With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

DAT_NOOB · Friday at 6:47 AM

Darko said:
Yeah, they don't need any Nazi robots.

At least he's smarter about this than the Renegade.

Hey Eradikara in the renegade timeline is hilarious.

Vaermina · Friday at 7:08 AM

Ardy said:
I know we joke about his attention span, but shouldn't he at least be looking into one of the many dangling plot threads still out there instead of teaching Kara? He has the team on speed dial, it's not like this needs him personally.

Most of us aren't actually joking when we say he has the attention span of a goldfish...

And yes, he absolutely should be focusing on the many much more important things that are going on right now.

Chojin Patriarch · Friday at 7:09 AM

Mr Zoat said:
20th July 2013
21:52 GMT

Kara looks around the arctic panorama. 24 hour sunlight, air temperature a balmy 1oC and filled with intermittent sleet. Fortunately, my armour is sealed and Kara's robes are hydrophobic.

"Am I going to be shooting at targets again?"

I see they've moved straight to some basic combat training, then. Poor weather for it, but real fights don't wait for a convenient sunny day. I suppose if she's going to be more proactive, OL wants to make sure she doesn't get blindsided again.

Between my ring and her super senses, we have no difficulty communicating with one another. I scheduled almost all of our previous sessions during dry days… Possibly an oversight on my part, but at the time she was fairly clear about not intending to get into fights.

"No, that was an exercise to help you maintain control of your abilities when under stress. This is about how to actually fight."

True, unexpected moments of heat-visioning can put a dampener of a conventional life. Especially if it activates while in close proximity to someone else's face.

"Ah-. Against you?"

"We will be sparring, but I think I'll start you off against something a little easier."

After all, he's speed-blitzed at least one entire Justice League's worth of powered foes, and can consistently take down Scarab Warriors without hassles.

I fabricate… A basic humanoid robot frame, with a kinetic belt to let it fly, and… Basic combat programming. The O.M.A.C.s were probably more intelligent, but we can work up to that. Uh… Ah. Heat-resistant armour panels but leave the joints exposed, add a low-power plasma pulse gun to the head and… Weaker crumber gauntlets to the hands. Enough to sting, not enough to actually disintegrate her.

So, barely enough to singe the dead epidermal layers of a Kryptonian. Might be useful as a depilatory and exfoliatory tool for her, if nothing else.

And activate.

"You'll be fighting this thing."

Expected lifespan if it turns uncontrollably hostile... Two seconds? No big threat.

"Did you have that in subspace?"

"No, I just built it. I'm not expecting-."

It's kind of impressive how OL just casually says stuff liek that.

She holds up her right hand in a 'stop' gesture. "Wait a moment. You can just create a robot out of nothing?"

"Not out of nothing. I need ring power, and I'm not a technologist or programmer myself so I'm mostly copying other peoples' work."

Fortunately, you do have a repository of plans for good and better quality bots.

"But you don't need raw materials or parts?"

"That reduces the cost, but no. Why?"

"There's been a few times lately where it might have been nice to have an army of robots."

And then you compare them to an actual Kryptonian and they come up a little short.

"Alright. Do you know any A.I. programmers you would trust with programming their brains with the capacity to make the complexity of judgements that they would need? Because the best I could do would be a telepresence system or making them fully intelligent in their own right. And I don't really have time to be the father of a new machine species at the moment."

Nor does Earth need that sort of hassle, useful as some might think it might be at the time. So many ethical questions, for example.

She frowns thoughtfully. "I could.. do it."

"Really? I thought you were focused on pure maths."

'Focused', yes. But kryptonians always were multi-disciplinary types.

"Yes, but I could adapt the Eradicator program-."

"Noooo."

And I can picture OL literally extending his neck like the classic meme. Just to drive home the Nope-ness.

"Okay, the name's a bit misleading, but they were really just high quality security robots."

"Which need constant oversight and direction and whose evaluation matrix makes them a bit weird about kryptonian societal norms."

And the last thing Earth needs is another alien technology running amok.

"I could change those!"

"You could, except that humans aren't a monoculture. There's no such thing as 'human cultural norms', and from what I remember about their value judgement system they need something in there in order to judge anything."

I shudder to imagine how wacky things get when they don't.

She exhales, eyes dipping as she thinks it over. "It should still be a solvable problem."

"Feel free to look into it. But this drone has basic combat programming and nothing else."

And please don't go making any functional devices without at least three separate look-overs from other people? Not just Kryptonians!

She nods. "And the dangerous parts are the hands on the face, just like the Operatives."

"It uses far less power, but you should act as if they were dangerous."

Since those are the easiest places for humans to have dangerous energy projection systems (and the hand ones can do double-duty as propulsion and manoeuvring..) I mean, sure, you could put a heavy weapon in his ass or something, but that would be silly and Japanese.

