Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

[Psyren]

It is not real life.

Gosh golly gee willikers, are you sure?

I'm aware of how fiction works, thanks!

Spoiler: Tech

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They have forcefields and laser spears. Or was it sonic spears?

They do not need super strength… dexterity, speed, maneuverability , situational awareness is far more important in real life if you have force fields and sonic spears.

Here's the problem though; however cool the visual (and I completely agree with its coolness), the zappy spears clearly aren't enough.

Spoiler: Progress

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Wakanda has been successfully invaded twice now. And both times they abjectly failed to repel said invaders, causing the loss of many Wakandan lives - combatants and civilians alike.

The mere fact that Shuri is so fixated on developing the Midnight Angels, shows that she recognizes this glaring deficiency in their current defenses.

They want to be the sole guardians - and beneficiaries - of the largest stockpile of vibranium on the planet. That's fine; I even agree with Queen Ramunda's logic for not sharing, that they are the ones who have had it for centuries and therefore are the least likely to become corrupted by having it. (Ideally such a weighty responsibility means they should do something to modernize their frankly ridiculous means of selecting a head of state while they're at it, and institute some meaningful checks and balances on said leader too, but that's a completely different rant for the third movie once we see whether or not they've made some reforms to the selection process.)

Their biggest defense for most of their history was the rest of the world having been ignorant of their existence. That's out the window both narratively and metanarratively - from a Watsonian perspective, the governments of the world (and maybe aliens too?) are slavering for what they have, and from a Doylist one, Wakanda itself is now such a lucrative brand that they are almost guaranteed to play a role in pretty much any major cross-property MCU conflict coming down the pipeline. Whether it's Kang, Galactus, Dr. Doom etc., if the entire world is threatened then the audience (not to mention the shareholders) are going to want Wakanda to play a role, and therefore we'll have both in-universe and out-of-universe reasons for them to show up with some upgrades.

I'm totally fine with all of that. What I'm not fine with is Wakanda either learning nothing from getting their butts kicked twice, or deciding that the best solution is to take the absolutely iconic design of the Dora and stick them behind ugly blue not-Ironman suits. That's my gripe, they need to grow but neither of these two options is appealing.

I'm not saying that every Wakandan warrior needs to become T'Challa. But I think it would be an easy and sensible lore addition to have their most elite ones take a bit of heart-shaped herb - much like the Talokans do with their aquatic version - and thus be able to go toe-to-toe with many metahuman threats in a narratively satisfying way. Or if they're not going to do that for all the Dora, at least the named characters like Okoye, Ayo, M'baku and Nakia.

[GloatingSwine]

Spoiler: Progress

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I'm not saying that every Wakandan warrior needs to become T'Challa. But I think it would be an easy and sensible lore addition to have their most elite ones take a bit of heart-shaped herb - much like the Talokans do with their aquatic version - and thus be able to go toe-to-toe with many metahuman threats in a narratively satisfying way. Or if they're not going to do that for all the Dora, at least the named characters like Okoye, Ayo, M'baku and Nakia.

Spoiler

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I think they probably should solve it with proliferation of tech rather than proliferation of superpowers, especially with Shuri in charge. Like maybe the next time we see Wakandans fight they're using Dune style personal shields and more explicit power weapons (like the knives Aneka used but applied to their spears and maces, discharges of energy whenever they hit, etc)

It shouldn't be more iron mans, it should be the sort of approach Wakanda would take. One that leans more into Wakanda's identity as a covert technological superpower because even when they go public cultural habits are hard to break out of.

[lord_khaine]

There is also no reason why every world power doesn't have their own "Iron Man Corps" or the equivalent, but we will never see it.

This at least makes sense before this movie.
Where you both need a engineering genius and military development grade component to make a suit.
And everyone just dont have that. We saw in Iron Man.. 2? what happened with the suits they tried to make.

I havent watched the move (i fear it would make me yell at the screen).
But by the sound of it someone builds a functional Iron Man suit in their garage?

Here's the problem though; however cool the visual (and I completely agree with its coolness), the zappy spears clearly aren't enough.

