Grrl Power #840 – Loopholio
I think Maxima ordered Steak Oscar, except instead of Bearnaise sauce, it came with a fancy Hollandaise sauce, and also a side of scallops. Because you know what goes well with Hollandaise sauce? Literally almost anything. It’s just a fuckton of butter with egg yolk and a drizzle of lemon. I’ll eat god damned toast slathered in Hollandaise sauce. Fortunately, I only make Hollandaise sauce 2 or 3 times a year, because it’s just a fuckton of butter, and I want to live past 55.
One of the reason Deus’s Galytn experiment is working as well as it is, is because, to the best of my knowledge, no impoverished, out of the way country like them has ever had a crazy billionaire come in and just start throwing a ton of money at a bunch of core problems, and do it responsibly. Sure, there have been plenty of government changeups in various third world countries, and every once in a while the new dictator will actually go full ham on infrastructure or something, but… as often as not, they’re involved in industrial grade drug trade to fund it, or are genociding some religious minority on the side, so whatever good they’re doing gets overshadowed by the other stuff.
Deus legitimately has no other agenda than improving the country… yes, so he can sort of become the Weyland Yutani of Galytn. I don’t mean that in the sense that he’s repeatedly fucking himself with ill advised bio-weapon experiments, I mean it like he is THE employer in the country. He understands that a comfortable and well educated middle class is one of the best engines for economic growth. A great deal of that economic growth goes back into his coffers, yes, but he’s continuing to improve the country to continue to improve his return. But then he goes and says something like on this page, about annexing nearby cities in order to improve the lives of the citizens there. It’s suspiciously like he actually cares about the quality of life of people under his “rule.” Which in itself seems suspicious.
A billion dollars in America will buy you a bit of highway and a decent sized mixmaster. Imagine how much roadwork you cold get done in BFE with that kind of cash. Deus is a big believer in public transit though. He’s built some roads but also a lot of railway. He thinks that the infrastructure cost of maintaining a few hundred million miles of roads and highways can eventually become prohibitive, not to mention the burden of putting the cost of car ownership on up and coming but still poor citizens. Plus… if you sell someone a car, you make X dollars from them, and a well maintained car can be run for a decade or two. If you sell someone a bus or rail pass every week for the rest of their lives, it provides a steady and predictable source of revenue.
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I’m pretty surprised no one has mentioned that Deus seems to eat pasta twirled around what looks like a spoon…
Hah hah, I forgot the tines. Maybe this is the only fancy restaurant in the world that uses sporks.
His nano-spork is on the fritz.
Deus is trying to impress Maxima with his skills at twirling pasta with a spoon.
He does own the place, he can make them as utilitarian as he chooses… then again, what if this is what he brought back from his trip to the station? Some kind of specialized alien flatware that is covered in particles that are adhesive to noodles?
For that matter, what is he eating? Are they Spinach noodles? They appear a fairly dark green.
Too bad Sydney couldn’t have slipped him some leftover Grax.
HAHA, Deus definitely ‘deserves’ to experience Grax at time time.
Might be zoodles. (Spiralized zuchini.) I love those things. Cook the water out of them, and they make a better base for egg foo yung than bean sprouts ever did.
Hey! I LIKE sporks!
Dave, it may be time to admit that you don’t know anything about fancy restaurants ;p
You should see him use a fork to eat soup.
The tines are on the side to better hold the pasta
Clearly, it’s one of his super powers, and he specifically had the restaurant give him an extra spoon instead of a pasta fork so he could show it off.
Since he wants the nation as a power base, of course he wants to make it as powerful as possible – HUGE bonus for the people living there, in general. But he’s going to be stomping all over the local cultural resistance, of course, since the local cultures in the region play a large role in keeping them down. His biggest challenge will be in educating enough of them quickly to become a useful industrial labor force. Second biggest will be stopping constant sabotage from jihadist-minded types in the area.
That second one is no trouble at all to someone who has invisible supers and no compunctions against using lethal force.
Deus is not going to let anyone divert the productivity of half of his serfs… errrr, constituents… over anything as stupid as a religion.
Stupid jihadis would die quickly, smart ones would go to softer target regions…. or convert to support the milder version of the religion that would now be centered on a brand mosque in Galytn, with ancient artifacts and relics that suddenly happened to arrive from all over the Middle East.
The religious problem can best be solved by reading up on Presidents Sukarno and Suharto of Indinesia… And maybe copying the “Five Principles” (Pancasila) from that nation’s ideology.
Item 5 could be removed though, and nothing would be lost.
Aaaahhh, but which item 5?
Depends entirely where he is in Africa; given some of the clues we have, it’s likely in the Great Lakes region, large swathes of which aren’t the right religion to be jihadists (there are other murderous religious asshats like the Lord’s Army, but they have less denominational/international appeal than others, so smaller recruit pool/funding/influence).
That said, cutting a path to the ocean from there would be a bit problematic, as the closest ocean would be the Indian Ocean, and two of the three countries he could seize territory from are IIRC relatively stable and peaceful (Kenya and Tanzania), which would be very hard to justify and/or actually avoid consequences for 5-7 years. This leaves only Mozambique, which is the southernmost option, and depending on Galytn’s location could be difficult as it could be a very long corridor, and might arouse the ire of local power South Africa (unless of course he buys them off, which definitely is possible in the wake of the notorious corruption left over from Jacob Zuma’s administration).
The Atlantic Ocean is likely farther off (even longer corridor), but the countries most likely to be cut through are the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola, both of which have rather terrible reputations/records, though, so less of a negative reaction from the international community. In fact, I’m suspecting Galytn’s original territory was carved from the DRC.
This page shows pretty much exactly where in Africa the Alari refugee ship which is supposed to be in Galytn. On my map, that puts it around Zambia or the D.R. of the Congo.
See my response to Killjoy down below somwhere :)
Nah, man, Galytn is dead center on the border between Ethiopia and Somalia.
Best bet would be for them to start cutting north towards the gulf of Aden, and I’m sure there’s not a single somalian warlord that can do a damn thing to stop him. Hell, the UN would probably be happy someone was taking care of ‘the problem’ for them! XD
I did wonder who made Cora’s mapping tech… Didn’t expect Google to be so widely used but.
well, Deus is not exactly like UN… would say that jihadist harasses him and Deus will do much much more finite job than Trump done on very targeted missile strikes (of only hitting one specified personel target)
Who wasn’t even a Jihadist. He was Iranian Military.
“Don’t get maudlin. Caring about your constituents’ health and productivity is just another type of greed.” – Deus
Deus talks a good game about Greed being his main motivator, but if he had to choose between his fortune and his impenetrable smugness, I think we all know which way he’d jump…
Well, you can always make the money back, after all. You even get extra smug points for going from rags to riches twice, just to demonstrate that the first time wasn’t some kind of accident.
See, he _actually_ wants to have the smartest and best educated country. And the most productive citizens. And the most… Everything.
I have to say I love how he’s asking her for help while sliding her a master plan labeled operation cha-ching
Really hoping that his end will be epic, with him slowly bleeding out and sobbing “I was doing this for everyone!”
Or, better yet, done quietly and him left forgotten in some backroom, with the only one knowing what happened is the one who ended him (top contenders: Maxi, Sci-fright and Valeur)
Seriously conflicted over whether his death should be memorable, or quickly forgotten
He’s an epic antihero in a comic book universe. It doesn’t even matter if you see the kill stroke and the body. You think Deus doesn’t have the tech for clone corpses and one-shot teleports?
he’s not an anti-hero!
an anti-hero may do horrible things but their main focus is still doing good. BS villain sue he doesn’t care about doing good he uses those deeds as a shield/camo to cover his evil/pride/hunt for glory. and even then it only works because the writer has such a hard on for this loser that he his every other character with a idiot stick so they go along with it
honestly Deus is one of the worse written characters I’ve seen in a long times and brings this comic down
Don’t know what you’re talking about. Deus has not done pretty much anything that I could describe as outright ‘villainous.’
Taking over Galytin? Yeah – from a murderous tyrant who tortured his people and kept them in abject poverty and fear, and even then only took over the place when the tyrant tried to kill him for telling the aforementioned tyrant that he’d make him rich but NOT just give him a blank check, since he wanted the bulk of the money to help his people, not him. The tyrant’s son was smarter and took the offer once he saw what a monster his father really was.
Taking the magic items from the Vault? Frankly it’s better off in his hands than in the Council’s, and technically he’s not stealing from the Council – the Council stole most of it from people/creatures it murdered (even if they murdered said creatures to prevent them from doing something horrible to the world). You can’t steal something that someone else stole. I’ve mentioned this before. Theft requires taking it from the legal owner. He wasn’t even the one to breach the vault – that was all Sciona.
Dealing with Sciona? Technically that’s also not villainous. It was a business deal, and one which did not actually hurt anyone – it just provided Sciona with the means to return home. And somehow I suspect that Deus knew that Sciona wouldnt be able to sent a fleet of Alari ships back to Earth to take over. He seems to know ‘stuff.’
So really…. what has he done that’s villainous? He’s pretty brilliant really. He’s a lot less villainous than other Xanatos-type characters. He seems to LIKE or ADMIRE the superheroes, unlike someone like Lex Luthor. He’s not scheming for their downfall (if anything he’s trying to partner up with them and get into a romantic situation with Maxima), unlike someone like David Xanatos. He’s not causing chaos for chaos’s sake, like the Joker. If anything, every move he makes is very calculated well in advance to create mutual benefit for others – that’s a GOOD thing.
So really… how on earth is he a Villain so far? I can’t even go so far as to call him an antihero, except that he employs mercenaries to kill. But that’s not even something that just Deus does – the US has done the same with Maxima as a soldier, and she’s outright admitted it. But she’s a hero. So why wouldnt Deus fit as one as well?
Yeah, i agree.
And what do you(Dexdrako) mean badly written?
This is a bloody comic book, with fun and silly stuff all the time sprinkled with some serious stuff, and allot of cool on-top of it all.
We have not even seen all that much of him, so we know only so much, and most of that is things that HE has SAID, and may or may not be true.
Personally if find him interesting, and wondering about what the cards are/he have up his sleeve.
He is A HELL of allot more interesting then MOST people in comics now a days, be it hero or villain or anti hero.
One of the reasons is because we do not know yet what he really is up to, or even what plans he have besides those he eventually will reveal.
He has a brain, seems he has some compassion, and not an inept fumble-footed insane card board villain with his thumb up his butt.
Now, do not think i love him or anything, i just like this comic and its characters.
Galytin: Murder, and since he prepared that in advance, crossing international borders with intent to commit a crime. And that footage was called out in the title-text-like as grainy and heavily implied to be faked.
Magic Vault: Trespassing. And if they were stopping the creature from doing something awful to the world, then it’s not murder. Does a police officer (legally) get called a murderer for shooting someone who’s on a shooting spree? Is it considered stolen from a suspect if a government puts something taken from a slain suspect into an evidence locker? So, still theft from the Council.
Sciona: Harboring a fugitive and lying to ARCHON (provided it’s like lying to the FBI); check the timing, not his claimed timing, accessory to her murder of the Wyrmil/Cooter hybrid by providing her with that information when he knew full well what sort of person she is. A reasonable person would know full well how she was going to use that.
1 – Galytin – NOT murder. Self defense. He crossed international borders with the intent to commit a business deal, not a crime. Then the dictator tried to kill him, and Deus’s private bodyguards prevented that and killed the dictator instead. His intent, and his purpose that he outright stated to the dictator, was to help his country and provide infrastructure. The dictator took offense when he said that help would not come in the form of a blank check, since he believed the aforementioned dictator would just use it to enrich himself and not his people. Which, judging from the atrocities the dictator would regularly inflict upon his people, is not a huge jump. Had the dictator either taken him up on his offer, or politely declined without having his guards point his guns at Deus, THEN it could be murder.
NEXT!
“Magic Vault: Trespassing. And if they were stopping the creature from doing something awful to the world, then it’s not murder. Does a police officer (legally) get called a murderer for shooting someone who’s on a shooting spree? Is it considered stolen from a suspect if a government puts something taken from a slain suspect into an evidence locker? So, still theft from the Council.”
Funny enough, I’ve actually gone into detail in a previous page about why this was not trespassing, at least not in any legally culpable definition. First I want to distinguish between the tort of trespass and the crime of trespassing, since they have different requirements.
1) Criminal trespass – in most states, it’s not considered a serious crime, and in some states it does not even rise to that of a misdemeanor. Usually it’s just an ‘infraction.’ CRIMINAL trespass is defined as entering the property of another without permission. That’s just an infraction – barely a crime. But let’s go with that, shall we? Is the vault the PROPERTY of the Council? Do they have any proof of ownership? Doubtful, since it’s in international waters. Therefore, what Deus did was enter an area for the purpose of salvage. Council should have kept within a border of land that they own outright, and maybe they’d have a case then.
If you’re talking about the TORT of trespass, on the other hand, that’s a bit looser on the requirement, since it does not always require private ownership (like trespassing in a public park is usually going to be considered a crime, but it is a tort with civil penalties). Even with this, however, Deus is in the clear. Why?
Because the prosecutor would need to prove that the defendant intentionally entered someone else’s property (it doesnt have to be privately owned in a tort at least) without permission, or remained there after being told to leave. Did the Council tell him to leave and he refused? Nope. Even if they had…. torts are not crimes. They’re civil, not criminal.
As for the theft allegation to my fictional client, Deus:
I’m assuming you’d be going with the charge of burglary. The elements of burglary as as follows:
“When 1) a person knowingly enters or remains unlawfully a 2) Building 3) with Intent to commit crime therein
1) He did not enter unlawfully, as I explained in refuting the trespassing charge. The Council does not own international waters, and cannot by international law.
2) The vault is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a building.
3) He was not intending to commit a crime therein – as it was in international waters and the Council cannot prove the items belong to them, he can easily argue what he did was salvage.
NEXT!
“Harboring a fugitive”
He was not harboring anyone – Sciona came in and threatened his life, and he responded by having Vale show her the way out via the window. He also alerted Archon afterwards, and Harem is there to corroborate that fact.
“lying to ARCHON (provided it’s like lying to the FBI)”
It would not be like lying to the FBI. ARCHON cannot question a suspect without letting them know they are a suspect and letting them know their rights. Case in point – the Flynn case. Also, I would be hard pressed to know how you consider what he did to be lying anyway. He literally was honest in every word he said to ARCHON. And he is under no obligation to give them answers to questions that ARCHON did not ask.
“accessory to her murder of the Wyrmil/Cooter hybrid”
Since Wyrmil/Cooter hybrid is not dead, I’m perplexed that you’d call it a murder.
“by providing her with that information when he knew full well what sort of person she is.”
Again, what’s the actual crime here? Telling her a generalized idea of a ‘person’ who stole (sorry, salvaged) something that she wanted to salvage first is not a crime. He’s not her guardian and has no criminal negligence to what he told her. If Wyrmil want, i’m sure he could sue Deus in civil court. See how that works out :).
“A reasonable person would know full well how she was going to use that.”
The reasonable person standard is not used in criminal law for these purposes as you described.
So….. Deus has still not committed any crimes, and if you’re a villain for one POSSIBLE infraction that probably doesn’t even rise to the level of an infraction, and a few possible torts that he probably would win in civil court, then that’s a pretty lame definition of ‘Villain.’
Galtyn: He HAD options. If you try to join a gang, and are told to commit a crime and forced to do it, then you don’t get to claim necessity, same here: Fighting words remove the self defense claim. He obnoxiously provoked the dictator IN PERSON. He could have done a conference, and he’s just shown that he could have gone to OTHER dictators instead. He CHOSE to go in, knowing what sort of people they were, and CHOSE to be obnoxious. He set up the kill in advance. He CHOSE out of many options one likely to result in bloodshed. He could ALSO have simply brought Opal to flee, instead of the others to fight. He chose violence instead of all his other options, and forfeited the claim to self-defense.
And if it wasn’t so bad, why did he lie about it? Wicked flee, no man pursueth.
regarding your response to trespass: One possibility is sure, international waters. But, we’ve seen this differs from normal earth. But even if the Council’s existence doesn’t change that behind the scenes, there’s likely many agreements he flouted. The Council seems to be granted authority in certain matters, which means we’re not talking US law, but Council Law. They will see it much differently, and there’s evidence in the comic which shows they’re given jurisdiction in many supernatural matters.
Also, we don’t know where it is, so we can’t know if it’s really international waters. Actually, I’m pretty sure it isn’t. 1km of water deep. International is 22.2km out. The facility appears to be by a shelf, so they quite likely DO own it outright. Additionally, the cavern is an artificial structure, with roof and walls, and which remains in one location.
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Stuff I didn’t mention before:
1) THIS. War of Conquest + setting-specific violation of a law on Supers
Murder of Cooter/Wyrmil: Attempted at the very least. Did you miss where Sciona cut him in half, and Maxima then said it didn’t look good for him? I read that as a full “he died for real”. If it wasn’t, though he hasn’t shown up yet, then it was still accessory to ATTEMPTED. He handed her information knowing she would use it to (at least attempt to) kill someone. He helped her murder.
Lying to them: it was under the premise that his claimed timeline is different. That is, that she returned and made the deal and they interrupted him with her. I could be wrong on that one. BUT, she’s still a fugitive and he knows it, and so when she returned (if I was wrong), he deliberately allowed her to continue instead of turning her in.
The deal with Sciona could be called prostitution, and is likely not in Nevada.
He flagrantly violated intergalactic customs to import that tech to earth.
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And this is all secondary to that he’s shown to have a world conquest plan that he’s actively using.
And we’re not in court of law. We’re observers beyond the fourth wall. And adherence to the letter, or at least a facsimile enough to avoid prosecution, is little more than a litmus test for VILLAIN. Terminology may overlap, but morality is far more important.
Deus is an asshole who covers his vile tendencies in wealth (the alternate deal for women, acting like he owns everything, resorting to brutality against the dictator instead of doing ANYTHING else to improve QoL there). He’s actively planning world conquest, and in the mean time we know his businesses, etc. are incredibly shady.
Yes, he does some good. He added to plenty’s quality of life. But he’s still an asshole who’s trying to conquer the world and flouts international (conquest, supers)/intergalactic (customs) law to it.
And his crimes:
Choosing paths that led to the most likely result being killing, when he had MANY other options (other dictators, talking remotely, fleeing via Opal, or marginally fleeing via overpower and run.) Murder, international borders to commit a crime.
The vault: Likely NOT international, and that was an artificial structure with walls and a ceiling and which remained in one place, so Trespass and Burglary. Since legal definitions are all you seem to care about (it shouldn’t be, outside court stuff), “any structure intended for shelter, housing, or enclosure of persons, animals, or chattels.” and “or used by persons for carrying on business therein,” https://definitions.uslegal.com/b/building/ Business: visiting the evidence chambers for evidence-related business. Also placing dangerous items into storage where they may not harm others.
Harboring a fugitive: Either lied to ARCHON to conceal her presence when they asked (she’d returned already), or not turning her in when she was at his mercy (if she returned later).
Helped Sciona commit (possibly only attempted) murder to further his goals, by providing her with information on the location she’d already tried to kill once in his presence.
Flagrantly violated intergalactic customs.
Flagrantly violated Wars of Conquest (specifically, his side is the AGGRESSOR), and laws against using Supers with a blatantly BS argument.
Is trying to conquer the world, using the above.
Is an asshole of the “sex for services” and “flaunting superiority” sorts.
Even if he’s abused the letter of the law without mercy and is technically in the legal right on many, and/or has the lawyers to make damn sure he gets off on the charges, the MORAL wrong is what makes him a villain, without doubt. Legal wrongs are icing on the cake.
The important charge is “Villain,” not “Criminal.”
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related, but not this thread: I second the OP; Deus makes this comic less enjoyable.
“Galtyn: He HAD options. If you try to join a gang, and are told to commit a crime and forced to do it, then you don’t get to claim necessity, same here: Fighting words remove the self defense claim.”
Uh… fighting words do NOT remove the self-defense claim. Fighting words are not a legal excuse OR a defense for a retaliatory assault and battery. Not sure where you got that from, but ‘fighting words’ has to do with exceptions to free speech, not exceptions to a self defense argument. You’re confusing exceptions to the first amendment with mitigating actions to self-defense. The two have nothing whatsoever to do with one another.
Not to mention, what Deus said to the tyrant were not even ‘fighting words.’ Telling a person that you will help their country directly but would not give them money because you do not trust them to not squander the money on themselves, based on their past proven actions, is just…. facts.
Seriously, where did you learn that fighting words is an exception to self defense. Do you think that if I tell you that you’re a jerk, that gives you a right to try to kill me (which would then give me a right to kill you first in self defense)? Simply put, words do not rise to the level that one can try to murder because of those words.
“He obnoxiously provoked the dictator IN PERSON.”
And? Doesnt mean the dictator can try to murder him because his dictator fee-fee’s got hurt. And once the dictator tried to murder him, Deus was legally within his rights to engage in self defense. Or rather, his bodyguards were in their rights to engage in Defense of others in order to prevent Deus from being murdered.
“He could have done a conference, and he’s just shown that he could have gone to OTHER dictators instead.”
Doesn’t matter. No amount of words, whether in person or in teleconference, allow someone to be able to justifiably murder them in response. Or are you saying the dictator would have a right to send assassins after Deus if he makes fun of him in a teleconference? Do you see how illogical that sounds?
“He CHOSE to go in, knowing what sort of people they were, and CHOSE to be obnoxious.”
He chose to go in and offer to make he dictator incredibly wealthy, all for the low low price of letting Deus make his country very very wealthy and his people very very wealthy as well, rather than just the dictator very very wealthy. The dictator took offense to that truthful statement, and tried to murder Deus. Words by Deus vs murderous actions by the king. One does not excuse the other. The king trying to murder Deus, on the other hand, does allow Deus to kill the king in self defense. It’s that simple.