"But they're not?"

"A hit wouldn't be. If it could grab you for several minutes it would be, but I'd call it off if that was happening."

Since in a real fight it wouldn't be using low-lethality weapons.

She nods. "What should I do?"

"To start with, evade it for a minute and then destroy it." I make a stopwatch construct behind me. "I'll lecture you while you're doing that as an additional distraction."

Once she can tune him out, then he can start with the barrage of city noises. Cars, explosions, people screaming, that sort of thing.

"Right." She nods, locking her eyes on the robot.

"Activate."

Round One, FIGHT!

I release the robot and start the clock. It drops a little in the air before activating its kinetic belt, then checks its surroundings. Then it locks onto Kara and charges its plasma gun.

"Is it on easy mode?"

Presumably running on fairly simple isntructions. 'Attempt to harass target until told to stop', that sort of thing.

"You heard me say that I'm-" The robot takes a long ranged shot, with Kara effortlessly evades. "-not a programmer, right? There's an adaptive component, so it won't just-" It takes another shot which Kara evades again, and then starts flying towards her with its hands to its sides. "-keep taking long ranged shots forever. If it can't learn quickly enough, I'll make a few more and network-" Three shots in quick succession, and Kara has to actually put a little effort into dodging in the right direction to avoid all three. "-them together."

And a minute is a long time in combat, especially when super-speed is involved.

"Does it know that I only have to survive a minute?"

"Not in any meaningful sense. It will learn that you only attack after a minute, but it's not mentally complex enough to 'know' things. It doesn't have abstract reasoning."

The robot accelerates as Kara backs up. Since she has no particular reason to let it get close enough to punch her until the minute is up, it's going to have to pursue her. I might add a restriction after the first couple of bouts, but that's an intelligent thing to realise.

Perhaps a nasty trick or two once she starts expecting that...

"One thing you should always-" The robot continues making shots, and-. Ah, it's realised that it can vary the speed at which they move. It tries a trio of faster shots, but all they do is increase Kara's focus. "-do is evaluate where the danger comes from, both to yourself and others. Sometimes, it's best to keep away-" I gesture to her and the robot. "-while in other it's better -or essential- to rush down the target as quickly as possible. If you encountered this robot in the wild you'd be better off attacking it the moment you realised that its weapons weren't dangerous to you, because they are more dangerous to other people."

Basic skills she'd be taught if the Team were available. Sadly, it's still all hands on deck for their free time.

She glances at the clock behind me, then dodges a cluster of shots the robot times to bracket her at the same time. She's forced to move upwards more, but that's about all it achieved.

"What if it's not obvious?"

Then assume the answer is 'yes, it is dangerous'. Better to over-prepare and not need to than to underprepare and be found wanting.

"You can provisionally estimate it based on known factors, such as available power supply and any previous examples of weapons from the same villain. You can hold back and test it, for example by throwing things at it to see how it responds. Does it ignore things it doesn't consider threats, or dodge or deflect everything? Can it dodge? What's its peripheral vision like? And depending on what else is going on you might decide that it doesn't matter and just try to avoid getting hit."

Also, try talking to it. As OL has shown with other synthetics, they aren't always dumb attack drones.

Kara nods, watches the time run out and then fires her heat vision at the robot's neck. It melts through, head and body falling towards the arctic ground.

I catch both, and reattach them.

"Good. Again."

And he can easily add in interesting twists every one in a while.

While this is good for elementary training, sooner or later, she's going to have to deal with smarter foes. This would be a good opportunity to get the Team in on her training. And while this is a good chance for OL to take a breather, sooner or later, he's going to have to get back on the cases he had open...

Neruz · Friday at 7:40 AM

Vaermina said:
Most of us aren't actually joking when we say he has the attention span of a goldfish...

And yes, he absolutely should be focusing on the many much more important things that are going on right now.

The downside of being powered by the Orange Light is that you do what you want to do, not necessarily what you should be doing.

Duke Long · Friday at 8:26 AM

Mr Zoat said:
I fabricate… A basic humanoid robot frame, with a kinetic belt to let it fly, and… Basic combat programming. The O.M.A.C.s were probably more intelligent, but we can work up to that. Uh… Ah. Heat-resistant armour panels but leave the joints exposed, add a low-power plasma pulse gun to the head and… Weaker crumber gauntlets to the hands. Enough to sting, not enough to actually disintegrate her.

'crumbler'
Is there a need to make the plasma pulse gun low-power? Can he actually make one that fits on a humanoid robot and is strong enough to seriously hurt a kryptonian?

Mr Zoat said:
"Not out of nothing. I need ring power, and I'm not a technologist or programmer myself so I'm mostly copying other peoples' work."

'people's', unless he's copying the work of other peoples, which he certainly is to some extent but I doubt that's what you meant.