See i in turn have a massive disconnect with Wakanda supposedly being a high advanced nation.
But still uses spears. When they should have something like Space Marines.

[Psyren]

See i in turn have a massive disconnect with Wakanda supposedly being a high advanced nation.
But still uses spears. When they should have something like Space Marines.

Dora spears double as long rifles; they're a perfectly fine stylistic choice. They're also functional; they blend seamlessly with the Dora's combat style, and we see them used for utility in this movie and elsewhere (e.g. Okoye using hers to keep from being knocked off the bridge, Ayo using hers to disarm John in FATWS, etc.)

What's most important though is the aesthetic/theme. They're not supposed to run around with actual guns in their hands; they're not colonizers.

But by the sound of it someone builds a functional Iron Man suit in their garage?

No, that doesn't happen.

Spoiler

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Riri rigs together a very rudimentary frame while at MIT, not a whole suit - little more than a jetpack with handles and a gun. And even that makes perfect sense, given that Tony canonically provided unlimited funding for MIT students back in Civil War.

She doesn't actually craft the Ironheart suit until she makes it to Wakanda.

[Ramza00]

See i in turn have a massive disconnect with Wakanda supposedly being a high advanced nation.
But still uses spears. When they should have something like Space Marines.

Dori spears can be as small as a lightsaber handle and then expand to be a melee weapon while simultaneously being a sonic rifle (but in spear-pointy form), but also thrown if you need something to restrain something.

But we also see a non Dori Wakanda agent use a sonic rifle gun (that also does not match a gun's appearance exactly) in the movie.

[Dragonus45]

See i in turn have a massive disconnect with Wakanda supposedly being a high advanced nation.
But still uses spears. When they should have something like Space Marines.

The spears are aesthetically cool and make sense, it's the tactics on display that make me think that even for all it's awesome power Wakanda would lose against most conventional militaries.

[Psyren]

The spears are aesthetically cool and make sense, it's the tactics on display that make me think that even for all it's awesome power Wakanda would lose against most conventional militaries.

In Wakanda's defense, I think they fared better than most conventional militaries would have against the likes of the Children of Thanos or a race of aquatic supersoldiers with seemingly infinite ordnance.

For comparison, the Chitauri stomped a conventional military force, and per Rocket they are a galactic laughingstock, so Wakanda's military is probably a step or two up.

[GloatingSwine]

For comparison, the Chitauri stomped a conventional military force, and per Rocket they are a galactic laughingstock, so Wakanda's military is probably a step or two up.

When?

I know US police are pretty militarised but I don't think the NYPD actually counts as a military force yet.

Dora spears double as long rifles

Nah, they don't. See this historical document for why:



They could be a short range precursor attack in a classic spear formation, but there's no sighting mechanism to turn them into a genuine ranged weapon.

[Wintermoot]

When?

I know US police are pretty militarised but I don't think the NYPD actually counts as a military force yet.

What is your criteria for a military force? By number of active armed personnel they are the 60th largest armed force in the world. By budget they are in the top ten. I'd be curious what criteria you would use that would discount them as a military force.

But by the sound of it someone builds a functional Iron Man suit in their garage?
.

Tony built his first functional Iron Man suit in a cave. He built his second in his garage.


(and, yes, I know Tony had an expansive, rich boy mega-garage. In the movie, Riri's "garage" is actually a sprawling warehouse full of high end technology that impresses the Wakandan super-scientist. So dismissively referring to it as "a garage" is exactly as accurate as dismissively referring to Tony's workshop as "a garage", or the workshop that Vulture made the Vulture suit, Shocker gloves and other technology in as "a garage". Or the blasted out basement Whiplash made his whiplash whips in as "a garage." The MCU is chock full of people building impressive super-dscience technology in garages.

Tony canonically provided unlimited funding for MIT students back in Civil War.

