PaRARGdox 207
Punch up!: Depending on your definition of “rescue”… it’s Epoch, Charisma, and Punchin’ Judy to the rescue!! Will it be enough??
Updates… Unfortunately my update schedule will be a bit bumpy for the next 4 weeks… my day job is bonkers for the rest of July (as it usually is!). Will be working to slip in 1-2 updates in that time, but apologies for the erratic schedule. Things should pick up in mid August!
Patrons: Page 7.208 is now up on Patreon… 7.209 published soon…
Next update: July 30, 2023: Looking for Olga!
My, but Charisma has made some positive progress due to this reset. Remains to be seen if it’s the kind that sticks, though.
No worries as to the next update. Take care of yourself and your livelihood; the strip will still be here when you can spare the resources. And so will we.
Looks like Freya’s gonna need to clear her calendar for the next few weeks.
Yep, she’s gonna be booked solid at the end of all this insanity. I feel like Ambrosia is gonna be first in line, assuming she still decides being a superheroine is still the career path she wants at the end of all this.
Even if she decides to resign from her cadetship, she’s going to need some counseling, and I could see Freya being made available for that, at least at the beginning.
Next up on “Alien Invaders And The Superheroes They Wish Wouldn’t Keep Punching Them So Hard”:
Freya: So, Rarg, how did today’s session make you feel?
Rarg: RARG!
Freya: Hrm, yes, that seems valid. How about you, Charisma?
Charisma: Well, I kinda want to pulverize Rarg into a puddle of alien goo, but I’m going through this whole “love” thing with my Dad right now, which is, like, very new to me, and I think maybe he might not like me doing that, so I just beat Rarg severely – that’s OK, right?
Rarg: RARG.
Freya: Well, I’m so happy you two can talk to each other, and work out your problems with each other.
Rarg: RARG!!!
Charisma: Yeah, I still don’t understand a word he’s saying. Imma punch him some more now!
I like that the superhero setting has laws regarding crimes that took place in alternate timelines. It does seem like the kind of thing that would come up, and could create Minority Report shenanigans.
So, he’s not going to be effective.
“You know what they did to us”
Epoch has a solid (and correct!) answer for this statement from her… but that’s because she’s an idiot and said the wrong thing. What she should have said was, “You know what they *are right now actively trying to do* to us”.
They are actively trying to annihilate the entire Earth and all life on it. If that’s not sufficient for lethal force, they deserve to die for the crime of being too stupid to live.
Unrelated: Job first. Duh! We understand, no worries!
The other cadets have good reasons not to hold back. For example, if Rochelle doesn’t do the whole death-poke maneuver she and Ambrosia worked out in the aborted future, she either has to stand back and risk more people getting killed, or get herself killed by just flipping them and leaving them to get back up on their own (their armor is too thick for her to actually injure them, plus as apparent natives of gas giants they’re probably too resilient anyway; literally the only way she can have an appreciable effect is to kill them). But the Epochs are super tough and super strong, so they actually do have the option of holding back without seriously increasing the risk to themselves and others. And if you can take someone alive, there’s little reason not to. Personal grudges are understandable, of course, but in many cases a lawkeeper needs to do whatever they can to avoid indulging in such, as otherwise they may cross over into being dangerous vigilantes… which risks the lawkeeping supers being outlawed or at least being forced to follow more restrictive rules to reign them in.
The idea that Superman (and those in his league) needs to live by a tighter code of conduct than the rest of us is absolutely solid. You’re right on that.
When you can accidentally kill 3+ digit numbers of people with a sneeze (or other such ridiculous things), having a very strong concept of where the line is and not crossing it by accident, EVER, is greatly appreciated by us lowly morals.
But again, if there is ***EVER*** a case for lethal force, this is it. Literally the lives of every living thing on planet Earth are at stake, and the ones doing it are absolutely doing it on purpose.
That makes a case for lethal force if necessary, but is it necessary? Stopping the Rarg is necessary, yes, but given the bricks can apparently easily enough concuss them without death they have other options.
If you can stop someone lethally, but can also stop them nonlethally just as easily, what justifies the lethal option? It’s not necessity, as in this scenario nonlethal is a viable option.
It is *NEVER* “just as easy”, physically speaking. Doing enough damage to incapacitate without killing is **EXTREMELY** demanding.
Doing enough damage to *guarantee* incapacitation is commonly fatal, so it’s called “lethal force”, but it’s not *always* fatal – it’s not “execution”, where death is the goal.
So, in this case “lethal force” is **DEFINITELY** what they should be using, but they should not be “executing” them. If some of them survive, that is OK (and perhaps even desirable).
