Grrl Power IV: Constantly Expanded Universe

[lord_khaine]

Cora's probably going to be some kind of test for Math.

Unless she figures just what sort of inhuman speed, strenght and endurance he packs.
Then the risk is she decides on needing a security specialist :P

[The Glyphstone]

Oh, look, it's locker room shenanigans without being in the locker room.

Cora's probably going to be some kind of test for Math.

Math stares silently at Cora for 30 seconds, then reports to Maxima that he has completed his assignment.

[Lamech]

I wonder how the veil is holding up under all this alien talk? Did it all explode at once?

[Rogar Demonblud]

We've seen the Veil has a certain degree of heuristic function already. It used to cover for supers, but seems not to since ARCHON went public about everything. Something similar might be happening now with aliens getting turfed out of the protected space to preserve everyone else.

[Dragonus45]

I’m assuming that most aliens are gonna be fine as long as they aren’t drawing active attention to themselves.

[HandofShadows]

I think that the aliens that are already on the ground and want to stay hidden will still be covered by the spell. I wonder how long some of these aliens have been on planet? Could some have actually been born on Earth?

[Calemyr]

I think that the aliens that are already on the ground and want to stay hidden will still be covered by the spell. I wonder how long some of these aliens have been on planet? Could some have actually been born on Earth?

Steal a page from El Goonish Shive, maybe?

Alien 1: Besides, I'm not an alien. American born and raised, yo. I could run for president!
Alien 2: You'd lose, of course.
Alien 1: Oh, yes. By a landslide.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Arianna's definitely going to be earning her paycheck this week.

[halfeye]

Arianna's definitely going to be earning her paycheck this week.

That or get fired for telling provable porkies.

[Keltest]

That or get fired for telling provable porkies.

I kind of doubt that she will be held responsible for a bunch of aliens just parking their battleship in front of her without consulting anybody. In as much as Archon's reputation suffers, there isn't really any way for them to avoid being caught lying there because events were just moving too fast for them to keep up with. The person most responsible isn't actually part of Archon, so unless he wants to portray administration as being far less accepting than they have been portrayed as so far, I doubt a firing is on the table.

[InvisibleBison]

In as much as Archon's reputation suffers, there isn't really any way for them to avoid being caught lying there because events were just moving too fast for them to keep up with

Archon could avoid being caught lying if they didn't tell any lies.

[Lamech]

Archon could avoid being caught lying if they didn't tell any lies.

Like we said, impossible!


But seriously, Arianna isn't earning her paycheck this week. She did not need to lie about Sydney's location. This could have been a wonderful story about how Sydney was helping reclaim the Alari homeworld and making alien friends and other good stuff. Instead... they got caught lying.

[Keltest]

Like we said, impossible!


But seriously, Arianna isn't earning her paycheck this week. She did not need to lie about Sydney's location. This could have been a wonderful story about how Sydney was helping reclaim the Alari homeworld and making alien friends and other good stuff. Instead... they got caught lying.

We don't know the timeline of when the refugees arrived versus when people noticed Sydney went missing.

Also, "official government forces are at war with an alien power we know nothing about" seems like it would be bad PR.

[Traab]

We don't know the timeline of when the refugees arrived versus when people noticed Sydney went missing.

Also, "official government forces are at war with an alien power we know nothing about" seems like it would be bad PR.

Agreed, so would "We lost our newest recruit in the far left spiral arm of the milky way.... we think. Might be the next galaxy over." The idea was sound, they knew dabbler had contacts who could track her down so officially her being on a private training mission to get her up to snuff was a decent excuse and if literally anyone involved on sydneys side had even the slightest shred of common freaking sense, it wouldnt have been an issue.

[Lamech]

We don't know the timeline of when the refugees arrived versus when people noticed Sydney went missing.

Also, "official government forces are at war with an alien power we know nothing about" seems like it would be bad PR.

"War? Who said anything about war?"

Agreed, so would "We lost our newest recruit in the far left spiral arm of the milky way.... we think. Might be the next galaxy over." The idea was sound, they knew dabbler had contacts who could track her down so officially her being on a private training mission to get her up to snuff was a decent excuse and if literally anyone involved on sydneys side had even the slightest shred of common freaking sense, it wouldnt have been an issue.

They didn't need to tell anyone they lost Sydney. Archon could have just said that Sydney's exact location was classified. They had no idea if Sydney would return and had no idea how she would return. Furthermore, relying on the friends of the demon-alien hybrid to have anything approaching human "common sense" was an obvious mistake! Indeed, I would think that human "common sense" would preclude being friends with a demon.

All of this could have been avoided by simply not lying.

[halfeye]

All of this could have been avoided by simply not lying.

Yeah, it's not difficult. If you've got nothing to say, don't say anything, there's no use in making stuff up that you know isn't true.

[Keltest]

Yeah, it's not difficult. If you've got nothing to say, don't say anything, there's no use in making stuff up that you know isn't true.

Conspicuous radio silence frequently says more than just giving an answer, even an obviously incomplete answer. Nobody ever wants to avoid talking about good things that are happening, and leaving an uncontrolled and undirected rumor mill to its own devices is going to cause more problems than it solves.

