THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Comic Discussion => QUESTIONABLE CONTENT => Topic started by: hakko504 on 18 Sep 2016, 22:59
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What, no new WCDT Yet? OK, here's one for you.
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Uh oh! Hey, Faye! Did you remember that the operation that you work for is illegal (at least technically)? Oh, her new acquaintance seems nice but I'll bet that the choice of 'testify or five years' will come up eventually.
Now, I'm pretty sure that the local cops in Northampton are paid well by Corpse Witch to look the other way (especially as it is arguably a victimless crime). However, something tells me that the Massachusetts State Police have a far less charitable view of her 'business', if only because of the rampant bribery and tax avoidance that I'm betting that's going on!
It kind of makes sense that you'd hire synthetics to police crime in the synthetic community. After all 'to catch a thief' and all that; they'd probably think and move at the right rate (and in the right way) to handle AI felons, something few if any humans could do.
Now... I suspect that Bubbles and Faye will shortly be out of a job. I'm wondering: Where this fact will take them?
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Did you remember that the operation that you work for is illegal (at least technically)?
Completely slipped her mind. The "Oh, shit!" reaction was due to her suddenly remembering that she double parked on the way in.
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(Reply copied from previous week's thread)
If you've never seen this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE), it's well worth your time. A law professor tells you why you should NEVER EVER voluntarily talk to police without a lawyer present.
Faye should just keep walking. And if the officer arrests her, she should say NOTHING till she gets an attorney.
And this would be true even if she didn't work for an illegal enterprise.
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(Reply copied from previous week's thread)
If you've never seen this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE), it's well worth your time. A law professor tells you why you should NEVER EVER voluntarily talk to police without a lawyer present.
Faye should just keep walking. And if the officer arrests her, she should say NOTHING till she gets an attorney.
And this would be true even if she didn't work for an illegal enterprise.
Can't click the video you linked at work, but I'm pretty sure I know which one that is.
The "if you talk to the police, even if you want to help, you might be screwed" is completely insane and I would imagine actually counterproductive for the work of the police, seeing as well-informed people acting in their own best interest will make extra sure not to help. I'm sure that's just GREAT for getting the law-abiding citizens to cooperate... :roll:
To anyone from Europe, does this sort of advice apply outside the US? It's always been my impression that at least in Poland, talking to police in good faith is much less perilous, and I would answer any questions by a policeman with no problem. But I don't know the intricacies of law very well, and I might just be hopelessly naive.
EDIT: changed "much perilous" to "much LESS perilous", because it changes the sentence's meaning completely and I somehow skipped the word the first time 'round. I'm an idiot.
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One ex-cop suggests rehearsing in front of a mirror a friendly and non-confrontational phrase like "I'd like to answer your questions, Officer, but my attorneys have always insisted they be present if I talk to law enforcement".
"You're not in trouble" is of course exactly what an investigator would say if trying to trap you into saying something incriminating.
EDIT: Answering oddtail, if you want to be a cooperative citizen you can do it through an attorney.
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EDIT: Answering oddtail, if you want to be a cooperative citizen you can do it through an attorney.
Which adds a layer of complication, wastes the policemen's time, and costs either public money, or the money out of the pocket of the person hiring an attorney...
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I'd imagine it works the same way in any western country, though not all of them may have the functional equivalent to the fifth amendment.
Faye's next words should be "I have no statement to make." Then, "Am I free to go?" If the officer has probable cause, Faye may be arrested. But there is no way she will help herself by making any statement of any kind to the officer, particularly in an informal setting.
Of course, that would make for a boring story, so I don't expect it to happen.
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The advice comes from two good things and one bad thing:
1. We take self-incrimination more seriously than most countries.
2. Hearsay is inadmissible in most circumstances. (I think this one's true in most of the world.)
3. Our police are fucking lunatics.
In most of the world, you might have trouble relying on a fact that you didn't give to the police right off the bat, but here, that can't be used against you. What's more, any such fact can't be used to help your case, since that would be hearsay. So if you're innocent, it would be at best harmless to talk to police, but that's where (3) comes into play. Remember, one in every hundred Americans are in prison right this second, and that's not counting those who have been released, and will soon be, if not back, illicitly employed in one way or another because they'll never have a "real job" again. What's more, the "Reid technique" (basically, making you feel guiltier about letting the police down than committing the crime) is legal in the US, which has been shown to not only get false confessions, but convince people who could not possibly have committed a particular crime that they have.
The police will not help you, unless your goal is to have someone else arrested and/or shot. Wait until you're talking to the DA.
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I don't know that U.S. police are uniquely bad; see the Amanda Knox case for horrifically bad policing (plus even more horrific prosecutorial misconduct) in western Europe.
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I have had a few encounters with police, both as a suspect and as a victim. None of them have been positive. They've been unnecessarily adversarial every time, either by being hyper aggressive or incredibly manipulative. US cops, in my experience, are terrible, alternately zealously aggressive and criminally indifferent.
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If you're having to think about strategies for talking to the police as anything other than a witness or reference, you already fucked up.
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Not true, TinPinguin, even talking to the police as a victim can get you into trouble. I've experienced myself and seen it happen to other people. You always need a strategy when talking to the cops.
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The only reason to talk to the American police is to get someone arrested. "Witness or reference" is the wrong way of looking at it. If you're not trying to get someone arrested, and you're not yourself one of their lackies (party planner or whatnot), shut the hell up.
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Well, re: the American police or Ugandan police or what, then yeah, you already fucked up by being born in a fucking lunatic country. It's not your fault.
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Police have two priorities in their job. The first is to survive their shift, hence their trigger-happiness. Secondly to arrest some-one, hence their aggressive lying/manipulation. Never engage with the police without your lawyer, they want to blame some-one, anyone, and are quite happy to fit you up.
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One of the most important parts of that video is when Professor Duane points out the Rules of Evidence: Any statement you make INCRIMINATING you is EVIDENCE (admissible in court). Any statement you make EXONERATING you is hearsay (not admissible).
And, as he says, that should be enough right there. If it isn't, well, that's why so many people talk themselves into being arrested -- because what they BELIEVE about the police and the justice system just isn't so.
And you can go right on believing what isn't so until you're the one in handcuffs. By then it will be too late.
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Surprised I didn't see an endless string of Law & Order AI Unit jokes yet.
While I think Corpse Witch is the most likely target I'm not entirely certain she's going to jail since she probably has lawyers and maybe even connections with the La Robo Nostra.
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Prediction
This is going to be a long-term plot arc, I think. Nothing will happen in the immediate term except Detective Bot taking notes and saying "Hmm... Interesting" at the most innocuous things Faye says. However, long-term, there may be major and dramatic conseqeunces.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn Corpse Witch is doing a lot worse things than staging the fights. There is almost certainly unlicensed gambling. However, what if she's also supplying 'recreational' DLL files (the AI equivalent of drugs) or even extreme-humanform-chassis AIs to prostitution? The whole thing could go down in flames in a huge vice bust. Corpse Witch will probably end up doing hard time and there will likely be many repercussions amongst the cast (did one of the AI main cast report CW to the cops? It seems like something Momo would do or even Bubbles, due to her hatred of recreational violence and her "Hmmm..." moments).
I'm wondering if Faye, Bubbles, Punchbot and the others will find themselves out of a job and wondering what to do next. That's when May comes along to commiserate and Faye suddenly remembers her 'free robot clinic charity' idea.
[Edit]
Rereading this, I suddenly feel that Bubbles is the most likely candidate to have informed the police (probably anonymously), if she's decided that Corpse Witch is more malign than benign, based on her treatment of Faye. That may lead to some interesting tensions and conversations between the two of them.
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Police have two priorities in their job. The first is to survive their shift, hence their trigger-happiness. Secondly to arrest some-one, hence their aggressive lying/manipulation. Never engage with the police without your lawyer, they want to blame some-one, anyone, and are quite happy to fit you up.
In the US, maybe. My local police department actually called in UK cops to teach de-escalation and alternatives to violence. Then again, they need it. I actually had to report a pig for harassment for performing my job duties for the city.
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I forgot about corpse witch until I came in the thread. My first instinct was I hope it's Miss Bubbles framed for war crimes and not May's technical parole violations.
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Never engage with the police without your lawyer, they want to blame some-one, anyone, and are quite happy to fit you up.
And of course the wider those attitudes are amongst the public, the worse the disengagement between police and public, and the descending spiral continues.
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Faye, Faye, Faye... The last thing you want to do around an investigator is act scared. Hoping this doesn't land her or Bubbles in jail, but I sense there will be a career change for both of them in the near future.
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The unfortunate truth is innocent people have been convicted because they said the truth in a way that could be twisted into evidence against them.
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Re: the poll, the pie is gonna do hard time. Approximately 3.14 years.
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One of the most important parts of that video is when Professor Duane points out the Rules of Evidence: Any statement you make INCRIMINATING you is EVIDENCE (admissible in court). Any statement you make EXONERATING you is hearsay (not admissible).
What's the reasoning behind this? I never understood that logic...
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I'm sure the policewoman is aiming for Corpe Witch. Then again, I'm also sure CW will do her best to drag Bubbles and Faye with her, or even better, make them take any eventual fall.
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One of the most important parts of that video is when Professor Duane points out the Rules of Evidence: Any statement you make INCRIMINATING you is EVIDENCE (admissible in court). Any statement you make EXONERATING you is hearsay (not admissible).
What's the reasoning behind this? I never understood that logic...
You have no ulterior motive to incriminate yourself, so if you say it, it must be true.
You have an ulterior motive to exonerate yourself, so if you say it, it requires corroboration from evidence/other witnesses.
Possible chance for the Return of Harriet, Sven's Lawyer?
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Possible chance for the Return of Harriet, Sven's Lawyer?
Sure, but I'd also like to see Momo take a role in what could easily become a case about AI rights.
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I forgot about corpse witch until I came in the thread. My first instinct was I hope it's Miss Bubbles framed for war crimes and not May's technical parole violations.
It won't be Bubbles being framed for war crimes - that would be military rather than civilian police.
No, this is definitely about the whole robot fight club. Faye is probably going to be OK because her worst offense is getting paid under the table - there is nothing illegal about repairing robots. Ditto Bubbles. They're small fish. Corpse Witch is the big fish. She's the one running the illegal fight club and probably illegal gambling. Also, unless QC is suddenly taking an extremely dark turn I doubt we'll see an arc with Faye or Bubbles in prison.
So, here's my take: Faye gets an immunity deal for herself in exchange for testimony. She has time to warn Bubbles to get out before the raid happens. She's out of a job again but otherwise in the clear. Meanwhile Bubbles has enough money to start her own repair business and hire Faye.
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Everyone is assuming Robocop( :-D) is actually a cop. If someone in plain clothes flashed me a badge I wouldn't have a clue if they were legit or not. It's also possible she's bent, and intends to use Faye somehow to extort Corpse Witch.
More generally it's interesting to consider AI cops in the QCverse. Given that anti-AI prejudice exists it's not hard to wonder what it's like to be what is probably one of the first AI cops. Even in the best case scenario there's bound to be some of her co-workers who don't want her around, and say nasty things when they think she can't hear them. (A dangerous assumption with an AI, who might be able to hear you from quite a distance.)
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Oh, I have no doubt that some 'jokers' in the locker room think it's hilarious to put a bottle of 40W machine oil in her locker and she has to handle being known as 'Toaster Cop' and then being assured that it is just 'friendly ribbing' or 'hazing', likely by her Precinct Captain when she complains. However, like Bubbles, I suspect she joined because she wants to serve (and protect, in her case). I also wonder if she has her ways when dealing with suspects.
"So, Toaster, what do they call you back in the Big City?"
"They call me Ma'am."
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Surprised I didn't see an endless string of Law & Order AI Unit jokes yet.
While I think Corpse Witch is the most likely target I'm not entirely certain she's going to jail since she probably has lawyers and maybe even connections with the La Robo Nostra.
Judging by the responses here, I would say the reason why there hasn't been a lot of joking about his is because many of don't find police entrapment funny. Way to many of us have been on the negative side of police interaction. Sometimes for the 'crime' of doing nothing wrong, or being the victim of an actual crime. Again, I'm speaking form experience living in the US here. But unless you have a lot of money/power/control/influence the police are not your friends. Even with 'good cops', any interaction with the police could end up with you in cuffs if they don't like what you have to say. The danger increases depending on who you are and who the cop is and what your area is like. Some of us, like myself, live in active, mortal fear of the police. Those that should, supposedly, be out there to protect law abiding citizens such as myself. But that's not really what they do. It's about protecting the status quo and making their quotas.
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So, here's my take: Faye gets an immunity deal for herself in exchange for testimony. She has time to warn Bubbles to get out before the raid happens. She's out of a job again but otherwise in the clear. Meanwhile Bubbles has enough money to start her own repair business and hire Faye.
If this kind of happy result happens without Faye lawyering up, she' an incredibly lucky person; Faye making any statements to police outside of an immunity deal is just going to screw up her personal situation. If the cops want Faye's help, they can come through with immunity first. If they don't like it they can thank all their brothers who entrapped, lied to and falsely convicted those in their custody in the past.
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I can imagine this might be brushed off as first without any trouble (perhaps just a suspicious warning), but then Faye might not quit her job regardless of the spook. Then, after a while, it might turn into trouble.
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This situation is skeevy from start to finish. Always best to only talk with cops with a lawyer present, especially when the cop is plain clothes/unmarked car.
But this is QC, and there's no QC (or webcomics in general) without some sort of dramatic happenstance!
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My guess is they're going to want Faye to wear a wire or face jail. Don't particularly care about ratting out CorpseWitch, but this could be very bad for Bubbles. Faye could pass Bubbles a note saying "I'm wearing a wire" if she's feeling brave. Methinks Faye's employment at the robot fighting rink is pretty much over, though.
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The phony "skating rink" has been around for a long time without anybody in law enforcement much seeming to care. I wonder if this is about May in particular? She was worried that even just going into an illegal establishment for repairs might be considered a parole violation. Maybe it was?
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Re: the poll, the pie is gonna do hard time. Approximately 3.14 years.
I saw what you did there.
Everyone is assuming Robocop( :-D) is actually a cop. If someone in plain clothes flashed me a badge I wouldn't have a clue if they were legit or not. It's also possible she's bent, and intends to use Faye somehow to extort Corpse Witch.
An excellent observation. Especially in this day and age when people are so terrified of the police. Impersonating has become more prevalent with bolder dirtbags.
Which is why when someone flashes ME a badge, I take a look at the ID which goes with it, and I make a point of interest to KNOW what LE ID's look like in my jurisdiction.
I don't know all of them, but if some clown claims to be with [Insert My Local Law Enforcement Agency Here] and flashes a [Insert My Local Law Enforcement Agency Here] badge and the wrong ID...
...things may not go so well for him. :evil: :-D
And that's all I think I need to say about that.
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The phony "skating rink" has been around for a long time without anybody in law enforcement much seeming to care.