But insufficiently incapacitating them risks would leave the threat in place… you know, the threat of killing every living thing on Earth.
In the real world what you said is true.
In Comic Book Land incapacitating someone is as easy as hitting them on the back of the head. It will always work and leave no lasting damage. Sure it makes no sense, but neither does flying, magic, and reviving the dead. Just accept the insanity.
Not always true, depending on the “hardness” of the reality in the comic. This one at least partially strives for some “realism” or internal logic at the very least with superheroes needing a legal status, supertechnology being restricted and, in the case of hitting somebody on the head, we at least had one case where it leaving a concussion was confirmed (although couple others where they were just ignored too).
True. And for those saying the Epochs are strong enough they can efficiently incapacitate without killing, let’s look at some numbers (I’m guessing for the multipliers, I don’t know what percentage of strength a human can poke somebody with).
Per Google, the human skull can typically withstand 6 psi of pressure. Thor can dead lift 100 tons according to his entry in the original Marvel Universe series. Halve that because he’s only using one hand. Quarter that because he’s only using one finger. That’s still 12.5 tons of force that can be applied to a half square inch of area before multiplying by the speed that he’s moving his finger. Yep, finger flicks to the forehead of a normal human are lethal and extremely messy 100% of the time. So, Epoch not only can use just a tiny fraction of his strength, he has to move slowly too. Kind of like shield fighting in Dune. Fast movement to deflect attacks but the attack itself has to be slow to get past the shield. Makes for hell’a long fights.
TLDR: Epoch is so powerful that for non-lethal actions against normal humans he’s basically reduced to just intimidation tactics. Superman on the other hand is so freakingly in control of his body that he can wrap a steel i-beam around normal humans tight enough to hold them without injuring them at all. That’s a level of control beyond scary.
I am curious if invulnerability for Judy and Epoch(s) also includes the concentrated gas concentration that is escaping the encounter suits. Considering decades of experience and prior planning sessions, Epoch likely has already reviewed the profile, and is already confident of the gas resistance capabilities of his Daughter and field tested Magellan graduate teammate Judy.
A reasonable assumption. When Chiq copied Billy’s powers back on p 6.21, he was able to survive wo discomfort in Earth’s hostile (to him) environment. That seems to imply that Epoch, Charisma and Judy should have a strong resistance to the native atmospheric gases in the Rarg’s environmental suits.
I suspect legally daddy derest is right actually.
Yes the last time they were an existential threat, but they lots their space ship, their weapons, and their numbers are of far less significance when facing powered individuals. They have gone from ‘existential threat’ to ‘super villians trying to kill super heroes’, at least for the time being.
While I fully admit in a real world use of lethal force to deal with potential lethal threats is legally justified in nearly every jurisdiction this comic lives on comic book logic. And in comic book logic super heros can’t kill just to protect themselves no matter how logical that may seem. I suspect those cleared as heroes actually need to basically sign an agreement limiting their use of lethal force to extreme situations and ‘mere’ self defense is not always enough of a legal justification in this world.
Now when/if the went after the depowered folks that may bump them up to justified lethal force, but while their only attacking powered super hero’s who signed up for that risk they may be legally restricted in their use of force.
Though again that only makes sense in comic book land where villains are always able to be neutralized without a huge kill count once supers show up. In real life yeah without a doubt lethal force is justified here. but comic book land makes non-lethal force a more viable option. I mean in real life the suggested ‘concuss them until they can’t fight any more’ suggestion would usually *be* lethal force. ‘tap em on the head till the fall asleep’ isn’t rally a viable combat strategy in real world unless your talking about the sort of sleep that is eternal and usually happens six feet under the ground.
“Yes the last time they were an existential threat, but they lots their space ship”
The spaceship itself was not the threat, it was the delivery and escape vehicle. The actual weapon is still inside and may well still be functional. Considering that it’s payload is “all life on Earth dies”, this is still absolutely an all-life-on-Earth-ending threat.
No, it is not just the supers’ lives as stake.
And yes, they absolutely going after depowered/less-powered individuals right now. Even by “comic book logic”, this is very much a lethal force situation.
Lethal force isn’t inherently more effective.
“Lethal force isn’t inherently more effective.”
At stopping threats? Yes, it very, very, very much is. Incapacitating someone without a significant risk of death is **extremely** difficult.
We have an entire profession dedicated to it (anesthesiologists), and they still accidentally kill people sometimes, and they fail to properly incapacitate people sometimes (people wake up during surgeries, sometimes, for instance), even in absolutely ideal conditions.
