi was involved, no genocide needed, just oops did i drop that oh is that a red button that says do not touch, etc etc
i went with Xenofed. make of that what you will
Did you ‘have a good time’?
My recommendation for the Interpol (other than Interpol, which you could use because intergalactic police) is Voljud (pronounced vōl-jūd) because the archy is literally a root meaning primitive. Granted xevoarchy is definitely a best guess English translation by dabbler, but I’d think they’d stay away from anything indicating they are primitive in a galaxy of FTL civs. Voljud on the other hand, is literally just me shoving to word roots together so that they mean “The Will of the Law” which seems rather like the creed of a police force that reduce a civilization to dust. Anywho, just a suggestion.
-archy
a combining form meaning “rule,” “government,” forming abstract nouns usually corresponding to personal nouns ending in -arch
Maybe you were thinking of “archae-“.
Considering their actions it is more like ‘the will of death’ or Vol-de-Mort’.
Wait, I’ve heard that one somewhere before.
Completely forgot that Sciona’s right calf got ripped off, couldn’t figure out for the life of me why it looked so weird.
But how is it already healed? Is that an Alari thing? Or did she cast a spell and I missed it?
She uses the blood of regenerating creatures, enhanced by her magic, to make it into an injectable potion. At the Mars warehouse she commented “troll blood does you good” (paraphrasing).
We saw Sciona inject about eight supernatural/super powers. One of which will have been regeneration, of some type or another.
Possibly she may have upgraded to Pixel blood (her construct did obtain a sample, and its controlling part escaped). However the rate of regeneration may be a bit slow for her. Pixel took a girder through her chest and was still capable of talking immediately after. Plus was up and about within minutes.
So either it is troll blood or a weakened effect for Pixel’s. Other options are possible, but we have nothing pointing to them.
Pixel’s blood probably isn’t as potent as the troll blood. We saw Sciona’s orc arm knit back together almost instantly, after Sydney broke it. Pixel was probably still coughing up blood, during the followup scenes after the fight with Sciona’s robot-thing, if the girder punctured her lung.
Heck, even if the girder hadn’t been removed yet, even a mid-level regeneration ability could seal around the edges of the wound to the point of letting her talk, if the girder went in straight. An abdominal wound would be even less of a big deal, in terms of speaking ability. Even fatal abdominal wounds can take a damned long time to kill you, so no problem for a lycanthrope.
Pixel could be ripped in half and still talk, I imagine, once her body sealed off the stump enough for her to cope with the pain. I imagine most people would take a break, but Pixel strikes me as the sort to talk back, even during that sort of situation.
Any of the three options is viable, actually. Dabbler already said Alari can regenerate, we’ve seen Sciona give herself powers by injecting herself with supers’ blood samples, and she’s a thoroughly accomplished mage, so a healing spell is not out of the question. In fact, almost unconsciously using the blood which was covering her in order to cast a quick leg-regrowth spell would explain why she was covered in it on the previous page, but clean now.
I’m not sure what’s about to happen next, but it might put Sydney off of tentacle for a while. … Poor Trent.
Maybe she will go furry instead?
She seemed to rather enjoy combing Pixel’s tail.
Sciona has that thousand yard stare going strong here.
Yup, and is looking pretty gaunt. Even though she exhibited a complete lack of empathy for anybody she interacted with, on Earth, she is clearly badly traumatised by this.
Nice job with the puff of smoke around Sciona’s wing tip hitting the ground. Really reinforces the “wet hair” style of shock and/or scary realization from her. Though I am surprised she’s standing on ash, since the others are standing on tiles; unless Siona moved while off-panel. *shrug* Either way, I’m giessing glow-worm there is reacting to the way-narrower-than-a-wind-gust air movement, so it’s probably just as well that they haven’t been wandering about all that much. :/
Sciona was standing BBY one of the big statues flanking the entrance to the park/memorial garden/palace courtyard the team is standing in. She seems to have landed several dozen yards away from everyone else. She has probably walked out of the Stone floored structure onto the ground.
BBY? Before the Battle of Yavin?
Oh, having looked that up, I guess it is just an extra “B”, rather than some trendy youngster thing, like BFF.
The Xevoarchy sounds really evil…
Yea, from a human standpoint genocide is not good. But if you are doing that to prevent ongoing genocides, then it becomes more of a grey area. One other thing to consider is that ‘genocide’ does not equate to ‘extinction’ (although that may just be a matter of Dabbler’s English not being perfect).