Mr Zoat said:
She nods. "And the dangerous parts are the hands on the face, just like the Operatives."

'and'

Mr Zoat said:
"You heard me say that I'm-" The robot takes a long ranged shot, with Kara effortlessly evades. "-not a programmer, right? There's an adaptive component, so it won't just-" It takes another shot which Kara evades again, and then starts flying towards her with its hands to its sides. "-keep taking long ranged shots forever. If it can't learn quickly enough, I'll make a few more and network-" Three shots in quick succession, and Kara has to actually put a little effort into dodging in the right direction to avoid all three. "-them together."

'which'

Mr Zoat said:
"One thing you should always-" The robot continues making shots, and-. Ah, it's realised that it can vary the speed at which they move. It tries a trio of faster shots, but all they do is increase Kara's focus. "-do is evaluate where the danger comes from, both to yourself and others. Sometimes, it's best to keep away-" I gesture to her and the robot. "-while in other it's better -or essential- to rush down the target as quickly as possible. If you encountered this robot in the wild you'd be better off attacking it the moment you realised that its weapons weren't dangerous to you, because they are more dangerous to other people."

'other situations'?

Mr Zoat · Friday at 8:31 AM

Ardy said:
I know we joke about his attention span, but shouldn't he at least be looking into one of the many dangling plot threads still out there instead of teaching Kara? He has the team on speed dial, it's not like this needs him personally.

Because he felt guilty about her injury, and can't do much until Diana has a chat with Batman.

Duke Long said:
'crumbler'
'people's', unless he's copying the work of other peoples, which he certainly is to some extent but I doubt that's what you meant.
'and'
'which'
'other situations'?

Thank you, corrected.

Ngamer11 · Friday at 9:14 AM

Mr Zoat said:
Because he felt guilty about her injury, and can't do much until Diana has a chat with Batman.

This feels like the Justice League's reaction to Paul killing Nabu it=s them keeping a closer eye on him rather than actually changing how they operate so that such a scenario wouldn't happen again. Now that Batman is the one who's doing something sketchy the League needed Paul's prodding to actually confront him about it. If something unfortunate were to happen to the League because of this, my sympathy for them would be a little limited.

boo600 · Friday at 9:48 AM

Ngamer11 said:
This feels like the Justice League's reaction to Paul killing Nabu it=s them keeping a closer eye on him rather than actually changing how they operate so that such a scenario wouldn't happen again. Now that Batman is the one who's doing something sketchy the League needed Paul's prodding to actually confront him about it. If something unfortunate were to happen to the League because of this, my sympathy for them would be a little limited.

They are, ultimately, the People In Power. This isn't the Boys, so they don't want to do horrible things to those below them, and they don't really think about how they can do whatever they want… but they like the way the world is, barring things like the Anti-Life, and they have the power to avoid suffering and being forced to challenge their conclusions.

They like their tribalism, with the League being the Good Guys, and they aren't going to reestablish their emotional conclusions based on mere evidence. Frankly, they're already much better than many real-life authorities, and they're tireless champion of Righteously Punching Crime without being addicts who manufacture criminals whenever they're bored.

They could be much, much worse.

CrazyNoVa · Friday at 4:15 PM

Ardy said:
I know we joke about his attention span, but shouldn't he at least be looking into one of the many dangling plot threads still out there instead of teaching Kara? He has the team on speed dial, it's not like this needs him personally.

And where exactly is he supposed to look? There's already other people investigating the few leads he dug up, and he has no clue where to find Question, Mad Hatter or Anarky.

Ardy · Friday at 4:43 PM

CrazyNoVa said:
And where exactly is he supposed to look? There's already other people investigating the few leads he dug up, and he has no clue where to find Question, Mad Hatter or Anarky.

He can find anarchy via his dog, hypothetically. He can check in on Mars' recent political upheaval since Karmang was white. He can check in on Atlantis since the insanity of Gemanae and relocating to the bottom of the ocean again. He can DOUBLE check on Constantine, who he hasn't seen since bringing sanctuary island back to reality. I can keep going if need be, but he doesn't need to personally train another pretty blond when the world is barely holding together and he's barred from League stuff for the moment.

CrazyNoVa · Friday at 5:03 PM

Ardy said:
He can find anarchy via his dog, hypothetically. He can check in on Mars' recent political upheaval since Karmang was white. He can check in on Atlantis since the insanity of Gemanae and relocating to the bottom of the ocean again. He can DOUBLE check on Constantine, who he hasn't seen since bringing sanctuary island back to reality. I can keep going if need be, but he doesn't need to personally train another pretty blond when the world is barely holding together and he's barred from League stuff for the moment.

True, but remember that Paul has a history of always trying to uplift or augment people he considers to be part of his ingroup. And Kara definitely qualifies, so he'll definitely be obsessed with trying to augment her by training her or whatnot.

