Grrl Power VI: Stripping The Hero Doesnt Work

[The Glyphstone]

The stick method becomes less useful the more powerful the super is.

Who wants to be the general trying to explain to El Presidente that Omega Girl, the galactic-class quantum manipulator, is done trashing the country's secret police and military, and is now heading for the Presidential Palace... because he threatened her parents and little brother?

That's why I specifically mentioned non-combat capable supers? Imagine someone with, say, earth moving powers of massive volume but slow speed. Bulldozer Lad can't fight worth a damn, but their value for civil engineering projects is immense. The comic, by design, focuses on super battles but there's a lot of potential for utility.

[Max_Killjoy]

That's why I specifically mentioned non-combat capable supers? Imagine someone with, say, earth moving powers of massive volume but slow speed. Bulldozer Lad can't fight worth a damn, but their value for civil engineering projects is immense. The comic, by design, focuses on super battles but there's a lot of potential for utility.

Sorry, I missed that detail (about less-combat-capable supers) in the back and forth posts.

[Radar]

That's why I specifically mentioned non-combat capable supers? Imagine someone with, say, earth moving powers of massive volume but slow speed. Bulldozer Lad can't fight worth a damn, but their value for civil engineering projects is immense. The comic, by design, focuses on super battles but there's a lot of potential for utility.

Also combat-capable supers with some serious weaknesses could be targeted like that. Case in point: Concretia.

[Douglas]

Oh absolutely. The real question is if you -could- offer Lienchtensteins omega super enough money to make him/her considder betraying the interest of his home country.
Its something i only just came to considder myself recently xD

I mean lets pick a completely bonkers example to avoid it turning political.
If you (any you in the thread) were just a rank 8 super, how much money would Greenland need to offer you to come work for them permanently?
Thats a place with an almost guaranteed foreign culture, foreign climate, and foreign language.

And assuming your own nation is willing to pay you i dont know a million a month.

That last sentence is the sticking point for this. A million dollars per month is enough that a major part of my thinking would be "I'm already guaranteed set for life, why should I care that much about being even more thoroughly set for life?"

I'd probably only care about the extra money if I came up with some grand ambition that would actually make use of it to achieve something.

[Traab]

That last sentence is the sticking point for this. A million dollars per month is enough that a major part of my thinking would be "I'm already guaranteed set for life, why should I care that much about being even more thoroughly set for life?"

I'd probably only care about the extra money if I came up with some grand ambition that would actually make use of it to achieve something.

For the same reason football players can demand and make an average of 2 mill a year with the top players making 28 mill a year. Its honestly a bit beyond me too, but there is clearly a market for people wanting to make absurd amounts of money based on their talents. I always figured that if I were to somehow win the powerball id basically invest it in one of those low risk low profit setups like an annuity and live off the interest forever. Making enough money to afford anything I want, not having so much on hand it can ruin me or be burned through doing stupid things where I win 100 mill, spend 95 of it on a house, then cant afford property taxes and go bankrupt next year. :p

[The Glyphstone]

Also combat-capable supers with some serious weaknesses could be targeted like that. Case in point: Concretia.

Concretia is also a great example of why too much stick and not enough carrot is bad. They had her as an obedient minion, but she defected at the first practical opportunity.

[Shining Wrath]

Concretia is also a great example of why too much stick and not enough carrot is bad. They had her as an obedient minion, but she defected at the first practical opportunity.

Another lesson there - when she defected, she told ArcSwat where to find her body, and that lead them to a base of her "employers", which led to further losses. How do you manage the flow of information to your supers? Suppose Maxima decided to fly off to Strawmania and start a weekly video blog describing in detail all the secrets she knows. What are they going to do - assassinate her? Having a high-end super working for you implies letting them know, to at least some degree, what your goals and plans are. That's a bad move if you have secrets.

