Grrl Power #1418 – Karmedy
Destra eventually gets it. “Oh, because they are slaves! Yes, this amuses.”
Garamm and Lapha aren’t in a position to quit their current employment arrangement, but they are getting housed, fed, trained and paid, (albeit in U.S. dollars,) but you try explaining the difference between that and slavery to a Hell Arch Duchess.
I don’t know about you, but telling me that the ringer you want to enter into the giant battle royale might cause the galactic government to sanction the ringer’s planet because she’s just that powerful is a pretty decent sales pitch. I’d be like, “Yeah, I’ll put a sawbuck on her.”
I think I’ve said this before, but the Xevoarchy isn’t a capital T “The Galactic Government,” they’re more like a mandatory UN slash NATO slash INTERPOL and a Federal Reserve. Everyone’s welcome to govern themselves however they see fit, but as soon as you start flying into someone else’s space or try and sell your particular space bread at market or try to borrow money from a species the next star system over, that’s the Xeevoarchy’s bailiwick. Every space faring race has to contribute a portion of their navy to the Xeev fleet, which makes maintenance and refueling and all that a prime example of Why Not To Do It That Way, but keeping every race invested in the set up is important. There are loose formulas dictating how many ships a race is required to contribute. It’s not a flat percentage, because the race with the most ships would accrue undue pecking power, and races that only have 20 ships to their species probably need every one of them. Also it’s kept a bit loosie-goosie so races don’t try and game the system by skirting ship tribute rules by not building that one hundred and first ship, which they would then need to contribute, or by decommissioning an old scout ship the same day they launch their new Planet Crusher Meganaut class vessel.
And they’re generally not over-reactive and calling for Exterminatus or even crazy sanctions at the drop of a hat. If anything they tend to be a little slow to react, but there’s no harm in being a little cautious. Between Supers presenting a new galactic enigma and Sydney sporting her by-now-everyone-assumes Nth tech baubles in Earth media and a video with about a grillion views on UniverseTube, Terra’s secrets are more or less out there.
Kobold Sydney vote incentive! Is finally done!
So… you know, check it out. Oh, and as usual, Patreon has a scales only version.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
“Terra’s secrets are more or less out there.”
That ship has sailed -Xevoarchy
“‘The genitals are unveiled,” as Cora put it.
only to find out, their measuring stick uses a higher multiplier
Wait, why would a planet that can’t really defend itself from interstellar threats want to scare the galactic Interpol?
Sure they can shoot a fel carrier down before it lands but I don’t see this earth deflecting a spread of cee-sabots traveling at 90% of the speed of light before they sterilize the planet – especially given that even speedsters would likely not find out about the problem until after they impact.
And that’s before we consider all the FTL weapons of mass destruction – a planet without strict military control of its solar system to intercept incoming light-speed weapons (can’t deflect what you can’t see until it hits you) for at least light hours from any populated planet is incredibly fragile as basically anyone with access to a ship capable of launching projectileis or traveling at a notable fraction of the speed of light could sterilize the planet even with Maxima on it and in close communication with NASA and SETI.
They wouldn’t, that’s the whole point of Maxima not entering as Maxima.
I struggle to conceive that her identity would remain secret after the performance in the arena, not to speak of this reveal. Even if this were not way too many people to keep a secret, they lack a sufficient cover story for her absurd power to stand up to scrutiny on a galactic level, especially when she is put up by a freelancer who is notorious for being very familiar with holograms (using them as her prosthetics).
Her disguise seems relatively paper thin for that level of scrutiny.
> Even if this were not way too many people to keep a secret…
And there is the rub. Just the original people involved in this conspiracy was stretching the limits of successfully keeping it a secret (Cora’s base crew, the Archon people on the ship, people up the military chain who had to sign off on this, anyone back at base who figured it out, Deus because Harem is a quintuple agent, a few others). Now add in all these other crew leaders and their crews. Next any of the other support personnel on the star forge who overhears a conversation, banking staff who figure out the reason for sudden large money transfers, etc. It could remain mostly a secret up to and maybe just after the fights, but there’s no way this many people keeps this secret long after the fight is over. Conspiracies just don’t work that way.
