Star Power VI: Shooting Stars (VORP VORP VORP)

[Zaq]

Space Luna is so great that she even makes the villains more efficient at cloning.

She’s so great, you guys. So great.

[Celestia]

Space Luna is so great that she even makes the villains more efficient at cloning.

She’s so great, you guys. So great.

It really does make no sense. Like, it's clearly the star power technology that's improving the cloning process, but that same technology also registered said cloning as dangerous enough to give Danica a warning message. So...why? If the star power can manipulate the cloning process, why is it helping rather than impeding? It's like having a computer that can detect hacking attempts and then actively lets the hackers in after sending an email notification to the owner's phone. It's utterly absurd.

[random11]

It really does make no sense. Like, it's clearly the star power technology that's improving the cloning process, but that same technology also registered said cloning as dangerous enough to give Danica a warning message. So...why? If the star power can manipulate the cloning process, why is it helping rather than impeding? It's like having a computer that can detect hacking attempts and then actively lets the hackers in after sending an email notification to the owner's phone. It's utterly absurd.

Here is my theory:
Star-Power is tech based and not pure genetic power, but the tech does alter and uses the genetics of the target for two reasons:
One part of the tech is changing the genetics of the target to improve their physical body including better healing, the second part is to code the computer (Mitch) to the target using genetic code for reasons of security (no one can pretend to be Danica and give him orders), it is a flaw simply because no one considered cloning to even be an option in the original Star-Power times.

The current alarm does not come from Danica directly but from Mitch since it technically has two "Danicas" he is connected to without an ability to know who to follow.
And since Hymn cloned her after her genetics were altered, it comes with better regeneration free of charge, impacting the already hasted growth technology of the cloning process.

[Celestia]

Here is my theory:
Star-Power is tech based and not pure genetic power, but the tech does alter and uses the genetics of the target for two reasons:
One part of the tech is changing the genetics of the target to improve their physical body including better healing, the second part is to code the computer (Mitch) to the target using genetic code for reasons of security (no one can pretend to be Danica and give him orders), it is a flaw simply because no one considered cloning to even be an option in the original Star-Power times.

The current alarm does not come from Danica directly but from Mitch since it technically has two "Danicas" he is connected to without an ability to know who to follow.
And since Hymn cloned her after her genetics were altered, it comes with better regeneration free of charge, impacting the already hasted growth technology of the cloning process.

There are still some flaws with that explanation, but it is probably the best one that can be made for what we've gotten. Of course, I'll bet that Mookie's actual explanation will still be worse.

[Zaq]

It really does make no sense. Like, it's clearly the star power technology that's improving the cloning process, but that same technology also registered said cloning as dangerous enough to give Danica a warning message. So...why? If the star power can manipulate the cloning process, why is it helping rather than impeding? It's like having a computer that can detect hacking attempts and then actively lets the hackers in after sending an email notification to the owner's phone. It's utterly absurd.

I’m not going to say that this is the most Mookie thing he’s ever written, but I will say that no one but Mookie could have written it quite like this.

[Kato]

Oh Mookie you... okay, this might have been a nice Little Gimmick you can be Kind of proud about (simple as it may be) but YOU DON'T GET TO BE PROUD ABOUT A TWIST EVERY TEN YEAR OLD SAW COMING! Well, you can be proud, if you're ten years old yourself. But not as a grown man who makes his money writing stories. I don't claim I could do better, but I'm not getting paid for it. This is just infuriating, I should take a deep breath.

[Onyavar]

Even if there was an elaborated code (beyond some appropriation of Caesars) and even if I were good at breaking codes, I would pass. It's just not worth decoding, and it wouldn't be the full secret revealed but only the bits Mookie deigns to feed us.

The true secret is how Mookie can be so high ranking in the viewership with such a shoddy plot?


Laaaate Edit: I now saw the highlighted characters in an update where I thought it was just more piles of newer code.
"Clones. Clones. Clones."
When I regained consciousness from my anger-faint, I fully understood Kato's comment. It's so true. Mookie is proud that he could get this clones-crap past the radar? Well, he can be proud. But publicly back-clapping himself instead of moving the shoddy plot forward, is just childish.

But looking at our comments from back then, I find it HIGHLY ironic that we already discussed about clones before the "code" pages appeared. In fact, Kato accepted the answer here, while I had been sceptic of that solution the entire time.