The local cops are either cool with it or bribed into looking the other way. The State Police however? They're not locals at all and probably won't care less about the local politics of Northampton that keep the Fighting Arena untouchable. They'll just see a huge civil rights violation and tax avoidance scheme; the team that brings that down has a huge feather in their cap to wave around when their promotion dockets land on the Commissioner's desk.
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And no one here wonders what Pintsize has been up to lately?
(the owls his shenanigans are not what they seem).
ps: this one in Jeph's twitter (https://twitter.com/cycloptiko/status/777579346127048704?lang=nl) was brilliant! In space you can throw for eternity...
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Has anyone ever seen Faye look that angry? I'm not saying she shouldn't be, or that we haven't seen her mad before, but dang. Well drawn, Jeph.
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A point to consider. Police woman may not be here for the fighting arena itself. The fact that she was laying in wait outside of the skate park means either she's been keeping track of Faye's movements, or that she/the State Police are aware/suspect the robot fight club is going on. If they are area of it, they may be on the take, or consider what's going on to be a low priority. What they may be after is something more recent, that triggered or renewed their interest in the place. A visit by a felon on parole. May has already said she wanted to go to the fights, but was afraid that they were tracking or bugging her. To the point where she loudly talks about how she doesn't know such a thing exists, comically trying to throw an eavesdropper off the trail in the most obvious way possible.
Police Woman could be there to check up on May. Perhaps her living situation, her employment, her recent repairs that she said she couldn't afford.... If they suspect she's stealing money again, but don't have proof then they might go to the person they know did the repair work to talk about it.
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Uh oh! Hey, Faye! Did you remember that the operation that you work for is illegal (at least technically)? Oh, her new acquaintance seems nice but I'll bet that the choice of 'testify or five years' will come up eventually.
Now, I'm pretty sure that the local cops in Northampton are paid well by Corpse Witch to look the other way (especially as it is arguably a victimless crime). However, something tells me that the Massachusetts State Police have a far less charitable view of her 'business', if only because of the rampant bribery and tax avoidance that I'm betting that's going on!
It kind of makes sense that you'd hire synthetics to police crime in the synthetic community. After all 'to catch a thief' and all that; they'd probably think and move at the right rate (and in the right way) to handle AI felons, something few if any humans could do.
Now... I suspect that Bubbles and Faye will shortly be out of a job. I'm wondering: Where this fact will take them?
It's most likely the 'tax avoidance' they take issue with.
The QCverse is a fair bit different than our own, but I'm betting Uncle Sam still wants his cut.
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This may turn out to be about May in the best case
In the worst? I wonder which countries have no Extradition Treaty
:-D
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So, here's my take: Faye gets an immunity deal for herself in exchange for testimony.
That's not the way things work. Corpse Witch takes the immunity deal, and instead of one conviction, they get dozens. which looks better on the record, and doesn't cause issues with CW's political connections.
Big Fish don't end up in jail; little fish do. All too often little fish with not even a tenuous connection to any crime.
Meanwhile Fay's interaction with the police should be confined to "I assert my right to remain silent... Am I being detained... I wish to have a lawyer present... I do not consent to searches".
Yes, this makes the police's job harder, and is a bane to society. But that's the way the system is set up in the US. You have to play by the rules, bizarre and dysfunctional though they are.
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Has anyone ever seen Faye look that angry? I'm not saying she shouldn't be, or that we haven't seen her mad before, but dang. Well drawn, Jeph.
I didn't think she looked angry. More like scornful, as if she's thinking "Oh, right, who could resist pie?? I'll be singing like a canary in no time." [/sarcasm]
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It kind of makes sense that you'd hire synthetics to police crime in the synthetic community. After all 'to catch a thief' and all that; they'd probably think and move at the right rate (and in the right way) to handle AI felons, something few if any humans could do.
I see it more as "If we have to investigate illegal AI activity, we should have someone who can withstand a punch from a combat chassis. I mean, human officer vs crusher AI = squished head."
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Has anyone ever seen Faye look that angry? I'm not saying she shouldn't be, or that we haven't seen her mad before, but dang. Well drawn, Jeph.
I didn't think she looked angry. More like scornful, as if she's thinking "Oh, right, who could resist pie?? I'll be singing like a canary in no time." [/sarcasm]
AIcop.py line 476:
if human.isUnconvinced():
pie.offer() #pie is what humans like, right?
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It kind of makes sense that you'd hire synthetics to police crime in the synthetic community. After all 'to catch a thief' and all that; they'd probably think and move at the right rate (and in the right way) to handle AI felons, something few if any humans could do.
I see it more as "If we have to investigate illegal AI activity, we should have someone who can withstand a punch from a combat chassis. I mean, human officer vs crusher AI = squished head."
May's parole officer was an AI, so I suspect pretty much all AI crime is handled by AIs: officers, lawyers, judges, prison guards Robot Jail sysadmins, etc.
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I see it more as "If we have to investigate illegal AI activity, we should have someone who can withstand a punch from a combat chassis. I mean, human officer vs crusher AI = squished head."
Of course, things could get rather interesting from a legalistic standpoint. If an officer could potentially be restored from a backup[1] Would it be murder or attempted murder if the victim was briefly dead? (And I don't suspect that the Vetanari solution of briefly hanging the offender would work in the QCverse).
[1] Although I would think there would be some sort of PTSD as a result from having a gap in memories and something horrific happening to their previous chassis.
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Police have two priorities in their job. The first is to survive their shift, hence their trigger-happiness. Secondly to arrest some-one, hence their aggressive lying/manipulation. Never engage with the police without your lawyer, they want to blame some-one, anyone, and are quite happy to fit you up.
In the US, maybe. My local police department actually called in UK cops to teach de-escalation and alternatives to violence.
Same in Ireland. In fact we don't technically have a police force. They're officially "guardians of the peace" and their whole operating method is based around de-escalating situations before violence happens.
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"There has been a complaint. Someone is substituting Chinese White for Khaki."
In other news, I like the idea that Police Woman is a newbie who has been stuck with the duty that nobody else wants.
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Oh dear.
The Pugnacious Peach needs to swallow her pride and beg Hannelore to lend her one of the family lawyers.
"Money laundering" laws are a danger to anyone who so much as sells a car to a drug dealer. Robocop has just made a veiled threat of a Federal prosecution.
This is the heaviest drama we've seen in quite a while.
Robocop is unlikely to accept "Thanks for asking, nobody's being taken advantage of" from an informant.
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Well now we know police chassis are fire resistant or Robocop would have spontaneously combusted under that glare.
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At least Faye incriminating herself didn't happen...but it turns out it didn't really need to.
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I guess Faye's ongoing willingness to simply take Corpse Witch's word for it (http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3008) has just taken a nose dive.
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I really hope that the next time Cogney and Laser shows up again that Faye has the foresight to have a device recording everything that's being said. Because the Potentially Imprisoned Peach is going to any bit of help in the future.
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And that, my friends, is why you never talk to the cops without your lawyer.
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So why is the investigation happening? Someone's sergeant yelled "Get your numbers up or I'll have your job"? Or is someone actually being taken advantage of?
The thought of a raid on a place with Bubbles in it leads to horror quickly.
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I think the never talk to police thing is a bit crazy. If they aren't interested in you, saying you won't talk without a lawyer is going to MAKE them interested in you, and in general, waste a lot of time and money. And if you have the money to spend on a lawyer just to be present whenever a cop wants to talk to you, you are in a whole different stratosphere of wealth than I am.
I answered a knock on my door the other day, and there was an officer outside. There were 4 police cars out on my street. Of course, my first thought is, well shit. Cause that looks bad. Before I can say anything, the guy tells me he is looking for someone, and if I've seen a specific man. He shows me a picture, and from the paperwork he was holding, it was an arrest warrant.
He wasn't on the lease for the home next to me, but he was known to be dating the resident there.
I told him what I knew, which wasn't much. Yes, I'd seen a man that could have been that man go into that house before, but I couldn't be sure. I don't know the neighbor on that side that well (she moved in less than a year ago and is not social). Yes, there is another car that is parked over there pretty often, but I can't remember the make, model, or even color at the moment. Sure, I'll call your tip line when someone is home so you can come ask them questions.
Quick 10 minute cordial conversation. Very nice fellow. And he was on his way, I called the tip line later when someone was home, and went about my business, never heard anything else about it.
Or I could spend a ton of time, make them suspicious of me, and spend a bunch of money to hire a lawyer I can't afford.
Hmmm. Tough choice.
(The difference in the comic being that that officer is interested in Faye. Yeah, she should get a lawyer).
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You can get on the wrong side of the psychological line between good citizens and prey in absolutely no time flat. Once across that line you are stuck there.
http://blog.simplejustice.us/2014/02/18/falling-down-the-good-guy-curve/
There is no bottom to how you can get treated once that mental switch gets toggled.
https://blog.simplejustice.us/2015/09/29/not-even-motherhood-evokes-empathy/
I've got one of the decent police departments where I live but never take that for granted.
And asking for a lawyer when they have zero interest in you is going to put you on their radar SUPER fast.
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And if you have the money to spend on a lawyer just to be present whenever a cop wants to talk to you, you are in a whole different stratosphere of wealth than I am.
Didn't use it much with cops, more like doctors who wanted to keep me in the institution, but dating one's sister was quite useful.
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I have had generally cordial interactions with the police.
I did stand accused of a robbery once in college - I was at the place that was robbed on the night of the robbery, but neither did it nor saw it take place. They called me in for questioning, and I talked to the man, told him particulars about when and how everything I knew about had happened during that night, refused to take a polygraph test, did not consent to have my house or car searched, and went home.
The officer was convinced I was guilty, or at least told me he was when he was trying to get a confession, but my response was simply that I had told him the truth and whether he believed me or not I wasn't going to start lying now. I walked out of there because they had no evidence. The DA refused their search warrants on me for lack of probable cause, just as she should have, and a few days later the guy who had actually committed the robbery was caught committing another one. Things stolen in the first robbery were discovered in his car. I guess probable cause to search a vehicle isn't a problem when the guy takes it to the parking lot of a business he got caught trying to rob. Anyway he got convicted of both.
I spent half of the year before that being a bouncer at a somewhat rough bar in a different part of the state, and saw our local officers of the law several times during that year in the course of our respective jobs. Usually they had matter-of-fact questions and I had matter-of-fact answers. It was always completely professional. Sometimes "When was the last time you saw this guy and who was he with?" And sometimes "And what did this idiot do here before he went home and beat up his neighbor?" And so on.
Once we had to call them out. The kickers were playing 'Phil' with a trucker who was coming through, and there was going to be violence if the situation wasn't controlled. It was great how they handled it. Four guys in uniform came in, ordered a plate of wings and an onion tangle (complimentary of course because we LIKE having the police come in) and sat there at a table munching and shooting the breeze about nothing in particular and pretending to completely ignore the patrons. But the patrons didn't ignore them. The game of 'Phil' ended instantly when the police uniforms came in. The kickers trickled out in ones and twos over the next twenty minutes or so and the trucker went his way in peace. There was no violence, no arrests, and not even any hard feelings about it. We just had a laugh about it afterward.
I dunno. I figure it's different in different places, but so far in my life I've been fortunate to be in districts where the police are actually professionals who take justice and protecting the peace pretty seriously.
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(The difference in the comic being that that officer is interested in Faye. Yeah, she should get a lawyer).
Actually, the difference there was they were looking for someone other than you, and for whom you had no stake in protecting. They came looking for someone specific. That is not the situation being talked about when people say 'don't talk to police'. When you get stopped randomly and the cops start asking you probing but general questions like 'what are you doing here, who are you going to see' or start making demands with no probable cause.. Then yes, shut up. Only say that you do not wish to talk to them and repeatedly ask if you are under arrest, or are you free to go. Because what's going on there is they want someone to arrest. You just happened to be the unlucky one that fell under their gaze. If you say the wrong thing, or start to get agitated they will have no problem putting the cuffs on you and coming up with a reason why after.
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@Neko_Ali, While that may be what you are saying, someone else literally just shared a story that suggested NOT EVEN CALLING 911 TO REPORT AN ACCIDENT.
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Knowing Jeph, it's just as likely she's not actually a cop. I can just imagine May seeing her and going "Cop? That's Bittorrent Kelly! She was in robot jail at the same time I was. She's the biggest software pirate in the Western hemisphere."
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@Neko_Ali, While that may be what you are saying, someone else literally just shared a story that suggested NOT EVEN CALLING 911 TO REPORT AN ACCIDENT.
If you are the 'wrong kind' of person, or in the wrong neighborhood, or live in an area with particularly bad cops... Then yes. Even if you are 100% in the right, going to the police to report a crime done against you could wind up with you being the one harassed or in jail. The same sort of reason why most rapes go unreported. Being the one reporting means harassment, possibly more danger to you, not the person who did it to you.
What I am trying to say here is, sometimes avoiding any kind of entanglement with the law is the only safe and sane thing to do. I'm not saying it true in every single case. But in some cases, for some people. Yes, you should never go to the police. They are not your friends.
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If there is an accident, and someone is hurt, I'm going to call 911. I'm not going to jeopardize the injured person(s)'s safety and health on the chance that the cops might be assholes.
And I would find it very questionable of anyone to do. "Yes, they are hurt, and not being a medical professional I can't tell how bad, but there is a small percent chance that something bad could happen to me." That just seems incredibly selfish to me.
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The Pugnacious Peach, simply because of who she hangs with now and what neighborhood she works in, is likely to be one of "the usual suspects" even if her job were legal.
I do think the guy in San Francisco drew the wrong conclusion, by the way, and I should move this to DISCUSS rather than continue posting about it here.
What happens next? Faye will never betray a friend. Bubbles is a friend. Corpse Witch isn't. The pressure can be made intolerable: http://copssaylegalize.blogspot.com/2015/12/press-release-60-minutes-reports-on-use.html
I really need someone to tell me that the insane impression I've been getting of the USA in recent days is really distorted, or it will do my head in.
"The USA" is thousands of local and regional police departments and the good ones don't get hashtags. There is selection bias in the news.
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Too bad Faye isn't dealing with the Northampton police. They seem to be pretty mellow judging from the sledding party and other events.
If Corpse Witch is "connected" then informing on her could be a fatal move.
Unusually heavy drama here, unless the whole thing is a practical joke by Pintsize.
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While when horrible things happen, and they are horrifying, and there are definitely some issues with racial minorities and those with mental disorders being dealt a bad hand by cops at an unconscionable higher rate than for white, mentally healthy people, you have to remember that those cases are still not the majority.
They are horrific. They shouldn't happen. And they are alarming things that we need to do something about, because ONE incident of someone dying when they shouldn't is too many. What we have is way too many.
But, it is still statistically unlikely to happen in any specific circumstance. The police talk to millions of people daily, executing untold number of arrest warrants. What you see on the news is horrifying, and we should do something about it but we can't abandon our civil duty to report and help because there is a small chance something horrible will happen.
If they are questioning you. Get a damn lawyer. If they SEEM like they are questioning you, get a lawyer.
If a crime is happening. Dial 911. If someone is hurt. Dial 911.
If somehow this ends with me getting shot by the cops, They did something wrong.