Long time hench here, I am wondering who Harem is really, really, REALLY working for. Because I’ve seen some things… My first boss in that nothing but feathers and sequins outfit they thought the crew didn’t know about doesn’t count for reasons. Also, they didn’t know I saw or knew about it, heavens rest that merry soul. (did not cry writing that, a bit sad yeah. Best dental plan ever, new boss barely covers basic medical)
Does Harem know?
That’s… probably the most insightful question I’ve seen asked on the subject. Even if she thinks she’s totally loyal to Archon, Deus is literally super-smart, canonically. It’s just very plausible that he’s playing her way more than she realizes.
Of course, this is what happens when you make an agency a one-shop stop for policing, counter-intelligence and covert ops. Arc-Dark needs a character codenamed Honey Potts to pull this kind of stunt, not a half-trained cop recruit who is still dealing with her own hormones.
I mean, presumably they wouldn’t be on the station if they hadn’t been very thoroughly vetted by Dabbler as being absolutely trustworthy and able to keep any secret. Otherwise why would she let them know where the star forge is, never mind give them access to it?
I know that doesn’t really solve the problem, but far more people were involved in the development of the F117 Nighthawk and the closest they came to a leak at any point was a coffee mug with the nose cone of the thing poking through a cloud as an inside joke, and that got killed before it reached the public. And the Nighthawk isn’t even that great of a fighter jet, just the stealth nature of it was the only part that warranted secrecy at the time.
Max can win without using her “big-bang” attack, no flight, and use the best defensive hard-light shields to make her look just really really good. This whole deal is for her to be a ringer in this competition to win easily. I’m surprised that Sydney didn’t use her light-hook to stop Gaxgy when he started to get grabby, but she knows Max can defend herself. Plus, Max slamming him into a bulk-head with a “light” slap would get the point across. Keep in mind that every captain in the room is like Cora, border-line pirates. If they could swallow their personal pride for 5 minutes they’d all see huge $$ in their eyes.
Pretty sure Halo is still in her diggy diggy hole disguise.
We’ll see how long that lasts, but actually using the orbs would blow that cover.
Yeah, big hat man knows, but who will he tell?
Part of the purpose of that disguise was that Halo could use the more discreet orbs (telepresence/truesight, air generator) by bringing them into her actual hands under the big glowbod hands (p1387).
But there’s a world of difference between Maxima showing up in all her golden glory and wiping the floor with the competition, and a spreading rumor of “I heard that the Mysterious Stranger that won the fighting competition is actually that Terran who shot down that carrier!” “Pfft! That holo was faked. I’ve seen some holoshops in my day. You can tell by the phoxels.”
The footage was definitely edited, just think about it, primitive planet being recorded by Galactic Geographic wildlife cameras, as a Fel Cruiser just happens to attack and suddenly you got a dramatic closeup of one of the primates singlehandedly taking out that cruiser with an anime ki blast…?
It’s supposed to be high end disguising gear run by experienced operators(high end enough it can apperantly trick an entire race in thinking someone is a princess)
Her identity only has to remain a secret for long enough for the bets to pay out. Limited-time secrets, especially when the keepers of those secrets stand to personally make a lot of money, those stand a reasonable chance.
Running from the enraged bookies afterwards is a totally different problem.
She cold be disguised as a robot or mech or person in power armor, as has been mentioned a couple times. It’s UNLIMITED.
Issue isn’t the disguise, honestly, at least not during the fight.
But there is no universe in which the heretofore unheard-of champion of a bout like this isn’t immediately the subject of every form of magical and high-tech investigation possessed by every interstellar gambling op in the galaxy.
Honestly, I think she’d be better off posing as someone specific, whose death was known to one of Cora’s extended gang, here, but isn’t known to the general public. Then when people start investigating, they ultimately discover that corpse, and lose interest (assuming the corpse looks about the right age, of course).
