Grrl Power #742 – Rank = knowing stuff
Yeah, Sydney basically forgot that Maxima is a Lt. Colonel and she’s not even a Private yet. She’s just gotten used to being in the know. She found out about Arc-DARK, Dabbler, and aliens within minutes of entering the building, and figured out Earth is host to a lot of not-humans in her first week on the team.
At some point here, probably on the way back down to the base, Maxima is going to read Sydney the riot act about keeping important stuff from her, like secret powers. I don’t have a comic covering that conversation planned, cause it’s just a lot of “Seriously.” and “Okay, I promise.” Just be aware that it does happen.
I was going to write more here, but I started rereading the comic from the Dabbler reveal page linked above, and now it’s 1 am and I’m tired. At least it made me chuckle quite a bit. Boy, Sydney has actually calmed down quite a bit since then. I’m sure that’s good for like, character growth, but I almost feel like she needs to have a relapse or something, cause those pages were pretty funny.
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IMO, thinking in terms of “pay grade” only makes sense if you’re talking about things that higher ranks are involved with that a person does not want to have to deal with. If it’s something a person wants to be involved in, it’s almost daring them to ask for a raise!
Smash cut powers activate! I want to see if Sciona’s friends are in Deus’s spare fish tanks, can’t wait for Monday!
The term “pay grades” is actually used in the military to signify ranks between branches. Each branch in the military uses its own system of ranks, and there was no simple way to signify who outranks whom between different branches. So eventually they started using pay grades as a quick shorthand for ranks, since it a was a universal system that actually reflected that difference in rank.
Saying something is above your pay-grade meant it outranks you.
Yep, For example an E-1 is the lowest enlisted rank in the American military. That is Private for the Army or Seaman Recruit for the Navy (not joking the the US Navy actually has 3 ranks of Seaman https://www.militaryfactory.com/ranks/navy_ranks.asp )
So for a more practical application question. An Army Captain and a Navy Captain meet, who has the higher rank? Well the pay grade for an Army Captain is O-3 (officer 3) while the Navy Captain is an O-6 (O-6 out ranks LCol. Lender)
I assume they have their own pay scale because there is no way they are payed the “tiny” (by comparison) amount that a 4-star gets ($15,800/month 20yr experience) https://www.militaryfactory.com/military_pay_scale.asp ). We know based on what Dave has said that the team pull mid-to-upper 6-figures.
I’d guess that the minimum pay for ArcSwat for supers is $1 million/year. Supers are extremely rare, and they could make lots of money elsewhere. How much would they get paid to be in movies? How much for modeling?
Ask Les, he can do both, in the same day (he is a stuntman)
Sydney once mentioned that she made more in a week Archon than a year comic shop.
If she worked full time in the comic shop and could still pay her daily expenses that would mean she at least earned a living wage for US standards, so 1660USD/month*12=19,920$.(American notation)
She gets at least 19,920$ a week or 19.920*40=796,800$ a year.
We don’t know what the actual pay is, but this is the least a recruit gets.
I really like “you can trust me because I’m *much* more highly paid than you.”
Very very realistic from a military point of view.
I actually didn’t expect Maxima to spin that one out, she’s more savvy than your average light bird, but she *did* do her time in the Air Force so I guess my expectations were unrealistic.
(I realize this is common language *within* the military but you gotta realize that Sydney doesn’t know military from a hole in the ground)
She can’t be that unaware of the basics, because she owns a comic book store and is depicted as having read the classics enough to have an encyclopedic knowledge of comics.
Sgt. Rock, Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos, the Haunted Tank…comics I grew up reading periodically had little asides explaining things like rank or unit organization.
It seemed to be the smoothest way to get her to illustrate the gulf between their ranks and responsibilities. “Because I outrank you by over a dozen ranks.” didn’t feel right. “Because I outrank you.” might have worked, but I wanted to emphasize the delta. I suppose “Because I’m a Lt. Colonel and you’re a recruit” would have worked too, but it was smoother the way Max said it, even if the concept of pay grades is not something the average civilian is terribly familiar with.
