Grrl Power #912 – Maximum trauma!
Well that seemed to have shut Sydney up.
There were a few comments on the previous page about how that guy’s arm will be useless now. You were correct.
So yeah. I expect some, heh, mixed reactions to today’s comic, from “He deserved that.” to lectures on how fantasy depictions of using horrific ordnance on criminals is probably bad and only just a little bit funny. Well, Sydney’s face there in panel six makes me laugh every time I look at it.
I went back and forth if I wanted to go through with it, but this is what I had planned from the beginning of this sequence. Remember way back in like page 194 where I was like “I don’t know how much gore I’m going to put in the comic” and then much later Sciona bisects Cooter because I thought it’d be funny? Good times. Still, this isn’t exactly new behavior for Cora.
BTW, That’s not a tentacle on Sydney’s shoulder. It’s a vertical selection of rib meat.
Check the vote incentive to see Sydney not naked. And then there’s the Patreon version.
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And now we see why fucking with Cora’s friends is a bad idea.
Serves him right for putting his hoodi on inside out.
Okay … we were warned but … eww
The terminology, as in common use in video games that have Area-Of-Effect weaponry, is called “Splash Damage.” Sydney only just now has a full understanding of what that really means…
As they say down south, “He needed killin”.
RIP creepy lambskin glove bad guy.
He was Daddy before.
Now, he’s Pop.
Through the gobbet of Pop, I see what you did there.
We also found out the boss’s name It’s Diane Tartare.
Geez Dave really? I hope that doesn’t mess Sydney up…
More things to talk about in her regular space PTSD therapy sessions
After that the therapist will need therapy.
well she already saw Cora melt and flay some muggers, and also carved up a giant alien herself *but the kaiju looked less like normal biology*.
Let’s not forget the time Sydney took an accidental bath in scab oatmeal.
It’s different when the target is an actual human. Nothing to do with racism, that’s just how the human brain works.
This is true, given what nature documentaries can show, and what kids’ shows and movies can show just by changing the color of the blood and not giving them normal bones and organs.
May I offer you a Band-Aid, sir?
Given what an asshole he was, she should be offering iodine.
Mercurochrome. If you don’t know what that is, be thankful.
Uh, Sydney? You have something in your hair…
She got human blood on her so there will have to be an STI panel. Actually she would have had to get one anyway because of the injection from earlier.
Shouldn’t that be, “Uh, Sydney. You have someone in your hair…”?
I agree, Sydney’s face is hilarious
Only thing missing is “twitch” sound effect near her left eye.
maybe also have a charging up “Vw-eeee” sound coming from the guy’s shoulder in the “what do you mean” panel
Rib meat, not a tentacle. Although it wasn’t a chunky salsa episode, that round julienned him.
Monowire grenade?
The culinary term for that cut of rib is flanken style or Korean style, iIrc.
Although culinarily speaking, you’d want cow meat/beef, not bad guy.
This would be enough to make someone reconsider the practice of Spirit Cooking, like many of today’s “High Society” have talked about.
Yes, that is a thing. Look it up & consider that what you find as open-public source material is only what they allow the public to see.
Yes, it’s a thing right-wing conspiracy theorists claim to believe in, because it fits their narrative that anyone who’s ever spoken to Hillary Clinton must be a Satanist.
Actually, the artist who invented the term used it for a goofy performance, which consisted of intentionally repulsive “recipes”, written in pig’s blood for emphasis.
Since she has been seen with Hillary Clinton in full frontal public, the “recipes” of this one-off performance went literally rival; of course with all the nasty inventiveness added which the alt right is notorious for.
Long pork is the culinary term for human.
Tricky though – you don’t want that in any sort of friendly fire risk. My guess is forcefield projection, easier to control.
My thought too, how does the round flay the baddie without hurting friendlies in close proximity?
That wasn’t Cora’s flay thrower…or if it was, then she’s horribly misusing the word ‘flay’ because she came up with the pun and was desperate for an excuse to use it.
Flaying just means removing the skin. This round removed the guy’s everything from his everything else.
It could’ve been a fillet round. Not to be confused with a filet round, which is a different kind of decorative.
And know I can’t help but think that round was actually designed from a tech savvy butcher hoping to save some time in the slaughter process, especially since Cora has “Domestic management items” in her kit.
Probably would have put the comic through a more gruesome turn if most of the remains were piled up neatly.
What did she shoot him with, a Harlequin’s Kiss?
I got that reference, and yes, it looks like that !
That is a good point. Monowire from the inside out. Ouch.
But is Cora the Harlequin or Dabbler?
I guess it depends on who makes the ammunition for Cora. Also, when you go in a hostage situation with the intent of rescuing a hostage alive using force, the last thing you want to do is plan on restraint. Trying to be ‘civilized’ in such situations gets people killed.
I BET that Sydney sent Cora a recording of all of what was said and done so she was rather annoyed with ‘Daddy’. I also bet Cora is actually being remarkably restrained since Sydney is sitting there unprotected.
Wait so is it a bullet that spawns tentacles, was the bad guy secretly made of tentacles or is that just some really weird looking guts?
Given that there’s a chunk of his ribcage, sliced vertically, on Syd’s shoulder, more that he was sliced into thin strips like someone making french fries.
He has been *julienned*.
Ah, so she shot him with a potato gun.
He’ll never play the mandolin again.
Borrowed from a Sontaran, possibly.
Admittedly, ‘Chthuloid in a human suit’ wouldn’t be an unreasonable explanation.
I think it’s just normal biological ammo that spans a parasitic organism inside you that fills your body, making you explode.
The word ‘normal’ doesn’t really fit in that sentence.
“”normal”” Is a relative term.
Like very period at once… still not enough blood for that.
Tech question for DaveB,
Seeing as I see what looks like an Octopus tentacle.
Was that a nanite shell (propagates nanites inside target), bio-shell (same as nanite only organic), caster shell (magic bullet opened dimensional rift inside target *see Outlaw Star*, or a force field capsule shell *forcefield projectile with a payload inside let out when inside the target?
or ?
okay maybe not a tentacle, but that was not a normal explosion either, looks like it got hit by a blender from the inside.
That’s a chunk of ribcage.
Sliced vertically.
yeah I see it now; question still stands seeing it looks like she did a slicing cyclone inside the guy. Honestly it would not surprise me if Cora has caster shells like in Outlaw Star; especially with Dabbler as her friend.