Rest of your points are already argued, so I’ll just add this. Maxima WILL NOT be “put up by a freelancer who is notorious for being very familiar with holograms”. Cora is going to use proxies. Maybe revealing this to station crew is her attempt to get those trusted proxies on board with the plan. See page 1369. link.
If they have one Maxima, who says they don’t have more?
That’s what they probably fear.
Look at the Marvel and DC Comic Universes.
And now consider what could happen if there were no Supervillains? What happens when everyone works together?
Let’s say you have Doctor Doom, Iron Man and whoever makes the Mutant Hunting Sentinels work together. How long before they create robots that wipe the floor with the Kree Sentries?
And that’s just the beginning.
Be it Marvel or DC, Earth could become the center of a galaxy-spanning Empire in short order.
Earth in Grrl Power is still in the beginning stages of becoming a Superhero world and look what they already have.
When the comic first started supers were known too be out there but generally in hiding. It’s been roughly two and a half years since Arc-swat started and waved a red flag to any supers who think they are tough enough. Then aliens show up and there is a super power battle in the streets. Plus Africa is being taken over by a super and more supers are setteling.
It’s a really dangerous and hectic time for humanity. People are trying to cope the bet they can, while this group of supers keeps waving a red flag to the Galaxy.
Well Comic 4 when Syd was a Corporal bottom says “Let me back up a few months” She still a Private. She didn’t say let me back up a few years… the space oops was 53 days, week here and there from what I recall the comic saying for various story arcs. I really have no idea how long has passed in Comic time.
Yeah, Dave has since said we can just forget about that framing device.
I missed where he said that, but I was wondering about it anyway. Still, while there have been a few time jumps here and there (the 53 day portal, finishing training, Deus having time to roll his conquered countries into his own, etc.), we’re probably under a year passed in comic time. Remember that the first single day in comic time took something like 5 years of real time. Meeting Sydney, bank heist, meeting Archon, press conference, desert demonstration, steak house battle/brawl, to Sydney calling Dabbler who was in the middle of “recharging”.
A definitive answer, or at least approximation, from Dave on this would be awesome. Is Obama still president?
He has to be. if the Great Orange One were in office, he would’ve touched off a civil war by making an inappropriate comment to, or about, Maxima, and then being removed from office and the planet, permanently.
It’s amazing to me that there are both people who can’t remember what happened a single page ago, or are even unaware of things that happened on the current page, and then there are people obsessed with a single line from an early page that is really just not that important.
People have the amazing ability of remembering only what they need to remember to back up what ever hairbrain theory or idea they have, while forgetting anything that counters it
It’s comic book time, she’s been in there three months ago for the current year, whatever this year is.
I like imagining the entire comic is still Sydney/et al playing that RPG that we started with, they’re just all roleplaying their characters reallllly well
People who occasionally reread the comic from the beginning will have read the the first few pages several times by now. If you read through the archives once per year, you’d have read those first few pages fifteen times, but the last 100 pages only once.
Think it’s a few months from her perspective, which could discard the time she jumped past.
There was a What If? Centered on the Vision being a global AI where exactly that happened. Humanity went to the stars, and kicked the shit out of all the other empires out of there under the Vision’s leadership.
Actually, it was a What If The High Evolutionary’s (or how ever spelt his name) bomb went off causing humanity (‘normals’, supers and mutants) to evolve further
And it was Wolverine who lead the evolved mutants (supers as well?) into space destroying everything that they came across (including the Celestials)
Vision remained behind because he was a construct so wasn’t affected, eventually merging with the planet itself and saving it from the Universe’s destruction and rebirth
It’s why the real crazys who go to prison are killed off right away if they are not separated and put in a holding cell.
To protect every one else in the from being randomly killed.
In other words, if the planet has to many S class threats or SSS threats they my destroy the world to keep the rest of the Galaxy safe.
