No, that IS a good thing! If anyone’s going to be wily enough to know what to take, as well as how to get away with shoplifting a Superpowers Shoppe, plus one with a staff suddenly gone hostile, you’re very much going to want Zodon on your team.
I think that will probably mostly result in Zodon shoplifting the good stuff, and everyone else getting interesting but not as useful things. But things that are probably more useful and safer than what they’d have taken at random. So yeah, just not quite as much of a positive as the words you used makes it sound.
Still, they’ll be glad Zodon has those things later. At least the ones they don’t regret Zodon having.
Eh, if zodon had nefarious intentions here he wouldn’t have given up the advantage of surprise by jumping into the conversation. There’s another shoe to drop, a true villain to reveal him/herself.
While you may still be right, it’s also possible that Zodon’s “genius” image/ego (however rightly he may think of himself thus) simply would not let him go without issuing (what he sees as) a proper explanation. Evil Genius supervillains generally aren’t content with simply being smart – they have to be seen being smart, too.
What if Zodon ain’t there to pilfer but to deal? He may not currently be working with P&G like Sarah and Lester, or an invited guest like Tyler, but unlike Cecil he may instead offer to do things peacefully. If he’s got something P&G are interested in, he may walk out with something that fulfils his current plans.
Given the way she acts, and the fact that she neither turned to anyone for help nor had it offered to her, I’m thinking the younger version is the REAL identity (secret or not).
I feel there’s a strong argument to be made for that. But I’ve also known a lot of adults who seemed to have stopped mentally maturing at some point before graduating high school (and yet still graduated high school rather than skipping that process.)
Considering Dynamode’s behavior, I’m guessing she’s probably the sort of vigilante hero that nobody really liked very much, and it was at times questionable whether she was really a hero or not. I can easily imagine nobody offering help to an adult hero like that. I can also imagine her turning down assistance from the Revenant without even realizing that she was being offered assistance.
I find it funny that the store people’s incessant escalation means that they’re distracted when Zodon’s actually going to steal shit. That’s karma, right there.
I’m thinking that if I looked into the etymology, I’d probably find that “störung” has similar roots to “stirring.”
*goes off to research*
“stir (v.)
Old English styrian “to stir, move; rouse, agitate, incite, urge” (transitive and intransitive), from Proto-Germanic *sturjan (source also of Middle Dutch stoeren, Dutch storen “to disturb,” Old High German storan “to scatter, destroy,” German stören “to disturb”), from PIE *(s)twer- (1) “to turn, whirl” (see storm (n.)). Related: Stirred; stirring.”
-Etymonline.com
I have no idea of what it does really mean in German, but after reading the thread, I am inclined to say “There’s a disturbance on the Force” vía blind idiot translation…
I’m curious as to who else thinks the “Code 300″/Intruder Alert is actually ONLY about Zordon being in the store, with everyone else being permitted entry.
Also, in confirmation, I can guarantee that Cecil has one of his coattails (his right hand coattail) off panel while being carried through the “higher spatial dimension”, and it was in another toilet when they arrived. The closest to “it’s impossible for Zordon to be here” panels are from just before they started travelling, and even then Cecil’s close enough to off panel every shot to allow Zordon to be in a specific spot just off-panel, or moving closer to the group from just off panel.
It would explain a lot, especially if P&G only got what we heard and are just assuming that all the kids that snuck in are Code 300 threats. While Z is still a child, he is protected well enough that Unusual Levels of Force might be required just to restrain him…
Been thinking about it. At first glance, it would seem so. I was going to agree myself. But after some pondering, the idea that the intruder alert is just for Zodon and excludes Cecil, Ron and the Flea becomes problematic.
P&G’s super-tech store doesn’t just screen people from its premises at the door; even approaching it from the sidewalk will bounce you away if you’re not invited. Remember that the Flea and Cecil were warped away from the place early in the story, after Sarah first confronted Ron and Tyler. He lost track of her and ran into the Flea who showed him some weird bouncing effect was around the store.
