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Grrl Power #1341 - The quadruple pincer gets 'em dripper?
🕑 Added 2025-03-24 10:00:12 +0000 UTCThank you for the support! You guys and grrls are awesome!
The move was Friday. It's Sunday night as I'm posting this, and I'm positive 6 days have elapsed.
Tired.
Itchy.
Tasty.
Deus doesn't need an excuse to invade neighboring countries, but it sure helps with motivating his people and keeping the international community off his back if the countries 1) provoke him or his allies or placed that threw a coup in hopes of inviting his "meritocrigime" in, 2) Are "bad" and 3) are poor. That isn't to say some rich countries don't have specialized interests in areas he's bringing his administration to. But when they confronts him about it, he points out the infrastructure improvements he's brought to his territories, and then promises their particular resource will become easier and cheaper to ship once there's reliable roadways, electricity, un-navigable rivers that now have locks and navigation channels put there by geo and hydrokinetics. And those specialized interests go, "You know? Maybe a politically stable Africa would be good for the world. I mean, my pockets." And the guy next to him says, "You said the quiet part loud." And the Specialized Interest goes, "We all know why I'm here. Let's not pretend we care about the temporary meat cogs." Which would make for a heck of a mission statement.
So that last panel. Female solidarity? Or are they thinking, "By Jupiter's angry red spot, he's right! And that annoys me! But him being right also turns my delicate and capricious female brain into goo. Not to mention other parts! Gosh, I bet he has a huuuuuge... bank account. Boobily!"
Okay, maybe not that exactly.
Deus does have his work cut out for him though. Honestly, toppling a bunch of ultra corrupt dictatorships when you have access to a heavily positive Super ratio, a brigade of literal demons, and advanced alien tech support... that is technological materiel support, not like aliens doing tech support. "Yes, my iPhone is having trouble connecting to the carrier?" "Phoooone hoooome...." "Yes, that's what I'm trying to do..." Anyway, toppling a bunch of relatively poor countries is the easy part when you have a super army and supercomputer levels of tactical and strategic acumen. The hard part is convincing everyone under your new banner that it's a good thing. And we all know that there are plenty of people out there who would willing cut off their own nose to spite their neighbor whose wife they covet. Or some other aphorism. Tribal rivalries going back dozens of generations, religious tribalism, racial tribalism, nationalism. Just tribalism in general. Promising people a better life and even showing that you can deliver on it just isn't enough in some cases, because hate and distrust and fear is often stronger than hope. Also, Deus is white, and that can be a hell of a handicap in Africa. The distrust has been reforged and reinforced since well before the industrial revolution. So does Deus have one easy trick that metathesiophobes hate? Probably at least one. Stay tuned!
Comments
tsukiouji
... Okay I thought you meant, like. Bunnies that conquer. Not the playboy kind.
Uncle Buddha
"Resources," is ALWAYS a thing!
Uncle Buddha
"Orbs of Osmium??" ;-)
Eric Loken
A meritocracy.... right, now pull the other one. Meritocracy and autocracy are mutually exclusive. If Deus thinks otherwise, he's just naive. There are soooooo many reasons for it... but I just can't be arsed to go into them.
JasonAW3
Yeah, like I said, blood enemies...
eddi_TBH
Unifying Africa would create a new economic giant. It's just luck Europe destroyed it before that could happen. Good or bad, I leave for others to debate/flame.
eddi_TBH
Deus is the smarter one. He keeps his ego in check. Doom is old school East European royalty, at least that's his role model.
eddi_TBH
Official ARC-SWAT motto. I think Marvel saw a golden opportunity.
eddi_TBH
It's hard to find shade in the desert.
Chris Godsey
Max certainly has been skipping out on her glare-reducing-grease applications recently.
Bear C. Brown
I misread panel three in my initial glance and thought Deus said “I am a singularity state.” I also think the line works either way.
Town Crier
Well, we tried calling them Dic-bunnies at first, but that just didn't seem to go over well.
Matthew Lambert
So, has her hat always said With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility?
Torabi
"meritocracy" doesn't actually mean "the people who are the best at a job should be the ones doing it". It means "people who are good at something should be rewarded with wealth and power". That may motivate them to develop useful skills, but not necessarily to use them to the benefit of society. It ignores that it requires resources to develop "merit", that skills and knowledge are downstream of education and nutrition. While an exceptional person may be able to overcome the circumstances of their birth, the poor tend to remain poor, while the rich are able to leverage their wealth into developing whatever society demands for the acquisition of more wealth. True "equality of opportunity" requires providing resources to those who have not yet demonstrated "merit". I'm not sure what the right word is for what people want to use "meritocracy" to describe, but key to that failing is the assumption that anybody should be ruling over others, regardless of their qualifications. Being good at something doesn't necessarily mean you'd be good at managing other people doing that thing, and meritocracy often leads to the most qualified people no longer doing the thing they're most qualified for, which is the complete opposite of people's assumptions about it.
William Elliott
well, theres also the evil, manipulative, date rapey thing Scionia has going...and attempted murder...successful murders... More like if Scionia wasn't more than likely irredeemably evil, she and Max might be friends...
Person
I think that's just an actual, literal harem. Though I'm sure Ron White would disagree.
