Grrl Power #1335 - Hare brained?
Added 2025-03-03 11:00:14 +0000 UTCThank you for the support! You guys are awesome!
The concrete setting guy's actual power is to accelerate any sort of chemical reaction without any weird side effects. I mean, no weird side effects like weakening the chemical bonds of the end product. And yes, that would make him insanely dangerous if he used his powers on humans. Fortunately, "organic chemistry" is a little trickier for him to mess with. I put that in quotes because I didn't mean in in the literal dictionary definition, i.e. chemistry involving carbon compounds. I meant organic like messing with living things. Which... a whole lot of living thing chemistry is going to involve carbon, granted. But I mean like, making someone metabolize all the fat in their body in 30 seconds is way, way harder for him than, say, making the propellent in a bullet cartridge expire like it's sat on the shelf for 200 years. Though he has practiced giving people insulin crashes. Not to a fatal level, just giving them that shaky, "Ooh, I need a Snickers." feeling.
I'll probably include some dialog to this effect on an upcoming page, but everyone at Archon goes through "Spot the Mind Control victim" classes. Not just Archon. In this world of Supers, Secret Service, FBI, CIA - almost anyone in a field Intelligence position does. And even a lot of analysts. It's one of those courses that walks a fine line between "look for inconsistent behavior" and "don't be a paranoid idiot, sometimes people are in a bad mood for no apparent reason or had double their normal caffeine or half their donut intake that morning."
But weird memory lapses or sudden reversals of opinions might get you on a list for potential scrutinization by organizations like Arc-LIGHT or even Arc-DARK.
Comments
No, the senator himself seems to also be a Alarian, based on page 1180
Fogel
2025-03-08 20:17:16 +0000 UTCbtw, Dave, any chance you can start adding the page number to the pages themselves? Sometimes I have a funny panel saved, and want to go back to read that whole situation again, but don't really remember where it was. Wouldn't help with old pages, sure, but if news ones are numbered in the image it might help future peoples
Reigys
2025-03-05 09:00:42 +0000 UTCLol
Reigys
2025-03-05 08:55:20 +0000 UTCHmm, now to wonder if max can spot the "these people have been drugged!" signs
Reigys
2025-03-05 08:54:46 +0000 UTCLol. i do wonder if max can't be drugged
Reigys
2025-03-05 08:54:09 +0000 UTCI was using the energy for fat based on calorimeter readings. I.e. what you see on food labels. Which isn't really how the body uses it - that just burns the fat in oxygen and measures the heat given off. For this purpose it's not all that different though. I misplaced some zeroes. Reality check - we maintain a body temperature that's more than that different from ambient, without burning all our body fat. I used 75kg as average body mass, 14% body fat, and 9kcal/g of fat (9,000kcal/kg!). Which gives 10.5kg of fat, which would produce 94,500 kcal. Which is enough to heat that 64kg body mass (the 10.5kg of fat is now mostly greasy smoke) up by 1260 degrees C, not 1.26 degrees... Over 30 seconds? Boom.
Mark Magagna
2025-03-04 13:37:39 +0000 UTCI'm surprised at Max's "slut shaming" question. I'd have expected her to have a strong opinion, one way or the other, rather than asking for someone else's. Maybe's it's supposed to reflect character development, or just a pivot away from what might have come across as a "straw feminist", but it feels to me more like a line in search of a character to voice it, rather than a natural development. Feels a bit more like an insecure Sydney line, but maybe that's just Sydney rubbing off on Max, as she does.
Torabi
2025-03-04 04:55:39 +0000 UTCShe got the position by addicting the Senator to her magic sweat.
eddi_TBH
2025-03-04 04:22:28 +0000 UTCI think they are in the middle of a desert. A good place to hide something this big. Add overhead camo and you are set.
eddi_TBH
2025-03-04 04:20:44 +0000 UTCReal murders have been committed by insulin OD.
eddi_TBH
2025-03-04 04:16:12 +0000 UTCAnd Max is less liable to try anything without major backup. In fact she may talk to Deus first thing.
eddi_TBH
2025-03-04 04:14:33 +0000 UTCThat slap didn't work as well as Sciona thought it would. My impression is she chronically underestimates non-Alari.
eddi_TBH
2025-03-04 04:12:37 +0000 UTCThe problem with memory is that - as I understand it - it isn't stored in the cells of the brain, but rather in the chemical soup between the cells, that seems to me to be something that would be easy to disrupt. Then it becomes a question of pathing to where that memory is, a well trod path is easy, one that hasn't been trod since is hard. Then there are the other paths, memory is a little bit like a database in that there can be a bunch of references to the same thing, smell is apparently a really good memory trigger. Then memory can get cross wired erroneously, so you get memories coming up that aren't actually related to what you are thinking about. And then there is the big problem that the more you examine a memory, the more you distort it. Knowledge like mathematics or sciences seems not to have this problem, although you can screw that up too, but I think that is more a case of forgetting important things. What happens with memory of events is that you can inadvertently - or not so accidentally - change it, particularly if you have strong feelings about it. It is gradual, but it's like each time you pull out the memory to examine it, you don't put back the original, you put back a copy of it. When you have strong feelings about it you inevitably rewrite the memory to fit your feelings about it - essentially changing it to fit the desired narrative. This can result in things that you have a fond memory of not being so great if you find a way to see them fresh (typical for a show or something you saw as a kid and then review as an adult and realize your nostalgia was based more on your impressions as a child than the reality of the show). Alternately you can rewrite an event to make yourself the victim and someone else horrible, when the reality wasn't quite so black and white. It's one of the reasons polygraphs are not really that reliable. In addition to being able to fool the machine, the simple fact is that just because someone believes with all their heart that something is true, doesn't mean it is. Not even things they personally experienced. A simple case I stumbled into some years back is a scene from the Magnificent Seven. I thought I had remembered it perfectly, but I watched it YouTube and discovered that I had somehow switched around Yul Brynner's and Steve McQueen's lines. A minor case to be sure, but an example of thinking your memory of something is perfect, and discovering it wasn't.