“He set up the kill in advance.”
You mean he set up being defended by bodyguards, should the dictator decide to try to MURDER him.
“He CHOSE out of many options one likely to result in bloodshed.”
He chose the option of not being murdered. Deus is under no obligation to set things up so a dictator who’s motto is to kill first and ask questions will not try to kill him. Simply put, the dictator should not have tried to kill him. If he hadn’t, he would not have died. Case in point, the dictator’s SON decided to not try to kill Deus, and he’s now a rich man.
“He could ALSO have simply brought Opal to flee, instead of the others to fight.”
Deus is free to choose any method he wants to not be murdered by a bloodthirsty dictator who doesn’t like hearing that he squanders money and lets his people starve… which is the truth, mind you.
“He chose violence instead of all his other options, and forfeited the claim to self-defense.”
No, he chose words. The king chose violence. Deus responded by his bodyguards doing what they’re supposed to do. Guard Deus’s body. From not being murdered. In this case, by killing the would-be murderer. Deus didn’t even go all out on what he coul have done – the guards were not killed as well, although Deus could definitely had done so and been in the clear. Deus allowed less death than was necessary to protect himself from being murdered. And no, he did not forfeit his right to self defense.
My god, what sort of world would you live in that someone can say something mean to you and you’d think that gives you a right to kill them in response, to the point where if you don’t succeed in killing them, and they kill you first, it’s THEIR fault? Because you are thin-skinned and have a murderous mentality that you back up with murderous actions?
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“regarding your response to trespass: One possibility is sure, international waters. But, we’ve seen this differs from normal earth. But even if the Council’s existence doesn’t change that behind the scenes, there’s likely many agreements he flouted.”
We literally were told how deep the waters were. It WAS in international waters. So they can’t justifiably claim it was private property, since no one can have private land in international waters. It would be a violation of international law, not just US law.
“The Council seems to be granted authority in certain matters, which means we’re not talking US law, but Council Law.”
If the Council uses Council Law in violation of international law, then they should not complain when someone uses international maritime law as a defense. They have no jurisdiction, save for what they can actually enforce. And they couldn’t enforce squat here.
“The facility appears to be by a shelf, so they quite likely DO own it outright. Additionally, the cavern is an artificial structure, with roof and walls, and which remains in one location.”
If it was by a shelf, Maxima would have been cable of going there without Sydney’s shield. Sorry… try again.
And a cavern is NOT a building. The legal definition of a building is “any artificial structure designed or intended for support, enclosure, shelter or protection of person, animals or property having a permanent roof that is supported by columns or walls.” The Vault within a cavern does not meet several elements of this definition, even if the Council could claim ownership…. which they can’t. You might as well tell me that a hollowed out tree which you keep gold in, on public land, is a building. It’s not.
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“Murder of Cooter/Wyrmil: Attempted at the very least. Did you miss where Sciona cut him in half, and Maxima then said it didn’t look good for him? I read that as a full “he died for real”.”
You read wrong then. Wyrmil’s been cut in half before. He went down a sewer and is still alive. He was even quippy after getting cut in half.
“If it wasn’t, though he hasn’t shown up yet, then it was still accessory to ATTEMPTED. He handed her information knowing she would use it to (at least attempt to) kill someone.”
Nope. He handed information of where he might be. There was no mention of killing, and far as I know, and far as you know, Deus does not have the ability to read Alari minds.
“He helped her murder.”
He did no such thing. He gave her an idea of where to find the item. Anything after that, he has no control over. If you tell the police where that you saw a criminal run ‘that way’ and the police wind up gunning the criminal down illegally… you did not commit murder. You were not even an accessory to murder.
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“Lying to them: it was under the premise that his claimed timeline is different. That is, that she returned and made the deal and they interrupted him with her. I could be wrong on that one. BUT, she’s still a fugitive and he knows it, and so when she returned (if I was wrong), he deliberately allowed her to continue instead of turning her in.”
Again, he did not lie. He told them exactly what happened. Plus Harem was there to CORROBORATE that he told the truth. Not turning someone in by not volunteering information not asked is not lying.
————-
“The deal with Sciona could be called prostitution, and is likely not in Nevada.”
Adults are allowed to engage in voluntary sex. No money was exchanged. If you suggest otherwise, then every single man who ever bought a woman dinner or paid for a hotel room before they had sex has engaged in prostitution. Also, if you really want to get cheeky about it, Vale was watching. So consider it a show. Pornography theater is not illegal. :)
“He flagrantly violated intergalactic customs to import that tech to earth.”
Actually the seller violated intergalactic customs. Deus did no such thing. He did not go through customs at all. He’s also not a signatory to those rules in the first place, unlike the seller, and clearly had tech SUPERIOR to the tech he was given in order to get to the Fracture and back (ie, the Skyripper).
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“And this is all secondary to that he’s shown to have a world conquest plan that he’s actively using.”
He hasnt shown an attempt to conquer the world – he’s conquered a few WILLING surrounding cities in Africa. He’s specifically NOT trying to conquer the world. He’d rather buy it. Legally.
“And we’re not in court of law.”
Good thing for you we’re not – I’d be kicking your butt in the arguments if we were :).
“We’re observers beyond the fourth wall. And adherence to the letter, or at least a facsimile enough to avoid prosecution, is little more than a litmus test for VILLAIN.”
You still have yet to show what villainous things Deus has actually done. I think doing villainy IS a litmus test for a villain. It’s in the word. Villainy.
“Terminology may overlap, but morality is far more important.”
How exactly has Deus been amoral? Or at least more amoral than ARCHON has been. If anything, he’s been significantly more virtuous. How many people has ARCHON pulled out of abject poverty? Pretty sure none. How many supers has Maxima killed? Several according to Maxima. How many supers have been forced into servitude, or face imprisonment? At least 4 (Achilles, Mr Amorphous, Heatwave, and Jabberwocky). And they’ve made it plainly clear that if they catch the Marble Maiden, they will press her into servitude as well (albeit they will pay her well, but still it’s pay her well or go to jail). Jabberwocky isnt even getting paid.
When Deus hires supers, they’re free to turn him down without going to jail.
When Archon hires supers, they’re SOMETIMES free to turn them down, but sometimes will go to jail if they do, if they otherwise perform citizens arrests by virtue of having powers when performing those citizen arrests.
Also how many bridges has Deus blown up, endangering civilians because of sheer recklessness? None
How many bridges has Maxima blown up, endangering civilians because of sheer recklessness? One. Plus one mosque apparently.
The point being, Deus has been at least as moral as ARCHON, if not moreso.
————————-
“Deus is an asshole”
Well now you’re just calling him names. That’s not a fact at all.
“who covers his vile tendencies in wealth”
What vile tendencies? Consensual sex? Business negotiations? Raising the quality of life for millions of people? Taking in homeless alien refugees? Massive humanitarian efforts? My god, how vile.
“(the alternate deal for women,”
She was more than free to say no. He just has a hell of a pickup line.
“acting like he owns everything,”
He specifically laments that he does NOT own everything. He doesnt act like he owns Maxima, for example. But he owns quite a bit.
“resorting to brutality against the dictator instead of doing ANYTHING else to improve QoL there).”
So it’s vile tendencies to not let a murderous dictator murder you first? Again, pretty sure the murderous dictator could have avoided the brutality by…. yknow… not trying to murder.
“He’s actively planning world conquest,”
Where did you get that he’s planning world CONQUEST? Did the US engage in world conquest when they made the Louisiana Purchase or bought Alaska?
“and in the mean time we know his businesses, etc. are incredibly shady.”
According to Maxima, who has a bit of a bias. Being under investigation does not mean anything if there are no charges being levelled against him.
————————
“Choosing paths that led to the most likely result being killing, when he had MANY other options (other dictators, talking remotely, fleeing via Opal, or marginally fleeing via overpower and run.) Murder, international borders to commit a crime.”
Why are the guards still alive? Hmm? Why did he not kill the guards who were turning the guns on him? Why did he not kill the dictator’s son? I’ll tell you why. The guards were merely following orders, and Deus MINIMIZED the amount of death. And the son was not a bad person and was ignorant of the father being a murderous tyrant, so Deus did not kill him – instead he showed the son the TRUTH about the tyrant, and the son made a business deal with Deus instead.
Seems like Deus did not choose the path most likely to result in killing at all. HE chose a path which was actually geared to business dealing, but realized that the other player (the murderous tyrant) might not be as virtuous as Deus was, and took precautions JUST IN CASE the murderous tyrant tried to murder him.
“The vault: Likely NOT international,”
Repeating things that are false do not make them true.
“and that was an artificial structure with walls and a ceiling and which remained in one place,”
A cavern is not an artficial structure, and even if it was for these purposes, it’s still not something the Council can claim ownership of. And even if they COULD claim ownership of the Vault, which they can’t, they can’t claim ownership of the items within, since they were taken from other monsters/creatures/aliens/etc who the Council murdered (or killed in self defense, who knows). In any case stolen property does not become legal property once you kill the original owner or steal it from the original owner.
“Harboring a fugitive:”
There was no harboring.
“Either lied to ARCHON to conceal her presence”
He made no lies, and Harem was there to corroborate that everything he said was the truth.
“not turning her in when she was at his mercy (if she returned later).”
He’s under no legal obligation to turn her in. HE just can’t prevent police from arresting her, which he did not do. He’s not the police. He didnt try to do anything to stop ARCHON from capturing her either.
“Helped Sciona commit (possibly only attempted) murder to further his goals, by providing her with information on the location she’d already tried to kill once in his presence.”
Again, repeating something false does not make it true. I already explained in excruciating detail how he did not help Sciona commit anything, except for giving her information to retrieve an object which, for all we know, belonged to Sciona in the first place before the Council stole it from her (after partially decapitating her head).
He is not a mind-reader and has no control over what Sciona does. Especially since he’s a mere human. :) Sciona’s words, not mine.
“Flagrantly violated intergalactic customs.”
The seller did the flagrant violating. Deus did nothing of the sort. He (and Earth) are not signatories to any galactic rules. They don’t benefit from the rules either. Plus Deus already had superior technology – the skyripper, which let him not HAVE to go through customs in the first place. He didnt ‘violate’ customs – he bypassed it entirely and, I’d argue, legally.
“Flagrantly violated Wars of Conquest (specifically, his side is the AGGRESSOR),”
How exactly did he violate the Law of Conquest. the whole point of the Law of conquest is that if you conquer another land, its your land. Not to mention Deus has already not-so-subtlely hinted that the cities he ‘conquered’ were actually secretly begging to become a part of Galytin in the first place. Not illegal, because the accords on supers were too nebulously written, and he’s taking FAIR advantage of the open-ended language before they close the loopholes with better worded rules.
“and laws against using Supers with a blatantly BS argument.”
The UN is free to argue against that. And once they come up with rules that eliminate his ‘BS argument’ he won’t be able to use Supers for it anymore.
“Is trying to conquer the world, using the above.”
Nope, he just wants Galytin to have a path to the ocean. That hardly equates to world conquering.
“Is an asshole”
Again with the insults. Insults are not crimes.
“of the “sex for services””
I truly hope that you’ve never let a guy pay for dinner for you before you had sex or, if you are a guy, I truly hope you’ve never paid for a girl’s meal, paid for a hotel room, or let a girl stay the night giving her free shelter and possibly breakfast.
I also hope you’ve never rented a pornographic movie. I wouldnt want you to be a hypocrite.
“and “flaunting superiority” sorts.”
If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Doesnt make him a villain. Maxima flaunts her superiority constantly. So do most of ARCHON.
“Even if he’s abused the letter of the law without mercy and is technically in the legal right on many,”
So… you’re saying he has obeyed the law and is technically in the legal right. What a villain!
“and/or has the lawyers to make damn sure he gets off on the charges,”
Are you against the right to have an attorney who will zealously advocate for your defense now?
“the MORAL wrong is what makes him a villain,”
Morally, he’s actually been a phenomenally GOOD person overall.
“without doubt.”
Oh there’s quite a bit of doubt.
“Legal wrongs are icing on the cake.”
Legal wrongs which don’t exist. You have a sad, icing-less cake.
Where do international waters define depth? I’m arguing the depth says it’s within the range, and thus in territorial waters. I’m looking at a map of territorial waters right now. The isobath limit is 2.5k meters; this was only 1.0k. And given anything more than a slight gradient, 22.2k meters is more than enough to descend 1.0k meters.
Not turning Sciona in: he said he’d send word when he had more information. He didn’t.
Moral wrong: Choosing the path to violence because it’s faster and easier. See: dictator (instead of trying other dictators, or fleeing both of which he could have done) and handing sciona the information so that she can attempt a murder and snag the item, then just take the item himself from the wreckage. As opposed to, for instance, attempting negotiations with wyrmill, who had not been shown to be unreasonable. He could have tried less violence. But he didn’t. That’s villainous.
Alternatively, he could have been a lot more efficient about it. Simply assassinate the despots first, then move in to preserve order. Less arrogance, less asshole behavior (see: how he initially acted in front of the new king).
Further moral wrong: the sex for services. I’m not gonna jump on anyone for just consensual. But rather, the “for services” bit. In place of money. And you jumped on a far-stricter definition than I’ve used. But for your exact exaggeration, no, I haven’t in that sense. I am strongly leaning Ace/Aro and when I’ve paid for a meal for a woman, it was picking up my mother’s bill at a partial family outing. Nor rented a porno. As for the shared a breakfast, etc: if someone had that need, I’d gladly take the proverbial couch.
Laws of Conquest: because he’s the AGGRESSOR. Aggressor’s claims get ignored. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_aggression second paragraph.
re: has the lawyers. No, I was referring to how rich people have dedicated lawyers and the rich tend to get away with more. See: Nemo being ruled different from another fish character because of a different shade of orange. As referenced in Incredibles 2: “[Redacted]’s rich. [Redacted] will probably get a slap on the wrist.” (quote probably slightly mangled). Given the prevalence of this, I will ask you to stop misrepresenting my words and putting new ones in my mouth.
World conquering: and you neglected the “World Domination.pptx” file he had after the Alari arrived, with his need to delete a slide and advance his timetable.
Now, he could be trying to take over the world to make it better for everyone. If so, I’d need to revise my opinion. Anti-villain, perhaps, or anti-hero. The two blend. But just because he’s an enlightened villain who knows making things better for the people who support him doesn’t make him not a villain. He’s taking from others, to benefit himself.
Villain/Hero is Evil/Good. Not Law/Chaos. You appear to have conflated the two. The axes are NOT the same.
And one more thing: using Harem to spy on the US government. Espionage in some stripe.
“Where do international waters define depth?”
They do not. But international waters are far deeper than water within a national range. For it to be a depth that Maxima is going to have problems with, it’s going to have to be significantly farther from land than the international border of 24 miles out (not to mention far enough away from spying eyes). And lets say it WAS in territorial waters – which it was not …. who would the Council had purchased land from…. within 24 miles of territorial waters? Doesn’t seem all that secure then.
Nope. they’re in international waters because they wanted to keep the big bad vault a secret and never suspected anyone would actually get in there. They should have kept it in a bank vault instead, and learned from the Evil Overlord list.
“Not turning Sciona in: he said he’d send word when he had more information. He didn’t.”
Except Archon literally was in pursuit of Sciona within minutes of her leaving Deus’s rendezvous spot. Not to mention…. still there’s no lie. You can’t lie about something that hadn’t even happened yet. Watch
When I make a million dollars, I will give you $10.
I have not yet made a million dollars. Can you accuse me of lying? Nope.
Not to mention if you use ‘lying’ as the basis for good and evil, then ARCHON is extremely evil. They’ve been lying about the existence of aliens, the existence of Supers, all the classified information, which you seem to consider lying since you think omission is the same as lying, etc.
“Moral wrong: Choosing the path to violence because it’s faster and easier.”
Actually Deus chose the path of business FIRST, not violence. I’m stunned that you think it’s Deus’s duty to make sure a murderous dictator does not try to murder him because of mean words. He offered to make the murderous dictator insanely wealthy and powerful, and all he had to do is let Deus make his people prosperous instead of use the money to line his own pockets like the petty murderous dictator that he is. The murderous dictator decided that was mean and he ordered his guards to riddle Deus with bullets to murder him. At that point, Deus’s bodyguards decide that would pretty much be why they are hired – to prevent that sort of stuff from happening. And so they STILL used the path of least violence – only killing… IN SELF DEFENSE…. the murderous dictator, but not the guards, not the son, not anyone else.
If I walk over to you and say “I’m going to rebuild your house into a mansion for you if you let me, but I’m not going to give you the money directly because I think you have horrible fashion sense and you’d waste the money on IKEA because that’s your level of competence, and you said ‘HOW DARE YOU’ and decided to try to shoot me… I’m WELL within my rights to shoot you first in order to prevent you from killing me. Just because you are prone to violence does not mean I lose my right to defend myself. Nor does it mean I have to make sure, in advance, to save you from YOURSELF when you can save yourself from yourself just by not being a psychotic murderer who killls because of words.
That’s not villainous on Deus’s part. That’s villainous on the murderous dictator’s part. It’s ‘not being murdered for no good reason’ on Deus’s part.
“Alternatively, he could have been a lot more efficient about it. Simply assassinate the despots first, then move in to preserve order. Less arrogance, less asshole behavior (see: how he initially acted in front of the new king).”
Wait so you’d be more okay with him killing the murderous dictator BEFORE the murderous dictator tried to do anything to him? I thought you’re all about mitigating violence – which Deus did. Deus did not just kill the murderous dictator first because he tried to first deal with him reasonably, by making a business deal to help his entire nation. See … if Deus HAD just killed him in advance, THAT would have been villainous. Deus did not do that. Because Deus was not being villainous.
Also, arrogance is not villainous. Or Maxima would be INCREDIBLY villainous. Deus is arrogant because he’s right, and he knows he’s right. He did not kill the son because he knew the son was ignorant of his father being a murderous despot who tortured his own people for fun. He had video tapes of it even. Who knows – maybe his original plan was to show the tapes to the son behind the father’s back so the son would stage a coup? Again – that would not have been evil. If only the father had not tried to MURDER Deus, for which you somehow think is Deus’s fault. It’s like blaming a rape victim for walking down a street in too sexy a dress. If only that woman covered up. Or just didnt go out! Then she wouldnt have been raped. That’s the simile to your argument.
“Further moral wrong: the sex for services. I’m not gonna jump on anyone for just consensual.”
And yet you are.
“But rather, the “for services” bit. In place of money. And you jumped on a far-stricter definition than I’ve used. But for your exact exaggeration, no, I haven’t in that sense. I am strongly leaning Ace/Aro and when I’ve paid for a meal for a woman, it was picking up my mother’s bill at a partial family outing. Nor rented a porno. As for the shared a breakfast, etc: if someone had that need, I’d gladly take the proverbial couch.”
Gotcha. So anyone every pornographical movie has been illegal in your world. Every date which resulted in sex where the man paid for the has been illegal as well, again… in your world.
Think of it like this…. when you pay two actors to be in a pornographic movie…. and they have sex…. that’s ‘sex for services.’ They are getting paid money… literally to have sex. On film.
Yet it’s not illegal.
What Deus did? He offered to have sex with her. He did not force it. He even made non-business arguments about why she should – ie, he’s really really good at it, and she hasnt had sex in a long time since she hasnt been in a female body for a long time. She took him up on the offer after THOSE arguments.
But if you’d like to be very legal about this… the elements of prostitution! Why is a porno legal and a hooker not? Here’s why:
Elements of prostitution are when: 1) A person is willfully engaged in sexual activity in exchange for money or other form of payment AND 2) There is specific intent to engage in an act of prostitution by either parties — prostitute or customer.
Seems sort of a cyclical definition doesnt it? It’s prostitution if they are planning on engaging in the act of prostitution. There was no ‘specific intent’ there because there were two OTHER reasons why she could have sex with Deus – the information was just a cherry on top of the sundae. That’s why pornos are not illegal also btw. Because the intent is not just to have sex in exchange for money.
“Laws of Conquest: because he’s the AGGRESSOR. Aggressor’s claims get ignored. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_aggression second paragraph.
re: has the lawyers. No, I was referring to how rich people have dedicated lawyers and the rich tend to get away with more.”
As a lawyer myself…. that’s not always the case. Having access to lawyers definitely gives you a leg up in being protected, but instead of saying ‘it’s not fair that Deus has access to lawyers,’ I’d argue that ‘it’s not fair that the poor people do NOT have access to the same quality of lawyers.’ Don’t hate on Deus because he’s simply smart enough to know how the law works, and hires people who would know how the law works as well.
Not sure how that’s evil AT ALL to have access to lawyers. If you ever get in trouble for something that you did not do, you’d definitely want access to an attorney like me.
Okay probably not like me in particular since I work in intellectual property law and I have only had a year and a half of criminal law when I was straight out of law school, and that was working in a ADA’s office but… you get the idea. You’re gonna want a lawyer. And having a lawyer does not make you evil.
“See: Nemo being ruled different from another fish character because of a different shade of orange. As referenced in Incredibles 2: “[Redacted]’s rich. [Redacted] will probably get a slap on the wrist.” (quote probably slightly mangled). Given the prevalence of this, I will ask you to stop misrepresenting my words and putting new ones in my mouth.”
I don’t see how I’m misrepresenting your words at all. I’m directly reading what you’re saying. That it’s evil to be rich and have access to attorneys to protect your constitutional civil rights. :)
“World conquering: and you neglected the “World Domination.pptx” file he had after the Alari arrived, with his need to delete a slide and advance his timetable.”