If someone dies because I didn't call 911, I did something wrong.
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The only reason to talk to the American police is to get someone arrested. "Witness or reference" is the wrong way of looking at it. If you're not trying to get someone arrested, and you're not yourself one of their lackies (party planner or whatnot), shut the hell up.
And if you happen to have a much better sense of smell than most people, don't say anything to the cops anyways. They'll look at you like you're the one who did it.
Never say anything more than you're asked. They'll try to make you a suspect. Because they have to pin the crime on someone, and God forbid they investigate the trouble-maker tenant who happened to run off all of the other residents by being a massive pain in the ass.
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New thread in DISCUSS about talking to police (https://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php/topic,33508.msg1365179.html#new).
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Well, I called it and, sometimes, I hate being able to do that. It's actually quite amazing how quickly this jumped from 'Have a pie on the State's expenses tab' to 'Inform or spend the next ten years in prison on Federal racketeering charges'.
Faye's expression is hard to judge here. She's definitely angry at being threatened but I think that there is also a little fear here. She knows just how bad a situation she's in and she knows how much of a no-win this could be for her. If the cops bust Corpse Witch anyway and find that she's been holding out on them, she could be in serious trouble herself. On the other hand, Corpse Witch has an army of melee-optimised AIs at her beck and call who she may have modified to do whatever she tells them if she uses a code-word (remember her fiddling around inside that one's head?). She might have 'adjusted' some of them to be her hit-men just in case any of her employees develop a conscience.
Overall, this is not the sort of situation in which a recovering alcoholic should find herself.
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Well, I guess we'll be finding out Corpse Witch's real name.
BTW, Faye this deal seems off. And it's probably entrapment.
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Faye needs a lawyer, yesterday. If police want her to snitch, they need to come through with an explicit immunity deal. Also Faye should give a heads-up to Bubbles. If Corpse Witch decides to apply some muscle of her own, having Bubbles in Faye's corner would be a good thing.
Alternatively, Faye and Bubbles could quit and set up an AI repair clinic together. Seems that there's a need, and they might be able to get grant money to help with funding.
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Back on topic, going back to someone saying that what if she wasn't a police officer at all: What if she works for Corpse Witch? What if she is there to "test loyalty".
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I'm going to change the topic even further and say...
HEY that looks a lot like key lime pie. Which I love.
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On the other hand, it could be a lemon meringue pie, which is similarly excellent.
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Ooh, Throwing Pie, my favorite flavor.
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On the other hand, it could be a lemon meringue pie, which is similarly excellent.
I much more prefer fruit pies. Blueberry is my favorite.
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Ooh, like this one (which I haven't made yet, but mean to).
http://ladyandpups.com/2016/09/07/sichuan-peppercorn-blueberry-oatmeal-pie/
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So, I pretty much see Faye's options as:
a) Ignore (*lalalalalalaaa*)
b) Get legal advice
c) Start digging to work out what the agent could be referring to
I think I know what option I would choose, even without the benefit that Patreon foresight provides.
Other options are:
d) Eat the pie
e) Ignore the pie
Option d, I would think.
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Personally, I'm expecting her to wander back to the apartment in a sort of shell-shocked state (after picking up a bottle of whiskey first) and then collapsing in tears onto the laps of a horrified Marten and Claire. However I might be guilty of letting what my own reaction would be affect my ability to get into Faye's head.
One possible option would be to wait until tomorrow and then discuss the matter with Bubbles over a cup of tea at CoD. I've not yet completely abandoned my idea that the original report that drew the State Police's attention may be from Bubbles. If she's in the know, then we could have an interesting arc when Faye learns that, lacking Black Ops training and/or programming (such as that Bubbles has) she doesn't make a good covert agent.
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So, I pretty much see Faye's options as:
a) Ignore (*lalalalalalaaa*)
b) Get legal advice
c) Start digging to work out what the agent could be referring to
I think I know what option I would choose, even without the benefit that Patreon foresight provides.
Other options are:
d) Eat the pie
e) Ignore the pie
Option d, I would think.
f) use the pie to bribe a human police officer
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The kickers were playing 'Phil' with a trucker who was coming through,
What language is that? I know the wpords but the sentence . . .
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Shaken down by vice. I think I can see where this might be going, and it ought to be a good story.
That having been said, that cop just made an enemy, you can read it in Faye's expression. If that cop is actually competent, that was on purpose rather than accidental.
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g) take it at face value, and if no-one is being unfairly exploited then there's no problem and nothing to report.
Should she come across genuine exploitation then she'll have a whole bunch of personal moral issues to contend with as well.
Maybe I'm lucky, but I don't recall ever having been faced with serious personal ethical dilemmas in a work situation , although I can think of a fair number of job vacancies I simply didn't apply for.
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This is the heaviest drama we've seen in quite a while.
Ever, I think. This is way out-of-genre, but I like the excitement.
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The kickers were playing 'Phil' with a trucker who was coming through,
I know those words but that sentence makes no sense!
(https://frinkiac.com/img/S06E16/543108.jpg)
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Faye is definitely going to warn Bubbles, but what happens next is anybody's guess. Perhaps Bubbles will go to Corpse Witch and she'll propose taking out the cop. She's good at manipulation and if she convinces Bubbles that the cop is a threat to their livelihood and her friend, Bubbles may reveal hersel as Corpse Witch's longtime enforcer. Given her military background I wouldn't fancy the police bot making it to retirement.
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This really isn't about abuse of citizens by police. This is about Faye working in a less-than-legal enterprise and the consequences of that finally catching up with her - she's lucky she wasn't already swept up in a police raid. This may be the beginning of the process leading to that outcome.
The really smart play would be for her to get a lawyer and quit the underground robot fight club yesterday. I doubt she'll do that though.
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I'm gonna predict that this isn't a cop, it's a test by Corpse Witch to evaluate Faye's loyalty. CW has shown several times that she's suspicious of Faye and doesn't think her attempts to befriend the various AIs are sincere or meaningful; she seems to dislike humans in general and wants to keep Bubbles (and possibly others) isolated from them.
My guess: Faye will very soon see something 'bigger' going on in the skate rink, robots being shaken down or seriously hurt or something, and she'll have to decide whether to report to the 'AI police' or to tell CW what's going on. If she goes to CW, CW reveals that Faye passed the test and whatever Faye saw was all staged; if she goes to the 'AI police', CW reveals it was a trick (and that she has enough influence Faye can't just go to the actual police) and sacks her. And then tells Bubbles that, when it came down to it, Faye sold out her AI companions for herself.
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robots being shaken down or seriously hurt or something
I honestly don't see this happening. Not because CW wouldn't be willing to, but because there's no reason for her to.
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robots being shaken down or seriously hurt or something
I honestly don't see this happening. Not because CW wouldn't be willing to, but because there's no reason for her to.
I mean, it will be staged--Corpse Witch will have a couple robots pretend that one is mugging the other (or coercing the other to fight somehow), etc. In order to test Faye's loyalty, to see what she does if she thinks she has a chance to sell them out to the police to save her own skin. It wouldn't be happening for real.
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That's ridiculous, though. Why would she see if Faye would betray CW for cruel practices if she wasn't otherwise planning on cruel practices?
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This is part of the problem with having officially illegal but unofficially tolerated activities: it just invites abuse. Further, because it's illegal, there's no way to legally deal with taxing the resulting income, meaning everyone involved is on the lam from the IRS. Faye is now in the impossible situation where she either has to rat out her co-workers, or have to take the fall herself if she doesn't.
She and Bubbles should bug out at the first opportunity. Of course it's easy for us to say that; if Faye wants to get another job, she'll need to explain the gaping hole in her resume where she was working an illegal enterprise.
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And then (Corpse Witch) tells Bubbles that, when it came down to it, Faye sold out her AI companions for herself.
At this point, though, I don't see Bubbles taking CW's word for it; she has enough of a bond with Faye that I think she'd go and ask Faye about it. She might do it belligerently ("How could you do this to us?"), or she might not; but I do think she'd ask.
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Re: her resume - she could just say she did chassis repair at a skatepark, and list Bubbles as her reference.
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I have a thought- What if this is about Bubbles?
Saying that she is there to look after vulnerable people, wanting Faye to tell if anything's happening- a scenario might be this:
After The Event, Bubbles leaves the military. She is obviously hurting. Her CO may notice this. He may feel empathy, or responsibility, or maybe even guilt. For whatever reason, he pulls some strings with old friends and colleagues. A few calls and a bottle of Johnny Walker later, and the head of the local precinct calls his latest A.I. D.I into his office. He has a job for her...
This may also explain the cop's attitude, if it needs analysis- she joined to protect and serve, and instead she has to babysit.
Just a thought.
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I have a thought- What if this is about Bubbles?
I was wondering the same thing.
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Other options are:
d) Eat the pie
e) Ignore the pie
Option d, I would think.
We know that the cake is a lie. If pie is, too, that would be almost too much to bear.
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While it's entirely possible that this could be a Corpse Witch fakeout or an AI babysitting job, it's really not necessary for Jeph to throw in such twists. Faye is working at an illegal enterprise. Being confronted by agents of law enforcement is one of the risks associated with that; something I'm sure Faye never really thought about until now.
Faye is, sadly, no innocent citizen being unfairly harassed by the cops. Her job supports the activities of the illegal enterprise she works for, and she could go to prison for that. That is more than enough drama and suspense by itself.
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Further, because it's illegal, there's no way to legally deal with taxing the resulting income,
I don't know about the US, but in the UK when I was working in the cash economy, I simply declared the income on my tax return and paid tax on it as normal. The sources of the income were pretty vaguely listed, and no doubt if the tax man had decided to do a full investigation into my affairs they'd have been seeking a lot of clarification, but fundamentally, here at least, they like to make it easy for you to pay tax, and if you're obviously not living a megabucks lifestyle why should they bother to look hard at you when there are so many better targets? Of course many people working in the cash economy don't pay tax, in the hope they won't get caught, but that's a choice.
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Shaken down by vice. I think I can see where this might be going, and it ought to be a good story.
That having been said, that cop just made an enemy, you can read it in Faye's expression. If that cop is actually competent, that was on purpose rather than accidental.
Making an enemy of The Pugnacious Peach on purpose is something I'd only do for very good reason. How would it help Nameless Cop with her job?
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Okay, I have a wild and bizarre theory that is going to turn the way we're looking at this on it's head.
Maybe it actually is exactly what it looks like. An AI cop is making contact with and leaning on a low level employee in an illegal but tolerated shady area to let her know if anything worse starts happening. No secret tests of character or impending crackdown required.
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I actually have a theory about this, but having read QC before, I don't want to spoil it if Jeph is thinking the same way I am (and he might be, but I also might be wrong).
Interesting developments!
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Okay, I have a wild and bizarre theory that is going to turn the way we're looking at this on it's head.
Maybe it actually is exactly what it looks like. An AI cop is making contact with and leaning on a low level employee in an illegal but tolerated shady area to let her know if anything worse starts happening. No secret tests of character or impending crackdown required.
It's a safe bet than we haven't seen the last of purple gumshoe cop; see the concept of Chekhov's Gun. Perhaps our picture of Corpse Witch is about to take a turn for the worse.
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Further, because it's illegal, there's no way to legally deal with taxing the resulting income,
I don't know about the US, but in the UK when I was working in the cash economy, I simply declared the income on my tax return and paid tax on it as normal. The sources of the income were pretty vaguely listed, and no doubt if the tax man had decided to do a full investigation into my affairs they'd have been seeking a lot of clarification, but fundamentally, here at least, they like to make it easy for you to pay tax, and if you're obviously not living a megabucks lifestyle why should they bother to look hard at you when there are so many better targets? Of course many people working in the cash economy don't pay tax, in the hope they won't get caught, but that's a choice.
If any substantial portion of Faye's income is from a single source, that source will be expected to file a form 1099 declaring the income. Faye will need to file Schedules C and SE declaring her freelance business income, and paying a pretty large portion as self-employment tax (in lieu of Social Security tax). She'll also be expected to file quarterly estimated taxes including enough to cover most of her upcoming tax liability for both state and local taxes.
If there's no matching 1099's from the skate park, it'll raise red flags with both the IRS and the Drug Enforcement Administration. But I can't imagine the skate park filing the 1099 given the income is from illegal activity. So no, I don't think Faye is paying taxes.
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Screw the legal advice. There's no legal advice that could help Faye now.
She should go over their heads. Nuclear option. Time to have a chat with Hanner's mom Beatrice.
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Something definitely smells here, and it ain't the Pie.
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Where "nuclear option" might not be a metaphor.
Hannermom may not remember Faye fondly, though.
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I get the impression 'playing Phil' is not a game I want to play. Google has failed me.
But what about Police Lady's complexion? It is DFBED7 --- but what is the name of that color?
You can get a hex code for any color you care to name, but going the other way is fraught.
I'm gonna call her "Officer Lilac".
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The Urban Dictionary is also silent about "playing Phil".
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I don't like the sound of that "...entrenched".
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Where "nuclear option" might not be a metaphor.
Hannermom may not remember Faye fondly, though.
Considering how pissed Hannermom got, she just might not remember Faye at all.
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Marten has suggested a way forward for Faye.
I just had a mental picture of Faye saying "Officer Lilac? I'd like to introduce you to a concerned citizen with direct knowledge of what's going on in the skate park. Officer Lilac, could you please repeat what you told me last night to Bubbles here?"
Anybody know US money laundering law? Could Marten really get in trouble if he put money from illegal gambling into his bank account?
I wonder who the "big fish" are and what they might have to do with a petty gambling operation. "Big fish" don't like being taken down.
There's a perfectly natural progression of events that would lead to a spinoff series with Faye living under a new name in the witness protection program. It would take BenRG's talents to do justice to that idea.
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'Phil' is an elaborate prank shitkickers play in boonie bars, which, if they're successful, culminates in a bar fight. Picking fights and beating the hell out of people is what shitkickers consider to be good fun.
Some out of towner comes in off the highway, and one of the kickers pretends to recognize him. "Hey, Phil! Damn, good to see you! Bartender, hey get this man a beer!"
If the bartender, or the bouncer, NOTICES what's going on in time, the game is brought to a halt. If the stranger has the good sense to turn down a free beer and explain that he's not Phil, the game never gets started. But sooner or later they find a sucker and get started.
Otherwise a bunch of 'Phil's' buddies start crowding around, damn glad to see Phil again, and start reminiscing about good times they've had together.... Good times which get steadily more sordid as the tales grow taller. "Remember that time all of us got drunk and went out hunting that night and you tried to hump that bull?" .... "Dude, great to see ya! When did they let you out of jail? I thought you were going up forever after you got caught running weed disguised as a nun!" et cetera...
Sooner or later, the guy can't accept being 'Phil' any more and breaks the news that, no, he's not really Phil, he's just somebody who must look a lot like Phil, and the kickers get all cheesed off at this guy who's been 'pretending' to be their old buddy Phil and VERY SUDDENLY switch to violent mode and beat the crap out of him, trying to involve as many people around them in the fight as possible. And at this point they've been getting ready and a couple of them will usually be ready to try to suckerpunch the bouncer when he wades in to break it up. The only guy whose arm I ever actually had to break was swinging a motorcycle chain at me the first time I tried to break one of these games up.
