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

Cuchulin · Monday at 6:21 AM

Mr Zoat said:
"Alright, let me put it this way. Do you like eating bread?"

He frowns, clearly not knowing where I'm going with this. "I… Eat bread?"

"Do you like knowing that it's made of flour and not chalk?"

"What?"

"Chalk. Chalkies were a working class Victorian staple, and one of the causes of our first food anti-adulteration laws. Chalk was cheaper than actual flour, so bakers would add some to the dough to bulk it up."

I can confirm the bit about chalk, I've read about that in books about the Victorian era. Chalk and other crap was used to make bread with less flower, arsenic was used to make pickles green and glue as well as other crap was added to milk to make it look safe to drink.

Mr Zoat · Monday at 6:23 AM

Don't really have a use for this, so I guess I'll stick it here.

1st September 2013
07:01 GMT -5

I sit in the cab of the lorry, next to-.

I exhale, and turn to my driver.

"Okay, I have to ask: why do you-"

Donna Troy rolls her eyes, and huffs.

"-have a-?"

"I told you: we usually put Giganta on a low loader when we knock her out. Diana had to handle the police, so it made sense for me to get lessons."

I regard her very sceptically. "Yes, but I'm fairly sure that the police could find someone to do that, so while I respect your thoroughness I have to call bullshit."

She gives me a side-eyed glare. "Does it matter?"

"In the general scheme of things, no, but I am your boss at the moment."

"You mean I'm getting paid?"

"Of course you're getting paid."

"I mean, by you."

"Ah… Not directly. I own Cadbury as a sole proprietor, but Cadbury Logistics is a separate private limited company and they'll be paying you once you start working here."

She takes that in, then returns her attention to the work site ahead of us.

"So..?"

She sighs loudly, her shoulders drooping. "Okay, look. When I was… Younger, I… Got really into feminism."

"Okay?"

"And I know Amazons aren't really.. feminists by modern standards, but I really associated with the whole… Thing."

"Right?"

"And Dad's qualified as a truck driver, and there're basically no women truck drivers, so-. At the time, I thought that getting qualified was a strike against the patriarchy."

"Oh, okay. What did your dad think?"

"Oh, he thought it was great." She looks away a little awkwardly. "It was a bonding… Thing."

"And his colleagues?"

"Yes, okay, they were all really supportive. And it turns out that the reason why women don't want to be truck drivers isn't because we're not allowed, it's because it's physically and mentally tiring work, with long hours and poor pay and there's basically no social interaction, and if you're driving a dust cart the smell's really bad too."

"And women generally have better senses of smell than men."

"It's… Probably more that I didn't have a chance to go nose-blind, but it wasn't much fun."

"Well, that, ah… Does sound a little silly, but it resulted in personal growth and it's nothing compared to, you know, the giant Christmas cake."

"Okay, thanks, but-. Don't.. mention it to anyone else?"

"If you're.. that bothered about it, sure. So how did Kid Flash know about it?"

"I knew him when I was.. going through that patch. About a year before I met you? He didn't-. Get it, and at the time it kinda… Pissed me off."

"Lucky escape, there."

"Huh?"

"Based on his relationship with Artemis, I suspect that if you'd spoken to him a year later, he'd probably-."

She looks mildly unwell. "Oh, really?"

"I was surprised, too." Hm. "Actually, I should… Probably make more of an effort to get to know the Wests."

"They're.. nice people, but why in particular?"

"Future in-laws."

"Oh. Huh. I hadn't.. really thought about that." She taps the steering wheel. "Do you think he has?"

"I'm sure that I mentioned it… Once. But Jade and Artemis haven't actually spent all that much time with each other… Since Jade left home. They're not as close as.. you are with your niece."

"My-?" She frowns. "Diana's not my niece."

"Great great grand niece? If Hippolyta is the daughter of Ares, and Ares is-."

"No, because she's… 'Biologically' Gaea's daughter, which makes me her niece." She sits back in her seat. "Huh. I hadn't thought about that."

"And it makes Zeus your brother."

"And Cassandra's my niece. And I think we should stop there, because I.. know how Olympian family trees go. How's Deva getting on?"

"Do you want to see the images, or will you just take my word for it that she's having a whale of a time?"

"How.. much blood..?"

"Yes."

