Grrl Power #740 – Predebrief
Max decided her sports bra-ish top wasn’t appropriate while on the clock.
Okay so I clearly have no idea how an actual debrief goes down, and I apologize to people looking forward to a revisit of Sydney’s interview where she had to stand in front of half the senior Archon personnel.
Actually, the way I assume a debrief probably works is that you just report up the chain. NCO’s probably report to their sergeants, who pass the information up to the CO’s, who file it or follow up if needed. I don’t know who Sydney’s actual direct commander is, come to think of it. Anvil is a sergeant, but I usually have her getting trained by Peggy, who is a 1st Lt. Considering Sydney is not technically even an NCO yet, literally everyone else in Arc-SWAT outranks her. Even the other recruits at this point, since she was behind them when she joined, and now she’s fallen an additional 2 months behind.
Let’s assume that Maxima is just doing a ‘high level let’s make sure nothing super classified comes out’ pre-debrief. I guess the actual debrief (considering Archon’s small team size and overall atypical would include Arianna and Dabbler, possibly Hiro, as he’s a Major. They’d probably want to interview Cora and her crew as well, separately I’d guess.
So I’m moving on Wednesday… or I guess I’ve already moved by the time this page posts. I don’t know when I’ll be online again. Hopefully later today. I kind of left sorting out all the utilities till the last minute, then it was Memorial Day weekend and half of them were closed. Oy. Anyway, assume the next time I’m able to get online (phones don’t count) I’ll be surrounded by boxes to the ceiling, having scavenged just enough cords and cables to get my computer working again.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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I’m a bit surprised she doesn’t have a body cam like a common cop these days.
I thought that the choker might have some sort of bodycam functionality. Not sure if that idea is cannon or not.
It could be that it is a streaming body cam. If so it is likely it was unable to access the server during her interstellar trip.
Don’t police body cams use local storage? Streaming directly to a server would subject them to all sorts of cell connectivity issues.
I bought one, and yes local storage. It intentionally takes forever to delete anything from them, too, and can only be done via PC so corruption is lowered and criminals can’t kill the cop and delete video as quickly or easily.
Also it’s video-out-only. You can’t edit anything inside it or add anything. Whatever is in the cam is what happened.
Yeah there’s probably more to each story if you start the recording (auto 15 minute segments) during each scenario though. Hence, they’re supposed to start recording before they show up.
Well sans putting it in a vice and crushing it, or propane torch, bullet etc.
one lock cutter would make short work of it.
go big or go home :)
I think you watched Zoolander too many times.
They did have cameras built into the glasses during their restaurant fight, but none of them survived so last we heard they were working on Plan B.
Also the restaurant fight wasnt classified. The Sciona mission was, since it involved the Council and aliens.
Would have to be one hell of a durable camera to survive the average superhero outing.
Well Sidney can’t take a punch either, so they could give her a camera and expect it to survive.
*they could expect it to survive as long as her
FTFY
They would NOT, however, expect it to survive HER.
The reasons that police officers have body cameras are entirely different from the reasons that soldiers use cameras. I don’t think that it’s a good comparison. While Archon has a quasi-law-enforcement role, we haven’t seen much that directly parallels a street cop’s typical day, so far.
Plus, the team sees so much classified stuff, I’m not sure that using an Archon camera like a cop’s camera is a good idea.
Plus, cops wear camera’s all day and its cool, because their day to day jobs are boring.
Arc Swat arrives and a super fight breaks out, the only reason people still have clothes is cause the comic wants to keep a PG rating. Gear gonna get destroyed as a matter of routine.
A bodycam might be a bad idea, since a lot of Halo’s powers are top secret for national security, and body cams can be potentially hacked or leaked when Sydney is on a top secret mission like she was with the Sciona hunt. Maxima doesn’t even let Sydney talk about aliens over the comms because they might not be secure enough.
She never told Max about her teleportation power?
Then how did she explain the getting stabbed to death situation and the temporal reset? Did she let Max think she just flew down into the thick of things on purpose?
Oooh! Yeah was bugging me as to what power she was referring to there. Jeeze Max isn’t gonna be happy about not being briefed about that potent trick.
time rewind, sydney was the only one to remember the event past checkpoint
Syd didn’t mention it then because of “possible Maxima going evil, might need an Ace in the Hole” thoughts. Harem remembers the time loop and knows about it, but never brought it up… because she’s keeping a lot more secrets.
Yeah, but Sydney still had to explain to the others what happened from her perspective. Explaining how she found Pixel, and then got caught, without divulging her teleportation ability is quite nearly as difficult as explaining how she beat the kaiju.
They know about the telepresence though, so they probably figured it was that.
Just went back and reread it; Harem went into the warehouse to look for HoloSyd BEFORE she teleported in; on page 498 Harem is seen standing next to Krona, but on page 499, the panel drawn from the same angle, right before (and after) Sydney teleports shows she’s gone.
That means she wasn’t present when Sydney teleported, so she doesn’t know about it, either.
They probably dumped everything on Krona there.
She kinda did – they knew she had the point spent on something, she just didn’t tell them what she found. She never lied. As such.
Actually the real question is, why didn’t they do a full debrief after that mission? The whole point about a protocol like a debrief is you do it all the time, every time, not just when you want to chat and catch up; although ARC is clearly hitting the mildly military approach to organisation and discipline.
Thinking about it, ARC is more like a football team than the army. A coach, a team of star players you pay a fortune and pamper because you can’t afford to alienate them or piss them off and have them walk out. Armies can shout at troopers all they like because most troopers can’t walk away and join a different team.
It feels a lot like Archon is more or less like my first employer. They weren’t quasi-military exactly, but… one of their first hires was ex-military. They were a contracting company intent on gobbling up all of the technical experts they knew. Each ex-military person they hired referred a handful of other ex-military people, and so by the time I got hired, their operation was something like 2/3 ex-military. But their management was much more civilian, and to the extent that they were ex-military, they were instructed to have a more civilian focus.
This resulted in them having a lot of terms that were more in use in the military, so we didn’t have meetings about the assignment they were about to send us on, but rather had briefings. We didn’t have exit meetings after an assignment, but had debriefings. We didn’t go on vacation, we went on PTO. And so forth.
But our debriefings went a lot like this, most of the time. At least, those of us who weren’t ex-military. I had a bit of a glimpse of what a military debriefing was like when I was on a project with someone who was ex-military. From my perspective, it was the easiest debrief ever, because one person basically gave the entire summary that our management was looking for, in about four very long sentences.
I’m pretty sure Max is *never* going to get that out of Sydney, and if she tried to go from 0 to there she’d get nowhere. At Sydney’s level of training, this is more or less what she gets.
As far as the prior debriefings she should have gotten…
– big fight: I think most of the group really wasn’t up to a military-style debriefing at that point, and most of them were overwhelmed by it. I suspect Max just gave a report to General Faulk.
– fight at the council: Not Archon’s show. A real military would’ve had one anyway, but I doubt it would’ve had much more intensity than civilians are used to.
– fight at the vault: Not Archon’s show. A real military may have had one, but it’s possible the agreement with the Twilight Council precluded having one.
– fight at the safehouse: Not Archon’s show. Archon only had Sydney and Harem there most of the time. And, in the end, Max was really embarrassed about how that ended. I could easily see that ending up being a more or less canceled debrief.
So this ended up being Sydney’s first debrief. From what I’ve heard, if one has an understanding CO, first debriefs tend to start out less formal, but have a bit at the end where the rookie is given pointers about what is expected in a debrief that they didn’t manage right.
That said, I’m not ex-military, so this is just the impression a civilian got after working at a company with a lot of ex-military.
