I’ve had security experience on both the front line level like these guys but also on the management side. On my site these guys would have to use the cameras to go back and confirm the group left, and/or do a sweep of the building in such a way that some one couldn’t dodge the sweep either be choice or random wandering. But frequently buildings have more than one route which makes that tough. Its all a out procedures that account. For real life stuff.
On the other hand I think they can trust the door in the video monitor to anything less than Meta-toddlers… So if 99% of the planet can’t get in why worry… Well those seem like similar stats for the number of criminals that might know a thing or two about explosives or locks or other such things. Worry.
I assume you’re referring to either Christopher Nolan’s version of Bruce Wayne, or the “Batman Beyond” version of Bruce Wayne, and not the versions from the DCU, the DCAU or “Batman Forever”; they were pretty hands on when it came to their company, even if they left day to day affairs (and “Batman Beyond” Bruce Wayne came out of retirement to undo all the damage done to Wayne-Powers by Derek Powers and his son Paxton).
The DCU version is very much Depending On The Writer – I remember one comic where the mere fact he’d entered the office was first greeted with disbelief (“Bruce Wayne? Sure you are!”) and then by a panic of the “Is he here to lay everyone off?” variety.
Just because Bruce Wayne never comes to the office doesn’t mean he doesn’t keep a careful eye on what’s going on at Wayne Industries. He’s Batman, and he knows the importance of keeping his multi-billion dollar company solvent. Especially when he sometimes has needed to use the stock market to block Lex Luthor or the League of Shadows’ schemes. (Not to mention the time Gorilla Grodd tried to corner the market on banana futures!)
Derek Powers was trying to force a hostile takeover of Wayne Industries around the time that Bruce quit being Batman, in the pilot of “Batman Beyond”. At some point Powers succeeded, but it isn’t clear when. It could have been the next day, or it could have been a few years later, as Bruce became more and more reclusive, and his health got worse and worse. What is clear is that after Paxton Powers helped expose his father as Blight, and his subsequent promotion to CEO, Bruce began working to reassert control of the company. Their lucky break came when Paxton’s taste for stolen pre-Columbian artifacts collided with the Royal Flush Gang’s desperation for cash, and Bruce and Terry were able to take them all down. But before Bruce began to mentor Terry he’d let Derek Powers turn Wayne-Powers into the sort of villainous corporation Batman used to battle (see: Dagget, Roland). If Bruce had kept an eye on Derek Powers, Terry’s father wouldn’t have been murdered by George Takei.
I’ve never been involved directly with security, but I’ve worked in enough secure environments to know that some of them really don’t like people not signing out. They want that one to one accounting to be even or (possibly several) somebody(s) will have to do a load of extra work to verify it. One place I worked even had passive electronics built into the visitor’s badges that would ID how many non-authorized personnel may be in a place, who they should be, & where they are to within a few meters.
I would have thought Herschel to be ahead of that curve.
It doesn’t matter how sensitive Herschel makes his security cameras, or how many redundancies the security guards use, if [SPOILER] doesn’t want you to find [SPOILER] you won’t, it’s as simple as that.
It doesn’t help that Herschel has indeed been incredibly lax in Clay Industry’s security in the past. That laxity allowed the Headmaster to gain special access to this facility to steal the tech that Herschel is discussing with his employee in panels 1-3. How exactly the Headmaster was able to do get that kind of access is a major spoiler, which ties into the Headmaster’s secret identity. Suffice to say that the “PS238 RPG” sourcebook is wrong on this count.
Stealing the technology of a meta-genius can’t be good for the security of the Praetorian Academy. Herschel must have a tremendous advantage hacking and otherwise subverting his own technology.
It’s been shown to actually be the reverse: the Headmaster has complete access to PS238’s student database, because the item he stole was part of the prototypes for PS238 (PS238 Mark I, if you will) before Herschel abandoned that model in favor of the current one (which incorporates the Union of Justice’s old satellite as part of the facility).
To make things worse, the Headmaster did a great job of covering his tracks, which is why Herschel is having such a difficult time figuring out what exactly he stole.
In the first appearance of Praetorian Academy’s Centurions (the “Free Comic Book Day” give-away starring Captain Clarinet and the Flea), Herchel remarks to Ms. Kyle that the circuit Alejandro took from the Centurions was based on his earlier work, and during Lord Dax-Ra’s invasion, while one of the Centurions happened to be in Principal Cranston’s office, Herschel gave the minion a device to hold, which confirmed Herschel’s suspicions: the armor is stolen Clay Industries tech. But Herschel doesn’t know when it was stolen, or which invention it was based on.