They especially like it if there's a biker gang in the bar at the time; get one member of a biker gang wound up and into the fight and the whole bunch of them will join in.
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...is that a beer?
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I don't like the sound of that "...entrenched".
I wonder if it will soon occur to Faye that Bubbles may be the one being exploited.
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Who´s that guy with the black hair? Ithink I´ve seen him before, but can´t exactly remember when.
He used to be important, didn´t he?
:roll:
TM
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'Phil' is an elaborate prank shitkickers play in boonie bars, which, if they're successful, culminates in a bar fight. Picking fights and beating the hell out of people is what shitkickers consider to be good fun.
Some out of towner comes in off the highway, and one of the kickers pretends to recognize him. "Hey, Phil! Damn, good to see you! Bartender, hey get this man a beer!"
If the bartender, or the bouncer, NOTICES what's going on in time, the game is brought to a halt. If the stranger has the good sense to turn down a free beer and explain that he's not Phil, the game never gets started. But sooner or later they find a sucker and get started.
Otherwise a bunch of 'Phil's' buddies start crowding around, damn glad to see Phil again, and start reminiscing about good times they've had together.... Good times which get steadily more sordid as the tales grow taller. "Remember that time all of us got drunk and went out hunting that night and you tried to hump that bull?" .... "Dude, great to see ya! When did they let you out of jail? I thought you were going up forever after you got caught running weed disguised as a nun!" et cetera...
Sooner or later, the guy can't accept being 'Phil' any more and breaks the news that, no, he's not really Phil, he's just somebody who must look a lot like Phil, and the kickers get all cheesed off at this guy who's been 'pretending' to be their old buddy Phil and VERY SUDDENLY switch to violent mode and beat the crap out of him, trying to involve as many people around them in the fight as possible. And at this point they've been getting ready and a couple of them will usually be ready to try to suckerpunch the bouncer when he wades in to break it up. The only guy whose arm I ever actually had to break was swinging a motorcycle chain at me the first time I tried to break one of these games up.
They especially like it if there's a biker gang in the bar at the time; get one member of a biker gang wound up and into the fight and the whole bunch of them will join in.
I'd never go to that sort of bar, and wouldn't accept a drink from some random person I've never met who claims to know me, but nonetheless I think I'd be tempted to go along with the stories no matter how sordid they get... :psyduck:
...is that a beer?
Or could just be soda. Or root beer. Or cat urine from a very ill cat.
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If you want to talk about exploitation, Bubbles honestly would be my first bet.
She never (or almost never) goes out. She spends her nights at the skatepark. She doesn't even have her own apartment and if she has personal effects aside from the armor she's wearing, we've never seen them. It seems like she has an EXTREMELY frugal lifestyle. The kind of lifestyle that might be led by someone with no income at all. A cup of tea is the only thing we've ever seen her buy.
And she's got a full-time skilled job doing repairs. If she's getting paid at all, she's making some very peculiar lifestyle choices.
So... my bet would be that she's AWOL rather than properly discharged, and Corpse Witch is using the threat of MP's to blackmail her into slave labor.
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So why doesn't she trust Marten to advise her about Officer Lilac? Why does she have a moral "quandry"[sic] now if she didn't before?
Is she taking the cop's dark hints seriously and worrying that there's something far uglier going on than she realized?
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Anybody know US money laundering law? Could Marten really get in trouble if he put money from illegal gambling into his bank account?
Why would it go into his bank account? I expect Faye gives him an envelope full of cash every month for her half of the rent, Marten adds cash or a check for his half of the rent to the envelope, and then he forwards the envelope to their landlord, whoever/wherever that may be.
'Phil' is an elaborate prank shitkickers play in boonie bars, which, if they're successful, culminates in a bar fight. Picking fights and beating the hell out of people is what shitkickers consider to be good fun....
You've had an extremely interesting life, Morituri. And I say that in the nicest possible way.
So why doesn't she trust Marten to advise her about Officer Lilac? Why does she have a moral "quandry"[sic] now if she didn't before?
Is she taking the cop's dark hints seriously and worrying that there's something far uglier going on than she realized?
Very possibly.
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Most landlords won't accept cash. Most likely, Faye gives her part of the rent to Marten in cash, then Marten writes a check, depositing the cash if he needs to to cover the amount.
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It's to Faye's credit that she's kept Bubbles' problems to herself; Marten clearly doesn't think that Bubbles is at risk when, given her very obvious PTSD, I would say that she is, especially if the place where she's 'comfortable' is at risk. That's what Faye means by 'entrenched', IMO - Bubbles views the place as one of her few safe refuges. I think that she'd have a really difficult time adapting to living anywhere else, let alone being comfortable there.
Meanwhile... I suddenly realise that Marten has always been like this. Given a choice, he'll try to deflect discussing a difficult situation by trying to turn it into a joke. Usually, by the end of the strip, you suddenly realise that it's because he doesn't see any good outcome, so he'd prefer not to think too hard about it.
I suspect that I know where this is going, though. I think that Faye is going to try to convince Bubbles to move on rather than wait for the hammer to fall.
Most landlords won't accept cash. Most likely, Faye gives her part of the rent to Marten in cash, then Marten writes a check, depositing the cash if he needs to to cover the amount.
I think that it's more likely that they both have a direct deposit from their bank accounts. If anyone is at fault, it's the cashiers at Faye's local branch for not questioning why she's depositing large amounts of used notes.
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I guess this is technically the 21st century. The management at my apartment are stuck in the 20th century, and it's checks only there, no direct deposit.
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If any substantial portion of Faye's income is from a single source, that source will be expected to file a form 1099 declaring the income. Faye will need to file Schedules C and SE declaring her freelance business income, and paying a pretty large portion as self-employment tax (in lieu of Social Security tax). She'll also be expected to file quarterly estimated taxes including enough to cover most of her upcoming tax liability for both state and local taxes.
If there's no matching 1099's from the skate park, it'll raise red flags with both the IRS and the Drug Enforcement Administration. But I can't imagine the skate park filing the 1099 given the income is from illegal activity. So no, I don't think Faye is paying taxes.
My main work is as a marketing consultant for a company out of Japan (as in 2/3rds of my income each year at least). Being in Japan, they don't care about filling out US tax forms. I just fill out the income on my self-employment forms and go on my way. Never had any problems at all with the IRS.
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Whoa. Has Jeph never before revealed that the QC universe is in a "post-scarcity" economy?
Or was that a sarcastic statement by Marten?
Doesn't seem very "post-scarcity" given all the concern in the comic for jobs, money, etc.
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I think that you misread, Sullivan. Marten is saying that, by the nature of the world, we are all implicated in some way in someone's crimes (even only if an unknowing accessory, long after the fact) until society becomes post-scarcity.
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That makes sense.
Speaking of which, I now want pie. Jeph and all posters in this thread are complicit.
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Further, because it's illegal, there's no way to legally deal with taxing the resulting income,
I don't know about the US, but in the UK when I was working in the cash economy, I simply declared the income on my tax return and paid tax on it as normal. The sources of the income were pretty vaguely listed, and no doubt if the tax man had decided to do a full investigation into my affairs they'd have been seeking a lot of clarification, but fundamentally, here at least, they like to make it easy for you to pay tax, and if you're obviously not living a megabucks lifestyle why should they bother to look hard at you when there are so many better targets? Of course many people working in the cash economy don't pay tax, in the hope they won't get caught, but that's a choice.
She could just report it as self-employment on her taxes.
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Speaking of which, I now want pie. Jeph and all posters in this thread are complicit.
I regret nothing.
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Speaking of which, I now want pie. Jeph and all posters in this thread are complicit.
I regret nothing.
I regret not having pie.
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https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch12.html#en_US_2015_publink1000172108
Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.
One thing worth noting is that the IRS doesn't care how you got the money, just that you're paying taxes on it, and all of the legal structures are such that it's just presented as "other income", and therefore you're not incriminating yourself.
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Speaking of which, I now want pie. Jeph and all posters in this thread are complicit.
I regret nothing.
I regret not having pie.
I had the pie last night.
There is none left.
:evil:
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Speaking of which, I now want pie. Jeph and all posters in this thread are complicit.
I regret nothing.
I regret regretting nothing.
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https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch12.html#en_US_2015_publink1000172108
Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.
One thing worth noting is that the IRS doesn't care how you got the money, just that you're paying taxes on it, and all of the legal structures are such that it's just presented as "other income", and therefore you're not incriminating yourself.
So I guess all my clients can just stop bothering to file their 1099's, since the IRS is so blasé about it.
Don't forget the DEA and FBI may be very interested in where all this cash is coming from. Or, in QC land, whatever government branch Detective Lilac is from.
If anyone is at fault, it's the cashiers at Faye's local branch for not questioning why she's depositing large amounts of used notes.
Above certain amounts, they'd be required to tip off IRS/FBI of the deposits. Faye wouldn't necessarily be notified that they were doing so.
Laundering large amounts of cash from drug transactions is a major enterprise. There's a continuing cat-and-mouse war between the relevant government agencies and the illegal enterprises generating the cash. (See Walter White's Car Wash for a famous example from fiction.) The gambling money from the robot fighting rink would be no different. The inherent illegality of taking this income is the basis for Detective Lilac's implicit threat to Faye.
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Marten is saying that, by the nature of the world, we are all implicated in some way in someone's crimes (even only if an unknowing accessory, long after the fact) until society becomes post-scarcity.
Just so. And how right he is, particularly if the crimes committed in other countries to produce our t-shirts etc. are included.
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Actually:
Because the ability to tax income does collide with the 5th amendment, you are not required to exactly specify where money comes from and the IRS is not allowed to, of its own volition, share your Tax records with law enforcement. If law enforcement has a warrant for the information, they can hand it over, but they can't just go "huh, illegal income" and alert law enforcement agencies (the exception being if they suspect terrorism).
The reason for this is simple: They want people to pay taxes on their income, they aren't there to enforce the law.
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Which is why using the Infernal Revenue Service to enforce health-insurance enrollment is going over SO well.
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True and important!
That said, if you're ever in Faye's situation, remember that legal advisors tell people that only the prosecutor can grant immunity. That's exactly the sort of thing someone like Faye wouldn't know.
Imagine how this would go if Faye didn't have her core of ethics and loyalty. She'd start turning people in to save her [neck]. She'd have an incentive to testify against as many people as possible. She'd have an incentive to throw innocent people into the gears, because the guilty people may have organized crime connections that make it too dangerous to inform on them.
I'm not speculating, this is how it plays out in real life according to my reading.
So it's not legal advice, it's practical advice, to drop any friends in (for example) the drug scene. Being innocent is some protection and occasionally useful but NOT enough!
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... the IRS is not allowed to, of its own volition, share your Tax records with law enforcement.
The flip side is, just like Al Capone, sometimes what brings a criminal down is not having paid taxes on their illegal income, not their original crimes.
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Since the introduction of RICO, I don't think tax evasion is nearly as common an approach as it used to be. All you really have to do now is snag some lower level operator and use them to drag down the organisation.
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If Bubbles has not been discharged, and has been absent for more than 180 days, then unless she goes back to the Army on her own initiative or can prove she at least intended to (which seems unlikely), she'll be prosecuted for Desertion.
Either way her unit's Commanding Officer has very wide latitude in how to handle the situation. But Desertion is extremely serious, and AWOL is much less so.
If she gets charged with AWOL rather than Desertion, then in the best case, if the CO thinks there are extenuating circumstances (including psychological trauma) or decides given her circumstances that she's been 'punished enough', she could just be handed an Administrative Summary Discharge and walk away. More likely given the amount of time she's been gone, she could get an OTHC (Other Than Honorable Conditions) Discharge, which is similar but revokes any decorations etc and strips her of all rank for purposes of benefits, retirement, etc. There's an outside chance that she could get a DD (Dishonorable) discharge, which has all the bad parts of an OTHC and, as an added benefit, would strip her of 'veteran' status for all VA and retirement benefits and show up on her criminal record. In the absolute worst case, if the CO is vindictive or just plain vicious, she could be tried by Court Martial, get the DD, AND spend up to a year in the stockade. But in the modern US military that hardly ever happens. Usually long-term AWOL accept an OTHC discharge as an alternative to court-martial. Less than one percent of AWOL go to court martial in the last few years, and even if they do go to court martial they aren't very likely to get a DD and/or stockade time. DD is usually reserved for people who did actively bad things in conjunction with their AWOL, like destroying military property, trying to convince others to leave the at the same time, leaving the army to avoid punishment for something else, etc.
EDIT: On reflection, working at an illegal fighting arena is technically a criminal offense that might motivate her commanding officer to press for a DD.
On the other hand if she gets charged with Desertion it's much much worse. The CO has a lot of discretion about what kind of Court Martial to convene, and can limit penalties to as little as 30 days stockade time and/or OTHC by convening one with less authority - but it usually does go straight to a Court Martial and a DD is usually part of the penalties. Although Deserters are only rarely sentenced to more than 6 months, there is essentially no limit to the penalty in a Desertion case. Depending on the circumstances and what else she did, she could be looking at up to life imprisonment.
Anyway, if Bubbles is not properly discharged, then absolutely the best thing she could do for purposes of getting on with her life would be to engage an attorney (yes there are civilian attorneys who specialize in military justice), then use the attorney to contact her unit and handle the defense and/or discharge negotiation. That would guarantee that she'd be charged with AWOL rather than Desertion, because it would show an intent to return.
Of course if CW is not paying her, then she probably can't scratch together enough money to get an attorney to sneeze on her case, let alone argue it to her CO and/or a Court Martial.
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Speaking of which, I now want pie. Jeph and all posters in this thread are complicit.
Sorry, no pie but I do have some small country bakery peanut butter cookies that are very low in sugar yet very good.
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It's difficult to say how different the legal system would be in the QC world considering everything that's changed, but I also have to wonder how they might arrest Corpse Witch if she changes chassis. I'm sure she has some spare ones.
I could see one possibility being Corpse Witch torching the fighting arena before the police can raid it and seeming disappearing in the fire only to reemerge later. This might be the best scenario since Bubbles wouldn't have any other choice, but to go into business with Faye. After a few months Corpse Witch appears to tell her she's putting the fighting ring back together and needs her back which would compel Bubbles to choose between her old life and the new.
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It's difficult to say how different the legal system would be in the QC world considering everything that's changed, but I also have to wonder how they might arrest Corpse Witch if she changes chassis.
Unless there were some unique identifier attached to each AI core personality (which seems likely), this would be an inherent problem with attempting criminal justice on any AI. Still, I'd imagine there's some sort of gestalt analysis of an AI that would be both identifying and invariant.
OTOH there's the old Trek Transporter problem (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQHBAdShgYI), where it's not clear that the AI in the new chassis is actually the same one from the old chassis, or instead just a copy that thinks it's the same AI. If that were the case, it'd serve CW right for trying to abscond.
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If anybody is getting mistreated there then Momo should already have acted.
