Grrl Power IV: Constantly Expanded Universe

[Rogar Demonblud]

As I recall, Dave mentioned a vampire tried that trick on Max, and it did not end well for him.

[Lamech]

Actually, no. That's the beauty of it, the one double-agent that could have had the knowledge was not present at the scene.

Harem was looking for Sydney's hologram, since she was at the scene with Pixel and needed someone physically manifest to provide any aid. Sydney only teleported away after Harem left, and there was not enough time for Harem to double back between the teleport and the checkpoint triggering. So since Sydney did not volunteer the information, Harem was not present, and the checkpoint wiped everyone else's memories, the exact sequence of events is still only known to Sydney.

Although since Sydney died and Deus has a 2000% chance of having spy sats in orbit and probably could buy whatever company has Sydney's phone location data, I suspect he can piece together what happened.

And we already knew Max has very good defenses against mind control. The fight with Vehemence didn't show that, as Max was already in 'blast limbs off' mode before the aggro field went up. But when fighting the Superhusk, it tried to mind whammy her and failed badly.

That doesn't quite look like a failure to me. It wasn't a complete success, but Max wasn't punching it, or even doing a particularly good job on defense. If Hiro wasn't there, we would probably have Golden Freeza Super Husk now. Truthfully, someone really needs to teach Maxima a Protection from Good spell before she gets dominated.

[Forum Explorer]

Although since Sydney died and Deus has a 2000% chance of having spy sats in orbit and probably could buy whatever company has Sydney's phone location data, I suspect he can piece together what happened.

I doubt it. Spy sats don't see everything all the time. In fact, as far as I understand it, they aren't very good at looking for individual people, since people move quickly and the satellite has trouble adjusting it's field of view.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Worse than that. Since they themselves are moving at orbital velocities, they really can't focus on anything long enough for you to identify it beyond 'car' or 'person' or such like.

[Narkis]

Worse than that. Since they themselves are moving at orbital velocities, they really can't focus on anything long enough for you to identify it beyond 'car' or 'person' or such like.

Geostationary orbits exist.

[HandofShadows]

Geostationary orbits exist.

And geostationary orbit for the Earth is 22,236 miles above the equator. Much too far for modern sensors to be able to pick up people sized objects.

[Rogar Demonblud]

At that height, they probably can't tell an aircraft carrier from a VLCC crude oil tanker. There's a reason geostationary is used for pretty much nothing except communications satellites.

[Radar]

And geostationary orbit for the Earth is 22,236 miles above the equator. Much too far for modern sensors to be able to pick up people sized objects.

Yup, typical spy satelites (or any other which provide high resolution photos) have to have very eccentric orbits and almost scratch the atmosphere, when they are set to take pictures.

[HandofShadows]

At that height, they probably can't tell an aircraft carrier from a VLCC crude oil tanker. There's a reason geostationary is used for pretty much nothing except communications satellites.

They put a lot of weather sats up in that orbit as well.

[Radar]

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The wikileaks comment was hilarious. Aside from that, pretty much what everyone expected, but a nice dialog anyway. One thing though: the reason Max knows classified stuff and Sydney does not is different then Max said - in any national-level organisation there is strict certification process to allow someone access to different levels of classified information. Paygrade is sometimes a consequence of being deemed trustworthy enough to work with top secret stuff, but it is a secondary thing.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Yeah, that's why Sydney's a corporal at the beginning of the comic. That's the rank where they read you in on the Twilight Council, which she already knows about.

[HandofShadows]

Yeah, that's why Sydney's a corporal at the beginning of the comic. That's the rank where they read you in on the Twilight Council, which she already knows about.

Well, they more or less had to read Sydney up on it since her orb allows her to look right through all disguises.

[Traab]

When I joined the air force, due to what my job was going to be, I was getting a top secret restricted access clearance before I even got out of basic. Filling out the paperwork was one of the first things I did when I got to lackland afb. I mean yes, upon graduating, I would be an airman first class which is a couple jumps up the ladder, but its still two jumps away from the lowest nco rating. So yeah, rank does not necessarily denote what level of classified knowledge you are cleared for. I also am quite certain that restricted access top secret clearance or not, I wouldnt be able to just shove my nose into anything under that heading unless it was in my field. I may be allowed to know how to build or defuse nukes, that doesnt mean im allowed to, I dunno, read classified fbi files for grins and giggles.

[sihnfahl]

Yeah, that's why Sydney's a corporal at the beginning of the comic. That's the rank where they read you in on the Twilight Council, which she already knows about.

Not necessarily. Rank does not necessarily equate to level of clearance. While Sydney was Corporal at the beginning of the comic, remember that's a flashback. She was still a Recruit at the TC meeting.

On the way...