[The Glyphstone]

Yeah. If you have a real powerhouse/heavy-hitter, either you have leverage they can't take away from you, you're treating them like absolute royalty, or both.
-The first one invites an eventual yet inevitable betrayal, as we saw with Concretia - if that had been her family instead of her body, she could have played it out pretty much the same way by defecting in exchange for help.
-The second is expensive, and eventually risks you either being out-bid, or the super you're paying to work for you deciding they should just have your job and call the shots instead.
-The third is the trickiest to navigate, because you have to get the exact correct ratio of carrot to stick for that specific individual to avoid pushing them one way or the other. Overt carrots and subtle sticks are better but again the ratio of overt to subtle needs to be carefully calibrated.
-And ultimately, there is still a power threshold past which no amount of stick will help. If you tried to take Max's loved ones hostage to compel her behavior, you'd get speed-blitzed into constituent atoms even if you had a small army aiming guns at them 24-7.

[Shining Wrath]

Today I got an email from my manager (addressed to everyone in the department) basically saying "If you're thinking about leaving, come talk to me and give me a chance to persuade you to stay". Turnover is pretty bad because right now software engineers in Denver metro have an unemployment rate of 1% or thereabouts. People are getting pay raises and bonuses to switch jobs.

I imagine in the long run keeping your superheroes loyal would work like any other employees - money, respect, perks, and so on. They say that after money the most common reason for people changing jobs is dislike of their front-line manager. For ArcSwat, that would be Maxima and General Faulk. I could see someone being upset by Maxima's temper - no one likes being yelled at. But on the whole, she's pretty cool. And you know that if you're in trouble, she's going to come save you if she can - can you say that about whoever leads the Strawmania team of supers?

[Traab]

Today I got an email from my manager (addressed to everyone in the department) basically saying "If you're thinking about leaving, come talk to me and give me a chance to persuade you to stay". Turnover is pretty bad because right now software engineers in Denver metro have an unemployment rate of 1% or thereabouts. People are getting pay raises and bonuses to switch jobs.

I imagine in the long run keeping your superheroes loyal would work like any other employees - money, respect, perks, and so on. They say that after money the most common reason for people changing jobs is dislike of their front-line manager. For ArcSwat, that would be Maxima and General Faulk. I could see someone being upset by Maxima's temper - no one likes being yelled at. But on the whole, she's pretty cool. And you know that if you're in trouble, she's going to come save you if she can - can you say that about whoever leads the Strawmania team of supers?

Max is overall a fairly chill person. Yeah she breaks into the military mindset at times, but its usually needed at that point. And she has triggers that set her off, just like everyone does. They honestly arent unreasonable ones either I dont think. Primarily sexism, outright disrespect, and sexual harassment seems to irk her somewhat. Faulk is a hands off big boss type. You arent going to interact with him much unless you are on the management team. He is busy doing the big boss type stuff like justifying their budget to congressional panels, and explaining why the bridge got half melted and that it both isnt archons fault, and is being fixed anyways for major pr points. You know, normal things like that.

[lord_khaine]

For the same reason football players can demand and make an average of 2 mill a year with the top players making 28 mill a year. Its honestly a bit beyond me too, but there is clearly a market for people wanting to make absurd amounts of money based on their talents. I always figured that if I were to somehow win the powerball id basically invest it in one of those low risk low profit setups like an annuity and live off the interest forever. Making enough money to afford anything I want, not having so much on hand it can ruin me or be burned through doing stupid things where I win 100 mill, spend 95 of it on a house, then cant afford property taxes and go bankrupt next year. :p

I assume for football players its in part because they have a limited peak period to earn enough to be set for life.
Where on the other hand a Maxima is going to hand almost everyone there ass when she is 50 or 60 as well most likely.

How do you manage the flow of information to your supers? Suppose Maxima decided to fly off to Strawmania and start a weekly video blog describing in detail all the secrets she knows. What are they going to do - assassinate her? Having a high-end super working for you implies letting them know, to at least some degree, what your goals and plans are. That's a bad move if you have secrets.

Well i guess the best that can be done is throw the international book of law after them. Sue for breach of NDA, ensure they cant go to any country allied with you.
Though again Maxima is a wonky example because she is basically Superman. Just worse. While there are other JL supers powerful enough to hold superman in check, it does not seem like anyone can do so to Max.
And with no exploitable weakness the only check on Max is her own sense of duty.