Problem is: if they decide to go all Alari Prime on Dirt, they have to make sure they get all the pesky supers, or it could go really bad for everyone not from Dirt
Did your phone autocorrect “Earth” to “Dirt” or something?
As someone I remember reading a comic about once said. Stupidity he should hurt
How Many have seen her beam open that fel ship? Or was that Cora and crew only?
The space police ships that went chasing after the Fel saw it and reported in {p769).
Yep, and one of the responses from the crew leaders on seeing the video was, “Wait, that was real?” So yeah, at a minimum they’d heard of it.
There was a great arc in Guardians of the Galaxy in the 2000s where a space prison ship crashed on Earth and when the prisoners realized where they were, rather than trying to escape and hide, they wanted nothing more than to get the hell off the planet, even if it meant being recaptured. Drax was one of them, for reference as to how powerful these aliens tended to be.
Hm, was that before or after /hfy became popular?
Because that’s pretty much the whole channel.
Also the whole “Humans are space orcs”, which is pretty old. I first saw it about 10 years ago and it was old then.
It went viral… space viral… galatic viral…
One person being able to down one, ship isn’t a threat to a fleet, just blow up that person before you proceed.
One person being able to down a low end ship, and being able to shrug off any hit your fleet could throw at them and the possibility that its actually multiple people that could do this.
That’s the threat she’s hiding.
Detla is also associated with Archon now, I believe (not sure if she works for Max but I think so?) so shouldn’t it be three? I like her.
Agreed, Detla is fun, and deserves mention. On the other hand, she didn’t have a bounty and was more or less tricked into joining the scrimmage, so I think it’s okay to not include her among the mercenaries’ number.
She did not escape capture (we saw her bound while Maxi was busy with Henchie)
Detla was technically among those “captured and turned over to Cora for bounties”. Cora chose instead to release her, after Detla explained her reasons for participation. That she is also now working for Maxima does not render either of Maxima’s statements incorrect.
The Xevoarchy is “more like a … a Federal Reserve”?
Oh, you mean a banking cartel!
I get it now.
A reserve system is there to help smooth out boom/bust economic cycles (a really bad thing before they existed) and to help facilitate trade between different currencies by providing a medium and center of exchange. Without a reserve system, it is REALLY easy to bankrupt any particular bank through bank runs.
A banking cartel is there to say you will only take out loans through us, we can charge whatever interest rate we want, and have to give you squat back.
Federal Reserve System: a multipurpose bank cartel.
Fiat money, backed by the income tax.
Banking risk is loaning the same money too many times over.
Taxpayers bail out the banks EVERY TIME THEY FAIL.
The Federal Reserve banks bear no risk.
Reference: “The creature from Jekyl Island”.
Banking risk is much, much more than that. Vulnerability to interest rates going up and down is the clearest one. Bank runs on their outstanding credit and turning it in are another, and how you normally take them down. You also have derivative exposure today, which is harder to break, but can be done, and brought down one of the big Swiss banks. Outstanding mortgages are easier to control through mandated reserves, i.e. there’s only so many times you can loan out money.
Banks go out of business if they can’t loan money, as well as if they loan too much. Without interest paying the bills, they fold.
Taxpayers bail out some of the banks because the alternative is far worse, but you’d have to know your history to go back and see that (think the Great Depression, ten years of just economic hell). Those banks DO pay the Federal Reserve back.
Fiat money is used because there isn’t enough raw material to make coinage with sitting around to represent all the monetary value in the world, especially in the electronic age. There is no viable currency out there on a national level that is not fiat. It all either got sucked dry of material wealth (which almost happened to the US Gold Reserves) or simply is so small its basically a barter item. Gold backed currencies are MORE vulnerable than fiat currencies, not less, because of how easily the market for the reserves can be manipulated.
The entire value of gold and silver mined throughout history is less than the amounts traded back and forth in one day on the foreign exchange boards. Gold and silver themselves are fiat, because their value is considerably less than what they are actually traded for!
