PaRARGdox 158
Deja Vu!: Annnnnnnd just like that… Ambrosia finds herself at a different point in time. But is it far back enough to make a difference? We see a number of other first year cadets here… many who were glimpsed briefly on page 7.40… just before the alarm goes off. Of note are Morgana, Eli and Marco who were first introduced back on page 7.15!
Patrons: Over on Patreon page 159 is now up – page 160 soon…
Next update: July 10, 2022: I seem to be picking up momentum again… I won’t jinx myself though, July will be a super busy month at my day job…. so I’m sticking to one update a week for the next few weeksc.
Ooh, alarm going off, rarg are already in orbit. It’s gonna be toit if they wanna make a difference.
I’m hoping that Kaycee, Annie, et al also have their memories. If not I’m not sure how many higher-ups will take heed to what a first-year has to say.
Also this would mean that we won’t lose the Kaycee and Charisma’s relationship progress.
Seems they are mere minutes (or seconds) away from being zapped with the neutralizer.
It’s gonna be TIGHT. I mean Rochelle knows how to neutralize the Rarg given some tools, but still I don’t think they have time for a briefing.
Olga, I think it’s time for a mass telepathic info dump on all people within range, pronto.
The clincher, if the whole group kept their memories, will be Go!Anna since at the moment they zapped back to she was in a briefing with Epoch, Ranger Bill (will he use the moon base?), Dane, and others. Also they’re in video communication with Twilight and a bunch of other supers.
Kaycee and Charisma MIGHT make it back in time before the zap, but if not they’ll have to row the boat even if Charisma doesn’t get hurt. I guess they will make it back to the mainland before that though, because having the MC stuck on a row boat seems a bit weird.
All of this might be moot if Magellan can drop an instant faraday cage on the whole island to block their neutralizer, and the Rarg will be on the back foot.
I’m thinking Kaycee and Charisma will be back in Largo Castle when they get the alert.
Kaycee: What the? That’s the alert! We need to get out of here.
Charisma: How do I remember everything that’s about to happen? Hey, my arm and ribs aren’t broken anymore and I can fly. Grab on; I’ll take us to the roof again.
Kaycee: We must have been caught up in Ambrosia’s time-skip, but it took us back a few hours instead of just a minute.
[On the roof]
Charisma: So the next thing to happen will be the spaceship dropping through the clouds, so I am going to get over there and meet it, WITH MY FISTS.
Kaycee: [ On comms ] Go!Anna, Charisma is going to intercept the Rarg spaceship. Send her dad and Ranger Bill out here too. We need all the help we can get.
[ Back in the rapidly clearing dining hall ]
Paradoximan: [ Thinking ] Grandfather paradox? That won’t help here, but I know what will. Reductio ad Absurdum!
That IS a good question. Would Charisma be powerful enough to blast through their energy shield AND break the hull? Epoch maybe?
Ranger Bill said he could’ve teleported everyone to the moon base if he hadn’t lost his bots, but how many could he take? Doesn’t sound very practical.
Doesn’t matter: they fired the neutralizer few moments after they arrived. I don’t think there is enough time to attack them like this.
The passing of time in comics is hard to measure. For example, the frames of page 9 looked like they happened within seconds of each other, yet we saw minutes worth of action and dialogue between them for the last several comics. So, while how long between the alarm going off and the Rarg neutralizing everything certainly is unlikely to be a long time period, it may well be longer than it appeared to be. Also, the Rarg used the pulse once they were really close to the island – in theory, Charisma &c could intercept it before it got there. Of course, while that would probably ultimately save the island (at least, assuming the Rarg can only use the pulse once, or at least only every so often), whoever opted to fly up there would almost certainly die – the Rarg would use the pulse to neutralize them, sparing the island due to distance but dooming them to fall to their deaths.
One indication there was a decent amount of time between WHOOPWHOOPWHOOP and VVVOMMM is looking at pages 42 and 46. On page 42, the alarm goes off while most of Kaycee’s class (Year… 3, I want to say?) are in the pool. On page 46, it looks like they haven’t moved since the neutralizing pulse was used, but between page 42 and then they’ve all exited the pool, dried off, changed clothing, met up with students from other years, and exited the building. That’s not a lot of time – I’d imagine by this point they’re able to get ready pretty quickly – but is certainly more than mere seconds.