-The second is expensive, and eventually risks you either being out-bid, or the super you're paying to work for you deciding they should just have your job and call the shots instead.

I imagine in the long run keeping your superheroes loyal would work like any other employees - money, respect, perks, and so on. They say that after money the most common reason for people changing jobs is dislike of their front-line manager. For ArcSwat, that would be Maxima and General Faulk. I could see someone being upset by Maxima's temper - no one likes being yelled at. But on the whole, she's pretty cool. And you know that if you're in trouble, she's going to come save you if she can - can you say that about whoever leads the Strawmania team of supers?

Well they seems to be able to keep Max with what is by all account a very low salary (seems Deus were able to outbid it), despite her being one of the most powerful known Supers. With only a couple equals in the entire world.
She is basically unique. And she seems content from a mix of being the leader of the team. And being able to do her patriotic duty.

So it seems unreasonable to expect any less of Strawmania's local equivalent.
I mean if your the most powerful super on the team your the one who have to come save people.

Its why i personally suspect there will mostly be 2 groups of powerful supers.
Those who work for their native government. And those who decide to get rich in the private sector.

[Traab]

I assume for football players its in part because they have a limited peak period to earn enough to be set for life.
Where on the other hand a Maxima is going to hand almost everyone there ass when she is 50 or 60 as well most likely.

So far we know of two times where she fought someone that nearly killed her. One was vehemence, the other was the mystery middle eastern super she thinks is dead. Eventually someone will be strong enough to take her down, or she will be tired of being active duty and move to a desk job or retire. Being a superhero is no less dangerous than being a professional athlete. Especially since super powers are so random there is no telling who will get a power that shuts her down. Its not like its always flying brick versus flying brick. Heck, we even saw her come close to getting kidnapped by that stasis gun. It was mostly the delay getting her out of there that let her drain the battery and escape before they could lock her in an even stronger stasis container. So space threats are clearly out there as well. And thats just maxima, there are likely all sorts of supers who are far more squishy that would still have powers various nations would like to have. They would be aware that its not a 40 year gig then retire with a pension that your average 9-5 job might have.

[Mechalich]

They would be aware that its not a 40 year gig then retire with a pension that your average 9-5 job might have.

Even leaving the 'supers' part out, law enforcement is generally built on shorter career scales than civilian employment. Federal law enforcement, in the US, specifically has a special 20-year vested retirement plan and enforces mandatory retirement at age 57 for frontline roles (this is a somewhat new rule so there are older officers who were grandfathered in under the old system). Archon is built on a hybrid military/law enforcement model but probably has something similar in place.

Well they seems to be able to keep Max with what is by all account a very low salary (seems Deus were able to outbid it), despite her being one of the most powerful known Supers.

The members of Archon are technically federal employees. Under current US law the most highly paid federal employee is the President, who makes 400,000 per year. Now, it seems likely the laws were changed or finagled, possibly by declaring each individual super a military 'program' and making them a line item in the defense budget or something, but even that is nothing like a free market for superhero services. Not surprising that Deus could outbid whatever the figure is.

[Traab]

Even leaving the 'supers' part out, law enforcement is generally built on shorter career scales than civilian employment. Federal law enforcement, in the US, specifically has a special 20-year vested retirement plan and enforces mandatory retirement at age 57 for frontline roles (this is a somewhat new rule so there are older officers who were grandfathered in under the old system). Archon is built on a hybrid military/law enforcement model but probably has something similar in place.



The members of Archon are technically federal employees. Under current US law the most highly paid federal employee is the President, who makes 400,000 per year. Now, it seems likely the laws were changed or finagled, possibly by declaring each individual super a military 'program' and making them a line item in the defense budget or something, but even that is nothing like a free market for superhero services. Not surprising that Deus could outbid whatever the figure is.

