Star Power VI: Shooting Stars (VORP VORP VORP)

[Kato]

So, I guess the Smith really is a paranoid nutjob... And trusts one/two former criminals more than the regular cops. I guess that's just the way he was raised?

still hoping for a twist coming up... Even if it's a week one.

[faustin]

Considering Smith was shot down and near killed by two mafia goons just a few strips ago, I think he is more of a properly paranoid nutjob.

[Traab]

So, I guess the Smith really is a paranoid nutjob... And trusts one/two former criminals more than the regular cops. I guess that's just the way he was raised?

still hoping for a twist coming up... Even if it's a week one.

Is it paranoid when you are right? Its fairly clear that mookie is leaning heavily on the godfather style setting for this planet, where yes, cops can and are bought off by the various families to various extents. There is no reason to think galfed is any different. He "trusts" them because they arent connected to the families by any real current standard and so would have no reason to go to them while at the same time having reason to be against them beyond "Good guys good, bad guys bad, oogah"

[halfeye]

Is it paranoid when you are right?

It can be. Sigh. Paranoia is a mental health issue.

[Traab]

It can be. Sigh. Paranoia is a mental health issue.

Its an IRRATIONAL belief that people are out to get you. This PI just survived an assassination attempt, and I doubt very much this is the first close call he has had. He likely isnt just blowing smoke about bribed cops and such either as he has clearly been working on this for some time. This isnt paranoia, its plain good sense. When people are out to kill you, and you KNOW they have official connections, you dont take any risk that you dont have to.

[halfeye]

Its an IRRATIONAL belief that people are out to get you.

No. Just no at this time, but there's a lot more to it than that.

The PI has perhaps a rational fear, so maybe isn't paranoid. He could be paranoid and have a rational fear.

[Kato]

Okay, I'd rather not raise the subject of mental health. We all know what "paranoid" is meant to say and I'll not pick that apart.

There is no reason to think galfed is any different.

Yes, there is? Because the cops here are corrupt, cops everywhere are corrupt? Because some cops are not trustworthy, I cannot trust any cops? (actually, replace "cops" with anything else) This is not a normal way of thinking. He's presuming [people] cannot be trusted unless he has some (flimsy) reason to think they can. That is not the way most people think or how they should approach anyone.
And while we're at it, what does an attack by mafia goons have to do with trusting people halfway across the galaxy?

[Traab]

Okay, I'd rather not raise the subject of mental health. We all know what "paranoid" is meant to say and I'll not pick that apart.



Yes, there is? Because the cops here are corrupt, cops everywhere are corrupt? Because some cops are not trustworthy, I cannot trust any cops? (actually, replace "cops" with anything else) This is not a normal way of thinking. He's presuming [people] cannot be trusted unless he has some (flimsy) reason to think they can. That is not the way most people think or how they should approach anyone.
And while we're at it, what does an attack by mafia goons have to do with trusting people halfway across the galaxy?

He doesnt think all cops are corrupt, he just doesnt want to risk talking to the local ones because he cant be sure who IS. And even if he DID know, finding a local cop who wont accidentally spill the beans to the dirty ones wouldnt be easy. Thats the main reason he is reaching out to SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS as they are VERY unlikely to be connected to any of the locals and so are less likely to let things slip. At best his question was just a "Are you sure? Ok then" was just a quick double check. And the reason he is here is because he knows about burke. This is probably the best off planet connection he has to work with.

[Kato]

He asks if he can trust the captain. He doesn't make an attempt to contact GalDef or the police in any of the not-corrupt cities on the planet. He goes to someone who used to be a criminal mercenary instead.
I don't know if Mookie is aware what he is doing or what exactly Smith's plan is but he is not acting sensible, imo. Well, he is kind of acting the way you would in an average detective story but that's not a compliment.

[Zaq]

If Burke is Bumper, who’s Stunt? And can we stick their head on everything?

[Kornaki]

At first I was like jeez Burke everyone is going to think you're up to something sketchy with a dumb cover story like that. Then I realized that's probably fine, since he's actually not? His real cover story is he's going to Axioisis to commit some crime with his crime buddies.