You, or someone else, used this point earlier in the thread. My question is this: If I remember, Tony was fully funding all the current/active projects of everyone at MIT at the time of his presentation in (I think) 2016 (in universe). Between the various time skips/one year laters/etc, I think BP2 must take place in 2026 at the earliest. So even if Riri was blipped (I don't think she was) and MIT has some sort of waiver for student who unblipped to pick up where they left off, then she must be one terrible student to still be in school after that much time. As I don't think she was blipped, I think she was, like, nine when Tony funded those programs. So I don't think she probably benefitted from it.

But I'm making a bunch of assumptions here, who knows.

[Dragonus45]

What is your criteria for a military force? By number of active armed personnel they are the 60th largest armed force in the world. By budget they are in the top ten. I'd be curious what criteria you would use that would discount them as a military force.

Training and equipment for law enforcement is an entirely different animal then the training and equipment for military forces, and is a far more important metric to go by then just size.

[GloatingSwine]

What is your criteria for a military force? By number of active armed personnel they are the 60th largest armed force in the world. By budget they are in the top ten. I'd be curious what criteria you would use that would discount them as a military force.

A military force contains things a police force doesn't. No matter how many spare MRAPs the NYPD gets to play toy soldier with they've not got mortar and artillery support or armoured combat vehicles.

[Tyndmyr]

In Wakanda's defense, I think they fared better than most conventional militaries would have against the likes of the Children of Thanos or a race of aquatic supersoldiers with seemingly infinite ordnance.

For comparison, the Chitauri stomped a conventional military force, and per Rocket they are a galactic laughingstock, so Wakanda's military is probably a step or two up.

The conventional military force would absolutely have beaten the Chitauri. With a nuclear warhead to New York, as shown in Avengers. Loki might have found some trick to survive, but the rest of them die to bullets, they would most certainly die to nuke. It'd just have had a ton of collateral damage.

Wakanda's regular troops, even with laser spears, have not been shown to be very effective. On the one hand, a single shot laser spear is deeply inferior to a regular ol' rifle. On the other, it's kind of necessary for the genre. Superheroes, by their nature, are an exceptional answer to a problem, not a regular one. Batman wouldn't make sense if the Gotham Police had things well in hand, either.

A ton of these things could be dealt with by a traditional military, but the stories are not likely to focus on that. At best, we will have exceptional people within those militaries, such as Cap, Bucky, Shield agents or the Dora Milaje. Even within the small units, there's generally a measure of specialness associated with the focal character.

[GloatingSwine]

Wakanda's weapon designs make sense when you remember that they're supposed to be secret. The point of the spears is that they look like spears so nobody knows that they're actually energy weapons.

Remember that their primary defence is secrecy.

[Bartmanhomer]

I saw the movie in IMAX and I'm going to tell you my thoughts and opinions of the movie:

Spoiler: My Thoughts On Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

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This movie is a tribute to Chadwick Bosman: The actor who play the original Panther movie before he passed away from cancer. His younger sister took his place as the New Black Panther as she fights Namor. What I like about this movie is action-packed and emotional as she remembers her brother's memories I cried during that scene. There wasn't anything that I dislike or hated about this movie. Marvel did a great job tributing Chadwick Bosman. So I'll recommend this movie.

[Psyren]

The conventional military force would absolutely have beaten the Chitauri. With a nuclear warhead to New York, as shown in Avengers. Loki might have found some trick to survive, but the rest of them die to bullets, they would most certainly die to nuke. It'd just have had a ton of collateral damage.

I thought avoiding the bold was implied

Wakanda's regular troops, even with laser spears, have not been shown to be very effective. On the one hand, a single shot laser spear is deeply inferior to a regular ol' rifle. On the other, it's kind of necessary for the genre. Superheroes, by their nature, are an exceptional answer to a problem, not a regular one. Batman wouldn't make sense if the Gotham Police had things well in hand, either.

A ton of these things could be dealt with by a traditional military, but the stories are not likely to focus on that. At best, we will have exceptional people within those militaries, such as Cap, Bucky, Shield agents or the Dora Milaje. Even within the small units, there's generally a measure of specialness associated with the focal character.