Its hard to judge how much they are getting paid. Sydney asks if this is her annual salary upon getting her first check so we can assume they get paid alot. But we dont know if there is a sliding scale, such as rank having a pay raise. We know her unlocking new abilities doesnt get her a raise, she asked that tongue in cheek and got shot down. So its possible each super is paid a flat rate that is altered by military ranking. We know its enough that 40 dollar lunches arent a big deal, thats about as specific as it gets.

[Shining Wrath]

There's another factor we haven't discussed, which is that groups of supers might have to fight other groups of supers. And the fights theoretically could be lethal, although I don't think we've seen anyone get killed yet. Being a super is dangerous, right?

So if you're thinking about switching sides:

1. Can your new team protect you from your old team?
2. How likely is your new team to be used stupidly by an arrogant leader?
3. Will you switch from "won't have to fight the US team" to "might have to fight the US team"? Suppose Strawmania is opposed to the United States. Do you want to bet your life that it either won't happen, or that if it does, Our Lady of Incineration won't target you?
4. If your new nation sends you on a mission that goes wrong, is anyone going to come rescue you? Is that person Maxima, or perhaps Dabbler or Halo? Someone on the elite level?

[Traab]

Immigrating due to job opportunities is a vast decision to make with hundreds of factors to consider, and thats just if you want to be a doctor or scientist in another country, not a quasi military/police officer/elite warrior.

[Shining Wrath]

Immigrating due to job opportunities is a vast decision to make with hundreds of factors to consider, and thats just if you want to be a doctor or scientist in another country, not a quasi military/police officer/elite warrior.

Agree. But in context of the comic, it's germane whether or not rich & powerful nations would poach the supers from other nations. I don't think we've seen anyone on ArcSwat from another nation, but Dabbler is from another world entirely.

[Dragonus45]

Archon did a lot of recruiting from within the military, it's part of the reason they created it as a new branch so they could transfer people within the system instead of trying to pull them in after they mustered out. I imagine this also skews the view we get of this entire subject because the vast majority of people within the org are some baseline level of patriotic or responsible enough to not have broken their word and scrammed out to get a bigger paycheck. Although given how well archon pays a bigger paycheck might be hard to discreetly find.


As for todays comic, ****ing killed it. Might be the funniest thing Dave has ever posted.

[lord_khaine]

Immigrating due to job opportunities is a vast decision to make with hundreds of factors to consider, and thats just if you want to be a doctor or scientist in another country, not a quasi military/police officer/elite warrior.

Agree. But in context of the comic, it's germane whether or not rich & powerful nations would poach the supers from other nations. I don't think we've seen anyone on ArcSwat from another nation, but Dabbler is from another world entirely.

Yeah the original point was mostly, that due to this Archon is likely a fairly minor player on the international stage. Low population to generate supers from. Low surface to harvest weird stuff from.
(barring clear and obvious author fiat of course).

I mean, heck as it is now. They could in theory get outdone by Greenland or East Strawmania if they lucked a catagory 10 Super (Max is rated 9).

As for todays comic, ****ing killed it. Might be the funniest thing Dave has ever posted.

It is bloody hilarious. Though honestly would not hold Harem responsible for the damage the morons did.

[Max_Killjoy]

It is bloody hilarious. Though honestly would not hold Harem responsible for the damage the morons did.

What happened after the prank says more about the idiots in the room than anything else.

[Shining Wrath]

What happened after the prank says more about the idiots in the room than anything else.

Let's be fair to the idiots. They had no idea Harem could teleport, or that anyone anywhere could teleport.

If you were looking right at someone and they mimed removing a helmet and suddenly vanished, would your conclusion be that they were capable of teleportation? Or that some sort of VR effect just occurred?

Something completely inexplicable occurs before your eyes. Do you conclude that someone has a super power, or that a technological trick is involved? Probably the latter.

[Max_Killjoy]

Let's be fair to the idiots. They had no idea Harem could teleport, or that anyone anywhere could teleport.

If you were looking right at someone and they mimed removing a helmet and suddenly vanished, would your conclusion be that they were capable of teleportation? Or that some sort of VR effect just occurred?