Vaermina · Friday at 8:23 PM

Neruz said:
The downside of being powered by the Orange Light is that you do what you want to do, not necessarily what you should be doing.

Yes, but he needs to realize that he's turned into a goldfish and fix himself.

Ardy said:
He can find anarchy via his dog, hypothetically. He can check in on Mars' recent political upheaval since Karmang was white. He can check in on Atlantis since the insanity of Gemanae and relocating to the bottom of the ocean again. He can DOUBLE check on Constantine, who he hasn't seen since bringing sanctuary island back to reality. I can keep going if need be, but he doesn't need to personally train another pretty blond when the world is barely holding together and he's barred from League stuff for the moment.

He could also check on the Sivana's, that Kryptonian space station he relocated to near earth orbit, try and contact the Controllers to see if they have something that might be able to disrupt the Apoloklips tech the Madd Hatter's using, contact Dox to see if he can look over the Brother Eye code, and probably a couple dozen other things that I haven't thought of yet.

Neruz · Friday at 8:27 PM

Vaermina said:
Yes, but he needs to realize that he's turned into a goldfish and fix himself.

Perhaps he does, but it's only going to work if he wants to.

The Orange Light doesn't operate on need, it operates on want.

Lord Ernest · Saturday at 12:49 AM

Ardy said:
He can find anarchy via his dog, hypothetically

Doesn't he know where Anarky is staying at already? The Illustres found the little shit, if I recall. In some abandoned SHADE base or safehouse beneath a monument in Washington DC, I think? Then decided that it was ok to just leave the kid alone to his schemes... for some reason.

And I share the sentiment, but the Illustres has always done what he wants, even when he behaves like he's trying to be efficient or clever. It's part of being an Orange Lantern.

Prince Charon · Saturday at 4:20 AM

Darko said:
Yeah, they don't need any Nazi robots.

Huh, I wonder if he can copy G. I. Robot's programming.

Mr Zoat · Saturday at 7:17 AM

20th July 2013
23:35 GMT

Five this time.

Three close the distance and try and engage Kara in close combat.

One a little further back which tries to shoot her with a maximum speed shot while she's distracted.

One even further back which is overseeing the fight and sharing its recordings with the others, allowing them to react to things they can't see.

And they've adapted to her admittedly-basic close quarters skills. Not magically adapted; gaining the ability to reliably predict what the person you are fighting is going to do doesn't somehow negate the difference in strength or speed. But at this point most of Kara's losses have come from them positioning their disruptor fists in such a way that they tag her arms or torso while she focuses on one of the others.

Even more difficulty comes from the fact that Kara is trying to take them 'alive'.

Now, when Kal-El does that, it means that he's going to assess how much damage they can take and then punch them until they reach that point. Without a power ring it isn't often that he's able to 'silver-bullet' people, and Kara's in the same position. So I've been adding in random 'weaknesses'. Sometimes they're vulnerable to their own weapons. Sometimes they have a delay between charging their hands and their face weapon. Sometimes half can use both if the others use neither. Spotting what their 'thing' is makes taking them down easier, but equally… If you're fighting Superman, you're not going to take a doctorate course in radiology mid-fight to learn how his kryptonite vulnerability works. Sometimes doing it the clean way isn't practical.

Perfect is the enemy of good enough and all that.

Kara drops under a volley and then darts left, grabs a robot's thigh (she stopped grabbing their calves after I put a crumbler generator in their feet) and spins, throwing it at the robot on shooting duty. It evades, but she followed her projectile and tries to take it down with a punch to the face-. But the spotter saw where Kara was and relayed it in time for it to move out of the way.

A bolt of heat vision leaps for the spotter's face, but it's learned that's how she responds to its actions and it gets its vambrace in the way-.

While it's blinded, she grabs her initial target by the wrists and slaps its hands together -destroying the crumblers- before hammering it towards the ground.

"I'm going to rule that one as disabled." I transmit the code, and the robot powers down. "If those were actual crumbler gauntlets he'd lose his hands and have a lot of broken bones."

Kara tries to dart randomly to avoid fire, but they're getting good at predicting her 'random'.

"Did that make me lose?"

"In real life, using excessive force doesn't cause you to move to a 'mission failed' screen. You still have to complete the mission, even if you're going to get lectured -or arrested- later. A bunch of alien pirates attack a university, and you hit one so hard that he bursts despite wearing a force field? His dozen friends are still killing, looting and enslaving."

Kara squints her heat vision to 'low power' and starts shooting at their shoulders, arms and hands. Against a normal human those would cause extremely painful injuries, but probably wouldn't disintegrate what they hit. It's also low power enough that Earth-built armour can absorb it for a while, so… A good lesson. You can fight with one hand behind your back to try and keep the people you're fighting alive, but that's going to increase the risk-

The oversight robot has noticed that Kara's vision is distracted by aiming her shots, and powered towards her.