“it is on a ‘need-to know’ basis, and you don’t need to know”
Meh, I always found that one to come off as rude and dismissive. It need not always be taken that way, but because it can (and does get purposely used that way at times), I dislike it.
“If I tell you, I have to tell every recruit, and then where would we be?” (Eyebrow raised.)
I had a “Secret” Clearance, and that “need-to-know” stuff was among the first things the Sargent told me. Just because I had the clearance to know something does not mean I had the “need” to know something. If I was caught poking through files that I did not need to be, I would lose my clearance and rank. Remember, this was just basic “Secret” clearance, not even “Top Secret”, they are even stricter on the rules there, to the point where if someone is asking too many questions (and don’t take “classified” as an answer) they are ‘obligated by law’ to report them to their chain of command.
It was never meant as rude or dismissive towards me or my job, because I always understood that lives were on the line. We were told to emphasize this to family, especially non-military. Because if they do something stupid and post a supportive message on Facebook letting friends and family know exactly when and where you are leaving and arriving, then the enemy might be able to plan an attack against you. Soldiers HAVE been killed in attacks where they got the information from social media. If you can not trust your family not to post stuff, you should not tell them anything at all.
Soldiers and Police just get used to “need-to-know” and if it bothers them, they need to seriously reevaluate there career choices. This is a literal matter of life and death.
Well put. I was viewing it from a civilian point of view, as a turn of phrase, whilst neglecting that it had a technical and very valid basis.
Still I need to know everything, so anybody telling me that would still tick me off. ;-)
This is why a bunch of soldiers got in trouble for wearing Fitbits– the geolocation of the devices pointed out the location of an undisclosed base in the middle of the desert.
I didn’t make it clear because I’m a doofus, but the way Maxima said it is exactly how a military person *would* say it, and it’s the most descriptive way to describe it given everyone in Archon is from the civil sector or another branch of the military.
The thing I was pointing out poorly was that Sydney is gonna be confused.
Considering Sidney’s obsession with comic books and her health issues, she’s far more likely to lose her mind and become a supervillain.
Nah. Unless she only has read Watchmen, she’d know the heroes are usually the ones that win.
You do know there are plenty of comics were the bad guys win right?
Superior Spiderman, Watchman, Bomb Queen, Secret Invasion, Avengers Arena, Forever Evil, Empire by Mark Waid, Wanted, Sinestro Corps War, Dr Doom.
Yes but most of those are told with villains as the protagonist (except for Watchmen), so the villain wins. Watchmen was told from the hero’s perspectives. Ozymandias was an antagonist, not a protagonist. You forgot Suicide Squad btw :). Also in most of those comics, it’s bad guys vs…. worse bad guys. Not good guys vs bad guys :)
Sydney is clearly the protagonist, and was wanting to be a hero protagonist, which is what made her want to join Archon anyway, even before she knew anything about the money or considered the fame.
But I see what you’re trying to say. In any case, the point still stands, since villain protagonists are a very tiny minority of superhero comic books.
Hey! The HEROS won in WATCHMEN… Just not quite in the way that the majority of them meant to…
Watchmen was the very definition of a Pyrrhic victory, with fields salted afterwards so the winner has to support the ones they defeated.
That’s not really winning. There were no “winners” in Watchmen.
Especially not after DC decided to take a huge dump over their entire IP with Watchmen and Dr. M as the maguffin.
Want a better example of Pyrrhic victory? Read Worm:Parahumans by Wildbow. Only less than 2% of your own world surviving is a big ‘Pyrrhic Victory’
Also for an even better example of bad guys winning, Forging Hephaestus by Drew Hayes. It does have bad guys vs. even greater bad guys, but also vs. bad heroes and the main characters who win in the end are basically professional mafia. Mafia in a wold of superpowers.
Spoilers! I’m still going to read that.