Genocide is the purposeful killing of a significant number of a specific social group (e.g. by ethnicity or religion). Clearly that has occurred here (assuming this is a majority Alari world). However that may fall well short of wiping out all Alari on the planet (and elsewhere).
I say this not to excuse genocide, but to put it in perspective by looking at Earth. Whilst we may consider humans to be the only significant species on the planet, outsiders may not choose to elevate us above our peers. Between 10,000 and 130,000 species are going into extinction, on Earth, every year. The World Wildlife Fund puts it at 100,000.*
Exterminating humans would dramatically reduce that figure.
If you look at our planet, from the perspective of somebody trying to preserve the sanctity of all life, wiping out humanity would be the lesser of the two evils.
Only aliens who choose to grant more intelligent species special status would have an issue with that logic.
Then consider that if Sciona is typical of her species, then they are more intelligent (if prone to making rash decisions in haste) than humans. So those same aliens which give greater weight to intelligent life may have been voting to allow the Alari to invade Earth, enslave the animals causing such massive extinction, and uplift them by unifying their governments.
It sounds like no one race or civilisation is allowed to decide such things alone. So the most they would be able to do is vote for whichever political faction may meet their morals (and other self-interests).
Which of the two major galactic factions would you place yourself in? The Sanctity of Life or the Primacy of Intelligence?
* The World Wrestling Federation puts it at 10,000 out of spite, because of having to change their name.
I’d sort of thing from an ‘anything sentient’ standpoint, genocide is not good.
Actually even from a non-sentient standpoint it’s not good since with non-sentient beings, that usually means your food supply is gone.
An elegant solution to a “dichotomy”
Not “good”, no one is arguing that, but might be necessary to stop a relentlessly violent and imperialist civilization that refuses to be reasoned with.
I can’t really see a point where a complete genocide is actually necessary as an intentional thing
I mean if, in fiction, even the Borg have a tiny percentage of members who are not evil (Unimatrix Zero) then I’m not sure what sort of species would ever be able to justify genocide as a necessary thing. I mean.. okay maybe a large percentage of the population and some of the small amounts of innocents die as unavoidable collateral damage, but the whole ‘intentional genocide’ seems evil.
Which is a reason why I doubt that’s what happened here. If it is, then I would think the Xevoarchy is one of those things which sounds good in theory or has some supposedly noble purpose when it started, but in practice is a bad thing or becomes iredeeemably corrupt. Sort of like the EU or the UN or League of Nations, or the Dominion or the First Galactic Empire or the world of GATTACA. :)
The highest court in the E.U. is the European Court of Human Rights. Having the power to overturn national interest laws, if they conflict with people’s rights. Whereas the U.S.A. places its national interests above even its own laws, by allowing Guantanamo Bay to continue.
Of the two, I prefer the one which actively and regularly enforces noble ideals, rather than one espouses them yet blatantly ignores them.
*sigh*
If something is broke, you fix it. Or you make something better.
It is sad though to see morality just being thrown out of the window, when it isn’t expedient.
The king is not above the law.
Never let Sydney handle complex political meetings.
At least not with people she dislikes.
:-D
Concerning the blood, I noticed it was gone, saw that her stump was healing and figured she absorbed the blood to heal unconsciously,
That’s my take on her blood magic anyway
*nods*
If Dave does not get the chance to fix the omission, that is the kind of headcanon I will go for. Plus throwing in Dabbler’s wind spell, blowing any dirt off, to satisfy Ladyofthemasque‘s additional point raised below.
I might suggest that the planet got hit with an infinity gauntlet, but last we checked they are still back in 2011.
The Infinity Gauntlet can work across time since it controls EVERYTHING.
or this universe’s version of it.
I have to say, Sydney is disturbingly nonchalant about her first visit to an alien world, to say nothing of a post-apocalyptic one. She’s still an amateur adventurer finding her way in this new world of heroes and monsters. It’s a little weird how she skips amazement and goes directly to quipping.
Tom Holland’s Peter Parker at least had a little bit of a “Gee whiz, guys!” attitude when he went to Titan. It wasn’t much, but it provided an important touch of humanity.
Thanks for all the years with Zebra Girl!
It was my privilege, Ro!
Speaking from my personal experience as an adult female taking ADHD medication, some of us end up feeling very “zen” about damn near everything when our medication is going strong…which is very annoying when you’re frustrated mentally by something but are too zen-calm to express it emotionally like you used to.