She grunts quietly in acknowledgement.

"To be fair, only deserving targets. We caught some of Grayven's people attempting to carry out a planetary extermination."

"I thought you were trying to get Grayven to focus on the Reach."

"Well, yes, but our whole justification is that we're preserving and restoring the civilisations which the Reach has enslaved and destroyed. If we see Grayven doing the same sort of thing we're not just going to hold our noses and ignore it. It would completely undermine our legitimacy."

"I don't… Really know how it works. Does legitimacy help?"

"Yes. Ah. We're probably overdoing it in simple utilitarian terms. I think most member worlds treat the Controllers' promise as empty, pleasant-sounding nonsense. They know that they'll help species in danger of getting overrun to evacuate, but until they actually… See them bring a species back, that's about as far as it goes. But if you can't even say nice things when it costs you nothing…" I shrug. "One interesting thing about taking the high road; we've had some defectors."

"From the Reach?"

"From the Green Lantern Corps. Because we're being as morally upstanding as possible, the Guardians can't try and say that we're in the wrong. Lanterns who saw their Sectors disappear or their species enslaved are getting irritated with their lack of support. Two tossed their rings and took ours. A third just quit and volunteered for reconstruction duty."

"Wouldn't the Guardians just let them do that?"

"No. Because the Reach haven't renounced their claim on that world, so it's part of the Reach, so if a Green Lantern goes in, it's an invasion. The Guardians are haemorrhaging moral legitimacy in our region of space as a result."

I check the time-.

"Alright, that's it." I pass Donna her schedule. "Here you go. Contact me after your first day."

Ngamer11 · Monday at 6:31 AM

Mr Zoat said:
"Sure, you said that the guys your arrested weren't the original creators, right? So what's to stop someone picking up Hayden and starting it all up again? Or him doing it himself?"

That should say 'you'.

Mr Zoat said:
"Is that why you're not going to hard on these patches?"

That should say 'too'.

Mr Zoat said:
Don't really have a use for this, so I guess I'll stick it here.

1st September 2013
07:01 GMT -5

I sit in the cab of the lorry, next to-.

I exhale, and turn to my driver.

"Okay, I have to ask: why do you-"

Donna Troy rolls her eyes, and huffs.

"-have a-?"

"I told you: we usually put Giganta on a low loader when we knock her out. Diana had to handle the police, so it made sense for me to get lessons."

I regard her very sceptically. "Yes, but I'm fairly sure that the police could find someone to do that, so while I respect your thoroughness I have to call bullshit."

She gives me a side-eyed glare. "Does it matter?"

"In the general scheme of things, no, but I am your boss at the moment."

"You mean I'm getting paid?"

"Of course you're getting paid."

"I mean, by you."

"Ah… Not directly. I own Cadbury as a sole proprietor, but Cadbury Logistics is a separate private limited company and they'll be paying you one you start working here."

She takes that in, then returns her attention to the work site ahead of us.

"So..?"

She sighs loudly, her shoulders drooping. "Okay, look. When I was… Younger, I… Got really into feminism."

"Okay?"

"And I know Amazons aren't really.. feminists by modern standards, but I really associated with the whole… Thing."

"Right?"

"And Dad's qualified as a truck driver, and there're basically no women truck drivers, so-. At the time, I thought that getting qualified was a strike against the patriarchy."

"Oh, okay. What did your dad think?"

"Oh, he thought it was great." She looks away a little awkwardly. "It was a bonding… Thing."

"And his colleagues?"

"Yes, okay, they were all really supportive. And it turns out that the reason why women don't want to be truck drivers isn't because we're not allowed, it's because it's physically and mentally tiring work, with long hours and poor pay and there's basically no social interaction, and if you're driving a dust cart the smell's really bad too."

"And women generally have better senses of smell than men."

"It's… Probably more that I didn't have a chance to go nose-blind, but it wasn't much fun."

"Well, that, ah… Does sound a little silly, but it resulted in personal growth and it's nothing compared to, you know, the giant Christmas cake."

"Okay, thanks, but-. Don't.. mention it to anyone else?"

"If you're.. that bothered about it, sure. So how did Kid Flash know about it?"

"I knew him when I was.. going through that patch. About a year before I met you? He didn't-. Get it, and at the time it kinda… Pissed me off."