Your summary of how the “easiest debrief ever” went is pretty standard. As a vet and a former intelligence guy I can assure you that we spend a lot of time learning to use “$5 words” which summarize a thought/situation exceptionally well. Four long sentences…seriously gave me some giggle worthy memory flashbacks.
But yeah, that’s about how this debrief should be. A recorded statement from Sydney about what happened with leading and clarification questions that help her go from A->B->Z in her description of the mission including results of scouting, such as capabilities and number of the enemy, and any assets/extra intelligence not enemy specific. Should about sum it up with her travel time and new tech info gained as well, like how she has super-God tech. Or…maybe not. XD
The secret might be her shiny, new star drive. With Sydney you can’t ever tell….
Given that we’re talking about how she killed the Kaiju, it has to be the teleportation.
I think she was about to shortly after the battle with the mech near the hideout, but the snooze krona put on her bladder expired.
She got interrupted by the bladder snooze alarm running out
HOLY CRAP I GOTTA PEE!! Overrode a lot of other concerns, then they had to deal with krona. She forgot to bring it up and no one else though to ask.
it may be that body cams hadnt been considered or some other out for the writer :D
Nah, cameras for general use don’t seem like a thing for the sort of work they do. Archon is more paramilitary than law enforcement. You don’t always have soldiers wandering around with cameras when they’re in the field.
Besides, the sort of destruction that a rampaging super is likely to cause will be caught on dozens of nearby public cameras. And you don’t need a camera to show that a perp was apprehended using appropriate protocol, like we need for protecting the public from abusive police. The idea of “use of excessive force” kind of goes out the window, when we’re dealing with supers.
Is Maxima supposed to be saying “Fight!” in box 1? looks more like that should be “Fine!” as “You should of hidden does not really make a lot of sense after “Fight!”
I think the exclamation point should have been a question mark. ‘Fight? You should have hidden!’ makes the most sense to me.
Also, in box 9, the last box, Maxima’s ‘What.” would make more sense if it was “What?!” or even better, “Oh?!”
It is more along the lines of the “accusatory” what that has no real punctuation option.
(as in what…..the hell are you not telling me)
Nah. It’s like the Tenth Doctor. He’d say “What” with no inflection at all when he was really surprised.
Exactly. I wouldn’t expect Max to immediately be pissed at a revelation like this. She’ll probably be pissed later, but in the moment, you just kind of go blank, while you’re trying to process new information.
You aren’t reacting, just inserting a social pause. A flat “What,” seems appropriate here. Think of how we often say, “Huh,” or some similar indicator of not hearing someone, when we heard just fine. I do it, and pretty much everyone I know does it, too. We do it when we’re stalling for thinking time, since it gives the other person something to do that we don’t have to pay attention to.
And don’t reflexively say that you don’t do it. Watch yourself, the next time you’re in a social situation. I imagine that almost everyone does it, but it’s done reflexively.
I did do this in the past, but after it was pointed out to me that effective communicators don’t have this verbal tic of needing to fill dead space with useless noise that I too worked on stopping it. Toastmasters International calls it “Uh Counting”. Basically doing it makes you sound unsure of what you are talking about while a silent pause conversely makes you seem more intelligent and confident.
For me, a silent pause means have literally forgotten the next word (and it’s oftimes a relatively basic word, like ‘house’ or ‘cheese’)
I have that missing-noun-thing sometimes. I know it’s not senility, because I’ve had it literally fifty years… Usually I can talk my way to the word or use a bad synonym to get on with it.
“We went out the the… uh, big thing, ground, filled with water… pool! … and then we…”
As far as Toastmasters (five years myself)… the practice of eliminating breathelated pauses from your public speaking is a positive thing, because using too many reflexive “uhs” or “ums” can be distracting to an audience. However, they serve a valid and important purpose in small group dynamics. They fill auditory space to represent that “I am still speaking and have the floor”. In public speaking, the podium or stage serves that purpose.
It’s not a question. It’s a statement. Flatly, “what.”
A better punctuation mark would have been an interrobang. Of course not everybody is familiar with that mark. It expresses both surprise and questioning/disbelief in a single mark.
Fight‽
Except that most people have never seen an interrobang, so it’s pretty much like using a made up “third gender word”.
The period, to me, indicates a flat inflection. Which cannot be interpreted except retroactively, after the person REALLY reacts.
At some point all punctuation marks were made up. The interrobang is a valid, fully understand symbol that is represented in Unicode. Now days becoming part of Unicode is about as official as it gets. I do concede its obscurity with the general public however.
…and doesn’t exist, in “normal” english.
Aggreed. If she were to say, “But, fight!? You should’ve hidden…” or “Fine! But, you should’ve hidden…” Might have better grammatical flow.
Also it’s not like she walked up to Godzilla and declared a duel. She robotech’d the drones? Discovered a kaiju shield, did actually hide, got hit in the body armor, (don’t forget those chocolate ghost peppers for Ashley the fashion ninja Sydney) upgraded, dodged some carpet bomb nukes, thhhhhhhhhen teleported.
Sydney did sort of fly up to old Squidward, declare him to be under arrest, and order him to come along quietly.
I mean, there he was. This gargantuan dealer of death. Kaiju to distant stars. Minding his own business and just slaughtering every living thing he could find.
Then: Boom!
Arrested.
You can see why he got a little peeved.
I think the fact that they got caught doing mayhem to Alari was the reason they went all out with continued attacks including dispatching the carrier ship, the fleet of ships, with not only 1 but 3 capital(or better) level squiddies. They squandered a fleet of ships to keep her on planet. The squids were not expecting their scan to turn up “AAUUGGHHH!” warning of what Syd was or represented. We are still not read into what that means either.
My best idea? someone got caught doing naughty, and they got their butts kicked.
Panel one makes more sense if you read it right to left.
The big secret is the CommBall’s teleport option, it’s been a while since we’ve seen Sydney use it.
Nice to see Maxima in a shirt…
What else should Sydney tell Max?
That she has an alien boyfriend?
Don’t be mean to Leon. He isn’t THAT weird.
Frix. codebreaker means Frix.
speed upgrades, tele-bee port through shields (not even harem can do that to Syd), and gateway.
Oh and the holo wing toy, it makes her go faster :)
Im also surprised she hasnt already told about the teleportation power.
That was pretty relevant in the situation where she almost died.
Even worse, in this case she did actually just switch between flying and shooting.
So its not even something she had to reveal to Max.
It honestly feels a little artificial this time. Like solely going this way to create tension.
All the same, fair enough. The Author is moving. I guess that takes time away from work.
She had to use the Teleport to get into the Shield
And into Fracture .
Pretty sure she got to The Fracture via aetherium causeway or whatever Cora’s folks called it. Am I forgetting a page where she told Cora she teleported to the surface after she arrived?
Yeah, don’t recall mention that she bypassed security and snuck on to
the Death StarFracture via teleport, butt correct recollection isn’t a strong point for me :(The Aetherium Causeway got Sydney to the Fracture, but she has no fine control over the position of the gates. She has relied on preset locations.
The port openings and interior gates have guards which (like Deus) Sydney had to bypass somehow. Ergo Lightbee Teleportation. That is why she missed picking up a universal translator.
Who says she bypassed anyone?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-687-a-friendly-tongue/
Sydney herself said she bypassed everyone.
True, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she did so using Lightbee Teleportation (LT). It is one interpretation, true – that the only way anything material gets onto the Fracture is via monitored official gates, and that Sydney used LT in the immediate vicinity of one of those gates to avoid awkward questions. But there are alternative interpretations – for instance, that while passenger transport invariably goes via monitored passenger gates (with translator stands etc.), there are also vacuum freight routes that receive less attention and lack such amenities. Sort of like passport/customs controls for island countries in this world: the vast majority of people enter via scheduled public transport (or at the same terminals) and are met as part of the disembarkation process, but anyone with their own boat or aeroplane could land at another point where the facilities are looser or nonexistent.