Clearance relates to what you need to know in relation to your duties, not necessarily your rank or pay grade. And it isn't carte blanche. The stuff has ... ah, controls on it. You better have A Good Reason for looking at stuff not associated with your current duties. You may have Top Secret clearance, but that doesn't mean you can read any document classified 'Top Secret'.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Corporal is the requisite rank.

[lord_khaine]

Well.. unexpectedly Sydney did actually have a somewhat decent reason for not telling Max about her secret trick.
Anything written down is a liability when it comes to keeping secrets.

The mistake was really to tell about it now. Because she did as such not need to.

edit.
Of course, Max's mistake were to leave the party without her supervision

[HandofShadows]

Aaaaand she's baaaack.

[Traab]

Aaaaand she's baaaack.

This could at least be interesting. She is back, and she has a host of her disembodied fellows with her, as well as an alari spacecraft in africa that she could probably work with. So long as she sticks to meddling from the shadows rather than trying to go full rambo she could be dangerous.

[Radar]

This could at least be interesting. She is back, and she has a host of her disembodied fellows with her, as well as an alari spacecraft in africa that she could probably work with. So long as she sticks to meddling from the shadows rather than trying to go full rambo she could be dangerous.

And this time she would take supers into account as well as Deus. She was a really good schemer so far, so this will be interesting indeed.

[halfeye]

Aaaaand she's baaaack.

Implied, yes, but not definitively. Didn't Sciona still have a body last we knew? This could be a vampire or something?

I don't like the idea of souls because it implies a whole supernatural setup that doesn't match up with the real world. If sciona can nick a body, why can't the previous owner take it back? it sounds as if she had unsettled business with these two.

Souls are a bad idea in a story, because then no death is ever permanent, and that's just silly, it saves a bit on character generation but at the expense of believability.

[Rogar Demonblud]

You're just worrying about a supernatural setup now after an entire book of vampires, lycanthropes, golems, wizards, demons, fey, etc? Might want to call Cunard and warn them to route the Titanic south to avoid the extra ice this year.

[halfeye]

You're just worrying about a supernatural setup now after an entire book of vampires, lycanthropes, golems, wizards, demons, fey, etc? Might want to call Cunard and warn them to route the Titanic south to avoid the extra ice this year.

Titanic wasn't a Cunard ship.

[JeenLeen]

Implied, yes, but not definitively. Didn't Sciona still have a body last we knew? This could be a vampire or something?

I don't like the idea of souls because it implies a whole supernatural setup that doesn't match up with the real world. If sciona can nick a body, why can't the previous owner take it back? it sounds as if she had unsettled business with these two.

Souls are a bad idea in a story, because then no death is ever permanent, and that's just silly, it saves a bit on character generation but at the expense of believability.

I think this is something related to the Alari soul crystal-thing she broke, which seemed to have destroyed (or removed her from) her body and/or killed her. If not for the lead-in question from the previous comic, I'd reckon that this isn't Sciona but rather that the Alari-spirits are now possessing corpses.
Though, with the lead-in question, perhaps it's Sciona+soul-mesh. Or just Sciona.

With all that, though, this seems a specific power/tech enabling immortality, not a "deaths don't count" thing. Sorta like killing Concretia didn't really kill her.

[DataNinja]

Implied, yes, but not definitively. Didn't Sciona still have a body last we knew? This could be a vampire or something?

I don't like the idea of souls because it implies a whole supernatural setup that doesn't match up with the real world. If sciona can nick a body, why can't the previous owner take it back? it sounds as if she had unsettled business with these two.

Souls are a bad idea in a story, because then no death is ever permanent, and that's just silly, it saves a bit on character generation but at the expense of believability.

This implied that she had to give it up in order to enter the battery, given that she seems wistful about just having gotten her body back.

It seems as if with regards to the soul container that one needs to enter voluntarily - so it's not so much as "anyone can come back" but it's more something that has to be deliberately done. Not as much true 'souls' as "people converted into energy".

[Rogar Demonblud]

Titanic wasn't a Cunard ship.

That would be another layer to the jab, yes.

Also, people coming back from the dead in a superhero comic? That's never happened before in the history of ever!

[halfeye]

That would be another layer to the jab, yes.

Also, people coming back from the dead in a superhero comic? That's never happened before in the history of ever!

I don't recall it happening without entirely ***ing the comic up, but I only saw it a few times.

[Traab]

On top of that, we KNEW it would happen. We watched her discard her body, and the storm of souls (someone call DD quick!) poured through the portal back to earth. She was always going to show back up, they didnt even make it ambiguous.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Guess who's back!

[lord_khaine]

Guess who is a bit late to the party!
Though yeah. Can hope she has grown just a little bit smarter.
And a touch less chaotic stupid.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Her plans make a bit more sense when you realize she was expecting to be backed up by her people's entire military in short order. And probably planning on genociding the local primitives anyway, so killing a couple off early is just efficient.