Grrl Power #849 – Diplomatic resistance
I don’t know if DARPA actually has field agents. I suspect they don’t, because it’s not really that kind of an agency. Someone mentioned that the CDC doesn’t have agents either. Most of their field personnel are probably doctors or some sort of coordinating administrator that liaises with FEMA and orders people to set up triage stations in high school auditoriums. But I thought it’d be funny to have some DARPA engineer get deputized to go out and try and wrangle some alien tech out of Deus.
Chancellor is one of those political titles that means whatever the country granting the title wants it to mean. It tends to have more economic responsibilities than diplomatic or military, but if the actual king of a nation is busy living in a mansion being a party boy, who’s to say what the Chancellor can and can’t do? Oh, right. The Chancellor. At least that’s what the constitution of Galtyn currently says. And who wrote the current Galytn constitution? You see where this is going.
Now obviously these agents didn’t just strike out on their own initiative. Their orders came from somewhere above them, but Deus is one of those guys who takes lunch with senators and deputy directors of things. He plays the political game on a bunch of levels. Having diplomatic immunity is just the cherry on top.
For the record, I’m not actually sure how the whole dual citizenship/diplomatic immunity thing would work. It’s probably like regular diplomatic immunity, but with slightly weaker “wax-off” powers.
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First thing I thought of when I saw that floating mouth is that some, likely Deus, is gonna use it for secret blowjobs in public
No need for threats BUT Deus really needs to delegate this to a super law firm.
You honestly think Jennifer Walters or Carol Dallon would be crazy enough to take Deus as a client? Also, they’re probably not anywhere near HIS standards.
Yeah, they have better taste, and higher standards
Jennifer Walters famously slept with the juggernaut. or do you mean higher standards for clients cause that I’ll agree to.
Stand what was said
Cain Marko is dead sexy, SmugD… is not (and the first can’t happen soon enough)
that was an alternate universe version of her. doesn’t count.
My first thought when I saw that mouth is that I will be really dissapointed if that is not a (possibly super) lawyer appearing with a small but significant pile of legal documents.
Judging by her expression, the agent in the pink shirt in the last panel seems to have an extra creepy view from the back side of the ethereal lips.
Also, I love Lorlara being sent tumbling through the air by Max’s snap.
She’s CIA. Anyone that can just suddenly be in the middle of a group of alert field agents without warning is going to make her assume the worst, even when that someone isn’t a horrifying pillar of shadows and madness.
Government goons are always going to be government goons. I swear they must have some kind of upper limit for IQ with these guys.
In comics, yes. In reality, oh no. They can be much, much smarter than you.
In real life? Se are HELLISHLY smart. And some I wondered who they made tie their shoes for them.
Yes, Opus is watching too many movies with the standard theme – the cops are dumb so the guy with too many guns or too many muscles gets to hurt people.
In real life, no one is perfect of course, but agents are intelligent, and quite well-informed. The people with IQ problems are normally at the political level, ignoring information they are being given – perhaps to avoid their boss being investigated.
I have a near-idiot IQ, 129.
What does a 70 get me?
Presidency (or Chancellorship of the third world country, which ever pays more)
At 70, if you sandbag a point you can qualify for disability.
For practical purposes once you exceed an IQ of about 120 the numbers are just about bragging rights. At that point you are more intelligent than 95 percent of all people and from there it tends to be a matter of individual strengths.
First, two cents on Vale.
Second, with a sufficiently high IQ you probably know how faulty all the current ways of measuring it are and what little the number means if you are lacking in other regards, most obviously social competence and overall motivation. IQ merely measures potential or at least is supposed to do.
I have a Near-Genius IQ, 137.
I have nothing to do with the government, IQ 166
Oh, and Darpa does have agents. The “D” stands for Defense, They are part of the DoD, They just don’t call them agents. They are recruiters.
It’s not so much the smarts (but agents ARE quite intelligent) – it’s the training.
And the reason Spitzer is wearing sunnies at darkest midnight is in case of optical flash. Just shine a modern tactical flashlight at the face for a (very) few seconds, that person is disabled for the next few minutes. A variant is to blink the light, which disorients the subject.
Daniel the Human has a cool torch that with 1 button, has 3 different brightness levels (off-BRIGHT-off-on-off-dim-off) and if you double tap the button, it turns into a strobe light, flashing pretty bright & fast. That can blind a Human – or a Cybertronian – for a few minutes. But nobody there has 1 of those torches so maybe he’s a big fan of that “I wear my sunglasses at night” song? Still don’t know WHY that guy does that…
He explains right in the song – “So I can, So I can – watch you weave and breathe your story lines”. Not a great explanation – the next one of “Keep track of the visions in my eyes” is a bit better, but then he wanders off again with “Forget my name while you collect your claim”. He more or less nails it with the last one of “See the light that’s right before my eyes”, so let’s go with that.
Don’t know about government goons, but regular cops has a — court confirmed — upper limit.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836
I like how the Court said it’s not our place to say if this law is stupid but it’s technically a rational reason.
I’m not 100% sure, but I think that in order to get diplomatic immunity you have to be recognised as a diplomat by the host country.
Nope, just be issued a diplomatic passport by (a) country you are a diplomat of.
Means nothing if the US government doesn’t accept it. If the Secretary of State refuses to recognise it, no court will overrule him.
The Secretary of State is _probably_ not going to be in favour of starting a war with a nation believed to have a significant superhuman military, just because some of the government TLAs want to ask the head of state some questions.
Especially in light of Deus’s previous hints about obtaining compromising information about government officials, or the substantial amount of money he can — and probably already has — spread around Washington.
So basically, threats, intimidation, bribery and, to top it all off, bullying!
Also known as: business as usual :)
Standard fare for governments, which Deus is now a part of.
The technical term is “politics”.
If you think that’s politics, you may need to question the party you support, or the ability of the commentators you follow. If someone is doing that, he is not a politician, but a thug
It’s precisely the opposite of what the word “politics” actually means.