There was no shield, Sydney just assumed there was (just like she assumed it had an ass, and missed while literally under where it should have been, if it had one)
She’s generally an honest person, though. When she was first debating how to address the issue, she had a mental lockup. And then she got distracted. And then the ADD kicked in. And then it just never came up and never occurred to her.
And it’s only been a few days Sydney time.
I believe that she intended to address the teleportation power with General Faulk when the opportunity presented itself , but then…suddenly Alari!
I dunno. There was an unspecified about of time from page #529 to #549. It seemed like that was supposed to be a fair amount of time.
you do remember the page where Syd shot the ppo at squidward and it bent like a wet noodle and hit the ground behind him right?
there was defiantly a shield there
That’s where was saying that Sydney assumed it had a shield, rather than the ability to divert the beam
Again, if her Holo-bee (which is too solid to pass through a glass window) didn’t encounter resistance, then the beam shouldn’t have either
Honestly, it feels pretty in-character for Sidney. Though I think she might have phrased it as “a power I forgot to tell you about”.
She forgot to mention she forgot, which is also in character for her.
Sidney might get out of that relatively lightly, since she does not know of that power for very long. And there was a lot of stress in the battle with Sciona. She might get away with an “in future tell me (or anyone who is putting in charge of knowing her power. Someone in Zephan Zoengs team maybe?) about new powers as soon as you get them. (And are not in immediate danger)”
My other thought is that it could be prudent to wait until she can reveal it securely. They wanted the Comm orb’s powers to remain secret so the addition of teleport probably needed a to be revealed somewhere they can be certain of security, together with the newer power/s.
Actually, Sydney should do a sweep with the comm ball before she continues
Considering Max had time to change her shirt, they may be in a secure briefing room now.
Sydney’s going to get out of it relatively lightly because she’s still a recruit with about 1 week of training.
…. the key word here is “relatively”.
Anvil: So how are your laps going?
Sydney: *Pant* I’ve done five! Just one to go. *Pant* Are you sure I can’t just peel potatoes or something like that? *Pant*
Anvil: Well, if we had our own kitchen, maybe. Mind you, having you in a kitchen that prepares my food scares me more than a little bit. Okay, you can stop running. Time for the cool off. Come over here and catch your breath.
Sydney: *Pant* *Wheeze*
Anvil: Okay, so your cool off is 100 jumping jacks. Get started and count down from 100.
Sydney: *Pant* What?! I have never been good at that. [ Starts doing randomly unsynchronized jumping jacks ]
Anvil: [Waits for Sydney to do 10 or so ] I can’t hear you counting! That means you have to start over. 100, 99, 98, …
Sydney: Oh, man! *Wheeze* 97, 96, 95, …
Dabbler: So, what did she do this time?
Anvil: None of your business, unless you want to join her?
[ Dabbler glances over at Sydney ]
Sydney: 91, 90, 89 …
Dabbler: I hear my lab calling me. Bye! [ Runs off and you though only Max or Harem could cover ground that fast ]
Sydney: 87, 85, 84, …
Anvil: You missed 86. Start over!
In Basic we had a drill that counted everything as one. Right asshole when you are doing your physical. Also very likely the whole new power slipped her mind in the heat of the battle ADHD tends to do that even with good meds.
Seems odd to me that Sydney is sitting in the sort of chair that a boss sits in (hi back, overstuffed, ox blood color, possibly leather); while Max is apparently sitting in a guest chair (no back). Makes it look like they are both sitting on the wrong side of the desk. At least that was the chair situation in the government offices I worked in. Chair size denotes status.
It looks like small conference room, so it’s more probably that Maxima is sitting on the edge of identical chair.
Conference rooms never had the overstuffed chairs. Too expensive for something that peons might use. Then again, Archon is an elite outfit with massive paychecks, so the office furniture budget may also be far greater than it was in any of the mundane offices I worked in.
I bet Arianna made the call to get a super nice conference room for the Arc Swat hero tactical meetings. She knows that sooner or later there will be a documentary, or press walk around, or possibly comic book adaptations, and she want some stuff that they can show off that visually say “power” and “awesome” that speak to the imagination of the public who think they are cool, and for supers who might be tempted to work for Arc Swat to think they’ll get a good deal more than at whatever job they are currently in.
She’s Probably in her office. As Basicaly the operations officer for the team she rates one, as does Hero, And even with her just being a light colonel in the US airforce I guarantee that she knows the chair trick. Hell even Majors and firsts know it.
Basicaly use a strangly slightly uncomfortable chair. Ie trim the legs on a older style straight back or folding chair, Or t tilt the seat slightly forward so it leans forward, or slightly at an angle on the old style plastic and pipe frame chairs, or if it’s a padded one, put a short small pipe, piece of floor tile,pebbles, or simular under one part of the padding so it’s under the cousin, just enough to make it slightly uncomfortable.
Save the real chairs for when you have more sr officers needing to sit in your office. Or not, after all you Usualy want them out of your office as soon as it’s “convenient for them” so you can get back to work.
And then the Arc Swat member floats comfortably in the air above the rickety chair.
That would be totally awesome and she should totally do that.
I’ve worked in offices where the executive conference room on the higher floors had exactly that. Of course, there were literally a dozen smaller conference rooms elsewhere with the usual lesser roller chairs.
Bet you a dollar that Sydney pestered her into sitting in the “big” chair.
It’s one of these chairs. It doesn’t have a high back. Sydney’s just very small.
And I can’t html. THESE chairs: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-606-boring-meeting-try-orgasms-why-not/
What’s the protocol for revealing new powers that suddenly appeared, anyway? That can’t be a regular occurrence for adult supers, who generally seem to have only one or two powers.
Our lovely daughter of a god or possible alien princess Varia is actively experimenting all powers she gets but doesn’t necessarily seem to have to report them/document them (her comments made it seem she was doing it more on her own than under orders). I’d go with the assumption that those who have multiple powers are under a tell us as soon as you get something so we know how best to utilize you, but not necessarily a Big Brother level of we must know.
I think Varia would need to spend a lot more time with Halo to really get everything there… She has the basic jist, but… does the Sydney Varia ship have all the upgrades on all four balls? Or does Varia need to earn her points separately? I guess that will be more readily apparent now that Sydney has some more upgrades.
It is more likely this is happening in Max’s office space, which most definitely should have *really* nice furniture, for reasons of declaring status and for general durability (given her strength, a little over-engineering is a good thing).
I’ve sat in several conference rooms with very nice comfy chairs all the way around the table. It’s not super common, but it’s hardly rare in a Fortune 500 company (Boeing, General Dynamics, and Black and Veatch are my personal experiences). Given Archon’s relative importance in geopolitics / national security and general level of funding in other areas, really nice chairs doesn’t seem a stretch to me.
Black and Veatch had chairs made by Herman Miller – most comfortable desk chair I’ve ever sat in. As a Christmas present to myself, I bought one in 2005. Spectacular chair, but oy, sticker shock…
“It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.”
I’m thinking it’s more like Sydney forgot to mention the teleport… or I guess it technically never happened? I mean… Harem should have remembered. I guess even she forgot to mention it over the last two months.
Really, I suspect debriefings with Sydney will be a much more regular thing, anytime Sydney has been out of Max’s sight
Actually… Sydney probably didn’t want to mention how many mistakes she made which ended in her probable death in the time bubble
So if Sidney can teleport to the remote com-ball, and that com-ball physically exists and doesn’t have her other orb’s fixed range limit, could someone put it in their pocket and then have her appear by surprise, possibly with everyone else in the bubble? that would be a great sudden reveal.