Deus is into tropes. He hasn’t actually DONE anything to try to dominate the world. If you’re going to use a powerpoint presentation file as evidence of world domination, that’s pretty meager evidence. He literally just REALLY likes the Evil Overlord List tropes. It doesnt mean he IS an evil overlord.
Wanting to own more of the world is not evil. It’s how you do it that would be. And Deus has not done it in an evil fashion at all.
“Now, he could be trying to take over the world to make it better for everyone. If so, I’d need to revise my opinion. Anti-villain, perhaps, or anti-hero. ”
What Deus has done for Galytin should be a good example of how Deus handles ‘ruling’ stuff – you better get to work on revising your opinion.
“Villain/Hero is Evil/Good. Not Law/Chaos. You appear to have conflated the two. The axes are NOT the same.”
And I’d argue that Deus is Neutral Good. Everything he’s done so far has been for a net BENEFIT for humanity and the people under him. He uses the law, he knows his way around the law in a legal manner because he knows where the loopholes are, and he does it for a good outcome. He’s not like Vehemence or Sciona or any of the villains on the splash page.
He’s manipulative, sure. Manipulation isnt evil though. If anything, manipulation can be a lot less evil than just using blanket force as your first and only option.
“And one more thing: using Harem to spy on the US government. Espionage in some stripe.”
Actually Harem was sent to spy on HIM. He just turned the tables by being prepared for that. Not evil, unless you want to say the US is evil for spying on him.
Or is your entire argument one of ‘an argument from authority’ – that a government is uniquely able to do whatever it wants without being evil, simply because it’s a government? Because if so….. well Deus is basically the government of Galytin now.
Clarification on Espionage: AGAINST a government, by one who is not a government.
“Also true. Which is why I’m stunned at how you try to make Deus culpible for laws under which he is not even a citizen, of which they have no right to impose upon him.”
So, if I cross the border into Canada, they have no right to impose Canadian law on me? So, we have no right to impose American law on undocumented immigrants? He chose to go under galactic law by going onto their turf. He crossed a border into their land.
re: appeal to authority
My argument is that DEMOCRATIC governments are partially the WILL OF THE PEOPLE. And that’s the key thing. Deus wasn’t acting with that. (more below, re: expansion)
Implication: Fine, but it doesn’t change that Deus violated import/export laws, TOO. The seller is shady, but he’s not the one being debated. He was a single-use (thus far) plot device.
Deus helping others: I covered this. It’s called Enlightened Villainy. Knowing that building others up with you is the best way. He’s not doing it for them, probably. If the ashtray thing is used as part of a way to show his “all is Greed” mentality is just a cynical act, then that’ll change things. But until that happens, I’m taking him at face value. This building others up isn’t for them. It’s for him. SO, it’s not heroic. As that’s his main deed that could be called such: no true heroism.
Which leaves only the villainy.
From a PURELY moral perspective, ignoring the (heavily abused/abusable) letter of the law:
->Stole the Council’s dangerous artifacts, which were safely contained, and is now selling them.
->Pointed Sciona at Wyrmil when he knew she’d go for the brutal method of trying to kill him. Then DID NOT INFORM ARCHON about her when he promised them he would (thus concealing her). They only found her after NORAD detected a supersonic traveler, after she took the item from Cooter/Wyrmil – which Deus pointed her towards. (If Deus can claim his stuff was Salvage, then Cooter/Wyrmill does, too, for his artifact).
->Shady business stuff, meriting 9 investigations. Could be a coincidence, but it doesn’t speak well of him
->Galatyn: started as a legit business offer, sure. But in 388, he was told to leave, and didn’t. If he had left there, it wouldn’t have come to violence. Rather than leave, he insulted (however deserved) his host, and made a better offer. Social mask (below) slipped a little, but it was an offer. The king then re-iterated the demand he leave, or be shot. Not shoot him, leave or be shot. And he was in a sovereign territory, in the king’s own HOME (presumably) at that. Then he, rather than comply peacefully with a lawful order to leave, he staged the coup. No self-defense. Provoked a person, who peacefully told him to leave, then only actually ordered violence AFTER Deus’s side started the first attack (387-389).
->violated intergalactic law to bring advanced tech to a world that, taking Dabbler among others at face value, is not socially ready for said tech (xenophobic from her words, adding militant and has so many oppressive autocrats).
->is waging war of aggression to conquer a path to the sea. With the Alari ship and him needing to advance his timetable, we see “world domination” as his plan. UN/Nuremberg. Per International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (using the Wikipedia article on War of Aggression), this is illegal in and of itself. And he’s using Supers in violation of setting-specific law.
Okay, for the expansion, I’d forgive him ENTIRELY, if only he gets the cities to, JUST before he invades (to not give time for retaliation), publicly ask for hi to do that. Then I would trust that he has the will of the people, or as close as exists in that area.
->Uses Harem as a double agent to conduct espionage against a democratic government.
->his treatment of women (alternate payment, making it a power game, etc) is vile. To be clear on the sex for services
also from Galatyn
“benefits of working with me.” pause “us.”
It’s about him.
391: makes light of killing a man in front of his son, then goes for more peaceful.
That’s his true face showing. It’s an arrogant “all about me” thing.
and 390: “I was going to have to eventually remove you, anyway.”
He wasn’t dealing in good faith, anyway.
Arrogance – or any ONE of these things – alone does not a villain make. But combined with the rest of the picture, which is what I’ve said before, it’s more damning. The good he’s done, alone, I would praise. combined with his arrogance, I would grudgingly approve.
But he’s not just an arrogant (and flawed) hero. A hero does their good for others. He does this for himself, and covers his tendencies with a refined mask, that only rarely slips. (And to be clear: I respect the choice to wear a social mask that’s better than yourself. After all, that’s a CHOICE.) But when it slips, we see the evidence that he only really cares about himself.
And to do that, he’ll flout intergalactic law, international law, and national (albeit tin-pot dictator law). And don’t forget, taking those dangerous artifacts and putting them into circulation.
That he helps people as a side-effect is just that: a SIDE effect. The core of his villainy is that it’s all for him, and he’ll put others at significant risk to do it or else kill them (Cooter/Wyrmil, the Galatyn king though well-deserved, people in danger because he didn’t leave those artifacts alone, the galactic community by risking unleashing humanity upon them).
I’m willing to say that with his army of lawyers beyond what most people have access to, and his own skill, that he’ll probably avoid prosecution, and get off what charges can be leveled against him. But that’s on the legal spectrum (and dangerous that wealth can purchase better defense, making the law unequal). It’s irrelevant to the moral spectrum.
And thus, villain. Good publicity and enlightened, to be sure. Has done good things to further his villainy. But an arrogant villain whose methods leave a sour taste in my mouth, still. Not the sort of villain I love to hate, like Voldemort. Just one who makes the comic seem sour to me when he shows up. And this conversation STARTED IIRC with someone saying something along the line that Deus makes it less enjoyable.
Re: Deus taking over Galatyn and making it better, example of how he’d go for the world. All we’ve seen is making it better for the worst off, to make a power base. I’m PREPARED to be wrong, but I haven’t seen it yet. There’s a lot of red flags pinging me, so I’m not gonna regard his deeds there as proof of anything other than that Galatyn was truly a tin-pot dictatorship and that he found it advantageous to himself to build it up. YET. I’m willing to reconsider based on future evidence, but the evidence is in the future. But, building it up isn’t heroic if you do it FOR YOURSELF.
“”So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.””
NIV Matthew 6:2
That’s why I discount the good he’s done.
Addendum one, lying:
It’s lying ABOUT A FUGITIVE who’s extremely dangerous by promising to let them know if she returned (which she did, and he didn’t). Thus, protecting her and allowing her to continue her destructive actions.
Lying in a way that would cause destruction.
Addendum two: Given the state of things around Galatyn, I’m also prepared to be shown that it’s actually a defensive war. That others attacked to take the infrastructure. If that’s shown, then sure, I’m wrong and it’s letting the other nations have enough rope to hang themselves. But he speaks of “cut a path”, so until there’s more evidence that specifically calls that out, I maintain that it’s aggression.
Addendum three: Gradient of ocean, average 4 degrees. Across the distance for territorial waters, that averages WELL OVER a thousand feet deep. I was wrong to say halfway or closer is more likely; average is about 2/3 of the way. But then again, that average is without the steep drop we saw them going down.
So, the water thing: They could be in a trench or something, and going down then back up. What we see is down, then sideways, with an unknown amount up into a moonpool. But there’s a lot of spiked walls that are called as deliberate. We see a natural steep drop. But, it’s only under a thousand feet of water or so, and the tunnel starts going straight down, which shows it starts on a near-level surface. Meaning, I’m firmly in the Territorial Waters camp. They have the resources to quietly purchase some land. And given their form of secrecy and obscurity defenses amount to illusions guarding the entrances, they’re more the sort to have something with an innocuous name own said land.
“Clarification on Espionage: AGAINST a government, by one who is not a government.”
I’m perplexed. Why do you think that a government spying on its own citizens is okay, but the citizen using that spy (which is unconstitutional against a US citizen, mind you, especially without a warrant) against the government…. that’s where you consider it espionage? Guess what… it’s not.
The elements of criminal espionage are as follows:
1) Information transmitted is classified government information or relates to national defense ; and
2) The accused acted with the intent or reason to believe the information will harm the United States or help a foreign nation (not necessarily an “enemy” of the United States); and
3) There was a willful communication, transfer, or receipt of the information; or
4) There was an overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy to commit espionage.
None of that applies from Deus.
Try again.
“So, if I cross the border into Canada, they have no right to impose Canadian law on me?”
Canada is recognized as a sovereign nation. Try again.
“So, we have no right to impose American law on undocumented immigrants?”
The US is recognized as a sovereign nation. Try again.
“He chose to go under galactic law by going onto their turf. He crossed a border into their land.”
Who’s land? You’re making a lot of assumptions. The Fracture is a waystation. The only thing that the Galactic Council has any right over are the ports.
Also he did not ‘cross any of the recognized borders into the Fracture.
“My argument is that DEMOCRATIC governments are partially the WILL OF THE PEOPLE. And that’s the key thing. Deus wasn’t acting with that. (more below, re: expansion)”
But your entire argument is based on the idea that a government is uniquely able to do whatever it wants simply because it is a government. That’s not how government works though. Especially not in the United States. The government is composed of people, and it can be evil if it does things that are evil.
The US government, through Archon, spied on an American citizen without a warrant. That’s unconstitutional. Deus turning the tables on the US government, on the other hand, is completely legal. Congratulations. You just argued that Archon is the villainous group and Deus is the hero.
“Implication: Fine, but it doesn’t change that Deus violated import/export laws, TOO. The seller is shady, but he’s not the one being debated. He was a single-use (thus far) plot device.”
I’m unaware of any extradition treaties between Earth and the Galactic Council. In International law, all nations have to agree to the laws FIRST before behind beholden to them, which is why you trying to compare it to illegal immigrants being subject to american immigration law, or US citizens breaking laws in Canada being subject to Canadian law does not hold water. We have mutual treaties between countries about sovereignty. We have nothing of the sort with the Galactic Council, so we are not beholden to their rules.
“Deus helping others: I covered this. It’s called Enlightened Villainy.”
I only have seen enlightened-ness. No villainy. And moreover, you havent even remotely shown him doing anything villainous.
“He’s not doing it for them, probably. If the ashtray thing is used as part of a way to show his “all is Greed” mentality is just a cynical act, then that’ll change things.”
Are you actually going to ignore the WORD OF GOD (ie, DaveB stating outright that Deus is doing what he’s doing specifically to help the people of Galytin)? He IS doing it for them. The fact that he’s also benefiting as a result does not change that fact.
“But until that happens, I’m taking him at face value. This building others up isn’t for them. It’s for him. SO, it’s not heroic. As that’s his main deed that could be called such: no true heroism.”
So if you invent a cure for cancer….. then sell it so everyone can use it, you’re not a hero because you were paid for it? Heroism must be completely altruistic? So you’re saying every member of Archon is not a hero, because they get a hefty paycheck – including Sydney. Sydney should have turned down the money because according to your reasoning, if she did not, then she’s an enlightened villain instead of a hero.
Seems the only hero then would be the Marble Maiden.
“From a PURELY moral perspective, ignoring the (heavily abused/abusable) letter of the law:
->Stole the Council’s dangerous artifacts, which were safely contained, and is now selling them.”
Again… he didnt steal. It’s salvage of items which a shadowy group had themselves stolen from people that they murdered. You can keep stating something that isnt true. It doesnt suddenly make it true. :)
“Pointed Sciona at Wyrmil when he knew she’d go for the brutal method of trying to kill him. Then DID NOT INFORM ARCHON about her when he promised them he would (thus concealing her).”
You keep repeating things that I’ve already refuted, and you don’t even give new arguments. You just repeat the same argument again. Repetition of a refuted argument isnt going to suddenly make it correct.
“They only found her after NORAD detected a supersonic traveler, after she took the item from Cooter/Wyrmil – which Deus pointed her towards.”
Within minutes after she was with Deus. When exactly was Deus supposed to alert Archon? Clearly he was going to, but they had already engaged with her before he could. Not that he was under ANY obligation to do so anyway. Not doing so would not mean he’s a villain.
“(If Deus can claim his stuff was Salvage, then Cooter/Wyrmill does, too, for his artifact).”
Correct… unless the item was originally Wyrmil’s before the Council stole it from HIM. You can’t steal back your own possessions from a thief.
“->Shady business stuff, meriting 9 investigations. Could be a coincidence, but it doesn’t speak well of him”
Do you know how many laws are on the books? I guarantee if I was to do an investigation into you, especially if you own a multinational corporation, I will be able to find plenty of things to investigate. The fact that he’s not had any CONVICTIONS is remarkable. It means the investigations are just fishing expeditions.
“Galatyn: started as a legit business offer, sure. But in 388, he was told to leave, and didn’t. If he had left there, it wouldn’t have come to violence. Rather than leave, he insulted (however deserved) his host, and made a better offer. Social mask (below) slipped a little, but it was an offer. The king then re-iterated the demand he leave, or be shot. Not shoot him, leave or be shot. And he was in a sovereign territory, in the king’s own HOME (presumably) at that. Then he, rather than comply peacefully with a lawful order to leave, he staged the coup. No self-defense. Provoked a person, who peacefully told him to leave, then only actually ordered violence AFTER Deus’s side started the first attack (387-389).”
Again, words do not equal an attack. The attack happened after the murderous dictator said he would have Deus shot, then was about to order the guards to throw Deus off the roof.
So yes. Self Defense.
“violated intergalactic law to bring advanced tech to a world that, taking Dabbler among others at face value, is not socially ready for said tech (xenophobic from her words, adding militant and has so many oppressive autocrats).”
AGAIN… for the… I think 8th time?….. Earth is not a signatory to any compacts with the Galactic Council, so is not beholden to those rules. Think of it like the Kyoto Accords. If the US is not a signatory, they cannot be accused of violating the accord. Neither can any citizen of the US.
Also, Dabbler, who IS a member of a planet that is a signatory, IS violating the Galactic Council’s laws by simply USING her technology on Earth to the benefit of the humans.
Congratulations. You’ve proven that by your definition, Dabbler is a villain. You still havent proven Deus is, however.
So far you’ve managed to prove that Sydney, Cora, Dabbler, and Maxima, and Harem are villains, and that ARCHON engages in unconstitutional crimes against US citizens. Can’t wait to see what you have against Hiro or Math or Anvil.
“is waging war of aggression to conquer a path to the sea.”
Sorry, you misspelled ‘freeing enslaved people and allowing them into a free society where they will have a chance to not be living in hunger, fear of tyrannical warlords, and endless civil wars.’
“With the Alari ship and him needing to advance his timetable, we see “world domination” as his plan.”
It’s so villainous when helping in-need homeless refugees that no other nation will help gets in the way of expanding a legally created empire. Not.
“And he’s using Supers in violation of setting-specific law.”
Literally on this VERY PAGE, he’s shown that that UN law is shoddily written with massive loopholes which he was able to sail right through. Legally. Which will force the UN to have to improve their ambiguous wording.
“Okay, for the expansion, I’d forgive him ENTIRELY, if only he gets the cities to, JUST before he invades (to not give time for retaliation), publicly ask for hi to do that. Then I would trust that he has the will of the people, or as close as exists in that area.”
That’s literally said in this comic. So you should forgive him entirely.
“>Uses Harem as a double agent to conduct espionage against a democratic government.”
Harem was the one committing an unconstitutional act by spying on Deus in the first place. You cannot spy on an American citizen without a warrant. Deus, on the other hand, is completely allowed to listen to government whistleblowers. ENTIRELY LEGALLY.
“->his treatment of women (alternate payment, making it a power game, etc) is vile. To be clear on the sex for services”
Okay now add Math as a villain as well.
And again…. sleeping with Sciona was not villainous. He gave her multiple reasons why she should, and she took him up on the offer. The perk was she’d also get information. She was not in any way being forced. And like I’ve already mentioned, which you’ve again ignored, what he did did not meet the elements for criminal prostitution.
Sorry that you think consensual sex is immoral and villainous.
“also from Galatyn “benefits of working with me.” pause “us.” It’s about him.”
On the contrary, he corrected himself by your own admission. He was willing to work WITH Indinge. He just wasnt willing to let Indinge keep torturing his people and give him a blank check. He was going to make the murderous dictator wealthy and no longer at war with all of his neighbors, but the murderous dictator was greedy, then threatening, then attempted to be murderous. All because he didnt like Deus’s words.
“391: makes light of killing a man in front of his son, then goes for more peaceful.”
The son didnt seem to mind after he saw what a monster his father was, and seemed very quick to take Deus’s offer to become the richest man in Africa. Deus even states that he knew that the son had no knowledge of how his father tortured and murdered men, women, and children.
“That’s his true face showing. It’s an arrogant “all about me” thing.”
If it really was ‘all about him’ he would have just killed the son as well. Instead, he made the son rich and the son is the political ruler – Deus just handles the economy.
“and 390: “I was going to have to eventually remove you, anyway.” He wasn’t dealing in good faith, anyway.”
He was going to have to eventually remove Indinge because he knew Indinge would eventually try to murder him. It just happened far earlier than expected. ALSO ON THE SAME PAGE, Deus says he would have preferred to handle things diplomatically (and non-violently). But you ignore that.
“Arrogance – or any ONE of these things – alone does not a villain make. But combined with the rest of the picture, which is what I’ve said before, it’s more damning. The good he’s done, alone, I would praise. combined with his arrogance, I would grudgingly approve.”
Again, arrogance does not mean villainous. Or most heroes would be villains in the comics, and in this very webcomic. You’re trying to claim he’s a villain BECAUSE he’s arrogant. You want him to be the de facto villain because he’s an antagonist in the story. :) Don’t think of it as Fantastic Four vs Doctor Doom. Think of it as X-Men vs Avengers.
“But he’s not just an arrogant (and flawed) hero. A hero does their good for others.”
He has done good for others. Having the side effect of it being good for him as well does not remove that fact.
“He does this for himself, and covers his tendencies with a refined mask, that only rarely slips.”
Other way around. He does good for others withthe side effect that it’s also good for himself. That’s Word of God speaking even.
“(And to be clear: I respect the choice to wear a social mask that’s better than yourself. After all, that’s a CHOICE.) But when it slips, we see the evidence that he only really cares about himself.”
There has been no slippage of any masks. He hasnt been wearing a mask. He’s really quite up front about his beliefs, including going on national television to point it out.
“And to do that, he’ll flout intergalactic law,”
Keep repeating it, won’t change that you’re wrong. Not a signatory to any of those intergalactic accords.
“international law,”
Again, keep repeating it, won’t change that it’s been thoroughly refuted. The laws in place have massive loopholes that he’s gone through. And when they close the loopholes, he had admitted he would abide by the law. Not his fault that that the law has a lot of holes in it because the UN is stupid.
“and national (albeit tin-pot dictator law).”
Surprisingly enough, considering that you mentioned the nuremberg trials, i’m surprised that you think a tin-pot dictator who commits crimes against humanity would be ‘law.’
“And don’t forget, taking those dangerous artifacts and putting them into circulation.”
Where did you get that they’re in circulation. They’re a lot more secure now than they were with the murderous, clandestine Council.
“That he helps people as a side-effect is just that: a SIDE effect.”
Or is his fabulous wealth the side effect of him wanting to help people.
It’s only your inherent dislike of him because he’s arrogant that you say the former instead of the latter.
“The core of his villainy is that it’s all for him,”
Greed is not villainy. To quote Gordon Gecko, Greed, for lack of a better term, is good. Greed is a clean drive that captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.”
“and he’ll put others at significant risk to do it or else kill them (Cooter/Wyrmil, the Galatyn king though well-deserved, people in danger because he didn’t leave those artifacts alone, the galactic community by risking unleashing humanity upon them).”
Sooooo…. the people he’s put at risk were….. a monster who wasn’t even killed (and possibly CANT be killed), a murderous despot who tortures his own people, including children, and a galactic council with whom Earth has NO say in the first place and with whom has not signed onto anything.
“I’m willing to say that with his army of lawyers beyond what most people have access to, and his own skill, that he’ll probably avoid prosecution,”
Prosecution for WHAT? For being arrogant? For NOT breaking laws? For breaking laws which are not even able to be used against him since he’s from a planet that has not signed onto any intergalactic accords? For killing a despot who was going to try to throw him out of a window or shoot him, in total self-defense? You do realize that the son is now king, and the son doesn’t seem to have pursued arresting Deus.
“and get off what charges can be leveled against him.”
There are literally no charges that CAN be leveled against him.