He didnt really spoil anything. His numbers are wrong. *redacted* of the world survived. He didnt tell you that *redacted* ends up causing the end of world. He didnt tell you about the *redacted* or that one of them actually *redacted*. He didnt tell that *redacted* is modified by *redacted* into *redacted* and that this is what enables the defeat of *redacted*. He didnt tell you abou the fight versus *redacted* or that after its death 3 more *redacted* begin to attack as part of the *redacted* cycle. He didnt tell you of the alliance between *redacted* and *redacted* that was key to the defeat of *redacted*. Or that *redacted* either created or activated the *redacted* because his power reacted to his *redacted* for *redacted* *redacted*. And that just some of the stuff from Arc 20 onward. Not mention that *redacted* revealed that the *redacted* were part of *redacted* and that *redacted* were who created the *redacted* who left the *redacted* shortly after having this information revealed to them. The best part is that anyone who has read the whole story can probably fill in every redacted spot. It is that memorable. I didnt even mention all the other *redacted*-class threats and parahumans.
I’m honestly waiting for the Doomsday Clock to strike and see what happens.
Why, obviously, the Doom Bell will ring… http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20111031
While memorable that’s particular Bell is in the wrong Multiverse. The one I referred to has another name at least according to the people writing the book. Quick link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock_(comics)
I thought that the point of the ending of watchmen was that the good guys lost but humanity won. That the bad guy looked at the potential extinction of his own species and forged a solution that would ensure cooperation among former enemies in the wake of a catastrophe and a possible enemy that they were completely unprepared for and who would require no less than their cooperation to confront and survive. He didnt permanently avert the possible extinction. He just delayed it and gave humanity another chance. The book did it much better than the movie.
I have not and probably will not watch the movie though I did enjoy the comics. It’s up for the black freighter I didn’t care for that much.
No… the point of the ending of Watchmen was that appointing an “elite” to be moral guardians doesn’t work (hence the title and the recurring phrase, “who will watch the watchmen?”). There weren’t ANY actual good guys in the Watchmen. On the one hand, you have Rorschach – a misogynistic closeted homosexual who projects his twisted and heavily repressed sexuality onto everyone else, and is basically a serial killer with a good excuse. On the other, you have Ozymandius – whose “compassionate” attitude led him to murdering millions of his fellow human beings, using what was essentially a deliberately malformed HUMAN BABY as a suicide bomber, in order to end the Cold War (when the obvious and FAR more efficient and effective answer was to remove one or both superpowers. Just like in our own world).
Hell, even Night Owl II and Silk Specter II aren’t exactly heroic – they agree to keep quiet on the biggest act of mass murder in history, then go off to be vigilantes for fun (with Silk Specter intending to start carrying a gun, no less).
By contrast, you look at the Archon team – they’re very much held accountable, being kept to similar standards as everyone else. Or… heck, look at the Real Life Superhero movement. Real people, wearing real costumes, running around their cities… dispensing food to the homeless and patrolling for criminals (while observing the legal niceties regarding acceptable use of force).
I don’t think you know what a macguffin is… It’s a thing that gets the heroes moving and is quickly forgotten about.
For example, in Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, the macguffin is the sword that link is supposed to deliver to the castle…
In GrrlPowerComic, right in the very beginning, the macguffin was dropping the money from the comic store off at the bank…
What every gets the story going but has no effect on the story aside from getting the protagonist to where they need to be, that’s the macguffin.
Dr M is not a macguffin. Nobody in the DC universe was motivated by finding him only to get side tracked by the main story.
What a McGuffin is.
I think the term they were looking for was Deux Ex Machina. Or in this case, Deus Ex Manhattan.
Or, I suppose if I’m being literal, “Manhatten sit Deus” or Manhatten is god, instead of God in the Machine…
Maybe God has a penthouse suite in Upper Manhattan… :P
Using her genre savvy skills, how would she describe herself?
Plucky comic relief newbie who flaunts conventions but gets it done?
WWDPD?
Main protagonist can be both genre savvy and the comic relief.
Almost by definition, genre-savvy means comic relief. However, this is a comic action webcomic, so “comic” is a given, and “relief” is not a thing. Tension breaks occur by switching between various threads comic/action/romance/pathos/etc.