[Celestia]

I hesitate to even call this a "secret reveal." This is just a random word hidden in a jumble of random characters. It's a word search with no indication that it is such. We weren't even told there was a clue anywhere. I completely understand why no one figured it out; none of us knew we were supposed to.

[faustin]

I don't see the point of the clue: it was obvious from the beginning these guys were identical to each other. Also, the whole getting DNA samples from the crew.

[Zaq]

. . . Seriously, Mookie?

You’re that frigging proud of this? I mean, you already used subtle-as-a-brick storytelling to telegraph the “zomg clones” plotline a mile away, but you’re just so proud of the fact that you hid a word in a block of nonsense Matrix code that no one cared about examining (it’s nonsense filler Matrix code with nothing interesting about it! Why would you expect that anyone would care about it?!) that you have to go back and literally highlight what you did to make yourself look clever?

This is not how you do “the clues were there all along, reader!” storytelling! This is like a magician explaining their trick to an audience who could already very clearly figure out what they were doing. The filler is insulting enough already, but going back and self-congratulating for being oh-so-clever in how you hid a super-subtle message is just all kinds of obnoxious.

[Spojaz]

That is hilarious. I literally broke out laughing at this page. We knew from the start that something damn odd was going on.

No-one would imagine that we are using word-search based cryptography! It's uncrackable! Inefficient, but uncrackable!

[random11]

It's time to play my favorite game: "What was his plan?"

In this game, we try to come up with the villain's original "plan A" without contradicting any information provided so far.
Bonus points for sort of making sense.

Who knows, maybe the answer is in code somewhere

[PraetorDragoon]

It's time to play my favorite game: "What was his plan?"

In this game, we try to come up with the villain's original "plan A" without contradicting any information provided so far.
Bonus points for sort of making sense.

Who knows, maybe the answer is in code somewhere

Hymm just wants a Star Singer.

[guttering flame]

Hymm just wants a Star Singer.

Correction: Hymn wants a StarPower with his head and neck (which includes the all important Hymn Vocal Cords) transplanted onto it. That way he can finally sing at FULL VOLUME as the lead singer in his chorus. For years he envied the strong, virile lungs of his young clones. Now finally he can make his fabulous comeback. Also nifty pistolfinger killer shots.

[Onyavar]

Also nifty pistolfinger killer shots.

To my critics I always wanted to say just those two words: pew pew!

[Vinyadan]

Correction: Hymn wants a StarPower with his head and neck (which includes the all important Hymn Vocal Cords) transplanted onto it. That way he can finally sing at FULL VOLUME as the lead singer in his chorus. For years he envied the strong, virile lungs of his young clones. Now finally he can make his fabulous comeback. Also nifty pistolfinger killer shots.

Also, he would be able to sing in space, since Danica can speak in a vacuum.

[random11]

Hymm just wants a Star Singer.

That was one of my options, but the problem is that he can hide most of his clones with the mask, but how is he going to hide someone who literally glows in the dark?
I'm guessing the army won't really like it if someone can just make a star-power (not to mention that I don't think Danica would appreciate it)

Then I thought that he wants to replace Danica and/or part of her crew with clones, but that also doesn't make sense since the process is supposed to take at least weeks, and they are there just for a couple of days.

My third option was to clone Danica and later somehow replace her, but telling Brightman about the clones kind of blew that option as well.

Next was building a controlled Star-Power army, but it doesn't seem like Hymn is interested in anything other than his songs.

The only guess I have left is this:

Hymn is actually a clone himself.
The original uses Hymn as a front while he himself uses the clones to rule the galaxy (or whatever), by both replacing key people (first time they visit - clone, second time - kidnap and replace), and attempting to create a clone army of Danicas.
Hymn the singer has no knowledge of what the original is doing, and the original controls the singer with the mind control program to do specific tasks like asking for Danica's hair.
The only one aware of the truth is the woman scientist, who has to both follow Hymn's orders (satisfying his quirks), as well as the original's REAL orders which will lead to domination of all living things.


Edit: Needless to say, I put a lot more thought into this than Mookie

[Onyavar]

Edit: Needless to say, I put a lot more thought into this than Mookie

The actual evil details of Hymns evil plan don't matter. It's an evil plan because it involves clones, and actual evilness. And evil clones. CLONES, nothing is more evil than horror clones, with their big shoes and their white faces. Evil!!!11eleven!! Even eviller!