‘But that’s on the legal spectrum (and dangerous that wealth can purchase better defense, making the law unequal). It’s irrelevant to the moral spectrum.”
Morally he’s even on FIRMER footing than legally. He’s done a LOT of good, and the only bad you have even tried to argue is consensual sex, killing a murderer/torturer, inconveniencing a monster (and getting rid of the monster having access to a dangerous artifact), and not letting the US government unconstititonally spy on him, a US citizen, on US soil.
And galactic customs:
Seller implied the law is, he can sell to anyone on Fracture. The law is transporting to new worlds things that would disrupt the paradigm. Which Deus did. And sure, bypassed customs, but he still violated the rule against that – Galactic Council has to approve sending them so much as an FTL ship to reverse-engineer. And we can add to Deus that he presumably had an unlicensed wormhole.
And he agreed to the law of Fracture (and galactic, etc), when he set foot on their turf, with a wormhole of his design. Unless you care to say that we haven’t agreed to laws of our nation by being born into them, not having chosen that?
https://definitions.uslegal.com/h/harboring-a-fugitive/
1 and 2) warrant and knowledge. Maxima took care of that, off-panel. Conversation makes that clear.
3) harbored in his bedroom. 4) prevent discovery or arrest. He promised to inform them, then didn’t, which means he had informed them she wasn’t there until he said otherwise.
And since Harem is quite possibly spying FOR him, I reject using her as evidence either way on this subject.
The Black Reliquary:
I crunched numbers, and it could easily be halfway between coast and international, and thus in territorial. It’s likely not all the way there. Could even be closer than halfway to international. Link to a law or treaty on record saying that 1k meters deep is the measure, as opposed to 2.5k deep or 22.2k out? Or that the US disclaims authority over waters in that area.
Galactic customs, etc: he chose to enter their turf, so he chose to be subject to their laws. That he slid under the radar is neither here nor there. Indeed, I only bring it up because you cite law as the definition of villain (it isn’t, as villain is used by people at large as a MORAL term, not legal.) That said, morally, he brought advanced tech to a planet that’s demonstrably leaning towards autocracy, xenophobia, and militarism. I’m taking Dabbler’s statements about the world not being ready at face value, there.
Re: flaunting. No. Don’t flaunt. Be humble, except when flaunting it is necessary to do good. I disagree with Maxima’s flaunting, too, EXCEPT as a means to keep the peace. But she’s not the one being debated, and despite her tendencies, she still defends justice. A flawed hero.
Galtyn: I just realized: why are we using the US law, when he clearly wasn’t in the US?
Letter of the law: Law exists for a few reasons. Codify interactions and procedures so there’s no uncertainty. Bring transparency to justice (Code of Hammurabi, etc, setting clear maximum punishments, and defining crimes, etc). It codifies morality. But it is of people, and thus fallible. Adherence to the letter means little on a moral perspective, without adherence to the intent. The intent of GOOD order are minimize harm and maximize good. But it’s fallible, and there are loopholes, and people abuse them. I name them villains without naming them criminal. If someone flagrantly violated the law to bring world peace, everyone happy, etc., then despite naming them criminal, I’d name them a hero, too.
_____________
If Deus’s goals turn out to be altruistic after all, or his methods that were both brutal and inefficient (go after ONE despot violently when he could either ditch brutal by fishing for anyone willing to go along; he’s said in this comic there were other cities, etc. OR go after all of them at once and make things better for everyone), and he’s just getting rich as a means to do so:
Then sure, I’d reconsider him as a villain.
If we see an analysis that says he only had the resources to build up one region at a time? I contend he should have gone for something closer to the coast, barring another analysis that says Galtyn was worst-off, or only they had the right land to make the generators, or something. If we see such an analysis, or see that it’s talked about?
I’ll reconsider him being both inefficient and brutal and be willing to write off the other as necessary to improve things.
___________________________
TL;DR: he’s a villain because of his arrogance and intent to conquer the world (see the powerpoint name, etc), and how he uses brutal methods when other options exist (could have spoken remotely, could have spoken with other dictators peacefully either before or after his talk in Galtyn), and does his brutality inefficiently (one place, then slow conquest, when he could have tried to puppet all of them in quick succession). He steals artifacts (even if the legal definition doesn’t apply, the MORAL one does, and that’s what makes the villain). He does this not for others, but for himself, even though the process of doing so means he coincidentally chose to build others up to support him in doing so.
If we see evidence that he’s doing the best with what he has, then he’s not as villainous, but still a villain. If we see evidence that the “for me” mentality is a cynical sham and he really does want to help the people, for the people, then we’re wrong and he’s not a villain. If he wants it with “for me” but ALSO cares about the people, then I have a headache processing that, and can’t rightly decide. Too gray for a mortal like me to decide, though I still don’t like his arrogance.
“My god, what sort of world would you live in that someone can say something mean to you and you’d think that gives you a right to kill them in response, to the point where if you don’t succeed in killing them, and they kill you first, it’s THEIR fault? Because you are thin-skinned and have a murderous mentality that you back up with murderous actions?”
Oh, absolutely no world. Just that fault doesn’t END at 100%, just BEGINS there. Deliberately provoking someone means sharing in the moral fault.
“Seller implied the law is, he can sell to anyone on Fracture.”
I wasn’t aware that laws were based on implication, rather than actual written laws.
That’s me being catty. Laws are not based on mere implication.
“The law is transporting to new worlds things that would disrupt the paradigm. Which Deus did.”
No. The law is people cannot transport things to OTHER new worlds that are not their own, which would disrupt the paradigm. Deus is from Earth. The law does not say he can’t enrich his OWN planet. It says beings can not enrich OTHER planets.
Not to mention he doesn’t BOTHER with customs, so he’s not violating customs laws. He completely bypassed having to use customs in the first place because he does not need any sort of transportation.
Unless you are saying Sydney is evil because she transported Grakz from Fracture to Earth to give to Neil DeGrasse Tyson?
“And sure, bypassed customs, but he still violated the rule against that – Galactic Council has to approve sending them so much as an FTL ship to reverse-engineer.”
Since when is Deus subject to the laws of the Galactic Council, of which he is not a citizen?
For example, lets say it’s 2006, and I want to drive a car. I’m a woman, so in Saudi Arabia, at that point in time, it would be illegal for me to drive a car. However…. I’m also an American citizen. I can drive my own damn car wherever I want if it’s not in Saudi Arabia. I don’t have to give a crap about Saudi Arabia’s laws because I am not a citizen of Saudi Arabia and I’m not living in Saudi Arabia.
Deus is not transporting goods to other planets. He’s taking it to HIS planet. He’s not using any means of the Galactic Council at all. He has not ever been a citizen of the Galactic Council. Earth is not a member of the Galactic Council. So the Galactic Council can, for lack of better term, shove it if they want to enforce their laws on a planet that isnt even a part of the Galactic Council and isnt even dealing with the Galactic Council.
It’s completely different with the FTL ship though. In that case, the Galactic Council itself WOULD be sending the ship to Earth. The Galactic Council…. is subject to the laws of the Galactic Council. Earth, however, is not. IF Cora wanted to just give Earth a ship, she’d be in trouble with the Galactic Council. Earth would not be. The Fel arrived on Earth. Now EArth had a Fel ship after they beat it. Earth is not in trouble for being the subject of a Fel invasion – the Fel are, if they werent all dead now.
“And we can add to Deus that he presumably had an unlicensed wormhole.”
OI! YOU GOT A LICENSE FOR THAT WORMHOLE?!
No…. Deus does not need a license for his wormhole. You have no reason to even assume that the Galactic Council even has ‘wormhole licenses’ in the first place. And even if they did… again, Deus is not a Galactic Council citizen and would not be subject to those laws.
Again, I’m an American. I have several TVs in my home. I watch them without having a TV license, despite it being an albeit stupid law in the UK that you have to have a television license in order to watch TV. I don’t need a UK television license to watch TV.
‘Murica. Hell Yeah.
“And he agreed to the law of Fracture (and galactic, etc), when he set foot on their turf,”
Oh? Where did he agree to the law of Fracture? I must have missed that part. Or you might have just made it up.
“Unless you care to say that we haven’t agreed to laws of our nation by being born into them, not having chosen that?”
We havent agreed to the laws of OTHER nations by not being born into them. Also the Galactic Council does not ‘rule’ Fracture. It just prevents people from using their ships and means OFF of Fracture. Deus doesnt nee their ships or means OFF of Fracture…. just like Halo did not need the Galactic Council’s ships and method off of Fracture, since Cora took her off of Fracture, with Halo’s amaze-balls.
Again, unless you want to say that Sydney is evil for the same reasons that you say Deus is evil.
“1 and 2) warrant and knowledge. Maxima took care of that, off-panel. Conversation makes that clear.”
So we’re now assuming things that happened off panel in order to fit our theories? Fine.
After Sciona left from her vertical mambo with Deus, Deus immediately called Archon, off panel, and let them know where to find Sciona, which is how they knew where to find her.
Before Deus met up with the murderous dictator, he tried to use Skype instead, but the murderous dictator insisted they meet in person if they were to make any business deals because ‘that’s how MEN operate.’
No. There was no off panel getting of warrants on Deus. Like you’ve mentioned, Deus has lawyers, and lawyer would tell ARCHON that you need probable cause for a warrant. And they don’t have that. At all.
Honestly, when you think about it, the idea that Archon is spying on a private citizen? A GOVERNMENT entity spying on a PRIVATE citizen? Without a warrant? That’s all types of illegal itself. MASSIVELY unconstitutional.
“3) harbored in his bedroom. 4) prevent discovery or arrest. He promised to inform them, then didn’t, which means he had informed them she wasn’t there until he said otherwise.”
Again, you don’t seem to get this from a legal standpoint. You cannot lie about something that has not yet happened. Because it has not yet happened. And you have no idea if he was going to inform them eventually… or even if he DID inform them. ARCHON was after Sciona mere minutes after she left Deus’s boudoir.
“And since Harem is quite possibly spying FOR him, I reject using her as evidence either way on this subject.”
Actually the only reason Harem was spying for him was because she was there to spy ON him. From ARCHON. A government entity. Which is spying on its own citizens. Without a warrant.
Maybe if they did not spy on him in clear violation of his constitional rights, he wouldnt spy on the government entity for which his taxes pay. With their own government agents, who are there TO SPY ON HIM BY VOLUNTARILY GIVING HIM INFORMATION.
“I crunched numbers”
What numbers? Show me the numbers.
“Galactic customs, etc: he chose to enter their turf, so he chose to be subject to their laws.”
It’s not the Galactic Council’s turf. They just control the entrances and means on and off the station. He didnt bother using the entrances or the means on and off the station. Just like Sydney did not. Just like Cora did not.
“That he slid under the radar is neither here nor there.”
I’d say it’s VERY MUCH here and there. You’re trying to subject him to laws for which he is not a citizen, for which he has never agreed to, for which they have no jurisdiction over him, and for which the laws themselves do not apply. Not to mention that according to Dabbler, the Galactic Council is not exactly like the Federation or something. It’s a loose assortment of worlds of a certain level of advancement that have a confederated agreement to try to keep tech out of the hands of lower tech worlds by policing THEIR OWN PEOPLE.
“Indeed, I only bring it up because you cite law as the definition of villain (it isn’t, as villain is used by people at large as a MORAL term, not legal.) That said, morally, he brought advanced tech to a planet that’s demonstrably leaning towards autocracy, xenophobia, and militarism. I’m taking Dabbler’s statements about the world not being ready at face value, there.”
Hey if you want me to use moral implications, that’s fine. There’s nothing amoral about bringing advanced tech back home which can advance your civilization by hundreds of years, cure diseases, and make lives better for everyone. In fact, it’s VERY moral.
Deus should get a god damned medal or sainthood.
”
Re: flaunting. No. Don’t flaunt. Be humble, except when flaunting it is necessary to do good.”
Since when are you the flaunting police? I think that maybe your authoritarian mindset of being able to tell people what to do, how to think, and how to act is rather evil in itself. Land of the free – we can flaunt our talents if we want to, and it’s not evil to do so. It IS evil to try to oppress people when they flaunt their god-given talents, on the other hand.
If you want to be humble, cool – you be you. But don’t go and think you can order that around, like you’re the Amish gestapo or something. That’s …. just so many levels of wrong there.
“I disagree with Maxima’s flaunting, too, EXCEPT as a means to keep the peace. But she’s not the one being debated, and despite her tendencies, she still defends justice. A flawed hero.”
Rules for thee, but not for me? Is that really the argument you’re using?
“Galtyn: I just realized: why are we using the US law, when he clearly wasn’t in the US?”
Fine. Use Galytin law. Which Deus can write now. He can do whatever he wants retroactively. I was using the laws under which Deus would have grown up with, which would color his perspective of good and evil.
“Letter of the law: Law exists for a few reasons. Codify interactions and procedures so there’s no uncertainty. Bring transparency to justice (Code of Hammurabi, etc, setting clear maximum punishments, and defining crimes, etc). It codifies morality.”
Okay, so far we actually agree on stuff now!
“But it is of people, and thus fallible. Adherence to the letter means little on a moral perspective, without adherence to the intent.”
Also true. Which is why I’m stunned at how you try to make Deus culpible for laws under which he is not even a citizen, of which they have no right to impose upon him.
“The intent of GOOD order are minimize harm and maximize good. But it’s fallible, and there are loopholes, and people abuse them. I name them villains without naming them criminal. If someone flagrantly violated the law to bring world peace, everyone happy, etc., then despite naming them criminal, I’d name them a hero, too.”
Good. We agree. Deus is a hero, not a villain. He’s brought peace and prosperity to Galytin.
Great argument. We’ll do lunch.
_____________
“If Deus’s goals turn out to be altruistic after all, or his methods that were both brutal and inefficient (go after ONE despot violently when he could either ditch brutal by fishing for anyone willing to go along; he’s said in this comic there were other cities, etc. OR go after all of them at once and make things better for everyone), and he’s just getting rich as a means to do so:
Then sure, I’d reconsider him as a villain.”
DaveB literally stated Deus’s goals for Galytin. And yes, he’s making a ton of money. But his goals were to make their lives better, and money was the outcome of that. If you make the people beneath you rich, you’ll become even richer. If your citizens are happy and prosperous, they won’t want to overthrow you or chop your head off.
That’s what Deus has done. He could have made a quicker buck by being brutal and exploiting people and letting them suffer. Instead he chose the more difficult, but long term FAR more profitable route of building them up, helping people – alari. Galytinians, etc… and benefiting from THEIR success.
“If we see an analysis that says he only had the resources to build up one region at a time? I contend he should have gone for something closer to the coast, barring another analysis that says Galtyn was worst-off, or only they had the right land to make the generators, or something. If we see such an analysis, or see that it’s talked about?”
He chose Galytin because they WERE suffering under an evil dictator, they were poor and desperate for help, and would be grateful for his help. Not to mention third world nations are less expensive to develop into first world nations than first world nations are to develop into…… better first world nations?
Plus I’m sure there’s stuff in his powerpoint presentation about places he considered for ‘making better’ and Galytin was at the top of the list. That makes sense. You’re not going to want to use somewhere in Southeast Asia, because that’s too close to China and Russia. You’re not going to want to use somewhere in South America, because that’s too close to the USA and, frankly, a lot of organized cartels. You’d want to use somewhere in Africa, preferably not in the northern area, because you’d want somewhere where cartels or gangs are disorganized, where there are warlords who are not going to be cooperating with one ANOTHER, and where the people are suffering so you can help them to maximum benefit to both sides.
“TL;DR: he’s a villain because of his arrogance”
Arrogance is not villainous. It just means you’re sure of yourself. Unfounded arrogance… that’s maybe a little more villainous.
Is Batman arrogant? Hell yeah. Is he a villain? Hell no.
Is Monet St. Croix (M from Generation X) arrogang? Hell yeah, it’s practically her defining trait. Is she a villain? Not even remotely. She’s just annoyingly always RIGHT, and she’s arrogant because she knows she’s right.
Is Maxima arrogant? Oh SO MUCH SO. Is she a villain? I’d say no, even though she’s reckless and fires plasma bolts which wind up destroying bridges, and occasionally threatens people who have committed no crimes like Krona, based on what they ‘might’ do despite no evidence that they would. But no, she’s not a villain.
Is Sydney arrogant? Yeah, sometimes. Like her victory dance after the Squidward fight, or the D&D campaign in the beginning. Is she a villain? Hell no, she’s INCREDIBLY heroic.
Am I arrogant? No, I’m the epitome of humility. Just kidding. Yeah I’m a bit arrogant.
Am I a villain? No. I’m a lawyer. Subtle difference.
“and intent to conquer the world (see the powerpoint name, etc),”
Where’s the etc? You gave that he named something in a cheeky fashion as evidence of INTENT TO CONQUER THE WORLD…. then … that’s it. Nothing else.
” and how he uses brutal methods when other options exist (could have spoken remotely, could have spoken with other dictators peacefully either before or after his talk in Galtyn),”
Again, you’re not under any obligation to protect people from themselves when they try to MURDER YOU.
“and does his brutality inefficiently”
I’d say he’s done it rather massively efficiently, with a minimum of death the entire time, and a maximum of goodness as a result occurring.
“(one place, then slow conquest, when he could have tried to puppet all of them in quick succession).”
You gotta walk before you can run.
Also, to quote Maxima, “Plans within plans.”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-184-battling-the-future-with-rocks/
Also, to quote Dabbler, “Thin edge of the wedge. You have to get used to one finger before you allow two.”
“He steals artifacts (even if the legal definition doesn’t apply, the MORAL one does, and that’s what makes the villain).”
He legally salvages artifacts which were taken by an illuminati-like society that murdered its former owners and could have very nefarious means for them if they ever got into the wrong hands.
Go on…
“He does this not for others, but for himself, even though the process of doing so means he coincidentally chose to build others up to support him in doing so.”
In other words, he’s an entrepeneur who enriches himself by making other people richer and more comfortable. So basically …. he’s a capitalist who actually helps people.
Yeah, not seeing the villainy still.
“If we see evidence that he’s doing the best with what he has, then he’s not as villainous, but still a villain.”
Sorry but my brain hurts from that sentence. If you do the best with what you have, make poor people’s lives better, don’t break laws to do it, stay within the bounds of the legal definition, only act aggressively when your life is in danger, promote peace and prosperity to people, take in poor refugees that are in rags and literally have nowhere to go, and provide them with a home….. then you’re a villain?
Dafuq?
“If we see evidence that the “for me” mentality is a cynical sham and he really does want to help the people,”
You can want to benefit yourself and ALSO help others. When you’re in an airplane that’s going down, and the oxygen masks drop, you put on on yourself before putting one on your child.
“If he wants it with “for me” but ALSO cares about the people, then I have a headache processing that, and can’t rightly decide.”
Wanting to benefit yourself is NOT evil. It’s not even remotely evil.
Wanting to benefit yourself by hurting innocents. THAT’S evil. Deus has NOT done that. He’s done the opposite. He benefits himself by HELPING innocents. I don’t know how that can be even remotely defined as evil.
“Too gray for a mortal like me to decide, though I still don’t like his arrogance.”
You can dislike his arrogance all you want. That’s your right. But it doesn’t make him evil. It makes him an arrogant hero. Or at the very least, an arrogant anti-hero. Remember though… Wonder Woman has killed in self defense or defense of others (ie, snapping the neck of Maxwell Lord to save Superman from mind control in the comics, killing Hades in the animated movie, etc). Plus Wonder Woman is INCREDIBLY arrogant, in both the comics and the animated movie. But with noble purpose. And she’s not an antihero- she’s a hero.
And Deus doesnt even have a fancy tiara or lasso, far as I know.
“Oh, absolutely no world. Just that fault doesn’t END at 100%, just BEGINS there. Deliberately provoking someone means sharing in the moral fault.”
You’re using a DANGEROUSLY slippery slope there. The same argument can be used to say that a rape victim is morally at fault for being raped, because she did not cover up more, or she thought she had the right to walk on the street at night to go to a restaurant.
Seriously, lets use it as an example.
A woman is going on a date at a restaurant at 9pm. She has no car but the restaurant is only a few blocks away so she’s going to walk there. She’s very attractive. She’s wearing a dress that shows off a nice figure.
En route to the restaurant to meet her date, some guy pulls her into an alley and tries to rape her. The woman, being someone who’s lived in the city her entire life, has a legally licensed firearm in her purse, manages to get it out and shoots the rapist dead.
By your logic…. the woman caused this to happen, and she is evil for having shot the rapist, who was going to commit a horrible crime upon her. She is evil for having thought ahead, but not thinking of having her date pick her up at her house, or taking a taxi a few blocks, or having her dinner date earlier, or living in a better neighbhorhood, or not dressing up, or not going on a date in the first place.
Now I do not think you’d actually think something like this. But your logic with Deus and the murderous tyrant trying to murder him and getting killed in self defense is COMPLETELY consistent with that scenario.
What’s the difference? Because Deus is a man? Because it’s a murder attempt and not a rape attempt? Because Deus provoked with TRUTHFUL words instead of with being attractive and in a sexy dress?
There’s no difference. The rapist should not have tried to rape. If he had not, he would not be dead. The murderous tyrant should not have tried to murder Deus. If he had not, he would not be dead. To blame the woman is victim blaming. To blame Deus is victim blaming as well.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Good night.
Just wanted to point out that Wyrmil/Cooter is very dead. Sciona killed him/them pretty much as an afterthought when she took back the Brane Ripper.
Wyrmil has been described as “just about impossible to kill“, has survived worse things than being sliced into a few pieces, and was last seen talking with Cooter, post-slicing. And then implied to have slithered down a storm drain. They’ll probably be fine.