"Lucky escape, there."

"Huh?"

"Based on his relationship with Artemis, I suspect that if you'd spoken to him a year later, he'd probably-."

She looks mildly unwell. "Oh, really?"

"I was surprised, too." Hm. "Actually, I should… Probably make more of an effort to get to know the Wests."

"They're.. nice people, but why in particular?"

"Future in-laws."

"Oh. Huh. I hadn't.. really thought about that." She taps the steering wheel. "Do you think he has?"

"I'm sure that I mentioned it… Once. But Jade and Artemis haven't actually spent all that much time with each other… Since Jade left home. They're not as close as.. you are with your niece."

"My-?" She frowns. "Diana's not my niece."

"Great great grand niece? If Hippolyta is the daughter of Ares, and Ares is-."

"No, because she's… 'Biologically' Gaea's daughter, which makes me her niece." She sits back in her seat. "Huh. I hadn't thought about that."

"And it makes Zeus your brother."

"And Cassandra's my niece. And I think we should stop there, because I.. know how Olympian family trees go. How's Deva getting on?"

"Do you want to see the images, or will you just take my word for it that she's having a whale of a time?"

"How.. much blood..?"

"Yes."

She grunts quietly in acknowledgement.

"To be fair, only deserving targets. We caught some of Grayven's people attempting to carry out a planetary extermination."

"I thought you were trying to get Grayven to focus on the Reach."

"Well, yes, but our whole justification is that we're preserving and restoring the civilisations which the Reach has enslaved and destroyed. If we see Grayven doing the same sort of thing we're not just going to hold our noses and ignore it. It would completely undermine our legitimacy."

"I don't… Really know how it works. Does legitimacy help?"

"Yes. Ah. We're probably overdoing it in simple utilitarian terms. I think most member worlds treat the Controllers' promise as empty, pleasant-sounding nonsense. They know that they'll help species in danger of getting overrun to evacuate, but until they actually… See them bring a species back, that's about as far as it goes. But if you can't even say nice things when it costs you nothing…" I shrug. "One interesting thing about taking the high road; we've had some defectors."

"From the Reach?"

"From the Green Lantern Corps. Because we're being as morally upstanding as possible, the Guardians can't try and say that we're in the wrong. Lanterns who saw their Sectors disappear or their species enslaved are getting irritated with their lack of support. Two tossed their rings and took ours. A third just quit and volunteered for reconstruction duty."

"Wouldn't the Guardians just let them do that?"

"No. Because the Reach haven't renounced their claim on that world, so it's part of the Reach, so if a Green Lantern goes in, it's an invasion. The Guardians are haemorrhaging moral legitimacy in our region of space as a result."

I check the time-.

"Alright, that's it." I pass Donna her schedule. "Here you go. Contact me after your first day."

Is the info here, like about Donna's ultra-feminism phase and GLs defecting to the OLC, canon in the Paragon timeline?

Darko · Monday at 6:32 AM

Mr Zoat said:
They're not as close as.. you are with your niece."

"My-?" She frowns. "Diana's not my niece."

"Great great grand niece? If Hippolyta is the daughter of Ares, and Ares is-."

"No, because she's… 'Biologically' Gaea's daughter, which makes me her niece." She sits back in her seat. "Huh. I hadn't thought about that."

"And it makes Zeus your brother."

"And Cassandra's my niece. And I think we should stop there, because I.. know how Olympian family trees go.

Don't try to make sense of a divine family tree.

Mr Zoat said:
We caught some of Grayven's people attempting to carry out a planetary extermination."

"I thought you were trying to get Grayven to focus on the Reach."

The people he was trying to exterminate could have been a mind controlled society.

Mr Zoat said:
Wouldn't the Guardians just let them do that?"

"Would the"

Someguy Somewhere · Monday at 6:49 AM

Been a while since we've encountered this one...seemed half decent, but I don't know how well dumping earth insanity on to them is going aid their mental health.....Hope Cadbury's Medical covered alien shrinks.

Duke Long · Monday at 7:17 AM

Mr Zoat said:
"Now, the first corporate war, that was interesting." She takes her seat, setting the tray down on the desk and then passing a glass to me. I take it from her and nod for her to continue. "Someone… Probably the psions, started handing out faster than light drives like it was a bankruptcy auction. A great many of our larger corporations decided that moving to places… Planets in some cases, without Emana's 'restrictive anti-business laws', as in their best interests."