“Considering Sidney’s obsession with comic books and her health issues, she’s far more likely to lose her mind and become a supervillain.”
True. But do note that the comic is called Grrl Power. Which does not imply that the protagonist has to be a hero. Even if Sydney does turn to the dark side and become either an anti-hero or an outright villain, it would still be interesting to follow her story.
Maxima better watch out. She would be pretty high on Halo’s list of enemies to wipe out preemptively and without a monologue. If she can overcome her fond attachment and squeamishness that is.
I don’t see Sydney sticking around and laying waste to things if she reaches some sort of breaking point.
I see her more going on an interstellar voyage of discovery (and weird adventures) for a while.
As we have seen with Richard Rider, Carol Danvers, Wendell Vaughn, and several dozen others.
Eventually they get homesick, come back to earth and defeat an alien invasion, meet all the new heroes (or raise a kid) and then take off again until a writer needs to pull a Cosmic hero out of the hat.
I see it, if what my thought was this morning is right:
I might know what those mechathulu were. Remember that Dabbler was sexplaining to Sydney that every spacefaring civilization has a percentage of its populace blah blah blah galactic military police?
We know Dave played Mass Effect. The mechs are all different, that we’ve seen. Same for (I didn’t play it, I pre-ordered all the games and DLCs and picked them up at midnight releases UNTIL that one though) the very end of Mass Effect and you see lots of different Reaper types. There’s the human one in 3.
Dabbler did tell Sydney (because she asked) that if the galactic police have to blow up a planet, the people recruited from that world do still have to take part. A good way to not have any personal hangups about nuking your own hometown from orbit is to be pulped and used as a slurry component.
Those giant mechs might have been the galactic police that are NOT meant to be able to be fought. Nor should anyone be willing to that knows about them.
Now, if (and it’s likely at this point) that humanity has to sacrifice 850,000,000 people (7.5 billion population total) to be melted down for monster components… which is what Deus might have been trying for because of the ‘bigger picture’. But Sydney blowing them up instead painted a target on Earth saying “blow this up now”. So she’d already be a supervillain right now.
Sorry, I was deleting the incorrect number and didn’t do that to the whole sentence (oops).
But also Edit: Also anyone that knows about them is from a world that already agreed to it. So you kinda need someone that absolutely shouldn’t be there or know about it in order to blow it up to come along. Maybe the orbs aren’t a Sim-crystal game interface but something built by whoever came up with their tech to begin with and said ‘yeah um this isn’t what I wanted’. So many inventors through history were very regretful of what they created after seeing how it was used by others, and the orbs could be a ‘mistake eraser’ which would explain why they get better when destroying technology, which would encourage their user to target such things.
Maybe whoever used it before died after only leveling so much, but their design is meant to be passed from one user to the next, each one taking up the same cause due to how they work.
Dabbles mentioned the Galactic Death Squad, butt didn’t think that the Squids were them (if they have to blow up a planet, then the entire population has been deemed not fit to live)
It’s a military thing. “It’s above my pay grade” basically means, “I’m not somebody who has high enough clearance to know about that.”
I know, it’s just peculiar given the circumstances of a commanding officer saying it about someone else with regards to something they want in on. I could easily see Daphne countering that line with “Okay, gimme a raise! Problem solved.”
I had Top Secret Clearance, because I was photographer, even at Tech3.
Yeah, but rank and Clearance don’t go hand-in-hand, either. Clearance and pay grade, maybe, and rank and pay grade definitely, but I know civilians at higher clearances than the average Major in the Army.
The whole idea of “pay grade” here is that “I outrank the HELL out of you” but Sydney isn’t gonna twig to that, she’s never had any exposure to it.