Or he might go full Xanatos and even improves his work when he’s exposed and made public.
“Supervillain uses own corporate money to improve living standards in areas he leagally owns. Happyness, education and health are up compared to previous governments.”
Somewhat of a more easy going Dr. Doom here? Yes he’s an antagonist, an ass mightbe, but when it comes to it, he’s fully within his rights to do what he does, and just likes to do it in the shadows?
That way it’s much more interesting to deal with than any bad guy you can smash, this one requires intelligence and even then, will things actually get better if he’s taken down, and is there anyone capable of doing his work to keep things running as they do?
He’s FAR less malevolent than Xanatos ever was. During the first two seasons of Gargoyles, Xanatos was sort of villainous, although he made a major turn in the four part “City of Stone” to stop Demona. Then by the end of season 2 he was definitely firmly in antihero territory, and by season 3 I’d argue he was an outright hero and people like the Hunters were the villains.
The thing about Gargoyles, though, was even the villains were usually not outright villainous 24/7. Demona was a sympathetic villain, Macbeth was not a villain at all although he was perceived as one at first. The Hunter was basically a villain mainly because he was fighting Demona, who was herself outright evil to him and his entire lineage. Oberon was…. sort of a villain, but he seemed to be a pretty reasonable one who was willing to accept compromises. Thailog was probably the closest example of an actual outright villain, although some of the members of the pack were outright villains as well (Wolf, Jackal and Hyena).
And yeah Future Lexington was a complete villain as well but that wound up not being real anyway.
Okay I went off on a tangent there.
Anyway, Deus is not even remotely like Dr Doom, except both of them want to help the people of the nation they ‘rule.’ Although Deus doesn’t even seem to care about ruling them – he has someone else doing that in his stead unlike Doom. He’s seeming to do it for the people and virtuous reasons, even though he’s going to make a ton of money in the process. Probably how he’s a self made multi-billionaire.
Deus is the classic example of the trope ‘Why not Cut Lex Luthor a Check?’ – he can do more with his brilliance legally than he could through classically evil routes…. and he does. In fact, since I don’t see Deus as a villain, a better example of the trope he represents is the anti-trope of ‘Reed Richards is Useless’ since he actually DOES put his inventiveness and deal-making savvy attitude to use.
The main thing I think of as being the same between Deus and Xanatos is that I suspect he knows what’s going to happen because at some time in the future he’s gonna come up with time travel and use it to just let his past self know ever damn thing that happens so he can literally be a self-made man. Just like Xanatos was.
“Privately begging”, which means there is no evidence that he is lying
Or it could be what he’s actually saying.
That Galytin’s poor neighbors who are themselves also ruled by vicious warlords in poverty have been begging him to bring them into the fold, but can’t say so outright because their own tyrannical rulers would ‘disappear’ them as dissidents if it was made public knowledge.
That actually seems far more likely. I doubt Deus is lying about it – the best plans are where you need to have the absolute minimum of lying involved. Makes it easier to keep your story straight.
Even easier if there is no evidence or proof
Convenient that the only ‘proof’ of his actions, are his own words any witnesses are either dead, a wanted criminal or in his pocket
Yeah, I can vouch for the “want to get away from the insane DICKtator” angle. When you’re ruled over by someone who will end you because he wasn’t happy with your work/THOUGHT you wanted to change sides/had a bad day/wanted some fun, then you do end up wanting to get away from that. Megatron was all those. And if you see something better, it’s natural to want the better thing. “Grass is greener on the other side”? Well sometimes it really IS better! You Humans had a much better deal going than what I had with Megatron, I have access to Energon, so i ditched Megsy & went solo. Daniel the Human found me after I got hit by lightning, been teaching me Human ever since…
Indeed – I will second this. Spent most of my life living under an petty, egotist dictator who fed the country and the people through the mangler many times. Literally too, more than once. A benevolent dictator who actually improved the country, quality of life and your safety? And he could prove it by showing the state of the areas he already rules? Such a person would be an extremely attractive alternative.
Deus comments in his interview about the people complaining about his rule never having truly been starving, hunted and in fear of their lives rung true for me. Sovreignty is cold comfort when you are the last person left from an extended family of around 30, and every other one has either been killed by, or died as a direct result of the actions of your leaders. (This example was not, thankfully, my own. But the man whose family it was was someone I grew up knowing. He was a kind, gentle happy man and a doting grandfather. By his end, he was simply broken.) And then consider that my country is not the worst to be a citizen in, by a long shot.
Many people who are arguing Deus can either be benevolent ruler or evil dictator under a mask with nothing in between are forgetting something. His extreme pride will not allow him to create a failed state, because that would mean he failed as a ruler. Simple wealth is not his prime motivation – recall he previously mentioned giving away hundreds of millions in stock to poor Amercians, just to see what would happen. He is massively wealthy, ruthlessly pragmatic and extremely powerful, but those seem to be more way-stations and enablers for him than they are end goals. And if he needed failed, horrific states to achive his end goals, he would not have needed to do anything to create them. In his world, or ours.
Screwball:
It’s a good thing that you got away from Megatron anyway. Rule #1 – never trust anyone with a mullet, be they robot or be they human.
as a fan of macgyver I would like to offer you an airline ticket.
MacGyver is clearly the exception that proves the rule.
I’m sorry Richard Dean Anderson. I didnt mean to imply anything. I love you baby. Please don’t be mad.
He seemed to survive, we don’t know if they are dead.
>It’s suspiciously like he actually cares about the quality of life of people under his “rule.”
It’s suspiciously like what a lot of invaders and conquerors claim to justify their actions is what it is. “Oh, the people want us to invade, it’s the responsible thing to do for their sake, they’ll welcome us as liberators.” etc., etc.
Shows up often enough throughout history, right up to the modern day.
Yep, which all fall under the broader umbrella of the often jingoistic propaganda strategy of “Real or hypothetical; Never mention anything bad our side is doing. Never mention anything the other side is doing unless it’s bad.”
Distract and divide. It’s far too easy to think of examples of people who use this strategy to effect.
Yes, if you invade anywhere, you will find a Quisling or a Vichy government content to be ruled by you. You will always find a group of people who invite you to invade.The Nazis did in WWII.
In WWII, Ireland remained neutral for a lot of really good reasons. One was that a large portion of its population was vehemently anti-British – this was after a war of independence, which involved very dirty tactics by the British government. Many of those would prefer to side with Germany – on the simplistic basis that the enemy’s enemy is my friend. They did not have the knowledge of Nazi atrocities that we now have. The UK and US allied with the USSR for similar reasons.
(In reality, the Irish government quietly favoured the Allies- interning German combatants, while allowing most Allied to slip back across the border. History is complex, isn’t it.)
“The UK and US allied with the USSR for similar reasons.”
No, the UK and US knew quite well that the USSR was a monstrous evil, all of Duranty’s efforts to the contrary shifted public opinion a bit, but the government still knew.
But they also knew they needed allies RIGHT NOW, and could pay the price for that alliance later.
World might have been a better place, though, if Patton had won that argument, and they’d taken down the USSR immediately after Germany.
The difference is that his invasion seems to be actually helping the people he’s invading.
It is indeed an often-overlooked facet of society: some of the best economic growth strategies look like altruism on the surface, but the knock-on effects snowball into something much bigger than the short-term measures usually taken.
There’s a reason the worst dictatorships are all in Africa: The wealth there is dug from the earth. It doesn’t come from the productivity of the people, so there’s no reason to invest in the productivity of the people.
> “Plus… if you sell someone a car, you make X dollars from them, and a well maintained car can be run for a decade or two. If you sell someone a bus or rail pass every week for the rest of their lives, it provides a steady and predictable source of revenue.”
The real reason certain cities push mass transit so hard.
So, it couldn’t have anything to do with cutting air pollution, cutting traffic jams, spending less money on road maintenance, preventing urban sprawl, better application of scarce resources, reducing climate change, and so on?
No you’re right. It must be a conspiracy to earn money.
It’s just easier to justify with greed. Indeed, a lot of beneficial directives and advancements are done in the name of greed.
Greed and Spite make the world a better place if applied properly.
Like paperwork, they are necessary evils.
Are you implying that there are no better drivers than Greed and Spite? These seem to be for uneducated idiots, or is this an American weirdness that I don’t understand?
What about Intelligent Self-interest? That’s something that Europeans TRY for – I emphasise try, because they are not always successful. Mainly because of Greed and Spite, I guess
There are a LOt better drivers than spite or greed, but those will do in certain societies… and sometimes the other drivers are just too far removed from the public conciousness. Also, unlike some other drivers like love, altruism, patriotism, etc. greed and spite work for pretty much everyone.
It’s not American weirdness, it’s American cynicism. The press tends to be a bit sensationalist, often prioritizing stories of corruption (or what appears to be corruption) over good news, and they like to focus around “big figures” such as the rich and celebrities – which often means that we see people who have a lot of power to help others, but choose not to do so. Cynicism grows from that pretty quickly.
As for the whole greed and spite bit, saying that you have to “apply them properly” is kinda silly. They are characterized by being emotions that hijack your actions against your better judgement, so it’s not really possible to apply them properly. Greed is uncontrolled desire – once you control it it’s not greed anymore, just preparation. Spite is unmitigated anger – once you mitigate it, it’s no longer spite.
‘Applied greed’ is not applied by the individual who is subjected to the greed, but by the individual or group motivating that person to the goals that they have in mind.
Think ‘Black Friday sales’. The people caught up in the frenzy for good deals are not the ones who have applied their greed. They are just the ones whose emotions have been hijacked by those who have made use of ‘applied greed’.
“Intelligent Self-interest” Enligntened self interest)
Hmm, what to do – pick a cliche which people will think they understand, or pick an alternative which they will understand?
I picked intelligent self-interest.
@Killjoy – I have to respectfully disagree with you there – even the things Europeans do that improve their societies (like large use of bicycles and mass transit) are not about trying to improve the world, no matter how pretty a picture we try to paint about it. It’s about personal greed (or call it “enlightened self-interest” if that makes you happier). Example: taxes on a car in Denmark are approximately 100% of the value of the car, and taxation on petrol is roughly 300%. So just knowing those two facts should be enough to surmise WHY Danes largely don’t use cars, and when they do, they’re generally lightweight micro-cars, despite having COLD cold, snowy winters…
Oops – that reply was supposed to be to @One-eyed Mike
I think you are wrong in your assumptions here, including about the winter temperature in Northern Europe. It gets very snowy and cold around the Baltic, just like Northern USA.
Many European countries tax cars at a high rate, because they are a highly expensive import. It’s not unique to Denmark.
Most European countries have a well-educated population, who understand that exercise is good for them, so bicycles are good to use – so long as the government provides adequate road space and protection from car drivers.
They also understand that public transport is a very practical way of travelling into a city. It is not possible for large numbers of people to drive into a city, unless you are willing to shred that city, and demolish its buildings, to favour cars. and unless you are happy to accept lungs full of pollution.
Compulsion by government is a US myth. It is fostered by incredibly rich people, who control Fox News and the Republican Party. They spread the fear, because they fear that the US government will finally clamp down on the monopolies which have destroyed the US economy. That anti-trust legislation will actually be enforced in the US.
I was wondering. ;-)
Cars could be more efficient, and certain specific geographically tiny areas certainly do benefit from mass transit, but the idea of using economic and political coercion to force people in vast swaths of the northern US to give up personal vehicles is a total non-starter, the weather is too bad too often and everything is too spread out.
Sadly, we seem stuck with politicians and pundits and technocrats of all ideological stripes who seem to think that they know what’s best for “us” regardless of how ignorant they are of our individual circumstances and needs.
Rent-seeking is rent-seeking.
When dictators are discussed, many people attack what the understand as democracy, and start cheerleading “benevolent dictators”.
Over the centuries, people though they had installed “Benevolent dictators”. Sometimes, the dictators genuinely start with good intentiions, nice guys. They want to improve people’s lives, and stop evil in society.
Two problems. First, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The nice guy enjoys the power, and wants to keep it for himself and maybe his family. Think of Kim Il Sung, and his descendants in North Korea. Or Ceaucescu. Or Franco, or Batista or any of the Central and South American dictators that the US used to create and support.
Second, if you have absolute power, you want to apply it to what you see as evil. So, we must get rid of those evil Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, atheists, commies, fascists, etc., if our society is to thrive. Same goes for those people who are not like us. Those natives, immigrants, mentally ill, homosexuals, pick your flavour and we’ll mince it up for you. Think of Hitler, Mao, Stalin, and all the hundreds of other dictators who left a stain of blood and sorrow behind them. With the best of motives.
Most people attacking democracy here are from the USA, which is a failing democracy. This is largely because billionaires like the Koch brothers* began hyper-funding the Republican Party, and its propaganda machine Fox News. Today, a large proportion of Americans no longer understand what truth is and what is real news. Nor why they they have to work two badly paid jobs to keep afloat. (Hint – it’s not because of immigrants or Muslims, whatever Fox pretends.)
This works for the billionaires, because the USA has the same democratic deficit as the UK. The unrepresentative X-voting system prevents proportional representation of people’s views with multiple parties. In effect, the X-voting system gerrymanders elections, so that two big parties swap government perpetually – Rep/Dem in USA and Con/Lab in UK.
Forget about dictators, fix your voting system. And expand your range of news sources.
*If you only follow Fox News, you will never hear of people like the Koch brothers.
Ummmm. Ok, I’m with you for some of this…
Where I live, we have this thing called Compulsory Voting, which is a necessary condition for Preferential Elections with Proportional Representation. It is necessary because after each election the Electoral Commission runs an excercise called “Two-Party Preferred” to see which of Liberal (Nationals in Queensland) or Labor would have won each seat if no other party had contested that seat.
What Compulsory Voting and Preferential Elections don’t do is give us independent representatives who work for their electorates, and convey our dislike of wasting taxes in going to wars where we’re not wanted and it’s none of our business anyway. Like Korea, Vietnam. Iraq, Afghanistan…
What this sytem doesn’t give us is independent representatives who don’t have time to waste in trying to demoloish the Opposition — or Governing — Party while happily accepting the regular salary hikes which are completely outside the plebeian Wage Agreements…
And taking 12 bloody years to make up their minds which of several competing technlogies (including copper wire) should form the backbone of a modern national IT Comms network. Then changing their mind halfway through to hammer the standard lower than it was.
Seriously, forget your “democracy”, don’t bother about your voting system, but do expand your range of news sources, go for the indies. Maybe you will begin to wonder why a US citizen was able to instruct his employees here in Oz to agitate for the removal of an elected Prime Minister and substitute a selected replacement. Rupert Murdoch, if you hadn’t guessed.
There is no such thing as an “independent representative”. And none of what you listed is a problem with democracy or voting systems in particular.
Those are criticisms of the American political scene, sure, but not much else.
Quite. You made my argument, except you should have said “… is seen as a problem …”.
I will however disclaim that in this post I was not aiming at US politics. However, you are free to claim the comments as applicable to whatever nation you please.
You directly mentioned US controversies throughout your comment.
Rather specifically at the end too.
And why would I need to put “is seen as a problem”?
Well I’ll be a warm pale ale :( I thought I was talking about Australia. I did not know the US has Preferential Elections, or Compulsory Voting. I really thought the US has First Past the Post elections with voluntary voting.
I also did not know your Nation had spent 12 years debating which was the best/appropriate technology to build a National Broadband Network. And I would never have guessed in a thousand years that Rupert Murdoch was a controversy in the USA — after all, he became a citizen of the USA and renounced his Australian citizenship at the same time — he is not now a citizen of Oz — in order to assume control of several news outlets in the US.
Frankly, given the above, it looks like either you are totally unfit to join in adult conversations, or you are a troll.
There was a time where the average American could at least be relied upon to know something of what was happening in their own country, even if they didn’t know a thing about the world beyond its borders. Now it’s debatable which side of those borders they know less about.
Dont fass yerself Gor. I knew you were talking about Oz.
Probably because I’m a cockroach.
Sandgroper :)
Sorry, my mistake. It’s just some of the things you mentioned were so similar to events in America I thought you were at least partially talking about it.
“And I would never have guessed in a thousand years that Rupert Murdoch was a controversy in the USA”
There was a controversy over Rupert Murdock in America; he faced police and government investigations into bribery and corruption by the British government and FBI investigations from the US. Doesn’t really get more controversial than that.
Also Rothschilds.
You directly mentioned US controversies throughout your comment.
Rather specifically at the end too.
And why would I need to put “is seen as a problem”?
Sorry, meant to reply to someone else.
Also the United States of America isn’t and never was a democracy. It’s a capitalist oligarchy.
I would have gone with Federal Constitutional Republic, but leaning toward Capitalist Oligarchical Republic.
I’ll agree to this.
It’s a republic.
I prefer to think of it as a recorporate.
Of the corporations.
By the corporations.
For the corporations.
That makes for cute rhetoric, but it fails on technical grounds.
It’s not an oligarchy. It’s a constitutional republic. A constitutional republic is a government where some decisions, usually local decisions are made by direct democratic process, but most (in particular, federal decisions) are made by democratically elected representatives as a multi-tiered system.
The reason for this is to prevent the problems with pure democracies, which tend to devolve into oligarchies via tyranny of the majority and mob rule.
Also before anyone else responds to my post, yes, a republic also means it’s based on a written set of laws which cannot be easily changed by a day-to-day vote of simple majority. From the latin, Res Publica – The common affair the common set of laws. IE, written laws which apply to everyone as a basis for the civilization being governed.
Yeah, people tend to forget that systems which prop up “Benevolent Dictators” also completely lacks the ability to deal with the not-so-kind variety.
I agree with you, but Deus is giving me very strong “Toyotomi Hideyoshi” vibes, ad he was an historical dictator (the second great unificator of japan), that curiously was pretty benevolent purely because he was greedy and lazy and understood that if your serfs are well fed, educated and safe, they produce more and you can tax more even without raising the taxes exactly. While his reing was not without sketchy stuff and scandals, he was a pretty stable and respected leader.
Of course then he died and showed why exactly dictators motivated by greed are not the ideal: once he was gone Japan once again split in several factions rallied around two leaders figthing for his power (his main political rival and his son’s regent), and war started once again, because none of his ideals and politics really worked well enough if he wasn’t there to maintain (Some semblance of) order.
Yeah, I think if you were guaranteed to get Toyotomi Hideyoshis, benevolent dictatorships could work better. That having been said, I think if you were guaranteed to get Toyotomi Hideyoshis, *any* form of government would work better.
The first real trick is convincing the dictator that well-cared for citizens are much better for the dictator’s own interests than abused citizens, second-class citizens, non-citizens, or slaves. Deus seems like he’s at least got that bit down.
The second real trick is convincing the dictator that it’s in his interest to find a successor who also understands both the first and second points. The second real trick is where you’re basically guaranteed to fail, because the better successor the dictator finds, the more likely said dictator is to find themselves prematurely succeeded, and this is generally understood. It’s possible that one might convince particularly lazy dictators that is the way to go: their job is to find someone to do their job so they can retire. But if they’re going that route, chances are good they’ll not be careful enough in selecting that successor.
I still think that there’s a lot more up with Deus. But as evil dictators go, he doesn’t seem that evil yet. He certainly is well positioned to occasionally be a major pain in Archon’s ass, but he’s done a very good job of evading the “everybody hates the big bad” thing that most big bads get going on very early on. To be honest, Vale seems more like a big bad than he does, simply because he appears to be so benevolent to his people, while Vale is just a badass apparently in his employ.
The main problem with a dictatorship, even moreso than ‘absolute power corrupting absolutely’ is that even if you have an incorruptible, virtuous person in charge, who genuinely does do everything right and is beloved by his people and is virtuous to a fault and is NOT corrupted by absolute power is……… that person is mortal. That benevolent dictator is eventually going to die, and his or her replacement will almost surely not meet that lofty standard.
Yup. The idean benevolent dictator must be not just benevolent, but also immortal. There are several gods who would qualify. Unfortunately, we had several systems which claimed to be ruled by god, but so far not a single case of person claiming to talk for that god smitten by lighting from clear sky for doing something not in interest of the people.
Completely agree but… it’s even more difficult than that!
The ideal benevolent dictator must be benevolent, immortal, and able to continue to be benevolent in all ways…. forever… during his or her immortality. :)
And here I thought colonialism went out with the 20th century. I’m kind of uncomfortable with the morality tale of, “All those Africans needed was a rich, smart white guy to come in and run their country for them.” Heck, by bringing in an alien spaceship full of refugees personally loyal to him he’s literally colonizing the country.
As for UN and the other nations that make it up, if they really wanted to clip Deus’s wings then they don’t need to invade militarily. His whole premise in Galtyn is based on manufacturing goods for export. They could just slap a trade embargo and stop anyone from buying from him. Or go a step further and freeze/confiscate all his assets in countries outside Galtyn, tell banks to stop moving any of his money around, etc. This fancy restaurant that Deus and Max are eating in? They could confiscate it. When your superpower is being rich, that’s kind of dependent on the places you’re rich in recognizing your property rights.
Yeah, right. The mans country now has publicly known access to alien tech. And only through the good will of Machina Industries will the rest of the world even have a chance at getting any. So your economic sanctions, they are of no use.
“… bringing in an alien spaceship full of refugees personally loyal to him …” Really?
Take a dekko here, panels 1 and 2. Of course it is possible that Deus may well have had contact with Alar off-camera, but it’s easier to believe he simply acted first when the ship was detected.
Personally loyal to him? “Grateful” I will accept, and willing to work toward repairing their ship, yes. Colonizing Galytn with Alari? No. We simply don’t know what their planetary environment was: they may actually be unable to walk outside without enviro-suits due to strong gravity, light and heat. Remember that Sciona is only a sample size of one, AND she’s been hopped up with bood-magic for most of that time.