'was'

Chojin Patriarch · Monday at 7:28 AM

Mr Zoat said:
4th September 2013
10:12 GMT -5

"…adding inspectors to cut down on contraband." I nod as Oliver goes through the initial report. "And I gotta resign right after."

Huh. "Ah. If you… Want to. May I ask 'why'?"

At a guess? He's not comfortable in the boardroom in general, even back in the day when he ran Queen industries. Much more comfortable running around with a green bow and arrow.

He smiles. "You can ask..."

"Okay. Why?"

Asking does not mean he'll answer, but I suspect he does want to talk about it.

He sighs, slumping slightly in his seat, his eyes drifting away from me. "Look, I took this job because you wanted someone to keep an eye on Cadbury when you weren't around. Non-exec director, sure, I can do one day a week without it cutting into my-." He takes a moment to consider where we are. "LARPing time, but this… This isn't just me keeping tabs on things. You need someone who can do this full time, and that's not me."

I like that's become his go-to excuse for his idle time. Wonder if people decided he's got some superhero cosplay group going on.

I nod. "Yeah, that's fair enough. Would you agree to keep doing the Cadbury Chocolate side of things, so long as I get someone else for the Logistics side?"

"Yeah, I appreciate the offer, but the thing is? I wanted to increase my LARPing time anyway. The chocolate-. Okay, I admit you're right about the chocolate quality, but it's not really…"

Ha, good to see Ollie came around on that end.

"It's not so good that it's vital to the wellbeing of the planet."

He nods. "So I was justifying sticking around because the logistics stuff is, but…"

Though honestly, how vital is him and his pointy-stick launcher to running the planet?

I suppose his organisational skills are more helpful, but he still does prefer to do them in green long-johns.

He shrugs, and I nod.

"Yeah. Do you have any suggestions on your successor?"

Someone prepared to deal with crazy shit, because this got weird, for one thing...

"Not… Really. Your representative on the board should be someone you've got a good working relationship with. Or at least someone you trust with that authority. If you don't know anyone, I can give you the name of a few reliable commercial law firms who could get someone for you."

And while OL has options for making sure of a person's loyalty and trustworthiness, not all of them are morally viable.

"Do you think Alan could do it?"

He looks confused for a moment. "Alan… Scott..?"

"He used to run the Gotham Broadcasting Company."

Ah, having to pretend not to know other capes in their civilian identities...

"Isn't he… About a hundred years old?"

"Ninety-. Yes."

"The business world has changed a little since he was-. When did he retire?"

Quite a bit more cut0throat, I would imagine. Some things never change, though.

"About twenty years ago."

"Right. And I got the feeling that he'd rather spend all his time 'LARPing', too."

He does have quite a good Green Lantern cosplay, yes. The World War II one, that is.

"Probably. So…"

"I don't think it's a great idea, but you could always talk to him about it. No one else you could ask?"

Sadly, all the corporate types he knows are either too busy with their own business or not people he can trust.

"How many experienced former company chairmen do you think I know? Apart from you and Alan… Alexander Luthor?"

"Lex-with-hair? I think he's busy. Whatever happened to that… Lord-Lantern-?"

Manga Khan? Oh my god, imagine that hilarity.

I cringe. "Don't even joke about that. I'll-. I'll think about it. I assume that the rest of the board will be fine with the increased security?"

"Given the number of Justice League contracts we've got, I asked the League to send a request to our security department instead. I'll explain things to the rest of the board during the next meeting."

Just point out that there was an illicit magical narcotic being smuggled right under everyone's noses and go from there.

"Okay." I lean back slightly. "And that pretty much shuts it down, because there aren't alternate routes. And as far as I can tell from the people going through detox, it isn't chemically addictive."

"Sure, you said that the guys your arrested weren't the original creators, right? So what's to stop someone picking up Hayden and starting it all up again? Or him doing it himself?"

Somehow, I think the smiling bastard has ruled this out as a viable ploy. And Psycho-Pirate is in the wind, either in his clutches or at loose in general.

"The answer is nothing, except that they've already lost the ability to transport their product long distance. It wouldn't make sense."