Thus we know that Cecil and the Flea weren’t “invited” then; why would they be now? They’re only there to help Tyler, not get new powers.
Second, Ron’s newly manifested powers got them in *despite* the store’s ability to screen out the uninvited. Not going in through the front door where people are supposed to pass and bypassing security measures is not part of the welcome visitor category.
Third, checking the sequence of events, the alarm went off immediately after Ron, Cecil, and the Flea’s arrival. At that point Zodon was still trailing the trio. Alarms are triggered after you get in, not prior to it.
Fourth, it’s easy to blame Zodon. He’s a jerk for a child and almost always up to no good, including here. But he only followed the path into the store; he wasn’t the original trespassers who managed to bypass its security. I’d like to blame Zodon too because he deserves a lot of comeuppance, but don’t forget that heroes and do-gooders tend yo do a lot of trespass too in their adventures too. Cecil, the Flea and Ron just did.
But he didn’t, or else Cecil, Ron, and the Flea would have noticed. If Zodon held on to Cecil’s Chaos Coat’s tails, he still trailed far enough behind to not have been seen and thus arrive after them.
I looked back, previously. So long as they didn’t look back while travelling through the Higher Spacial Dimensions, which would be perfectly reasonable, Zordon could easily have arrived at the same time as everyone else. For example, when they arrived, Cecil’s had coattails hanging in a separate toilet stall that could have easily fit Zordon. He definitely could have arrived at the same time as the rest of the group.
@darius drake: Given how Cecil and the Flea dangled behind Ron as he “dragged” them along as seen in 2019-08-05, it would have been impossible for them *not* to see Zodon trailing behind close enough to arrive at the same time they did. The two hung on at times in a position facing behind.
One thought is they did not go to violence when Praetorian Greyhound just popped into the place. They just contacted their boss and dropped him off outside. And I hope I can edit this because I recall they were surprised by the alarm at all not simply ‘again’. But now I have to flip back and check that.
Just checked it. 2017-07-24. Charles crashed into some of their wares and presumably got knocked out. Power: “And will he be all right? He landed on some techno-magic gear that’ll take me a week to calm down.” No need to resort to violence if the guy’s already unconscious.
But what gets me now is what you said, Nealithi. When Ron, Cecil, and the Flea do arrive in 2019-12-30, it really feels like it’s the first time it’s happened for P&G. P&G’s surprised dialogue is ambiguous, though. Assuming that intruder alerts are indeed rare given how hard it is for unwanted guests to get in, then an intruder alert happening again might warrant it.
I never try to explain these days how my record in death matches against pickup trucks is 2-0-1. The truth sounds like I’m on drugs because it is such a rare condition.
I was born with a rare bone condition that makes my bones and connective tissue very dense and strong. I have fallen out of trees and windows and aside from soft tissue injuries I walked away every time.
Anywho, back in the mid-1970s I was hit crossing the street twice in the same intersection hard enough that the vehicles were totalled out but I walked away, the second time with a blanket to cover where my pants were shredded from the pavement. Then back in 2001 a pickup driver took offense at my riding my bicycle home from my second shift job, and executed a u-turn so as to execute me with his pickup truck and hit me from behind at approximately 60 MPH (100 km/hr) I went between 12 and 16 feet vertically and about 100 feet horizontally and smashed the passenger side of the roof back until it was almost flat. The impact also broke my tib/fib, exploded my lower leg muscles out of the front of my leg, broke my femur and hip, and then I had a secondary impact when my face hit the street at the end of my trajectory. This of course, killed me, for a little while. Counter intuitively, being dead saved my life because I didn’t have my heart pumping my blood out of the huge hole in my leg onto the ground. But when they scraped me off the street my heart started beating again, I regained consciousness and told the people doing the scraping that I had broken the upper end of my femur (the only injury I could feel). I passed out again so I can’t say what their reactions were, but when I regained consciousness again by that time I had some Gooood Drugs in my system and asked if anyone got the number of the truck, and then when asked if I had seen the truck I said no but it was too late for the bus so it had to have been a truck to do this much damage. That’s the one I count as a draw.