I questioned what happened for a second. That was an explosive small round… So Cora is using a Bolter just more compact and with a delayed detonation. For the emperor!?
looked less like he was exploded and more like he got spin-sliced from within, like unleashing a cyclone of blades from inside the target. Think if an Aerokinetic really hated someone and had the power to make all the gasses inside them turn into a slicing cyclone at the same time. (Blender from the inside),
Think more along the lines of a Bolter crossed with a Harlequin’s Kiss.
You get hit by a round that unspools mono-wire inside you then spins it up.
So you end up looking like part of you has been pulsed by a blender, from the inside.
I am getting a flash back to some old anime, but can’t remember which one. Thinking some 1980s cyberpunk one where a guy was hit by spinning wire metal tendrils that reduced him to little bloody chunks.
What, you’re not thinking of Walter from Hellsing? Now I’m curious…
I’d say Cyber City Oedo 808… It was my first encounter with the concept of the mono-wire (I hadn’t played Cyberpunk 2020 by then).
that might be it, that sounded familiar so checked my anime rack, in the VHS section I have Cyber City Oedo 808 (data one), don’t have a working VCR to check…although fun fact double checking online apparently its coming to Blu ray soon.
you just have to love the aesthetic and artstyle of those old cyberpunk anime.
That you have to! :P
IIRC the third episode is the one that focused on Benten, the androgynous razor-wire user.
So how did all three of them suddenly move several feet to the left? He should have been right in front of Sydney when he went ‘pop’.
I don’t think they did. I think the camera just moved to the right so we only see half of the “incident”.
Yeah, “incident”. Lets call it that.
They didn’t move, you can see it when the guy got oops’d that he was still right in front of Sydney.
I know. And when he popped he was several feet to the left, because the ‘mess’ hit her in the left side of her head. Which it SHOULDN’T have.
So, that guy wasn’t human right? She’s got a severed octopus tentacle on her shoulder…. I think it’s a tentacle.
It’s a slice of rib cage, according to the commentary.
I am guessing either sliced up rip meat or that was a caster shell that summoned something inside the guy (or something akin to that); either way it looks like get spin-sliced from within like Taz popped out of a Pokéball inside him.
I assume we are seeing slightly less than half of the explosion?
Perhaps you should do a full one on your Patreon ;)
Well, it would definitely count as “not safe for work,” that’s for sure. :)
best oups ever
Na, that one goes to Shannon Foraker in David Weber’s “Ashes of Victory”.
Hey she didn’t do that! She had an alibi!
Who CARES how many dreadnoughts blew up! She is innocent!
In case you haven’t read the Honor Harington series, the leadership of the evil concorers didn’t trust its own space navy (they had betrayed it at various times for political power). In order to get some much needed victories they put a smart and honorable Admerald that they couldn’t trust in charge of the navy. When they felt they could get no more use from him, they called him back to the home system ‘to honor him’ and sent a bunch of Dreadnoughts with Captains that were political weasals as ‘an honor gaurd’. When he got to the home system the leader ordered him to surrender for trial or have his ship destroyed. Shannon his chief scan tech hit a few buttons and ALL the escorts blowed up. She said ‘Oops!’. She had sent ‘system updates’ with viruses that, for ships she didn’t trust, when they got a coded signal from her, their Fusion reactors would overload.
Of course, now you can’t unmask him to find out who he is.
Hopefully, his ‘friends’ will be surrendering, and provide that information anyway..?
Given what they’ve witnessed, and the implied threat that they’re next (depending on their choices) … Surrender is a good choice.
This was an “I don’t care who you were or why you did what you did. This is the fate of anyone who attacks us.” kind of response.
The word “suggested” carries a lot of that load.
thug: wait I…I have information…
Space Warrior: Oh you know the location of the sealed Galathar Crystal?
Thug: the…what? No on the organization we..
Space Warrior: I don’t care. This isn’t my world, this isn’t my concern, I’m just passing through, you however have managed to piss me off.
There’ll be plenty of DNA evidence…
It’s rare in this comic that a character has been so much of an a-hole that they utterly deserve their fate in so short a time.
OTOH, Sciona has been just as much, if not more, of an a-hole and for far more time, but it seems she became a supervillain so iconic and important to the metaplot she got plot armor and/or Joker Immunity.
An agent was completely disarmed and restrained, forcibly drugged, completely discharged her firearm with no effect, and was in imminent danger of being executed, with a firearm in plain sight. Lethal force was justified in basically every jurisdiction ever.
I agree it was fully justified, but I can guarantee you that there will be people who don’t see it that way. Plus this is in New York city, one of the least friendly jurisdictions to a justifiable deadly force argument.
Well no. The counter argument is that if you can be reasonable confident you could take them down with out risking your and other lives, then you should do so. Its debateable of course, but I think Cora could do so easily if she wanted.
She also making something of a tactical error as the minions won’t know as much as the leader.
That’s a strategic or logistical error, not a tactical error. A tactical error might be, for instance, taking down the first guy in a way that didn’t thoroughly cow the rest of the baddies, so that she had to fire a second shot. She did not make that mistake.
The next question for me is, “was Daddy’s control unit filleted along with Daddy, or is it sitting among the pate.
And an even bigger question “Does it have a deadman switch to turn permanently on if he isn’t holding it”. Because he seems like the kind of… punk… that would stoop to something like that.
Judging from the little we saw of the control unit, it did not seem to have anything like a dead man’s switch, thankfully. Therefore, once Concretia can free Sydney, the next big question becomes can she, or the surviving goons, give enough info to Archon to locate and rescue her body?
even she doesn’t know where it is some of the magic users can probably perform an astral trace since she is linked enough to get pain feed back.
Good call. Of course, Concretia’s rescue also depends on how many operatives remain of Hood McTorture’s organization in the location her body is stored, and how much they can get aware of what transpired in the meanwhile. Their fighting potential should be drastically downgraded once HW gets defeated and captured (her city-wrecking power trip already made enough damage already). I doubt they have any more powerful supers in their employ than HW, and remaining hooded types won’t likely fare any better against Archon & Cora than the late unlamented Darwin’s Award, but they would still be in a position to do nasty things to Concretia’s body.
Hench Wench may be de-powered (I sure hope it doesn’t happen mid-strike from Maxima …) depending on the LLC charter. There is the possibility that Hooded-Spaghetti-Bag-Guy was the sole General Member of the entity – his death may have been enough to dissolve the LLC. Hench Wench may join this guy in accidentally exploding.