Also, could she use the orbs she’s not using to support the weight of a bubble bus under while she flies?
pretty sure the com-ball’s tele-ball is just a light projection, like her tele-Sydney that appear from it when she wants, you can’t actually touch it, like tele-sydney can’t touch things
but yeah, theoretically (would be really hard to pull off) she could hide her tele-ball inside someone, following their movement so the ball don’t show out, then on a moment notice, exit the tele-ball, materialize the tele-Sydney, switch place with tele-Sydney, activate shield ball to protect whoever is around at the time
No, the light-bee is a physical projection: it couldn’t pass through the glass window at the Wars Warehouse, she had to find another way in
She can only use one other ball if the comm-ball is active/being used, JP. So either she can fly she can generate a shield with your ‘bubble bus’ in it. Not both.
I figure she holds the fly orb, holds the shield orb, and then hooks the other five into a harness and takes the weight of a set of chairs on those orbs; if Max can’t shift them an inch when Sidney doesn’t want them to move, they should be able to lift the weight of the team, right?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-66-hero-baiting/
WHOO HOO!!!
She Can Teleport! Demonstration Time!!!
Re: how debriefing works
Not a great military man myself, but here’s what I know: It depends.
It depends on how big the event was, what’s its impact, and how important to future strategy the information gleaned is going to be.
In Sydney’s current case, I’d expect the debrief to:
* Happen before anything else happens (i.e. – before the party)
* Be in a fairly comprehensive forum. At the very least, Max, Hero and general whatever his name was. Probably a couple more people present as well.
There’s a good reason. The last thing anyone wants is for Max to write the report, and then for the need for further info to trickle back down. Just think how unfair it is to Sydney to still be debriefing about this two weeks after coming back, because someone forgot something.
So you gather people from all relevant fields in one room, so that if there is a relevant question, it is likely to be asked.
I was in the Air Force. This is hearsay, because I never got close enough to any action to actually do anything.
First, there are debriefings and there are after action reports. Debriefings are relatively informal, usually 1-on-1 with your competent authority. The AAR is formal. Written by the senior individual involved, who is responsible for talking with other team members as described.
Usually.
As mentioned, Sydney is still in *her* first week. She hasn’t gotten to this in her training. Moreover, AARs for supers are going to be different. Lots of details to try to fish out.
So…I would argue that what is happening here is really a pre-debriefing. Once Max figures out just how extensive the action was, she’s going to need to pull in at least a couple more people (one of whom is definitely Dabbler) and step through the encounter as a team. Absolution no, “why did you/didn’t you”s allowed. They desperately need to understand the capabilities & weaknesses of the enemy, and NOTHING else is remotely as important.
Yeah, Syd’s tactics also need to be analyzed for lessons learned, but that is a secondary matter. That will be another 1-on-1 with Max, with a non-reproachful tone. Likely, after Max has put Sydney’s AAR together.
This is Sydney’s shenanigans we’re talking about here. I know Max has super powers, but I don’t think her powers are up to the task of entirely keeping the reproach out of her voice.
Just a military point: Sergeants are NCO’s. Debriefs like what Halo is undergoing wouldn’t be done by a sergeant, they’d be done by intelligence people, who may be either warrant officers or officers.
I thought Max was atleast a major.
She’s a Lieutenant-Colonel.
She could, have just flown down.She outranks all, except for a Colonel, and a general
Mmm, I’d think who conducts the debriefing would depend on why she’s being debriefed. If it’s “learn about the enemy”, that would be intelligence officers. If it’s “figure out how such and such bit of tech performed” it would be the R&D unit responsible for that. If it’s “evaluate team performance and fill in the gaps in our reports”, that’s the CO or a CO’s subordinate.
Of course, they’ve had plenty of warning that Sydney’s coming back, and that she has some unique experience with extraterrestrials, so yeah, intel types are DEFINITELY going to be crawling all over her for the next thirty years.
Brigadier General Faulk: Colonel, I’ve heard you are debriefing Scoville about her off-world activities.
Lt. Col. Leander: Yes, sir. We’re just taking a little break right now.
Faulk: I would like to sit in the rest of the debrief.
Leander: Of course, sir.
Scoville: Okay, my bladder’s empty again. [ Notices the general standing beyond Max ] Oh, Sh….eep dip! Sorry General sir. I did not see you there. What with Max being soo tall and…
Faulk: That’s all right Recruit.
Leander: The general will be sitting in for the rest of the debriefing.
Faulk: Do you think anybody else should be brought in?
Leander: Well, you’ve read the reports from the rest of the accidental off-world team. Maybe Arriana to consider the interplanetary diplomatic ramifications. I think we can call in others as needed.
Isn’t “sheep dip” a term only used by fundamentalist Christians who want to say “bullshit” but can’t? I’ve only ever encountered it in the crazy Christian movies that they review on the God Awful Movies podcast. This doesn’t seem like something that Sydney would use.
She’s trying to not swear in front of the general.
“Try” being the operative word here. I don’t think he expects that of her at this point, anyway.
Nope.
It was used extensively in the Marine Corps during my era.
Everything about sheep stinks worse than cows, so it is a bigger insult.
Spend some time on a farm.
I have OCD. I’m fine without the experience.
Wouldn’t you say “sheep shit” then? Why “dip”?
I dunno.
But farmers used the term when I was growing up, so it’s probably from some now obscure reason having to do with nineteenth century agriculture, and just wound up sti being in use.
You literally dip sheep in stuff to prevent parasites from screwing up that valuable wool. I know that. I just don’t know if that smells particularly bad.
In Christian cinema, it’s a simple close-to-sounding replacement, like saying “fudge” instead of “fuck”.
I grew up in the sixties.
Substitutions like that were the norm in polite Society, and not tied to religion.
In much of America outside of the metroplexes, people still talk that way.
The term is civility.
That polite space is called “flyover country” by the cool kids.
Because she’s attempting to not swear, and ‘shit’ is still considered a ‘naughty’ word
Why else would she change it to ‘sheep shit’ when she was originally going to say ‘shit’ anyway? o_O
Sheep dip is a washing technique for sheep on some farms. A trough, a little wider and taller than a sheep and about 4 sheep long (maybe longer), is filled with water and cleaning ingredients of the day then the sheep are sent (often pushed) through the trough, which dips them in the cleaning solution. Mind you, the dip at certain points requires the sheep to go under water for a few seconds, but they are actually adept swimmers, for short distances anyway.
Thank you, Norbrook. That was bugging me, too…
Dave, NCO’s (non-commissioned officers) have the rank of sergeant and above. (not sure about corporals; I was USAF. Maybe NCO in wartime only? I dunno; Army has weird enlisted ranks) Below the NCO ranks (of which there are too many to reasonably list out here) would be Airmen, Seamen, Privates & Specialists, and probably cadets & midshipmen (ROTC or the Academies).
Isn’t it some flavor of sergeant all the way up, in the enlisted tree of every branch? I know that’s the case in the Marines and the Army. I’m lazy and don’t feel like looking up the rest.
Marine NCO ranks start with Corporal at E-4.
Ah yeah, I forgot that Corporals are considered NCOs. I knew that. Duh. *forehead smack*
My point was about sergeants, though. Agent Duchess said sergeants and above. It’s sergeants all the way up, just like it’s turtles all the way down.
Ha ha. OK, so maybe I worded that lazily. …and above “in rank”. Generally there’s a straight up “Sergeant” or equivalent at the E-4 level (AF used to have ‘buck sergeant’ but not anymore, our NCO’s start at E-5).