Something completely inexplicable occurs before your eyes. Do you conclude that someone has a super power, or that a technological trick is involved? Probably the latter.

My reaction would be that something extraordinary just happened, and that I have insufficient evidence to leap to any particular conclusion.

[Dragonus45]

Yeah the original point was mostly, that due to this Archon is likely a fairly minor player on the international stage. Low population to generate supers from. Low surface to harvest weird stuff from.
(barring clear and obvious author fiat of course).

You keep saying this but absolutely nothing in the actual text of the comic supports it at all really.

[Keltest]

My reaction would be that something extraordinary just happened, and that I have insufficient evidence to leap to any particular conclusion.

I mean, the point of the prank was that Harem very deliberately indicated that this was a VR simulation, so that seems like evidence enough to at least bias a person.

[Kantaki]

Perfectly honest?
If I could teleport I'd pull that prank too.
Absolutely glorious.

My reaction would be that something extraordinary just happened, and that I have insufficient evidence to leap to any particular conclusion.

To be fair, they're drunk. Kinda not conductive to the thinking clearly thing.
Mind you, they're still stupid, but I can't blame them for overreacting a bit.
Mostly cause I'm guilty of stupid overreactions too.
Not quite on that scale, but then I wasn't drunk at the time.

[Traab]

Yeah the original point was mostly, that due to this Archon is likely a fairly minor player on the international stage. Low population to generate supers from. Low surface to harvest weird stuff from.
(barring clear and obvious author fiat of course).

I mean, heck as it is now. They could in theory get outdone by Greenland or East Strawmania if they lucked a catagory 10 Super (Max is rated 9).



It is bloody hilarious. Though honestly would not hold Harem responsible for the damage the morons did.

3rd largest population of any nation to generate supers from. Not sure how that equates to low with you. Yes there is a very large gap between second and third, but still, its not like america is sparse population wise. Secondly you have to look at the other aspect which is R&D which america drops billions into in comparison to other nations. Not just tech but magic is clearly something getting extensive work done. Gear is a force multiplier when it comes to projecting power and america is fairly well known for its efforts to have the best and most. Yes there comes a point where the power gap is too wide, like how at first peggy was able to half blind vehemence with a .50cal rifle then he leveled up and it barely stung.

But there is a vast ocean of power below that which the right weapons armor and tactics can overcome. Jiggawatt is all kinds of scary with her power, but she isnt resistant to a sniper round. Hiro is tanky but he took a solid injury by getting whip cracked from a bridge cable snapping. Not sure what that amounts to in force. Most of the members of arcswat fall somewhere in the middle between them. And thus, the majority of supers world wide would also have a similar range of "Dude with a club" to "Heavy ordinance" levels of power needed to stop them. Then you have the maxima level fighters who basically need another maxima level fighter to stop and those are incredibly rare. Sprinkled in are the special cases like say, anvil, who cant be shot, but could be gassed easy. Or death toll and his nemesis power which needs to be overwhelmed by multiple types of attack.

I rambled a bit, but my point was more that having fewer total supers than say, china, isnt an end of the world scenario, because 90% can be brought down with anything from pistols to missile level attacks. And the very very few who cant be taken down that way can still be worked around.

[Keltest]

3rd largest population of any nation to generate supers from. Not sure how that equates to low with you. Yes there is a very large gap between second and third, but still, its not like america is sparse population wise. Secondly you have to look at the other aspect which is R&D which america drops billions into in comparison to other nations. Not just tech but magic is clearly something getting extensive work done. Gear is a force multiplier when it comes to projecting power and america is fairly well known for its efforts to have the best and most. Yes there comes a point where the power gap is too wide, like how at first peggy was able to half blind vehemence with a .50cal rifle then he leveled up and it barely stung.