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I'm not sure Morituri, but I think it's been mentioned or hinted at either by Bubbles herself or by others that she has already been Discharged from Service and the Fight Club gig is her Civvie Street job.
It's going to be intersting to see which direction this Story Arc is going to go in.
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In a sensible world, AIs wishing to fight in arena combat would be allowed to do so, since it is clear that real damage to their core personas is extremely unlikely. And those wishing to bet on the outcomes would be allowed to do so -- within reasonable limits. It appears that the QC-verse is not yet perfect in this respect. Giving latitude to the Big Fish that Officer Lilac is interested in. And pie.
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Whenever something is prohibited, there is potential opportunity for an enterprising individual not overly concerned about little things like legality.
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In a sensible world, AIs wishing to fight in arena combat would be allowed to do so, since it is clear that real damage to their core personas is extremely unlikely. And those wishing to bet on the outcomes would be allowed to do so -- within reasonable limits. It appears that the QC-verse is not yet perfect in this respect. Giving latitude to the Big Fish that Officer Lilac is interested in. And pie.
The robot fighting may not be the problem, but the gambling. is another matter Only a few states and reservations allow anything beyond lotteries. And even if it is legal there's always people who want to evade taxes like those people who spend all their time making moonshine. Prohibition ended decades ago, but moonshiners don't want to pay any taxes so they engage in an activity that is legal, but with some restrictions. And of course there is marijuana which many will swear up and down is harmless, but that doesn't matter to law enforcement. We still don't know enough to determine if the police bot is just a cog in the legal machinery or truly believes in what she's doing.
Wonder if the source of Hannelore's insomnia is the same as her eating disorder.
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You know, I can completely see Hanners picking locks as a hobby.
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Insomniac Hannelore is quite pleasing reminds me a bit of early Hannelore really hopeful this vib shows up more.
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Uh-oh.. Hanner's floof is starting to reach dangerous levels. I think it has become jealous of Claire's floof. Soon there will be a Floof-Off that will consume all of Northampton.
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Hannelore gets cuter every time she shows up in this comic. Plus dat floof.
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Something about her face in that last panel is just so cool.
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I can totally relate to Faye's 'This fucking town' comment. I spent the last 4 and a half years in the weirdest mountain college town you can imagine. Mix Appalachian 'hillbilly' culture with a bunch of pot-smoking dreadlock-wearing hippies and add in a healthy dose of millennial hispterism and you've got that town.
My favorite place was a 'general store' actually quite a ways outside of town. Owned by a man named 'Dawg' (who is also a Plott Hound breeder), he sold produce, baked goods, and farming supplies out of an old tin-roof shack. There was also a sign out front advertising that you could buy homemade moonshine by the case.
It really is an improbable place. On the same block of main street a man with a long white beard and overalls will be busking on his banjo right next to the couple selling spirit rocks and hemp bracelets while meditation music plays on their boombox.
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mmmm, sarsaparilla.
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Woot! My favorite type of pop got a shout out!
Ironically enough, some brands tout themselves as be 'Kansas City style', yet there isn't a single place in KC that makes or sells sarsaparilla (and hasn't been since the 1930s).
If you're ever in Wichita, KS, the Cow Town Museum actually makes their own sarsaparilla on site. You can also buy 1 liter bottles of sarsaparilla (Frostop brand) at any Atwoods. Leeker's Family Foods (at 61st and Broadway) sells Souix City brand. Does anyone else think it's weird that out of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas; the only one of those states that has anywhere that sells sarsaparilla is Kansas?
BTW: If you like mixed-drinks, there is one for sarsaparilla called a 'Spaghetti Western'. It's a 1:1 mix of sarsaparilla and Root 100 (a 100 proof root beer flavored liqueur). It's usually half a shot glass of each.
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I can totally see Corpse Witch having an "emergency exit" through one of the fighters at the ring. They're pretty casual about letting her take the AI drive out of their chassis and trusting that she'll put it back. In a pinch, with ten minute warning that the police are coming, I could see her coming up with some spur-of-the-moment pretext, then flat-out stealing someone's body to get away in.
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Yes, Faye, you'd forgotten that, hadn't you? You live with a somewhat-hipster Indie Music nerd with dreams of art-house metal stardom. Your next-door neighbour has a laundry list of psychological issues, is a genius and has absolutely no concept of 'boundaries' when she wants something, even if only as an idle whim.
It's easy to forget that sort of thing when there's so much drama in your life. I know that we'd sort of forgotten what the typical domesticity is in the apartment; it hasn't exactly been in the comic for a thousand strips or so!
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Is Marten.. an ironic hipster?
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I imagine that at this point, everyone is (or believes that they are) just doing it "ironically."
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I'm proud of Hanners for always being collected and personable at her job.
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I can totally relate to Faye's 'This fucking town' comment. I spent the last 4 and a half years in the weirdest mountain college town you can imagine. Mix Appalachian 'hillbilly' culture with a bunch of pot-smoking dreadlock-wearing hippies and add in a healthy dose of millennial hispterism and you've got that town.
My favorite place was a 'general store' actually quite a ways outside of town. Owned by a man named 'Dawg' (who is also a Plott Hound breeder), he sold produce, baked goods, and farming supplies out of an old tin-roof shack. There was also a sign out front advertising that you could buy homemade moonshine by the case.
It really is an improbable place. On the same block of main street a man with a long white beard and overalls will be busking on his banjo right next to the couple selling spirit rocks and hemp bracelets while meditation music plays on their boombox.
Asheville?
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An Out Of Nowhere Theory: Officer Lilac/Robocop and Punchbot are the same person.
She switches into her Punchbot chassis as a undercover disguise (explains why he's such a bad fighter), but the fighters aren't allowed into some areas and aren't privy to how the skatepark is actually run, so she needs to lean on Faye to get evidence on Corpse Witch.
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I'm not sure I'd trust this "artisanal" sarsaparilla. This reminds me far too much of the (fake) news report of a guy selling 2 litre bottles of home made "energy drink", containing meth and gasoline, from his tree fort (http://stuppid.com/meth-energy-drinks/).
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I imagine that at this point, everyone is (or believes that they are) just doing it "ironically."
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
— Kurt Vonnegut
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An Out Of Nowhere Theory: Officer Lilac/Robocop and Punchbot are the same person.
She switches into her Punchbot chassis as a undercover disguise (explains why he's such a bad fighter), but the fighters aren't allowed into some areas and aren't privy to how the skatepark is actually run, so she needs to lean on Faye to get evidence on Corpse Witch.
Equally out of nowhere theory - It was Momo who alerted the police. Largely in part that because if there were alignments in QC, Momo would be Lawful Good. Thing is, Lawful Good is fine for a perfect world, where people don't need to run underground bodyshops or fight clubs to make money. The QC world is not a perfect world, decent people do have to do underhand things in order to pay their rent, to feed themselves and so on. Likewise, in a perfect world, the cops would be able to bring down the fight club by cutting off the head, not threatening one of the peons (and let's face it, Faye is a peon here) with jail time if they don't work for them.
Momo did it with the best of intentions, but as we all know, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.
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Couldn't it be argued that Momo had an alignment shift to Neutral Good, when she saw Law's failures, and outright suggested that May go there for facial repairs?
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I remember that conversation, in fact. Momo was shocked and wanted the skate park shut down but listened when May explained that the people working there had few choices implying that a raid would leave them worse off.
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This is why I think that the complainant is Bubbles, possibly after one of her 'Hmmm...' moments at Corpse Witch's behaviour.
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I´m a bit at a loss today.
I have never heard of sarsaparilla before. I´m from Germany and that stuff is quite uncommon here and mostly used as an ingredient in homeopatic medicine. So I had to google it. Aunt Google told me about a softdrink flavour and about some kind of root beer.
Is that really common? People make artisanal softdrinks and sell them in casks? Or is this just a joke I´m not getting?
I someone could enlighten me, it would be so kind.
Apart from that todays strip is kinda QC-oldschool. The crew is sitting together, cracking jokes and throwing around puns. Nothing serious, but a lot of fun. I like it. :laugh:
And Hanners is looking at her best again. Her smirky smile reminds me of Sedna from Alice Grove.
TM
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I´m a bit at a loss today.
I have never heard of sarsaparilla before. I´m from Germany and that stuff is quite uncommon here and mostly used as an ingredient in homeopatic medicine. So I had to google it. Aunt Google told me about a softdrink flavour and about some kind of root beer.
Is that really common? People make artisanal softdrinks and sell them in casks? Or is this just a joke I´m not getting?
I someone could enlighten me, it would be so kind.
Nope, it's totally real. Around here some of the microbreweries sell root beer as a side business to their main beer business.
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Couldn't it be argued that Momo had an alignment shift to Neutral Good, when she saw Law's failures, and outright suggested that May go there for facial repairs?
Oh course, it could have been a case that Momo made an "anonymous" tip to the police before May started falling apart and before she spoke to Bubbles. Police investigations do take time and it could have been a while before they were in a position to actually look for someone in the group to squeeze.
And I'm just going to add this here, I'm not being at all serious with Momo as the informant. I just think it'd be a funny twist.
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This is why I think that the complainant is Bubbles, possibly after one of her 'Hmmm...' moments at Corpse Witch's behaviour.
The trouble is that this makes no sense. If Bubbles made a complaint to the police about what was going on, then Officer Lilac wouldn't have needed to lean on Faye hoping to get some inside information. She would already have someone who has been there longer, who lives there and is far more familiar with what goes on at the park. It also wouldn't have made much sense for it to have been an anonymous tip from Bubbles because first, it doesn't fit her personality. She is reserved, but when she acts she is straight forward. She doesn't go through intermediaries or blinds. Second because if if the police raid the place due to an anonymous tip then everyone will wind up arrested, including herself. But if she goes to the police and works out an immunity deal then she wouldn't have to worry about it.
To a lesser degree I don't think she would throw the robot fighters under the bus like that. While it's possible she might want to see Corpse Witch taken down, having the police raid and shut down the place would mean everyone goes to jail. Even if in the end the fighters were let go they would have no job, and several at least no place to stay. And honestly, it's very unlikely that would happen. You don't see street walkers let go and just their pimps arrested. No, the most likely result of a police raid is everyone caught there wind up sharing server space at the Robot Jail.
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Is it just me or does Hanners look extra super duper cute and adorable in this strip?
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@Neko_Ali,
Bubbles' report would have been anonymous and specific to Corpse Witch. As for the rest? Who knows what kind of plans that Bubbles may have for that place and its workers once CW is out of the way?
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The police would not come in and just haul Corpse Witch away and leave the criminal enterprise she was running though. The same that they don't just arrest the person in charge of animal fighting rings and leave the rest to keep operating. Yes, those who are not there or manage to get away usually restart the same thing in a different location. But again, that wouldn't help the fighters who live and work at the park. Officer Lilac may have specified she was looking into AI rights violations and exploitation. But she also indirectly said the police knew about the fight club and deliberately turned a blind eye. If they did have a reason to go after the fight club, they have to take it all in, otherwise they themselves are implicit in the crimes committed there.
Up until the point where someone was arrested they could pass it off as an 'ongoing investigation' or something similar. But they cannot go in, arrest one person and leave the rest of it still running. Plausible deniability only works so long as it is actually you know.. plausible.
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There might not have been a local tip at all. The cops may be working downhill from the "big fish" until they find someone vulnerable enough to turn, at which point they can begin working uphill again.
Or they may be picking low hanging fruit. That's happening in real life in our world, with law enforcement assistance money tied to arrest statistics.
In any case, the underground fight ring is one of those open secrets locally. If there's a human trafficking investigation going on, they have a list of every "skate park" in the state.
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Yes, Faye, [...] Your next-door neighbour has a laundry list of psychological issues, is a genius and has absolutely no concept of 'boundaries' when she wants something, even if only as an idle whim.
My gf lives in a rural area in eastern Pennsylvania. Apparently the natives consider it completely reasonable to just knock on your door for an unannounced visit. Moreover, if your house has a back door (like a kitchen door), they'll use that (walking all the way around your house, on your property, invading your back yard, instead of using the front door which is just steps from the street). If the kitchen door is unlocked and they know you even moderately well they'll sometimes just let themselves in and say "hi!". I was SO startled the first time I found an unexpected person in the kitchen. I knew the person and knew she was ok to be there, but... damn.
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That "Chotto Latte!" shirt.. it needs to become a reality. It can't just be me.. can it? ... Wait a second.. it is a reality. Hallelujah, praise be!
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I´m a bit at a loss today.
I have never heard of sarsaparilla before. I´m from Germany and that stuff is quite uncommon here and mostly used as an ingredient in homeopatic medicine. So I had to google it. Aunt Google told me about a softdrink flavour and about some kind of root beer.
Is that really common? People make artisanal softdrinks and sell them in casks? Or is this just a joke I´m not getting?
I someone could enlighten me, it would be so kind.
Yes, sarsaparilla is a real soft drink. According to my mother, it's correctly pronounced "SASS-pa-rilla". (She was a Phi Beta Kappa English major at UC Berkeley, so she was usually pretty trustworthy about pronunciation, but she may have been drawing on her Oklahoma upbringing for that one.)
However you pronounce it, sarsaparilla is part of a family of soft drinks that also includes root beer, birch beer, and cream soda, all of which I think are fairly unknown outside the U.S. Root beer is the most popular one. I believe all of them can actually be brewed like beer, which is why some breweries also produce some of these sodas -- Sprecher brewery (http://www.sprecherbrewery.com) in Milwaukee, besides producing a nice beer, also brews root beer and cream soda, for example.
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I heard it said aloud long before I saw it in writing, so my surprise was at the spelling, not the pronunciation. Faye should love sarsaparilla. She certainly loves sass!
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Is it just me or does Hanners look extra super duper cute and adorable in this strip?
It's not just you.
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Yes, sarsaparilla is a real soft drink. According to my mother, it's correctly pronounced "SASS-pa-rilla". (She was a Phi Beta Kappa English major at UC Berkeley, so she was usually pretty trustworthy about pronunciation, but she may have been drawing on her Oklahoma upbringing for that one.)
However you pronounce it, sarsaparilla is part of a family of soft drinks that also includes root beer, birch beer, and cream soda, all of which I think are fairly unknown outside the U.S. Root beer is the most popular one.
I am quite sure that at least sarsaparilla is reasonably well known and available in Australia, and given that, probably in the UK as well. It's a bit old-fashioned, though. Probably better known by the oldies among us.
Here is one popular Australian version.
https://www.bundaberg.com/brew/sarsaparilla/
Root beer I suspect is at least known, although the name in Australia is... well... *cough* let's just say that it is not marketing magic.
You may well be right about birch beer, though. I've not heard of that one.
I heard it said aloud long before I saw it in writing, so my surprise was at the spelling, not the pronunciation. Faye should love sarsaparilla. She certainly loves sass!
Yes, I had to look at the spelling again to figure out why I should be surprised at the pronunciation.
Edit: In any forum, the answer to a question starting with, "Is it just me ...," is always no.
Edit 2: I forgot to mention that creaming soda in Australia is popular, though I couldn't say whether it is the same here as it is anywhere else.