Hopefully, Go!Anna was indeed included in the jump-back, as she’s the one in the best position to get people setup for the invasion – get Epoch to land so he doesn’t break his legs, maybe get Ranger Bill to setup some sort of neutralizing cage at least to protect his own tech (ideally, to protect all of Force Magellan), get Magellan USA up to date so they don’t get captured, have security stun Sistah Superior into unconsciousness and turn off her neutralizing field (so she isn’t protected from being power-stripped), etc. That’s a lot to do in potentially a little time… and I’m not sure Go!Anna is even aware of why Sistah Superior retained her powers (she certainly IS aware the supervillain was up, about, and powered, however, seeing as she encountered her twice post-pulse).
It will certainly be interesting to see how it all plays out. I’m going to assume there will still be some fatalities on the Magellan side.
There’s a chance that this is even further back than the Rarg attack. An emergency or a drill that is unrelated. OR one of the other 5 people caught with Ambrosia went even further back, and Ambrosia is now living in a timeline that’s not quite what she remembers.
. . . one can hope, right?
Oooookay…. So not quite far back enough to save all the baby Rarg from dying. That fits with Rochelle’s calculations. But still far back enough to open a portal to the moon base and getting Force Magellan out of there before the power neutralizer goes off – maybe even stop the Rarg ship before it enters the atmosphere? It’s far back enough that Charisma could stay on the ground (or fly clear of the power neutralizer). It’s far back enough to stop Olaf from body snatching everybody that died (With Olga as witness). And far back enough to prevent Magellan USA from getting imprisoned. Hmm. Charisma’s personality adjustment could hold. Rochelle’s declaration of admiration still stands. Cute. I’m guessing GoAnna does most of the heavy lifting in the next few pages… what do the cadets do, besides letting those in the immediate vicinity know what’s going on? Besides writing some badass essays…
The best move now is for Paz to contact one of the psychics like Twilight so they can draw what happened from her mind and infodunp it to all the supes ASAP to save time
Olga is literally within earshot (I think).
They were both evacuating from the same place so she should be nearby.
I wonder if everyone will arrive at the same point in the past?
I think they will. After all, the author explicitly shows where each of these characters were at this moment in time, early in the story. Can’t put all that fantastic foreshadowing to waste.
Looking back, the anti power pulse happened when they were outside, so after the evacuation happened. Then there was a small delay before the big initial attack, something like a few minutes at most?
That’s not a lot of time to prepare and there’s a lot to do.. the key here will probably be Olga, because using telepathy she can instantly warn other people without needing to find them, the issue might be being taken seriously when she “just a cadet” and doesn’t have authority… But she can contact the people who know she’s really Gola and get them to pass the info… Actually Rochelle was also evacuating to the same general area, she probably didn’t expect being sent to the past, but she’s smart enough to figure out how the best use the time they have.
It might be too short a time to give everyone power suppressing collars, but it’s probably enough time to give to give them to key heroes so that the pulse doesn’t depower them. Making sure Sista Superior is depowered might be a bit trickier, would sedating her work? It’d be hard to keep her under control if she was conscious when you remove her restrains…
Go!anna is well positioned to prevent Epoch and Punching Judy from getting injured, telling them to land asap. She also might have enough time to warn others about Sista Superior.
Charisma… She can at least avoid falling onto rocks. And maybe she’ll have enough time to fly herself and Kaycee to the main island.
Oh shit, I just realized: Ambrosia’s power gets knocked out for a minute after she goes back by a minute… She’s come back hours in the past, so her power will probably be out for hours, no small time slips available, no getting second tries when you fail, no saving people who were just killed… Now it’s litterally do or die.
DANG, I hadn’t even thought of that limitation with Ambrosia’s powers. Now I’m wondering if she’ll make it out alive or if she’s gonna become the sacrificial lamb, saving the entire planet with her powers but unable to survive the upcoming attack.
Okay, so the timeslip wasn’t quite as far back as hoped. That should preserve the tension. Unless Ambrosia now decides to go get blown to bits again to timeslip further (I never did figure out if it was possible for her to timeslip to before a previous timeslip.)
1 minute slip, 1 minute recharge. No chain slips were available before. Groundhog minute only. The real question is whether or not her normal powers are out of commission for the next couple hours… that jump took a lot of juice, not to mention averting her own death.
Normally she can’t. This time she did.
She used her power repeatedly in the future to help Rochelle iterate an attack plan.
Morgana should be more weirded out by this…!
I hope we get to see the moonbase in action.