Considering who he’s dealing with, I’d call it “self defense.” Without starting a big political flamewar, right now the United States is embroiled in a huge brouhaha involving one persecuted minority wanting to not be treated as the equivalent of “walking bags of loot/XP” from a game, and other groups being prodded into opposing that (even though they too have been treated in a similar fashion). Only with the latter groups becoming increasingly aware that they’re being played against potential allies in the struggle against the real enemy.
At the same time, we’ve got nations around the world that labor under the grip of regimes that the alphabet people helped bring into power. And there are also more benevolent governments that are constantly being attacked with economic, espionage, and even military actions because they won’t do what the alphabet people want them to.
So… Deus isn’t forcing the U.S. government to do a damned thing, except to leave him and Galytn alone. I’d hardly call it bullying to say, “hey… I’m friends with a lot of your bosses’ bosses. I know about some of their criminal activities and have been keeping mum about it. AND I’ve got physical protection against being assaulted. I do not intend to let you kidnap me, or “confiscate” the resources I am using to build up a nation impoverished by centuries of imperialism and exploitation.”
Problem is he doesn’t just want to be “left alone”. He plans on effectively black mailing several politicians; which is textbook virulent corruption and is hugely illegal.
He specifically stated he was NOT blackmailing anyone. He would protect OTHERS from blackmailing them by providing a valuable and entirely legitimate and legal service via the private sector.
And if part of the advertising for said protection service consists of a personalised portfolio for each individual customer’s eyes only, with specific details about what sort of doings a purely hypothetical ‘black hat’ might be interested in using for blackmail, that is of course entirely unrelated to the pragmatic business decision that reasonable precautions are justified.
At least Deus is honest about it.
What you’re saying sounds reasonable, and it’s what you expect if you’re an American yourself, but the cold hard fact is that the USA does not and will not ever be stopped by the laws of another nation.
It’s the whole reason why the “Invade and Glass the Netherlands” protocol was written: If an US citizen is ever detained by the Hague, the consequences will be WW-3 followed by Nuclear winter.
So, if another country ever started threatening war, even if it was M.A.D. the USA has always had one answer: “Bring it”
Now, there is a whole historic reason for this, and yes, you probably don’t want President Bush being called for war crimes, even if he did commit them, but the only thing that’s interesting is the end result.
And Galynt just threatened the sovereignty of the United States.
While in ear-shot of the most powerful entity known to mankind.
Who’s a colonel for the United States.
Of course, deescalation is an option, but the US has never been good at that.
In fact, the Cuban missile crises was stopped by the communists backing down and being the reasonable party, even though they didn’t instigate the event.
Obviously, Deus is a Super Villain, and “normal” doesn’t really apply to him.
And narrative, it wouldn’t make sense for him to actually lose here: He wouldn’t be “Super” if some government flunky could touch him.
(Just like it wouldn’t really make sense to list the millions of reasons you can’t just roll into a country with 10 Billion dollars and “fix it,” But those struggles aren’t interesting for our story, so the answer “He’s just that good at it” is all that’s needed.)
That protocol you mention is scary …
WW3 + nuclear winter = no planet for anyone anymore.
Radiation has a nasty habit of ignoring borders
Reads a lot like a petulant child tantrum, “If I can’t have it I’ll break it”, with the lives of 8 billion humans in play.
Please tell me it’s a joke ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Protection_Act#:~:text=ASPA authorizes the U.S. president,the “Hague Invasion Act”.
Here is the wikipedia entry, it’s a bit less inflametory, since it just authorizes the US to use “all means neccesary” to extract a US citizen, so, you know, an invasion will do fine.
Of course, The fact that the Netherlands has nukes is a very poorly kept secret.
As an extra twist, the US also has nukes in the Netherlands itself.
Nobody knows what would happen if a NATO country invades another NATO country, but in the worst case, it’s “Bad stuff”
I know too much about nukes in Europe, either national, US or Russian, for my own peace of mind.
I live within fallout distance of NATO HQ and inside the blast radius of several military assets and weapon stockpiles.
I really, really wish for peaceful diplomatic solutions to everything.
Well, technically, if a Nato member is attacked all other Nato members are expected to render military aid as needed.
So that would mean the USA would have to send troops to the Netherlands to defend it against the troops the USA already sent to invade that country. I think ‘messy’ is a bit of an understatement :)
(also, the netherlands does not have nukes, technically speaking. The USA is believed to have several stationed on at least one airforce base. And when the USA attacks the Netherlands then the reason of the Dutch army to protect those bases and the nukes therein has just become null and void, giving the Netherlands ample opportunity to ‘liberate’ said nukes. The Dutch army is neither well armed nor particularly well trained (though the reputation does not exactly matches reality either), but there is no way a couple of hundred american soldiers can hold those bases against it.
Of course should it come to that, the other Nato countries have to defend the USA, in the Netherlands, against the Dutch army, who are defending themselves against the USA army that the rest of the Nato countries have to also defend the Netherlands against.
Again, messy does not begin to describe it ;)
Arrogant American legislation does not properly describe it either.
The Netherlands may be able to ‘liberate’ the American WMDs they host, but without the appropriate security codes they’re of very limited use. They might be able to add some awkward cleanup problems to an existing conventional bomb, but not to actually use it as a WMD as designed. Not that they’d really want to when they’re on their own territory, surrounded by allies, and getting it to the USA would require a strategic delivery system they don’t have.
Of course, there may be other reasons not to annoy the Netherlands…
The only reason any nation needs twelve aircraft carriers (fortunately, all defective) is to declare war on everyone everywhere and have platforms for our now treaty-violating nuclear armed and upgraded cruise missiles in five minute striking distance.
Not. A. Joke.
You (should) know as well as I do that who was detained would have a lot to do with the final outcome.