I am a little confused about how your heart starting beating again in the “draw” incident though. It doesn’t sound like they revived you at the scene and I don’t think EMTs usually bring that kind of equipment anyway. Do you know how/why it happened?
My guess is that it’s the first bit of tech we get to see being shoplifted from Power & Glory. That said, it’s conceivable he’s been going through their stuff at leisure while the proprietors have been distracted by the people he followed in, so he could be fairly well loaded by now, and this is just the first thing he couldn’t squirrel away.
I’m looking forward to Ron establishing his own identity and costume, free of his dad’s shadow which was a HUGE issue when we met him. It’s been a long time coming, and he had to deal with ego and loss issues first. I’m especially glad he stopped blaming others for the weird stuff around him. Good, good.
Super Self-Awareness doesn’t mean knowing everything about yourself. She hasn’t had an opportunity to experiment, trial, or discover her limitations. It’s not just self-awareness that needs to be tested, it’s cognitive processing. Say she now maxes out at using 50 molecular structures simultaneously, but paying attention to that many structures at the same time means that she can’t concentrate on other things, like walking or ongoing fights. At 30 she can pay enough attention to herself and the world around her that she can do simple day-to-day interactions such as walking, shopping, and simple cooking, but anything complicated like driving or fighting is too complicated for her to follow. 20, in this assumption, allows her to fight fairly well, while maintaining 10-15 is basically easy enough that it takes no effort from her concentration anymore.
You can see how important the differences that could be discovered with a little time and testing could be with this example, right? We haven’t seen her self-awareness display anything that she, theoretically, couldn’t either already know, or be done with enough time in temporal stasis and a really patient person counting for her (the naming all her skin cells thing).
I just realized that Ron’s new powers perfectly counters Charles Brigman’s. I mean, yeah, he did that when Charles tried to ‘port away the Flea while they were playing video games, but at the time it seemed like an accident. Now we know it wasn’t a fluke. Also, Ron’s new powers include vision and mobility, meaning he counters Charles’ in yet another way: not only can he stop Charles from teleporting someone away directly, he may even be able to track and follow Charles if Charles was successful to begin with.
Consider how tied the two have been: when Ron had to stop Charles using violence before, the depression made him doubt wanting to be a superhero. He was unhappy being a FISS despite loving his dad because of that. He then lost his powers, but he ended up missing them. But now the powers from his mom have manifested, and they allow him to fight back against Charles WITHOUT violence.
Oh my golly, how cool is that? 😀 I can’t wait to get this new chapter in paper form. Take my money, Aaron!
Charles would simply teleport back to places he’s been to on Earth, including his home or his dorm at Praetorian. :-/ Worse, having been to Argos, he could provide Praetorian access to that world.
Here we see a difference between Zodon and Von Fogg. Von Fogg has been trained, when hiding/sneaking around, to resist the urge to demonstrate his mental superiority.
Zodon unsupervised in THIS store.
This is not a good thing.
Yeah, this is a nice soft elephant crap hurtling towards a high-speed fan.
Actually, Elephant dung is mostly undigested grass fiber. People even make paper out of it!
Bear scat is a much messier option.
Lion’s poo is reportedly be the worst.
Hippos spin their tail when they defecate, spreading it about on their own. They come with their own fan!
No idea why they would evolve that way.
No, that IS a good thing! If anyone’s going to be wily enough to know what to take, as well as how to get away with shoplifting a Superpowers Shoppe, plus one with a staff suddenly gone hostile, you’re very much going to want Zodon on your team.
I think that will probably mostly result in Zodon shoplifting the good stuff, and everyone else getting interesting but not as useful things. But things that are probably more useful and safer than what they’d have taken at random. So yeah, just not quite as much of a positive as the words you used makes it sound.
Still, they’ll be glad Zodon has those things later. At least the ones they don’t regret Zodon having.
Or just him on HIS OWN side, as usual.