True, though I’m willing to bet Cora *probably* could have done a non-lethal takedown, even under adverse conditions.
Also, he had dropped the gun after the shot to the shoulder. While he hadn’t surrendered, he also wasn’t much of a threat, and was unarmed.
That’s like saying he dropped the gun after a sniper fired from far off….but before round hit. So he was no longer a threat. Sorry doesn’t work that way. Continuity of action. You shot when he was a threat. The termination of subject was just due to delay. And as he’s seemingly in charge of everything going on in Times Square too and a hired Super who gets everyone’s powers, well his termination sorta removes the LLC from existence by removing the Chair/owner/opertator/agent in charge.
In combat threats get terminated. Doesn’t matter if they drop their weapon when hit as other bullets or ordinance is already on the way.
Only if he was specifically the head of the L.L.C., and the way Henchie believes her powers work, he wasn’t her only ‘boss’
But the choice of ammo wasn’t well suited to stop the threat. Had he been hit in the other shoulder, he could have gotten off the shot before he was gibbed, so it has no benefit over a less-lethal round that would justify its use. Cora went for maximum lethality with little concern for stopping the thread.
This is like a poisoned bullet – sure you can’t stop it after it hit, but you shouldn’t have been using it on the first place.
Nope. Cora hit Boss Tartare exactly where she wanted to, and it stopped his attempt to kill his hostage. THere’s no indication that the round did not instantly end the threat, and Cora’s level of skill and the tech level of the bullet combine to make it effectively certain.
The momentary delay was probably a safety feature in case the round misses the primary target, giving the round a chance to identify friend-or-foe. Since the impact was on the primary target, it was good to blow.
If due to her marksmanship she can reliably stop the threat with a non-lethal shot to the shoulder, she has no justification to go lethal. She most certainly has no justification to go lethal in way that doesn’t increase her chances at stopping the threat.
Yes, it worked, but every other type of ammo would have worked too, with a better ratio of stopping power to lethality.
The original design purpose of the delay doesn’t matter – it makes the round a suboptimal choice for stopping an immediate threat.
Sorry, but warning shots, shots with the purpose of wounding or disabling, or basically any shot taken that is not intended to be lethal don’t typically pass legal review. If you are in a situation that necessitates firing your weapon, you shot to kill, end of story.
No, you shoot to stop. Which looks similar to shooting to kill for humans with firearms, but less so for Cora who has Cyborg accuracy and a variety of clarketech loadouts.
Also, I’m not approaching this from a legal viewpoint, but an ethical one. The US center-of-mass doctrine is due to complicated risk assessments (other countries come to different conclusions).
Ultimately, it doesn’t change anything – if she was right to be confident in non-lethal, she shouldn’t have used lethal ammo – if she wasn’t, she should have used immediately lethal ammo.
you clearly don’t understand now a use of force continuum works. In nearly /every/ police agency in the world, if you fire your weapon you are shooting to kill.
There are many reasons for this:
Center-mass is less likely to allow a bullet to pass through and strike a bystander.
Limbs are ALOT harder to hit than center mass.
Limbs have thick arteries and because of that shooting someone in the arm or leg is often just as lethal as in the torso because of how fast someone will bleed out.
In the past people have taken 50+ rounds to the chest before stopping. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug.
when shooting at a longer distance aiming off by even 1 degree can mean the difference between a hit or a miss.
It’s even harder to understand if you have never fired a firearm, but shooting in a range and shooting under pressure when you are also under fire are wildly different.
Also. It’s a /freaking/ /comic/ Get over yourself.
No, you don’t understand what I wrote. To repeat myself: You shoot to stop. Due to practicalities, american doctrine demands they shoot to stop like (or similar enough that it makes sense to compare) they would shoot to kill (i.e. repeatedly to center of mass), so this distinction doesn’t make a practical difference.
Shooting to stop is center-of-mass until he drops. Shooting to kill would be center-of-mass until he drops, then the rest of the mag in the back of his head. The difference seems obvious.
All the arguments you bring up deal with inaccuracy and unpredictability. For Cora, who is a cyborg with clarketech ammo, these considerations don’t necessarily hold, so we can’t say she wouldn’t have been justified to go non-lethal.
Also, the round she used was very lethal, but not particularly good at stopping an immediate threat.
For comparison, watch Peggy(who also is an improbably marksman) shooting a sword out of Heavenly Sword’s hand, never being criticized for it. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-221-ballisticus-interruptus/
As a side note, police in Germany (as well as, I’m told, France, England, Scandinavia) have different rules where aiming for the extremities is demanded in some situations.
>Also. It’s a /freaking/ /comic/ Get over yourself.
So you consider discussion of a comic pointless? If so, why are you doing it yourself?
That was a LETHAL shot to the desired shoulder. It also, tactically, pulled everyone’s attention off of the hostage onto Cora, who was effectively defended against most of what force could be mustered in that room.
The tactic worked perfectly, so the pretense that it was not a perfect choice appears to be a myopic attempt to retroactively impose an irrelevant morality onto a tactically perfect execution, by falsely pretending it was a bad tactic.
It was perfectly fit to the situation, worked perfectly, and had numerous tactical and strategic side benefits. Just killing Boss would not have reliably eliminated the two henchmen and the super from play. Now? They will almost certainly meekly comply.
While Cora undoubtedly had dozens of other strategies that also would probably have worked, and kvetching about the one she chose is mere Monday morning quarterbacking.
My point isn’t that it was a bad tactic*, but that the violence wasn’t justified. The delayed payload in the bullet wasn’t helpful for stopping the immediate threat, so not justified. Something that immediately kills him to make certain he can’t shoot Sydney – defensible. Something that doesn’t help stop him immediately, but kills him afterwards – not.
*although it certainly was (or would have been, if it had been Cora’s tactic – I don’t think her motivation was tactical at all beyond “how do I murder him in a satisfying way and get away with it” which I think she succeeded at) because it relies on a lot of conjectures about and can easily bring about what it was supposed to prevent. The bad guys might have been willing to stand down anyway – and then changed their mind once they saw how she treated someone who wasn’t currently fighting.
We don’t know yet what their reaction will be – and Cora certainly couldn’t know beforehand, especially since she has limited background knowledge to judge humans from earth. This means this tactic is reckless, and if it turns out to succeed, that will be due to luck.