We can't conclude on how traditional military would fare against an army of aliens or superhumans based on what we've seen in the MCU, there just isn't enough data. Wakanda needs to continue improving, sure, but that doesn't mean they would have fared worse.

[Ramza00]

Ultimately there is two options here

Spoiler: Limiting Factor

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The surface world could never conquer Talokans due to the fact the Talokanil breathe water and the surface world breathes air.
Likewise the same in reverse.

Thus the limiting factors is
1) Mass Death and/or terrorism
2) The Surface World somehow acquiring Vibranium and thus covert opts back and forth trying to locate a Vibranium mound and then harvesting it, then holding onto it to the point one can develop Vibranium tech based on the raw ore.

Well 1 is just depressing and is very possible, but even this has limiting factors. For example let’s say the surface world tries to nuke an area, well the Talokanil can just move, and it is a big ocean, and the fact it is water based tremendously limits how surface world tech operates for explosive and gun weapons do not operate well in water for water absorbs and displace force in a 3D dimension. Likewise the same in reverse with the Talokanil doing mass death / terrorism on the surface world, their oxygen masks are the limiting factor and there is lots of humans. It is possible for a genocide or just a mass death but I vibe wise feel it is unlikely.

Option 2 is possible if one has a Vibranium detector, but becomes much harder perhaps improbable if there is no Vibranium mode detector in he hands of America and other surface world nations. At the same time an alliance with Wakanda where Wakanda has a Vibranium detector makes it so much harder for a surface world nation to hold onto Vibranium tech other surface nations are developing. A quick Dora Milaje attack either on land, or with cloaking spaceships with tractor beams will make it hard for other surface nations to hold and continue to develop Vibranium based tech.

Of course insane / irrational things can always happen for I feel humans are self-destructive capable (gestures at World War 1 and the inability to de-escalate for 4 years after millions died.) But what I foresee is some form of slow Cold War and not a hot war for Surface Humans and Talokanil are just too different with breathing air vs breathing water.

In sum this is a movie about grief, and the reason for fighting is misunderstanding, miscommunication, projection, and grief in the first place.

[lord_khaine]

Dora spears double as long rifles; they're a perfectly fine stylistic choice. They're also functional; they blend seamlessly with the Dora's combat style, and we see them used for utility in this movie and elsewhere (e.g. Okoye using hers to keep from being knocked off the bridge, Ayo using hers to disarm John in FATWS, etc.)

What's most important though is the aesthetic/theme. They're not supposed to run around with actual guns in their hands; they're not colonizers.

The spears are aesthetically cool and make sense, it's the tactics on display that make me think that even for all it's awesome power Wakanda would lose against most conventional militaries.

The spears dont look like they would be accurate past perhaps 20-30 meters. There is a reason rifles have all the.. stuff. That they do.

And equally its just silly. I would also call it out as silly if a swedish special force were shown running around with axes.
Just because the vikings used them.

(and, yes, I know Tony had an expansive, rich boy mega-garage. In the movie, Riri's "garage" is actually a sprawling warehouse full of high end technology that impresses the Wakandan super-scientist. So dismissively referring to it as "a garage" is exactly as accurate as dismissively referring to Tony's workshop as "a garage", or the workshop that Vulture made the Vulture suit, Shocker gloves and other technology in as "a garage". Or the blasted out basement Whiplash made his whiplash whips in as "a garage." The MCU is chock full of people building impressive super-dscience technology in garages.

Oh wow i hit something sensitive here

Wakanda's weapon designs make sense when you remember that they're supposed to be secret. The point of the spears is that they look like spears so nobody knows that they're actually energy weapons.

Best argument for the bodyguards spear i have seen.
And yeah alright does make sense for them to be low key. Well less if they then blow their cover by laser blasting something with futuristic technology.

Problem is they dont have much other stuff. Didnt see much else of when they got invaded.
Like hover tanks. Or Hunk-buster grade battle suits.

[GloatingSwine]

Problem is they dont have much other stuff. Didnt see much else of when they got invaded.
Like hover tanks. Or Hunk-buster grade battle suits.