Speaking from my personal experience as a science fiction geek/ancient history nerd, at this point she’s had a couple of days to learn about supers, aliens, demons, succubi/incubbi, werecreatures, vampires, “angels” (alari mistaken for angelic beings), angels (actual ones), so on and so forth.
I got to go on an archaeology tour in Israel several years back, and I saw so many cool things, that after just a couple days, I was taking it all in stride, from the peach pit found in the arches of the aqueduct north of Caesarea, to the 9-Man-Morris gaming board found carved on the streets of Zipporah (documenting it as a game played a thousand years before the Middle Ages, no less; double history geek points, yessss!), to the beeswax found at Acre in their citadel.
I have also gotten go to on a tech facility tour where [redcated because I signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement] and I geeked out over [more NDA] and I got to ask questions about [ditto], until by the end of the lengthy tour, I was taking stuff in stride…and that was just a 4.5 hour tour of the facility. Sydney’s had, what, 4.5 whole days or something by now? Both of those instances took place before the medication and its zen impositions joined my life.
She can also afford to be nonchalant about the post-apocalyptic world she’s on because her shieldbubble is kickass strong.
Interesting stuff.
*wags tail appreciatively*
Hmm, yours hits the Zen zone a lot more than mine does. But I’ve also learned how to create the flow of stress–>anger–>calm, cold anger, which has a psuedo-zen mask at times. Medication helps me grab the mask at lower levels of stress, which helps prevent further stress buildup, and bypasses the whole anger thing.
Yeah, you’re probably right. Very interesting!
Ditto on the Zebragirl thanks. It’s always so sad when a beloved webcomic goes, but it’s good when it’s because it finished (rather than due to the artist exploding or somesuch.)
As for Sydney, she’s coming down from a supers fight/ bomb scare. She’ll probably geek out later, probably at some inopportune time, but right now she’s got WAY too much adrenaline in her system to look at big picture stuff, she’s still in hyper-focus mode.Or at least, that’s my 2¢.
A valuable two cents, Andor!
Uhh…how did Sciona get so clean so fast? Seconds ago (two pages) she was still covered in dirt & blood from their Earth-based battle.
Dave mentions the omission, in his blog above.
I could definitely see a way other than an omission (although he did say it was an omission).
She could just absorb the blood to quicken her regeneration of her foot and wing section. :) Slurrrrp.
Yeah, my first reaction was “whoa, she’s a lot paler than before… wait a minute.”
For when something is so bad that the blood drains from your face, even if it’s on your face.
We know that Sciona was in contact with her home planet, and was going to offer up earth in return for repatriation. If the Alari are doing it in one direction, I doubt they’re ONLY doing it in one direction. I suspect the Alari picked a fight with something that LOOKED a lot more harmless then it actually was, and found themselves in a fight with something eldritch.
And even though the Alari (on their home world, and presumably any other worlds they have permanent gates to) are gone, the horrors unleashed on them are still around.
Sounds possible. Have seen stories like that, highly advanced civilization finds what they think is a primitive one, decides to invade and enslave and either ends that civilization was SO advanced their tech only looked primitive to the invaders but might as well be magic, they attacked the equivalent of that other civilizations Amish or Hippy commune country and or planet, or that civilization was under the care of something much more powerful than themselves.
-backstory of a reoccurring character of mine *Sahralia the Star Killer* is that she got the name after exterminating the “Star Lords” an intergalactic race of energy beings that attacked a planet she was the goddess of.
Of course the classic “we bombed the island and awoke what slept beneath* (awake the sleeping giant) scenario.
Sciona, when the planet gets tapeworm you’re well and proper f-ed. Doesn’t who, when, or what you are at the time unless you can fight them off at the onset.
Indeed. Even if you destroy all the killer worms you can find, they keep popping back up for decades.
At this point, they should be looking to grab a few artifacts from the rubble for historic preservation, and then nuking the entire surface from orbit.
“Dabbler implies it here, but I ran out of room to state it implicitly, but Sciona’s people are, as Dabbler’s cut word bubbles said, “Imperialist dickbags.” ”
Wouldn’t she rather use “dickbag” to refer to something being good?
Something good is referred to as “the dog’s bollox”.
Not to be confused with “bollox”, which just means “rubbish”.