[Kato]

So am I the only one amazed by the magic space phone that apparently doesn't transmit calls as data but presumably as... uhm... good old fashioned vibrations? Electric pulses? No, wait, that's data too. How the hell is your phone encrypted but you cannot encrypt data the same way?!
(I guess I shouldn't be too hard because of this, it's a phone that allows interstellar calls without delay. It clearly works in ways I can not fathom)

[Traab]

So am I the only one amazed by the magic space phone that apparently doesn't transmit calls as data but presumably as... uhm... good old fashioned vibrations? Electric pulses? No, wait, that's data too. How the hell is your phone encrypted but you cannot encrypt data the same way?!
(I guess I shouldn't be too hard because of this, it's a phone that allows interstellar calls without delay. It clearly works in ways I can not fathom)

Pfft, its obvious its a matter of volume. Its easy to hide a whisper, much harder to hide a shout. Transmitting verbal communications clearly uses up a tiny portion of bandwidth, small enough to be easily hidden in the background "noise" of the communications set. Uploading video/audio/text files on the other hand is far more visible of a process. Sort of like the difference between texting someone and uploading a movie. Im sure there are issues with my explanation but you know what? Its solid fridge logic, it makes sense if you dont think about it.

[Celestia]

So am I the only one amazed by the magic space phone that apparently doesn't transmit calls as data but presumably as... uhm... good old fashioned vibrations? Electric pulses? No, wait, that's data too. How the hell is your phone encrypted but you cannot encrypt data the same way?!
(I guess I shouldn't be too hard because of this, it's a phone that allows interstellar calls without delay. It clearly works in ways I can not fathom)

Clearly, he's talking about digital data, and his call can get through because it's an analog space phone.

[halfeye]

Is the site down for everybody else?

[PraetorDragoon]

Is the site down for everybody else?

Not for me.

Clearly the five crime families are onto you.

[Kornaki]

A bunch of nitwits who have clearly never had dialup internet complaining that this guy isn't about to dump 100 GB of photos down a 50 kb/s phone line. Well done.

[Kato]

A bunch of nitwits who have clearly never had dialup internet complaining that this guy isn't about to dump 100 GB of photos down a 50 kb/s phone line. Well done.

You know, I'm so used to people not being insulting here I'm really shocked when someone does..
Anyway, while I guess you could have a point à 50kb line seems awfully small for a digital phone line and 100GB of pictures suggests compression wasn't invented on Abraxis or he's sending ten years worth of a teenagers Instagram history. Also, while I guess pictures are more incriminating, text files are way, way, way smaller than sound or images.


Anyway, apparently the detective is totally right. No more doubt about it. Too bad this story will be going just along the expected rails.

[Kornaki]

You know, I'm so used to people not being insulting here I'm really shocked when someone does..

You're right, I'm sorry. That didn't come out the way I intended.

Anyway, while I guess you could have a point à 50kb line seems awfully small for a digital phone line and 100GB of pictures suggests compression wasn't invented on Abraxis or he's sending ten years worth of a teenagers Instagram history. Also, while I guess pictures are more incriminating, text files are way, way, way smaller than sound or images.

I will just reference this
https://www.google.com/amp/s/wtop.co...-millions/amp/

In one Mueller case, that of longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone , the government said it had turned over 9 terabytes of discovery

That's just one case! This guy's evidence could be enormous. The chief wants the evidence, if part of the evidence is the 400 photos he took of Axabi at a night club sitting with some crime bosses all night then he should want to include those 400 photos.

Anyway apparently the detective is totally right. No more doubt about it. Too bad this story will be going just along the expected rails.

I actually think there's a secret twist here. Why did he call the embuvalij? They are the only ones not involved with the trafficking. And why would the embuvalij feel comfortable telling him to kill the other families' agents?

[Kato]

I would still argue that you don't need to send 400 pics to make a valid argument for not trusting the dirty cop. Two or ten should be sufficient to get his point across and not take up too many GB. But I guess I did ignore the size argument if he has lots of pictures.