That's because they've never faced a context where they might need it until ca. 5 years ago and we've only just started seeing the response to that (Midnight Angel suits) and there's still cultural resistance to even that. Weapons systems don't change overnight (and everyone always plans to fight the last war not the next one).

Like the most serious thing the Wakandans have likely had to deal with in the last 180 years (since the european colonial expansion in that part of Africa) is rhino poachers.

Consider: There are single digit numbers of non-Wakandan people who know that Wakanda isn't a dirt poor stretch of African plain in the first place, and even then they only know that there's a lot of Vibranium there not what's really there, and they're also about the only people who know what Vibranium even is in the first place.

Until Wakanda goes public (and since they keep their holofield on there's a distinct question about how public they're being), nobody knows there is anything there worth sending any kind of force to seize (except, as noted, Rhino horns).

So they've got weapons and tactics which are secret and would be effective against pretty much the last serious opponent they might have faced (colonial era armies using ranked fire with early rifles) and would also be effective against poorly organised basically untrained gangs who weren't expecting their AKs to be blocked by a cloth cape that happens to have a hidden energy shield projector built in.

Now that Wakanda has had its defenses penetrated twice, this is when you'd expect to see them developing new capabilities for widespread use. I still think those capabilities should fit the national character of Wakanda as seen so far though, so covert defenses but more capable and "always on" like full body personal forcefields and powering up their spears and maces (when nobody can shoot you you have a lot less need to shoot them first).

[Tyndmyr]

the fact it is water based tremendously limits how surface world tech operates for explosive and gun weapons do not operate well in water for water absorbs and displace force in a 3D dimension.

Given that Namor is in the trailer, I'm not going to spoiler mere discussion of water.

Water doesn't *absorb* force as such. Water is dense and incompressible. This makes it hard for a bullet to overcome it, but it makes explosives very, very effective, because it conducts the shock wave of the explosion directly, whereas air compresses. This is why depth charges work so well.

The US has actually conducted underwater nuclear experiments. A large blast like this underwater will create a half-mile wide bubble with no water at all in it for about a second, transmitting a truly insane amount of force far, far beyond this from all that instant displacement. After about another second, the bubble is again gone as the insane water pressure at depth slams it all back. Both forces are staggeringly huge, and such an event can easily be detected worldwide as a result.

Land vs water would be roughly as unbalanced as an orbital society vs a planetbound one. The society lower in the gravity well loses hard.

The spears dont look like they would be accurate past perhaps 20-30 meters. There is a reason rifles have all the.. stuff. That they do.

And equally its just silly. I would also call it out as silly if a swedish special force were shown running around with axes.
Just because the vikings used them.

Sights are important, yeah. We largely see the spears used at very short range, and there, sure, it kind of works, but at any further distance, it definitely wouldn't. Because of genre, a lot of stuff happens at fisticuffs range or adjacent, so even using the spears as spears works sorta well enough for a lot of things, but it's a really poor plan when trying an actual war.

The MCU has generally not been amazing at depicting full on wars, and very much prefers to follow the exceptional characters within them. The more it does the latter, the better it generally is. Hulk tearing through the Chitauri in Avengers is a lot more memorable than mobs of folks charging each other(the one strategy that the MCU understands) en masse.

That's because they've never faced a context where they might need it until ca. 5 years ago and we've only just started seeing the response to that (Midnight Angel suits) and there's still cultural resistance to even that. Weapons systems don't change overnight (and everyone always plans to fight the last war not the next one).

That's true, but the movie repeatedly has other governments refer to Wakanda as "the most powerful country on earth" in a military sense.

The "we hid, so we didn't have much of a military" would be reasonable, but cannot be squared with that statement.

Wakanda was able to hide because, as the original Black Panther confirmed, it was a small landlocked country deep inlands in the mountains.

In this movie, it is a coastal country. I....have no idea how the whole country just moved, but it is ridiculously hard to ignore either portrayal.

[lord_khaine]

Well its at least a point for why Wakanda does not have serious military gear.
But even so that instead is an over reliance on a single point of failure. Their secrecy.
And with vibranium being as valuable as it is, the moment the secrecy fails they are at a decent risk of invasion.