*bends over and licks self clean*
Yeah a bag of dicks is Dabbler’s idea of a fun weekend.
She would probably be quite happy for there to be some rogers and willies under the sack too.
Honestly, comparing the ‘Xevoarchy’ to the UN does not make the Xevoarchy sound particularly good. The UN, like the League of Nations before it, was a nice concept that wound up being just AWFUL and running counter to its original ideals. And their peacekeepers tend to be continually involved in sexual abuse of children and rape, not to mention bribery and corruption. In fiction, sure, there’s the Federation as a good example, but there’s also horrible examples like the Romulan Empire, the Dominion, and lets not forget the Borg (who are the ultimate ‘we keep everything in check by keeping everything under our thumb’ force). And I’m sure all of these ‘galaxy-wide’ unions have utopian ideals if you ask THEM. The Borg will say there’s peace in the Borg,because all are Borg. The Dominion will say they were forced to do it because the Changelings were the victims of racism, and the Romulans – ok I have no idea why the Romulans are jerks, but I’m sure they’ll claim some noble reason. It’s a rare thing for the villain to actually think of themselves as the villain, either in reality or in fiction (except for badly written fiction, which Grrlpower is most definitely NOT).
Actually even the Federation has a dark underbelly which continually surfaces. Star Trek Into Darkness’s Admiral Marcus, Deep Space 9’s Section 31, the way the Federation totally screwed over the Ma’ki (forcing them to become the Ma’ki in the first place), and lets not forget that magnificent capitalist Quark’s hushed description of the Federation to Nog during the Dominion War:
“Let me tell you something about Humans, nephew. They’re a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people… will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don’t believe me? Look at those faces. Look into their eyes.”
Not to mention any government that would commit genocide is not what I’d ever call a good government. It’s what I’d call a corrupt government, and one that would eventually be overthrown if they do stuff like that. After all, there’s no race that would be 100 percent evil. What – are Alari children evil from birth? Pop out of their birthing chambers of however Alari are born and are ‘Raaarh, conquer!’ I dunno, maybe – but that would seem really two dimensional. At worst, they’ve be influenced from a very young age to do that. Even the Borg have some good members among them hiding at Unimatrix Zero.
There. I’ve proven my nerd credentials – I hope that Sydney takes favor on me now.
That being said, it’s pretty clear foreshadowing that they did NOT commit genocide – something else caused it and it’s about to attack Sciona in 3…. 2…. 1…
I loved DS9 for showing what the Trek universe was actually like if you weren’t stationed on a starship exploring the Galaxy. I’ve been in the military and can say there’s a huge divide between structured military life and the lives ordinary citizens are living right off base. The Original Series and Next Gen resemble what would happen if you made a series about the adventures of a Navy cruiser and everything byiu knew about the United States came from conversations between the officers on the ship and between the crew and the guest stars of the week. DS9 was genius because it started with the loyal, enthusiastic and somewhat nieve Starfleet officers we were used to and then slowly introduced outside elements to flesh out the universe outside of Starfleet.
Yes, DS9 is definitely my favorite Trek because they act the most relatable. They’re not perfect people, so when they do things that are hypocritical to the Federation ideal, I can accept it. While I just can’t take the ‘at all other times’ self-righteousness when Picard or Janeway do something antithetical to common decency (like letting an entire planet die then patting himself on the back for going along with the plan that Worf’s human brother came up with to save a few of them, or Janeway pretty much murdering an entire other federation ship or signing the death warrant for millions of worlds to the Borg by siding with the Borg against Species 8479 (instead of first letting that species decimate the Borg, thus saving many worlds barely holding out against the Collective).
Cisco is willing to do the tough decisions to save the Alpha quadrant.
He lied. He cheated. He bribed a man to cover the crimes of other men. He was an accessory to murder. But… if he had to do it all over again, he would. Because a guilty conscience is a small price to pay for the safety of the Alpha Quadrant.