Also, if memory serves, at a certain point (around E-7), they’ll get bent out of shape a bit if you call them by just ‘Sergeant’ or ‘Petty Officer’. It’s either their true rank or the general term used for E-7 thru E-9’s (AF is Master Sergeant, Navy/CG is Chief or Chief Petty Officer… and again, I have no idea about Army/Marine protocols of address for E-7+.)
Of course, I’m not even opening the can of worms that “First Sergeants” add to the mix. I could sorta keep up with my AF ranks back in the day, but the others are a fog. I’ll leave that to my brother Vet’s from the other services.
Anyway, the whole point being was a thank you to Norbrook, ’cause yeah, it *very mildly* irritates me when folks don’t even have the basics of rank down. One can get a decent grasp of them from TV and movies, alone, let alone diving into wiki sites or actually enlisting.
But hey, this is Dave’s show & he’s driving. Just ’cause I felt a bump in the road don’t mean I’m not lovin’ the ride.
When I was in, you went Private first-class, to Tech 4, T-5…
In various armies derived from the British, including Canada, United States, Australia, etc. the NCO ranks are:
* Private (1 person). Responsible for only their private affairs.
* Corporal (in charge of a fire time or patrol ~5-20 privates. Might be in charge of less privates in a specialist role). Responsible for keeping those bodies alive and well.
* Sergeant (in charge of a platoon ~40-75 lower-ranked NCO’s). Responsible for making sure things get done.
* Warrant Officer (in charge of a company ~100 – 400 lower-ranked NCO’s). Responsible for co-ordinating the sergeants they command. A Regimental Sergeant Major is not a Sergeant, but a Warrant Officer who is the senior NCO of a regiment (~4-10 companies) and administrative assistant to the Colonel commanding the regiment.
Many of these NCO ranks are further subdivided (Lance Corporal, Master Sergeant, etc.) depending on which service you are talking about.
The difference between junior officers and senior NCO’s is that the officers make the decisions of what needs to get done and the NCO’s make sure it gets done.
Re DaveB’s comments on who should be present at a debriefing here’s my 2 cents (overpriced):
Strictly speaking, Arianna is public relations and shouldn’t be cleared for sensitive information, let alone debriefings. If she was invited, it would be as a courtesy to hear the specific parts of the debriefing which would become public. Dabbler as a “civilian consultant” could be invited if it were deemed that her input would be relevant (but again, only on a need to know basis). Of course a normal debriefing would be done by Sydney’s direct superior who would pass that information up the chain for further analysis as required. Top level debriefings would be overseen by General Faulk (remember him, last appeared back in 2012 or thereabouts. :-) )
But of course, Archon is “atypical” for a military organisation, and rule of funny/story as always applies.
Btw: Love panels 3&4 with Max in full “team Mom (damned American spelling :-) )” mode.
Why could you NOT have a cleared PA?
It’s not that you couldn’t, but need to know is always important, especially when one has a job of being passive aggressive. Wait. Wrong one. Public Accountant. No, not that one. Purchasing Agent. Um, probably not. Party Animal. No, no, no. Project Analyst. Actually, there’s a lot of project analysts with clearances if I’m not mistaken… Political Affairs? That seems less like a person and more like a group. Privacy Agent. There’s something not quite right about this one. I’m not sure what. Oh, I know, I already used Agent. Prosecution Attorney. But Sydney hasn’t even been arrested!
Dang it, Acronyms are hard. Even my Protocol Analyzer has difficulties with them.
Yeah, every organization has their own TLAs and expects everyone to know them. It always amazes me how few people know what a DHCP service/server is … although I can’t imagine the service being given a dedicated server, no matter how large the enterprise local network. Maybe a dedicated virtual server, sure.
And in this case, the T in that first acronym stands for Two, not the usual Three. See how confusing this is?
I remember some army comedy movie (possibly Stripes) where they were explaining types of munitions to the recruits. “These are anti-personnel rounds, which are designated ‘AP’. These are armor piercing rounds which are designated ‘AP’.”
Even worse was the ETLAs.
Why wouldn’t your media liaison be cleared for full access?
(a) Keeping “need to know” information under wraps is easier if it’s not known to civilians. After all Military personnel leaking secrets can be tried under military law. Civilians? not so much.
(b) It’s easier for your media liaison to squash a rumour if they think they’re telling the truth “Halo can teleport and create some sort of jumpgate thing for travelling to other star systems at speeds effectively beyond the speed of light? I can assure you, I’ve heard nothing about that sort of ludicrous overpowered fantasy!”
(c) If the truth comes out and someone sues them for withholding evidence, you can call witnesses who will truthfully state that “They didn’t know because as a matter of national security, we didn’t tell them”.
Given that Dabbler is the most knowledgeable person on the team about extraterrestrial stuff, it would make sense to have her there just to see if anything leapt out at her. It’s not like they’re going to keep alien worlds/tech/etc secret from her, after all.
Agreed, but remember Dabbler wasn’t present at Sydney’s interview until specifically requested to see if she had any knowledge about the orbs. Up till that point “need to know” did not include her.
That’s because they didn’t know about Sydney’s floating balls
You know, I was kind of hoping we’d see General Faulk again during this debriefing. I realize that debriefing a recruit, even after something of this magnitude, isn’t really something a general does… but come on, I don’t think we’ve seen the guy even once since Sydney’s entrance interview, and I thought he was pretty cool.
Agreed, we need a “bring back General Faulk” committee, complete with laminated membership card.
Waving placards at events where DaveB is a guest is an option, but that seems intrusive and obsessive, like screaming that if Buffy and Angel cannot be a couple neither of them may ever have a long term partner (and that way, madness lies).
I know how to use gimp2, just bought a Wacom, and don’t mind looking like a lunatic in person. Want me to make the cards?
“… even something of this magnitude.” Hell, we’re talking about an experience on an alien planet. I would think that the top commanding officer would be present for the debriefing of someone who had just reported for her first day of super boot camp.
Heck, at this point, the President might even want to sit-in. It’s not like she hasn’t met him before, after all.
It could also be a case of “I want to know what’s going on and I don’t want to wait for a report”. If the general wants to sit in there is nobody that can stop him.
I didn’t expect a pre debrief debrief.
For the real one she should be in uniform? Recorded?
Hey that’s an opportunity to show off by teleporting to her room!
Sydney: “Be right back!” Grabs Com ball, pauses for a few moments, vanishes.
Maxima: “WHAT THE F***!!!”. Contributes to Swear Jar II.
Maybe she’s prepping Sydney for the official debriefing, which will be recorded?
At this point, I hope Sydney remembers to send a “thank you” to Iron Cloth. The man’s work did save her life.
A passing reference to gift wrapped cholate covered ghost pepper chilies would suffice.
Sydney is not a good liar, eh? I mean c’mon, just claim you’ve found out how the spent point works during the battle, easy.
She might also be well-advised to rephrase it as “forgot to tell you about” :)
A full debrief would be Halo sat down and have to go over the entire mission from her point of view. With various intelligence personnel asking targeted questions to get her to remember details she may gloss over. It is a mental wringer. But they get results.
Actually, that’s changing now, because military intelligence is going to have a major change in the near future.
When I was in Intel in the Air Force in the 90’s/early 2000’s, you’re primarily on-track. We’d have people there asking questions about enemy capabilities, tactics and what worked/didn’t. However, that’s one debriefing out of many. There’s also a medical check up, an immediate CoC debrief and what they call a “containment” period of leaving the individual alone but not alone, if you get my meaning. The Intel debrief is incredibly boring, and often monotonous. And often ends with “If you remember anything you think is important later, please call one of us and we’ll meet.”