Nothing is as effective at removing threats as lethal force. We avoid using it because we ethically dislike like the side effects and costs (and I agree with that!), not because it is ineffective.
Note: “lethal force” does not mean “make sure they are dead”. That is “execution”. Capping someone in the head when they are unconscious on the ground is “execution”. Shooting someone until they stop charging you with a machete is “lethal force”, and when they have surrendered or collapsed and you are no longer in danger, attempting to treat them to keep them from actually dying is a good thing to do, even if it doesn’t work a good chunk of the time.
Anesthesiologists’ jobs would be much harder if they had to kill their patients before they could be operated on, and then resuscitate them afterwards. Although they do that, in a sense, for open-heart surgery…
This is a superhero setting. There are ways of attacking other than force.
There’s a witch there. Given that she’s not practiced at using killing spells, she’s probably more effective using magic that binds or puts to sleep.
And the Epochs are by comparison so strong that they know a pulled punch will be enough.
Rochelle does not have an effective way to nonlethally incapacitate. Nor does Olaf. Several of these other characters do, though.
The witch, yes, you’re probably right. The others… probably not.
What’s needed here is *SPEED*. Whichever method is ethically allowed and the fastest. My point is that lethal force is definitely ethically justified, and for *most* people, even in this setting, it would be faster.
Even Epoch, probably – if he pulls one punch too much and has to hit that one again, he has wasted time. He has enough experience that he might be able to do it *just* right even time… but Charisma? Not so much.
And that’s without considering larger scale actions that would incapacitate their numbers faster, like getting a girder from a building and swinging through the whole group, or other such things.
Flying through the group at speed, perhaps. Ranger Bill using a large beam weapon. The options that would be faster than “punch each one” are practically endless.
This is a setting where mass murderers like Sista Superior, Evil Weevil, Master Assassin, etc are taken alive, imprisoned, and then break out (or get broken out) and go on to kill more people, only for the cycle to repeat. Your interpretation would call for those foes getting killed during their second capture, to make certain they don’t keep killing people… but that doesn’t happen. The same logic that keeps supers from pulling a Maverick and permanently ending problems would call for trying to take the Xarnaxl alive if feasible, even if it’s not quite as efficient.
“This is a setting where mass murderers like Sista Superior…”
Arg, don’t remind me of that.
It’s one of my largest annoyances with MANY comic settings. Out here in the real world, all the “extras”, “nobodies”, and “red shirts” have names, friends, and families, and at SOME point (3rd time, 5th time, 10th time…), someone like the Joker would be “killed while trying to escape” with a couple hundred bullets while still fully confined, and society’s response would be something like “Now now, that’s not how things are supposed to be done, you icky person! (Also, here’s a medal and you’ll never pay for your own drinks again.)”
More realistically, at some point, people like the Joker (or even Sista Superior) would not be taken into custody. They would be killed in the fighting, very deliberately (sniper bullet to the head, most likely).
Putting someone like Sista Superior or the Jokey back into a prison they have escaped from multiple times before is OBSCENE. You **KNOW** they are going to get out and kill more innocent people!
The real reason for this particular stupid thing is that making good villains is *hard*, so the writers don’t want to kill them off. The Punisher kills his opponents, and those comics descended into boring “villain of the week” almost immediately. Back in the “golden age” of comics (and even the silver age, to some extent), you didn’t run into this too much, because most of the villains didn’t generally kill people, either, but going for more “realism” for only the villains was a bad idea.
*shrug* It’s the world they live in. Xmung has opted to build a world that adheres to some of the tropes of superhero comic books, including that some villains tend to get captured, escape, get captured again, and so forth. Epoch isn’t being stupid – he’s making certain Charisma is following the laws (written and otherwise) that are in place. And sure, I can see cause for calling those laws stupid, but they exist for a good reason – the way you determine if someone deserves to die is through the legal process, not “oh, this person obviously deserves to die, so just lynch them.” There can be exceptions (“Why, Gary, why?”), certainly, but you can’t legally enshrine those without risking abuse of such laws.
“There can be exceptions (“Why, Gary, why?”), certainly, but you can’t legally enshrine those without risking abuse of such laws.”
That’s literally what the laws on self-defense (and about when lethal force is allowable more generally) are.
If you *don’t* legally enshrine them, *they will happen anyway*, and because ethics and the law will be so *very* far apart in that case, the law will be badly weakened – think Speakeasies during Prohibition.
Actually, think “modern America inner cities and police interaction”, where a huge amount of the time, nobody admits to the police that they saw anything.