Eh, if zodon had nefarious intentions here he wouldn’t have given up the advantage of surprise by jumping into the conversation. There’s another shoe to drop, a true villain to reveal him/herself.
While you may still be right, it’s also possible that Zodon’s “genius” image/ego (however rightly he may think of himself thus) simply would not let him go without issuing (what he sees as) a proper explanation. Evil Genius supervillains generally aren’t content with simply being smart – they have to be seen being smart, too.
What if Zodon ain’t there to pilfer but to deal? He may not currently be working with P&G like Sarah and Lester, or an invited guest like Tyler, but unlike Cecil he may instead offer to do things peacefully. If he’s got something P&G are interested in, he may walk out with something that fulfils his current plans.
Well he seems to be holding some sort of tech “fishing rod” or remote. Chances are something is about to be yoink’ed.
What is the over/under that dynamode turns back in to her young version tomorrow morning?
I suppose that matters if she minds. As treating a younger self as a form of secret identity.
Given the way she acts, and the fact that she neither turned to anyone for help nor had it offered to her, I’m thinking the younger version is the REAL identity (secret or not).
I feel there’s a strong argument to be made for that. But I’ve also known a lot of adults who seemed to have stopped mentally maturing at some point before graduating high school (and yet still graduated high school rather than skipping that process.)
Considering Dynamode’s behavior, I’m guessing she’s probably the sort of vigilante hero that nobody really liked very much, and it was at times questionable whether she was really a hero or not. I can easily imagine nobody offering help to an adult hero like that. I can also imagine her turning down assistance from the Revenant without even realizing that she was being offered assistance.
I find it funny that the store people’s incessant escalation means that they’re distracted when Zodon’s actually going to steal shit. That’s karma, right there.
This has me thinking of a certain teleporting shoplifter.
Anyone have a good guess what the gothic speech is? The second word is “pinned”, but I can’t make out the first.
Effizienzstörung festgestellt – efficiency loss detected
I’d like to add that Effizienzstörung is not a german word. Effizienzverlust which literally means efficiency loss is. =P
Yes it is
It literally translates to efficiency disturbance
Source: a German
“I sense a disturbance in the Efficiency, as if…”
I’m thinking that if I looked into the etymology, I’d probably find that “störung” has similar roots to “stirring.”
*goes off to research*
“stir (v.)
Old English styrian “to stir, move; rouse, agitate, incite, urge” (transitive and intransitive), from Proto-Germanic *sturjan (source also of Middle Dutch stoeren, Dutch storen “to disturb,” Old High German storan “to scatter, destroy,” German stören “to disturb”), from PIE *(s)twer- (1) “to turn, whirl” (see storm (n.)). Related: Stirred; stirring.”
-Etymonline.com
Na wenn Du das sagst…
I’d put ithe meaning down as power disturbance confirmed. (Efficiency to Effect to Power)
I got a google on it roughly that says ‘effj that fault fixed’.
I can’t figure out the characters that look like a 3
It’s a z.
I have no idea of what it does really mean in German, but after reading the thread, I am inclined to say “There’s a disturbance on the Force” vía blind idiot translation…
As a German I would translate it to: efficiency disruption detected.
I’m curious as to who else thinks the “Code 300″/Intruder Alert is actually ONLY about Zordon being in the store, with everyone else being permitted entry.
Also, in confirmation, I can guarantee that Cecil has one of his coattails (his right hand coattail) off panel while being carried through the “higher spatial dimension”, and it was in another toilet when they arrived. The closest to “it’s impossible for Zordon to be here” panels are from just before they started travelling, and even then Cecil’s close enough to off panel every shot to allow Zordon to be in a specific spot just off-panel, or moving closer to the group from just off panel.
It would explain a lot, especially if P&G only got what we heard and are just assuming that all the kids that snuck in are Code 300 threats. While Z is still a child, he is protected well enough that Unusual Levels of Force might be required just to restrain him…
Been thinking about it. At first glance, it would seem so. I was going to agree myself. But after some pondering, the idea that the intruder alert is just for Zodon and excludes Cecil, Ron and the Flea becomes problematic.