The Centurion armor probably isn’t based directly on Herschel’s Mantium armor, because I think he’d be as familiar with that as Tony Stark is with his Iron Man tech, but they could have been cobbled together by the Headmaster using stolen schematics. The item the Headmaster stole would not only have had the schematics, it was designed to innovate, to incorporate several different designs and make them work in harmony. But the Headmaster’s been lazy: all of the components are Clay Industry designs. He hasn’t tried to steal from any other companies, because for his purposes having one type of working Centurion armor is enough. There’s no need to make further waves, since what the Headmaster has planned is based on a very long term scheme… a long term scheme that does not necessarily bode well for the metaprodigies at PS238!
You realise, of course, that keeping specific names and methods from the next page aren’t nearly so spoileriffic as telling us a major villain’s plan structure.
It’d be like saying back in the rainmaker project’s first appearance that it wouldn’t bode well for those students to be in the program. Doesn’t matter if we don’t know how, it matters that we know at all.
Saying that a supervillain whose henchmen have been shown to kidnap metaprodigies in the past (Charles) or attempted to (the Rainmaker kids, Zodon), or tried to kill PS238 students for being too nosy (Flea, Moonshadow, 84, Polymer, Zodon) has bad intentions for the PS238 students is not a spoiler. It is a general description of the Headmaster’s place in the “PS238” narrative: he’s the main bad guy, and that was foreshadowed years before he actually showed up at the soccer match.
But Herschel knows now that somebody was able to steal his stuff in the past. I thought he was smart – why didn’t he tighten security the second he found that out? Did he hit his head or something? Did the Headmaster have someone put something into his coffee? And who the hell hired those security guys? I mean, even if there wasn’t a known security leak, those people who didn’t check out are either thieves/spies, and then the company should want them out for obvious reasons, or harmless but stupid, in which case the company should want them out before they hurt themselves and sue the place where it happened.
A meta being able to dodge security systems is a problem, yes, but they are not even trying to find that group! They can’t know if it’s a meta! They just know someone went in and didn’t come out – why do they shrug it off? Damn, they’re just holding the Idiot Ball for plot convenience, right? This is so disappointing.
I’m currently redesigning a bunch of paper work for one of my employers because the shortcuts real humans take, and their interpretations of what are important or not important ended up messing with the systems. Attempt after attempt to keep the staff on the ball would work for a while and then fall through. Each attempt to “do it right” was either ineffective or hard on moral, and ended up being temporary. So now I’m using my creative side to figure out how to just go with their short comings and make the new system work.
Real people do take short cuts, slack off and consider the job just a job. It happens. Thus its realistic. Even the most well trained security force can’t maintain perfect surveillance. Its mind numbing and demoralizing to track down every glitch and have them “all” be nothing… Until the 1 in 1000 strikes… By which time everyone is a sleep. Military has this issue – if you keep one group guarding the same location for a long time they get complacent, but if you rotate them out you can’t be sure that the perpetual new bodies are dedicated or trust worthy. Your stuck both ways. Even if you war game challenges and tests to keep them engaged they occasionally will be caught flat footed thinking a real event is a test.
@Disappointed: The first hint that Praetorian Academy was using Clay Industries’ tech was in the first appearance of the Centurions (the “Free Comic Book Day” giveaway, featuring Captain Clarinet and the Flea). Herschel noted the similarity in the circuit board Alejandro swiped to some of the circuit nodes in his early Mantium armor. But there were no identifying marks on the circuit board, and Praetorian Academy hadn’t gone public yet. Later on Herschel conducted a test to determine if they were using his tech, as seen here: http://ps238.nodwick.com/?p=1238
So while it has taken Herschel a while to gather evidence, he’s definitely catching up.
If I can be permitted a slight diversion on the subject of security from a different writer…Daniel keyes Moran is a SF novellist of whose works I’m immoderately fond. He programs computers for a living, however.
This other end of the link below tells the story of one of his more intersting consultant jobs, as related to security. Warning: you shouldn’t drink while reading it, because you might snort that out your nose. For those not familiar with Mr. Moran’s work, Trent is one of his more…ineresting characters, known for his ability with security systems.
I’ve had security experience on both the front line level like these guys but also on the management side. On my site these guys would have to use the cameras to go back and confirm the group left, and/or do a sweep of the building in such a way that some one couldn’t dodge the sweep either be choice or random wandering. But frequently buildings have more than one route which makes that tough. Its all a out procedures that account. For real life stuff.