-that you're going to lose.

One robot moves a little awkwardly, exposing its elbow joint to Kara's beams. She focuses, and it jerks as the joint melts.

And if you're dead, then you can't protect anyone.

The robot actually throws its punch before Kara… Hears it? Her eyes widen and she shoots upwards and twists around the fist-. And gets kicked downwards by another robot because they've learned that she flies upwards when she gets startled. Just a normal blow from its leg so she's not 'out', but the kinetic force from the belt means that she effectively just punched herself in the head.

"I'm fine!"

"I'm not Kal-El, Kara. You don't need to reassure me of the patently obvious."

The next heat vision shot is mid-power, aimed at the strongest part of the armour. She loops around as another robot tries shooting her, ducks and counters a charge and… Yes, target disabled. It plummets towards the ground, impacting a little way from the last one.

"Good situational awareness. What's Ak-Var doing with himself these days?"

"Moving duty. Kal's finally stopped keeping an eye on him."

"Why was he doing that? I didn't think his criminal record-."

"No, it wasn't that. Kal wouldn't get fixated-"

"Penguins."

"-on-. What? Oh!"

The robots rapid fire across the volume of air that she's occupying, and unfortunately that involves the shots passing through that area and risking hitting a penguin nesting ground on the land below.

Kara dives for the deck, skims the ground grabbing stones as she goes and blurs as she throws stones to intercept-. Nearly every shot, and since I don't want the R.S.P.B. on my case I'll block that one myself.

Kara's eyes widen in guilt as I make a construct Hululu clutch her chest and fall over, dead.

And then all of the surviving robots shoot her in the back of the head.

"Game."

"Uhhh…"

The still functional robots return to their start point, and I fly towards the dead ones.

"Something else you should realise. B-."

"Innocent people-" She nods. "-will die too. I can't completely stop that happening and I can't let it distract me because if I do more innocent people will die."

"And that's before we get onto 'smart penalties'."

"No."

"No?"

"I think if I started looking for times when letting innocent people die would stop a villain quicker, then I'd start seeing them."

"Fair enough."

She frowns, rubbing the back of her head. "You're not going to argue about it?"

"You clearly understand the idea. If you've decided that you'd rather err on the optimistic side, that's up to you. I can't prove that you're objectively wrong. Just… Bear in mind that you might run into a situation where it's really obvious." I knit the fallen robots back together. "Oh, have you given the name thing any more thought?"

"English is my fourth language. The best I could come up with was 'Superion', and that's only because I saw it on a giant robot T.V. show."

"How about Flamebird?"

She blinks. "Well, it… Doesn't start with an 'S'."

"I might be able to talk Other Kara into taking it-" My ring blinks. "-instead? Excuse me. Yes?"

Alan's face appears.

"Good news?"

"I guess that kinda depends what you were hoping for."

"Batman's taking a holiday and the mind wipes are being reversed?"

"Ahhhh… No. Why don't you..? Come to the Hall of Justice so we can talk this over?"

"I'll be right there."

Darko · Saturday at 7:26 AM

Mr Zoat said:
"Good situational awareness. What's Ak-Var doing with himself these days?"

"Moving duty. Kal's finally stopped keeping an eye on him."

"Why was he doing that? I didn't think his criminal record

He may have been there for destroying a piece of art, but he still spent decades around violent psychopaths, so who knows what happened to him.

Mr Zoat said:
How about Flamebird?"

She blinks. "Well, it… Doesn't start with an 'S'."

"I might be able to talk Other Kara into taking it-"

No idea who Other Kara, because they seem to be popping up all the time.

Maybe ask Loriel to take that name.

She's a former angel and has fire powers.

Mr Zoat said:
Ahhhh… No. Why don't you..? Come to the Hall of Justice so we can talk this over?"

"I'll be right there."

Either we'll find out something interesting, or he's going to be ambushed.

Bigking321 · Saturday at 7:42 AM

Darko said:
or he's going to be ambushed.

"Last time you had concerns you killed Fate! We won't let you kill Batman!"

RichardWhereat · Saturday at 7:53 AM

Darko said:
Either we'll find out something interesting, or he's going to be ambushed.

My reread got to the part of the Syndicate. With Alan held hostage.

BR549 · Saturday at 8:01 AM

Mr Zoat said:
Kara squints her head vision to 'low power'

'heat vision', I believe.

"No, it wasn't that. Kal wouldn't get fixated-"

"Penguins."

"-on-. What? Oh!"

The robots rapid fire across the volume of air that she's occupying, and unfortunately that involves the shots passing through that area and risking hitting a penguin nesting ground on the land below.

Kara dives for the deck, skims the ground grabbing stones as she goes and blurs as she throws stones to intercept-. Nearly every shot, and since I don't want the R.S.P.B. on my case I'll block that one myself.