Deus has an Alari Secretary, and Fracture seems to be human-habitable, given that Sydney was able to move around there without the shield or life support orb. She was also able to breath on the Alari homeworld (The shield was up because of the giant alien siege engines, not the atmosphere.
Fracture? What’s Fracture got to do with the price of eggs?
That they breath the same air as an Earthican can
As shown by Sciona wandering around with no problems as well
I usually discount Sciona as representative due to her
steroid habit…uationblood adulteration habit.(See if the “strike-through” works…)
What about the refugee’s Sydney forced Cora to help?
I would take those as more representative than Sciona is.
In addition to JGrey’s comments, I feel it’s also worth pointing out that Sydney did not feel the need to comment on the Alari homeworld’s gravity, despite the fact that she wasn’t using the fly orb the whole time. If somehow our sun is too bright, or if Gatlyn is too hot, technology and choice of when to be up and active can compensate for those.
That said, I do agree that the personal loyalty of the Alari hasn’t yet been established. What has been established is that they have some reason for gratitude and there’s one who is working for Deus.
But having said that, it’s unlikely that one refugee ship is enough to “colonize” Gatlyn with it. As Deus has been around Gatlyn for 20 years and working on improving their infrastructure and industry for all that time, and while he’s violating child labor laws, he’s clearly concerned about worker safety and health. So he’s not endangering them. He probably has therefore earned enough trust with the Gatlyn people that they’re not suspecting that Deus has brought the Alari there to colonize their country.
Sorry, I must have missed a page somewhere… Where’s Deus violating child labour laws?
He probably isn’t violating them, because if he wants to employ children in Galytn, Galytn isn’t going to have laws prohibiting him.
In fact, we saw that factory floor, and the child ran out of a room clearly labeled “daycare”, not “children’s break room”. All that indicates is that he hires parents.
The problem with your argument is that there’s a strong correlation between being wealthy and countries recognizing your property rights. Along with whatever other rights you care to invent.
‘And here I thought colonialism went out with the 20th century’
Better mention that to China.
Yeah, that’s something else people are glossing over, the troublesome history of “white guy shows up and takes over”, the “banana republics”, etc.
And the whole “white guy shows up to save ignorant natives” trope.
Truly white men carry a great burden… /s
…. dave… shame on you…. that flag could have had at least 4 minutes of work but no… yup, lets just slap a G and an explanation point on it. jobs done!
It may be a cunning ploy. A bit like the Japanese architectural philosophy, which requires that some aspect of a construction (be it part of a garden or one pillar in a series) either be incomplete or have some flaw about it. Which invites the observer to say (or at least think), “I could improve this by …”, thereby drawing them into and making them a part of the design and construction process. Even if only vicariously.
In this case he may have in mind offering the actual design of a decent flag to a significant person who expresses interest in it, like you did. Say Maxima or Sydney.
And think about it, if either of them do take up the offer (especially given how innocuous it may seem on first proposal), it then draws them into feeling empathy and sympathy with Galytn and its people. And thereby, indirectly, Deus too.
Making one of the world’s most powerful supers a ‘god parent’ to Galytn is well worth having a naff flag initially.
Deus picked that because it is actually his own initial. But is it his first or last name? Yes.
Well, since no one knows what Galytn’s geographic shape is, or it’s national bird or anything about the country, it’s not like putting any of those things on the flag would have helped the readers figure out what it was any better than the G! Plus I thought it was kind of funny if it looked like a middleschooler designed it.
My headcanon is that the girl who gave him the little dish was rewarded with the job of making the country’s flag. Which she needed to do basically right then, because updating the flag after the idiot’s demise was overdue. And now that’s set and can’t be changed easily. ;)
So what you’re saying is, Gatlyn held a contest among middle schoolers to design their new flag, and Deus thought this one was neat.
@ Dave
Trying to pin down the location of Galtyn…
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-718-mundane-majesty/
Looking at the shape of the nearest coastline, that lake to the east of the point of the two lines on the ship’s display (pointing to where the ship is) seems to be Lake Malawi, further south in the Rift Valley than Lake Victoria. That bump to the east of the “zoom point” and the nearby lake looks like the northern coast of Mozambique.
Unless “GRRLverse” has different things going on in that area than our world, it’s not really the best spot for someone to be trying to cut a path to the ocean — Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia are all fairly functional democracies at this point, and members of the Commonwealth, putting any push through their territory firmly in “concerning” for the other members of that organization.
If Zimbabwe were all that stood between Galtyn and the coast, then I could see some people there welcoming him in and the international community being fairly ambivalent, that place is decades of messed up at this point.
It’s always an iffy premise to figure out where a fictional nation is located. Case in point – Marvel’s Madripoor (an island off the coast of southeast asia in the strait of Malacca) – all they really give for an idea of where it is specifically is ‘Southwest of Singapore’ or ‘Between Singapore and Sumatra.
Or Latveria which, if we were using a real map, would basically be part of western Romania, or Northern Serbia. Marvel literally redrew what Serbia and Romania look like in order to fit Latveria in between them :)
I wasn’t at all sure that that panel showed a ‘real’ event, as opposed to Maxima’s imaginings.
I love Deus’ naming conventions for his plans, plots and schemes. He really is trying his outmost to be a trope-compliant card-carrying villain. Now, all we need is a scene of him writing (or better even, rehearsing) his monologues and using crash test dummies to trial run overly convoluted death traps.
It does make me laugh, that he is so open about it being a bribe.
Clearly though, from the depth of the proposal, it is far more considered than a mere crass sum of cash. But, at the end of the day, if he is seeking to offer benefits, of whatever kind, in exchange for the world looking the other way, whilst he goes invading, it is a bribe. A truly fascinating character quirk, honesty and openness about his own corrupt behaviour (albeit only the stuff that the world would become aware of anyhow).
He is smart to play into all the tropes. And you know why?
Because no one will see it coming when he hasn’t been advertising his plan in the national news papers.
Truth that…Telling people the truth in such a crass and open manner blinds them to that same truth
Case in point: a Star Wars RPG campaign that ran in my local club some years back. One of the players made a Young Jedi character who at every opportunity, even in front of Imperial Storm Troopers, stated that he was a Jedi and he proved it by showing a crayon written card saying “My son is a Jedi” signed with “His Mom”. The other players lost it when he many sessions in suddenly whipped out his light saber and actually used the force.
Deus’s plan is reminding me of Grayven from “With this Ring”. He conquers places and people by investing in them and making them the best version of themselves they can be. They’re indebted to him because he helped them but he never completely calls in that debt so they stay ‘conquered’ but aren’t ever suffering from it.
When his troops march into a new area I am sure their band is playing some variation on this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHhZF66C1Dc
This made me laugh VERY hard.
Love pretty much all of his stuff.
Out of curiosity, what medals does Maxims wear?
I have no idea. It’s probably not even consistent with the ribbons she wears on her dress uniform. I could see a version of me that starts researching the kinds of stuff that military types and gets really into her military history and designs custom medals for all her superhero shenanigans, but honestly I spend too much time trying to draw her nostrils right from weird angles. :(
okay I’m just gonna say it Deus is WAY better at being an evil billionaire then Lex Luthur is
hard to stop a man clearly doing evil things when he is legitimately making the world a better place
considering when this movie came out it may have been the model for a young Deus starting his career.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bbzwJ0Sx48
Deus is the real hero of this story.
Except for the bit on public transit, all his decisions are pretty benevolent. Everyone benefits. The transit thing is also sensible for a control-freak like him, though: it’s a lot easier to control people if you dictate whether they can travel, and it’s a lot easier to control access to public transit than it is to roads and personal vehicles.
He spun his public transportation investment as evil, but public transportation systems are expensive. Sure, if you can build a public transport system in a place like Gatlyn where they can’t afford cars, and make it good enough before they can afford cars that everyone keeps using it anyway, it will work and be profitable.
However, that probably has to be a damned good public transportation system if it’s going to continue to exclude privately owned vehicles (I’d guess Deus’ car is probably government-owned for tax purposes) even after they’re affordable due to the country’s uplift… which was probably a few years ago, given that they’re now a major manufacturing exporter.
Though, having said that, I’ve considered another option: Deus and his people are the ones deciding what gets exported and imported, and how much things cost the citizens. It would be possible for them to simply not import cars. And rather than giving the citizens real affluence, give them super-cheap imports of the things they need and enough of what they want that they feel like they’re affluent, while still precluding them from having enough money to try to buy a car on their own.
Even with that thought, though, I’d bet that his country’s public transportation system was probably more expensive per capita than most, though more than proportionately better.
only because of bad writing, Deus is a villain sue every thing he does works not because it should but because the writer bends over backwards to make it work.
Again… what about Deus has actually been villainous at all?
How is he a ‘Villain Sue’ when he hasnt done anything that could be legitimately described as outright villainous? Even the deaths were no worse than what Maxima has done as a soldier. In fact.. he’s a bit MORE virutous there, because the only death he’s caused was of a murderous dictator… who was going to try to kill him when Deus talked smack to him about how he would not be giving him a blank check because he did not trust him to not be an absolute a-hole to his people and fritter away the money. So… the one example of killing someone? COMPLETE self-defense.
Helped Sciona? What did he help her do? He helped her GET HOME. That’s it. After she also tried to kill him. Multiple times. He wasn’t even villainous to HER. He gave her the opportunity to buy the item that she did not take because she left in a huff (after trying to make sure Deus and his employees, and HER partners, would die in the vault). And when she couldn’t pay, he offered to give it to her in exhange for a roll in the hay. You can’t even say that was forced – she did so voluntarily, and seemed quite satisfied with the results.
Because he’s spying on Archon? Archon’s also spying on him. So if he’s a villain for that, then so is Archon and all the ‘heroes’ in Archon.
So where’s he a villain? Seriously. Give me examples, and I’ll effortlessly refute them.
Everything about Deus makes him seem like a genuinely good. Sure, he has a love of playing the role of a stereotypical villainous megalomaniac with the ominous thunder and the one-liners, but there’s nothing wrong with that. His greed-based philosophy is quite questionable, but it could easily be tongue-in-cheek pragmatism. He clearly likes having control over people, but he also seems to treat the people under him well (and yes, that was a double entendre). For all intents and purposes, he seems like a perfectly reasonable, benevolent dictator who hasn’t really done anything wrong in story.
And because of that, he’s almost definitely going to turn out to be absolutely evil once the shoe drops. On the page that previewed all the villains, he’s the last one. He’s made it abundantly clear that the only thing he really cares about is himself, and that is all the foreshadowing you need. His reasonable behaviors are just there as misdirection.
He’s a villain wrapped in a hero wrapped in a villain. A wolf in wolf’s clothing. A jerk with a heart of jerk. He’s the Big Bad hidden in plain sight. Logic opposes it, but the Narrative demands it.
King Radical fooled me once. I won’t be fooled again.
I don’t think anyone’s comments have ever given me more of a giggle fit than yours where you said “He’s a villain wrapped in a hero wrapped in a villain.”
But I’m with Sydney (when she saw his company motto) on this. I think he’s all right. :)
Deus is the literal Grrlverse equivalent of Doctor Doom, minus the magic and telling over his home country. But he’s egomaniacal, actually cares about the people he rules loves goading/bribing people into doing his bidding, as opposed to doing it himself. If this guy goes on a “The world needs my guidance – my genius – if it’s to survive…” rant, then I’ll know for sure that Deus was inspired by Doctor Doom.
I’d say he’s more the Grrlverse version of David Xanator, season 2 and 3. If anything. He’s got an ego, sure, it’s a well deserved ego. He’s been rather HELPFUL to the US, in fact, as opposed to Doom vs the USA.
He also doesnt seem to rule through fear like Doom does – he rules through paying his people extraordinarily well and being a fantastic boss who they all want to impress.
Xanatos, not Xanator. I really wish there was an edit option.
Two points of minor annoyance for me here: first, if you think there isn’t language in place for the UN to deal with nations claiming to already own territory the UN doesn’t recognize that they own, think again. Russia pulled this exact trick a few years ago and it’s close as we’ve gotten to WWIII in a while.
Second, nobody in- or out-of-universe actually believes Deus has no other agenda than “improving” the country, so that’s a pretense that can maybe stop, at least as far as trying to convince the readers. A country can have all the infrastucture imaginable and still not be a good place to live. Contrary to what Deus seems to believe, this isn’t an original idea either, at all. Looking the history of Native Americans should be all the warning you need that this does not end well. The problem is that Deus’ power structure is fundamentally unstable, and therefore will be corrupted, if it isn’t already (which it is).
“nobody believes X has no other agenda than Y” has never been a sufficient reason for any politician to stop making their empty political points, and probably never will. Especially since so many politicians have demonstrated that continuing to make obviously false claims will persuade people.
I don’t mind *Deus* saying it. What bug me is when *Dave* insists on it in the commentary, when it’s obviously false.
Additional thought: The number of people who are corrupt in a government has a major impact on its effectiveness.
It’s true that we’ve seen no particular reason for Vale, C’thilla, and possibly a few of Deus’ other supers to not be corrupt. C’thilla specifically has been shown to be an independent contractor who works for others as well.
That having been said, *most* of Gatlyn’s government has a very good reason to not be corrupt: Vale, C’thilla, and most of the rest of Deus’ other supers. When there is corruption, it’s pretty clear that Deus doesn’t have any compunction about excising it with rapid dispatch. He finds you’re diverting government funds to fix your house? You’re not there anymore. If you’re lucky, he had Opal take care of you, and you’re somewhere else you can do your thing. But probably you aren’t anywhere you can do anything, except maybe decompose.
So, yes, some of his power structure is very corrupt. But the rest is cleaner than anything we’ve seen in history, because we don’t have supers we can use to eradicate corruption.
You say, “but what about the corruption that Deus doesn’t know about?” Remember, one of his super powers is knowing things he really shouldn’t. I’m pretty sure that suggests C’thilla was on the receiving end of that ability, and probably not just Deus knowing about that particular job. I’d guess that Deus probably had words with C’thilla about their particular sort of corruption, and while C’thilla’s too indispensable for Deus to simply end relations, they’ve been told to minimize their thing, or maybe not do it at all in Gatlyn.
Two problems with this: first, corrupt doesn’t mean “the leader doesn’t know about it”. Corrupt means “being willing to act dishonestly for personal gain” or alternatively “unreliable due to conflicts of interest”. Tell me that Deus himself doesn’t 100% fit both definitions, let alone the entire system he’s put into place.
Secondly, from the perspective of it being a story, it’s going to be real hard to justify developing so many characters for a monolithic antagonist. There have been a ton of flags for betrayal of various types being raised, and narratively it would be real hard to avoid Galytn falling to the same pressures Genosha always does, simply because it has too many stress points in the story. This actually points to *real* issues African leaders have had in trying to “catch up” with the rest of the world: they focus very hard on collecting power or modernizing in some other other way and never actually try to get the citizens to identify as a nation, which results in dissatisfaction and coups. For all that Deus thinks he avoiding those issues, he’s falling into some of the same traps, and it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for that to continue without us seeing consequences of it.
“… never actually try to get the citizens to identify as a nation, …”
The problem African leaders have is that colony governments weren’t complete Stalinist bastards. And yes, I do include the King of Belgium, Leopold II.
Josip Stalin was not averse to scrambling his subjects’ historic identities, and his favourite weapon was forced migration. However, this tactic was never used in Africa: the multitudinous tribes largely stayed where they had been born, though some wandering always happened.
The upshot was that every tribe in Africa retained a personal and corporate identity, which included insults and injuries past. Much like the Balkan States.
So when Colonial Nations decided their colonies could now look after themselves, somebody forgot that despite over a century of foreign rule, nobody had taught Africans to work with each other for the Greater Good.
We speak from a privilege of position: our ancestors have already done the hard yards toward nation-building. Our ancestors had already spilt enough blood to satisfy the Gods of Civic Pride that we can too easily forget the price… Which we did, to Africa’s loss. England had up to 20 little kingdoms at various times, and Scotland perhaps as many. Ireland never did manage to unite its warring tribes, who proved easy pickings to the Norman and Angevin armies.
The fact that Africa generally is becoming more civilised by the decade is a tribute to millions of people working very hard with too few tools.
I don’t think you have phrased the issue correctly.
The real issue is that European colonists created large colonies, covering arbitrary areas – whatever size they could control with guns, essentially. These arbitrary areas included people who had nothing to do with each other – they were not part of the same nation.
Many had fought bitterly for centureies. Some were slavers, who kidnapped their neighbours to sell to the Europeans. Others were invaders were allowed by the colonists to keep the land they stole. Some were foreigners, imported by the colonists to work, or just to rule the locals. The colonists often favoured one religious group over all others, impoverishing the majority.
Then the colonists walked out, having made a complete mess of the area. And blamed the locals for being unable to clean up the shit they left behind them. Those dreadful incompetent Africans …
And of course they kept control of all the African resources after they left, and taught the new governments to accept bribes – most of the corruption is driven by outsiders.
I possibly haven’t.
Yes, European governments did indeed trust the straight line far more than they should have. As for example, the Maasai lands in Tanganyika and Kenya were literally cut in half by the German and Britsh negotiators.
It is true I did not actually specify these tribes were often not on good terms with each other.
But other than those, I think I have got the issue properly explained. I do not believe the Europeans needed to teach the Africans bad habits, they never were our intellectual inferiors, just massively out-gunned.
We simply failed to teach them good habits, because we had forgotten that we had once been where they are. And that’s how we left it a complete mess.
We are well aware, of our history!
Eh. I’d say we all think we’re aware of our history, but none of us actually know it to the extent that we think we do.
“Common knowledge” which is often outright false, e.g. that people thought the world was flat during the time of Christopher Columbus, and such, is just one example of this.
Your history, not that of the American Indian. I speak the perspective of the American indian. We lived here more than10,000 years, not the last 500 to 550 years. Which incedntly, was suppressed, in favor of the white man. There are two histories of the continents. In history, you are only taught, the whiteman’s side.
That, too. History as a whole encompasses the entirety of our world–not one continent of it. Yet most people are taught only a fraction of the world’s history.
What people don’t get is slaves and impoverished people are highly inefficient money earners requiring lots of micromanaging and carrying large risks to your life if they rebel or an outside force comes to save them.
what come next is a rant you’ve been warned
gods Deus is such and horrible character he brings the whole comic down so much it almost becomes unreadable when it focuses on him
the twisted pseudo “logic” use to try and rationalize his action is so ludicrous and disingenuous that it physically hurts. I mean look at this page “once my people set foot on the land its my sovereign land” has to be one of the stupidest sentences ever written but instead of being laugh off the page or killed on sight as any sane country would at this point its just treated as true.
the shear magnitude of hand waving… you can’t just say he made their “lives better” so they love him. like somehow he just instantly sets up industrial bases, reeducated whole populations and overcome cultural problems (just for starters) in under three months time…. no, just no
there is suspension of disbelief then three light years later there’s this
One question, do you or have you read comic books, or regular science fiction or fantasy books?
Hero books?
If so you might have seen this is nothing.
Dam, forgot to mention games and movies.
Elon Musk/Tesla set up the worlds largest battery (Hornsdale Power Reserve – 100 megawatts) built in under 100 days. Perhaps you should be rethinking your arguments.
The Shanghai Gigafactory (again Tesla) was fully constructed and operational in under 10 months.
Tesla… the real life Deus X Machina. :)
But alas without the scar or sexy bodyguard.
I meant to say Elon Musk is the real life Deus X Machina.
Ask the residents of New York right now about the relative merits of mass transit vs. cars, given that an MIT study has concluded that one of the primary vectors of the spread of the Wuhan virus in NYC and environs has been due to people crammed next to each other on mass transit. Yes, I know, it would be hard to have what is modern Manhattan with a lot of cars. But mass transit turns out to have downsides; maybe the answer is not to have modern Manhattan.
OR have people use paper masks and gloves, and wash their hands more.
And one can engineer some of it to make it way better, most transports have LOUSY air filtration, so just get fresh clean air in and pump out the “used” air would help with most thing in air.
A proper mass transit will carry SO many people far more cheaply and effectively then the car.
But that all is dependent on making both cars and mass transit work well.
Snail ways and tuna cans are neither the right idea alone, but being a little clever about it will save LOTS of time effort and resources for all involved.
Those in the cars want fewer other cars, those in the transit wants to get wherever in an efficient manner, and not have a horrible time of it either.
City planning itself can help allot with all of that.
To be fair, as a resident of NYC, Manhattan would simply not be possible with just cars. It’s already a traffic nightmare. The big problem with the whole Wuhan virus thing (aside from that a certain country lied and kept sending infected people out of the country while simultaneously not allowing them to move to other parts of their own country, and aside from the WHO lying about it not being transmissible well after it was obviously transmissible) is that our leadership in NYC is…. fairly inept. We had a mayor who, up until 2 hours before the lockdown and shelter in place, was telling people to go out to movies, go to parades, use the subway, etc, and they never closed down the subway until WELL into the quarantine period. So it was more ‘stupid people’ causing the spread being worse, although the fact that we are incredibly densely populated didn’t help either. But we’re incredibly densely populated mainly because we are a financial hub of the world, which would only be possible with a robust mass transit system in place. If we had to do do the same thing with cars, the pollution would be through the roof (it would make the busiest parts of India or China look pristine in comparison), not to mention the traffic would be 50 times worse.
If Deus wants a major financial hub in Africa, there are worse things he could replicate than the NYC mass transit system to make that happen.
I know what Donald Trump, and Fox News say – obviously they is looking for scapegoats to explain why Trump refused to do anything until it was too late. He is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.