It certainly doesn’t! I had to have TSC to work for the civilian subcontractor that answered the phones for the Post Office. I guarantee that in the three years before they moved the operation to India, I never heard anything remotely secret (criminal, yes, but not Secret). It’s basically just scripted customer service, for God’s sake…
I never even knew why they required that level of Clearance… Almost a 6 week wait for the FBI to clear nearly 400 of us for the job…and I’m left wondering how they got around that requirement in India…
Ummm… If it’s the case I’m thinking of, they didn’t get around that requirement in India, though they tried to by moving those people to the US, and eventually lost the contract when they got caught (despite being warned that this would happen).
But that could be a different case.
You just said…
Clearance = pay grade
Pay grade = rank
Rank != Clearance…
I’m not sure how that works…
“Oh. I don’t get to have secret you-go-evil plans, but you get to have secret any-of-us-go-evil plans. Dangit, how do I grind XP to gain rank instead of power points?”
Spend twenty years in the military, battling budgets and punching papercuts
She’s rather go back to fighting kaiju. :)
Without a toilet break, on that day of the month :)
Welcome to the Military during Peace Time :P
1 day?
No, just the worst day (32 days a month)
I love how shiny Maxima is on this page :).
Me too :)
Why should I trust you with my secrets, if you don’t trust me enough to tell me even WHY I should trust you?
To be fair, if you tell the recruit your secret mechanism for dealing with anybody who goes rogue, (Radio controlled sinus bombs with watchdog timers?) there’s a fair chance it stops working.
If it was me in Sydney’s place my honest would most likely be:
‘because of the time reset I wasn’t sure I still had it, and what with all the stuff since then… it actually slipped my mind that I might still have this ability until I was marooned on Sciona’s planet having to deal with Kaiju out for my blood.’
And I’m not even half as distractable as Sydney is.
Honestly, that was my first thought. Though she’d probably have remembered when the green orb activated. No chance to test tho.
While the “Dark Maxima” thought did go through her mind, she never really seemed to decide anything there.
Maxima needs to assure Sydney that she won’t go “Dark Maxima”…
“That’s what the bad guy always says!”
No, Sydney, I would never go “Dark Maxima” on you.
Oh, have you met my new friend, Jason Wyngarde?
Sydney, this isn’t a “show me yours if I show you mine” situation
Haha. Maximal grumbling about Wikileaks. Which just further proves Sydneys point about off the book powers
I don’t know… Sydney taking on PLANETARY THREATS, TWICE and winning, TWICE, making FIRST CONTACT, by herself, SUCCESSFULLY, oh, and discovering she no only can take on a MULTITUDE of ALIEN STAR WARS type fightets, an WIN, she ALSO discovered she has FASTER THAN LIGHT capability, and SUCCESSFULLY managed to navigate to an ALIEN safe haven, that ALSO happened to be a MAJOR INTERSTELLAR TRANSPORTATION HUB, and again, made first contact, ND made PEACE with and RENDERED ASSISTANCE to a FORMALLY HOSTILE ALIEN REFUGEES, well, I kinda think that hen she graduates from being a RECRUIT, (yeah, doing all that as a RECRUIT) she might ought to be upgraded to AT LEAST an OFFICER rank!
I mean, come on, how many trained HEROS in ARC can legitimately claim to have done all of that, BY HERSELF… I kinda think she’s earned a few extra perks…
Although, she could use a bit more training in team operations… Just think of what she could… Ah, no, nevermind… She’s dangerous enough ALL ON HER OWN…
Except that power and rank are not related. Consider that General Faulk is Maxima’s superior despite having no powers at all (well, he did seemingly pull a pair of glasses out of nowhere once, but that probably doesn’t count).
Shh, that’s classified.
Way above your paygrade, man. ;)
Rank is derived from a proven ability to follow procedure (albeit creatively sometimes), not power. Sergeants are usually better battlefield combatants, and frequently better at tactics than their superiors. Their also usually really good at achieving a task without this coming to the conscious awareness of their superiors.
This is not to say that these superiors don’t know what a given sergeant or group can accomplish, it’s just not always necessary to know how and why they are good for a particular assignment. And I cannot think of a sergeant that is willing to dabble in strategy when reference to higher is available…
Also, you have to be able to lead, socialize and maneuver through the politics of leadership. Officers have to be able to do all that, plus be team players and coaches. Sydney has none of that, although she could with more experience and training.