From what I understand under new DoD policy (I work part time as a contractor with the NSA so I hear things), the Intel brief will be a lot of paperwork carried out on a computer. As in you’ll get a bunch of questions via like a WebEx meeting and be expected to fill out as much as you can on a document. The point being under the present administration and his SecDef fill-in (and their hatred of Intel personnel), they are decomm’ing the old Intel Operations type jobs. I have random early morning briefings with the Pence and a dozen other people to discuss policy and some general threats that are not classified, and I feel like I can basically snooze through them (because as Pence once told the Director of the NSA, he does not trust or believe anything we have to tell him).
From a comic story point of view, I would assume the informal debrief is more off-the-cuff “my commanding officer has questions” briefing that happened because Sydney happened to say something that was alarming. You can do the whole official debriefing thing off screen and I think we’ll be okay with that.
For the love of. No nope not going there.
I hope what you are seeing/hearing reverses.
Sure, when you get a sensible, probably Democratic, president in 2020.
I was going to say the same sort of thing … maybe starting in 2021, with someone at the top who doesn’t have an interest in actively sabotaging the work of our intelligence agencies, for … reasons.
Depends on what the Oligarchy feels.
If they realized how wrong they were, then someone else will come in. If not, it’ll be 4 more years of this. The decision was already made either way.
Please take the political bullshit elsewhere. Nothing ruins a discussion group faster than a round of “my party’s politicians are saints and your party’s politicians are literally Hitler.”
Man I said nothing about liking another party or anything. I just said what I observed as the current administration behavior regarding intelligence and intel briefings. The previous administration actually actively participated. This administration does not – they disregard and have even told us they don’t care about safety (unless it’s their own safety). The administration before that (which was before my tenure) was also participating and listening.
It’s a radical shift. It’s not like we’re telling them everyone is an enemy or anything, or suggesting invasions. We’re primarily advising them against specific actions that might embolden or create new threats to our country. And they ignore it. Plain and simple.
“Actively participated” is quite humorous understatement.
“Weaponized” is another way of saying it.
To be fair, “actively participated” meant they listened and asked questions. They gave guidance to some of our inquiries, but for the most part, they just asked a lot of questions. They didn’t tell us what to do, or ask for anything in particular – just listened and then asked questions.
The present administration is not even doing that. They send the fewest people and I can see on their webcams that some of them are reading or doing something else. No one asks questions. What they do is they tend to tell us (off-topic of what we were talking about) what they think we should be doing, and when we ask questions about that, there’s no answer. It’s a very radical shift in how previous administrations have operated.
My (limited) experience has been the higher the clearance the greater the need for suspicion and paranoia, and the greater the need for prevarication…
Not…really? There are technically only two levels of clearance; once you hit “top secret,” the clearance is by program and “need to know.” There are differing protocols on how to handle different programs, and “eyes only” is a thing, but it really amounts to specific need-to-know lists. And even with Obama (a President I didn’t trust to have the USA’s national interest as a priority – not picking a fight, here, just stating that even with a Pres. I don’t trust, this is the case), I’d have been very disturbed to hear of any level of intelligence feeling the need to obfuscate or lie; that way lies shadow governments and unaccountable mafias pretending to be government agencies.
The proper way to handle opsec is to refuse to discuss things and to avoid even having to confirm-by-refusing-to-say by being careful about what you talk about at all. Lying and deceiving (rather than simply omitting and redacting) is considered inferior opsec for a number of reasons, not the least being that you’re rarely as clever as you think you are, and the alternate story can lead intelligence operatives to information they wouldn’t otherwise have known how to look for.
This. All of this.
Err, whose interests did you think Obama had in mind which would conflict with ours? I know plenty of specific policy issues that people have with him, but I wouldn’t expect such a sweeping statement. I know whose interests that I think Trump has in mind, which conflict with our national interests … besides his own wallet, obviously.
‘Splain please. I’m genuinely curious, since I haven’t heard anything coherent from the Tea Partiers, besides “He’s a Muslim!” You sound like you might have some more coherent complaints.
My grandfather writes (or used to) the Tea Party’s weekly newsletter. One of the things he told me in person was that a president should never follow through with any of the things he says in a campaign. Basically he wants a president to say what the people want to hear, but not do it. Just show awareness of the public mind, but not take it seriously.
Narf –
Segev said, specifically “I didn’t trust to have the USA’s national interest as a priority.” Note the “I” statement. It’s a fact.
Assuming that you approve of Obama, then you probably approve of Obama’s position that some world concerns take priority over some national USA concerns. (It doesn’t matter which ones.. any one will do.)
Anyone who disagrees with Obama’s elevation of international priorities over American ones can reasonably make the statement Segev made.
It is actually a matrix. There is right to know and need to know. Right to know is by security clearance: Confidential, Secret, Top Secret and is a general indication of the trust given that person. Need to know is by program/project, typically: Special Need To Know, Special Access Required and Black and applies on a program by program basis. Need to know establishes whether an individual is allowed to know about the program. Right to know establishes what level of information the individual is allowed to know.
Strangely enough, there is a shift to remove the “need to know” boundaries of the old days, and more of a “you have to know what to ask for before you get it” type behavior. Mostly because in the past, “need to know” interfered with one intel agency being able to communicate with another about something vastly important to the point it hurt actual US operations (I’m not talking about 9/11 – there were a lot of examples of not sharing intel during the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns that were detrimental).
Ever since the younger Bush’s term in office, the intelligence community has struggled with being more transparent in how we operate vs effectiveness in the field. If you’re telling people how you get the information, you are giving away your sources, which are then compromised in actual information gathering. However, if you tell people how you’re using said information, that helps the community in the long run. Both in trust and cooperation.The previous administration struggled with that – they wanted more transparency, but had a hard time giving the community the ability to do it. They also wanted the intelligence community to communicate within better and that worked out better than with Bush’s people.
As of today, we’re confused. We believe that more transparency is a good thing, and we’re trying to be more transparent. And we’re also trying to communicate better to prevent things from escalating. That would help the current administration as well gain trust from the public. However, the current administration doesn’t want transparency – they want to dismantle everything, because we won’t act on verbal requests, mostly because we want to be transparent (legal paper trail). If anything, I’m weirded out that they are incapable of figuring out the paperwork necessary to ask correctly for information for their own goals. Instead, they tell us they can’t trust us because they can’t ask us anything in the correct manner we’ve explained to them over and over. It’s not brain surgery – it’s paperwork. For transparency.
For what its worth, this process is what the Republicans asked for, and the Democrats agreed and voted on in 2004. The previous administration wasn’t really sophisticated either, yet they understood how to do it. I just wish the current administration gets with the program, and the next one realizes the value of it. So I don’t have to struggle to stay awake during meetings, and feel confident we’re not going to let something bad happen soon.
Um, that seems backwards. If I have a need to know something, and don’t ask, somebody could tell me. If I have to ask, then they can’t just tell me.
That having been said, from tales I’ve heard from other people who have been in a position to know about some of this stuff, it sounded like there was a fair amount of needing to know to ask implicit in the need to know implementation.
Also, if we’re talking about trusting Presidents to have the best interests of the US at heart, they almost all start out that way, but when faced with a really hard decision, they all seem to fall back on their core ideals.
In other words, the military and the intelligence community can’t trust a President in all instances to do the right thing, because they are all raised and educated differently. They also employ different people to handle certain jobs, and sometimes those people lie to get those jobs (every administration since WWII). Presidents may appoint people thinking “Hey this person cares and has the best intentions,” but then realize later that they may be wrong and remove them. In the interim, we have to be our own police and pay attention to the staff and their asks until we believe we can or can’t trust them.