P&G’s super-tech store doesn’t just screen people from its premises at the door; even approaching it from the sidewalk will bounce you away if you’re not invited. Remember that the Flea and Cecil were warped away from the place early in the story, after Sarah first confronted Ron and Tyler. He lost track of her and ran into the Flea who showed him some weird bouncing effect was around the store.
Thus we know that Cecil and the Flea weren’t “invited” then; why would they be now? They’re only there to help Tyler, not get new powers.
Second, Ron’s newly manifested powers got them in *despite* the store’s ability to screen out the uninvited. Not going in through the front door where people are supposed to pass and bypassing security measures is not part of the welcome visitor category.
Third, checking the sequence of events, the alarm went off immediately after Ron, Cecil, and the Flea’s arrival. At that point Zodon was still trailing the trio. Alarms are triggered after you get in, not prior to it.
Fourth, it’s easy to blame Zodon. He’s a jerk for a child and almost always up to no good, including here. But he only followed the path into the store; he wasn’t the original trespassers who managed to bypass its security. I’d like to blame Zodon too because he deserves a lot of comeuppance, but don’t forget that heroes and do-gooders tend yo do a lot of trespass too in their adventures too. Cecil, the Flea and Ron just did.
Actually, if Zodon was holding on to Cecil’s coat’s tail, he would’ve arrived at the same time they did. Agree with the rest, though.
But he didn’t, or else Cecil, Ron, and the Flea would have noticed. If Zodon held on to Cecil’s Chaos Coat’s tails, he still trailed far enough behind to not have been seen and thus arrive after them.
I looked back, previously. So long as they didn’t look back while travelling through the Higher Spacial Dimensions, which would be perfectly reasonable, Zordon could easily have arrived at the same time as everyone else. For example, when they arrived, Cecil’s had coattails hanging in a separate toilet stall that could have easily fit Zordon. He definitely could have arrived at the same time as the rest of the group.
@darius drake: Given how Cecil and the Flea dangled behind Ron as he “dragged” them along as seen in 2019-08-05, it would have been impossible for them *not* to see Zodon trailing behind close enough to arrive at the same time they did. The two hung on at times in a position facing behind.
One thought is they did not go to violence when Praetorian Greyhound just popped into the place. They just contacted their boss and dropped him off outside. And I hope I can edit this because I recall they were surprised by the alarm at all not simply ‘again’. But now I have to flip back and check that.
Just checked it. 2017-07-24. Charles crashed into some of their wares and presumably got knocked out. Power: “And will he be all right? He landed on some techno-magic gear that’ll take me a week to calm down.” No need to resort to violence if the guy’s already unconscious.
But what gets me now is what you said, Nealithi. When Ron, Cecil, and the Flea do arrive in 2019-12-30, it really feels like it’s the first time it’s happened for P&G. P&G’s surprised dialogue is ambiguous, though. Assuming that intruder alerts are indeed rare given how hard it is for unwanted guests to get in, then an intruder alert happening again might warrant it.
I never try to explain these days how my record in death matches against pickup trucks is 2-0-1. The truth sounds like I’m on drugs because it is such a rare condition.
I’ve heard the 2, but not the 1.
Please, please explain, this sounds amazing.
I was born with a rare bone condition that makes my bones and connective tissue very dense and strong. I have fallen out of trees and windows and aside from soft tissue injuries I walked away every time.
Anywho, back in the mid-1970s I was hit crossing the street twice in the same intersection hard enough that the vehicles were totalled out but I walked away, the second time with a blanket to cover where my pants were shredded from the pavement. Then back in 2001 a pickup driver took offense at my riding my bicycle home from my second shift job, and executed a u-turn so as to execute me with his pickup truck and hit me from behind at approximately 60 MPH (100 km/hr) I went between 12 and 16 feet vertically and about 100 feet horizontally and smashed the passenger side of the roof back until it was almost flat. The impact also broke my tib/fib, exploded my lower leg muscles out of the front of my leg, broke my femur and hip, and then I had a secondary impact when my face hit the street at the end of my trajectory. This of course, killed me, for a little while. Counter intuitively, being dead saved my life because I didn’t have my heart pumping my blood out of the huge hole in my leg onto the ground. But when they scraped me off the street my heart started beating again, I regained consciousness and told the people doing the scraping that I had broken the upper end of my femur (the only injury I could feel). I passed out again so I can’t say what their reactions were, but when I regained consciousness again by that time I had some Gooood Drugs in my system and asked if anyone got the number of the truck, and then when asked if I had seen the truck I said no but it was too late for the bus so it had to have been a truck to do this much damage. That’s the one I count as a draw.