Kara's eyes widen in guilt as I make a construct Hululu clutch her chest and fall over, dead.

And today we learned that on Earth-16 there's penguins in the Arctic!

(Joking aside, if you wanted actual native arctic birds, the Thick-billed Murre would be reasonable.)

Chojin Patriarch · Saturday at 8:36 AM

Mr Zoat said:
20th July 2013
23:35 GMT

Five this time.

Three close the distance and try and engage Kara in close combat.

Pushing herself hard, I see. I suppose the training bots can only be made so strong individually, especially against a Kryptonian. At least this opens up new tactical options for them and her. Such as tossing them at each other...

One a little further back which tries to shoot her with a maximum speed shot while she's distracted.

One even further back which is overseeing the fight and sharing its recordings with the others, allowing them to react to things they can't see.

Very clever. That would be a legitimate issue in real-life fights too, with groups. An overwatch enemy, possibly acting as oversight and tactical support or being ready with a long-range attack such as a sniper.

And they've adapted to her admittedly-basic close quarters skills. Not magically adapted; gaining the ability to reliably predict what the person you are fighting is going to do doesn't somehow negate the difference in strength or speed. But at this point most of Kara's losses have come from this positioning their disruptor fists in such a way that they tag her arms or torso while she focuses on one of the others.

Yeah, taking one hit to deal another is a bad option if their hits can kill you. She's probably over-relying on her enhanced durability to 'cheat' by doing that.

Even more difficulty comes from the fact that Kara is trying to take them 'alive'.

Now, when Kal-El does that, it means that he's going to assess how much damage they can take and then punch them until they reach that point. Without a power ring it isn't often that he's able to 'silver-bullet' people, and Kara's in the same position. So I've been adding in random 'weaknesses'. Sometimes they're vulnerable to their own weapons. Sometimes they have a delay between charging their hands and their face weapon. Sometimes half can use both if the others use neither. Spotting what their 'thing' is makes taking them down easier, but equally… If you're fighting Superman, you're not going to take a doctorate course in radiology mid-fight to learn how his kryptonite vulnerability works. Sometimes doing it the clean way isn't practical.

And no-one's going to have perfect intel on an opponent in the real world. At the minimum, a best-guess might be all you get. So learning to analyse and disable quickly without going straight to 'dead goon' is critical for her.

Perfect is the enemy of good enough and all that.

Kara drops under a volley and then darts left, grabs a robot's thigh (she stopped grabbing their calves after I put a crumbler generator in their feet) and spins, throwing it at the robot on shooting duty. It evades, but she followed her projectile and tries to take it down with a punch to the face-. But the spotter saw where Kara was and relayed it in time for it to move out of the way.

Heh. Training under OL is basically going to get you up to speed fast. you won't necessarily enjoy it, but it'll work.

A bolt of heat vision leaps for the spotter's face, but it's learned that's how she responds to its actions and it gets its vambrace in the way-.

While it's blinded, she grabs her initial target by the wrists and slaps its hands together -destroying the crumblers- before hammering it towards the ground.

Clever. Though she might be developing bad habits based on the strength of their weaponry if she keeps this up.

"I'm going to rule that one as disabled." I transmit the code, and the robot powers down. "If those were actual crumbler gauntlets he'd lose his hands and have a lot of broken bones."

Kara tries to dart randomly to avoid fire, but they're getting good at predicting her 'random'.

"Did that make me lose?"

Real life doesn't have instant win/lose conditions, hun. Except for one. And that one doesn't give you retries.

"In real life, using excessive force doesn't cause you to move to a 'mission failed' screen. You still have to complete the mission, even if you're going to get lectured -or arrested- later. A bunch of alien pirates attack a university, and you hit one so hard that he bursts despite wearing a force field? His dozen friends are still killing, looting and enslaving."

Though said friends who see that may pause to reconsider their actions. You can't predict that sort of thing, after all.

Kara squints her head vision to 'low power' and starts shooting at their shoulders, arms and hands. Against a normal human those would cause extremely painful injuries, but probably wouldn't disintegrate what they hit. It's also low power enough that Earth-built armour can absorb it for a while, so… A good lesson. You can fight with one hand behind your back to try and keep the people you're fighting alive, but that's going to increase the risk-

And there's also the danger of meeting someone who's not going to let pain or damage stop them. Disabling a foe isn't always easy, especially given how resilient people can be if they're ignoring natural pain responses.

The oversight robot has noticed that Kara's vision is distracted by aiming her shots, and powered towards her.

-that you're going to lose.

...And then the one guy standing back watching steps up to join the fight. It's perfectly all right to be hearing boss music at that moment.

One robot moves a little awkwardly, exposing its elbow joint to Kara's beams. She focuses, and it jerks as the joint melts.

And if you're dead, then you can't protect anyone.