(It does not take $4k to dig an ounce of gold out of the ground, etc, which is gold’s ‘real’ value). Gold’s price wobbles erratically based on speculation, and that’s NOT what you want your currency to do.
I agree that bailouts are necessary, but I do hate that they come without much consequence, for banks or other ‘too big to fail’ corporations. I’d much rather see the creation of an ‘economic death penalty’ for corporate board members involved with bailed-out institutions: “We’re taking all your investment assets, and most of your liquid ones, too. You are barred by law from ever holding a position on any corporate board ever again, and you cannot purchase stock, bonds, or other SEC-regulated investment vehicles. All stock is now rescinded. The Fed chairman will take the bank into receivership, and appoint a new board to manage the accounts and put the bank on a stable footing. Once this is done, it will once again be made into a publicly traded company with an IPO. Maximum initial purchase by any one entity will be 5% of the total value.”
I’m sure there’s a lot that would need to be tweaked in the above, but the concept that the people who drove the bank (or other company) into the ground are the ones who should lose the most is something I’m pretty set on.
There you have it, folks.
The snowblind and the angry cannot agree on what to do about people taking advantage of a fiat-money financial system to have everyone else pay for their excesses and mistakes.
The fiat money people also tell us that we should expect an ongoing inflation rate of 2% to 3% as natural. But that is just another hidden tax on your money and assets.
Personally, I think that sweeping the details of life’s risks under a carpet of fiat money is not helpful, and enables dishonesty.
So how do we know that Garamm and Lapha won’t use their positions to gather intel on Earth supers, then escape at the first opportunity or Lapha would do ANYTHING to have Archon’s intelligence branch compromised?!?
Lapha doesn’t want to permadie, and Garamm seems to like having steady, relatively safe work and good pay. They’re “captive,” but also comfortable enough to be encouraged to NOT disrupt that comfort.
Maxima specifically used the option to gather intel as a “honeypot” when “offered” the “opportunity” for Lapha!
The fact that the Xevoarchy is probably still trying to figure out how to react to Earth supers and what’s up with Sydney’s orbs* makes for a high-stakes crisitunity.
*Obvious suspicion of Nth tech, tempered by embarrassing memories of however many times some crackpot or con artist or honestly mistaken researcher announced an Nth tech discovery.
Both Maxima and Sydney would be Class S++ targets for a galaxy of criminal enterprises and less-than moral space governments. Given the number of planets in the galaxy vs Earth, it’s a small miracle why there aren’t a million ships parked somewhere in Sol space with covert teams attempting to kidnap them. Maxima is a hard target, but Sydney without her shield up seems pretty easy.
Also the less-super Supers might be abductable.
Catch/Scan/Release to see just what is going on?
To see if it’s duplicatable to other Species? Monitizable?
There’s a chance it just doesn’t make sense to any Alien science.
Are the Supernaturals considered Supers??
Supernaturals are not considered ‘supers’ by the terms used on Earth. (Note that Demons like Dabbler and Angels are supernaturals.) That said, potential alien abductors might not realize that.
And now I’m picturing some alien mobster that abducts a vampire or random feral back to their deep-space hideout, and then there’s an incident, and now there’s a massive infestation…. (Oooh, vampires discovering that only their own ‘sun’ counts as such, and other stars are just that, no matter how close, would be… a potential development.)
Criminal enterprises are just as slow as normal enterprises and there is very little infrastructure for getting to earth.
Okay everybody knows Max can down an warship.
Now figure out which soft targets exist that could do this too, get the assets to capture them on the ground(remember they’re probably being protected by people who can down at least on airship) and smuggle them away.
Without appearing on the radar of interested governments, which are currently negotiating there.
Also you can only do that through a single wormhole that’s being actively monitored for too advanced tech.
Is totally possible for a criminal enterprise, but not without sub-godfather approval
Wonder if it’s bugs or functioning as intended: but voting just gives “security verification failed” messages. Repeatedly. Across all the comics I follow.
So, dunno if they borked their site, or are just using a “bug” to force ppl to register to vote. And that ain’t happening.