On the other hand I think they can trust the door in the video monitor to anything less than Meta-toddlers… So if 99% of the planet can’t get in why worry… Well those seem like similar stats for the number of criminals that might know a thing or two about explosives or locks or other such things. Worry.
Which is why any place interested in its security will provide you with an escort, either overt security or a ‘tour guide’.
But yes, Herschel has been unbelievably slack in running his company. Worse than Bruce Wayne and Wayne Enterprises.
I assume you’re referring to either Christopher Nolan’s version of Bruce Wayne, or the “Batman Beyond” version of Bruce Wayne, and not the versions from the DCU, the DCAU or “Batman Forever”; they were pretty hands on when it came to their company, even if they left day to day affairs (and “Batman Beyond” Bruce Wayne came out of retirement to undo all the damage done to Wayne-Powers by Derek Powers and his son Paxton).
EDIT: Last part should have read “even if they left day to day affairs to someone else like Lucius Fox.”
The DCU version is very much Depending On The Writer – I remember one comic where the mere fact he’d entered the office was first greeted with disbelief (“Bruce Wayne? Sure you are!”) and then by a panic of the “Is he here to lay everyone off?” variety.
Just because Bruce Wayne never comes to the office doesn’t mean he doesn’t keep a careful eye on what’s going on at Wayne Industries. He’s Batman, and he knows the importance of keeping his multi-billion dollar company solvent. Especially when he sometimes has needed to use the stock market to block Lex Luthor or the League of Shadows’ schemes. (Not to mention the time Gorilla Grodd tried to corner the market on banana futures!)
I was going to say, Bruce Wayne was essentially forced out of control of the company in Batman Beyond, no?
Derek Powers was trying to force a hostile takeover of Wayne Industries around the time that Bruce quit being Batman, in the pilot of “Batman Beyond”. At some point Powers succeeded, but it isn’t clear when. It could have been the next day, or it could have been a few years later, as Bruce became more and more reclusive, and his health got worse and worse. What is clear is that after Paxton Powers helped expose his father as Blight, and his subsequent promotion to CEO, Bruce began working to reassert control of the company. Their lucky break came when Paxton’s taste for stolen pre-Columbian artifacts collided with the Royal Flush Gang’s desperation for cash, and Bruce and Terry were able to take them all down. But before Bruce began to mentor Terry he’d let Derek Powers turn Wayne-Powers into the sort of villainous corporation Batman used to battle (see: Dagget, Roland). If Bruce had kept an eye on Derek Powers, Terry’s father wouldn’t have been murdered by George Takei.
Seems like a double-sized tipoff that someone on the security staff is in on it, then. I’m betting the guy at the desk.
Or someone put on their “sneaky shoes” this morning! 😀
I’ve never been involved directly with security, but I’ve worked in enough secure environments to know that some of them really don’t like people not signing out. They want that one to one accounting to be even or (possibly several) somebody(s) will have to do a load of extra work to verify it. One place I worked even had passive electronics built into the visitor’s badges that would ID how many non-authorized personnel may be in a place, who they should be, & where they are to within a few meters.
I would have thought Herschel to be ahead of that curve.
It doesn’t matter how sensitive Herschel makes his security cameras, or how many redundancies the security guards use, if [SPOILER] doesn’t want you to find [SPOILER] you won’t, it’s as simple as that.
It doesn’t help that Herschel has indeed been incredibly lax in Clay Industry’s security in the past. That laxity allowed the Headmaster to gain special access to this facility to steal the tech that Herschel is discussing with his employee in panels 1-3. How exactly the Headmaster was able to do get that kind of access is a major spoiler, which ties into the Headmaster’s secret identity. Suffice to say that the “PS238 RPG” sourcebook is wrong on this count.
Stealing the technology of a meta-genius can’t be good for the security of the Praetorian Academy. Herschel must have a tremendous advantage hacking and otherwise subverting his own technology.
It’s been shown to actually be the reverse: the Headmaster has complete access to PS238’s student database, because the item he stole was part of the prototypes for PS238 (PS238 Mark I, if you will) before Herschel abandoned that model in favor of the current one (which incorporates the Union of Justice’s old satellite as part of the facility).
To make things worse, the Headmaster did a great job of covering his tracks, which is why Herschel is having such a difficult time figuring out what exactly he stole.