And can you imagine Trump going to war for someone like Joe Biden or Obama? Or really, anyone who has ever opposed him in the slightest way or even just said something mean about him once.
Realpolitik has a lot more nuance than the words on any treaty document ever will. If you believe this to be incorrect, then tell me why we went to war with Iraq over their invasion of Kuwait, while the Russian annexation of Crimea goes almost entirely unremarked in US news and by US politicians. I’ll save you the trouble of responding: Iraq had no nukes and a laughable conventional armed forces. Russia has both nukes and strong conventional armed forces. The US backed the fuck right down, despite Ukraine being a part of the NATO Partnership for Peace (laughably, Russia is also a part of the PFP)
Deus wouldn’t be so confident in his diplomatic immunity if he didn’t know that the channels had already been worked to get it recognized. I know there are web comics where someone claims diplomatic immunity and it doesn’t get recognized for various reasons. That could even happen in this one, but it would be a much more minor person than Deus, or it would be a protagonist, who was on the receiving end of that.
Right now, Deus has been established as a potential big bad, and a villain want to be. But we’re still clearly in the part where we’re establishing Deus as an extremely competent person. Deus has not actually done anything wrong on panel that he could be found in need of superhero opposition regarding. I know he has his critics, but everything they complain about could be handled by ordinary people. Such as, say, this array of government agents and representatives. (The CDC and DARPA may not have agents, but they absolutely have people who they can send to represent them.) Since we know he’s being set up as a superhero big bad, we know this group won’t be able to touch him.
Also, while there are a bunch of countries that we may not recognize, there’s more that we do recognize, and some of them are quite tiny. It’s my understanding that we recognize most of the countries we do business with. I would think at a minimum, having exclusive government contracts, like the ones Machina Industries has with Archon, would typically indicate some level of diplomatic exchange.
You get diplomatic immunity WHEN THE HOST COUNTRY GRANTS IT, never automatically. America can and has arrested members of foreign governments it dislikes before now.
Heads of state always get diplomatic immunity.
Or to put it another way, Deus is the person who authorises diplomatic immunity for Galytn diplomats. So if he says he has immunity then he has immunity.
Within Galytn. The USA can tell him and his so-called “diplomatic immunity” to shove it. It doesn’t mean anything if the USA isn’t recognizing it, it only applies to countries that recognize his immunity.
That’s the point Jp’s is making above.
Deus also isn’t stupid. If he says he has diplomatic immunity in the US, he has it. Someone in his position clearly has the strings to pull to acquire it, and he wouldn’t bluff it without the paperwork behind it. And once America grants it, it’s REALLY hard to pull it back. The best you can do is banish the person in question out of the country.
There are a number of nasty situations where that immunity has bit us on the ass, and where it’d have been politically and [I am struggling to figure out ‘relating to intelligence’. Intelligentcently?] advantageous for us to simply arrest someone for a flagrant crime, only to let them go because of diplomatic immunity. One of those was a person literally scooping the cellphones and personal data devices of the entire US cabinet into a bag and trying to board a flight out of the country. Best we could do was reclaim the obviously stolen phones and deny his re-entry.
“If he says he has diplomatic immunity in the US, he has it.”
If he did then this whole confrontation wouldn’t be happening. More likely he’s bluffing.
You are assuming these government intelligence agencies have done their homework, and aren’t just trying to bully him out of not using it. As former DoD, they’re really fond of the ‘bulldoze you out of taking advantage of your rights’ card.
Deus is refusing to be bullied, and for that matter, hasn’t even played that card, simply reminded them that he DOES have it in his hand, indirectly. There’s a reason he’s turned away from the agents and facing Maxima when he recounts the bits about needing an appointment and diplomatic immunity. He’s giving them a chance to back down and prevent this from becoming an incident.
I’m pretty sure such agencies are briefed on such things so the government can avoid pissing off another nation without cause.
Which is the main point here: These agencies have some autonomy but ultimately can’t make huge plays without Gov approval.
Such as attempting to arrest someone the US government has given diplomatic immunity to. (Which is to say, your claiming these agents are directly and provably defying their own government for some reason.)
A country full of supers, with the technology to create supers. Yeah the one shoving it to themselves would be USA. I don’t care how powerful maxima is, she can’t fight that many supers, let’s not forget that Deus has the thing that granted her power, probably has counter measures against her and he’s been in contact with aliens for a while even before the alari landed, so he probably has some good tech. The only one that could probably stop him would be Sydney but she doesn’t have experience enough with her powers, some even unknown.
The country isn’t full of Supers. There’s apparently just a higher concentration of them than other countries relative to their population.
Not to mention we don’t know about the quality of Super either.
Diplomatic immunity doesn’t mean “I can rape sixteen of your citizens and laugh in your face.” It means “you have to treat me as if I were the physical manifestation of the country I represent.” It means you can’t harm a diplomat because you’re angry at their nation’s leader. It also means that if the diplomat commits a horrible crime in the hosting nation (like raping sixteen of the hosting nation’s citizens), then they are essentially committing an act of war.
At which point their own country is likely to say, “hahah… no. We are officially rescinding their diplomatic immunity. Have fun with them.”
(notice: sometimes they might not even WANT to rely on immunity. There was a Saudi Arabian princess who got caught attempting to sneak out of her hotel without paying her massive bill, then declared diplomatic immunity. Her father handled the situation – first he paid her bills, then he had her flown home… then he beat the shit out of her with his own hands. Yes, it was basically the plot of “Sex in the City 2,” but in reverse and with the “girls” getting their just desserts)
Bullying federal agents using political connections is one thing. But intimidating them using supers? Seems like the sort of thing about which Maxima would put her boot down.
No intimidation going on… just a (mostly) disembodied voice pointing out that there may be some relevant factors which the agents may be overlooking.
In real life, being as blunt as this is a guaranteed way to cause yourself problems.
You may stall the agents while they phone head office, but they have appeared beause head office told them to.