But there is a vast ocean of power below that which the right weapons armor and tactics can overcome. Jiggawatt is all kinds of scary with her power, but she isnt resistant to a sniper round. Hiro is tanky but he took a solid injury by getting whip cracked from a bridge cable snapping. Not sure what that amounts to in force. Most of the members of arcswat fall somewhere in the middle between them. And thus, the majority of supers world wide would also have a similar range of "Dude with a club" to "Heavy ordinance" levels of power needed to stop them. Then you have the maxima level fighters who basically need another maxima level fighter to stop and those are incredibly rare. Sprinkled in are the special cases like say, anvil, who cant be shot, but could be gassed easy. Or death toll and his nemesis power which needs to be overwhelmed by multiple types of attack.

I rambled a bit, but my point was more that having fewer total supers than say, china, isnt an end of the world scenario, because 90% can be brought down with anything from pistols to missile level attacks. And the very very few who cant be taken down that way can still be worked around.

As Sydney likes to emphasize, she (and most supers we know of) are not immune to being riddled with bullets. Even if they can field protection if they see it coming, only Max, Achilles and maybe Dabbler could realistically be expected to survive an assassin with a sniper rifle if it comes to super-assassination.

[Shining Wrath]

3rd largest population of any nation to generate supers from. Not sure how that equates to low with you. Yes there is a very large gap between second and third, but still, its not like america is sparse population wise. Secondly you have to look at the other aspect which is R&D which america drops billions into in comparison to other nations. Not just tech but magic is clearly something getting extensive work done. Gear is a force multiplier when it comes to projecting power and america is fairly well known for its efforts to have the best and most. Yes there comes a point where the power gap is too wide, like how at first peggy was able to half blind vehemence with a .50cal rifle then he leveled up and it barely stung.

But there is a vast ocean of power below that which the right weapons armor and tactics can overcome. Jiggawatt is all kinds of scary with her power, but she isnt resistant to a sniper round. Hiro is tanky but he took a solid injury by getting whip cracked from a bridge cable snapping. Not sure what that amounts to in force. Most of the members of arcswat fall somewhere in the middle between them. And thus, the majority of supers world wide would also have a similar range of "Dude with a club" to "Heavy ordinance" levels of power needed to stop them. Then you have the maxima level fighters who basically need another maxima level fighter to stop and those are incredibly rare. Sprinkled in are the special cases like say, anvil, who cant be shot, but could be gassed easy. Or death toll and his nemesis power which needs to be overwhelmed by multiple types of attack.

I rambled a bit, but my point was more that having fewer total supers than say, china, isnt an end of the world scenario, because 90% can be brought down with anything from pistols to missile level attacks. And the very very few who cant be taken down that way can still be worked around.

So far the only national super team we've seen is the United States, and most of the villains have also been American. Supers are rare, so it's probably not a "single mutation in gene 22 at location 73" sort of thing; it's likely both genetic and environmental factors, and several of each. Perhaps the pregnant woman has to listen to hip hop and country & western within a short period of time, and do that repeatedly. Or the father needs to have drunk Budweiser while watching American rules football and eating pepperoni pizza shortly before conception, and that's just one of a list of 27 different factors that all need to be present.

That there are non-American teams of supers is an assumption; that the incidence of supers is proportional to population, likewise. That no action by a national government can enable supers to use their powers more effectively also seems pretty debatable. I imagine that somewhere in Ar****e there's a team dedicated to determining how supers come to be and, given that, how to augment their power. I imagine Deus has a similar team which is also spying as hard as possible on Ar****e.

[Max_Killjoy]

We know from the comic that superpowers are not genetic, and that there are supers in other countries (Max has fought some, we've seen a few).

[Forum Explorer]

Let's be fair to the idiots. They had no idea Harem could teleport, or that anyone anywhere could teleport.

If you were looking right at someone and they mimed removing a helmet and suddenly vanished, would your conclusion be that they were capable of teleportation? Or that some sort of VR effect just occurred?

Something completely inexplicable occurs before your eyes. Do you conclude that someone has a super power, or that a technological trick is involved? Probably the latter.

I probably conclude that my understanding of reality is wrong and I should explore that further. Thus my first step would likely be similar to the guy saying 'end simulation' and stuff, but after that I would spend a lot of time actually trying to figure how to test it, rather than jumping to 'nothing matters, do whatever I want'.