So he learned to live with it. He CAN live with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-YyL7X4CWw
It’s why when Sisko (I have no idea why I was saying Cisco…. I must have been thinking of Crisco) does something totally immoral, like making ma’Ki planets uninhabitable to make the other guy give himself and his biogenic weapons up, I can accept that. Because he never claims to be a perfect person. He knows he’s a flawed individual. He’s not as self-righteous about it. He’s basically the anti-Picard. Or at least he’s what Picard sometimes is, but without being so smug. Not that I don’t love Picard, but he doesnt hold a candle to Sisko (Q found that out fast). Or Kirk for that matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGcAbI-4_io
Sisko’s has more in common with Jim Kirk than any other Captain in Trek. Kirk often happily violated the Prime Directive or other regulations if he thought it was the right thing to do and apparently faced no repercussions for doing so. The Federation and Starfleet were different in Kirk’s time. It was a young, thriving civilization. Picard’s Federation hadn’t faced any real adversity in three quarters of a century. It’s awfully easy to follow all the rules when it doesn’t put you or your civilization in danger of annihilation for doing so. And Janeway? Well, there’s a reason she was the Captain of a patrol ship and not a deep space exploration vessel like the Enterprise. And a reason Starfleet promoted her to admiral as soon as she got back. My biggest gripe with Janeway is probably the writers fault. She was inconsistently written. One week she was violating rules and regulations left and right and the next tpshe was a hidebound martinet. I also like that Q encountered Sisko’s once and then left him alone.
“You hit me. Picard’s never hit me.”
“I’m not Picard.”
“No, you’re easier to provoke.”
I think Q never bothered DS9 again because while Sisko was “easier to provoke,” Ben didn’t moralize at Q. He simply knocked him on his ass. Every encounter between Picard and Q had Jean Luc acknowledge that that Q was far more advanced than humans were but had Picard insisting that humans were morally superior to the Q. I think this ammused Q immensely.
“Your parlor tricks are very impressive, Q.”
“Really Jean Luc, I think the reason I keep coming back here are these wonderful speeches of yours.”
Sisko readily acknowledged Q’s superiority and more or less told Q to do whatever he wanted because he couldn’t stop him. Maybe Sisko was just boring, or maybe Q actually respected Sisko for acknowledging his own humanity and limitations.
Meh. I liked him, but Kirk was basically a playboy who had been given a starship. Sisco came across as a genuine commander trying to do his duty, whilst balancing the very different interests he was required to represent. I especially liked the complication caused by him being a messiah like figure, to the relevant faction, and the conflicts of interest which that created.
Which may be another reason why Q avoided him. Sisco had patronage of a species which existed outside of linear time. Even though Q could quite happily tamper with time, even he may be wary of displeasing a civilisation which may have greater mastery over time than the Q Continuum.
Or perhaps he did try to interfere, and they intervened. Without any principle characters being involved in that, nobody would be any the wiser. Beyond the suspiciously low appearance of Q.
Presumably the civilization was given multiple chances to not be “imperialist dickbags” that want to violently conquer other weaker, civilizations that were under the Xeovarchy’s protection.
I am learning more and more towards Dabb’s theory having a pretty sound footing, even though there is clearly a twist coming on the next couple pages.
1) There is an galactic peacekeeping force willing to act against un-tameable militant species with extreme prejudice.
2) Sciona was in touch with the locals “days” ago, and her first action after confirming her wormhole connected home base and Earth was delivering a “bow before my conquering army” monologue.
Pretty believable that the Xevoarchy discovered the plan and observed late-stage war preparations, and we’re witnessing the aftermath of the global-scale equivalent of a SWAT raid.
Did Sciona make her calls via wormhole? If her communications don’t have an instantaneous propagation rate, then they’re limited to the speed of light, which is too darn slow to get relevant communications between star systems. And she obviously doesn’t have the FTL tech tge peacekeepers do, or she wouldn’t have had to steal a brane ripper from vampires.
There may be a difference between sending a communication that distance and sending physical matter.
Sort of like in Stargate.
Dave explained that, in order to bypass the Dark Reliquary’s extensive anti-teleport measures, Sciona opened up a micro blood portal, which was too small to register on to the defences. That then gave her a link, into the vault, through which she could counter the defences/expand the portal.
Meaning that she could use the same principle to open a micro portal, to the Alari homeworld. Something which was presumably within the resources she had available through her casting and/or whatever technology she may enhance that with.
So, even though she would not be powerful enough to open a gate big enough to travel through, the micro portal would be good enough for communications technomagic to get in contact with her fellows. Then, once she got the Cosmic Can Opener, she could do a full size portal.
Elegant rationale.
*wags tail proudly*
I don’t think Sciona can fix this with her fancy blood magic.
Also, I bet the side effects of her superpower transfusion are about to kick in. That’s gonna smart.
Speaking of smart, it seems no one explained to Sciona that all mediums of communication have this property called a propagation speed. Unless she had a wormhole to make calls, her information is potentially millions of years out of date.