You have done something pointless – publicly embarrassing the authorities of the state, and their agents. If you want to bring pressure to bear, you do not do it publicly like this. In public, they may feel they have to arrest you, and deal with your issues afterwards.
And what’s just been made clear is that they don’t have the firepower to arrest him, because supers are involved. Which _probably_ makes it ARC jurisdiction… and oh look, there’s already a senior ARC officer involved. What do you think are the odds that Deus has already considered this scenario when he invited Max for dinner?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Arc wasn’t the only agency to use Supers.
That’s actually the opposite of true. Publicly intimidating cops WORKS. The Branch Dildonians proved that in the Nevada standoff.
It’s what I keep trying to point out now, with Black Lives Matters protests. An armed peaceful protest does not get attacked by the cops. A disarmed peaceful protest gets people assaulted, injured, and killed.
Federal agents aren’t cops. Not in title or actual responsibility.
Openly threatening an FBI agent, just for example, is pretty much a guaranteed way to piss off the organization due to pride if nothing else.
Web site is acting crazy with the comments, going from 2 to 4 back to 2 then 6 and now back to 4.
He is rich enough to own a country. this is a super hero story… So he has the all mighty power “rich enough to make it work regardless of how reality should work.”
it takes a lot of money to get that high, but once you do your new super power let’s you get away with practically everything… Just as long as you do not shoot the plucky support character. That gets you killed and the planet rules by super tyrants who started with good intentions.
How will Anvil react upon hearing about this from Max!?
It has been said that in Prussia the King reigns, but the chancellor rules.
Chancellor Otto von Bismark had to follow the King’s orders, but was often able to tell the King what these orders should be. Not only that, Bismark had most of Europe dancing to his tune. True, he had no complete control over everyone, but he made his goal, a united Germany with Prussia in the lead, happen. And while doing so put the then superpowers Austria and France in their place so that this new German Empire would be seen as a force to be reckoned with.
And I have been said for some time that we are lucky that we don’t have a statesman of Bismark’s caliber. Today’s rulers and politicians would not hold a candle to a person like that.
And that’s why I like Deus so much. He doesn’t care if there is a setback, because he is in for the long game and he has all the bases covered for that. Considering the map of space he has? I think he has old age also covered or will have in time.
In Austria and Germany, the Chancellor is the prime minister. In effect, the democratic ruler of the country. Their presidents are only titular heads of state, with little effective government power.
In many other countries, a person described as a Chancellor is a senior member of the government – a cabinet minister.
So, Chancellor Deus is likely to mean he is something important in Galytn’s government. Not merely a billionaire power behind the throne. Claiming diplomatic status is a further indication of this.
You do realize that I speak of the founding of Germany in 1871 and the Prussia that existed before that date? The title ‘Chancellor’ was not an elected position back then, but chosen by the King.
And as in Prussia/Germany back then I suspect that the King reigns in Galtyn, but the Chancellor rules.
Yes, I know about the Kingdom of Prussia. And Otto von Bismarck (with a c).
I was pointing out that Deus is referring to the modern kind of chancellor, like Chancellor Merkel.
Legally speaking, the US doesn’t recognize dual citizenship. (When you’re nationalized you have to renounce any other citizenship, and taking foreign citizenship can be construed as abandoning US citizenship if the government is so inclined.) And as a practical matter takes the position that dual citizenship just leaves you open to the demands of both countries, rather than protecting you from either, sucks to be you.
And, yeah, you don’t get diplomatic immunity until the host country recognizes your claim to be a diplomat. Though I wouldn’t bet serious money that Deus hasn’t bought that recognition.
And, yes, this was rather Keystone Kops, she’s right about that.
And it depends on the receiving country accepting diplomats from host country (many an embassy has been shut down and all foreign citizens kicked out of the country)
And yet the USA hands out American citizenship to anyone born in the USA? No matter the nationality of the parents?
14th Amendment. Drafted to make the children of slaves nationally recognized citizens, but now….
Yes, while Brett is technically correct, he’s actually wrong.
EVERY child of a foreign diplomat born in the US automatically gets dual citizenship (effectively, if not exactly excepted by law – but no one EVER contests this) and retain their parents diplomatic immunity. And, yes, this does mean their “rights” trump those of merely normal citizens. Sorry, touchy spot for me…
Isn’t the splitting of legal hairs fun… Plus, if you ACTUALLY were to split this one, you’d either have to stop granting diplomatic immunity (not happening) OR stop granting automatic citizenship to children born of non-citizens while in the US. Which means, if their parents home country DOESN’T grant them citizenship for ANY reason, they have no citizenship anywhere – and can technically neither leave the US nor stay in it (and have virtually no legal rights).
More than this.
There are a number of countries that grant citizenship to the children of their citizens, regardless of where those children may be. There are some countries that don’t recognize citizens renouncing their citizenship under duress to be renouncing their citizenship, and consider the US’s policy on immigrant citizenship to be duress, so you get to renounce your cake and eat it, too.
As such, there’s lots of dual citizenships around.
This having been said… What Deus’s dual citizenship gets him here is the ability to have his US citizenship revoked despite his diplomatic immunity. If he has a security clearance with the US government, what it gets him here is the ability to have it revoked despite his diplomatic immunity.
This doesn’t matter, though, because Deus isn’t going to be taken in by these guys, until they concede that they only have the authority to invite him to discuss stuff with them, at which point he’ll either go with them or counter-offer by inviting them back to his place.
Really, this more just says that Deus hasn’t been making himself accessible to these guys, and they’re frustrated with it.
Legally speaking, that’s bullshit. not only do I have Dual Citizenship with Germany that’s fully recognized, but I also did 5 years as a combat medic with a secret clearance without having to renounce anything. all I ever did was have to deal with a thorough background check and a couple interviews.
not sure where the fuck you’re getting that info but it’s wholly incorrect.
The last court case on the issue was back in the 1980’s. the current state of the law is a MESS…. the status quo pretty much boils down to “you’re both right.”