I just voted with no problem.
but did you notice the fleet of nondescript vans behind you afterwards?
I mean, um, good for you!
So are they laughing at the mercenary’s misfortune or from disbelief?
Also is Destra’s translator just bad, or does she just not have much of a language?
It can be both. Hell, it’s probably both. As seasoned adventurers I’m sure they have all run into a situation where something looked harmless and then kick someone’s ass. The ability to properly judge strength is impotent in a field where you constantly face the unknown. On the other hand it is just as funny that a species may have jumped a few rungs up the tech ladder because a group of hot shots got captured by a bunch of yokels.
If it’s a limited cussing repertoire. Sydney could give her lessons.
Given the comic’s title – Karmady – I woiuld say their misfortune.
Probably disbelief: following page will have one of the laughers asking “Your kidding, right?”
I really doubt it’s disbelief. Some idiot mercenaries getting jumped by criminals mid-op and then coming back for more and getting captured and conscripted is entirely believable. And worth laughing at.
The disbelief is that they were jumped by some random, unaccounted-for, group of criminals
Makes them start to wonder if, just maybe, every Dirtling is a Super
Kinda like wandering into a random bar and pulling out a .22 snub-nose pistol, and finding out that everyone in the bar has a bigger firearm
Of course the next page probably won’t have that happen
Maybe the trope of a villain getting beaten by a hero, and becoming the hero’s sidekick, is just as big a trope in space as it is on Earth.
One of those last panels reactions is an odd one out.
I have to admit, seeing a cute blond haired, green eyed elf angle, eating a space burrito, wasn’t exactly on my list of openi g a comic, but I gotta admit, it’s really nice. Hope we get to see more of her, in all senses of the term…
Ahh an Avariel!!! She’s just as cute as Javelina.
And then, someone asks about Sidney. And Cora and Maxima start to laugh maniacally. To everybody´s dismay.
pretty sure the whole univtube already got the video of maxima destroying one of the most crazy species out there
Do they have footage of that fight? Seeing Maxima powerwalk towards Lapha while under the effect of a stasis gun might pull anyone doubting her physical abilities over the line to help invest big.
Max could easily use her super-speed and re-arrange each and every one in the room before they knew what was happening. She’s hoping to not have to demonstrate her skills on-board ship, I think Cora wouldn’t like major structural damage… Think when Captain Marval when she flew though those ships like tissue paper. Max isn’t quite as powerful as her, but damned close. (Max can’t {yet} fly in space without oxygen or a flight suit, or FTL anywhere in the known universe.)
We know they have at least some video from Max shooting down the Fel supercarrier because they’re showing it to the group.
The stasis beam thing was a different fight (Lapha’s group trying to abduct Maxima while an ARCHON team was in New York City watching for trouble when a group of openly-revealed alien tourists were visiting). They might have images of that, given the presence of people with poor survival skills hanging around to record the battle instead of getting clear (p908).
The attack happened right in front of a press conference at Archon headquarters in with several news cameras focused on it. Video was out there already. The video today would have also included recordings from Dabbler’s eye and maybe Archon security cameras.
The attack in NYC would have been recorded by Dabbler, and maybe a few cell phones, but I doubt enough was focused specifically on Max long enough to show her moving under the stasis beam. Without knowing more people would assume it had simply failed rather than Max depleting a full battery.
Presumably Dabbler’s cybereye recordings are locked down behind some pretty good securely; she’d be a *horrible* security risk otherwise. That said, no security is 100% perfect…
Maybe Cora should have led with that? Instead of saying Max could beat all of the adventurers present, say that she scares the galactic government. Pretty sure none of the adventurers have that on their list of achievements.
“… I have the death sentence on twelve systems.” is not the brag you make it turns out in places where strange adventurers gather.
“…l have an eleventy zillion quatloo price on my head in twelve systems” would be much worse for obvious reasons.