[Traab]

And a vague "classified" answer isnt any better as its obvious you are hiding something bad as well. At least pointing out that she needs training and such is a valid excuse. After all, aside from the super brawl we havent seen jigawatt in public either, so keeping her sequestered with the other recruits at least makes sense, and her behavior is pretty openly not regulation. Really the question is, would more harm by caused by lying or by telling the truth? Remember it all started before aliens landed. So starting off with the truth would be a terrible idea. "We were chasing an alien super powered terrorist, she opened an unstable portal to her homeworld in an attempt to arrange an invasion only to discover another alien race had invaded her home world and were obliterating everything. We were attacked by said invasion force and fled, sydney ended up trapped on the other side when the portal shut leaving a partially trained young woman in a war zone trillions of light years from home. We sent one of our allies, an alien demon cyborg, to contact a friend who could go look for her but no idea if she survived or not yet. Oh, and there may well have been time travel involved so we dont know whats going on or if there is any danger current or future from this whole mess. Any questions?" /dives under podium as explosion of shouting shatters the place.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Yeah, this a situation where the truth cannot be used at all and radio silence just allows people to make up their own reality.

The better story probably would've had Sydney confined to quarters for an escapade they really don't want to get into without lawyers present. Celebrity shenanigans are a well established meta-story and Sydney's already done enough crap in public to make it believable. Also, it justifies leaving her restricted duty and out of the public eye while her training in things like basic common sense catches up to the average 8 year old. And when Sydney just shows up out of the blue like that you can haul her off immediately for doing something unauthorized and making more trouble.

Essentially, you lean into Sydney's basic immaturity in anything not related to geekdom.

[tyckspoon]

And a vague "classified" answer isnt any better as its obvious you are hiding something bad as well. At least pointing out that she needs training and such is a valid excuse. After all, aside from the super brawl we havent seen jigawatt in public either, so keeping her sequestered with the other recruits at least makes sense, and her behavior is pretty openly not regulation. Really the question is, would more harm by caused by lying or by telling the truth? Remember it all started before aliens landed. So starting off with the truth would be a terrible idea. "We were chasing an alien super powered terrorist, she opened an unstable portal to her homeworld in an attempt to arrange an invasion only to discover another alien race had invaded her home world and were obliterating everything. We were attacked by said invasion force and fled, sydney ended up trapped on the other side when the portal shut leaving a partially trained young woman in a war zone trillions of light years from home. We sent one of our allies, an alien demon cyborg, to contact a friend who could go look for her but no idea if she survived or not yet. Oh, and there may well have been time travel involved so we dont know whats going on or if there is any danger current or future from this whole mess. Any questions?" /dives under podium as explosion of shouting shatters the place.

"... if you didn't want to tell us you could have just said "No comment" or something, you didn't have to lie."

[Rogar Demonblud]

And again, that just means people make up their own reality.

[Ibrinar]

And? Since the forum doesn't allow just answering with and: I don't think people speculating about where she is is all that much of a problem.

[Rogar Demonblud]

You haven't been paying attention to politics here lately. People will make up their own reality, and then stick with that story against every opponent, including reality itself.

Whatever the population decides is the narrative will be the narrative. If they decide ARCHON carved up Sydney for parts to try and understand her powers, then that's what happened and any appearance by Sydney afterwards is dismissed as a stand in (witness the BS still flowing about Paul McCartney).

[Dragonus45]

This wold be why being the face of something like archon is never a long term job. It’s a hard tight rope to walk between what you are allowed to say, what you need to say, and maintaining credibility with the press. Burnout can be common.

[Radar]

You haven't been paying attention to politics here lately. People will make up their own reality, and then stick with that story against every opponent, including reality itself.

Whatever the population decides is the narrative will be the narrative. If they decide ARCHON carved up Sydney for parts to try and understand her powers, then that's what happened and any appearance by Sydney afterwards is dismissed as a stand in (witness the BS still flowing about Paul McCartney).

As was said before: you can either ride the waves or be the one to throw the rock into the lake.

[halfeye]

You haven't been paying attention to politics here lately.

May I enquire which "here" that is in particular? There's a lot of very silly in the world this year.

[Traab]

I cant help it, the cynical part of me thinks he did this timeskip so we could wrap up the flashback in the next couple years. Now all thats left is to graduate from basic in a couple weeks and be made a corporal and we can get to current times. I figure 2022 tops.

[Traab]

Heh, interesting discussion on this comic in the comment section. Arguing over how much pay sydney is due because she was gone almost two month archon time, but two days her time. Personally I think its a giant pita that cant really be fairly figured out and would cause tons of problems if, like arianna pointed out, next time its a much longer period of time travel. Even a few years would be enough to qualify as a financial crisis if they gave her all that back pay at once.

[JeenLeen]

Given this is a government organization, I would expect the bureaucracy for payroll would be such that anything other than paying for 2 months of time would be a nightmare to work out. Payroll systems aren't made for time travel! Though I suppose she could be put on leave without pay for the duration that was missed, and that would settle it easily enough.

But the inverse sounds really hard. Gone for two days objectively, but it took you a month? I guess a bonus could resolve that.

...so, actually, I defeated my own argument. I think a formal not paying/paying for time travel would be a nightmare, but you could wing it easily enough by doing leave without pay or a bonus in order to get the same net effect.

[halfeye]

The reason she needs the pay is her rent, that doesn't stop because she's not there. They say they covered that, but presumably they (as private individuals) want to be repaid, and that repayment should come from her wages (how is the rent not coming out of her bank account automatically?).