The black letter law says that the US does not recognize dual citizenship. The naturalization oath: “”I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; …”
Practice is to permit and recognize dual citizenship anyway; The US only has the rule of law where the rulers find it convenient, and our rulers find permitting dual citizenship convenient.
I was going to bring up something like this. I knew a guy named Travis with dual citizenship between The United States and Germany. I knew a guy called Ash that had dual citizenship between Israel and United States (renounced when he didn’t go into their military at adult age).
It depends on both countries on whether you have dual or not. Plus the people doing the paperwork are people, and there can always be shennanigans.
Sorry, Brett, but I’m afraid you’re wrong. “U.S. law does not mention dual nationality or require a person to choose one nationality or another. A U.S. citizen may naturalize in a foreign state [i]without any risk to his or her U.S. citizenship[/i]” (emphasis mine.) That’s taken straight off the U.S. Department of State website.
Damn. Wish I could delete my reply. For one thing, the tags didn’t work as intended because I forgot that this software uses instead of [ ]. Secondly, I noticed that I’m the one who’s wrong. It doesn’t formally recognize dual citizenship. It simply hasn’t taken a stand against it, either legally or politically. (It’s expedient to accept dual citizenship, at least with countries who are considered U.S. allies.)
If that world has our world’s US citizenship laws, Deus can’t be a dual citizen. Accepting a policy-making position in some other country’s government is one of very few things which involuntarily forfeits US citizenship. And head of government is certainly a policy-making role!
If anything, I would imagine Deus simply hasn’t gotten around to clearing that up for reasons that benefit him, and the US government is moving with the typical speed of government to try to do something about it. Decisive action vs bureaucracy.
I’m pretty sure that Deus is officially not the head of state. He’s Chancellor, the head of state is King. How difficult is that to understand? Obviously, King is the head of state. Chancellor, on the other hand, who *knows* what that means? For all “we” know, that could be the title of the guy who cleans the chancel pots, which could be their term for the loo. Ok, it’s probably not that, since it apparently gets a diplomatic immunity passport. But still…
Probably head of government.
There’s snap, and then there’s SUPER SNAP! (Thanos’ snap doesn’t count because he had the Infinity Gems)
What about Shiba Tatsuya’s snap? (From the anime The Irregular at Magic High School) That snap would have shattered the restaurant’s windows and caused severe hearing damage to all present, and maybe KOed a couple of them.
Ugh. He is the worst Gary Stu I have EVER seen. I couldn’t keep watching the show.
don’t forget Roy Mustang’s!
I was chilly, but not now.
Very not now.
Oh SNAP!!
What, nobody has said it yet.
Diplomatic immunity is one thing. But does he have a license to carry a “Consealed Super” ?
You make a strong point. We know his “supers business” has some legal state in the US, because Argon buys equipment from him, but that doesn’t grant him everything.
What do we know:
Argon knows he employs supers for their powers and that some of them have a criminal background, because he has begged for special treatment for portal girl and telekinetic guy, so he could keep employing them.
Argon knows he knows he has experience with supers, because they buy their equipment from him.
Argon knows he uses supers from business, because he has shared, such information with their informants, such as Maxima and Harem.
He is a Gelatyn big shot, so it’s acceptable that he has some protection, but since the intelligence agencies don’t seem to know about it so I don’t think he told anybody, which would make it at least a terrible political move.
“He is a Gelatyn big shot …”
Wobbles a bit?
So, I asked my niece about this, as she emigrated to the US a few years ago and is now a US citizen.
Turns out that if you have American citizenship by birth, you can get British Nationality by application on various grounds, without renouncing US citizenship. So our man Boris Johnson had dual nationality, being born in the US to British parents, but also taking a British passport on the grounds of British parents and residency. His siblings don’t. Johnson has now renounced his US nationality for tax reasons.
So Winston Churchill wasn’t a dual national, although he had an American mother. My niece, and her children, can’t be dual nationals because they can’t get US citizenship without renouncing British citizenship.
There is a difference between ‘nationality’ and ‘citizenship’
So there is, especially the British sort, which has several variations – not all of which carry automatic right of entry, or residence.
American situation is defined thus “The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA) made a minor distinction between U.S. citizenship and U.S. nationality.[79] Citizenship comprises a larger set of privileges and rights for those persons that are U.S. citizens which is not afforded to individuals that are only U.S. nationals by virtue of their rights under the INA.[80] It is well-established that all U.S. citizens are U.S. nationals but not all U.S. nationals are U.S. citizens.[79]”
Thank you Maxima for noticing this Charlie Foxtrot.
Now the question is who sent all these yahoos? The local field office of the FBI would not just send two agents after a business man of Deus caliber without so much behind him he was sure Max would be given a call to assist.
Then you get CDC and DARPA which has been noted don’t have agents like this. Which means they were sent out to be here at this time. When Max is walking out the door with Deus. . .
Deus set this whole thing up to prove a point, didn’t he?
…
You know, you’re probably right.
He intends for Max to visit Galytn with him, and given the discussion on the last few pages, it’s possible that he’s engineered events to lead to either Max being ordered to, or for her to decide for herself that it’s the best possible resolution. That’s the type of character he’s played up to be: “Heads I win, tails you lose”.
I was wondering where she was this whole time.
I thought it was the alien at first, but then I remembered she had purple lips. So this should be little miss cthulu horror bodyguard, right?
No, it’s not Valyeur
So what have we learned so far during this ‘boring date with Deus’ arc that started beginning of April? What’s progressed? What new story has been told? Pretty much nothing. Was reading this comic for year and this is the worst. Time to move on.
Goodbye
I’m glad Someone has pointed this out (see what i did there).
I love this comic, but it’s getting a bit bogged down with this arc involving Deus and his Galytn complexities. Maybe Sydney could walk in and stir up things by mistake, just to shift the flow?