Now I’m reminded of a bit from *Knights of the Dinner Table* where Bob and Dave got insulted that the prices on their *Cattlepunk* characters’ heads weren’t higher, so they started committing increasingly outrageous crimes to rectify the situation. They soon got the prices high enough that Brian and Sara decided to have *their* characters capture them and bring them in to collect…
If I were a glactic government.
I would be scared by this group.
Backed by the daughter of a powerful matriarch, possess the galactic equivalent of a RAM factory, capable to defeat pirate faction and feels comfy openly killing muggers.
I could imagine the Xevoarchy has an origin story that almost reads like a comedy. Like, way back in the “Old Era”, you’ve got the space equivalent of the Ea-nasir tablet but for Flux Capacitors or somethin’. The whole galaxy is a wild west of chaos and confusion, everyone is paranoid but everyone also wants cool alien stuff. And the beginnings of the whole Xevoarchy was started by something so simple like “The Galaxy’s Best Sweet Rolls” company having something everyone wants but not big enough that they can just lay down the law through force alone.
So it starts with basic reinforcement: If you don’t obey these rules we just won’t ship any more rolls into your system because we just can’t TRUST it! Then some other company wants in, they offer some perk to the company to get looped into their deal with a system that’s been giving them trouble. And slowly but surely the process kept growing, re-organizing to accomodate that growth, over and over again until after all the iterations it turned into the referee between so many parties it was no longer a sweet roll company but a galactic trade union and they never even noticed when it happened.
I need to start using the word Bailiwick more in general conversation.
Are they laughing at the fate of the kidnappers, or are they laughing at Maxima for believing that the prisoners working for her are not lying about their motives and intents.
They are laughing that a Crew went to some backwater world and got their asses handed them like a bunch of noobs.
While set in space, they’re still culturally similar to DnD adventurers and this is a very classic situation that is incredibly embarrassing for said criminals on multiple levels. They attempted a heist and not only did they got robbed by a backwater planets own criminals, with most of them handed over to a bounty hunter, but they had the moronic audacity to try again with a pittance of their resources and numbers, only to end up under the employment of their quarry.
If that happened to any of one those present, they’d never be able to live it down or show their faces ever again.
CA t do ‘Max’s Angels’…
‘Max’s Minions’..?
One of them is a succubus, and Sydney’s pretty impish, so –
Max’s, well, Demons?
The fact that the Xevoarchy is a space UN makes scaring them significantly more impressive. Frightening a Galactic Empire enough that they want to wipe you out is easy enough, as a rule they tend to do that even to factions they’re not particularly intimidated by. But with space UN, you have to make every significant member of it freak out to the point where they’re not tempted to veto it just to screw over the rival that they’ve hated since forever, which I assume is the main activity that happens there.
“Every space faring race has to contribute a portion of their navy to the Xeev fleet, which makes maintenance and refueling and all that a prime example of Why Not To Do It That Way”
You know, multiple races could use the same class of ships, or at least hash out some standards for fuel and ammo. Xevoarchy could send a bunch of bureaucrats to Earth to outline fuels for the fusion reactors, common railgun calibers, and more to align humanity to universal standardization without entirely nuking the Prime Directive.
Destra noticed blue cape guy and the 2 goths are nowhere obvious.
Reasons I can guess:
-Invisibility
-Teleportation (regular or hiding in nearby dimension)
-Being on the ceiling
-Epic stealth fooling even Destra who should know all three of these people’s tricks by now — unless she is, hum, a little like heatwave “processing information in a different order”?
What would the Xeevs think if the Fel released footage of their loss to a tiny humanoid with floating balls?
The planet wreckers weren’t Fel, they were someone else. Neither Dabbler nor Cora identified them as such.
I’m calling it now, Deus has ALSO entered a Ringer into this fight (though with perhaps less obfuscation), who will fight Maxi in the semi-finals. It will be far closer than either side expected. The Finals, of course, will be a blowout against some random warbot, handled in a single panel or possibly offscreen entirely.
