PaRARGdox 101
Apologies for the delay, getting some deadline crunch at the day job…
Euro-Magellan: Back to these characters, who have been laying low on the other side of Magellan Island. We last saw them in the scene starting page 7.90… seems a while ago now I know, but probably only about five minutes have passed since the end of that sequence.
I think you can be pretty sure that Kaycee (or Charisma) won’t be happy with Contessa Q’s instructions.
Phlache drops a hint that Euro-Magellan are not at full strength – no surprise, they probably weren’t expecting a full on battle, and certainly not one so soon, when they originally set out for Magellan Island.
Patrons: Over on Patreon page 101 is now up… page 102 up soon…
Next update: Sunday February 21: Up, up and away…
I kind of read that as Jones hissing the “Yes, ma’am” out through clenched teeth.
I think we all are reading it like that… If not you should be.
While I’m not entirely convinced that Kaycee is literally hissing, I think it is absolutely clear not just to us but also to Contessa Q that Kaycee is not happy with those orders. However, she did not object with additional information or perspective to consider, so it seems that she deemed those orders reasonable… or she deemed Contessa Q entirely unreasonable (as in “no point trying to reason with this one, we’ll just have to disobey her if she gives stupid orders”).
“I don’t like that order,” can also take several different forms.
“That is an excellent point but I don’t like it,” is perfectly reasonable there.
Sure, but I don’t think Kaycee would be as angry as she seems if the point really was excellent.
While I sympathize with Kaycee (in typical action hero fashion, she is eager to contest with the enemy), I understand Contessa Q’s position. The plan she and her team seem to have calls for a strike with powered heroes to hopefully deal a quick severe blow to the Rarg. Having unknown quantities like Kaycee and a depowered and injured Charisma trying to help might seem (to her) as more likely a hindrance than help.
Kaycee is a cadet & a normie. She has no experience with this team (and they none with her), and they are going into an Omega-level situation with very little useful tactical information.
Kaycee’s _real_ contribution is to stay the #*$# out the way. Hopefully, she’ll get that before she does something stupid. (Yeah, I know, fat chance–she is the main character…)
Interestingly, even when Kaycee has no actual plan or is being carried along by events outside her control, she never does “something stupid”. Instinctual, yes. Even rash and impulsive, sure.
But by and large, her actions almost always lean into the proper answer, even when no one else realizes it, not even Kaycee herself.
Clearly fate has big things in store for Miss Jones.
But I absolutely agree her response for the moment should be staying out of the way and letting the actual heroes work. She has to remember she’s a cadet, and she doesn’t have the experience the others do.
Those that were in their sixth year during Bad Karma missed out on both that and Lock(e)down. While they might have had a big incident on Magellan Island in the years prior, they could also be on a Magellan team right now with actually less big incident experience than Kaycee.
Tolrick, O8h7w, you are both correct in what you are saying, but failing to understand my point.
Magellan stresses teamwork in it’s training for an excellent reason: teamwork wins, and it wins big. She cannot instantly join their team as a member whose responses are predictable to the other members of the team. As a result, the team wastes critical resources (time & attention) watching and reacting to her instead of the omega-level threat. As a normie, they will also have to protect her from the random semi-proverbial multi-ton shrapnel that tends to happen when supers mix things up.
If she had an actual superpower, then there is a possibility that the gain from adding it would offset that cost, depending on a lot of factors.
As I stated, however, Kaycee’s status as the primary character means that there is a really good chance that she does the stupid thing & attempts to engage, and that doing so will magically end up being a good thing.
Kaycee is still a teenager, and in addition to the standard need to prove themselves that most teenagers go through, she is also a normal in an academy full of supers, which only shifts that need into overdrive. She generally acts more mature than most people her age, but she chafes hard at being held back, even when it’s justified. Q’s given her specific orders, so she’ll obey them, but she definitely doesn’t like it.
Don’t worry, Kaycee, we know you’ll be out on the battlefield leading the charge at the end – you’re the – (pauses, looks around for Character Assassin spies) – the Main Character, after all!
I find the above comments very interesting. When I first read the page, I had missed the emphasis on “you” when Contessa Q told Kaycee, “I’m sure YOU can, cadet Jones.” Because I missed that, I had made the same assumption that Contessa Q was discounting Kaycee’s abilities because she had no powers. That emphasis, however, tells a very different story.
Contessa Q knows all too well that Kaycee could be a help. As an unpowered super, she is immune to the Rarg’s pulse. Q has no idea if the Rarg can fire off another one; they may not have bothered up to now as the limited powered response has not been enough to consider it. They may also be thinking these supers are immune to it. In any case, once a new group shows up, firing off another pulse (if they can) is an obvious response for them to make. Having someone without powers who’s been trained to work with (and against) supers (and done so successfully) is a good thing to have available.
Charisma is the wildcard here. She’s proven time and again to have a big ego, and there’s no telling what she might do on her own. Kaycee is the best person to keep her in check. Also, if another pulse does fire, these two might be able to provide limited form of backup.
Right after I posted my comment, a thought occurred to me: since Sista Superior was unaffected by the Rarg’s pulse because she was in a depowering confinement field, could firing a second pulse RE-power the depowered supers?
I had briefly considered that idea, but then discounted it. If the power neutralization works like the associated EMP, then it wouldn’t be logical for it to have a binary effect like that. Once someone’s powers have been ‘burned out’, a second exposure to the attack should just have no effect. That’s just me thinking though, not necessarily what’s really the case. We didn’t get a chance to see the cadets do much at the end of the story intro, but it didn’t seem like they were demonstrating any use of powers.
I’m going with a nope on that, Sista still had her powers, but the depowering field put her in a kind of faraday cage, once the power in the field went out she got her powers back.
It seems like the Rarg’s pulse is being treated as ‘damage’, almost like the manipulation of ethereal energies requires some sort of ‘organ’ to translate into usable powers. Damage to this ‘organ’ can heal, but another pulse would simply do more damage. Think of it like an etheric eardrum – it can rupture, and eventually heal.
In Sista’s case, her ‘organ’ was protected from the original pulse (think noise-cancelling headphones, to go with the eardrum analogy). Without the suppression cage she was in before, her ‘organ’ would be damaged by a second pulse, removing her powers. (That might kill her, considering how much damage she’s taken recently.)
In Charisma’s case, her ‘organ’ was damaged by the initial pulse, and then she took more damage in the resulting fall. Hans wasn’t able to fully heal her ‘organ’, leaving her weak and still injured.