As disappointing as some readers may find it, if I were to guess, I’d say this arc is where the plot actually gets into gear. My prediction is that the fundamental conflict of the whole story is between Max and Deus, and that Sydney’s role is to be the tipping point, the critical factor that determines the outcome.
Max is the physically most powerful character in the story, and thus might be boring as the protagonist. Deus is the most powerful in other respects (mental, social, economic, political), and thus serves as the antagonist, the source of conflict. Sydney is the viewpoint character, the bridge between the normal and the super, and represents the desire of the individual mortal to be relevant to the universe. She intercedes between these powerful forces and alters their trajectories, despite her “weakness” or “insignificance”.
no the fundamental conflict is between in the story Sydney and Deus.
Sydney was chosen by the orbs because she’s a good person that help people for no other reason then they need it. Deus is a lying, cheating, back stabbing monster that’s all about greed and selfishness he’s the exact opposite of her.
Max is the pawn that will join Deus side, either through will or mind control, and Sydney will have to fight her down. (likely with the explanation that the Geode that gave max her powers was made by the aliens that made the orbs.)
Once we got past the dressing room crap with Anvil, quite a bit. We had some hilarious and interesting stuff involving Deus’ new assistant. We had Deus make some very pointed statements to Maxima regarding the morality of preserving the status quo. And we’re seeing that Maxima WILL set aside her personal feelings (i.e. her distaste for Deus) for the sake of professionalism (i.e. calling out these agents for their bungling bum rush on Deus, when a federal agent – i.e. Maxima – is already present)
Cereally? Always new SmugD was dumber than her smelt, but pulling this in front of Maxi? o_O
he did tell her in so many words that eventually the two of them will clash, because he wants to overthrow (and stomp deep underground) the status quo while her job is, essentially, to maintain it.
Telling her that ‘I have supers at my disposal that may give even you pause’ is part of the conversation they just had.
So far no law has been broken. Having an invisible bodyguard is not illegal (the laws are caught up in committee) and said bodyguard only informed the overzealous MIB that he did not have all the information pertaining the check his mouth was about to write.
Or so her lawyers will argue in court should Maxima try, and manage, to arrest her.
Ummm, no. Telling Maxi about the quality of his supers didn’t happen, UNLESS corroborating evidence appears in a future strip. OTOH, we can expect that Lt Col. Leander does receive the occsional briefing from Arc-Light on the location of “supers of interest”.
He is showing her he has a super in his employ who can turn invisible.
That super could also sneak up behind maxima and wait till she has to use most or all of her power for something else than invulnerability.
To borrow a term from another supers universe Max is a ‘package deal’. She is tremendously powerful, but she has to drop all other aspects of her power to maximise one. You fight such a power by overloading them on the one power that is easiest to deal with.
Deus may or may not know this, so the implied warning may be accidental (and Max may not realise it also), but he /does/ seem to know more about Max and her powers than he should. He knows of her origin event (and tried and failed to replicate it). He would know what happened between her manifesting her powers and the moment the army burried her file in a secret folder deeper than the Mariane Trench. Patient records are confidential but the security on them is laughable. And he probably has access to a lot of Maxima’s records that are supposed to be state secrets despite that secret part (money does tend to make such things a lot easier after all).
So, no, I can not with certainty say if the appearance of the bodyguard is a covert warning to Maxima as well as to the overzealous federal agent. But it is quite possible, even likely. And we already know in canon that Max is strong but not invincible. She was after all in the hospital when she met Peggy.
Who the heck is that supposed to be?
AKM is correct.
Only recognised diplomats have a immunity. The host country cannot arrest or prosecute them regardless of what they did. They can revoke their recognition and instruct the other country to recall their diplomat. If the other country refuses to do so then we have a full blown diplomatic crisis on our hands.
The host country can not enter the embassy and physically expel the diplomat they no longer want to deal with as that is technically considered foreign country where neither law enforcement nor military has any jurisdiction. They can however put a fence just outside that territory and prevent anybody from entering or leaving (unless it is straight to the airport under ‘polite’ police escort.
The Dutch did something much like that when they did not want the Turkish government interfering in their elections. They refused entry to one of Turkey’s high ranking government officials and when he took a car to travel to The Hague, they told the Turkish government in no uncertain terms that he would not be allowed to enter the embassy.
Needless to say that relations between Turkey and the Netherlands are rather … strained still.
Of course given that Deus is a high ranking government official of Galtyn(*) it is political and career suicide to arrest him. Dual nationality or not. The USA is arrogant enough to consider even heads of state of other countries so unimportant that it does not think twice (or once really) about harassing them, and it has had some remarkably ignorant customs officials in its time, but billionaires tend to put the fear of Dollar in even the most dense politicians and civil servant.
(* chancellor is historically the title for the highest ranking government officials. The UK still has a chancellor of the exchequer, being the person who manages the money of the country. And in several other countries chancellor, or its local equivalent, is the title for a member of the cabinet who has no specific department, but instead is there to supervise and advise the regular secretaries of state. Usually this post is reserved for a highly respected elder statesman. The USA can, and may, run roughshod over the sensibilities of other countries but sooner or later there will be a price to pay for such arrogance).
Also, Deus is a representative of a state that, although small and otherwise insignificant, must be considered equivalent to a nuclear power. And more than that — he’s just made it clear to them that his “weapons” are invisibly accessible to him at all times, and that starting an incident is likely to be a very bad idea.
He’s also made sure he’s in the presence of Maxima, who a) almost certainly has primary jurisdiction in a confrontation involving supers, and b) is smart enough to de-escalate a situation that could easily result in mass casualties among nearby civilians.
“Someone mentioned that the CDC doesn’t have agents either.”
My (as oft mentioned unreliable) memory remembers a short lived show about field agents of the CDC tracking down “infection/disease/outbreak” of the week. It was sort of like a cross between CSI & House but with slightly better science, a lower sfx budget, and no Hugh Laurie.