"You have met supervillains, right? And drug pushers."

I nod. "I take your point, which is why the investigation will continue until we find him."

Yeah, rational sensibility isn't their strong point in most cases. If it was, they wouldn't be in their chosen line of work.

"You don't wanna hold off on the increased security while you work? Might make it a bit easier to find things, if they just wait for the heat to die down and then try setting up again with new patsies."

"No. Because if something like this was being smuggled, I'm sure that other things were as well. We should probably have done something like this a while ago."

In their defence, they've kind of been winging it as far as assembling the whole setup goes.

"We needed to expand. You know what things were looking like-."

"Yes, but things haven't been 'desperate' for a few months. We've had time…"

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess…"

But not the motivation before now.

"Cocaine production is way down, but heroin is still moving around, along with things like fentanyl and other synthetics. We can't do much to stop fentanyl production, but we can at least stop suppliers moving things around using us." Heh. "Honestly, I suspect drug dealers are extremely eager for transportation networks to go back to normal."

Probably easier to exploit, for sure. They know all the old loopholes and tricks they used to smuggle via those methods. Dolmen Gates? Much harder to sneak around.

"And… What about other stuff?"

"Other stuff? You mean like L.S.D.?"

"I was thinking of weed."

Ah, less outright harmful things. Potentially abusable but manageable in controlled circumstances.

"Honestly, I don't really care about it beyond the fact that us deciding to transport it further undermines the governments which have banned it. And the obvious problem with it suddenly becoming 'Justice League approved weed'. " He snorts, but nods. "We've only just gotten to the point where we can start building new dolmen gates, I don't want to put effort into moving recreational substances over vital ones."

Indeed. The world isn't back to 100% stability yet. And may not be for some time yet.

"Is that why you're not going to hard on these patches?"

"Wallace West isn't interested in producing them, but I think there's potential in a side effect free pick me up. If we can work out how to produce them without the exotic side effects, and without sucking juice out of Mister Hayden. Alright. Unless there's anything else, I need to start interviewing for your replacement."

Perhaps look up some Atlanteans for it?

4th September 2013
18:02 GMT

The former High Conciliator of Emana glances up at me as I appear in her office, bypassing the force fields and guards. She takes me in for a moment, then looks mildly disappointed. "I was hoping for an assassin."

Huh, not the strangest reaction to OL's arrival I've ever seen. But given what she went through, I'm not surprised.

"Why?"

"Deposed leaders tend not to last long in Vega."

I frown. "You did all you could-."

At least they didn't just kill her. Presumably because of OL's assistance?

"And sometimes that's not enough. The surviving consortia-alliances have agreed to a peace deal with the Vega Alliance, but there are a great many former corporate leaders who are now nearly powerless and such people are not prone to rationality. After all the damage that happened I couldn't remain in office, especially not if the Alliance forces us to reform our government." She relaxes slightly. "Why are you here, Orange Lantern?"

Huh. So she suddenly finds herself with considerable free time? How convenient.

"What are your future employment opportunities here like?"

"Non-existent. I was lucky they agreed to pension me off."

"Then how would you like to work for me?"

I assume OL will handle any paperwork involved in a working Visa on Earth...

Quite a way to go for a trustworthy but skilled replacement for Ollie. At the least, she's probably going to be very happy to be as far from here as she could get while all this post-war stuff is settling down. Not sure how the rest of the board will respond to an alien taking up OL's seat on the board, but it's surely not the weirdest thing they've had to handle these days.

BlackCoat13 · Monday at 7:52 AM

Mr Zoat said:
"Sure, you said that the guys your arrested weren't the original creators, right?

you

Mr Zoat · Monday at 8:30 AM

Ngamer11 said:
That should say 'you'.
That should say 'too'.

Thank you, corrected.

Is the info here, like about Donna's ultra-feminism phase and GLs defecting to the OLC, canon in the Paragon timeline?

That's not ultra-feminism. That's just feminism.

Yes, it's canon, as much as that matters.

Darko said:
"Would the"

No, that's correct.

Duke Long said:
'was'

Thank you, corrected.

BR549 · Monday at 10:18 AM

Steelplaza said:
I don't know where Smiley comes from, but.... I have a theory.