Its all make believe of course, but given what we’ve seen of Cora and Cora’s tech I don’t think its unreasonable to assume she could have disabled him quite safely. This seems like she is being deliberately malicious. Not saying he doesn’t deserve it, but certainly not a heroic approach.
Her actions imply that Sydney’s glasses were transmitting audio and video.
Cora saw everything from the capture on.
It’s not “malicious”. Despite Cora’s flipness of delivery, what she did was both tactically and strategically the best option under the circumstances. The sudden gruesome death of Boss Tartare eliminated all initiative by the remaining bad guys, including all potential threat to the bound hostage they were about to murder in cold blood.
That calm flipness acts as as a better deterrent against further aggression than any other attitude might, under the circumstances.
At this point, we’re just waiting to see if Concretia runs or stays.
That’s pure conjecture. How the goons react remains to be seen. It’s entirely possible they would have stood down against a cop using measured force, but fight or flee or take a hostage when dealing with a bloodthirsty madwoman. Cora can’t know that, so it’s a risky tactic.
Even if true, it’s still not justified to use force force than the immediate threat requires.
Right back atcha, Voyager. You are assuming that, as you said elsewhere, “every other type of ammo would have worked too, with a better ratio of stopping power to lethality.”
No, nuclear weapons would not have worked. Lethal gas would not have worked. Regular bullets would have worked worse. Plastic bullets would have worked worse. Squirt guns would have worked worse. Acid would have worked worse. Dabbler’s bubble wrap rounds would have left a SUPER able to act, and would have worked worse.
Even more than being wrong, your metric – “ratio of stopping power to lethality” is just irrelevant. The valid metric is “in the time I have, how likely is this method to save Sydney’s life from the guy with the gun and his goons.” The immediate threat was a guy with a gun aimed at Cora’s friend. Killing him to eliminate that threat was a given, choice of *how* was probably based on neutralizing the other three effectively.
Moving forward, your claimed menu of options for the goons is… in my opinion, ludicrous. Cora strode in, immediately assumed the position of alpha, allowed THEIR ALPHA to challenge her briefly, then eliminated him in a way that they all know she can do it to them. She did it in a way that SHOCKED them to their cores.
Any understanding of anthropology, power structures or small group dynamics makes their reaction predictable. (Or of henchman tropes, same thing.) The boss is dead, and the bitch that killed him is badass and facing them with the same weapon. If she told them, “You are working for me now” they would say “Yes, ma’am.”
By the time they have recovered from shock and can think, there will be no battle to be had.
A regular bullet would have worked. It would have hit him in the same place and gotten him to drop the gun. Your other examples are mostly wrong too, but there’s no point in talking about this – it’s just nitpickery that doesn’t change the argument at hand.
>The valid metric is “in the time I have, how likely is this method to save Sydney’s life from the guy with the gun.”
That’s what “stopping power” means. And the goons were very insistent in not wanting to kill her anyway.
>Killing him to eliminate that threat was a given
Except she eliminated the threat without killing him, then killed him anyway. If she can stop him without killing him, that’s what she’s supposed to do.
The Boss isn’t leading by strength or personality, taking him out isn’t doing much. Especially Concretia, who has no respect for him, is still in the same situation. Cora can’t harm her, but the LLC can. She still has to fight, unless she can be convinced Archon can help her.
” If she can stop him without killing him, that’s what she’s supposed to do.”
While I don’t know the rules for space law enforcement, on Earth, at least in the US, police are trained that if they are going to fire their gun, you aim for center mass. To kill. Otherwise don’t aim and fire the gun if you’re not willing to kill the person at whom you are aiming. And if it had been a normal bullet being fired to kill the guy, it would have been a justifiable shooting, because it was in defense of others (ie, Sydney, who was going to be murdered).
The whole ‘making them explode’ thing, on the other hand…. :)
Which Cora didn’t do either. She used a non-lethal way of stopping him*, then killed him.
*whether she was right to be confident in that shoulder-shot I can’t judge.
I wouldn’t have complained about either a center-of-mass-shot that explodes him immediately or a shoulder-shot with conventional ammo.
She’s justified to kill him to stop the threat. She’s not justified to kill him in a way that doesn’t help stop the threat(namely, exploding him after the fact.)
“Which Cora didn’t do either. She used a non-lethal way of stopping him*, then killed him.”
Technically no, she did not use non-lethal methods to stop him. She killed him with a delayed reaction from injury to death. He was dead as soon as he was shot – he just didnt realize it yet :)
If you shove a bomb in someone, which then goes off in 3 seconds, you killed the person.
If you push someone off a skyscraper, you killed the person, rather than being able to say ‘hitting the ground killed him – I just pushed him off the building non-lethally.’
“I wouldn’t have complained about either a center-of-mass-shot that explodes him immediately or a shoulder-shot with conventional ammo.”
Right. Your main argument – an understandable argument btw – is that there was a delay between the stopping the immediate threat (shooting and killing Sydney) and the bad guy’s explosion. I’m just saying that despite the delay between cause and effect, it was all one instance, not two.
“She’s not justified to kill him in a way that doesn’t help stop the threat(namely, exploding him after the fact.)”
And that’s not a bad argument that you’re making. The counter-argument, which a bunch of people are making (and is probably a better counter against your argument), is that the stopping of the threat and the exploding are not two separate events, and so the exploding is not ‘after the fact’ – it’s part of the first event, much in the same way pushing someone off a building and them hitting the ground are the same event, even though they happen a short amount of time between each other.
>Right. Your main argument – an understandable argument btw – is that there was a delay between the stopping the immediate threat (shooting and killing Sydney) and the bad guy’s explosion.
The main issue isn’t the delay but the causal disconnect(which is, however, connected to the delay).
If the killing had inevitably followed the stopping, you’d have a good point, but that’s not true. That was only because of Cora’s _choice_ of ammo, and the stopping and the killing were causally separated by that choice. And for that choice she’s responsible.
If you push me off the roof and I die, that’s one thing. If there’s a river where I’d fall in next to the roof, but you’re manhandling me over to the other side and push me off there so I land on the pavement, you can’t treat me dying from the impact as an inevitable consequence of the pushing, because it was influenced by another choice of yours.
“If the killing had inevitably followed the stopping, you’d have a good point, but that’s not true.”
it did stop immediately after she shot him though. She shot him – he was already dead even if he did not realize it yet. The shooting and the resulting explosion are all one part of the same event. That’s what I’m trying to explain.