While with the "national theme part of using spears". One of the reasons i find it dumb to an almost insulting degree.
Is that we also used spears once. It was a peak weapon at a time. Then we moved on to better weapons.

But well. If they put all their elites in panther suits or something.
Then perhaps spears make a bit more sense. Or well are less dumb at least.

[GloatingSwine]

That's true, but the movie repeatedly has other governments refer to Wakanda as "the most powerful country on earth" in a military sense.

The "we hid, so we didn't have much of a military" would be reasonable, but cannot be squared with that statement.

Wakanda was able to hide because, as the original Black Panther confirmed, it was a small landlocked country deep inlands in the mountains.

In this movie, it is a coastal country. I....have no idea how the whole country just moved, but it is ridiculously hard to ignore either portrayal.

The most powerful country on earth doesn't need to have a large military if it is invulnerable to attack by conventional means (covered by an energy shield) and can assassinate every and any world leader it chooses with advanced stealth aircraft.

(Wakanda is not a coastal country, it is on a large river. The River Tribe is mentioned in both films. Namor and the Talokan attack up the river. The scene where Ramonda calls Namor to distract him are specifically pointed out to be at Cape Verde)

[Tyndmyr]

Cape Verde are...islands, so that doesn't make it any more coherent. I don't recall it being identified as such, though. The queen says she comes out to the veldt, which makes sense in context, but doesn't have anything to do with Cape Verde.

The map shown is:
which isn't anywhere close to Cape Verde either.

Yes, the Golden City is portrayed in this film as having big rivers on either side of it giving it a de facto massive moat, but these were not shown in the Wakanda battle of Infinity War.

It's very definitely some changing geography goin' on. Yeah, there was a river tribe in the original one, but the river that was shown(for the fight for kingship) was definitely in a mountainous area, not the city or near an ocean.

[Ramza00]

Given that Namor is in the trailer, I'm not going to spoiler mere discussion of water.

Water doesn't *absorb* force as such. Water is dense and incompressible. This makes it hard for a bullet to overcome it, but it makes explosives very, very effective, because it conducts the shock wave of the explosion directly, whereas air compresses. This is why depth charges work so well.

The US has actually conducted underwater nuclear experiments. A large blast like this underwater will create a half-mile wide bubble with no water at all in it for about a second, transmitting a truly insane amount of force far, far beyond this from all that instant displacement. After about another second, the bubble is again gone as the insane water pressure at depth slams it all back. Both forces are staggeringly huge, and such an event can easily be detected worldwide as a result.

Land vs water would be roughly as unbalanced as an orbital society vs a planetbound one. The society lower in the gravity well loses hard.

Okay but can you do the same thing without nukes? Using more traditional things such as Depth Charges?

[GloatingSwine]

Cape Verde are...islands, so that doesn't make it any more coherent. I don't recall it being identified as such, though. The queen says she comes out to the veldt, which makes sense in context, but doesn't have anything to do with Cape Verde.

Specifically, Cape Verde is a set of islands the opposite side of the Atlantic from where Nakia was infiltrating the prison. The whole movie shows that Wakandans can go anywhere in the world extremely quickly. Ramonda met Namor on neutral ground to distract him. The location is in the onscreen text (Curral Velho, Cape Verde).

The map there would put Wakanda somewhere on the Turkwel river.

[lord_khaine]

assassinate every and any world leader it chooses with advanced stealth aircraft.

Thats not a very significant feat.
A man with a grudge managed to assasinate the Wakanda leader.
And as we also saw that only made the retaliation more furious.

Okay but can you do the same thing without nukes? Using more traditional things such as Depth Charges?

Of course you can. Well you possibly need a bigger bomb for the same size explosion.
But that also hardly matter when you can always resort to using nukes for it.

[Sapphire Guard]

Think I enjoyed this more than most of the MCU. Glad to see a conflict actually end in a peace agreement for once.