The most famous thing about the Psycho-Pirate is not his ability to control emotions. That's a pretty good super power, but B-tier at best. No, the memorable thing about him is that for some reason he can remember other versions of the DC universe. Other continuities.

What if Smiley is from another DC continuity, a pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths version of reality? What if his desire to control what the Earth looks like comes from a desire to make it match what he understands DC realities should look like? And... if we could see the true face beneath the smile avatar, would we recognize him as a version of some other character, time trapper style?

The not entirely illogical conclusion to this line of thought is that Boss Smiley...

...is Irwin Schwab.

Which makes a disturbing amount of sense the more I thnk about it.

PJ739 · Monday at 10:20 AM

Mr Zoat said:
High Conciliator of Emana

Was this an original character?

Chaoswind · Monday at 10:34 AM

PJ739 said:
Was this an original character?

No, she showed up during the vega conquest. Her species is ruled by a bunch of mega corps that were allied to the Citadel and the Psions, so you can guess how Paul meet her and why she says she is unhireable after negotiating surrender terms with the alliance.

Their species are mentioned as being fairly strong (like the Thamaraneans strong, not superman strong), and I think they have four arms? Aliens species Paul has meet do blur together at times.

Edit: https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Emana_Branx

Blackshard · Monday at 10:36 AM

Mr Zoat said:
We can't do much to stop fentanyl production, but we can at least stop suppliers moving things around using us.

That ought to be enough, frankly. Stopping people from moving things around using the only functioning logistics network would be enough to kill more than 99% of fentanyl production. Sure, it's easy to smuggle the end product, but the precursors still require access to a chemical plant. If you're not getting those precursors shipped overseas from some shady Chinese chemical supplier on account of how there isn't really much overseas shipping any more, you're more or less SOL when it comes to getting the ingredients you need.

So there'll be some production of fentanyl by legitimate pharmacies for legitimate medical uses and some illegitimate diversion of those supplies, and there'll be supplies that got smuggled long distances the hard way, and there'll be the odd backyard project where some clever chemist did bathtub batches of intermediate chemicals and got a small batch of whatever. What you definitely won't have is anything like the current situation, where anyone who took high school chemistry can order some simple ingredients off Alibaba and turn them into fentanyl worth 1000x as much on the street.

Mr Zoat · Monday at 1:27 PM

PJ739 said:
Was this an original character?

If by 'original' you mean 'created by me for this story', yes.

Signaller · Monday at 2:48 PM

Mr Zoat said:
Don't really have a use for this, so I guess I'll stick it here.

Oh right, in place of Bruno? I wonder if parts of it could be recycled elsewhere, e.g. did Common Sense OL also buy Cadbury?

Mr Zoat · Monday at 3:03 PM

Signaller said:
Oh right, in place of Bruno? I wonder if parts of it could be recycled elsewhere, e.g. did Common Sense OL also buy Cadbury?

I don't know. That doesn't sound very sensible.

Zig · Monday at 3:09 PM

Mr Zoat said:
I don't know. That doesn't sound very sensible.

Now I'm picturing Sybarite doing the chocolate pool dive.

Steelplaza · Monday at 3:50 PM

Mr Zoat said:
"We've only just gotten to the point where we can start building new dolmen gates, I don't want to put effort into moving recreational substances over vital ones."

"Other than chocolate, of course."

"Of course. This is a chocolate company."

xSieg · Monday at 8:50 PM

do you guys think Luma Lynai is supergirl enough to be missing from the Supergirl sticker collection OL is trying to set up?

Silveraith · Tuesday at 1:49 AM

Mr Zoat said:
Cadbury Logistics is a separate private limited company and they'll be paying you one you start working here.

Once.

Mr Zoat · Tuesday at 6:16 AM

Silveraith said:
Once.

Thank you, corrected.

Mr Zoat · Tuesday at 6:22 AM

Replanting

6th September 2013
09:36 GMT

Dr. Mist looks at the place where Roger Hayden once lay.

"Anything?"

"Yes. Nothing thet would explain…" He holds up a vial of Hayden Juice and frowns at it for a moment. "This, but I can feel the remains of the spell thet was used."

"Anything outside?"

"No. I think it may be an issue of non-arcane dimensional… Interference."

"How'd you work that one out?"