Eric Loken
2025-03-04 03:08:14 +0000 UTCOops... the problem with deleting memories or references to someone/ something is it tends to leave a hole in the shape of that person/ thing. Doctor Who mentioned that with the Doctor trying to go lower key and all that really resulted is a Doctor shaped hole in history. -- walks a fine line between "look for inconsistent behavior" and "don't be a paranoid idiot" Max's next move should be to ask Sydney, who while ADHD has a decent memory. At that point its time to start sniffing around. Probably call in Dabbler as an expert on such things. At first it would be information gathering to ensure something is up, but... someone like Madam Cleavage there is hard to forget, so Max definitely has reason to be suspicious.
Eric Loken
2025-03-04 02:44:35 +0000 UTCHA or he becomes a personal trainer, 1 hour with me, 3 times a week, and in 20 days you'll lose 40 lbs, or your money back.
IvyReed
2025-03-04 00:06:43 +0000 UTCAh.... HA! get slimed Max ... ... how come it's not working? My skin is made of gold, you idiot. I do wonder how strong "forget" is, normally once you forget something you can still... like remember, it. Even some forms of amnesia are reversible. Then again, that's not very helpful as a super power. In regards to mister chemistry, he can only influence active chemical reactions. (unless he has the power to just move a bunch of molecules at functionally supersonic speeds. EX: He could only make as much insulin as there is reagents to trigger the reaction INSIDE the pancreas. Sure he could individually accelerate the production of like... a dozen or so neuro-transmitters. (glucagon, incretins, growth hormone (GH), cortisol, and prolactin, etc.) Then he'd have to wait around an hour or so for all those hormones to suffuse into the blood stream and make their way TO the pancreas. THEN he could use the hormones in the pancreas to excessively increase insulin production, and a handful of other chemicals necessary to unbind, and transport the insulin throughout the body. EVEN SO, he can only make the insulin react with sugar, as fast as the sugar shows up where the insulin is (I know a lot about this stuff, I'm T1 Diabetic). So the insulin shock would at BEST take the usual 20-30 minutes to actually kill a guy. (just use a needle full of synthetic insulin at that point, fictional, non-supernatural murdery cop show, detective stuff, has run the idea a handful of times already) He can still most likely put the squeeze on to make someone a little woozy in a pinch, like how a normal human body does in fight/flight, or right after a meal situations. (insulin before the meal is less than great) but the human body, has an "off" to every "on", so it'd react to negate his tipping of the scales 'quickly enough' (I am sufficiently chemically illiterate that my guess is wrong, but probably less than a couple hours) on its own. This is predominantly not even super power stuff, mostly just a whole bunch of fluid dynamics and physics problems. Chemicals are so very very small, and the human body, is so very very big. Sure with enough time, concentration/willpower to accelerate maybe 6 to 10 reactions at a time, more or less strap someone to a bed, wait for the heart to pump them around, and rinse/repeat the process at least a dozen times over the course of like 12 hours.. At that point just... just use a gun. Deus "I would like to hire you, to quickly and secretly kill someone with a heart attack in the middle of a UN conference" ... "okay, so do you have a gun with like a lethal dose of adrenaline in it, or do I need to explain to you how and why that's not possible in under a 20 hour period? also I'm a lousy shot, just FYI"
IvyReed
2025-03-03 23:35:24 +0000 UTC"Let's" is presumably a fusion of Utz and Lays, and also awesome.
Person
2025-03-03 22:25:02 +0000 UTC(please ignore this post, idiot me posted it and then read Dave's explanation that made it entirely irrelevant >.< )
Simon Magid
2025-03-03 21:17:04 +0000 UTCThis ought to become very interesting when Max and Deus talk about it, in about 30 to 40 seconds from now... things are likely to get a bit messy... And Dabbler is going to be sooo mad that she missed it...
JasonAW3
2025-03-03 20:39:26 +0000 UTCI STRONGLY suspect that HOW that fat is metabolized would matter a great deal... in theory, one could tweak the appropriate biochemistry to convert the fat into a rather volatile set of chemicals that could easily go boom... Trust me, hydrochloric acid from the stomach, combining with any number of chemicals that could be readily metabolized into being in the human body, would make for some really interesting organic fireworks...