Hugh Eckert
Max in panel 3, thinking "Your MOM's a statistical singularity."
Raymond Dannelly
I agree Deus -could- have trouble with being a white man taking over large parts of Africa, I think he's smart enough to delegate pacification. The tribesmen of an area would never put up with Deus in charge, but they don't talk to Deus, they talk to the son of the former Chief. A local kid who knows tribal ways, but also got a modern education and is definitely actually the guy in charge, the silly white man is just a figurehead.
Dave Barrack
The assumption is that a person who is the most skilled, knowledgeable and able to perform a task would be much better at it than someone who... isn't. Or if their only qualification is, for example, their ability to kiss dear leader's butt. That skillset wouldn't help them run FEMA or be the Secretary of Defense. For example.
Eleanor Asher
And now no sign of Sydney in the background. I'd be worried, but given her performances on the track, she's probably trying to catch her breath and recover after running with a heavy object.
Torabi
Why would a meritocracy necessarily be more productive? "Merit" is perhaps the ultimate weasel word. A society that values things that it values? Imagine that!
Dave Barrack
It's fixed. I'm told there are typos in the post underneath. They may have to stay for now.
Dave Barrack
I thought you'd typo'd "cobalt" but no, coltan is a thing. Apparently an important thing.
Killianti
It might be possible for a knowingly undermerited person to support a meritocracy if they believe that even the undermerited would benefit from the increased quality of life caused by a more productive society. That'd be kind of in between "principle" and "where they believe they will fall within it".
Stephen Gilberg
And a couple typos in his commentary. He wasn't kidding about "tired."
Stephen Gilberg
And apparently autophagic.
JasonAW3
Looking at the two of them, yep... Boobily...
JasonAW3
If they weren't blood enemies, I suspect Max and Scionia would be friends, just based upon their dealings with Deus...
JasonAW3
Deus versus Doctor Doom... In a public relations arena, Deus wins, hands down, even if he DOES act and speak like a supervision... Combat prowess? That's hard to judge Deus utilizes "supervillians" or at least anti-heros, for much of his direct strike force, whereas Doom uses Robots, so what Doom lacks in tactical flexibility, he makes up in quantity. As a Corporate executive, Deus is less exposed to the public, unlike Doom, so, he can effectively getaway with more. (If Doctor Doom shifted to a more, "ruling behind the scenes" scenerio, he'd run into less confrontation, AND he would prove that he is both smarter, and more clever, than Reed Richards, which, in my book, is a more telling measure of intellect...) Overall, Deus seems to be more interested in proper ruling, rather than flashy confrontation, which, in retrospect, seems to be Doom's whole purpose. While they both crave attention, Deus is able to pull it off with the least amount of governmental and superhero backlash...
Town Crier
We prefer to call them "'Tator-bunnies"
Greg Morrow
A sufficiently-advanced intelligence whose first formative intellectual experience was Risk is indistinguishable from Deus.
KnightRider007
The answer is yes, but neither of them want to admit it for fear of reinforcing his behaviour.
Wyrmhand
I bet he has a huuuuuge... tracks of land.
Mike
Uh-oh, Dave's going zombie on ius!
Fogel
Typo in panel 5, "casn't"
Torabi
The argument in panel 2/3 is pretty interesting, politically, in that it demonstrates how people can support a system because of where they believe they will fall within it, while pretending to support it on principle. Does anyone actually believe in "meritocracy", or do they just believe they have the traits that would be rewarded under a system described as such?
Mr. Bear
I casn't imagine what you are referring to 😁
Torabi
I'm sure a bunch of people will be glad for the map! I'm personally really happy with the last panel. It's funny to see Sciona and Max share a moment, though I wonder how Max would feel if she knew that was Sciona!
Jeff Oberg
At this point he has consolidated way too much coltan for the international community to leave him alone. His current acquisitions have the second and maybe fifth(?) largest reserves in the world, meaning that Deus now controls something like half of all the known coltan reserves in the world? Europe and the US (for money reasons, mostly), as well as Russia and China (for different reasons, self preservation mostly), would be lining up in the UN to have stopped him about the same time it looked like the DRC was going to eventually come under his influence. Russia would have put a bullet through his head from half a kilometer away a while ago.
Simon Magid
Deus reminds me a little bit of Raphael from Baldur's Gate 3 if Raphael were actually as smooth as he thought he was. And a lot less smarmy. Oh yeah, and a whole lot smarter.
Michael O'Driscoll
That wasn't a no :p
Thomas Dorner
"casn't" definitely looks wrong. (It can't be right. ;-)
Steve Ronuken
Someone really should rule 63 Deus ;)
Michael Obert
If being a genius world-conquering billionaire doesn't work out for him, Deus can always run one of those seminars that teaches loser guys how to get women. . .no, that's verging into true evil territory.
Cley Faye
There might be a typo in that fifth panel, but that's something for a less tired author to handle :D
Playwars
Deus, continuing to be my absolute favorite character. Seriously, someday I want to write a novel with someone like that as the MC. Well, I guess I sort of am already, but their goal isn't world domination, it's just that large scale planetary unification is the only way for them to get their eventual goal.
TrixieTurner
Is that the well worn sign of what an idiot, it actually is, or damn it he’s an idiot and it actually still is.