That or Maxima convinces him to pull out for the reasons mentioned on this page (with suitable recompense of course. Even when he loses, Deus still wins), but it’s implied D’s entrant could have put up a pretty close fight. This sets up a future confrontation and firms up D’s threat level.
We’ve already seen D on Fracture Station, and with his megalomania, I can’t see him NOT getting involved.
Who else would he enter but his pet eldritch horror?
Seriously, it’d be perfection to have Vale and Max recognize each other on the battlefield because of some chance comment. Then they get serious, proceed to level whatever barriers were erected around the fight zone as a safety measure without even breaking a sweat, resulting in a mass panic to retreat to a safer distance, like, say, another planet. And then they destroy one another’s disguises, resulting in a dual exposure to everyone.
Nah, My money is Harem let it slip and he couldn’t resist slipping in a small bet of his own- with a tell only Maxima might easily recognize. He’s might be a tad megalo, but he’s also supposed to have super intelligence.
Where is the angel-like character’s other ear in panel 1?
What ear?
Her people only have one ear
She’s only half-angel.
Thanks to these negotiations, maybe we can get a website called AskXeevs.
I don’t know about that description of the Xevoarchy. It sounds like what the UN, and before that the League of Nations, and after that NATO, were set up to be (some differences in goals, but still pretty similar).
And we’ve seen what those are like, after one human lifetime (two for the League).
I’m assuming the Xevoarchy has lasted (somehow) a lot longer than that.
So I guess the space people nations are a *lot* more rational and put together than the human nations.
Or else this is what the Xevoarchy is *supposed* to be like, and the actuality is…different than that.
I think the assumption is that if a people has made it to space, they’ve presumably achieved a level of intelligence, cooperation, and restraint to pass through the great filters, and avoid destroying themselves. If they’ve made it that far, they’ve built social and legal systems that will last, or overcome whatever makes them fall apart.
That was even stated by Cora during her press conference–we have to get to the stars on our own, because any species that can’t get past the filters isn’t welcome in space, anyway.
I believe Sydney is not yet in the open as far as having Nth tech go or even being above B-rank (let alone higher)
On Earth her power are known to be connected to Orbs (but are those even recordable)
As far as Xevoarchy goes they know someone from Earth traveled to Fracture, but not who and how.
Also, Nth tech is still more legend that confirmed reality. As I noted, there have no doubt been enough bogus claims of Nth tech discoveries to muddy the waters.
That said, Sydney is definitely going to attract some unwelcome galactic attention (well, already has; fortunately Lapha bit off more than she could chew).
Yes, Prison Labor is basically Indentured Servitude.
That’s why the 13th Amendment specifically says that is legal as a punishment for crimes commited.
With the unlimited category, being truly unlimited, I really want to see a BOLO.
Is anybody else thinking that Deus will probably show up with Kevin (AKA Vehemence) as his own ringer?
I can’t imagine a better environment for Kevin than being in the middle of a galaxy-wide unlimited-class combat contest. I mean, seriously. That’s RIGHT up his alley, and ought to charge him up into being a seriously brutal contender.
At that point, that’s not just “a brutal contender”, that’s “planetary-level threat”.
Vehemence could give Maxima a run for her money with a (admittedly high-level) 50-person brawl. If the arena has ten times as many and much higher level than the average super hero, “scaring the xevoarchy” will be way too weak to describe what’ll happen.
Problem is, Maxi showed that Kev isn’t unbeatable, even if he hides in a corner (like he did during the Restaurant Rumble) there is still a possibility that someone could do more damage to him than he could survive (also, remember just how he was defeated… both times)
I don’t get it. Missing something so I have to re-read the entire thing now….
… Missing what?
The joke on how two people thought that robbing the donut shop went poorly because the police station was next door deciding to thus rob the building next door…
The name ‘Destra’ just makes me think of Destra Garcia the Soca Singer aka Queen of Bacchanal.
dear santa, i’ve been a good boy this year, what i wish for christmas is a maxima on a dragon hoard vote incentive
(pretty please?)
*imagining every single gold coin stretching out into a yawning Maxima*