PaRARGdox 74
Speaking of Magellan USA…: Well, that escalated quickly! Who is this very mean lady?! If her last name – Dion – sounds familiar, it was Nathan Dion who was the CEO of Prometheus Corp… at least before his demise by Rarg.
Also, as we’ve previously established, the sound VOMM is never a good sound in the Magellanverse. Curious that Prometheus Corp should have such a similar weapon… or maybe not so curious, as Dane might say.
Greyhound makes reference to a West Coast branch of Magellan USA… clearly they’re not on site. Prometheus Corp HQ is in South California, quite remote. Maybe the West Coasters are at another site or dealing with something else… who knows! Will we get to see them in this story? Stand by!
BTW, Patreon patrons might catch that the opening dialogue by Liberator is a bit different from that originally published there. Not much, just enough to make it clearer why the East Coast Magellan USA is in California in the first place.
Patreon: By the way, should it be a thing that interests you, my Magellan patrons over at Patreon have been getting full previews three updates ahead of schedule. And you can too for as little as $1 a month… 😎
Next update: Wednesday October 21: A bad time for an abduction…
Dang, that’s some underhanded tactics from Prometheus Corp.
Also, there’s just something to the fact that Glom’s scream of pain/surprise is his name.
I can kinda understand Prometheus’ POV. Superheroes do tend to have a ‘might makes right’ attitude towards other power structures, like corporations. It sounds like they’ve concluded that Magellan will blame them for the Rarg invasion, and have decided that if superheroes are your enemies, you don’t want to wait for them to strike first, ’cause they will strike HARD, and not leave you with much to counterstrike with. It’s a pretty paranoid conclusion, but not much worse than Trumper thinking.
Kind of reminds me of Crey from City of Heroes. We’ve seen a great deal of the Magellanverse from the perspective of the heroes and the academy students, but not so much from regular people. The police in Sydney gave a good glimpse, and the popularity of the Character Assassin cult demonstrates a significant number of people in this setting are quite anti-meta. Prometheus Corp (and Rochelle’s father) hint at a certain mentality about mundanes (or at least non-hero metas) having private sector power struggles.
Their PoV may be understandable, but their strategy doesn’t make much sense at all. A potential frame is something a company should deal with using lawyers, not assault teams. I mean just where do they think they’re going to go from this point, and how can they possibly think this is going to turn out well for them?
Now that’s the pinnacle of damning with faint praise.
Oh i hate these assholes. They’re to fucking blame by the way for this whole mess and now they’re just shifting it to Megellan.
Not just “shifting blame”, they’re actively hindering Magellan’s response to their mess.
To be fair, it’s absolutely possible, even probable, these Prometheus employees have no idea the Rarg can telepathically absorb information from victims mid-demise. So they have as much idea about the Rarg use of that weaponized power dampener as Magellan USA has.
This isn’t excusing the fact Prometheus created the tech in the first place, is using it against internationally accredited law enforcement heroes, and is crooked enough to think using it against heroes is a viable legal act. And all this using the cover of “helping” with files and information, having containment already prepared.
The similarities someone else mentioned regarding Crey Corporation are quite apt, only Countess Crey would already have multiple legally airtight alternatives in place by now, and would never be in attendence personally.
She’s less clever than the Master Assassin, really.
I see no future consequences in assaulting and detaining what is, essentially, a UN peacekeeper squadron. /s
A group that small would be considered a patrol under usual military groupings. A squadron is much larger.
Assuming the world does not end in a rapidly rotating Kerr singularity in a few hours:
Prosecutor: The defendants are collectively and individually charged with 7 counts of Reckless Endangerment Causing Bodily Harm, 7 counts of Assault on Law-Enforcement Officials Causing Bodily Harm, 7 Counts of Criminal Interference on Law-Enforcement Officials and 7 billion counts of Criminal Negligence. Your Honour, the State will be seeking the death penalty for all defendants; we do not want to house them in maximum security for the next thousand years.
Actually, that would be 7 billion counts of Reckless Endangerment by Depraved Indifference, not Criminal Negligence. Of course, the exact charges will depend on jurisdiction.
The defence council should argue that most of the 7 billion people endangered by the defendants are outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. federal court system, so they should only be charged with 400 million counts of Reckless Endangerment.
In addition to every person on the planet, they have also endangered every state on the planet. I bet the law has things to say about that.
That’s why they’d probably be tried by the World Court, not the US.
You want to charge them with environmental charges as well? Reckless Endangerment of Federally Protected Wetlands, 3780 counts. Reckless Endangerment of an Endangered Species (all of them), 5220 counts. etc. Yeah, we can tack on an extra 20 000 years of incarceration for her. Somehow, I do not think that will make a significant difference to her jail time.