For the Rarg humans are an existential threat by killing the offspring. Presumably they see us as a lesser life form that’s not even capable of saying RARG.
There are two paths in this situation: War till one side completely eliminates the threat; we’d need to win against space people from Jupiter and/or beyond – meaning there are a lot of them and each of their ships can be our last and final defeat
Or peace, at least ceasefire.
Why do I have the feeling that option two will result in a Rarg becoming a cadet at Magellan in a year or two?
RARG
She is telepathic and telekinetic. Telepathic training is primary provided by Vostok, which she relates to as they both have to wear their environmental suits to exist in the Earth atmosphere. With Vostok’s and Olga’s help, she learns how to communicate with other people on the island, although Brelvis’s composite mind and whatever Olaf is pose her some challenges. Lord Psiot would probably be a good choice for training the telekinesis and about boundaries. “Young lady, of things that are unknown, there are things to be learned and there are things that must not be known. You need to be very careful in what you observe.”
This is the difference between a graduate and a cadet.
The Graduate understands that you try to save as many lives as possible and that even when presented with an impossible binary choice seeks to find a third option.
Rarg? More like “rOWg”.
Bonus stupidity from Epoch: “Damage their environmental suits.”
Um, pretty sure that would be “lethal force”, there, champ. Considering the differential in both content and pressure, it seems like our atmosphere would be as deadly for them as space with a side order of “poisonous”.
“Concuss them” I’ll grant you, because comic book logic.
Ripping the legs off without breaching the internal environment would fit the instruction.
Only if they’ve made their suits in fairly specific ways, and “ripping off a limb” is definitely considered “lethal force” for a great many creatures (not sure about the Rarg), as there is a *very* high risk of bleeding out.
He may be expecting them to retreat back to their ship (where presumably there are areas where they don’t need their suits to function) if their suits are compromised, or just expecting partial loss of life support to render them sluggish/unconscious such that they can be safely captured. The former wouldn’t work, so perhaps the latter. Realistically, that’s likely to cause significant injury if not death, but while the Magellanverse hews more closely to realism than traditional Four Color Supers, it’s still rather on the cinematic side of things.
Epoch -was- in the room during the briefing ( https://magellanverse.com/comic/parargdox-38/ ), so if he’s expecting them to retreat, then he’s doing so with the context that he believes Dane, Glom, and Tros are all incorrect about the Rarg battle frenzy.
Or did that specific part of the briefing get cancelled due to the time travel sheenanigans?
The briefing should not have been changed. As per p39, the alert went up *after* FM had finished the briefing, and the point that Ambrosia and the people near her slipped back to was while the alert was still sounding, but before the Rarg vessel stopped to hover over the complex.
He did say “damage their environmental suits”, not “breach or break their environmental suits” Obviously, real world physics makes this concept extremely difficult without lots of research and practice to get the impacts just right and in just the right place, but this is comic book logic, so this is as simple as pulling your punch a little bit more.
As to the whole Epoch being stupid? He’s approaching the situation without the perceptions of what happened last time. He’s being a hero. You don’t kill unless absolutely, unequivocally necessary, and that time has not come yet.
One can damage an object enough to impair it’s functioning (in fictional land) without ending it’s ability to function. “Shields at 38% and holding, Captain”
“You don’t kill unless absolutely, unequivocally necessary, and that time has not come yet.”
Then that time does not exist.
That was my whole point.
This site is a secure “https” link, but the internal links on the website are mostly “http” unsecure links, which, based on browser settings, cannot be followed when clicked, by some people.
Real life has a way of being….complicated?!?
“next update” date has expired pretty badly …
We miss you, Grace! Be safe and well!
We do! Take care, be okay 🙂
Help is on the way 😉
Well, Grace has pretty well rebuilt her buffer on Patreon, so it should not be too much longer before the free comic continues. Take a minute and get your breath back Grace.
Ah, good to hear. I’m broke enough that I’ve forgotten all about Patreon.
Apropos of nothing in particular, I think Punchin’ Judy’s costume looks better with out the big PJ in the middle.
Be honest, you just don’t like anything obstructing your view of her cleavage.
Any word on if this is continuing? Tell me its likely to be 2024 just don’t leave us hanging those of us who don’t have Patreon in the budget. Seriously no hate if you decide to not continue or continue on pay only. Just a heads up.
It’s been two months of seeing Epoch’s boot in the air.
Are you okay?!? I dearly hope you’re just busy and not in the hospital or something! Please let us know what’s going on!
“Things should pick up in mid August!”
Seeing as it’s October with no new pages, I’m guessing things didn’t pan out that way.