Trust is gained over time and action, problem is that Presidents and their staff only hang around for 8 years (or 12 for staff).
Well, then you have Ambassadors with more than 8 years experience, suddenly unmasking hundreds of people… and you have people in the intelligence community explicitly running operations against the executive branch and simultaneously explicitly misdirecting the legislative branch about what they are doing.
Given that the intelligence community has been literally attempting to trap and convict the chief executive since before he was elected… which may or may not have been warranted at any given time, but which definitely occurred and is still occurring… and which has included investigators, sources and informants factually on the payroll of the opposing political party… there is zero reason that he should trust that intelligence community.
If you were in his shoes, would you?
Note: my personal belief is that Trump’s choices have included some probable graft… which has nothing whatsoever to do with any foreign influence.
The entire Comey and Mueller investigations have been expensive partisan kabuki. When you have dozens of people fired and demoted for their actions in an investigation, pretending the results are untainted is an effort of will, not reason.
Yeah, I’ve never really understood why the results of the president removing a special investigator who is publicly investigating the president is not an immediate court hearing regarding the obstruction of justice just performed.
I’m also confused as to how the Mueller report is so certain that Trump didn’t conspire with the Russians before announcing an interest in the office, with the failed attempts to negotiate with the Russians as mere window dressing to make it look like he’s too inept to conspire with the Russians.
Again, the FBI is not an intelligence agency. The FBI is a law enforcement agency. They conducted the investigation, they were are the only ones with the authority to arrest anyone in the government. The NSA does not conduct investigations. The NSA is a collection agency, not law enforcement.
The CIA can only get involved in operations within US borders with the permission of the Director, who reports to the Executive branch. The Director of the CIA is implicit in all operations of the CIA. The present administration has appointed the Director, so to say that the CIA is out to get the President means the President is … out to get … himself? I mean, that doesn’t make any sense. The CIA Director is friendly with the White House, so all operations are focused primarily elsewehere right now.
The problem is the current administration – if it would hire competent individuals OR if it would hire individuals that would stay in his employ for longer than a few months – does not understand the distinction and areas of operations. And apparently neither does anyone else, for that matter. You can look up what agencies do intelligence collection and what their jurisdiction is. LAW ENFORCEMENT does not equal INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY.
One briefing I was told not to say “I can’t tell you”, which can prompt people to ask “why”, better to lie and say something like “I don’t know.”
Considering that the hatred by Intel personnel of the administration has been documented to have long preceded the election, it’s mutual, I’m sure.
Because they confuse law-enforcement bodies with intelligence agencies.
The FBI = law enforcement.
The NSA = intelligence agency.
They are pissed at the FBI, but it spills over onto the intel community. We’re not responsible for the FBI’s incompetence or alleged problems.
Except that there’s plenty of evidence of washing and recycling the Steele hit pieces through the various agencies, and the various acts of … let’s be ironic and call it “collusion” … by other domestic agencies and foreign intelligence services in this whole partisan debacle.
I’d have to research further to be able to finger any particular organization in any particular piece of it, but the partisan leaks for the last 3 years were not solely from the FBI.
Am I wrong?
You’re not claiming that Brennan was FBI are you?
By the way, EmCeeKhan, this thread is way off topic and I’d be happy to take it to a private channel of any sort to discuss reasonably. No use annoying the partisans on either side or the people who just love the story.
We can still talk about how intelligence works. I’m not really reporting on how I feel about the current administration’s policies or politics. I’m more concerned with the trend of how intelligence is used and treated from a broader perspective.
So here’s the deal – you have three types of agencies at play here. The FBI – which is a law enforcement agency. We do not police them – Congress, their committees and boards created to review policy police them. They are not part of the intelligence community. That is – they do not sort or disseminate classified information about the capabilities or activities of foreign powers. They investigate and arrest people. They can request information, but typically they operate state-side, so we rarely interact with them on a daily basis. Only in cases of terrorism.
The CIA has always been an outlier of sorts when it comes to intelligence communities. They are what we would call a very aggressive intelligence agency. However, most of the CIA is civilians. The whole Jason Bourne type stuff people imagine about the CIA? That’s a whole different area within the CIA that operates on another level. The Administration assumes that’s 90% of the CIA, when it’s about … maybe 15%? … of the CIA. Most of the CIA is also involved in what is considered passive information review. Looking at what is reported, verifying its veracity by cross-checking sources, etc. Due to it’s level of interaction and it’s mission, it is the least transparent of the agencies. But it still has to keep track of what it is doing on some level. The Director is appointed by the Executive branch and usually Congress gives that appointment a broad pass. Not always the best way to do it, in my opinion. But the former CIA Director is now out, and the current CIA Director is in, and that Director is friendly to the Administration, so the CIA would not be actively pursuing an agenda against the guy who appointed their boss.
The NSA and most military intelligence agencies are the last group. They collect according to their mission. You can look up most of their missions. Military intel is only concerned with their immediate theater of operation. The NSA is a very passive intelligence agency – it only collects, sorts and disseminates. It can alert or set off an alarm if something does raise a lot of red flags, but for the most part, it’s there to provide information. The NSA will disseminate only with legal approval and with the proper paperwork filed. If anything, others complain we’re too anal when getting requests. You can thank Mr. Snow for that – his public revelations set off inquiries and policy revisions that have improved how and who can use what information the NSA collects. The Republicans made a huge push to change the way the NSA operates, with more transparency and closer supervision of activity. They decided we need to expire the information after a certain time frame (which makes sense from an electronic storage viewpoint as well).
I will say this, though, because you seem to be a big supporter of Trump and possibly going after the former Sec of State Clinton. We may or may not have had the information required to put Clinton in jail. However, the current administration did not request that information or ask for any investigation into any activities since they started. In a very short period of time, if there were to be any such information, it will expire and be purged. The administration knows this. If it is, you have to ask yourself: Did the present administration consciously allow that to happen because their intention to put someone in jail was mostly an empty promise to rile up support? If the administration does not follow through with that, then maybe they are in cahoots with the former Sec of State. I’m not officially making a statement, but merely posing a question to the broader audience who is interested in conspiracies involving the subject we are speaking on.
*Snowden. Amazing that my spellchecker thought that Snowden should be changed to Snow. I am LOLing.
There is a long–very long–history of administrations that don’t start with a good relationship to some part of the military/diplomatic corps. “Gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail”. Remember that one? That’s because neither you nor I nor our grandparents were born yet.
Not that I approve of the changes you are describing.
That was back when they fired all of the country’s male spies and replaced them with women, right?
Oh, wait, that wasn’t this universe. Sigh.
Max’s face in the second panel. That moment of realization about why.
There’s extenuating circumstances on the TP power and revealing it. She found out she could use it during the Sciona discovery, and it’s been kinda busy for her ever since.
I don’t know that she’s burned all her goodwill. Didn’t all the Scionia stuff happen in the same night? Or within 24 hours of each other at least?
More like 48. She found out at the Mars Warehouse fight, same night as the attack on the Council. The night after that (I think) was the shadow vault or whatever it’s called, and the night after that was wormhole-alien-kaiju dance-off.
… there might have been some more nights in there. Not sure.
I got the impression that it was a bit longer. It’s hard to remember which scenes were supposed to have significant time passage between them, though.
re: DaveM
“That way madness lies”
And not just simple madness either but entire mountains of madness …
“Madness Mountain”, the newest ride at Dizzyworld.
I choose to believe that someone at Disney has actually read HP Lovecraft.
But if so they sure could have gone a lot more thematic with that ride.
How do you think a Disney rendition of “At The Mountains Of Madness” would work out, anyhow?