And I seem to remember another one with CDC agents that was set in a base in the Arctic. It involved some sort of just discovered ancient super nasty plague/organism of some sort, “potentially wipe out the human race, yadda yadda”. If memory serves, it dodn’t last much longer either.
So the CDC agents may not exist, but that doesn’t stop them popping up on TV from time to time! :-)
The CDC does have field agents (usually doctors). They don’t have the right to detain, though they can appeal for assistance in this regard from the local authorities. Or they bring a Federal Marshal with them, and cut thru ALL the BS.
The Burning Zone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burning_Zone
The Epidemic Intelligence Service.
https://www.cdc.gov/eis/what-eis-officers-do/index.html
The last time I looked up the deep mess which is modern US citizenship law, pretty much the ONLY remaining way to automatically LOSE your american citizenship is to accept a job as a high-level political leader, with control over major policy, in a foreign country.
On the other hand, even that hasn’t been tested in the courts in pretty much forever. I don’t believe we’ve ever gone after an american who married foreign royalty, for example.
Committing treason usually accomplishes it, too; The requirements for prosecuting treason are so strict they generally just treat it as voluntary renunciation of citizenship.
Not in Trump’s America. You can do it and you are in like Flynn
I don’t think we’ve ever had one that refused to comply with the legal requirement to renounce their US citizenship. The overrated Duchess of Essex is a good example, her citizenship was changed over to British by the time of the wedding, required by their law as well as ours.
You don’t lose US citizenship unless you intend to do so. Marrying royals doesn’t do it (see Megan Markle). Being elected to foreign office doesn’t do it. See the first paragraph here: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-legal-considerations/Advice-about-Possible-Loss-of-US-Nationality-Dual-Nationality/Loss-US-Nationality-Foreign-State.html
There has to be intent.
That’s the relevant supreme court case, yes.
The question that’s never really been answered is “At what point can the state department reasonably insist that you MUST have intended to renounce your citizenship, because the law says you ARE renouncing your citizenship, and any denials you make HAVE to be lies?”
Most of the time the State Department tried making that argument, they lost, and the court precedents got worse for the State Department each time. Currently, the only plausible scenario where the State Department might still succeed in forcing you to renounce your citizenship goes something like this:
Deus: I am now chancellor of Gailtyn.
State: You can’t be a foreign leader and an American Citizen at the same time.
Deus: I can’t hear you, LALALA….
State: No seriously, it’s against the law. Renounce your leadership position at once if you mean to remain American.
Deus: I can’t hear you… I totally intend to remain an american, because being an american is awesome.
State: We’re suing to revoke your American Citizenship.
after the Supreme Court precedents from the 80’s, that’s pretty much the one scenario that might actually still work. But it’s never been tested. And it doesn’t help that the State department gave up in about 1985, and just rewrote all their official descriptions of what they THINK the law is, to basically just say “We don’t care anymore.”
In frame 1 (and it’s inset), Maxima *SNAPS* off her right glove, but in frame 4 it’s magically back on?
Super-speed replacement off-comic?
Super speed.
Super speed isn’t even required here. Time how long it takes to say the dialogue in the intervening panels. Time how long it takes to put on a fancy dinner glove. (Note: they might look a bit like latex gloves in the artwork, but they’re not. And I’m sure Maxima can afford to have them made to fit her exactly, so they should slip on and off pretty easily.)
My question is, what exactly is happening in the panel with the big ‘snap’? It looks like she’s simply removing her glove in the insert, and there appears to be an unexplained at least to me person flying in the background heels over head. If that’s from Maxima slapping her with the glove, challenge style, and that person isn’t super-durable, then Max just killed them. Which tells me that isn’t what happened. So what did? Or is that person super-durable and Max knew about it?
Pardon me if this has already been answered, I’m reading the comments from the start.
Max snapped her fingers to get the attention of the Keystone Kops badgering Deus. Admittedly, she snapped forcefully — which for her means a rather loud noise. Probably akin to the sound of a signal whip (the record being a bit under 149 decibels).
Found an example of whips’ cracks being measured. One of his whips registered 150.9 decibels, as did a .22-caliber pistol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz7bW6iItJ8
That flying pair of legs belongs to Lorlara, who was already airborne and was caught in the sound wave.
I hope she’s durable and maneuverable enough to avoid injury, and the problems from that for Maxima …
dem’s some purty durable gloves…not at all what I recall from my dress gloves… then again… supers….
I take DaveB’s larger point in the commentary, but ‘takes lunch with Senators’ isn’t actually all that rarefied. Elected officials use that to flatter constituents and/or people potentially useful to them (this isn’t a slam, it’s a genuinely cool experience that benefits both, heh, parties politically). Where Deus operates is at the ‘new legislation involving his interests gets run past his people prior to its getting out of committee’ level.
more likely- ‘has experts assist congressional staff in writing, revising, and negotiating through committee and passage’.
True, with the caveat that it depends on the particular Senator and the legislation. Some stuff they lean on the people they’re regulating for the ‘right’ legislation, other stuff they fight it out with competing interests, in a few situations they simply give the relevant parties a head’s-up that the Boom’s Coming Down (and that letting them know it’s time to get out of the impact zone *is* the consideration, buddy). They get away with all of it because nobody minds how the sausage is made when it’s being made to *their* preferences.
(Deadpan) oh boy another cheesecake super woman who will show up fantastically, do very little in the next page, then become totally irrelevant after that. What a dynamic comic full of twists and turns
(Deadpan) oh boy yet another whingeing prat complaining about the story not going where he wanted it to go.
There is always Someone like Thatguy. I am finding it quite entertaining.
Nope, it’s the same one. Continuity!
I mean, yes, there’s more than one. But this is the same one that’s been complaining for the last 50 pages or so.
Max taking Deus’s side, even sort of? Date night is going great from Deus’s point of view.
Regarding DARPA field agents, may I suggest the relevant scene from John Ringo’s novel Queen of Wands.