So the evil plan will not evilly work as it will be heroicly thwarted by good GalDef officers before any evil details about its evilness are fully known, and Danica will do a little help and be regarded as the hero afterwards.
Which will lead her to feel guilty because Burke also helped. So there will be a happy end with chaste smoochies.

There will not be a second Danica around and definitely no threesome with Burke, ever. Not even a chaste smoochie threesome. It's not that kind of comic you know.

[Celestia]

There will not be a second Danica around and definitely no threesome with Burke, ever. Not even a chaste smoochie threesome. It's not that kind of comic you know.

Oh, ****. What if the reason Hymn showed Dr. Brightman the cloning lab is because he wants a three-(or more)-some?

[Zaq]

Wait, but wasn’t he also importing slaves or something? Did that plot line get dropped, or are we in for an even stupider twist, like clones needing to be made out of the parts of butchered humans (except super great clones of the super great Star Powered Sentinels, who are so great, you guys)?

[Welf]

I guessed Hymn is obsessed with perfection and wanted to add the perfect engineered supersoldier to his collection. And then improvise after that. Improvising is a thing Jazz musicians do. Like the one who left Danica. Who might or might have nor been a Jazz musician but was at least a musician. Everything falls in place.

[Celestia]

Wait, but wasn’t he also importing slaves or something? Did that plot line get dropped, or are we in for an even stupider twist, like clones needing to be made out of the parts of butchered humans (except super great clones of the super great Star Powered Sentinels, who are so great, you guys)?

Who knows? There was also that thing where his music was probably mind control that has also never been followed up. It feels like the whole story was rewritten halfway through.

[Onyavar]

. It feels like the whole story was rewritten halfway through.

At least Mookie did it better, more professional and more logical than the hack writers of the Battlestar Galactica rerun (after baltars presidency). Still nothing to be proud of.

[Vinyadan]

Oh, ****. What if the reason Hymn showed Dr. Brightman the cloning lab is because he wants a three-(or more)-some?

I think the word is "lotsome" (or "loathsome", although that depends on Brightman's opinion).

[faustin]

I think several of the holes in Hymn's plans can be partially justified by his own narcissism and madness: he cannot accept one of his own clones loving anything but Hymn (not even another clone), he cannot conceive Dr. Brightman rejecting him after a night of passion with Hymn, he cannot accept Hymn not getting what he wants (including his own Star Power singer)...

Years living isolated with the only company of brainwashed cultists worshipping him like a living god has warped Hymn's perception of reality. He had just enough sense to keep the most obvious displays of his "eccentricities" under wraps, but his luck is running out...fast.

[random11]

I think several of the holes in Hymn's plans can be partially justified by his own egolatry and madness: he cannot accept one of his own clones loving anything but Hymn (not even another clone), he cannot conceive Dr. Brightman rejecting him after a night of passion with Hymn, he cannot accept Hymn not getting what he wants (including his own Star Power singer)...

Years living isolated with the only company of brainwashed cultists worshipping him like a living god has warped Hymn's perception of reality. He had just enough sense to keep the most obvious displays of his "eccentricities" under wraps, but his luck is running out...fast.

I'd say the only plot hole it fills is him revealing the lab to Brightman, fully expecting her to be enthusiastic about it.

Regarding the cloning process, he hides it and covers for mistakes, meaning that he KNOWS people will generally not accept it if they knew the truth (that includes lying to get Danica's hair in Star-Power mode)

As for the rest, I don't think anyone thought of him killing clones for not being perfect was a plot hole in the first place, the majority of the plot holes are not related to his quirks.

[Elanasaurus]

What's wrong with word-search cryptography? The word was there, after all.

Yeah, we didn't need the "clue", but that's not my question.

[Vinyadan]

About rewrites, Patreon has a rejected version of the script for this issue. I wonder if it would explain some choices.

[Kato]

About rewrites, Patreon has a rejected version of the script for this issue. I wonder if it would explain some choices.

I feel like that's unlikely. I'm not inside Mookie's head (thank god) but I feel like he is not the kind of person who writes a good plot and then dismisses it for a worse one... OK, maybe by accident, because he cannot tell good from bad.
But I'm not willing to pay money to find out.

I will admit to feeling a little bad about using his work for my amusement without supporting him, but I also really don't want to support him

[Onyavar]

The revised update schedule made me feel nauseous.
If they would at least delete old fillers and convention announcements. But no, we still have to read them in the archives. Meet Mookie and Garth at the cons this year. Which year was that actually?