In the first appearance of Praetorian Academy’s Centurions (the “Free Comic Book Day” give-away starring Captain Clarinet and the Flea), Herchel remarks to Ms. Kyle that the circuit Alejandro took from the Centurions was based on his earlier work, and during Lord Dax-Ra’s invasion, while one of the Centurions happened to be in Principal Cranston’s office, Herschel gave the minion a device to hold, which confirmed Herschel’s suspicions: the armor is stolen Clay Industries tech. But Herschel doesn’t know when it was stolen, or which invention it was based on.
The Centurion armor probably isn’t based directly on Herschel’s Mantium armor, because I think he’d be as familiar with that as Tony Stark is with his Iron Man tech, but they could have been cobbled together by the Headmaster using stolen schematics. The item the Headmaster stole would not only have had the schematics, it was designed to innovate, to incorporate several different designs and make them work in harmony. But the Headmaster’s been lazy: all of the components are Clay Industry designs. He hasn’t tried to steal from any other companies, because for his purposes having one type of working Centurion armor is enough. There’s no need to make further waves, since what the Headmaster has planned is based on a very long term scheme… a long term scheme that does not necessarily bode well for the metaprodigies at PS238!
You realise, of course, that keeping specific names and methods from the next page aren’t nearly so spoileriffic as telling us a major villain’s plan structure.
It’d be like saying back in the rainmaker project’s first appearance that it wouldn’t bode well for those students to be in the program. Doesn’t matter if we don’t know how, it matters that we know at all.
Saying that a supervillain whose henchmen have been shown to kidnap metaprodigies in the past (Charles) or attempted to (the Rainmaker kids, Zodon), or tried to kill PS238 students for being too nosy (Flea, Moonshadow, 84, Polymer, Zodon) has bad intentions for the PS238 students is not a spoiler. It is a general description of the Headmaster’s place in the “PS238” narrative: he’s the main bad guy, and that was foreshadowed years before he actually showed up at the soccer match.
But Herschel knows now that somebody was able to steal his stuff in the past. I thought he was smart – why didn’t he tighten security the second he found that out? Did he hit his head or something? Did the Headmaster have someone put something into his coffee? And who the hell hired those security guys? I mean, even if there wasn’t a known security leak, those people who didn’t check out are either thieves/spies, and then the company should want them out for obvious reasons, or harmless but stupid, in which case the company should want them out before they hurt themselves and sue the place where it happened.
A meta being able to dodge security systems is a problem, yes, but they are not even trying to find that group! They can’t know if it’s a meta! They just know someone went in and didn’t come out – why do they shrug it off? Damn, they’re just holding the Idiot Ball for plot convenience, right? This is so disappointing.
I’m currently redesigning a bunch of paper work for one of my employers because the shortcuts real humans take, and their interpretations of what are important or not important ended up messing with the systems. Attempt after attempt to keep the staff on the ball would work for a while and then fall through. Each attempt to “do it right” was either ineffective or hard on moral, and ended up being temporary. So now I’m using my creative side to figure out how to just go with their short comings and make the new system work.
Real people do take short cuts, slack off and consider the job just a job. It happens. Thus its realistic. Even the most well trained security force can’t maintain perfect surveillance. Its mind numbing and demoralizing to track down every glitch and have them “all” be nothing… Until the 1 in 1000 strikes… By which time everyone is a sleep. Military has this issue – if you keep one group guarding the same location for a long time they get complacent, but if you rotate them out you can’t be sure that the perpetual new bodies are dedicated or trust worthy. Your stuck both ways. Even if you war game challenges and tests to keep them engaged they occasionally will be caught flat footed thinking a real event is a test.
@Disappointed: The first hint that Praetorian Academy was using Clay Industries’ tech was in the first appearance of the Centurions (the “Free Comic Book Day” giveaway, featuring Captain Clarinet and the Flea). Herschel noted the similarity in the circuit board Alejandro swiped to some of the circuit nodes in his early Mantium armor. But there were no identifying marks on the circuit board, and Praetorian Academy hadn’t gone public yet. Later on Herschel conducted a test to determine if they were using his tech, as seen here:
http://ps238.nodwick.com/?p=1238
So while it has taken Herschel a while to gather evidence, he’s definitely catching up.
If I can be permitted a slight diversion on the subject of security from a different writer…Daniel keyes Moran is a SF novellist of whose works I’m immoderately fond. He programs computers for a living, however.
This other end of the link below tells the story of one of his more intersting consultant jobs, as related to security. Warning: you shouldn’t drink while reading it, because you might snort that out your nose. For those not familiar with Mr. Moran’s work, Trent is one of his more…ineresting characters, known for his ability with security systems.
http://www.kithrup.com/dkm/dkmnonfic/hacksec.html
Yes, it’s quite safe for work.