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"Creaming soda" just sounds wrong.
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Yeah, well.
Root beer.
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One of my best memories as a kid was going to visit my Dad up the Coast here to one of those small Dot In The Road township/farming communities. The store there was was a very unique place as it served the entire community around it. It was a large, almost Warehouse sized Tin Roofed Barn structure and it sold just about everything. From the Petrol Pumps out front, to the Vesicle Repair Shop/Garage tacked on to the side to the actual Barn itself that was filled with Farming Supplies, tools and hardware, clothing etc, a Mini-Market type store, right down to the the Fish and Chip shop/Takeaways/Cafe - it even had Toilets in the back. It was a veritable Aladdin's Cave that I later learned had grown up over ensuing Decades to serve the dispersed Farming Community around it.
I remember going up there about two or so years back when my Dad died - the place had gone. There was now only a large Mini-Market cum Shell Station with a small Cafe attached that served the area and passing tourists. Modern technology and the ease of ordering Online had ended the place. I was kinda sad actually.
I wonder if they'll become the Mission: Improbable team ;D
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'Artisanal' is code for 'pretentious' and 'over-priced'.
Hanners last-panel expression would look more at home on May.
And I'm pretty sure you don't pick locks with a guitar pick for fluffs sake.
'Everything is awful?' What?
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And I'm pretty sure you don't pick locks with a guitar pick for fluffs sake.
Did I miss something? Guitar pick? What are you talking about?
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Woot! My favorite type of pop got a shout out!
Ironically enough, some brands tout themselves as be 'Kansas City style', yet there isn't a single place in KC that makes or sells sarsaparilla (and hasn't been since the 1930s).
If you're ever in Wichita, KS, the Cow Town Museum actually makes their own sarsaparilla on site. You can also buy 1 liter bottles of sarsaparilla (Frostop brand) at any Atwoods. Leeker's Family Foods (at 61st and Broadway) sells Souix City brand. Does anyone else think it's weird that out of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas; the only one of those states that has anywhere that sells sarsaparilla is Kansas?
A current snapshot inside my fridge: :roll:
(http://i.imgur.com/aP0UEBT.jpg)
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Hannelore is welcome to break into my house and rearrange my bookshelves, my dishes..
My gf lives in a rural area in eastern Pennsylvania. Apparently the natives consider it completely reasonable to just knock on your door for an unannounced visit. Moreover, if your house has a back door (like a kitchen door), they'll use that (walking all the way around your house, on your property, invading your back yard, instead of using the front door which is just steps from the street). If the kitchen door is unlocked and they know you even moderately well they'll sometimes just let themselves in and say "hi!". I was SO startled the first time I found an unexpected person in the kitchen. I knew the person and knew she was ok to be there, but... damn.
Isn't that everywhere? I have friends who would never consider knocking on each other's doors. We all just waltz right in. I kind of always figured it was the norm.
Edit: Fixed quote tags - Felix :)
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Yes, sarsaparilla is a real soft drink. According to my mother, it's correctly pronounced "SASS-pa-rilla". (She was a Phi Beta Kappa English major at UC Berkeley, so she was usually pretty trustworthy about pronunciation, but she may have been drawing on her Oklahoma upbringing for that one.)
I am quite sure that at least sarsaparilla is reasonably well known and available in Australia, and given that, probably in the UK as well. It's a bit old-fashioned, though. Probably better known by the oldies among us.
I can assure you that it's not just the okie accent, but a broader result of the Old West.
Being that it's origins are Spanish (zarzaparrilla, lit. 'small vine bush') and it was popular in the Old West, it's probably a safe bet that the way we say it is a bastardization of the original pronunciation. Much like 'buckaroo' is derived from 'vaquero', or how Coloradans say 'La Junta' as 'luh-huhnuh' (yes, that's exactly how they say the name of the town). Oklahoma has Nah-VAY-duh (and a few others I can't remember offhand). Texas has a mix of bastardized and non-bastardized town names. Even Kansas has Sah-LIE-nuh (Salina) and El Doh-ray-doh (El Dorado).
Nebraska and Colorado are easily the worst about butchering foreign word city names, though.
Here is one popular Australian version.
...
You may well be right about birch beer, though. I've not heard of that one.
I'm familiar with their ginger beer thanks to the World Market stores, but I didn't know they made sarsaparilla, too.
Birch beer has sort of a minty taste to it. Somewhat akin to Certs breath-mints, or a milder version of Altoids. Somewhere between the two. I'd recommend Sioux City brand over Frostop. Though, if Sprechers Gourmet Soda makes it, try theirs. They use honey as the sweetener in all of their recipes.
EDIT: I feel like an arse now. So here's the dictionary vowel symbol version for all of the international readers. Lŭh-hŭhnŭh, either 'Nĕvādă' or 'Nəvādă', 'Sălīnă' or 'Sălīnŭh' (I've heard it said both ways), and Ĕl Dō-rā-dō.
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New comic...
So, has Bubbles been talking about CoD at work, or has Corpse Witch been having her followed around?
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New comic...
So, has Bubbles been talking about CoD at work, or has Corpse Witch been having her followed around?
I'm betting on the latter.
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She probably has eyes and ears all over the place. You'd want to, running a business like that.
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Note the parallel with both Faye and Bubbles being threatened, Faye by Detective Lilac and Bubbles by Corpse Witch. Both are credible threats, and both are scummy in their own ways. CW and the Detective aren't interested in serving justice, just in using their positions to pressure those with less power that can help them.
They deserve each other.
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Spotted Cow! I tried it last November when I was visiting my sister.
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So, was Corpse Witch giving Bubbles a heads-up, or was she hinting at a desire for Bubbles to take some action about the problem?
"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"
Bubbles acted just like she perceived it as pressure to do something.
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At the very least it was pressure to not snitch or let anyone else do so.
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There are worse things than being Under Pressure
(Like sadly having to live in a world where Bowie and Freddie Mercury aren't in it anymore).
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Bubbles acted just like she perceived it as pressure to do something.
Reacting to police pressure with violence would be incredibly stupid. Right now the police are skulking and issuing veiled threats. Take out an officer and they'd go to war.
Besides, I'm not sure you could injure Detective Lilac. I'm sure she has the same highly protected core processor that the fighting robots have. All you'd do would be to get her mad enough to shut down the whole enterprise and send all the employees to robot jail after confiscating their chassis.
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Note the parallel with both Faye and Bubbles being threatened, Faye by Detective Lilac and Bubbles by Corpse Witch. Both are credible threats, and both are scummy in their own ways. CW and the Detective aren't interested in serving justice, just in using their positions to pressure those with less power that can help them.
They deserve each other.
Agreed. Their philosophies may differ, but it's the same tactic. I do think Corpse Witch erred by passive aggressively belittling Bubble's hobbies. She should've told her that potentially everyone involved could go down including her friend, Faye, and while an AI has an infinite amount of time to rebuild their life a conviction rap and years lost in prison for a human is not so easy. Moreover, Faye has a drinking problem and struggles to control and such a calamitous turn of events might compel her to start drinking again.
Bubbles is certainly not pleased since she knows she's probably going to have to kill the investigator and she already has enough blood on her servos.
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That wrench :cry:
Not to get too class-less or anything, but that's another thing May would have a problem with if she got in a Human/AI relationship, her chassis's pressure sensors aren't likely to be top of the line...
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I'm actually not sure what CWs goal here is. Does she want Bubbles to stay inside (so she won't be seen by the police)? Her help? Her killing/disabling Officer Lilac? Or is it just an (actual) reminder that Bubbles will be in deep shit if anyone talks to the police?
As for killing Lilac, that opens up different questions. I'm going to assume completely deleting AI is a crime similar to murder; none of the AI fear it happening to them out of retaliation, and to punish them they're put on harddrives in 'robo-jail' instead of turned off or deleted or patched.
So, if you'd destroy an AI's chassis that has a backup, is that still murder? attempted murder? How about deleting memories?
Be that as it may, I don't think CW wants Bubbles to kill Lilac; at the moment, they're just doing illegal gambling, murder would actually make them a priority.
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CWs goal appears straightforward, at least on the surface. Lilac is a problem. CW wants the problem solved. When Bubbles expressed in indifference, CW decided to remind her, in a bullying fashion, which side of her bread is buttered.
Given that Bubbles probably holds knowledge that would do CW in, it's in CW's interest that Bubbles feel entrenched (as Faye put it).
We still don't really know Lilac's true motivations, and I think that holds the key to the whole shebang.
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Ouch. I do wonder if Corpse Witch is entirely sure of the whirlwind she's messing with here. I'm not sure she appreciates just how much association with Faye is changing Bubbles's perspective on the world and how disenchanted Bubbles is becoming with her.
I'm pretty sure what Corpse Witch is intending here: She wants Bubbles to take out the detective and, if she can't do it in a way that is impossible to trace back to her (say, a long-range rifle shot with an unregistered weapon), to take the fall for it too. However, I'm fairly sure that, since the 'Hmmm...' moment, Bubbles has been thinking quite clearly about how she could safely cut ties with Corpse Witch; depending on just where her thought processes go as she considers this situation, it may not be the policewoman who is in danger.
Bubbles acted just like she perceived it as pressure to do something.
Reacting to police pressure with violence would be incredibly stupid. Right now the police are skulking and issuing veiled threats. Take out an officer and they'd go to war.
Ah, but consider the facts: If a decommissioned combat unit, well known to be psychologically defective in the AI community, suddenly goes berserk and destroys a police unit, whose fault is that? The police, mostly, for putting unsafe levels of pressure on her? Bubbles herself for not seeking more aggressive and effective forms of self-restraint? Certainly not Corpse Witch who has no formal association with her!
Make no mistake, Bubbles is entirely expendable in Corpse Witch's plans. I'm sure that she has a dozen strategies in place to ensure that she has full deniability for anything she does. Yes, she'd probably lose the skate park, depending on where the investigation goes but I also bet she has a 'cold restart' strategy for rebooting her business elsewhere should the skate park and its denizens become more an inconvenience than an asset.
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Hannelore is welcome to break into my house and rearrange my bookshelves, my dishes..
"Can you start with the attic?"
My gf lives in a rural area in eastern Pennsylvania. Apparently the natives consider it completely reasonable to just knock on your door for an unannounced visit. Moreover, if your house has a back door (like a kitchen door), they'll use that (walking all the way around your house, on your property, invading your back yard, instead of using the front door which is just steps from the street). If the kitchen door is unlocked and they know you even moderately well they'll sometimes just let themselves in and say "hi!". I was SO startled the first time I found an unexpected person in the kitchen. I knew the person and knew she was ok to be there, but... damn.
Isn't that everywhere? I have friends who would never consider knocking on each other's doors. We all just waltz right in. I kind of always figured it was the norm.
How do you know your friends are ready / eager to receive visitors?
I'd be keeping my doors locked.
Then again, I'm the sort of person (introvert) who either growls, or else sighs in resignation, when the phone rings.
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I'm pretty sure what Corpse Witch is intending here: She wants Bubbles to take out the detective ...
Really, she just wants the problem gone. She doesn't specifically care how.
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I'm pretty sure what Corpse Witch is intending here: She wants Bubbles to take out the detective ...
Really, she just wants the problem gone. She doesn't specifically care how.
True, but considering what Bubbles is capable of what would you conclude the intent of pressuring her to deal with the detective? While it would be more difficult to kill or destroy an AI in an American city instead of a foreign battlefield Bubbles has the best skills to eliminate the problem and make it look like an accident.
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True enough.
It still seems like a high-risk strategy to me. I can't imagine that her death would be treated as anything other than suspicious, regardless of the circumstances.
But not knowing all of the circumstances, CW may well be desperate enough to risk it.
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Time for the third and final "hmmm"?
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Time for the third and final "hmmm"?
My feeling is that, next week, we're going to be seeing the Fighting Arena through both Bubbles's and Faye's eyes as informed by their new mental perspective on matters. No decision will be made, we'll just perhaps see the place with its facade ripped away. The week after that will be Faye and Bubbles confiding in each other (both believing that they're 'warning' their friend about something they don't know and begging each other for either their perspective or advice).
Only after Bubbles admits to herself just where matters really stand and the lies she's been telling herself simply because she wants to hide from the world will we get the final 'Hmmm...' Then, I think it will be up to Faye to convince Bubbles that she's better than that.
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Destroying the chassis is meaningless. Punchbot had his head ripped off and was in a good mood.
The AI core of police officer probably is super reinforced as well which would require some serious equipment to break.
But protection from electricity or fire might not to as tough. So you will fry it or zap it.
The thing is simple underground fights and betting don't warrant that kind of retaliation.
What is the big thing which is developing at the skater Park if actually CW suggest for Bubbles to destroy Ai officer.
Although I'm not certain about it. my interpretation was that she was merely reminding bubbles that she will get in trouble as well.
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Why exactly have we decided that the detective is horrible again?
Remember, we may see Faye as the protagonist of the story. But that isn't what the detective sees. She sees a low level criminal (which isn't inaccurate, Faye is involved in illegal shit) who she can possibly lean on to get a bigger fish. Corpse Witch may have done some pretty horrific things in the past, or even ongoing. We don't know who the detective is really after.
Would you watch a detective show and think a detective leaning on a low level gang member in order to catch a murderer was a bad guy? Because for all we know, that is the equivalent of what is happening. Corpse Witch's whole gambling enterprise could be a sort of cover for much worse things.
Faye is getting heat and pressure from a cop. This isn't exactly that surprising when she is WORKING AN ILLEGAL JOB.
I don't get it. I don't think she came off as a "nice" person, but why would she? Is she supposed to investigate with puppies and rainbows?
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Why exactly have we decided that the detective is horrible again?
I wonder the same thing. I think there's a fairly overwhelming attitude of mistrust towards law enforcement in the forum, and while I think I understand where this is coming from, I do think it colours the perception of a cop character in the comic.
I have yet to see the cop AI do something that I would consider wrong. I'm not saying she won't, but I haven't seen her do any such thing, yet.
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Why exactly have we decided that the detective is horrible again?
I think because a lot of people don't appreciate her threatening Faye without at least making a pretence of asking her nicely to cooperate.
In truth, we need to remember that, to the detective, Faye is just a bottom-rung peon in an illegal operation. She doesn't know the context and has no particular reason to feel empathy or want to treat her gently. She has no reason to believe that Faye has any special circumstances (and I wonder if she'd care if she knew). She's treating Faye the way she'd treat a street-corner weed dealer: "Make it worth my while, creep, and I'll look the other way for now." with the unstated implication that "I'm watching you; start to do anything worse and you're already as good as busted."
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TBH I had no idea that anyone had decided that she was "horrible."
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Why exactly have we decided that the detective is horrible again?
I think because a lot of people don't appreciate her threatening Faye without at least making a pretence of asking her nicely to cooperate.