“That was only because of Cora’s _choice_ of ammo, and the stopping and the killing were causally separated by that choice. And for that choice she’s responsible.”
The choice of ammo came before the actual shooting. You can’t really use that as a part of the same event because nothing had happened beforehand. If it was a normal bullet and a cop, you can’t then blame a cop for not having used a non-lethal rubber bullet or taser or bean bag round instead.
“If you push me off the roof and I die, that’s one thing. If there’s a river where I’d fall in next to the roof, but you’re manhandling me over to the other side and push me off there so I land on the pavement, you can’t treat me dying from the impact as an inevitable consequence of the pushing, because it was influenced by another choice of yours.”
That’s literally irrelevant to what happened here. He was the one who chose the venue of his death, not Cora. Not to mention the events which led up to his death, not Cora (ie, capturing and attempting to murder Sydney).
Remember, before coming here, Cora was in a fight with alien merc who were trying to kill them as well, and her ammo was therefore the type which would kill. It’s reasonable that she didnt then change out the ammo for less lethal ammo when time was of the essence to prevent Sydney from a case of premature death, which might also result in a villain getting control of the most powerful tech known in the universe (as far as we know).
Again, my main point is that Cora shooting and him exploding are ONE SINGLE EVENT. Regardless of where it took place, because Cora was not in control of where it took place or what circumstances led up to it happening. She was just in control of shooting him or not, and the ammo she currently had in her gun. And bullets are, by their very nature, lethal, regardless of whether they are standard bullets or ‘exploding the person into guacamole’ bullets.
>Again, my main point is that Cora shooting and him exploding are ONE SINGLE EVENT. Regardless of where it took place, because Cora was not in control of where it took place or what circumstances led up to it happening. She was just in control of shooting him or not, and the ammo she currently had in her gun.
No, on her way over she had more than enough time to switch ammo on her variable lethality gun – which has multiple barrels of different bore to begin with. She also was told to go non-lethal in the fight. (And even in a fight to the death you emphasize effectiveness, which usually corresponds with lethality, but not in this case).
She had the choice of loadout.
And her choice is the whole point of the criticism – everything else is just analyzing that choice. Because the result is that she chose to kill him because she wanted to, not to stop him.
“Event” isn’t a good category, because Cora’s choice is a risk assessment. Between “reduced chance of stopping, increased chance of survival” and “increased chance of stopping, reduced chance of survival she chose “reduced chance of stopping, vastly reduced chance of survival.”
“…If she told them, “You are working for me now.” they would say “Yes, ma’am.”
Don’t tempt her. she might have a need for expendable Redshirts on her next job…” ;3
If the supers were in charge of the LLC and HW was hired by them; then lambskin gloves et al hired the LLC. Now that lambskin gloves is fatally occupying a much greater area; the LLC MAY be unemployed, but HW is STILL their employee.
Yeah, the downside to time delay weapons like grenades or whatever that was – typically once you start the timer, they’re designed to be extremely difficult to stop. Sure, he’d dropped the gun once the round hit him, but by then he was basically already dead by the looks of it, he just hadn’t been informed yet…
Ooops…
I’d assume the delay was mostly and AI target confirmation and the technical duration of the deployment mechanism.
Doubtful – something like that would be a matter of milliseconds at most, especially if the aiming was already computer-assisted. The impact itself is already potentially lethal.
Then you are inserting the assumption that Cora herself set off the charge intentionally in the middle of his sentence.
I see no support for that in the text.
What are you talking about? I have made no such assumption.
And how does this matter to this thread?
The henches had weapons too. Remember Sydney shouts “Now!” and one of them reflexively covers the door? https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-905-imaginary-gopher/
Pretty sure Cora did a quick scan on the room before entering and sussed where all the weapons were being carried. Hoodie McLambskin actually had one out in his hand before she fired. Even though after that first shot he was effectively disarmed, she’s still walking into a room where she’s outnumbered by armed bad guys, plus a super, who have overpowered a law enforcement agent. Cora’s there by herself, it looks like. Given the situation, Cora’s use of lethal force is not likely to result in much in the way of consequences from the authorities.
Maybe under Western rules Cora should’ve let them draw first, but this is Silver Age rules. She did announce her powers, or at least one of them – the Oops Gun. Close enough.
The henches still have weapons, Cora didn’t take them out. She would have been justified to do that – but that she didn’t means and instead casually announces herself means she isn’t too worried. She wasn’t worried about the leader either, or she would have chosen ammo that instantly removed him.
I agree that she’ll get away with it, but we the readers have information than Archon or a court do not.
Well, the shot un-armed him. Disemboweled and disembodied him, too.
No it wasn’t, because the imminent threat had already been dealt with (by disarming the guy.) Going for a headshot (or any other sort of immediate kill) would have been justified, if the shooter wasn’t confident in reliably disabling the arm with a shoulder shot (which a real cop wouldn’t be.)
But stopping the threat with precise, measured force, then deliberately blowing him up afterwards – that is murder. Cora wanted to kill him while seeing him in the eyes, and she chose the delayed fuse ammo because she wanted plausible deniability.
Don’t get me wrong, the late villain was an asshole of the highest order – but no one deserves death.
It was strategically unsound too, because now the guy can’t be arrested and interrogated.
Would have thought that would depend on the fuse – if its a remote trigger and she’s chosen to taek him out after the fact, yep, murder
If on the other hand its a timer (which although messy could be justifiable for a number of operational level reasons) then the same shot that disarmed him is the one that also liquidated him.
Its a bit of a stupid move either way if its on a timer though – ignoring the inability to interrogate they’re dealing with supers of unknown powers – it could as easily have bounced off leaving an uncontrolled – er – lets call it an explosive for want of knowing what the hell it is next to a lightly armed and restrained agent
The delayed fuze was Cora’s choice – with the property that its increased lethality doesn’t make it more effective at stopping the threat. Also, she certainly has a variety of loadouts, both lethal and nonlethal, that would immediately stop the threat.
From a tactical standpoint, that choice makes no sense. If she wanted to make sure to save Sydney, she would have chosen something that with certainty immediately killed(or otherwise disabled) him.
This only leaves one explanation: She wanted to make sure to see him dead, but in a more satisfying way, and without repercussions. Also, she was sufficiently confident in her marksmanship to stop him with a shoulder shot – but this leaves another non-lethal option.