We have already seen that Sciona can create wormhole equivalents, with her blood magic. But Dave explained in a recent blog that regular technomagic is not up to covering interstellar distances. However that would be for macro scale transit.
If Sciona did a microscopic wormhole (which she has already used to breach the Dark Reliquary’s teleport defences) then, presumably, she should be able to reach much further. Given that she did communicate successfully (implying two-way conversation), then this is the most likely technique that she used.
Playing merry hell with causality, of course (by having FTL communication). But super hero stories do that all the time, so it is genre appropriate.
I feel so bad for her. I mean shes horrible and has done terrible things, but no one deserves to come home to this.
To be fair they don’t know they were wiped out. Assuming normal planet size this represents less that 0.01% of viewable surface area from ground. Could be this location was made an example of. Also assuming no escape vessels.
does this mean scion is the last of her race?
It was an empire with multiple planets, and they exiled people, so it shouldn’t be.
Possibly exiled people. Per Dave’s commentary, when Sciona was monologuing:
Dabbler’s line above though:
combined with Sciona being confident that the Alari would invade Earth and enslave humanity, does imply that such invasions have occurred, in the past. As such there are likely to be occupying Alari forces on other planets.
Although that is making a couple of assumptions. Their taking could be more like pirate actions, for example. And Sciona might have either been bluffing or delusionally overconfident.
The Xevoarchy sounds a lot like the Galactic protective association on Robert Heinlein’s HAVE SPACE SUIT WILL TRAVEL.
I had that exact thought, particularly the line about being not so much a government as a group of vigilantes.
the space cops and multi-planet league of worlds type concepts are about as old as science fiction its self. There are even old early 1900’s dime novels about space cops and allied space militaries.
Is there a Xevomehitabel to go along with the Xevoarchy?
*That* ought to send a few folks Googling. Hehehehehe……
hmms maybe alari made something and backfired FLood style
Is there a Xevomehitabel to go along with the Xevoarchy?
if so, shouldn’t those ‘x’s be in lower case?
Those weren’t Alari you were in contact with, Sciona.
It was the bugs, sir! They got into their brains! Made them do things!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PpKA9klZWQ
Hrm, don’t wormholes also come unstuck in time ? They did not have a controlled transition after all.
My other odd thought is that maybe the billionaire boyfriend had a hand in this. Doubt he was truly eager to be subjugated.
Better Xevoarchy than the Glud’Vor.
Sounds kinda like the Nova Corp from Marvel.
hmmm i wonder what weapon they used to destroy the planet? Kinetic weaponry/Nukes?, Nanotech? Asteroids? Gamma ray burst? Magnetic field shift/weather manipulation? Bio weapons? Daleks? Giant Robots piloted by teenagers? and if she was in communication with them up till a few days ago the Xenofeds (Xenoarcy) work fast and they have a “kill them all let god sort them out” kinda policy. if not there is a galactic player that can wipe one of the most imperialistic species off the map like swatting a fly. this is deep lore shit and i love IT!!
Well in my universe a race called the Suihrai have a Genocide Weapon. A multidimensional weapon that keys to a genetic signature contained within a specified gravitational field. Its original use was to target specific cells to kill all of a bacteria, virus, or parasite invading a body. But expanded on could be keyed to all of one type of cell in a body to cause agonizing torture, kill the person…or key to their family’s genes, their species, their phylum, biological kingdom, ect….could be used to kill all members of a species on a planet instantly, or even exterminate for instance all animal, or plant, or fungi, or just all life in general.
The tech at weapon’s grade level is listed as forbidden. As is the magic spell that does the same thing. Under the law of the multiversal super-powers. *Its kind of cheating to just kill everything instantly*. Also really messed up as it is indiscriminate beyond genetic link.
Just to play Devil’s advocate here, but they are jumping to the global genocide conclusion rather quickly
They see ONE ruined city. Yeah a war or a massive battle clearly happened, but this is the annoying Star Gate scenario where you pop up on one spot of a planet and assume the entire world is that way. like the episode of Star Gate SG-1 where the concluded an entire planet had been over run by giant parasite wasps because the city they showed up in was all dead and filled with the bugs. But planets are big, diverse, one ruined area does not mean ALL areas are ruined. Imagine someone teleporting to Earth to a location suffering the aftermath of a volcano, earthquake, hurricane, and concluding the entire planet was in some post apocalyptic war zone ruins.