Even more amazing than expected!
I am a little confused about how your heart starting beating again in the “draw” incident though. It doesn’t sound like they revived you at the scene and I don’t think EMTs usually bring that kind of equipment anyway. Do you know how/why it happened?
So Zodon was the unknown fourth child that escaped the barriers when Ron warped everyone out.
And is that a fishing rod in his claw?
Looks a bit like some sort of tech to hold the orb, but that’s probably a moot point by now.
My guess is that it’s the first bit of tech we get to see being shoplifted from Power & Glory. That said, it’s conceivable he’s been going through their stuff at leisure while the proprietors have been distracted by the people he followed in, so he could be fairly well loaded by now, and this is just the first thing he couldn’t squirrel away.
I’m looking forward to Ron establishing his own identity and costume, free of his dad’s shadow which was a HUGE issue when we met him. It’s been a long time coming, and he had to deal with ego and loss issues first. I’m especially glad he stopped blaming others for the weird stuff around him. Good, good.
So if she doesn’t know her limits, and her superpower is super self-awareness………
(Note, I am not questioning the quote, just pointing out the sheer scope of her abilities now.)
Super Self-Awareness doesn’t mean knowing everything about yourself. She hasn’t had an opportunity to experiment, trial, or discover her limitations. It’s not just self-awareness that needs to be tested, it’s cognitive processing. Say she now maxes out at using 50 molecular structures simultaneously, but paying attention to that many structures at the same time means that she can’t concentrate on other things, like walking or ongoing fights. At 30 she can pay enough attention to herself and the world around her that she can do simple day-to-day interactions such as walking, shopping, and simple cooking, but anything complicated like driving or fighting is too complicated for her to follow. 20, in this assumption, allows her to fight fairly well, while maintaining 10-15 is basically easy enough that it takes no effort from her concentration anymore.
You can see how important the differences that could be discovered with a little time and testing could be with this example, right? We haven’t seen her self-awareness display anything that she, theoretically, couldn’t either already know, or be done with enough time in temporal stasis and a really patient person counting for her (the naming all her skin cells thing).
HOLY COW.
I just realized that Ron’s new powers perfectly counters Charles Brigman’s. I mean, yeah, he did that when Charles tried to ‘port away the Flea while they were playing video games, but at the time it seemed like an accident. Now we know it wasn’t a fluke. Also, Ron’s new powers include vision and mobility, meaning he counters Charles’ in yet another way: not only can he stop Charles from teleporting someone away directly, he may even be able to track and follow Charles if Charles was successful to begin with.
Consider how tied the two have been: when Ron had to stop Charles using violence before, the depression made him doubt wanting to be a superhero. He was unhappy being a FISS despite loving his dad because of that. He then lost his powers, but he ended up missing them. But now the powers from his mom have manifested, and they allow him to fight back against Charles WITHOUT violence.
Oh my golly, how cool is that? 😀 I can’t wait to get this new chapter in paper form. Take my money, Aaron!
Imagine if Ron takes Charles someplace Charles has never been before and can’t return from. Say…Argos?
Charles would simply teleport back to places he’s been to on Earth, including his home or his dorm at Praetorian. :-/ Worse, having been to Argos, he could provide Praetorian access to that world.
Here we see a difference between Zodon and Von Fogg. Von Fogg has been trained, when hiding/sneaking around, to resist the urge to demonstrate his mental superiority.
http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/12092013/