She can claim afterwards it was an ammo mix-up, and it will be accepted, but her pretend “oops” makes clear she knew what was going to happen.
I doubt she would try to claim ammo mix-up, she considers this to be the proper way to deal with criminals and is proud of it. She already made her position on law enforcement clear. Maximum deterrence through “publicly and brutally incinerating unambiguously violent criminals”. In that light, her choice of ammo does make sense. Not only this guy won’t repeat his mistake, it has good chance to make his minions much more cooperative than clean bullet hole in shoulder (or forehead) would. Both now and in future. The shock of “She’s more psycho than us!”
In a way it’s similar to why Max carries a gun, even when her pointed finger is way more destructive.
Your assumption that the “delayed fuze” was somehow arbitrary, rather than just how long that type of round takes to identify and validate impact on the target organism, determine safe radius for killing the one organism without injuring anyone else, deploy microfilaments throughout that organism, and then render “Daddy” into “Boss Tartare”, is based on no knowledge of the tech.
Cora can state. “Interesting question, but that’s not how that tech works. Once it hits the designated target, that target will be rendered discontinuous in five to nineteen seconds depending on conditions.” and describe a high level view of the loadout she used. (Even if it’s not true, then by the time there was an inquest, she could create such munitions and they would be unable to argue.)
She can then truthfully state that tactically, the impact in Daddy’s shoulder was designed to disarm him immediately, get everyone’s attention away from the hostage he was attempting to murder, and turn all that attention to her. A quicker kill on him might have given the other kidnappers a chance to do something…. the fact that it seemed nonlethal made conversation a (temporary) option that left her obviously in charge, alpha over the boss.
Then the timed detonation with its enthusiastically colorful results eliminated any chance of further initiative from any other member of the kidnappers. (Other than the super,… who Cora may already know is a hostage herself, depending on when Sydney’s transmission started.)
There is literally no way that anyone in authority is going to try to give Cora any more trouble than her usual ticket for littering.
It’s safe to say that Cora has multiple types of ammo – so using one with a delayed fuze is her choice in any case.
Also, it’s extremely unlikely to be a technical limit. The target verification should already be done by the gun, and several seconds to set up a mechanism that offers little benefit over a more conventional payload (also it’s hard to imagine it couldn’t be made faster) seems like an unlikely design choice to be made.
The seemingly non-lethal shot only didn’t get a reaction because the other goons were already hesitant.
When a non-lethal attack already gets the bad guys to stand down, killing the leader afterwards is pointless, and counterproductive because it signals she can’t be trusted.
She’d be stupid to make that argument too – it won’t go well with Maxima, who told her to go non-lethal. “I had to kill him so the others who already weren’t aggressive wouldn’t attack.” It’s much smarter to pretend it was a mishap, like she’s already implying.
No, she won’t get in trouble, I said as much – but here in the audience we shouldn’t pretend we don’t know better.
Your assumption that the kill was a separate act is just that – your assumption. It’s possible, but not necessary or certain.
Heh. For all we know, Cora may have set the fuse in order to conform to local moral codes, which the alien team discussed a dozen pages back.
“They fight for a few rounds, throwing out moves that would kill almost any species I could think of, then they just… stop. They talk for a few beats, then start fighting again.”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-894-plan-b-from-outer-space/
> Your assumption that the kill was a separate act is just that – your assumption.
No it’s not. As in, it’s not my assumption. I have never assumed this. It’s possible, but not relevant to my argument.
Are you serious in the second part of your post?
Cora is not going to pretend she is incompetent, jsut like Max is not going to fake evidence to protect anyone.
Cora has no apology to make here. Her strategy was appropriate and worked. Only a single bad guy was harmed– the one who was attempting an atrocity when Cora fired.
That bullet reminds me of the explosive shell used in Terminator 2 against the T-1000 by Arnie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae-vZXu7gPA
You assume two facts not in evidence:
First, that Boss Tartare was without other weapons and could not have caused harm to anyone present if he had roused the troops. He literally had no chance to try, so we have no idea what he might have done given a few seconds to rally.
Second, that the delay between impact and mandoline provided an opportunity to turn off the spent round from performing its function. The entire 3-6 seconds of apparent inactivity might have been part of the deployment sequence, target recognition and verification, identification of proper limits on the radius of spin to take out only the single organism, deployment of micro-filaments that don’t cause any great discomfort due to their fine threading, adn then “SKLASH”, or whatever the sound effect says.
Several seconds of target verification, but no way for the operator to interfere? No way.
Your perverse respect for life appears to blind you to the tactical situation. The operator had no duty to interfere in the death of the target. The target was still actively hostile and potentially dangerous to the hostage.
“perverse respect for life”
Uh. Wow.
And you’re missing my point. I’m merely pointing out that your argument upthread isn’t consistent.
Although, now that you mention it:
> The target was still actively hostile and potentially dangerous to the hostage.
False. He was talking, and disarmed.
He was talking, but still hostile (unless you consider him calling Cora a bitch to be a pleasant conversation), and he was still in possession of the zapper that he could have used to force Cree to kill Sydney faster than Cora could react
And he was only ‘disarmed’ in the sense he was no longer holding his firearm in his hand
Impolite=/= actively hostile. It certainly doesn’t justify lethal force.
And no, he can’t do that. The zapper is a punishment device, not a mind control device. He needs to pull it out, tell a reluctant Concretia to kill Sydney or else, then probably use it before she relents. Plenty of time for Cora to shoot him in the other arm or do any number of things that stop him. That’s not an immediate threat.
The thing is that you don’t /know/ that.
You don’t know if he was a super or not.
you don’t know if he had other weapons or not.
you don’t know that the zapper doesn’t have a lethal setting.
Like it or not he was a hostile threat. Jesus. You’re the kind of person who rants and raves against the police lethally shooting a subject who’s already stabbed someone and going for an officer.
None of these matter though. If he tries anything, like pulling out another weapon or the zapper, she can shoot him again. If she thinks she can’t rely on that, she should kill him immediately. There is no practical point to the delayed explosion.
I’m the kind of person who complains about police shooting a perp in the shoulder with a poisoned bullet.
And I’d argue that “he could become hostile in the future” is no justification for lethal force, even if he’s dangerous(much less if “you can’t prove he isn’t dangerous”.)
Isn’t this what happened to the muggers on The Fracture?
I suppose Sydney wasn’t close enough to get thug meat on her that time.