In truth, we need to remember that, to the detective, Faye is just a bottom-rung peon in an illegal operation. She doesn't know the context and has no particular reason to feel empathy or want to treat her gently. She has no reason to believe that Faye has any special circumstances (and I wonder if she'd care if she knew). She's treating Faye the way she'd treat a street-corner weed dealer: "Make it worth my while, creep, and I'll look the other way for now." with the unstated implication that "I'm watching you; start to do anything worse and you're already as good as busted."
I think your second paragraph is what needs to be kept in mind. We *know* Faye. We don't know the cop. It's natural to side with someone whose motivations you know, but pretty much everyone has very good reasons to do what they do. I find it difficult to criticise the cop, because from her perspective, her actions are completely justified. From an impartial perspective, I'd argue, they are too.
On a more general note - I'm pretty sure 95% of all conflicts, ever, are caused by differing perspectives and lack of understanding of the other person. Most situations that put people at odds with each other are solvable, but people involved do not realise that. Few people are actually malicious, but most people think *others* are out to get them, at least in some moments of their lives.
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Today's comic planted in me an uncomfortable sense that Bubbles is a walking, talking Chekov's gun.
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Actually, the police AI approach struck me as gentle and good. She understood that the citizens saw it as technically illegal but not harmful. She simply asked if any of the actors were being exploited. That's a concern that Faye had when she first got the job.
Given CW and Bubbles's latest conversation, it looks like the answer is "yes".
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Note the parallel with both Faye and Bubbles being threatened, Faye by Detective Lilac and Bubbles by Corpse Witch. Both are credible threats, and both are scummy in their own ways. CW and the Detective aren't interested in serving justice, just in using their positions to pressure those with less power that can help them.
They deserve each other.
Btw, the reason I said "when have we decided" is because this post was made and no one seemed to think to contradict it at all. It just seemed like assumed fact.
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I don't think CW is asking Bubbles to "take care" of the detective. (Attempted) murder to cover up small-time gambling seems like an overreaction to say the least, unless there's a lot more going on behind the scenes than we know. I think she's merely reminding her where her loyalties lie (AKA with CW); she did the same thing when Bubbles was growing close to Faye, and keeping Bubbles dependent on her and her place in the skate park seems to be CW's manipulation method of choice.
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How do you know your friends are ready / eager to receive visitors?
I'd be keeping my doors locked.
Then again, I'm the sort of person (introvert) who either growls, or else sighs in resignation, when the phone rings.
Ew, phones. And it's a personality thing I suppose. I will knock on my best friend's door, and other people's. My buddy's house has just always been a general flophouse. My parents tend that way too, so I just thought it was a regular thing people did.
On comic note:
Corpsy might want to rethink about antagonizing a military chassis AI. Bubbles may consider removing her from the picture entirely and taking over the fighting ring herself. If she goes legal, May could be the manager. / end unlikely fanfic
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Bubbles attack Officer Lilac? That would be wrong. Dishonourable. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but going around bumping people off who are inconvenient is not the first thing that comes to mind amongst veterans here.
Yes, there are really dangerous people who would do that. But they don't do such penny ante stuff as stage extra legal fights, fence purloined garden gnomes etc.
Bubbles commit mayhem on CW? Probably not, though it's a great temptation apparently. I don't react well to CWs style either.
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Who knows, perhaps Corpse Witch is merely wishing a highly improbable but ultimately plausible accident will befall Cogney (or is it Laser?).
Even Corpse Witch should know that an accident can be explained away and maybe even a second investigator might come along who is not as thorough as Laser. But outright murder is to invite all-out war with the police.
What seems to be happening here is that CW is remembering that she does have a Military-Grade AI in her employ, but not quite realising the damage one can do. She probably thinks that Bubbles is just slightly stronger than the likes of Punch-Bot, but the fact is that Bubbles has, more than likely, a wider range of skills than all the fight club fighters combined. There is also the fact that the fighters are really just designed for competitive sport, their chassis might be the equivalent of Rock 'Em-Sock 'Em robots, they're still only designed for that purpose. Bubbles? Bubbles is a combat chassis with a combat AI. She knows how to tear someone apart, she knows how to break a combat chassis. In my opinion, Bubbles is physically the most dangerous one in the fight club, to a magnitude that CW doesn't comprehend yet.
And its going to bite her in the metallic ass, sooner rather than later.
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Who knows, perhaps Corpse Witch is merely wishing a highly improbable but ultimately plausible accident will befall Cogney (or is it Laser?).
(http://i.imgur.com/Ap3bGYJ.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/q3Qm4li.jpg)
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I'm glad Bubbles wasn't facing us directly in the last panel, that GLARE would have melted my screen! :x
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Well, to unpack some of what was said today... CW said that the police unit was seen skulking around again. Which means this has probably been a pet project of hers for a while. Again I'm thinking the fight club has unofficial allowances from the authorities, but someone.. Either Lilac or someone above her but who can't just buck the system, wants to see the place shut down. So she's been sniffing around looking for a crack or a way that she could take them down that those in power can't argue with. So she leans on the new employee, who happens to be human and perhaps less likely to be loyal to Corpse Witch. Lilac did come on pretty strong, but it was clear from right away that Faye was not going to be the sort to cooperate easily. So she gave a little lean on the 'You know you're a criminal by working there' angle.
Corpse Witch on the other hand probably regrets hiring Faye now, despite her skills. She's already let people in and did unauthorized repair work on a friend. She is a weak link. And now the police pain in her neck is talking to her. Going to Bubbles probably is two fold... Either she talks with Faye, who she has much more influence over and is more likely to listen to than she is to CW. Convince Faye to keep quiet in the interests of protecting her friends at the arena. Or she convinces Bubbles to go do.. something to dissuade Lilac from snooping around. She made no direct or indirect suggestions. If Bubbles did go and smash Lilac's chassis or something violent, then CW could completely truthfully say "I never told her to do anything like that!" She didn't. She just suggested that Officer Lilac and/or Faye is becoming a problem that could wind up costing Bubbles everything. And now she's probably expected Bubbles to do something to deal with the situation in a way that CW is completely in the clear no matter what happens.
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*Bubbles will remember that.*
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TBH I had no idea that anyone had decided that she was "horrible."
I personally think it has all to do with the issuing threats from a position of authority.
Anyone who does that is definitely someone not to be trusted or respected.
It may be a standard operating procedure in schlock TV detective dramas so much so that it is a meme and seems to be becoming normal for policing in the states and other just as unsavory jurisdictions it is normal but that is working using intimidation and threats thinking the target can't fight back - pretty much bullying at the adult level.
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A whole lot of readers seem (to me) to be leaping to very negative or grandiose conclusions.
My read of Officer Lilac is that she's saying what she means - she (and the rest of the cops) don't really care about the skate park to the extent that it is simply voluntary fighting and minor betting. But she does care about the voluntary (as opposed to coerced) part, and she believes that there is a connection between someone associated with the skate park (ones assumes CW or whoever she works for) and more serious crimes. She wants Faye to report to her anything she knows about either - if and when she does - and points out to her that it's in her best interest to do so, even if she really doesn't want to. It appears clear that they know enough to shut down the skate park today - without involving Faye - if that was their intent, so it seems obvious to me that they really do have bigger targets.
WRT Bubbles and CW - I don't think CW is asking Bubbles to take action against Officer Lilac - as others have said, that is a very extreme reaction that would have significant possibilities of major ramifications, far beyond those of just a (relatively minor) gambling operation - and further, Bubbles has shown all kinds of signs that she is far too honorable to undertake such, and CW must be aware of that. I think it is just that CW Is aware that her hold on Bubbles has weakened and she doesn't want Bubbles to report anything herself. She is trying to reinforce the things that were the basis of her hold, both reiterating what (she believes or wants Bubbles to believe) Bubbles has at stake and diminishing Bubbles' growing concerns about other things. (And yes, that does certainly imply that CW has knowledge about Bubbles that could only be had if she is spying on her in some fashion.) Bubbles' reactions, both to the implied threat and to the diminishing of her growing connection to others, indicate to me that far from being willing to do anything nefarious for CW, Bubbles is more likely to do exactly what CW fears.
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Time for the third and final "hmmm"?
And for Corpse Witch to have that wrench wrapped around her wrists behind her back followed by Bubbles tossing her over a shoulder and carrying her to Officer Lilac.
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We know that The Pugnacious Peach cares about the well-being of the AIs and pointedly asked about it before starting work.
To us, then, it's offensive to have Detective Lilac lead with threats instead of appealing to Faye's compassion. She is definitely jumping to conclusions.
Jumping to conclusions like that has got to be very easy to do after even a little bit of experience doing police work. The detective has spent her career dealing with liars who don't care about the consequences of their actions. She has every reason to assume a priori that Faye doesn't have a better nature to appeal to.
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TBH I had no idea that anyone had decided that she was "horrible."
I personally think it has all to do with the issuing threats from a position of authority.
Anyone who does that is definitely someone not to be trusted or respected.
It may be a standard operating procedure in schlock TV detective dramas so much so that it is a meme and seems to be becoming normal for policing in the states and other just as unsavory jurisdictions it is normal but that is working using intimidation and threats thinking the target can't fight back - pretty much bullying at the adult level.
The detective does not see what we see. Faye is a low level criminal in a criminal organization. She is being "threatened" because she made herself a target. And it isn't hard to threaten people with something that is true. Faye doesn't have a leg to stand on and they both know it.
Do you really think that police coercing criminals to turn on their higher ups is reprehensible? I consider it good policing.
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To be fair, I have little love for the police and little regard for the law in the instances when crimes should not be crimes.
Is it shitty to threaten low level criminals to get to bigger ones? Sometimes, sometimes not. In the case of victimless crimes, generally yes. Often low level criminals are people with little to no options. Threatening the disenfranchised to up your arrest numbers and prop up the prison industrial complex is pretty shitty, in my book. Especially considering how little police do when it comes to real crimes, in my experience.
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We still don't know what the detective's end goal is. Corpse Witch may very well have done/be doing some very reprehensible things that are not victimless. With the way Corpse Witch treats Bubbles, I think it is pretty obvious it isn't victimless just from that.
And honestly... While I believe there is a lot of things wrong with our prison system, a lot of things wrong with our law enforcement, I don't think the answer to it is "well, let criminals get away with it." If she has been skulking around for a while, she has probably been TRYING to put a case together against whoever her target is, and can't make anything stick.
If she is going after someone who is doing horrible things, a threat to someone lower on the totem poll is not that out of line. If it comes down to an innocent person being harmed, or a low level criminal being threatened (mind you, she hasn't even followed THROUGH on anything, just made a threat), I know which I'm choosing.
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Note the parallel with both Faye and Bubbles being threatened, Faye by Detective Lilac and Bubbles by Corpse Witch. Both are credible threats, and both are scummy in their own ways. CW and the Detective aren't interested in serving justice, just in using their positions to pressure those with less power that can help them.
They deserve each other.
Has anyone noticed that Corpse Witch KNOWS about the tea-sniffing outings? How the heck?
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We still don't know what the detective's end goal is. Corpse Witch may very well have done/be doing some very reprehensible things that are not victimless. With the way Corpse Witch treats Bubbles, I think it is pretty obvious it isn't victimless just from that.
And honestly... While I believe there is a lot of things wrong with our prison system, a lot of things wrong with our law enforcement, I don't think the answer to it is "well, let criminals get away with it." If she has been skulking around for a while, she has probably been TRYING to put a case together against whoever her target is, and can't make anything stick.
If she is going after someone who is doing horrible things, a threat to someone lower on the totem poll is not that out of line. If it comes down to an innocent person being harmed, or a low level criminal being threatened (mind you, she hasn't even followed THROUGH on anything, just made a threat), I know which I'm choosing.
There's a lot we still don't know about Officer Lilac and Corpse Witch, but it's notable that they use the same tactics to pressure people to get what they want. Maybe Officer Lilac is investigating something that goes beyond victimless crimes or maybe she's just someone trying to make a name for herself and fulfill a quota. The same goes for Corpse Witch. She might be the leader of a vast criminal organization or maybe she's a jaded AI who resorts to morally dubious enterprises, but has yet to cross the line.
I'm guilty of jumping to conclusions too since I think CW may be pressuring Bubbles to take out Officer Lilac, but eliminating a police officer is incredibly risky so maybe she's just telling her what could happen and what she really intends to do is shut down operations and move elsewhere if things get too hot. As such she may need Bubbles to burn the park down which is still illegal, but wouldn't draw as much attention.
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"AI Unit #81284811174502" is less intimidating of a name than "Corpse Witch."
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Has there been any indication in the comic that Corpse Witch isn't her name?
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"AI Unit #81284811174502" is less intimidating of a name than "Corpse Witch."
Let's play around with that number.
HABHDHAAAGDE0B... Definitely no.
HABH4HKAGDE0B -> HABHAHKAGDE_B -> habhahkagdeb... Needs something else.
How about we pull two of the 'h's.
habakagdeb
habakag deb
Let's call her 'Deb' for short.
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I think that this is either going to end with CW in cuffs on her way to AI Prison
Or very nastily
For whom, I have no idea
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Do you think Corpse Witch is somehow involved in either human or AI trafficking?
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Do you really think that police coercing criminals to turn on their higher ups is reprehensible? I consider it good policing.
Nobody is safe if coerced testimony is allowed in the system. Informants are dangerous as hell to the innocent. See the Orange County jailhouse informant scandal or the Cameron Todd Willingham case.
The Pugnacious Peach would never turn in a friend, certainly not an innocent one. She would never consent to setting up an innocent person. There are lots of criminals out there who have less character than Faye. If they are career informants they have to keep producing in order to stay free. Creating informants by arm-twisting is fraught with peril whether you think it reprehensible or not.
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I'm not sure that Faye has actually committed any crime. Morally, she hasn't, and if we're re going to play the legal game, then things like admissibility of evidence, chain of custody etc come in. Technicalities.
I'm also starting to wonder if CW is ex-police. Certainly she has the talent to be a good detective. Good as in effective, not good as in moral.
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I'm sure Faye could be prosecuted under one of those vague "conspiracy" charges:
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." Cardinal Richelieu (disputed (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu)).
If the kitchen door is unlocked and they know you even moderately well they'll sometimes just let themselves in and say "hi!". I was SO startled the first time I found an unexpected person in the kitchen. I knew the person and knew she was ok to be there, but... damn.
I think that's very much a rural/urban divide. As a big-city girl from birth, I would never ever leave the outside doors of my dwelling unlocked.
Has there been any indication in the comic that Corpse Witch isn't her name?
It sounds like a nom de metiér, much like the ring-names of wrestlers, but we don't know much about how AIs are named in QC-verse, or what they consider their "real names", especially since their "self" can be independent of the chassis they currently occupy, so the equivalent of a MAC-address (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address) would not apply. As someone with different "inner" and "outer" names, I can relate.
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I think that this is either going to end with CW in cuffs on her way to AI Prison
She gets killed and comes back as Corpse Lich.
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I think that this is either going to end with CW in cuffs on her way to AI Prison
She gets killed and comes back as Corpse Lich.
Yes I could see her returning to give Bubbles some problems after seemingly dying. Bubbles asks who she is. And she will reply,
"I told you it's CL. Short for Corpse Lich. Well couldn't very wall continue calling myself the Corpse Witch now could I."