"Eh, basic logic. Your machine should heff prevented him moving to a parallel universe. If he hed used magic, it is almost impossible that I could not feel it while I em standing here. But, I cannot feel it when Mirror Master opens a portal through two mirrors. It is a strange phenomenon, but it is not magic."

"Uh-uuuuuuuugh…" Marvellous. Weird knotholes in reality that technically aren't magic. One of the few areas left that I don't know anything about, and don't know anyone who knows anything about. "McCulloch just bought the Mirror Master equipment and Scudder's dead. Charles Halstead's dead, so if he ever had anything to do with the second Psycho Pirate -which was never proven- we can't easily ask him."

"You could simply ask Charles Andrews."

"I did. He claims that he thought Mister Hayden was in a persistent vegetative state and that he has no idea how he vanished."

"Did you confirm thet?"

"I mean, he turned his defensive spells off and I got a good look at him. I-." I sigh, shrugging. "I know what my reputation's like, but I.. don't really want to resort to extreme measures to triple check an answer when the crime is relatively minor. Hayden doesn't even have any significant outstanding warrants, even if I suspect him of trying to kill the people I was investigating. I'd check that he was physically healthy before trying to arrest him."

"It is good thet you do not resort to extremes all of the time. But do I need to remind you thet the King of Tears is from such a place?"

I squeeze my eyes shut. "Apparently, yes. I thought it was just from a parallel universe with different physical laws to ours?"

"Mister Miracle checked the site where Johnny Sorrow originally left the material universe. Apparently, there were enough resonances there thet he was able to determine what happened."

"So we need him to take a look at this?"

"Mister Miracle has a great deal of work. All of us do. Do you think it is necessary for him to make this a priority?"

"No, I suppose not. It's just a little frustrating. Do you want to see where the shrine was?"

"Yes, I think thet is best."

I lead the way down the corridor and then down the stairs, past the police arcane hazard warning notice and down into the basement proper. Not much here now, other than the blackened and charred concrete where the shrine used to be.

"You used incendiaries?"

"Yes. Mage slayers drain magical energy to disrupt spells, but there's a finite amount of energy they can absorb. I felt that physically destroying the shrine was a better bet than trying to drain something that might not be a delicately structured spell and might just be a site of raw power."

"Ah." He nods. "And of course you could not be completely sure thet what you saw was really there."

I nod. "I don't know how Boss Smiley works. Is dimensional manipulation inherently disruptive to magic?"

"Do you know, I do not know?" He glances at me before giving the carbonised patch of floor his full attention. "Joining the Justice League is giving me so many novel experiences."

"Happy to help. Getting anything, or-."

"Yes… And no. The spell architecture is clearly an elemental binding thet was adapted for something else, but it is… Solipsistic? A shrine to a shrine, excluding all other influences. It is like the box on the internet, where activating the mechanism sends forth an armature to deactivate the mechanism. It would work, but it should not do anything."

"He told me that he doesn't exist."

"If something told you thet, then it was a lie. Spirits are not demons; they can lie freely."

"I was… Thinking. About how computers store data."

"I can use a word processor."

"Ah-. The important point is that the term 'cloud' is nonsense. All data is stored in a physical location. Right?"

"Yes?"

"Now, with older forms of data storage, connecting to where the data storage existed in the physical world required things to move around. I remember reading about a computer where they couldn't work out how data was getting from one point to another, because according to the design of the system it shouldn't be able to. It turned out that two locations were close enough together that the data reader could be made to jump across from one-." He gives me a blank look. "Ah, like a record player with two records, and you hit the needle to make it jump to the other record."

"Ah! I understend now."

"So… Is there a way-?" His eyes widen. "There i-?"

"An indirect evocation, made by-." His mouth slowly forms into a smile. "Thet is brilliant."

"My knowledge of magic is slightly better than your knowledge of server architecture, but-."

"You can evoke the God of Lies by evoking the God of Lies. But you can also evoke the God of Lies by lying a great deal."

"Yes?"

"I… Think this… Do you have an image of the shrine?"

"Yes, but I've seen Boss Smiley manifest through-."

"Show me images of the individual elements."

I nod, taking out a hologram projector and carefully going through each object one after the other.

"Yes. See, this? I believe thet these objects are related to his nature. Corruption, governance, and concealed power."

A parking ticket, a police identification badge, a postal ballot… A few other items whose significance escapes me.