As I said, I'd love it if there was some twist to the story, or the Embuvali were not what we should assume they are. But I'll guess they are just better / more efficient / more ruthless at hiding their trails.

[Celestia]

Establishing tension and mystery only to deflate it on the very same page. Classic Mookie.

[random11]

Question: why was it the Chief's responsibility to send the information anyway?

The Hymn incident was not some covert operation, it was basically a coincidence that his team was involved.

While I'm not sure how the law works in this setting, I'm pretty sure the main team leading the investigation is supposed to be someone else.
Maybe it's the chief in the area around Hymn's world, maybe some FBI team, some military police in the federation, or the psi-cops itself.
It's possible that as professional courtesy they shared the information with our Chief, but it's the leading team's responsibility to decide what to do with the information and who to share it with.

Unless that leading team has specific suspicions against Abaxi they would probably do the same anyway, you don't just send a strike force without notifying the local authorities.

So in the second time in this story, someone from "our" team get's to do a job that makes no sense other than these are the only characters we are aware of.

[ZeroiaSD]

Also, who's to say the data is photos? How much data does it take to transmit (unknown)? With authentication codes and such. Heck, if you have a holo-image, can you prove it's real if you compress it down into a photo? And if the actual court-admissible evidence (if it's even that we don't know how firm it is) is too big to send, what exactly would that tell the chief other than 'don't trust Abaxi, don't involve him,' which saying that sentence has the same effect?

There's a lot of people in this thread who leap to denounce stuff based on assumptions they made that aren't really in the comic. Frankly a lot of the suggestions aren't nearly as good story as the comic ^^ Basically "why doesn't the writer spend three pages to explain away thing I just thought of instead of doing the more dramatic/story-interesting route?", is a self-answering question. Spending extra time going over all the details on why X shortcut can't be taken rather than just establishing they can't, is bad writing.

These kinda cheap-gotchas are pretty nitpicky criticism IMO, that if Mookie followed, would result in a worse comic.

Establishing tension and mystery only to deflate it on the very same page. Classic Mookie.

'Cause the 'is he or isn't he?' tension is replaced with the 'people in active danger because we now have a known threat,' tension.

That's an escalating tension, not a deflation, for you. He's setting up an active threat.

Question: why was it the Chief's responsibility to send the information anyway?

The Hymn incident was not some covert operation, it was basically a coincidence that his team was involved.

While I'm not sure how the law works in this setting, I'm pretty sure the main team leading the investigation is supposed to be someone else.
Maybe it's the chief in the area around Hymn's world, maybe some FBI team, some military police in the federation, or the psi-cops itself.
It's possible that as professional courtesy they shared the information with our Chief, but it's the leading team's responsibility to decide what to do with the information and who to share it with.

Unless that leading team has specific suspicions against Abaxi they would probably do the same anyway, you don't just send a strike force without notifying the local authorities.

So in the second time in this story, someone from "our" team get's to do a job that makes no sense other than these are the only characters we are aware of.

It seems pretty straightforward to me- local cop knows Abaxi is corrupt, going to outside jurisdiction for help. Picked outside jurisdiction because it, by luck, stumbled on a related case and handled it honestly and openly, when it'd have been easy to cover up, so now he has a group he knows did not cover up a related case- twice in Burke's case. That case was on Hymn's world, which was privately controlled and GD doesn't normally go there, but as the incident involved Chief's officers and they were the only boots in the ground at first, he defacto took control and coordination and additional GD units fall under the control of the people running the operation. That operation done, Chief then forwarded information on it to Abaxi on the basis that the stuff that stumbled into his lap is now done with, onto someone else who can use it.

The human trafficing old case Burke was in, also, seemed to be a cold case until the Chief picked it up, so there's probably not an active investigator leading that.

I don't think there's reason to believe in another leading team here. I think things flow just fine if we assume Chief took charge, of which he has a quite logical reason to do so, namely his people were the only officers present and reinforcements were sent in on his call.


I assume the law enforcement jurisdiction stuff is a bit soft in that Star Treky 'a Starfleet officer who gets hints at something can dive right in, and while there's rules of conduct between the organizations they're all fairly friendly' sense, but we haven't had an outside team established in this one and there's clear reason to assume the Chief's people are in charge of that operation, so yea.