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"Isn't Corpse Lich kind of ... redundant?"
"I've always hated you, you know."
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conspiracy
Absolutely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(criminal)#United_States
You can be executed for murder even if you didn't know your partner in crime was going to kill someone: http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-08-12/death-watch-executing-texas-law-of-parties/
If Corpse Witch has a drug business on the side then Faye's only hope is to get a merciful prosecutor.
*********
Anyone notice that Faye and Bubbles have intense loyalty as a trait in common? They could wind up as tight friends.
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I think that this is either going to end with CW in cuffs on her way to AI Prison
She gets killed and comes back as Corpse Lich.
Yes I could see her returning to give Bubbles some problems after seemingly dying. Bubbles asks who she is. And she will reply,
"I told you it's CL. Short for Corpse Lich. Well couldn't very wall continue calling myself the Corpse Witch now could I."
Now imagine that being said by Momo's old chassis.
[assuming she chose it for how innocent it looks and for its tazer capability]
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Anyone notice that Faye and Bubbles have intense loyalty as a trait in common? They could wind up as tight friends.
I think that's already happened.
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I'm not sure that Faye has actually committed any crime. Morally, she hasn't, and if we're re going to play the legal game, then things like admissibility of evidence, chain of custody etc come in. Technicalities.
I'm also starting to wonder if CW is ex-police. Certainly she has the talent to be a good detective. Good as in effective, not good as in moral.
At the very minimum Faye has violated federal law by accepting undocumented wages.
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I think that this is either going to end with CW in cuffs on her way to AI Prison
She gets killed and comes back as Corpse Lich.
Yes I could see her returning to give Bubbles some problems after seemingly dying. Bubbles asks who she is. And she will reply,
"I told you it's CL. Short for Corpse Lich. Well couldn't very wall continue calling myself the Corpse Witch now could I."
That was...8-)...masterfully done.
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Interesting that Officer Lilac chooses to talk with Faye father than someone else at the skate park. She has good intel. She's carefully probing for weaknesses. And Corpse Witch knows it. She has good intel. She knows that Bubbles has been coming out of her shell, and engaging in a life beyond CW's control. Thanks to Faye, who is the real disruptive influence here.
Why the sudden interest in the skate park? I suspect that someone Higher Up will be up for re-election soon. Which does not mean that Officer Lilac is not disgusted by what the Big Fish are doing.
As for the favorite wrench, Doctor Faye knows a two ton bolted-to-the floor AI who can make it as good as new.
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Do you really think that police coercing criminals to turn on their higher ups is reprehensible? I consider it good policing.
Nobody is safe if coerced testimony is allowed in the system. Informants are dangerous as hell to the innocent. See the Orange County jailhouse informant scandal or the Cameron Todd Willingham case.
The Pugnacious Peach would never turn in a friend, certainly not an innocent one. She would never consent to setting up an innocent person. There are lots of criminals out there who have less character than Faye. If they are career informants they have to keep producing in order to stay free. Creating informants by arm-twisting is fraught with peril whether you think it reprehensible or not.
You can't rely on it alone, you need good evidence that corroborates, but there are lots of pretty bad people who would never get caught if the police wasn't allowed to put pressure on people lower down the food chain.
I mean, by all rights, if it is well known, the detective could have hauled Faye in RIGHT THEN. But she didn't. She pointed out that she could, but she didn't. Yeah, that is very stressful for Faye. But it is supposed to be. And Faye put herself in this position. When you do illegal things, you make yourself a target for police investigation. And a police officer pointing out "hey, you are doing something illegal, I could arrest you." is hardly unsurprising.
This is in the same level of threat as when someone is screwing up at work and the manager calls them in and says if they screw up again they are fired. You either do what I want (stop screwing up your job/turn over evidence) or face the logical consequences of your action (get fired/go to jail).
This isn't like threatening someone with something that isn't the known societal consequences of the actions they took.
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"Isn't Corpse Lich kind of ... redundant?"
"I've always hated you, you know."
I don't get your reference, but I was referring to Dr. Who meeting his long time nemesis again.
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Yet you ignored my response acknowledging this.
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Yet you ignored my response acknowledging this.
You know what they say, give them an inch and they'll take a Valeyard.
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My discomfort with Faye getting her arm twisted comes largely from the fact that she's not doing anything wrong, just illegal things. If she were working at a chop shop or collecting debts for a loan shark I'd feel a lot more comfortable with the pressure. In this case even the police officer described the fight club as "barely even a crime".
It's also scary to read about her fictional situation after reading up on real-life injustices.
Good: Faye gets an immunity deal through her attorney and wears a wire to gather truthful evidence about, say, human trafficking.
Bad: Faye falls into the hands of a cop who demands information with which to pad his arrest numbers and who doesn't care whether it's true. Then gets arrested in violation of the deal, something that does happen in real life.
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Could Corpse Witch's real name be...HANK? :-o
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Yet you ignored my response acknowledging this.
I knew you knew, but Tova didn't know. And whatever Tova was referring to I didn't know. You know? :?
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Some gobshite is selling a ripoff of Hannelore's chotto latte shirt
https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/695341-chotto-latte-kudasai
I've emailed Jeph.
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Hard to think anything could be quite so disastrous for Corpse Witches career than a cop who's been keeping an eye on the skate park mysteriously disappearing.
And grief, the comments on this thread sure make me glad I don't live in the US.
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"Isn't Corpse Lich kind of ... redundant?"
"I've always hated you, you know."
I don't get your reference, but I was referring to Dr. Who meeting his long time nemesis again.
Sorry I wasn't clear, but I was responding to the first person who mentioned "Corpse Lich," not your post.
I also wasn't trying to make a reference. You didn't miss anything.
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Hard to think anything could be quite so disastrous for Corpse Witches career than a cop who's been keeping an eye on the skate park mysteriously disappearing.
And grief, the comments on this thread sure make me glad I don't live in the US.
You sure it's not happening in your country, but without any scrutiny?
I once long ago wondered why I wasn't hearing about bizarre abuses from other countries. Akima said it might be one of America's strengths at work -- when it happens here, we have a chance of knowing about it.
I lead a pretty safe life in the US. It can be done if you live in a good area, stay a million miles from the drug scene, and have the sheer luck not to be in a marginalized minority.
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I feel as if Bubbles is also implying that horrors previously unheard of could visit CW at any point as well.
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Okay, by the numbers:
Asking a vet to kill a police officer, in defense of a low-level gambling operation, would be idiotic. Vets, even employed in illegal enterprises, respect police officers and killing one would be Dishonorable. If CW doesn't understand this, and is covering up or fleeing from something drastically more criminal than the skatepark, then she may have just been that idiotic, but if so it raises her personal risk from Bubbles getting violent more than it does that of Officer Lilac, and she ought to realize that. It's not the sort of thing she'd ask if she intended to be around Bubbles much longer.
Having a cop killed is not something you do unless you fear being caught for something with a penalty equal to or greater than that of a cop killer - which mostly boils down to serial murder, or running an enterprise in which you have committed or ordered multiple previous murders. In a few states large-scale drug dealing where there have been multiple deaths from overdoses or drug violence will do it. This doesn't describe the skatepark operation but who knows what else CW is doing, has done, or what the semi-illegal skatepark may be a front for.
Also, CW is likely to have means of escaping much more reliable and less risky than any possible hit on a police officer. This may involve faking her own death and murdering one of the other AI at the skatepark to have his/her drive replaced with her own and taking over his/her life. She may have even done something like that before. Why do you think they call her 'Corpse Witch' after all? Officer Lilac may be investigating an earlier murder, or several.
Posing as one of the employees she most likely wouldn't even face jail time or back taxes, and might be off parole in 60 days or less. This kind of murder is MUCH less likely to be detected (hence much less risky) than a hit on a police officer and MUCH more likely to solve long-term problems because nobody is going to be trying to prosecute CW's crimes if they think CW is dead.
This leads to an utterly horrible scenario. The easiest and most advantageous of lives to take over is that of a repair mechanic who rarely goes out, has few friends or attachments outside the skatepark, and who probably wouldn't even be prosecuted because if she hasn't even been getting paid, she'd be treated as victim rather than criminal and released immediately. This would be a plausible reason why CW has been pressuring Bubbles to NOT develop interests and friendships outside the park; such attachments would make her life more difficult to take over. Finally, the easiest murder to plan and execute is the murder of someone who relies on systems you ultimately control for functions such as power recharge, replacement parts, and backups.
And that leads to another utterly horrible scenario. The main barrier to taking over Bubbles' life - the main risk of being caught - is the attachments Bubbles has formed outside the skatepark. Attachments whose death would then become a means of reducing risk.
I'm a suspicious bastard. When dealing with known crooks, it's the best policy.
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You do realize that she wouldn't be able to put the AI drive into the new chassis herself, right? She'd need a third party to move the drive from her chassis to the other robot's, even if she was able to convince the other robot to allow its drive to be removed somehow.
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I can see some AI's core getting ripped out of their chassis and dropped down a pit or lake. Perhaps CW should be mindful and think of that.
(http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AndIMustScream) Years upon years, left alone in the darkness and unable to scream, lost forever more.
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You do realize that she wouldn't be able to put the AI drive into the new chassis herself, right? She'd need a third party to move the drive from her chassis to the other robot's, even if she was able to convince the other robot to allow its drive to be removed somehow.
Non-sentient machines still exist in the QCverse.
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At least we know that Faye will not go to jail as she is a friend with a person who can order orbital strike with a pizza.
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At least we know that Faye will not go to jail as she is a friend with a person who can order orbital strike with a pizza.
Not only that, but Hanners is also the daughter of the man who helped create AI.
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Plus her mom probably owns the Attorney General.
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I lead a pretty safe life in the US. It can be done if you live in a good area, stay a million miles from the drug scene, and have the sheer luck not to be in a marginalized minority.
If you are privileged, in other words.
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Oohh, here's a horrible thought.
What if the "big fish" is Hannermom?
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Oohh, here's a horrible thought.
What if the "big fish" is Hannermom?
Doubtful for the simple reason that I can't see Jeph going all "LA Confidential/Chinatown" on the strip :-o
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Oohh, here's a horrible thought.
What if the "big fish" is Hannermom?
I can't see it. I mean, I imagine Hannermom is the kind of person who has a series of trapdoors in their office, just to get rid of those annoying nuisances, like interns, failed accountants and police officers with arrest warrants.
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Oohh, here's a horrible thought.
What if the "big fish" is Hannermom?
I can't see it. I mean, I imagine Hannermom is the kind of person who has a series of trapdoors in their office, just to get rid of those annoying nuisances, like interns, failed accountants and police officers with arrest warrants.
So it's implausible if Corpse Witch has the cop killed, but not Hannelore's mother?
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Oohh, here's a horrible thought.
What if the "big fish" is Hannermom?
I can't see it. I mean, I imagine Hannermom is the kind of person who has a series of trapdoors in their office, just to get rid of those annoying nuisances, like interns, failed accountants and police officers with arrest warrants.
So it's implausible if Corpse Witch has the cop killed, but not Hannelore's mother?
Who said anything about Hannermom killing the cop? I'm talking about Mr Burns style trapdoors (https://youtu.be/_Rsk1quUps0?t=3m14s).
But to your question; as far as we know, Corpse Witch is quite possibly small time, one venture - stream some fights and air some odds, take some of the proceeds and redirect the rest to the winners. Killing a cop would draw more attention to her than she could possibly handle.
Hannermom? More money than most nations and demonstratively "evil", e.g. fires accountants skimming money from her company...into volcanos. Has shown a willingness to destroy small businesses because they don't go her way. She's basically a bald head away from super-villainy. Get rid of one cop, make some "donations" here and there and the problem goes away.
But all this is besides the point when there should be trapdoors all over an office.
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Oohh, here's a horrible thought.
What if the "big fish" is Hannermom?
I can't see it. I mean, I imagine Hannermom is the kind of person who has a series of trapdoors in their office, just to get rid of those annoying nuisances, like interns, failed accountants and police officers with arrest warrants.
So it's implausible if Corpse Witch has the cop killed, but not Hannelore's mother?
Who said anything about Hannermom killing the cop? I'm talking about Mr Burns style trapdoors (https://youtu.be/_Rsk1quUps0?t=3m14s).
But to your question; as far as we know, Corpse Witch is quite possibly small time, one venture - stream some fights and air some odds, take some of the proceeds and redirect the rest to the winners. Killing a cop would draw more attention to her than she could possibly handle.
Hannermom? More money than most nations and demonstratively "evil", e.g. fires accountants skimming money from her company...into volcanos. Has shown a willingness to destroy small businesses because they don't go her way. She's basically a bald head away from super-villainy. Get rid of one cop, make some "donations" here and there and the problem goes away.
But all this is besides the point when there should be trapdoors all over an office.
That's because we know or have heard what she's capable of, but based on her outward appearance she'd come off as some rich and demanding woman who you'd prefer not to cross because it would be a hassle not because it's bad for your health. Corpse Witch could be more resourceful and powerful than she appears.
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Oh, yes, trapdoors please. They're funnier than anything I've come up with.
Getting into BenRG-level amounts of creativity, what if someone inside Hannermom's organization has started doing something so evil that she herself won't tolerate it?
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You do realize that she wouldn't be able to put the AI drive into the new chassis herself, right? She'd need a third party to move the drive from her chassis to the other robot's, even if she was able to convince the other robot to allow its drive to be removed somehow.
Remember Momo's new chassis? If the 'receiving' drive is blank, it is possible for the AI algorithm to be transferred along a cable, leaving not a trace behind in the 'origin' drive.
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I lead a pretty safe life in the US. It can be done if you live in a good area, stay a million miles from the drug scene, and have the sheer luck not to be in a marginalized minority.
If you are privileged, in other words.
Even that bears some risks. Specifically if one happens to be neurodivergent (in any form). The police just aren't trained for dealing with the various mental and neurological disorders. And then there's those cops that should have never been allowed on the force in the first place.
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Contrary to popular opinion, there are forms of privilege other than 'white' and 'male.'
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Contrary to popular opinion, there are forms of privilege other than 'white' and 'male.'
Yeah, there's "rich".
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Contrary to popular opinion, there are forms of privilege other than 'white' and 'male.'
Yeah, there's "rich".
And then there is armed with a badge and associated paraphernalia.
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You missed a few.
- Class
- Education
- Sexuality
- Gender identity
- Ability
- Socio-economic status (doesn't necessarily mean "rich")
- Attractiveness
- Religious (whatever the dominant flavour is where you live)
- Passing
And more.
All of these forms of privilege can intersect, such that you can be enjoy some forms of privilege but suffer from the lack of others.
Even [being privileged] bears some risks. Specifically if one happens to be neurodivergent (in any form).
The point I was trying to make was that "neurotypical" is another privilege that you can add to the list above. It isn't a concern that is somehow entirely separated from privilege, as the quote above implies.
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Example: I am fairly well off financially and, while biracial, mostly pass as white. However, I'm also queer, a woman, and have mental illnesses. Privilege is a complicated interaction of diverse factors.