But does any serious commentator believe that the WHO “lied ” about Covid-19 being transmissible? All the evidence is that they did not know at first what was involved – because no one did. It was a brand new virus, and everyone was making snap decisions on the run.
They merely passed on existing medical advice about the new disease. The same advice we all heard from our own doctors round the world.
Later, Donald Trump knew about Covid-19/ At that point he was fully briefed. He deliberately chose tlo do nothing about it, because it did not fit his re-election strategy. At best that is a form of manslaughter – unlawful killing – if not murder.
Not sure why I’m letting myself be drawn into a political partisan argument, except that I mentioned that it was poor city leadership that worsened NYC’s covid problem with the mass transit. The main point of my post was that there are worse models to use for a metropolis in an up and coming nation than New York’s metro model, which is actually surprisingly efficient for a dense population.
oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound I guess.
—–
“obviously they is looking for scapegoats to explain why Trump refused to do anything until it was too late.”
He literally shut down the country from China, and then from Europe, over a month before any other nation did. When we had no deaths yet even. Meanwhile, on March 15, our brillian mayor, DeBlasio, was telling people to go into the subways and theaters and parades, even though 2 hours later he was ordering a lockdown. If anyone has blood on their hands, it’s DeBlasio. But seriously it’s mainly China and the WHO. Not sure how you can blame Trump for it, given how early he did respond to it.
“But does any serious commentator believe that the WHO “lied ” about Covid-19 being transmissible?”
It’s… literally on video of Tedros Adhanom declaring that Covid-19 (then the wuhan coronavirus) was NOT transmissible from human to human as if January 18th 2020. Five days after they knew there had been human-to-human transmissions.
“Later, Donald Trump knew about Covid-19/ At that point he was fully briefed. He deliberately chose tlo do nothing about it”
He shut down the border a month earlier than anyone else did, and as a result was called racist. Where are you getting your news and, more importantly, why are you talking about Trump in a response to my post which had nothing to do with Trump? My post was explaining why NYC requires mass transit to function, and why mass transit on its own was not the cause of the massive spread, but rather city and state official decisions were to blame for a fair amount of the spread.
Not sure how Trump fits into that.
Forgot you were in NYC, hope you’re well. NYC is a fascinating place to me from a logistics and engineering perspective – things like public transit are hugely complex there, whereas I live out in the Western US where most cities (aside from the metropolises on the coast) can’t sustain inter-city public transit at scale because everything’s just too far apart. Watching covid unfold there has been similarly different and interesting, regardless of the political implications of what was done by whom.
I’m fine, thank you for the concern :) I missed being able to post a lot here since I’ve been really busy with work until the world decided to shut down because of Corona 2 Electric Boogaloo. Now I’ve been pretty much stuck indoors since mid-March and I miss going to malls and restaurants.
I made sure to stock up on food back in January. Not because I was worried about the virus, but because I was concerned about panic buying and people overreacting and supply chains breaking, and I did not want to be in the parking lot of Shoprite fighting with an elderly woman over the last can of beans. So instead, during the last two weeks of January, I bought enough non-perishable food to last for 5 months (mainly rice, beans, pastas, soups, sauces, boxed shelf-stable milk, flour, etc), and after that I just shopped normally until the lockdown happened. Which honestly, people should do anyway if they can afford to. Dollar stores are good for that – prepper on a budget.
I know a few people who got it, and one person I know did die from it (I won’t go into who because I don’t feel like talking about it honestly), but the curve has been flattened, and I’ve been working from home because E-filing is a thing, plus I’ve been doing some work for law firms from home as well – mainly pre-trial motion stuff, which is why I suddenly have time again to post overly verbose diatribes here.
I think there are other cities that have shown that you can have a public transit at a scale, if not at New York’s level, then at least close-ish, like how New York City also extends to Long island with the LIRR, or how San Francisco has the BART.
I’m just saying if you have to base a burgeoning metropolis’s mass transit on a city, New York is not a particularly bad model to use, even though there are other cities with good models as well, like Tokyo, Boston, London, and to a lesser extent, San Francisco.
Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19. Not Wuhan Virus.
Don’t be a fucking idiot like Trump.
The virus is SARS-CoV-2.
The disease is COVID19.
But there’s nothing sinister or racist about naming a disease after its geographical origin. Ebola, Marberg, West Nile, etc.
*laughs bitterly*
Tell that to the people who have been stabbed to death by those who call it a racially charged name.
They would do that anyway, because they are fucked in the head
ah, so MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) isn’t a racially charged name?
There is a long-standing tradition of naming viruses after the region from which they originated. The reason so many are named after places in China is, frankly, because a metric ass-ton of viruses originate in China. Blame their animal & food handing protocols (or lack thereof)
Don’t get so caught up in political correctness that you blame society for the idiocy of the individual. Those attacks were due to people that were broken, not due to something said to them.
Pendrake, please know that what I’m saying, I’m saying with all due kindness, since I don’t think you’re a bad person but….
I’m assuming you never called EVD ‘Ebola’ then. Since I’m sure you aren’t going to be a hypocrite. It’s not like Ebola was not named after the Ebola River in the Congo, where ebolaviruses first originated. I’m sure you never called West Nile Virus that even though it’s calle that because it first originated in…. the West Nile…
It’s generally known as the Wuhan virus because you generally name virii after where it first originated, or at least where it first became known to originate (even if it doesnt actually originate there, like the Spanish Flu). Or it’s named after the species which it was originally transmitted from coloquially.
So yeah, It’s called the Wuhan Virus. It’s ALSO called COVID-19 (COrona VIrus, earliest known official notice December of 2019). Also known as SARS-COV-2 as the specific virus name.
Don’t start calling/implying that people are racist or something just for using the terminology that’s been used for virii names for several centuries now.
PS – People who get stabbed by other people (please, I would like to see where that’s happened btw and how numerous that must have been from what you are claiming) are stabbed by people who are insane, not because the President called a virus by the name of where it originated, like EVERYONE in the news media itself was calling the virus in January and February and part of March as well. I didnt think Obama was racist for calling Ebola Ebola either. And I’m pretty sure there was not a rash of people stabbing Africans from the Congo any more than there have been a rash of people stabbing Chinese people.
+1
Daniel here. Here in Australia, we have NEVER called it the “Wuhan” Virus, it was always the Coronavirus until it got it’s COVID-19 official name. Calling it “Wuhan” Virus Down Under IS considered racist ESPECIALLY because we have had several people of Asian decent attacked by morons blaming THEM for the virus.
As 1 of – if not THE – most multicultural countries in the world, we do try to get along, but it is indeed considered a bad call to call Covid-19 “wuhan virus”. I’m pretty sure if the Spanish Flu came into existence today, it would not be called “Spanish Flu”, especially in Australia…
Daniel, lets take the way back machine via the internet to January 25, 2020.
https://theconversation.com/the-wuhan-coronavirus-is-now-in-australia-heres-what-you-need-to-know-130580
Gotta love the internet. It remembers everything.
Melbourne’s Monash Medical Center was calling it the Wuhan Coronavirus as well btw.
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Also Daniel, did you ever call the Ebola virus the Ebola virus, since it originated in the Ebola river? Then you’re racist, by your logic. You’re not racist btw. That’s just what it’s called because that’s where it originated.
Did you ever call West Nile virus West Nile virus, since it originated in the West Nile? Then you’re racist, by your logic. Again Daniel, you’re not racist if you’ve ever called it that, since that’s the name of the virus, because that’s where it came from.
Did you ever call the Spanish flu the Spanish flu? Then you’re horribly racist, since it didnt even actually come from Spain. Epidemiologists are actually saying the spanish flu probably came from China or the Iberian Peninsula – a surprisingly large number of recent viral pandemics come from either East Asia/China or from central Africa, as a statistical fact. It was called the Spanish flu because it was first visibly apparent with carriers were in Spain, when Spanish King Alfonso XIII came down with it and people mistakenly thought that meant Spain was ground zero.
In any case you’re not racist if you called the Spanish flu the Spanish Flu. Diseases have names. And colloquially, those names try to describe, succinctly, the disease’s origins. It’s not because of bigotry, it’s because of pragmatism.
Because viral pandemics have historically ALWAYS been referred to either by the (suspected) place of origin or by the animal which originated it. Including this one. Plus people seem to have a frighteningly short memory when it comes to the orange man being bad. Since JANUARY, multiple news media have referred to COVID-19 as the Wuhan virus, including CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the LA Times, the Daily News, Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, USA Today, Newsday, the Chicago Tribune, and the Boston Globe. Not to mention MULTIPLE different world leaders.
And oddly, no one ever said it was racist. Because it’s not racist. It’s stating where the virus originated, and is historically how viral pandemics are referred to.
But then President Trump calls it the same thing EVERYONE ELSE has called it, and because ‘Orange man bad’…. well everyone suddenly forgets they were calling it the Wuhan virus, and start claiming that since Orange Man Bad said Wuhan virus, it is therefore not only racist, but they never used the same exact terminology REGULARLY.
The hypocrisy is staggering, regardless of political leanings.
Call it the Wuhan virus/Wuhan coronavirus. Call it Covid-19. Call it the Chinese Coronavirus Epidemic. It doesn’t matter. It’s all correct. NONE OF IT IS RACIST and people diminish the term ‘racist’ when they make accusations like that.
PS – the most multicultural country in the world is actually Chad in north central Africa, with about 100 different ethnic groups among the 8.6 million population, followed by Togo (37 different ethnic groups that speak 39 different languages in a population of 7.8 million). Australia, with an 85% European descent and 91% caucasian population, honestly isnt even close. No offense. It doesn’t matter. A nation shouldnt define its goodness by it’s racial/ethnic makeup – it should define its goodness by its actions and how it treats its own people, regardless of racial and ethnic makeup.
Um, the Iberian peninsula IS Spain. There is half a dozen places that are postulated for the origin of the so-called “Spanish flu”. Kansas being one, Austria another, China, a British base in France and I think India was also mentioned as a possible start point as well. 100 years ago now, we will never know for sure.
My bad. What I meant to say is they THOUGHT it was the iberian peninsula as the origin, but epidemiologists have determined that it was not – they said it was most likely somewhere in East Asia – probably China, POSSIBLY India.
The main point of my overly verbose post is that Australia also called it the Wuhan coronavirus, because that’s the traditional nomenclature for virii – naming it after the origin (or suspected origin)
Very true, I just saw Iberian and went nutso, you know how it is on the net.
It’s all good :) Nothing nutso about you pointing it out.
First off I need to preface this by saying that I respect Screwball and Daniel, and I do not mean any of this in a cruel way.
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Daniel, lets take the way back machine via the internet to January 25, 2020.
https://theconversation.com/the-wuhan-coronavirus-is-now-in-australia-heres-what-you-need-to-know-130580
Gotta love the internet. It remembers everything.
Melbourne’s Monash Medical Center was calling it the Wuhan Coronavirus as well btw.
—-
Also Daniel, did you ever call the Ebola virus the Ebola virus, since it originated in the Ebola river? Then you’re racist, by your logic. You’re not racist btw. That’s just what it’s called because that’s where it originated.
Did you ever call West Nile virus West Nile virus, since it originated in the West Nile? Then you’re racist, by your logic. Again Daniel, you’re not racist if you’ve ever called it that, since that’s the name of the virus, because that’s where it came from.
Did you ever call the Spanish flu the Spanish flu? Then you’re horribly racist, since it didnt even actually come from Spain. Epidemiologists are actually saying the spanish flu probably came from China or the Iberian Peninsula – a surprisingly large number of recent viral pandemics come from either East Asia/China or from central Africa, as a statistical fact. It was called the Spanish flu because it was first visibly apparent with carriers were in Spain, when Spanish King Alfonso XIII came down with it and people mistakenly thought that meant Spain was ground zero.
In any case you’re not racist if you called the Spanish flu the Spanish Flu. Diseases have names. And colloquially, those names try to describe, succinctly, the disease’s origins. It’s not because of bigotry, it’s because of pragmatism.
Because viral pandemics have historically ALWAYS been referred to either by the (suspected) place of origin or by the animal which originated it. Including this one. Plus people seem to have a frighteningly short memory when it comes to the orange man being bad. Since JANUARY, multiple news media have referred to COVID-19 as the Wuhan virus, including CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the LA Times, the Daily News, Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, USA Today, Newsday, the Chicago Tribune, and the Boston Globe. Not to mention MULTIPLE different world leaders.
And oddly, no one ever said it was racist. Because it’s not racist. It’s stating where the virus originated, and is historically how viral pandemics are referred to.
But then President Trump calls it the same thing EVERYONE ELSE has called it, and because ‘Orange man bad’…. well everyone suddenly forgets they were calling it the Wuhan virus, and start claiming that since Orange Man Bad said Wuhan virus, it is therefore not only racist, but they never used the same exact terminology REGULARLY.
The hypocrisy is staggering, regardless of political leanings.
Call it the Wuhan virus/Wuhan coronavirus. Call it Covid-19. Call it the Chinese Coronavirus Epidemic. It doesn’t matter. It’s all correct. NONE OF IT IS RACIST and people diminish the term ‘racist’ when they make accusations like that.
PS – the most multicultural country in the world is actually Chad in north central Africa, with about 100 different ethnic groups among the 8.6 million population, followed by Togo (37 different ethnic groups that speak 39 different languages in a population of 7.8 million). Australia, with an 85% European descent and 91% caucasian population, honestly isnt even close. No offense. It doesn’t matter. A nation shouldnt define its goodness by it’s racial/ethnic makeup – it should define its goodness by its actions and how it treats its own people, regardless of racial and ethnic makeup.
It is not called the Wuhan virus in either the UK or Ireland. It may have been used in some way at some point but it’s certainly not the commonly known name.
It is called either Covid-19 or the coronavirus – by the media, by our governments and by ordinary people.If you caled it the Wuhan virus, people would look funny at you. they’d assume you were trying to be anti-Chinese, racist.
So far as i know, this name is used mainly in Trump supporting circles in the USA, such as Fox News.
Calling it the coronavirus without ‘wuhan’ in front of it is particularly inaccurate, since coronavirus is a TYPE of virus, and there have been SEVERAL coronavirus variants. Wuhan coronavirus denotes this particular strain of coronavirus.
Also, no offense – you really need to get ahold of the TDS, no offense. It’s not making you look good.
Also, the media in the UK and Ireland HAVE called it the wuhan coronavirus. They just started not calling it that after Trump said it, and there was a kneejerk reaction that if the Orange Man said it, therefore it is evil and racist, and so not only can we not say it, we must act as if we NEVER said it. It’s sort of ridiculous to a casual observer, not to mention blatantly hypocritical.
PS – I’m part asian. I’d love to see someone accuse me of being anti-asian. Telling someone they are racist for saying something factually accurate is side stepping the argument and launching into insults because your arguments are not valid enough to stand on their own.
I feel like I’m going crazy here — I’ve never seen any articles making a fuss of Trump calling it the Wuhan Virus, but I have seen articles complaining about him calling the the Chinese Virus. Most people wouldn’t have a clue where Wuhan is, or that it’s a city, and it wouldn’t occur to me that anyone would see that as racist. “Chinese Virus”, however, sounds very different, that either Chinese people are more susceptible to it, more likely to carry it, or that it originated with them because of their race or ethnicity, rather than simply first appearing in their territory. I can see how people would have a problem with that, particularly since it is not consistent with the historical pattern of naming viruses, and so stands out as having some particular motivation behind it.
“I’ve never seen any articles making a fuss of Trump calling it the Wuhan Virus, but I have seen articles complaining about him calling the the Chinese Virus.”
He’s called it both. The Chinese coronavirus and the Wuhan virus. He’s also called it the invisible enemy and a few other things,like ‘the virus you know which one I’m talking about – I don’t need to say more on that’, but the first two things are what he’s called it most often in his press conferences.
I don’t consider ANY of it to be racist though. Chinese coronavirus and Wuhan virus are both just descriptive names for the virus, especially since a lot of the time the news media themselves were calling it both the wuhan virus and the chinese coronavirus as well. Trump is not exactly refined in his speeches – he just tends to speak like normal people speak.
And yes, it is still consistent with virii – he’s not referring to ethnicity, he’s referring to the country of origin, and everyone knows that he’s referring to the country of origin, but there’s a lot of people who seem to have a knee jerk reaction to whatever the President says, in order to frame it as evil/racist/stupid/etc, rather than take it in context (not to mention in context of what they were themselves calling it a month earlier.
Spanish Flu
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome
West Nile Disease.
Avian Flu
Swine Flu
These are other examples. It is DEFINITELY historically consistent with the pattern of naming virii after the origin, even if it’s not a VERY SPECIFIC origin (ie, Ebolavirus being named after the Ebola River in the Congo) – ie, naming it after the origin’s location (with varying degrees of specificity) or the animal which it first transmitted from. Since we did not know for sure whether it was transmitted from bats or pangolins or whatever else the lab was testing (or whatever else was being sold as food at the wet market), using the location, either Chinese coronavirus or Wuhan virus/coronavirus or even Wuhan Chinese virus, are all acceptable alternatives. Not racist. Descriptive. It also would have been helpful if the Chinese government had bothered to share the information on the origin instead of consistently being shady af about it. Maybe then it would have been called the bat virus or the pangolin virus.
In any case, ‘Chinese coronavirus,’ ‘Wuhan China Virus,’ and ‘Wuhan virus/coronavirus’ each lets people easily and quickly distinguish the virus from other virii after the pandemic is over, a lot more easily than calling it COVID-19 or SARS-COV-1 or SARS-COV-2 or H1N1 or whatever a particular virus is being called. Sort of like how you might call a nebula the Horsehead nebula instead of Barnard-33, because the nebula looks like a horse’s head, and no one knows who the hell Barnard is or what the 33 is for (or where the other 32 are).
Just call it the “Boomer Plague”. I’m 60 and do not find this offensive, after all, it is what it does.
Also calling it ‘Novel Coronavirus’ is very incorrect., and not for politically correct reasons.
That just means ‘new coronavirus that has not been seen prior to now.’ Novel means new.
That’s WHY it’s been called “Novel Coronavirus” Pander.
Because it’s new and we don’t know what exactly it does.
Honestly, the reason i got on someone’s ass is “Wuhan Virus” HAS led to a lot of racism against Orientals who even look remotely Chinese.
Also, every other disease example is named for a region or a country. Wuhan is specifically ONE city.
It makes about as much sense to called it the “New York Virus” because that’s one of the hardest places hit by it.
And as for me bashing Trump.. It’s because he’s literally USED it for political gain and to spread blind hatred by calling it that. It’s what he does.
Don’t even get me started on his hypocrisy bashing immigrants when his own parents are German Immigrants.
Pendrake: Just want to say I’ve liked other posts you’ve made in the past but you’re throwing this waaaay too much into policial bias and unnecessary politically tribal confrontation with your response to the other person’s post.
“That’s WHY it’s been called “Novel Coronavirus” Pander.”
ANY new virus is going to be called a novel coronavirus.
A novel coronavirus, not THE novel coronavirus. Novel coronavirii show up from time to time – calling it that doesnt really help to distinguish it from other coronavirii. Honestly, the only problem at all I’d have with ‘Chinese virus’ would be that it’s not distinguishable enough from previous virii, since a LOT of them come from China. A rather disturbing number, really – even more than come out of central Africa, historically. And unlike central Africa, novel virii that come out of China have a far greater tendency to go worldwide, since there’s a lot more trade and travel to and from China than to and from the Congo or Nigeria or the Central African Republic, etc.
“Honestly, the reason i got on someone’s ass is “Wuhan Virus” HAS led to a lot of racism against Orientals who even look remotely Chinese.”
I’m half korean, half native hawaiian, my real life last name is very distinctly going to be identifiable as asian, and I’m living in New York City in the epicenter of the pandemic. I have experienced absolutely no racism as a result of this. I have not seen any SPECIFIC cases, either in media or anecdotally, of racism as a result of the virus. When I’ve seen claims, the rare times I have, it’s always vague and nebulous claims, and they can never give any specifics on names and perpetrators. Because it’s almost always made up. And when there is violence at asians (which again, I’ve seen essentially no evidence of, especially as a result of COVID-19), do you not think it might be more likely because the perpetrator already has a racist view of asians to begin with?
“Also, every other disease example is named for a region or a country. Wuhan is specifically ONE city.”
Actually no. It’s named after the origin. It can be a city. It can be a country. It can be a river. It can be an animal. So when people call it the chinese coronavirus OR the Wuhan coronavirus OR the Wuhan Chinese virus, all those are correct for naming conventions of virii. Admittedly chinese coronavirus is the most vague since there have been many, many virii that have come out of China, and several of those were coronavirii, but it still fits into virii nomenclature.
“It makes about as much sense to called it the “New York Virus” because that’s one of the hardest places hit by it.”
Actually it would make no sense to call it the New York Virus because it did not ORIGINATE in New York. If it had, then it could be called the New York virus. Virii are not named after where it hits the hardest (I won’t get started on how Wuhan and several other cities in China were hit a LOT harder than New York but the numbers have been suppresed by approximately 1/60th the actual number, because that’s a tangent). It’s named after the ORIGIN. Or at least the suspected origin. For example, the Spanish Flu did not actually come from Spain, but people at the time mistakenly thought it came from Spain, when it actually more likely came from India or China and just did not become noticed until King Alfonso XIII contracted it in 1918 in Madrid, Spain, and that became very public knowledge of a virus that, until that point, was being suppressed by news coverage because of World War 1.
“And as for me bashing Trump.. It’s because he’s literally USED it for political gain and to spread blind hatred by calling it that. It’s what he does.”