His agent was much better dressed, tbiugh it didn’t e d as well.
I love that Deus talks as if Maxima was trying to defend him. I also love that she even super-snaps her fingers.
It’s hard to overstate how much I hate Deus as a guy in this comic. He gets jerked off way too hard whenever we see him and the evil shit he does do does not get questioned nearly enough. Heck, most of what we see from him is him telling other people that his methods are good/necessary. And no it does not matter that the places he went to were worse before he threw his weight around. The end result of his plans is him sitting on the throne of earth and that is fucked.
By all rights he admitted enough crimes to Max that she should not give a fuck about going hard against him. Fuck him and his megalomania and his long-term plans, he is the exact kind of villain that I find most annoying in comics and I hope this chapter ends with him getting thrown into the sun so that I never have to see him again.
So I guess good job if that is how I ma supposed to feel about him.
+ 1
+2
Of course, the suspicious part of me wonders if Deus didn’t prompt those agencies into sending representatives. This many, in practically the same minute?
It really drives home his ‘upsetting the status quo’ argument with Max in a way words couldn’t, and plants a seed of doubt for ‘are we the baddies?’
They all probably showed up and various times when Deus was having dinner with Max but were refused entry by the restaurant because they didn’t meet the dress code. Also when trying to intimidate someone like Deus X having a lot of wealthy witnesses cramps government style because the wealthy have access to the politicians.
Deus doesn’t have diplomatic immunity unless Congress has ratified a treaty with Galtyn expressly granting it, pretty sure under US law it’s illegal for a US citizen to hold any foreign government position without forfeiting his citizenship, oh and as a foreign head of state, recognized country or not, it’s very illegal for him to put so much as a penny into any US election or lobbying effort, and defence contracts with foreign corporations, much less governments, are very heavily restricted. TLDR Deus needs a better lawyer before he opens his mouth again.
A lawyer tells you what’s illegal before you do it, discourages you from doing it, and how to get what you want legally. A better lawyer tells you how to get away with the illegal thing. And make it legal. And get everyone on board with it being that way.
Better lawyer > lawyer.
(I do not subscribe to this philosophy, but also do not discount its effectiveness.)
Deus is Chancellor of Galytn. Hitler was Chancellor of Germany? Coincidence? Hmmm…
Deus is coming off as untouchable, so makes the character boring and uninteresting.
Sort of like how Max comes off as far more powerful than all of the rest of ARCSWAT combined? Basically, she can fix virtually any problem just by herself, without the need of her teammates.
It’s also why I really despise Superman as a character.
And that’s why neither Max nor Deus are the main characters, but instead the seemingly insurmountable setpieces in Sydney’s story. They’re challenges for her, something for her to measure herself against and exceed.
Did Maxima put her glove back on somewhere between panel 1 and panel 5? Or is it a mistake that it’s back on?
Peggy claimed Max could grab bullet in mid-air. A glove replacement should be no problem.
Syddles watched Maxi catch a bullet in mid-air…
With her finger and thumb…
Aren’t comic book physics awesome? :) Some readers seem unwilling to suspend disbelief on arcane matters of US diplomatic law, but are good with non-deforming bullets and inertia-less superspeed shenanigans.
(What happens when you grab something fragile and try to accelerate / decelerate it very quickly? For Max everything is fragile. Fortunately, psychic aura *mumble* *mumble* the whole contiguous object including anything contained within it.)
(Although a bullet is probably not the best example of “something fragile”…) However, we can get on board when Maxi is able to use classic real-world ball-catching technique — ask anybody taking a screamer in baseball or cricket — at very high, “super”, speed.
Dave is using fairly-well-established comic-book physics, more or less. Problem is, “… arcane matters of US diplomatic law …” are less well established, to the point where we can fairly say Dave is “breaking new ground”.
And then there are those of us simply dicussing what would be happening outside the Grrl Power Universe. And hopefully imparting wisdom to — or learning wisdom from — other people.
And just to be clear, I’m totally good with the banter and discussion. I’m not trying to shut it down. Not much point in a discussion board without discussion! I’m just a little amused by the irony in *some* of the attitudes being displayed.
As for ball-catching technique, that’s an interesting point. If I had a little more time, I’d love to do the XKCD-style math on just how much distance you need to slow a bullet to a stop without deforming it enough that it slips through the space between her fingers. (Different depending on bullet composition, of course.) Still, good thinking for the no-prize! :)
Oh snap!
.
.
.
Come on guys, someone had to say it.
Personally, I would have named this page “Oh Snap!”. Both for Max and the sunglasses comment.
Also I see that the Veil is off of Vale. (based on: body guard status, shade of lipstick, and blue wispy smoke form. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-656-supervillain-thrift-shop/)
To ai_Vin: (in Maxwell Smart voice) “Missed it by THAT much.”
You just beat me to it.
Panel 2:
Looks like Lorlara was reminded not to get too comfortable with Maxima being around…
All these people picking apart the intricacies of United States citizenship laws and the whole time I’m thinking “There’s also no such thing as ArcSWAT and people can’t fly or blow up tanks with mind-bullets LOL”
Well yeah, but why would that matter? This is important!
Maxima spends half of the webcomic lecturing Syndney about using powers responsibly as a ‘voice of author’ refrigerator logic spokeswoman – then does BS like snapping her fingers to create a physical pressure wave loud enough to shatter nearby eardrums. Guessing cheap jokes are more valuable than continuity nowadays.
Not “nowadays”, that’s always been true :P
there is no sign of bleeding ear drums or broken glass.
Why.did.she.put.the.glove.back.on?
this smells of a setup by dues or someone. (arclight?,arcdark?)
True.
So.she.doesn’t.have.to.carry.it.
¿Qué?
Maxima has repeatedly been shown to be bad at practicing what she preaches. It’s basically her defining character trait, or a consequence of it: she’s really arrogant and over confident most of the time.