One reason I liked the shot back *granted it was only a one time acknowledgment of how silly this idea is* when Star Gate SG-1 had a gate open to a frozen wasteland and they thought they were on a planet in the middle of an ice age. Turned out they had accidently ended up on Earth’s third gate which was in Antarctica.
So for all we/the heroes here know. That city is in ruins, but the war could be still going. Or its some monster the Alari made themselves or summoned right there in that city that has destroyed that city and the Alari have quarantined the area. There are a ton of scenarios they could come to or could be responsible for the immediate area being in ruins that fall short of…yep this area looks screwed up, I bet the whole planet is screwed up to.
maybe it is the whole planet, but the Alari empire extends beyond 1 planet; even if this is their home planet there might be colonies so this might not be more than a decimation, bringing the population down to 1/10 the previous number
The point I am trying to make is Maxima and Dabbler, as well as the people on shows like Star Gate are using a small sample to determine a larger factor.
In other words if you were to teleport to a new planet and showed up in the middle of a forest fire. Would you assume the entire planet was on fire?
We know the properties of forest fires on Earth, which is that they tend to be localised (albeit that whole regions can be burnt if not fought). Although, on an uninhabited forest world it may well be that a fire could spread globally, if most of the forests were connected.
Forests can and do recover from fires. So we may well find a world like that someday (probably with some oceans or many lakes to provide enough rainfall to support those tree populations.
As for the devastation here, this has all the hallmarks of a directed attack. Plus Maxima has just heard Sciona’s rant about how the Alari will invade Earth and enslave humanity. It is unlikely that a foe would limit themselves to just attacking one or two cities. Whilst America did do that to Japan, it was purely because Humans had never seen A-bombs being used before. So it was necessary to prove their power.
With the Alari that would not be necessary. Nor has it been required on Earth, in the decades since the invention of nuclear weapons. The threat of their use deters direct conflict, between major powers. So only small-scale conflicts, proxy wars or other controlled antagonisms, less likely to provoke an all-out war, occur.
However we do know what the wargames predict for if a nuclear war (or, by extension, other WMD, such as hurling meteors at a planet) does kick off. Total global destruction. Simply because, once you have provoked the opposition, by launching such an attack, you have to try and destroy all their capability to launch a counter-attack. If you fail to do that, then you will have similar devastation amongst your own populace.
That said Maxima is probably keeping an open mind, despite that. However she is opting for the credible, if more extreme, option, for the purposes of rebuking her subordinate.
The point still stands, localized, and Dabbler gave TWO examples of the type of attack they would use, both of which would look exactly the same at first glance to one major city.
Blasting back to the industrial age *which for FTL level civilizations is equivalent approximately to a solid state eletrcomagnetic tech/fossil fuel remnant main power base civilization like Earth being blasted back to rocks and sticks*
and
global genocide.
Destroying major cities, infrastructure, technological centers, power grids, would be up on the reducing them back to that stage.
As an aside, also a plausible cause to finding the same race on different planets with no knowledge of each other if such a civilization is blasted back and each world then becomes isolated.
They can see a lot of that city. There is no district which has escaped devastation. Knocking back a civilisation to a pre-industrial era would only require destroying factories, and similarly advanced facilities. There should still be schools,* hospitals and residential areas which were untouched.
Plus Dabbler may well have been on planets which had suffered such attacks. Or, at the very least, will have seen much news footage of Xevoarchy interventions, during her century and a half of life.
So it should be a relatively simple matter for someone as smart as her to be able to pick out the distinctive differences between the two types of attack.
* Maybe universities and other higher-education buildings may be considered to be too advanced, and risking a rapid return to higher technology levels. But basic schools would have to be spared, unless trying to send them back to the stone age.
One major factor in this however is just how accepting is this Xevarchy of collateral damage, would they considering *culling* a population down as part of their tactics. As such targeting major cities which have the highest concentration of records, civilian technology, localized institutions and individuals with the knowledge there of. It is a very dark tactic, but one you’d practice if the intent was to prevent recovery of existing technology and cripple their current society forcing a restart. Tabla Rasa approach,
leaving the less densely populated areas and less likely to have the records, facilities, and individuals that could reinstate the previous order and technology.