Ah, she missed the possibility of a sacrifice play. Though it'd have to be a loyal or fanatical goon who pulls that in this situation.

The robot actually throws its punch before Kara… Hears it? Her eyes widen and she shoots upwards and twists around the fist-. And gets kicked downwards by another robot because they've learned that she flies upwards when she gets startled. Just a normal blow from its leg so she's not 'out', but the kinetic force from the belt means that she effectively just punched herself in the head.

One more lesson for her to work on: Kryptonian Flight does not always require you to be pointing in that direction with your head. Sliding down and out would have been as valid an option, and probably let her pull one or more off their feet as well.

"I'm fine!"

"I'm not Kal-El, Kara. You don't need to reassure me of the patently obvious."

Doesn't stop her from having that instinct. It's as much cocky 'that didn't hurt' response as 'No, don't trouble yourself' as if he moved to help... Not that OL would bother unless she was actually bleeding.

The next heat vision shot is mid-power, aimed at the strongest part of the armour. She loops around as another robot tries shooting her, ducks and counters a charge and… Yes, target disabled. It plummets towards the ground, impacting a little way from the last one.

"Good situational awareness. What's Ak-Var doing with himself these days?"

Because casual dialogue in dangerous situations is totally a thing for Earth superheroes.

"Moving duty. Kal's finally stopped keeping an eye on him."

"Why was he doing that? I didn't think his criminal record-."

Ah, the joy of having multiple adult Kryptonian males around to lend their help. (And Kryptonian females, but since that's the two Karas on Earth at this stage...)

"No, it wasn't that. Kal wouldn't get fixated-"

"Penguins."

"-on-. What? Oh!"

Ah, the classic non-sequitor distraction. That turns out to b an actual potential bystander in danger.

The robots rapid fire across the volume of air that she's occupying, and unfortunately that involves the shots passing through that area and risking hitting a penguin nesting ground on the land below.

Kara dives for the deck, skims the ground grabbing stones as she goes and blurs as she throws stones to intercept-. Nearly every shot, and since I don't want the R.S.P.B. on my case I'll block that one myself.

Those are some lost penguins. Or someone didn't do the research. ...Or it's a fake-out by OL.

At any rate, props to the mention of the proper agency.

Kara's eyes widen in guilt as I make a construct Hululu clutch her chest and fall over, dead.

And then all of the surviving robots shoot her in the back of the head.

Well, hostages saved, if nothing else. And if they weren't otherwise capable of harming her, that would be a great demoralising technique. Almost as good as the old 'get shot in the eye' trick.

"Game."

"Uhhh…"

The still functional robots return to their start point, and I fly towards the dead ones.

Still, it counts as a loss.

"Something else you should realise. B-."

"Innocent people-" She nods. "-will die too. I can't completely stop that happening and I can't let it distract me because if I do more innocent people will die."

Hell, every shot that you dodge or that bounces off you has the potential to kill someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like that Superman scene above, where he's just walking towards a firing gun and all those shots are scattering to the four winds off his chest...

"And that's before we get onto 'smart penalties'."

"No."

That would be a good chance to drum in rules like 'watch the ricochets'.

"No?"

"I think if I started looking for times when letting innocent people die to stop a villain quicker, then I'd start seeing them."

Good, you should never get into that state of mind. It leads to dark places.

"Fair enough."

She frowns, rubbing the back of her head. "You're not going to argue about it?"

He's done exactly that now and again, prioritising the kill over the collateral damage...

"You clearly understand the idea. If you've decided that you'd rather err on the optimistic side, that's up to you. I can't prove that you're objectively wrong. Just… Bear in mind that you might run into a situation where it's really obvious." I knit the fallen robots back together. "Oh, have you given the name thing any more thought?"

And it's very much a case of 'how would Kal-El react?' Disappointing him would definitely not be her preference.

"English is my fourth language. The best I could come up with was 'Superion', and that's only because I saw it on a giant robot T.V. show."

"How about Flamebird?"

Thumbs-up for the vintage Transformers reference.

She blinks. "Well, it… Doesn't start with an 'S'."

"I might be able to talk Other Kara into taking it-" My ring blinks. "-instead? Excuse me. Yes?"

It'd fit the angel girl more. Besides, I don't think Kara-One would give up the blues for the golds.

Alan's face appears.

"Good news?"

Eh, can't really hold out much hope of that...

"I guess that kinda depends what you were hoping for."

"Batman's taking a holiday and the mind wipes are being reversed?"

'...Then no.' Admittedly, even getting Batman to put aside the Ring for a bit might be helpful.

"Ahhhh… No. Why don't you..? Come to the Hall of Justice so we can talk this over?"

"I'll be right there."

Ah, time to see if it'll be a trap, an intervention or something else...