[Kato]

Maybe we are nitpicking and the technological details of the 'why' behind this are more complicated. But the main point is : I'm willing to bet Mookie did not spend a minute thinking about this but just wanted it to be convenient for his plot. Which is fine, but not good writing. It's lazy, pure and simple. He didn't think about it and of course he didn't expect his readers to think about it.
Which is of course not meant to tell you to not enjoy the story more than us, but it's what always creeps up and it's annoying, to me anyway.


Speaking of lazy: why could Burke not be bothered to cancel his date with Danica? Did he forget because he was stressed? Doesn't seem so going by his reply. Did he not do it because he wanted her to wait for him for no reason? Did he tell her and she forgot? Is canceling appointments just something you don't do in the future? Or did Mookie want a cheap way to tell us Danica doesn't know where they are.
Yes, there are plenty of possible explanations but giving one wouldn't be a waste of time, it would be characterization. Like this, it feels more like a waste of time.

[random11]

Maybe we are nitpicking and the technological details of the 'why' behind this are more complicated. But the main point is : I'm willing to bet Mookie did not spend a minute thinking about this but just wanted it to be convenient for his plot. Which is fine, but not good writing. It's lazy, pure and simple. He didn't think about it and of course he didn't expect his readers to think about it.
Which is of course not meant to tell you to not enjoy the story more than us, but it's what always creeps up and it's annoying, to me anyway.


Speaking of lazy: why could Burke not be bothered to cancel his date with Danica? Did he forget because he was stressed? Doesn't seem so going by his reply. Did he not do it because he wanted her to wait for him for no reason? Did he tell her and she forgot? Is canceling appointments just something you don't do in the future? Or did Mookie want a cheap way to tell us Danica doesn't know where they are.
Yes, there are plenty of possible explanations but giving one wouldn't be a waste of time, it would be characterization. Like this, it feels more like a waste of time.

And while we're on this, any reason why Danica tried to call Grex before calling Burke?

For some time, I did want to write about the lazy writing, and why I think it's a result of enthusiasm than than laziness.
I'll try to write it this week when I figure out how to explain myself better.

[faustin]

Am I the only one who finds Danica's face while eating the pizza a bit...weird?

[Kato]

And while we're on this, any reason why Danica tried to call Grex before calling Burke?

For some time, I did want to write about the lazy writing, and why I think it's a result of enthusiasm than than laziness.
I'll try to write it this week when I figure out how to explain myself better.

She says he's not answering his comm.. Though, I guess I would like to know why not if Grex is fine with answering. But I guess there are many people who just ignore unpleasant talks which makes things way better.

Am I the only one who finds Danica's face while eating the pizza a bit...weird?

A bit, but I don't think anyone looks good mid-bite. It's just a weird image to use, I guess.

[Traab]

I get the feeling this is to setup some sort of misunderstanding relationship drama between the three of them. Like danica is going to be upset when she inevitably learns whats really going on that they couldnt tell her or something. They arent telling her because opsec is a thing and talking about important secret missions over your cell phone is probably not the best idea. And they didnt exactly have time to track her down wherever the heck she is and chat it out in person.

[random11]

I get the feeling this is to setup some sort of misunderstanding relationship drama between the three of them. Like danica is going to be upset when she inevitably learns whats really going on that they couldnt tell her or something. They arent telling her because opsec is a thing and talking about important secret missions over your cell phone is probably not the best idea. And they didnt exactly have time to track her down wherever the heck she is and chat it out in person.

Or just a way to keep her out of the story, at least for now.

Hard to create a setup like this with a powerful superhero, better keep her away for now.
If the story itself is good, I won't even mind if Danica appears in the end as the deus ex machina.

The setting is a bit forced and could have been done better, but it's a small price to pay for a story with actual tension for awhile.

[Zaq]

Am I the only one who finds Danica's face while eating the pizza a bit...weird?

Not just you. It’s not a good pic. It’s rather terrifying.