Hey! The HEROS won in WATCHMEN… Just not quite in the way that the majority of them meant to…
Dave: I was going to write more here, but I started rereading the comic from the Dabbler reveal page linked above, and now it’s 1 am and I’m tired.
You’re telling us about the perils of an archive binge?
could be worse. I found a comic one day while I was on flu meds and feeling horrible. So I read all, at the time, 8 years of it in a day. it’s had more since
shields, sensors, weapons, grapple/tractor/anchor, egines, life support, ball number seven could be either coms or brig…seeing as these have been mostly offence/utility in nature, and where likely meant as one man craft, i would guess coms
Sydney: Okay, well, now for the next big reveal…
*activates super-alien-science wings*
Sydney: I also discovered the true source of my Halo… I am literally an angel. I just had amnesia.
Maxima: …
Maxima: You’re joking, right?
Maxima: Please tell me you’re joking.
Maxima: …
Sydney: I am specifically Tamriel, Archangel of Power. My initial wakening and starting a comic book store is the reason there’s superpowers in the world in the first place.
Maxima: *blinks and stares*
Sydney: Yes, Maxima, I’m joking.
Maxima: *audible sigh of relief*
Maxima: Oh thank God, that would have been the most terrifying thing ever.
+1
+1 internet for you.
That could have happened.
+infinity.
That one might result in brig time… You’re not supposed to actually, deliberately, terrify your superiors…
But it is still +1…
yes but strangely Sydney will get little gifts from everyone else, best to stay on the good side of someone who can troll Maxima that good.
wait- isn’t max wearing her vital signs monitoring gear? if it looks like a fear response what would the group monitoring it do?
+1
+1 you have won the internet for today. Well done
+1
+1
“I can teleport… also, here Max, look at my phone, I took pics!”
… and she didn’t mention the refugees yet.
I think people do forget. that comic writers do try to put some duplicates of interactions in real life into them. usually overdone, but they’re there.. so Sydney pointing out that she does have comic books to fall back on and they have helped, is a valid point.
So, has Sydney disclosed to Maxima that she effectively has warp drive now?
Maxima may already know this. Cora and Dabbler talked at least once after Sydney was rescued. probably during that epic bathroom break- legends will be told of that event.ballads even Sydney of the Burning Butt. the fact that Cora had to chase Sydney down kinda makes it obvious that Sydney has FTL.
If Maxima had known that Sydney wasn’t on the Alari homeworld when picked up then debrief would have happened before the party.
The rescue plan was for Cora’s ship to pick up Halo just after the Portal closed. Unfortunately Cora was delayed by an encounter with the Fel, which left Sydney on her own for a couple of hours.
The first real opportunity for Cora to provide details of where she picked up Halo was at the party. That information still hasn’t reached Maxima yet.
No reason for Sydney to not tell Maxima about that; The only reason she would have thought she could keep teleportation secret, is that literally nobody else knew about it besides her, due to the “reset”.
Sydney, time to start earning back her trust, by telling her first before she gets it from Dabbler!
Harem might know, since other quantum linked bodies were outside of the reset area.
On the other hand, the reset happened right after Sydney teleported so even if Harem was watching she might have missed it.
Harem wasn’t on the roof when Sydney Bee-ported, she had already entered the Warhouse looking for Holo-Halo and Pixelicious
The only one who saw what happened, was Kronachrome, and her mind was reset
Gate technology, not really warp drive. I think. I mean, both are nonsense terms and can mean a lot of things, but to me a gate is like a long range teleport: No time passes. Warp drive is just getting places faster than light speed, and depending on exactly how much faster, and the distances involved, a little or a lot of time will pass in the transit. Given that to Sydney’s perspective she was gone just 3 days, I’d expect that she spent either zero or effectively zero (a few seconds or minutes is effectively zero for this purpose) time transiting the aetherium gate.