If she was cool with aliens being blown apart but not humans, that’s racist or at least speciesist.
Maybe not that specific weapon. Thst one was built into Cora’s arm, while this one is handheld. There was also mention of a half-melted rib bone…
she had her shield up.
and funny thing about your last point. That’s how censorship works.
the movie John Carter is PG-13, despite having a scene where he punches his way out of a giant creature from inside; but the blood and gore is blue.
the cartoon Ben 10 years ago had a tv animated movie where a bug alien was sucked into a jet turbine and chopped to pieces with yellowish-green gore. TV-Y7 rating.
You get away with just changing the color from red, heck Men in Black blew up an alien into a blue mist, and the cartoon did it a lot too. I can go on, the less human the more okay; heck Owl House on Disney+ had the main witch Eda the Owl Lady EAT a guy (an octopus demon that went after Luz) after depowering him, she just casually ate him.
So yeah, if that’s anything to go by human instinct may not be as bothered by seeing an alien with yellow insides or green goop and unknown organ and glands structure.
Sydney had her shield in on the Fracture, so at the very least she didn’t get covered by gore.
Being covered by gore does things to a girl.
its one thing to watch the gore fly, quite another to have to clean it out of your nose …..
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=518554085370834
(starting around 2:15)
“He fucked around. He found out.
And all throughout the land, not one tear was shed.”
I do believe that was in the Sermon on the Mount…
BTW…
The Comment Engine is extra laggy today.
Extra high traffic from the gore scene.
Welp! There goes a suspect, but at least she left the other 2 alive. I think. I cant see from this angel. Hope she did.
depending on how magic works here, Dabbler might be able to use some bits of the guy for a necromancer spell to summon his soul from Hell for some questioning.
Considering Cree was standing just as close as the Goons, yeah, safe bet they are safe
Concretia is known to be much tougher than a human. Something that merely stumbles her could well be lethal to a normie.
However, one of them can be seen standing normally in the left corner of panel 5, so they seem to be fine.
No, I’m pretty sure that’s just the part of Boss Tartare’s body that hasn’t yet been fragged.
But they are fine. If she’s using that kind of round on a target five feet from Sydney, it would have to be calibrated to only shred the target organism. The other two will be surrendering as soon as they realize the gore on them is not their own, and then find their voices.
No, the glove is black, not red. (Not easy to see behind the blood trails.) Also his left arm was on his shoulder right next to the grenade – it wouldn’t hang down completely undamaged.
The glove isn’t the right color for it to be an un-julienned part of Boss Tartare. His lackeys have black gloves, his are are red.
Technically, even the goons’ gloves are likely to be at least partially red by now…
That glove is between red and black, but it is in the wrong orientation to be the boss… and yet, there’s no way that the boss’s lower body would have become invisible, even if flayed.
Page 911
Panel 6, Dark goon is to the left (boss’s right) and slightly closer to Sydney, Concretia to the right.
Panel 8, Sydney looks straight past Concretia’s shoulder and says “…until she got here.”
Panel 9, The boss is shot from behind.
Page 912
The boss TURNS to face Cora.
Panel 4 The boss faces Cora. Dark goon is behind boss, again to the left (Boss’s right). This indicates that boss has turned no more than about 120 degrees, or dark goon would have had to step in front of Sydney.
Panel 5, SPLORTCH. That body on the left has to be the boss’s body, and the visible hand is backwards. That should be the back side of his hanging right arm. There is no way that anyone should be standing there with their back to Concretia and to Cora.
Panels 4 and 5 are right next to one another – the goon is partially in one, partially in the other.
On your analysis, I think Cora came from behind Sydney, then the Boss has always been facing in the same direction (and shot from the front).
The only issue with that would be the question how Sydney knew Cora arrived – I don’t think she did. She just blabbed it out because she was under a truth serum, and dramatic timing did the rest.
Thats a good thing. If Cora just outright murdered them, I would assume she would be put in prison along with the alien mercs.
I want a Ragu bullet.
I like how there’s an ear just sitting on her knee.
That’s going to take about forever to wash out.
Yeah. Gorefest isn’t always appropriate.
HOWEVER…
*EyeTwitch*
Yeah. The reaction shot just sets off a warm, friendly, sympathetic little chuckle in my guts (which are still on the inside by the way!)
Not to mention Concretia’s “HOLY SCHNIDT!” reaction shot.
I’ll allow it.
One must comment that to gib someone like that, there would have to be a lot more conclusive force. He’s not just in pieces, he splattered.
Concussive force.
Yeah, the force shown is already conclusive enough.
My tablet keeps autocorrecting everything. Missed that one while trying to get it to stop correcting ‘gib’.
He is in too small and fine of chunks for a traditional concussion blast, even from inside. Also those would risk hurting Sydney too. Looked like by some method he was sliced to pieces from within.
This is definitely non-standard ammo – regular force wouldn’t have sliced his torso perpendicular to the ribs.
My guess is force-field blender.
Hmm… that could be.
Yeech, just reminded me of the scene in the Deathworlders where the Hunters trap a human in a complex forcefield and manipulate it to dissect him alive. :(
Or like that scene in “Resident Evil”
Monofilament wire unspooling at high speed inside his body.
Is there any chance Sydney’s glasses sent either a transcript or recording of her scene with the main bad guy to Cora as well as the distress call?
Because if it did, then this scene makes more sense.
It is my assumption Cora was watching and hearing everything that was happening from the moment just before or just after Sydney yelled “Now!”, possibly sooner if she activated the communication with her eyes on a menu board while talking to Concretia.
The last panel on https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-908-bombast-industrial-complex/ this page shows Cora getting a message.
And we’ve seen Sydney receive messages from Frix, so we know her glasses can probably also send messages.
So yes, that’s 100% what happened.
I really hate to say this. No Sydney no! You can’t. Between your ADHD medicine and the crap he pumped into you that syringe might flatline you. I am sorry but you have to bear this one.
And I am hoping Sydney’s glasses have been transmitting all this time so Max can see this. . And possibly look to his assistant. “He got off lightly.”
Welp, I’m pretty sure we can all agree… He had it coming
Neither Maxi, nor anyone at Archon, know about Sydney’s SpaceSpecs
And even if they did, Maxi has nothing to view it on
They didn’t have to see it in real time while it was happening. Cora or Dabbler can certainly produce recording in some of the earth-accessible formats. There WILL be some explaining anyway – how did Cora know Syd was in trouble, and how did she find her… I think it will be easier if they just tell the truth about the glasses, and the recording could be part of that.