I expect Sydney to come back at Max sometime later in this conversation with a question about whether the powers that be really know everything that Max is capable of.
I’m betting they don’t.
You’re not cleared to know that.
Of course, you’re right, they don’t. And it’s probable that regardless of whether Halo can actually fly faster than Maxima, Maxima won’t win the next race, because it’s at least close enough to her top speed that Max isn’t willing to let Sydney know she can go that fast.
Or they do, but the people who do are not in the loop with what is going on, so there’s no relating what they might know about her powers (possibly from previous alien cover-ups) to Sydney’s actual orbs. Silos of information (meaning that it’s kept separated from everything else).
It’s surprising how in retrospect, a lot of intelligence people are like, “Oh, I knew all about that. Had you asked and I had know you had some exposure to that, I would have been happy to bring you up to speed!”
Look, Sydney, you can just spin the truth a bit. “I’d been trying to figure out what this symbol on my comm ball did and I only got it working that time I died with Krona’s time reset and we got all focused on whether the universe was broken by time travel that I forgot to say something then and every time I remembered I still needed to say something there was something wildly dangerous and/or distracting happening.” You’ll get in a bit of trouble, but not THAT much.
Honestly, to me it feels more like she is spinning the truth in the way she is saying it NOW, and she’s doing it in her own dis-favor. Been there, done that. (Well, not there specifically, but in this kind of dig-your-own-grave self-marketing.)
At this time, Max should convene a formal debrief/inquiry with Dabbler, the General, Zephon, and the head of Archon’s Intel division. There is a lot of world-view-shattering info about to be disclosed, but the the threat of the giant world-destroying aliens, as well as the alien visitors and immigrants/undead invaders is of utmost importance. I can see this ramping up to the point that a full hush-hush federal inquiry results.
They knew about the world-destroying aliens already, the rest of the team saw them before Syd was stranded.
Correct, but Sydney has actually fought them, and thus has new intel of great significance. Plus, she has been bouncing around space, and there needs to be a decision as to what can safely be released to the general public regarding what’s out there.
The planning people need to know whats available, for planning purposes..
Westley : I mean, if we only had a wheelbarrow, that would be something.
Inigo Montoya : Where we did we put that wheelbarrow the albino had?
Fezzik : Over the albino, I think.
Westley : Well, why didn’t you list that among our assets in the first place?
In panel 7, should the line “We need have strategies” be “We need to have strategies”
That was bugging me, too. :P Otherwise, great comic Dave! :D
And Maxima has been reduced to a flat what.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FlatWhat
This bodes not well for Halo’s near future. I’m sensing PT. Lots of PT.
I was in the ARMY, from 1972-1978, even then civilian employees did most of it.
I’m not sure that Sydney’s actually going to burn all that much goodwill over this. Max is going to have to ask “why”. At which point Sydney will almost certainly have a borderline breakdown about Max possibly going evil at some point.
We already know that Max can’t handle Sydney’s puppy eyes.
So, yeah. Max will never be happy about it, but, *especially* for Sydney, it was a defensible decision. Defensible, not sustainable.
Sydney could just say that she was taking the whole need-to-know thing to heart and there had not been time between her discovery of this facet of the comball and the fight with Sciona to get the Colonel alone in a secure location to brief her.
Any time there’s a debriefing and Dabbler isn’t there, it’s nto a proper debriefing. Or even debikiniing.
In this case, it does seem more like Max is doing “let me informally find out from Sydney what happened, and then I can get the formal process started that Sydney isn’t trained to handle yet.” No experience with military practice, but given the unusual nature of Archon, I expect Max has a lot of situations where ‘figure out how to handle it’ is going to be part of her job, and a lot of situations where ‘figure out whether this needs to go up the chain or if it’s just normal weirdness’ applies.
You can’t fly while using your shield and firing you PPO, so…
It is called a Ground Op. Fire from below. Send munitions into a small exit hole on the big weapon system and you get to recreate the Death Star goes Boom!
If you go back and re-read the fight it appears that she’s basically using gravity to change for altitude while firing then grabbing the flyball again to avoid crashing
Sydney’s move was to go ballistic. Literally. She did an upward acceleration, fired during the zero G arc, then went back into flight mode. The Big Bads caught on and fired back at that time since they knew she could not maneuver.
We all need to remember that a lot of military protocol simply doesn’t … can’t … apply, due to the nature of the team. Would any other branch of the military accept a recruit who requires Ritalin to stay focused for more than 60 seconds?
When your pool of potential recruits is so limited, you have to make some exceptions for the ones you can get. The guys in the Space Marine armor, in chapter one, sure. They can be expected to be treated with normal military discipline, but very powerful supers? Sure, you try, but you have to let some stuff slide.
The very nature of supers is going to cause issues, too. Someone who is so difficult to discipline while growing up is quite likely to have some issues, as an adult.
I guess it’s like the Popeye argument why would the Navy recruit a middle-aged man with obvious vision problems and apparent physical deformities causing his arms to developed an unusual proportion to normal people
The sailor caricature Popeye uses an exaggeration of asymmetric muscle development which used to be common in the days of muscle powered labor.
When I was in my early twenties I was stationed in Biloxi for a year and I spent about three days a week out shrimping with a friend. I threw the net, and he pealed and cleaned. I always pulled the net up using my left arm to pull and my right hand to keep the net from tangling.
After a year, my left arm and shoulder was significantly larger than my right.
Also, look at skeletons of English longbow archers from the hundred years war period.
I was referring to him being in the same condition that we see you later in the series is he is in the cartoon where he appears to be drafted for the first time
The military has that in place now. It’s called “asset control.” In other words, if it’s insanely powerful but hard to wield/keep in control, bring it under your command anyway, so it can’t be used/controlled by others to hurt you.”
I would assume that would apply to super-powered individuals. You may hate how they behave and act like civilians or 5 year-old children, but you have to add them to your command to keep them out of the hands of your enemies (or from wrecking havoc on their own).
Just look at the average football/softball/baseball team for tips on how to keep a diverse group of incredibly valuable personnel you can’t afford to lose working hard with each other. They could have professional sport team managers in to give tips on employee retention.
Max is very good about figuring out Sydney’s Trails of logic. I’m surprised she hasn’t figured out the Sydney has been juggling between the PPO and Fly ball while in battle since that thing was as tall as it was in order to do that heck. Also Sydney wasn’t quite lying she simply omitted information until it became pertinent or relevant she can freaking teleport
@DaveB This is a link to a debriefing “template” of how a debriefing is supposed to go. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/7-93/Appi.htm
For potential future use.
Hmm I forget when she learned she could properly teleport?
I legit only remember her learning the projection but not hte teleport..
When was that?
She knew she could project before she was brought in did not know about true sight until dabbler she learned she could teleport at the factory
she learned it in the warehouse fight.
sdy used the light bee to scout the warehouse and when she found pixel hung up like a blood bag.
Ah right thanks.
Hmm. Honestly nto a terribly lot of time in between from what I remember to talk about it I guess. though she did have time to talk about other things. But with the fire shortly after and all that I guess.
Dammit Syd, how hard would it be to claim that you got an orb upgrade after that first shot that damaged your shield, grabbed telepresence in your panic? Don’t tell people you lied to them when there’s such an easy explanation available!
While Max is debriefing one person who arrived on the space ship, Dabbler is trying to do her own style of debriefing with some of the other persons who arrived on the ship as well.
Internets +2.
Right there – it was right there…
Yes, but Dabbler is being much more effective in her debriefing, because the people she’s debriefing are more experienced at being debriefed.
I think the “What.” has the appropriate punctuation. Because it’s not really a question and more like a statement.