We need more information about the Xevarchy. My main point with Dabbler stands as being the expert character, yeah on sight *yep looks like a genocide attack…* five minutes later *my bad, guess the country side and nearby towns are in tact, this city was actually a military and sciences facility*, My main gripe was how it feels like all those shows and movies where a team shows up on a planet and suddenly knows everything about the condition of the whole planet just from the immediate area.
Heck the glowy tendrils are implying she’s mistaken anyway and its some eldritch horror, or another civilization using a Kaiju mega beast or something that the Alari ticked off or opened a portal to the realm of or whatnot.
Heck maybe’s its Vale, she went to retrieve the Brane Ripper and was asked by Deus to prevent the Alari from invading Earth, so she exterminated the city and waited for Sciona to show up *not to Deus’s knowledge of her method perhaps*.
We shall see.
I suspect we won’t see, what with fixing the portal being their top priority. Plus Dave told us a while back, that the story arc would be coming to a conclusion soon. Exiting, through the portal, would do that.
Meaning that Dave is likely trying to give us enough information, to give us closure on the arc, without just doing an info dump in a blog.
As for not being unhappy about snap diagnosis, with minimal information, I am with you. Especially prevalent in science fiction, where a random scientist (perhaps just a high school teacher, and not even a xenobioligist) takes a look at a critter and deduces its nature, origin and likely weakness. Which usually turns out to be spot on.
The distinction here though is Dabbler is talking about something she is familiar with. Clearly, from her dialogue, she knows both the Alari and the Xevoarchy. Whilst you have to speculate as to the tactics the latter use, Dabbler does not.
For instance, to deal with the possibility of local devastation only, just consider the logistics of mounting an interstellar invasion expidition. What would be the point in going across the vast distances between stars, to just target one or two cities? This is not like WWII, when America had to demonstrate the existance of atomic weapons. The Alari knew full well what would happen if they pushed the Xevoarchy too far.
So Dabbler could discount limited destruction, as a warning, thus can confidently conclude that every city on the planet will have been given the same treatment. Be it genocide or infrastructure (etc) destruction.
Then it is just a matter of using her knowledge of the Alari (and galactic technology, architecture or whatever other knowledge she has picked up over a century and a half) to determine the nature of this city.
If I had to guess, I would say that it looks like a commercial city. Maybe with a few sports stadiums (or, given they are Alari, deathmatch arenas). Nothing is yelling ‘factory’ to me.
But Dabbler will not have to make a blind guess. She will be able to identify some things easily, and make educated guesses on others. At least enough to say ‘industrial city’ or ‘commercial city’ or ‘military complex’, for example.
Given the confidence with which she spoke, I think it likely that the call was an easy one. Let us say that she agrees with my guess, that it is a commercial city. And also knows that the Xevoarchy would normally spare those, as being irrelevant, when destroying industrial and technological capability.
So seeing that one has been destroyed here, she would not have to hedge her bets.
Her only caveat was to wonder why they would have chosen such an extreme option, not whether it was the targeted destruction or genocide.
I take your point that, if the Xevoarchy does decide to move on a planet, they would travel loaded for full effect. But that doesn’t mean they have to use it all at once. It’s plausible that they would stage their operations to allow the targets opportunity to comply/surrender, which could lead to only partial devastation overall but still in big enough patches that someone on the ground couldn’t see the edges. For example, stage 1 could be sufficient firepower moving in to the high orbitals to make their capability abundantly clear, stage 2 could be a limited strike (maybe a well-distributed 10% of the total target list) as a ‘warning shot’, and only at stage 3 is the full firepower unleashed.
Maybe a rival faction within the Alari decided they were more entitled to invading Earth then whatever faction Sciona belongs to.
You know, for a really nasty twist, Sciona’s dimensional can opener is what let the glowy snakes in.
Sounds entirely plausible. Unless they are time displaced the wormhole seems to have worked correctly. Meaning that the only problem is its unstable nature. So far we have seen lightning presumably caused by it. Given that was enough to knock down even Maxima, there is not much scope above that beyond starting to kill them. Therefore bleeding from other dimensions seems like a viable side-effect
I expect this scenario to happen shortly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLWRWHB8P34
*hiding in kennel, with door shut, just nose sticking through the gap*
Not going to be able to sleep tonight!
*quivering*
Not a badum-tsssh moment, no…but with all that destruction laid down by someone on the Alari homeworld, it did become a “bad ‘un, tsk,” yes…
The Alari learned the hard way what happens when you ignore Michael Rennie’s warning.