I’d answer that Maxima being tight-lipped about other people’s secrets means that she will protect Sydney’s secrets too.
Yup. That’s the advantage of knowing that someone has strong morals. They apply them all the time and not selectively. And it shows at times like this.
The only unfortunate thing is that trust is a two-way road. While Maxima WOULD be accurate in “It’s classified” being a legitimate response, in-setting Max has made it pretty clear (Amongst her team) that that’s her go-to “I just don’t want to tell you so go away.” response. Meaning, in Sydney’s mind, it’s entirely possible for her to believe that Maxima will not share with her information in exchange for information. Or, in short, “Okay, I need to know something, guess I skip Maxima. Won’t tell me because it’s classified, even if it’s vital I know it.”
This might be the sole reason she ranks up quite a bit later this week (in-character time).
It really is not.
The ability to be trustworthy comes with maturity, whenever (or if ever) that arrives.
You can be trustworthy to people (such as your small children, or your co worker who never pays back loans or returns borrowed things) so it does not have to be reciprocal.
Question is: why is it ‘vital that she shows it’? Because she is curious? If it truly is ‘vital’ for her to know as part of her duties, then she would already have been told, if she hasn’t been told why to do something, then it isn’t fucking ‘vital’ that she knows why, and it would grounds for seriously disciplinary action
Bit of a difference here. Sydney is now considered a part of the military (in a new force created for the changing situation, much like the air force. Or, possibly, like the space force – which is actually a very good idea if you can get past any animosity towards the guy who first suggested it) . Maxima is her commanding officer. Maxima does NOT have to trade information tit-for-tat. That is not how it works. How it works is that Sydney tells her everything (with the obvious exception of personal information; Maxima is not entitled to ask Sydney about her personal life), and Maxima tells Sydney what, in MAXIMA’S OPINION, Sydney needs to know.
It sounds very unfair, but there are other areas where Sydney has the advantage. If they’re in a fight and Sydney accidentally demolishes a building full of people, Maxima is responsible for it. The Colonel takes the blame, not the Private. If they go abroad and a foreign official decides he wants to take liberties with Sydney’s person, Maxima’s obvious answer is, “over my dead body – or more likely, yours.” All that rank carries with it a lot of responsibility – and THAT’S why Maxima needs to know everything, and that’s also why Maxima needs to keep a tight lid on the information she knows and is responsible for.
The space force isn’t a good idea, regardless of the idiocy of the person who suggested it.
First, the US is a signatory to treaties forbidding the weaponizing of space. And while time has marched on and there are plenty of loopholes where that intent could be easily subverted, given our current space capabilities toying with that concept isn’t a very smart idea.
Second, the very name suggests a military operation. Which as I have pointed out above, isn’t the best impression to make.
Third, we already have a governmental agency which handles our space exploration, NASA. There’s no point in re-inventing the wheel at great cost and to little benefit. Any ‘Space Force’ which is created will naturally be sniping personnel from NASA, and down the road vice versa. Again to very little benefit of the US in the end. If there is some concern about NASA’s capability to take on projects of the nature of moon or Mars exploration (just as examples), then address them within NASA. That will be quicker and less expensive, and will get those projects off the ground sooner than creating a new branch of the armed service or a new governmental agency can ever hope to match.
The Space Force will (sometime in the next 20 years, tops) evolve from the Air Force Space Command. Just like the Air Force evolved out of the Army Air Force. As for that ridiculous treaty, it’s been a dead letter for the last five years unless you completely ignore the actions of China and Russia.
This is not about space exploration. That political mission is handled by NASA. This is about the preservation of our space-based assets, which are currently under significant if not substantial threat. NASA is likely to state outside of Space Force for the same reason that the CIA is not part of the DoD–pure politics.
“we just established that it’s much harder for you to keep psychics from pulling secrets out of your head than it is for me”
VOTE
Sydney should be careful about hoping to find out classified information outside of approved channels. While I was on a contract at the FBI they put out a memo that no one was to visit that site from FBI computers, and then fired a few people who were too stupid to follow that simple directive.