It doesnt make you look very coherent though. It makes you look like you’re raging. It makes you look like you have Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). Plus it’s not even accurate. It’s just intentionally trying to put him in the worst possible light simply because you don’t like the man, not because of what the man actually said. When you rage about every single thing he says, even when he’s not saying something that’s wrong, you get into a whole ‘Boy who cried wolf’ situation – no one’s going to believe you if he actually DOES something reprehensible because you raged constantly about him doing things reprehensible that… were not reprehensible.
It’s pretty clear he hasnt called wuhan coronavirus to spread hatred – he used the name because EVERYONE was using that name, or the name chinese coronavirus, including hospitals, newspapers, and other world leaders, and it’s a descriptive name. But if Orange Man uses the name, then Orange Man Bad kicks in, and everyone has to assume it’s because of evil purposes, instead of the same purposes they were using the same name for the previous two months.
“Don’t even get me started on his hypocrisy bashing immigrants when his own parents are German Immigrants.”
I won’t get you started on that, since he hasn’t bashed immigrants. He’s against illegal immigration. His parents, like you said, were immigrants. Legal immigrants. His wife is also a legal immigrant. It’s not bashing to have a policy of enforcing the immigration laws of the country of which he is an elected leader. If anything one can argue that’s his primary job as the head of the executive branch of the United States – to enforce and execute the laws of the nation. Same as Obama, same as Bush, same as Clinton. If anything, Bush (Dubya, not his father) was probably the weakest link in enforcing immigration policy of those four presidents.
Its scary that if all DaveB says about Deus’s true motivations actually makes me like the guy.
Deus might be an antagonist, but he’s definitely a likeable one :) Again…. closes thing I’ve seen to him in other fiction is David Xanatos in the end of the second season and in the third season of Disney’s Gargoyles, after Xanatos took a face heel turn and became a pretty good guy, or at the very least, not being into outright villainy (although Xanatos never was exactly a villain anyway – he just had a difficult relationship with telling the truth to giant monsters).
That Is the perfect flag for him. He’s going to be planting it Everywhere, so having a distinctive flag to assert your G-spot with impunity actually works.
Daniel here. Screwball tried making a joke about your “G-Spot” name for the flag, but I found it & destroyed it…
*I* could make a joke of my own here, but I don’t know if everyone here is of appropriate age… ;)
Everyone here has seen the Grrlpower shower scene. We can handle the raunchy jokes :).
Well, I believe he is really good in what he does. Well, Now I’m curious about this plan.
Can somebody please Punch Deus in the face soon. Just kinda getting tired of all his appearances consisting of him be a smug asshole who always has the upper hand.
I mean, even Xanatos got his shit kicked every now and then.
This page made me sit up and go, “Oh shit, he’s pulling a Dr. Doom!”
I thought Max was Air Force? The Dress Mess you drew her in is definitely Marine Corps.
Max did originate in the Air Force – she transferred her commission to ARC just a little before the timeline of the comic
Wow, he really has got the Douche ex look on his smug ass face going on in this and the last page. Like, super punchable looking.
Would be really interesting to see which way he’s carving from that spot in central southern Africa. From the location we saw indicated for the Alari ship, Galtyn is somewhere in the area of real-world border of Malawi and Zambia, with Mozambique along the easiest path to the ocean from that spot. Without getting too deep into real-world politics, none of these are, in the real world, the sort of pariah states or downtrodden dirtholes that the rest of the world would turn a blind eye to heavily-armed banana republic (and Galtyn is that, in the sense that its superficial local sovereignty is dominated by a foreign corporation) openly annexing territory. Maybe things are different in the GRRLverse.
“But the locals invited us in” has been an excuse for conquest for a long time, no one is going to buy it, and generally it’s regarded as an invalid casus belli if it’s followed up by annexation.
We-e-e-ellll, after stretching things a bit, it looks like the Alari ship mighht possibly have landed in the Safari Parks region of nothern Zimbabwe, about halfway between Albufeira de Cahora to the east and Lake Kariba to the west.
Politically, Zimbabwe is recovering from the Mugabe maladministration, but warlords may well be a problem.
On the plus side, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique are members in good standing of the Commonwealth of Nations, so Deus would be dealing with stable governments in any move for a railroad to the sea. This could be aimed at Pemba which has a sheltered inlet suitable for dredging to make a modern deepwater harbour similar to Albany in Western Australia.
However, territorial expansion into the Caprivi Strip of Namibia would give access to Angola as well, however these do not present any advantage over development of Galytn and economic gains from peaceful trade with eastern neighbours. On the other hand, “invited” expansion into the Zambesi Region of Namibia would serve as a buffer zone from instability in Namibia.
Are you sure about the location? I keep looking at the map someone linked of the comic that showed where the alari ship landed, and it looks like the northern border of that peninsula of Ethiopian terroritory that pokes into Somalia…
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-718-mundane-majesty/
That being the case, cutting a path north through Somalia to the Gulf of Aden would prove to be the easiest route. Doubt any of the somalian warlords would be able to put up much of a struggle. XD
Ah, crap, no, nevermind, I’m wrong. Was looking at the exclamation point, not the point it was connected to. That looks like the edge of Lake Victoria in Tanzania. Much harder path to cut from there.
Looking at the shape of the nearest coastline, that lake to the east of the point of the two lines on the ship’s display (pointing to where the ship is) seems to be Lake Malawi, further south in the Rift Valley than Lake Victoria. See that big eastward “bump” in the coastline to the east of the “zoom point” and the lake? That bump looks like the northern coast of Mozambique.
When you have something “zoomed in” from a tiny point in a wider image, typically it’s located at the apex of the two lines coming from that point on the wider image. The exclamation point appears to just be part of an info box, not a location marker (I think that’s where some are getting the idea that Galtyn is nearer the Horn of Africa.)
Sorry for double reply, but, thought this map might help. The apex of the “zoom lines” appears to be near here:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Chikubi,+Zambia/@-14.8066474,28.3549822,5z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x191bacd06fe837e5:0x4eaad7ed16fe7b66!8m2!3d-12.2500145!4d32.3766351
Shí. “That bump looks like the northern coast of Mozambique.”
I was trying the same sort of thing, from (on your map) the “N” of “Namibia” up to the border of Tanzania, a little sea-port of M’twara. I was also trying to place what looked like lakes on Cora’s abominable display*, which looked like they could be Lake Kariba and Albufeira de Cahora.
And I did admit to some “stretching”…
* She really should spend some dollars on decent Earth tech there, I’m sure we can do better than she’s got.
From an earlier comic, we know that Galtyn used to be part of Zaire/DRC. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the northern part of Zambia that’s jutting up to the east of DRC is probably Galtyn now. I think the coastline in the alari refugee ship comic matches with Mozambique, so the ship could be inside of Zambia/Galtyn. As to which way he’s cutting a path, the shortest distance is probably SE towards the Zambezi river and make that the southern border of the nation. Malawi and Mozambique probably won’t be thrilled.
I’m assuming you mean Grrl Power #387. This makes sense, given I can’t see much in the way of settlement in the south-eastern strip pushing into Zambia, and inhalation of surrounding towns and cities should not be problematic provided Deus stays within the DRC strip.
Zambia ranks at #18 in the Commonwealth of Nations, with a decent GDP and not very much bad news. This would give Deus many advantages in pushing a rail route out of Galytn to the East Coast. I have aready mentioned Pemba, but if a northern route around Lake Malawi was chosen then M’twara may be a better choice. There is no reason why Tanzania should object, as M’twara apparently still has no rail service.
Actually, the southern route would be more economical, picking up the railhead at Balaka in southern Malawi, and thence to Nacala in Mozambique.
Love that perspective of Maxima in the last panel. Nailed it.
The biggest disaster I ever made for my diet was learning mastery of hollandaise sauce.
Most people think of it as a lot of butter, a lot of eggs, and a little bit of the rest.
I mastered the dark art of making a hollandaise from a single egg yoke, the matching amount of butter, and so forth. With such a small amount if you get it wrong at all, it breaks, pretty much instantly. It’s either perfect, or horrific.
I mastered this dark art. And now the citrus that I keep to put in water, and make healthy water tasty and enticing, is a continual temptation to make a sauce and put it on … everything.
My life is a living nightmare of temptation.
BEWARE.
I really miss eating at restaurants.
Now that it’s midnight, I look at Maxima’s entree and start feeling hungry.
I’m not sure I’d be allowed to eat that. But I think so!
I wonder if I should try to make it at home? It would be expensive, I think!
Yeah, this doesn’t end well for Deus.
See, there’s a reason why the rest of the world keeps Africa down, and it’s because they want Africa’s resources cheap. They want no pesky environmental or labor movements that would cause prices to rise, because that is something Deus would have to do in order to pay for all the steel and infrastructure he’s shipping to Galytn. And he has alien technology.
Galytn is moving very rapidly into the realm of existential terrorist threat to many countries, including the US. Aldari refugees? No! Aldari infiltrators. Super employees? No! Super terrorists. Very soon he’s going to find his assets frozen, his exports boycotted, himself facing a UN peacekeeping mission, and a pre-emptive nuclear attack. Because here’s the thing: alien tech is great… except that the US just got access for turning over the ship. In fact, the US could claim that the aldari ship is a violation of interstellar agreement and thus must be seized for the survival of humanity.
This is how the game is played, and money is not the lowest common denominator. Power is.
Apologies, but I almost did a spittake when you said ‘UN peacekeeping mission.’ The UN is laughable at ‘peacekeeping missions’ – and have a number of examples of engaging in sex rings and slavery instead. Yeah, I don’t think Deus has to worry about looking bad compared to the UN Peacekeepers, even if they would do something, which they won’t.
Lets go over the rest of your claims though.
“See, there’s a reason why the rest of the world keeps Africa down, and it’s because they want Africa’s resources cheap.”
So you’re saying that Deus is better than the rest of the world and far more noble. I agree.
“They want no pesky environmental or labor movements that would cause prices to rise,”
So you’re saying that Deus does not believe in slave labor, child labor, and believes in giving people a livable wage. I agree. Plus he’s doing all this EXTREMELY visibly to the world public.
“that is something Deus would have to do in order to pay for all the steel and infrastructure he’s shipping to Galytn.”
Amazing how much less expensive things like shipping can be when you have people who can teleport items.
“And he has alien technology.”
So does the US. Your point?
“Galytn is moving very rapidly into the realm of existential terrorist threat to many countries”
No more than any other country that has supers. And based on what he just said, the accords are written in such a way that he can easily argue that what has been done is NOT terrorism in any way, unless the US would like to state that they are terrorists by having Maxima in the army before the formation of ARCHON, dealing with ‘indigenous supers’ (her words, not mine).
“Aldari refugees? No! Aldari infiltrators.”
Except they literally ARE refugees. And if anyone has alien infiltrators in their employ…… look at Archon :) I hardly can call Dabbler a refugee. And her entire shtick is being able to blend in with humans using her glamour in the first place. That seems quite a bit more like infiltration than the Alari. The Alari seem a lot more like the Newcomers in Alien Nation, if anything, who were themselves refugees. The US has only itself to blame for not taking giving the Alari refugees sanctuary, while Deus did immediately.
“Very soon he’s going to find his assets frozen,”
Pray tell, under what charge. Also, presumptive of you to think his assets are in an area where he does not have control over it, and that he does not have quite a few senators who will block any such attempts anyway.
“his exports boycotted”
Yes, because nations all over the world will boycott superior quality items that they cannot get anywhere else, probably at a far lower price without requiring slave labor? I don’t think so.
“himself facing a UN peacekeeping mission”
(back to the spittake and laughter) The UN does not have a great track record for having peacekeeper missions in the first place. You think they’re going to forcibly invade heavily Super-military Galytin without a humanitarian reason, in violation of the UN charter, even if the UN wasn’t horribly corrupt to begin with? Think that would look good for them in the VERY PUBLIC ARENA that Deus has put himself in with Galytin, which is why he’s on TV all the time talking about it?
“and a pre-emptive nuclear attack.”
How many nuclear attacks have there been? In the entire history of nuclear weapons? I can tell you how many. One. Okay technically two if you count Nagasaki AND Hiroshima as two different attacks. You think the US or any other nuclear-powered nation is going to launch nukes at tiny little Galytin, rather than just make business deals with them where they can profit hugely?
“Because here’s the thing: alien tech is great… except that the US just got access for turning over the ship.”
I’m not sure what that has to do with anything. The US got access to alien tech. Galytin also has alien tech. Aliens might have different tech. Especially since the Alari are not apparently known for sharing before now, since they were conquerors before Squidward and company visited their homeworld.
“In fact, the US could claim that the aldari ship is a violation of interstellar agreement”
This part sort of boggled me when you said that. Interstellar agreement? Since when?
1) Do you think any interstellar council is going to attack Earth over this, after Earth defeated a Fel ship with a handful of soldiers? Or attack a country that has, as Deus stated, the highest per capita rate of supers on the planet? Yeah i don’t think so.
2) In what realm of reality does the US have any sort of standing to say anything about an interstellar agreement to which they are not a party? Anything they say against Galytin would be able to be used against them as well, and like I’ve mentioned in previous pages, the US had complete rights to the Fel ship…. and Galytin has complete rights to the Alari technology if the Alari are willingly sharing it with Deus, which they are since they’ve pledged fealty to him.
“and thus must be seized for the survival of humanity.”
Again….what threat is humanity under right now from any sort of ‘galactic council’ that they wouldnt be under after defeating the Fel ship with, I stress again, a mere handful of American supers and non-super soldiers.
I think you may be missing Somber’s point here.
He’s arguing that Deus is bucking a trend in the geopolitical order that maintains Africa as an exploitable target for more powerful nations by undermining the efforts of its native populations to organize and uplift themselves, and in doing so, the established power status quo will start manipulating the narratives presented to the global population in order to INVENT REASONS to go in and undermine him.
Somber’s not saying it’s justified, or that it’s fair. Somber’s just saying that Deus is bucking the trend of entrenched power interests in a way that threatens their hegemony and their inclination would be to act to put him in check, and they’re willing to manipulate the media to sell the public on the idea of it being a moral war.
No I did get his point, but fair enough. The thing is Deus is one of the richest men on the planet, and thus also one of the most powerful in the ‘established power status quo’ – he’s one of those people who MAKE the narratives and sees behind the curtain. Not the one being manipulated BY the status quo.
And he’s doing it smart… in public. The hegemony operates best when things are not glaring in the sunlight.
One of.
As in ‘he’s got competition’.
As in ‘he’s got competition that have climbed the same mountains he climbed, but have set up systems that he is actively and publically undermining’.
Some of them, by nature of having been at this longer than him, almost inevitably have more influence, but lacking ‘more’, certainly have ‘other’. Whereas most of his influence appears to be maintained in his corporate structure and its financial machinery (although Galytn does show that he’s making an effort to diversify), there are others who doubtless have cultivated contacts in media, politics, or organized criminal structures, all of which have advantages and disadvantages over the infrastructure he’s built.
Control of public narratives is a tug of war in multiple different directions, but one proviso of that fact is that there are other people trying to pull the center in their own direction. What Deus is doing risks pulling those interests into alliances that will cause them to reposition themselves in direct counterpoint to him. He’s betting that his ability to control the media and public opinion is greater than every other interest in the world combined.
Deus is acting unilaterally, doing out in the open what others have been doing behind the scenes for generations. Odds are good that he’s going to have them trying to teach him WHY the kind of game he’s playing is generally kept in the shadows. I’m not predicting a winner in that conflict, but being a boat rocker does tend to prompt others to try to throw you overboard, so it’s going to be a hell of a show.
“As in ‘he’s got competition that have climbed the same mountains he climbed, but have set up systems that he is actively and publically undermining’.”
This is just my suspicion, but I suspect that Deus has not gotten to where he is by not knowing his competition and what they are and are not willing to do. He’s also probably taken steps so that any competition against him would more likely want to deal with him in a mutually beneficial business setting than oppose him. And if they do want to oppose him, they’d wind up having to do so in a public setting. It’s sort of difficult to oppose ‘bringing people out of poverty when they are very happy that you’ve done so for them’ in a way that’s profitable to both that country and his own home country, plus does not directly affect any of the G-8 nations apparently (at least according to DaveB by proxy through Deus’s statements).
“Deus is acting unilaterally, doing out in the open what others have been doing behind the scenes for generations. Odds are good that he’s going to have them trying to teach him WHY the kind of game he’s playing is generally kept in the shadows.”
I think the reason why the game is often played in the shadows is people would not like seeing how the game was played if it’s public. But what Deus is doing in the public is likely to draw positive PR, at least from the general public if not the media or shadow governments. Their hands are a lot more tied than his are in this respect, because they have to operate in the shadows, while he can operate both in the shadows AND in the light.
Think of it like this. Deus is Blade the Daywalker. The others are generic vampire baddies.
“I’m not predicting a winner in that conflict, but being a boat rocker does tend to prompt others to try to throw you overboard, so it’s going to be a hell of a show.”
To expand on that wordplay:
Not when you’re the one who is piloting the boat and no one else can do it as well. Then a bit of a rocky boatride is preferable to being lost at sea. Also not when you have a very burly, well armed crew who is not going to let him get thrown overboard and the only people who COULD overpower that crew are not willing to do so because they’re having dinner with him right now.
What type of PR he gets will be the result of the competition between his own PR efforts and the PR efforts of those who oppose him. He’s not ASSURED of good press on this stuff. In point of fact, the whole point here is that the more he pushes on these issue, the more likely it is that his press will go sour.
Deus is less a Daywalker than a Thinblood. Staying in the shadows offers protections that he’s foregoing in his ambition, and when the point comes that he needs that protection he’s not going to have any recourse. Mostly, their hands are less ‘tied’ than you think; these are individuals who are more than a little practiced at the art of operating through proxies.
It’s going a step far to assume that Deus is piloting the boat, two steps too far to assume that he’s the best qualified, and three steps too far to assume that his contemporaries and elders in the game he’s playing agree with the idea that he’s best qualified.
“What type of PR he gets will be the result of the competition between his own PR efforts and the PR efforts of those who oppose him. He’s not ASSURED of good press on this stuff.”
We’ve seen the effects of his PR already on Macroeconomics.
“Deus is less a Daywalker than a Thinblood. Staying in the shadows offers protections that he’s foregoing in his ambition, and when the point comes that he needs that protection he’s not going to have any recourse.”
Nope. He stays in the light generally. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. But he’s willing to go into the shadows when he needs to. That’s daywalker. Just because you don’t like him doesnt mean you can discount the simile.
“Mostly, their hands are less ‘tied’ than you think; these are individuals who are more than a little practiced at the art of operating through proxies.”
I’d say that Deus ie even better at operating through proxies than they are. PLUS he can also operate directly. That gives him the advantage.
“It’s going a step far to assume that Deus is piloting the boat, two steps too far to assume that he’s the best qualified, and three steps too far to assume that his contemporaries and elders in the game he’s playing agree with the idea that he’s best qualified.”
Only if you ignore every single time he’s ever done anything in the comic. If you do THAT, then you can refrain from thinking Deus is piloting the boat. He’s always been multiple steps ahead of EVERYONE else, and the only time he’s ever been surprised about anything was when Maxima surprised him by being less than altruistic with the invisible plane comment that caused him to spittake his $5000 liquor on his $3000 suit.
The biggest thing Deus needs to watch out for is that with publicity comes accountability. He won’t be able to hide in the shadows the way traditional players of this game have over the years; anything he does, he owns which actually makes building a narrative against him VERY easy, because his own actions and words can be recontextualized to his detriment by media that isn’t in his favor, and his own media efforts would read widely as being more self-serving than honest.
He’s not trying to hide in the shadows. At least not for the stuff that he’s talking about on the news. And the stuff that he IS hiding in the shadows are things which even the other side would want kept hidden in the shadows anyway. So he’s able to operate both in the light and in the shadow.
It also helps that he’s been consistently correct about everything and is about 10 steps ahead of everyone else.
Missing my point.
Because he’s actively growing Galytn as an economic power, and because he’s actively pushing its military expansion, he has to own the potential fallout of those expansionist policies. What that fallout is in the public eye is something that can be manipulated by people who take issue with his actions cutting into their interests, such as those looking to exploit Africa’s resources. They can push the narrative that he’s bullying underdeveloped countries for his own profit, and because he’s just come out and flatly said publically that Galytn is following his agenda, his claim that he’d been privately approached by the territories Galytn has annexed requesting his patronage will be easily spun as self-serving, as would any post-annexation public claim from those territories that they wanted to be annexed.
Put simply, Deus appears to be ‘winning’ at this point because he has thus far not drawn attention to the fact that what he is doing is significantly different from what others have done to African countries. He has effectively been playing without an opponent.
Now, he’s gone public with a statement that those in circles of power know to read as “I know how to make Supers, and I will militarize them to my own private benefit”.
That’s going to set teeth on edge all over, and it’s likely he’ll find a long line of people on the other side of his chessboard that have been sharpening their skills in actual play while he’s been flying under the radar.
Deus overestimates himself, and the size of his ego has gotten members of the readership to buy in on his fantasies about his competence.
Yeah I wouldn’t worry about the UN. There are countries, right this second, that the UN knows have various flavors of camp, be it the forcible re-education, in-humane imprisonment, or extermination variety. And they do nothing to remedy those situations. One African nation expanding its borders doesn’t even rank as worth more than one strongly worded letter.
Now I really want Hollandaise sauce. Thank you.
Deus apparently believes he is the personification of the “invisible hand” theory of capitalism.
Max you may be a superhero but red tape stops everyone including you
DaveB, please stop making the food look so delicious? Damn your artistic skill.
I’ve been stuck in my house for weeks, or at the very least not been able to go to a restaurant for weeks (working from home so I’m not going crazy at least), but I keep looking at the steak and it’s driving me crazy with hunger.