She could just… lie.
Still, I do hope that Sydney comes clean. The glasses thing is neat, especially conaidering how much they prob just helped (could have been a number of otherthings that helped with the actual traking), but they are a bir iffy to me (both from an “aid” perspective and a “probably violating privacy/security laws/rules(/just staight up violating privacy)” perspective).
She COULD lie, but… “space magic, don’t ask” will only get you so far. Not to mention that “Maxima suggested I use nonlethal ordnance”. That could mean that Cora briefly consulted with Max before heading to the site, or maybe while en route.
Producing convincing lie would be difficult in this case. Of course we can’t rule it out yet, but all of the comments are speculations anyway, until it happens in comic.
I’m not sure why you think there as additional discussion with Maxima. Cora knew about the non-lethal rule before Sydney had the stasis pod. Maxima is busy with Hench Wench. A consult before the rescue would be a waste of time.
It could be that the ‘suggestion’ to use less-lethal ordnance was part of the general briefing prior to their deployment to NYC. At that point, it was still looking like it would just be a policing and publicity gig, for which you do not want the headaches of accidentally mincing a target. Things have since escalated, but there’s a good argument that they’ve not escalated far enough to break out the deliberate-kill ordnance – by Maxima’s escalation thresholds, if not Cora’s, and the call lies with Maxima as field team leader.
I was actually thinking about this today.
These guys knew an aweful lot about our girl heroine and set things up for her. Now what if it turns out there is a leak in Washington. Exactly what Sydney was worried about new powers getting out. And the only reason she got a message off for help before she was killed is she kept the glasses a secret.
What do we suppose Max’s reaction will be to that?
Probably Maxim 43: “If it’s stupid and it works, it’s still stupid and you’re lucky.”
Tinfoil hats and theoretical Dark Maxima aside, keeping secrets from Max (and the rest of the strategic leadership) is far more likely to hurt Sydney or a teammate than it is to help.
i thought that it would be Dabbler.
i stand amused and corrected.
which, of course, raises the question “where is Dabbler?”
Probably still taking a Henchie-induced nap (as people keep pointing out, this has all happened within a space of a few minutes, tops)
Only thing I hope for is that he also qualified for a Darwin award. ( no children ) .
Pre-existing children do not disqualify you for a Darwin Award.
https://darwinawards.com/rules/rules.children.html
The discussion there is interesting, but the “nurture” discussion is incomplete. While a child being raised by a father with the “explosive stupidity” gene might lead the child by example to believe that playing with explosives was fine, thus predisposing even a non ES-carrier offspring to play with explosives, it could easily go the other way, and the child could be instead predisposed to look for hazards of all types that were not apparent in the behaviors of others. Thus strengthening the argument that the existence of the child doesn’t affect the qualification for the Award.
I feel like that page is mostly a waffle to distract from the compelling argument of “it’s a lot of work to make sure that these people haven’t had kids, so we prefer to not do so.”
I tend to prefer the more purist approach, in which one either needs to have not had children, or to have managed to include said children in ones blunder. I do recognize that posture is seemingly at odds with the idea of the blunder needing to harm nobody else. It feels like a frustratingly murky situation, because the children possess some of the potential nominee’s DNA, they also possess DNA from another.
The only time I’m nearly comfortable with the children being included is when the children’s other parent(s) also involved in the stupidity. To be clear: I mean, actively involved, not just on the receiving end. For example, if someone goes on a vacation into the Grand Canyon by driving directly off the top of the canyon, rather than using one of the many roads into/out of the canyon, and the mate is sleeping in the passenger seat, that doesn’t count. Unless, of course, the mate was actively part of the planning of this trip, and felt that attaching a garbage bag to the roof of the car as a makeshift parachute would be a great way to enable this short cut to be taken safely, in which case it totally would. But I’d still prefer the mate to be awake and actively involved, holding their phone up to livestream the event, so we have indisputable video evidence to confirm the involvement.
Well Sydney does at least know Dabbler has a spell that can clean her and sorta distract her too.
Depends on whether she wants to risk the side effects of Restless Kitty, or being hit by the Hammer of Forgetting over the possible effects of the forget everything drug mixed with her meds and funky brain.
Restless Kitty was a side effect of a warmth spell used to prevent Sidney from getting hypothermia after she dove into freezing water to wash the scabs oatmeal off, not a cleaning spell. But yeah, considering how much she loves to get dirty, Dabbler has to have a cleaning spell for when she needs to clean up in a hurry.
Dabbler previously used a cleaning spell on Maxima, discussed on page 486, and the results shown on page 490.
If he wasn’t already deserving of become Julienne, calling Cora a ‘bitch’ sealed the deal
No one really deserves death – but he is definitely among the least non-deserving.
At lest Sydney had her mouth closed this time :P
Debriefing will likely include an order for an STD panel because of needle stick and contact with human blood.
My only critique is you missed a chance to do that thing like where the intestine or whatever on her head would stay on top, then flop down in the next panel. Those gags always make me laugh.
1)It looks like at least one of his buddies survived.
2)That man’s last moment alive was spent calling a very dangerous woman he’s never met before a, “bitch”.
3)I sure hope they didn’t have a deadman’s switch on Concretia’s human body.
3) Yeah. That was my first thought too. (Well, more like third. My first thought was a mix of “Wow” and “I hope this doesn’t harm Dave’s viewership” (which admittedly a deadman’s switch would help with)).
1) Well spotted. Though I do wonder how long/in what state.
2) (because I responded to the other two) At least he won’t have to worry about having been uncool in his last moments? (Well, the last-words-about-something-mundane kind of uncool. He was otherwise still quite uncool.)
3 is my fear too, Concretia is going to pay Cora’s recklessness.- Unless she can get some magic science thingamajig that resurrects Concretia after she dies because of the deadman switch.
Assuming the controller was not destroyed, I’m not expecting a relevant dead man’s switch, since the guy was overconfident and also somehow came across as not being the “big boss”. (He feels more like “Chief of Black Ops and Wet Sciences”.)
That being said, it wouldn’t hurt (ahem) for a fail-safe to go off and Concretia to be tortured for however long it takes them to find her body. Lots of long-term dramatic potential in that, and it could be the equivalent of a radiation accident for causing development in Concretia’s personality and powers.