And one reason I’ve never gone to Wikileaks, even from a personal computer, is because I never want to have to have to answer ‘yes’ if I’m asked if I’ve viewed classified documents that I have not been cleared to view.
The sad thing though is that even if I linked you to the funniest thing ever, you would be too wary of clicking on it, in case it turned out to be Rickrolling you to a Wikileaks page!
And then your FBI file would be flagged as “subversive” and “gatherer of things that man is not meant to know”!
That’s just your face in RL, Yorp.
And it isn’t classified. Or at least I can still honestly state that I have never viewed classified materials to which I was not supposed to be privy. And Yorp, your browser should show you the URL of any link you’re considering clicking on. Whether you utilize that capability is, of course, up to you.
Yea, it does on a mouseover.
Still funny dog face! :-D
I think Max’s biggest argument for knowing Sydney’s full capabilities is her position as team lead, which is directly related to her rank.
Max: “Sydney, think about the situations the team has been in over just the last couple weeks. I have to make split-second decisions about who fights a given threat, and putting other team members into a fight I didn’t know you could waltz through may get them killed. What’s more likely in the next couple years, more super fights or me suddenly turning evil?”
Sydney: “…I’m thinking fifty-fifty?”
It still hasn’t quite clicked for Sydney that Archon isn’t like the Justice League or the Avengers. They are NOT a collection of equals, they are a military branch.
Sorry if this was answered already in the comments, but I’m a little confused why Syndey asked Maxima what happened to Sciona. They both saw Sciona wandering off on her home planet. Then all those weird skulls flew by them at that critical moment. It doesn’t seem plausible that she would think Sciona was one of those little skulls. So why did Sydney think Maxima would know anything more about what happened to Sciona more than Syndey does? It seems more likely that she would ask about what happened with all those weird little skulls that flew by her into the portal. Just a little confused there.
That was the beginning of a longer conversation. Sydney probably machine gunned a bunch of questions right after this page ended, like “I didn’t see her on the planet so maybe that big thing stepped on her and what was the deal with all those skulls and what have you guys been up to since I’ve been away and…”
But cutting the page right where I did allowed for the better cutaway transition. You’re right though. Sydney probably wouldn’t assume Sciona had anything to do with the “wraithstream” that knocked the rest of the team through the portal.
Just started reading this again from the beginning and realized just how much better the art has gotten on the new pages compared to then. Look at this page and go back and look at the weird awkward drawing in comic 2. This new page here is absolutely stunning. Especially panel 5.
Thanks! I’ve been working on it a lot. Unfortunately it takes time when I do a reflected light pass or whatever, so there may be a practical limit to how good I can make every panel look. :)
Being an Air Force vet myself, I didn’t realize anyone would bat an eye at this response.
“Above my pay grade” actually has multiple connotations. It’s not just “something I should not know”, it’s “something I don’t need to worry about.” As an individual contributor, I’ve used and/or heard the term in the civilian world many times over the last couple of decades. And large companies DO have pay bands, but I’ve never heard any civilian pull rank with this sort of response–it would be weird.
Of course, Sydney hasn’t made the transition out of the civilian world yet, and is not aware of the subtext when a CO says, “I’m glad you thought about this problem. It’s been handled.” Which is why she responds they way she does.
This is being pedantic, but more rank does not always equal more knowledge. It also depends on “need to know” (or should).
No, just because you’re a colonel doesn’t mean you get the plans for the new weapon. You’re the paymaster, not the officer in charge of the team designing that weapon. There’s no reason for you to have the plans, so you don’t get them.
From what I hear, this is sort of how Snowden got the info. There was a system where they were storing the info. He was hired on a contract as one of the system administrators. That system (in its default configuration) allowed a system admin to see *everything*, bypassing the (extensive) system of access controls.
That particular system got redesigned after Snowden did his thing. Not sure if they moved to a different system, or just upgraded it.
I do hope they changed their hiring practices. Hiring someone on a contract basis to do support and administration for your document management system, is like doing an open casting call for a code clerk.