JasonAW3
2025-03-03 20:32:21 +0000 UTCIt would likely be a pretty good idea if Max had Headquarters replay the last hour of audio from Halo's comm choker played back, or checked...
JasonAW3
2025-03-03 20:22:38 +0000 UTCJust looked at my copy of 'Temps', first published 1991 ; where does the time go?
NickG
2025-03-03 19:15:09 +0000 UTCWell, now I simply MUST know the fridge logic behind "Big Fish Spoon Facilitator".
Erin Palette
2025-03-03 17:34:24 +0000 UTCHis superhero ID is Mister Misfire, who retired before his first mission when he got a job offer. (Borrowed from the old "Temps" anthology.)
Philip Masters
2025-03-03 17:23:18 +0000 UTCConcrete Setting Guy wouldn't use his power for that. There are some industries that would hand him a multi-billion-dollar-per-year paycheck to catalyze some extremely slow and expensive chemical reactions.
SantaTheHutt
2025-03-03 17:03:12 +0000 UTC"making someone metabolize all the fat in their body in 30 seconds is way, way harder for him than, say, making the propellent in a bullet cartridge expire like it's sat on the shelf for 200 years." I hope the energy released via the compounds breaking down goes to another universe or something. I originally thought metabolizing all the body fat would cause an explosion. Turns out it would likely just give you a fever (2 degrees C or 3 degrees F) unless you're pretty overweight. Although that does depend on whether it's everything that counts as a fat. There's some fat in brain tissue after all. The propellants expiring that quickly though probably does cause an explosion.
Mark Magagna
2025-03-03 16:51:57 +0000 UTCThat is much better than the one I came up with. Big Fish Spoon Facilitator! There is a *kind* of "logic" to it. The kind that makes people concerned about dementia.
Dave Barrack
2025-03-03 16:51:50 +0000 UTCNot a Red Flag, but it's a very deep shade of Yellow.
Raymond Dannelly
2025-03-03 16:46:34 +0000 UTCSupernaturals have been around since the dawn of time. They made the Shadow Counsel, or whatever it's properly called. Supers are relatively recent.
Raymond Dannelly
2025-03-03 16:45:12 +0000 UTCSo, concrete setting guy is called Catalyst, right?
Erin Palette
2025-03-03 16:41:15 +0000 UTCOption. Instead of "organic chemistry" you use "biochemistry"
Brittany Huckey
2025-03-03 16:28:29 +0000 UTCSo, for reasons, to read the comic I've started putting it in an image viewer and inverting the colors. This, of course makes the art weird and wrong, *except*, I noticed today, Sidney's orbs which look AWESOME.
noname
2025-03-03 16:21:02 +0000 UTCMaybe it was mentioned before, but I didn't realize that supernaturals are counted separately from supers.
Stephen Gilberg
2025-03-03 14:31:56 +0000 UTCHas the process to reliably make that actually been figured out yet? Like, I know they finally figured out how it works and have a rough idea of what all of the ingredients were, but last I heard they hadn't found the correct ratios or mixing techniques to get the result we want
Jacob Bissey
2025-03-03 13:12:27 +0000 UTCThere's a lot of common superhero powers that would make someone casually rich in no time. For example, someone who could just move dirt and sand could make a couple of thousand bucks for thirty seconds of digging ditches or leveling ground for foundations.
Noise
2025-03-03 13:09:59 +0000 UTCI had a feeling that Sciona was paying too much attention to Sydney, not enough to anyone she might have said anything to.
Marc Vun Kannon
2025-03-03 12:36:16 +0000 UTCSciona "took over" that body back before becoming a senator's aide, when the original owner was killed by drug dealers in Mexico. Any time she's been an aide, it was Sciona driving.
Czarzhan
2025-03-03 12:16:14 +0000 UTCIt must have happened after Scione took control: before then Scorpia was just a standard super-powered gang member. Getting the job as the Senator's aide was all Sciona
James C
2025-03-03 12:12:12 +0000 UTCWith large projects, it'd be easier to use established concrete production infrastructure.
Andrew Denton
2025-03-03 11:54:17 +0000 UTCWith this project why wouldn't they use Roman concrete. It gets stronger every time it rains due to lumps of lime created during its creation.
Terra_Lupis
2025-03-03 11:49:32 +0000 UTCOr if it happened before Sciona 'took over' that position.
Anton Schleef
2025-03-03 11:41:23 +0000 UTCThat didn't take long for someone to get suspicious. I wonder if Sciona just didn't think of Kat having met her before due to a rush solution, or if she didn't know because at the meeting Kat was in human form, so didn't recognise her
Fogel
2025-03-03 11:23:32 +0000 UTCπ
Michael Obert
2025-03-03 11:12:37 +0000 UTCSidney may flake, but it's very unlike her not to remember random trivia. And Max is very good at being Suspicious.
Rens
2025-03-03 11:12:00 +0000 UTCSydney flaking isn't weird but everyone else . . . π. Sciona did too good a job
Michael Obert
2025-03-03 11:04:56 +0000 UTC.
Michael Obert
2025-03-03 11:04:56 +0000 UTC