Right, time to see what the League is doing in the face of all this. Will this be a meeting with OL to see why he's objecting so strongly, to read him in on critical divisions of opinion within the team, or just to tell him 'leave it to us, please don't do anything to Batman?' Or it could be a trap and someone is manipulating things to get him to walk into it...

Duke Long · Saturday at 9:40 AM

Mr Zoat said:
And they've adapted to her admittedly-basic close quarters skills. Not magically adapted; gaining the ability to reliably predict what the person you are fighting is going to do doesn't somehow negate the difference in strength or speed. But at this point most of Kara's losses have come from this positioning their disruptor fists in such a way that they tag her arms or torso while she focuses on one of the others.

'them'

Mr Zoat said:
"I think if I started looking for times when letting innocent people die to stop a villain quicker, then I'd start seeing them."

'would'

Mr Zoat said:
"How about Flamebird?"

What's the meaning behind this name? Because on a surface level it doesn't seem very good.

Darko said:
No idea who Other Kara, because they seem to be popping up all the time.

I think there are only two at the moment. This Kara and ditzy Kara. The other 'Supergirls' aren't called Kara (Noriel plus Overgirl). There was I think Kara-666, but I'm fairly sure she ended up back in her parallel.

Mr Zoat · Saturday at 10:23 AM

Darko said:
He may have been there for destroying a piece of art, but he still spent decades around violent psychopaths, so who knows what happened to him.

No, he was there for stealing a big battery, essentially. They got it back.

No idea who Other Kara, because they seem to be popping up all the time.

The Golden Age one.

Maybe ask Loriel to take that name.

She's a former angel and has fire powers.

Did you mean Noriel?

Duke Long said:
'them'

'would'

Thank you, corrected.

What's the meaning behind this name? Because on a surface level it doesn't seem very good.

Nightwing and Flamebird are figures from Kryptonian mythology.

Lord Ernest · Saturday at 10:55 AM

Duke Long said:
What's the meaning behind this name? Because on a surface level it doesn't seem very good.

Nightwing and Flamebird are gods or spirits in Kryptonian mythology, Superman sharing their tales inspired Dick to take the name and some other individuals have also taken those names as superhero identities; I remember a storyline with Kara and Karen (Power Girl) using some sick armor design:

Duke Long said:
I think there are only two at the moment. This Kara and ditzy Kara. The other 'Supergirls' aren't called Kara (Noriel plus Overgirl). There was I think Kara-666, but I'm fairly sure she ended up back in her parallel.

Noriel and Other Kara are using the 'Supergirl' moniker, no? Or has the detestable fire angel changed her nom de heroique?

Darko · Saturday at 10:57 AM

Mr Zoat said:
Did you mean Noriel?

Yep.

I call her Loriel because she's in Linda's body.

Duke Long · Saturday at 11:18 AM

Lord Ernest said:
Nightwing and Flamebird are gods or spirits in Kryptonian mythology, Superman sharing their tales inspired Dick to take the name and some other individuals have also taken those names as superhero identities; I remember a storyline with Kara and Karen (Power Girl) using some sick armor design:

Noriel and Other Kara are using the 'Supergirl' moniker, no? Or has the detestable fire angel changed her nom de heroique?

Thanks, good to know. Although the face on the left armour looks more silly than scary to me.

Maybe? I thought she just went by Noriel nowadays, but I could easily be wrong.

Wivk · Saturday at 11:31 AM

Darko said:
Either we'll find out something interesting, or he's going to be ambushed.

why not both?

mastermenthe · Saturday at 11:56 AM

Lord Ernest said:
detestable

Do you mean "untestable"?

BartlettMagic · Saturday at 1:04 PM

i may be confusing this with the Renegade storyline, but isn't there a female Kryptonian naval captain (or something similar) that Paul found and gave some land to? She's growing Kryptonian plants or something? i think Match spent time with her to learn from her?

anyway if she is in this timeline, why isn't she involved in training Kara for combat? seems like she'd be a natural choice. at the very least she'd be able to converse with Kara intellectually about the Kryptonian Art of War.

also, i need to say that i greatly, greatly prefer this Kara over that other idiot. this Kara seems like she could be a very intriguing character, having been 'matured' in this world that OL has had such a strong hand in developing. that other Kara is an insufferable cartoon caricature.

Ngamer11 · Saturday at 1:39 PM

BartlettMagic said:
i may be confusing this with the Renegade storyline, but isn't there a female Kryptonian naval captain (or something similar) that Paul found and gave some land to? She's growing Kryptonian plants or something? i think Match spent time with her to learn from her?

anyway if she is in this timeline, why isn't she involved in training Kara for combat? seems like she'd be a natural choice. at the very least she'd be able to converse with Kara intellectually about the Kryptonian Art of War.

Superman naively went to meet Karsta Wor-Ul, resulting in her beating him up before leaving the planet.

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