Spoiler

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They are weirdly casual about killing US police, though, and the whole scene only happens because they didn't take one of their invisible jets for some reason, or have a pilot nearby.

The thing about the BP suit is it's almost completely invulnerable, so it's hard to have meaningful stakes in the fight scenes. Addressed that this time by keeping it offstage except against someone who actually could penetrate it. Probably only works this once, though.

Isn't the heart shaped herb poisonous to most people? Hard to mass produce.

Shuri is small, but her powers don't come from her physical size, so that doesn't matter.

As for succession crisis, the kingship is done by ritual combat, not blood. The kids can just fight and whoever wins takes the crown.

Wakanda was invaded with by aliens and Atlanteans. There's nothing they could upgrade to that would have helped. Namor and Thanos would have wrecked them anyway.

[Peelee]

Given that Namor is in the trailer, I'm not going to spoiler mere discussion of water.

Water doesn't *absorb* force as such. Water is dense and incompressible. This makes it hard for a bullet to overcome it, but it makes explosives very, very effective, because it conducts the shock wave of the explosion directly, whereas air compresses. This is why depth charges work so well.

The US has actually conducted underwater nuclear experiments. A large blast like this underwater will create a half-mile wide bubble with no water at all in it for about a second, transmitting a truly insane amount of force far, far beyond this from all that instant displacement. After about another second, the bubble is again gone as the insane water pressure at depth slams it all back. Both forces are staggeringly huge, and such an event can easily be detected worldwide as a result.

Land vs water would be roughly as unbalanced as an orbital society vs a planetbound one. The society lower in the gravity well loses hard.

Because humans are kinda sorta good at appreciating large numbers but bad at actually conceptualizing large numbers and we tend to group them to make smaller numbers (eg half a mile as a measure of distance is nice and small), a half-mile-wide bubble works out to roughly 9.63 billion cubic feet, or 72 billion gallons, weighing 600 billion pounds.

Or, for our more metric-minded friends, 272 million cubic meters or 272 billion liters weighing 272 billion kilograms (why can't we have nice things in the US, like metric?)

Even if we halve it and assume a half-bubble centered just below the surface (I'm not sure how the forces would actually disperse at that point but unless you want to look the math up and do it yourself, I'm happy to say we collectively don't care for this purpose and are simplifying just to make the point), that works out to 300 billion pounds or 136 billion kilos. Which I think we can all agree is an absolute ****ton of water. And all of this water was moved in one second, and then moved back the next second.

I'm going to take a moment of silence to respect the sheer insanity of the forces involved here. And let us all know that no, you do not want to be in the water when there is a nearby explosion in the water. You're not going to have a good time.

I actually had 90% of this post written where I showed all my work but I accidentally closed the tab and am on my phone and man, I'm not doing that again. That pissed me right off let me tell you.

[lord_khaine]

I dont think its a spoiler at this point Wakanda both have fought aliens and Atlantheans.
And its not true nothing would have helped.

Iron man grade suits would have helped.
Vision grade androids would have helped.

Hulk Buster Suits would likely have helped a lot.

[GloatingSwine]

I dont think its a spoiler at this point Wakanda both have fought aliens and Atlantheans.
And its not true nothing would have helped.

Iron man grade suits would have helped.
Vision grade androids would have helped.

Hulk Buster Suits would likely have helped a lot.

Yeah, but you only find out about things that would have helped in impossible-to-predict situations via hindsight and not everyone always agrees that that specific thing is the right way to address the capability once you know you need it.

Iron Man style individual combat suits would have helped, and that's why Shuri starts building some, but she can't force their acceptance on anyone especially not the prinicipal people who she mosts need to accept them (the military elite).

[Ramza00]

I dont think its a spoiler at this point Wakanda both have fought aliens and Atlantheans.
And its not true nothing would have helped.

Iron man grade suits would have helped.
Vision grade androids would have helped.

Hulk Buster Suits would likely have helped a lot.

No they would not, for this is a narrative and one is talking about tension. One has to have a story where things fail in order to keep the tension.

Especially a story with genocide in the background. In some stories people do everything right, and people still die.