So that’s where the Rarg got the AoE disrupter from. (If memory serves it was stated that they shouldn’t have had enough time to reverse-engineer Magellan tech into that weapon)
Also how did only just now realize the significance of Prometheus Corps name. Prometheus stole fire (tech) from the gods (Magellan) and gave (sold) it to humanity.
Unfortunately in this case, Prometheus stole the flame and is trying to control and or make profit off of it. also makes you wonder what other tech they had to build for themselves that’s helping contribute to the tragedy that’s about to befall Earth
I guess Prometheus have seen how badly things are going over on the island and are betting that Magellan will be mauled so badly in stopping the Rarg that they’ll be able to get away with this.
… they don’t realize Magellan will be mauled so badly they WONT stop the Rarg so Rarg will go for them next.
I think they like the idea of Magellan getting ruined and Prometheus saving the day, so that they can frame Magellan for the attack and discredit them.
They don’t realise Magellan will be so mauled that the Rarg will detonate the Earth.
I get the feeling that the new CEO is going to receive a lesson on “why shooting yourself in the foot is a bad idea” very soon.
Ironic that her attempt to protect herself and the company will probably result in their annihilation. But hey, corrupt corporate executives are rarely known for their foresight…
*facepalms* ugggh why won’t that kind of corporations ever pick a CEO who is *smart.* I know what the answer is gonna be, but for once… just *once* I would like to see someone who cares more about human lives than their own goddamn greed.
Right? I mean, if they cooperated they could have used the best alibi ever: it’s all the dead dude’s fault. But kidnapping the investigators is pretty much stamping a big GUILTY on your forehead.
Not to mention the stupidity of taking out heroes who would have protected you in the middle of an invasion ofvindictive aliens who think you attacked them.
Careful, remember that their regular CEO was slaughtered by the Rarg very recently – a day ago? Less? This lady just received a battlefield promotion from CFO, or whoever their charter states is in charge in the case of the CEO’s untimely death. The company probably never imagined she’d be thrust into this level of authority, and the shareholders probably didn’t know she’d go all Fortress Prometheus on the rest of the world. Give them some time, they may decide to pick someone else.
Let’s ask Rarg if they give them some time to pick anyone else, yeah …
Hmm, the Rarg device did work a bit differently. Theirs nullified superpowers but didn’t knock people out. A tradeoff for the bigger range perhaps? I presume Prometheus weren’t about to use a weapon that takes out all tech in a several mile radius right inside their own corporate headquarters.
Well, as things stand, the new CEO will be able to give a good news-bad news speech at their next shareholder meeting. The good news is that firm steps have been taken to twart judicirary actions that might impact their investment, the bad news is that due to external market forces, such as the atomization of earth, a drop of 100% in profit margins is expected for the next fiscal quarter.
“Also, we are now apparently a space technologies company, as all of our non-space assets have been crushed into neutronium. Oh, and the Rarg have destroyed our most sophisticated space station.”
The Kingpin from the old-but-not-that-old spiderman cartoon seemed to have his priorities better in order.
“I don’t understand why you’re helping them.”
“Because there’s no profit to be made from the destruction of the planet. It’s terribly bad for business.”
Seriously though, while Ms. Dion has obviously not seen the flash-forward / alternate timeline / something else probably involving Ambrosia, she should be aware that this invasion can go two ways. The Rarg win, and whatever fate they inflict on earth will be equal or lesser than what they inflict on Prometeus (and they are not likely to be concerned with any framing or lack thereof by Magellan). Or Magellan wins, and they’ll be making an angry visit to the last place where Magellan USA went before they mysteriously disappeared. Short of a coin-lands-on-edge scenario where Magellan and the Rarg completely destroy each other so neither has the strength for the inevitable retribution strikes at Prometheus, I don’t see how this is going to help.
Villains are stupid.
Also see: Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
“The truth is, I like this world. You’ve got…dog racing, Manchester united. And you’ve got people. Billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs. It’s all right here.”
There’s one outcome you’re not considering: the Pyrrhic victory we’re seeing right now, where Magellan routs the Rarg, but at massive cost to its leadership and infrastructure. They’re hoping the Rarg attack throws Magellan into such chaos they won’t have the resources to investigate until later, enough time for them to make up a story, erase evidence, and rebuild their physical (and legal) defenses. In other words, they’re hoping to get away with it.
Pyrrhic victory?? *looks around* Where? So far, it’s like we’ve been watching the Rarg Channel
“All Rarg, All the time! We’ll be right back to our featured documentary ‘The Diplomatic Protest with Earth’ after this brief commercial message –
‘Rarg?’ Raarg rargg’ Rargg? Rarg!’
‘Now, back to our feature film – ‘ “
OHHHHH F****K that B***!