"So he links the corruption to the corruption, and that's enough?"

"It could be. I will need to think about this. Well done, Orange Lantern. We may finally have eh lead on him."

DeathlessProficiency · Tuesday at 6:27 AM

Oh pleaaaase let this arc or the next resolve the Boss Smiley mysteries, I've been wondering for years

Signaller · Tuesday at 6:53 AM

Mr Zoat said:
A parking ticket, a police identification badge, a postal ballot… A few other items whose significance escapes me.

So is the theme here things that actually have lies in them, or things that certain segments of the population associate with the concept of lying, whether or not that's accurate? I'm surprised there wasn't a copy of the Daily Mail around there somewhere, since it was banned from being used as a source on Wikipedia (in our past, in the fic's future) for what could generously be called unreliability.
Ref: https://www.theguardian.com/technol...s-daily-mail-as-unreliable-source-for-website

Chojin Patriarch · Tuesday at 7:20 AM

Mr Zoat said:
Replanting

6th September 2013
09:36 GMT

Dr. Mist looks at the place where Roger Hayden once lay.

"Anything?"

A new Episode begins, and a quite mundane title. But getting one of the foremost experts on magic on Earth to inspect the leavings of the mood patch affair is a good start. Who knows, he might see an angle OL couldn't.

"Yes. Nothing thet would explain…" He holds up a vial of Hayden Juice and frowns at it for a moment. "This, but I can feel the remains of the spell thet was used."

"Anything outside?"

At least he can understand the process by which they got the mood-juice. Perhaps that can be explained at some stage...

"No. I think it may be an issue of non-arcane dimensional… Interference."

"How'd you work that one out?"

Not Divine nor Infernal, nor mundane magic. There can't be many options once you eliminate the big suspects.

"Eh, basic logic. Your machine should heff prevented him moving to a parallel universe. If he hed used magic, it is almost impossible that I could not feel it while I em standing here. But, I cannot feel it when Mirror Master opens a portal through two mirrors. It is a strange phenomenon, but it is not magic."

So any of the myriad exotic 'dimensional' phenomena. Joy. there's so many of those in DC that narrowing it down would take some highly unusual talents investigating.

"Uh-uuuuuuuugh…" Marvellous. Weird knotholes in reality that technically aren't magic. One of the few areas left that I don't know anything about, and don't know anyone who knows anything about. "McCulloch just bought the Mirror Master equipment and Scudder's dead. Charles Halstead's dead, so if he ever had anything to do with the second Psycho Pirate -which was never proven- we can't easily ask him."

I think the closest they came was Halstead, while dying in jail, mentioning to Hayden where he kept the original set of Medusa Masks, which Hayden melted down to create the singular item.

"You could simply ask Charles Andrews."

"I did. He claims that he thought Mister Hayden was in a persistent vegetative state and that he has no idea how he vanished."

"Did you confirm thet?"

The vegetative state or what Andrews said? The former would have been hard, given that messing with Hayden could have triggered something, while Andrews, well...

"I mean, he turned his defensive spells off and I got a good look at him. I-." I sigh, shrugging. "I know what my reputation's like, but I.. don't really want to resort to extreme measures to triple check an answer when the crime is relatively minor. Hayden doesn't even have any significant outstanding warrants, even if I suspect him of trying to kill the people I was investigating. I'd check that he was physically healthy before trying to arrest him."

...Well, OL did his due diligence in confirming that part.

"it is good thet you do not resort to extremes all of the time. But do I need to remind you thet the King of Tears is from such a place?"

I squeeze my eyes shut. "Apparently, yes. I thought it was just from a parallel universe with different physical laws to ours?"

Which involves dimensional bullshit to manifest through Johnny Sorrow's former head. I can see the logical connections.

"Mister Miracle checked the site where Johnny Sorrow originally left the material universe. Apparently, there were enough resonances there thet he was able to determine what happened."

"So we need him to take a look at this?"

Might be a good plan anyway, if only to see if he can feel anything about what happened.

"Mister Miracle has a great deal of work. All of us do. Do you think it is necessary for him to make this a priority?"

"No, I suppose not. It's just a little frustrating. Do you want to see where the shrine was?"

"Yes, I think thet is best."

Just be very careful around it. I doubt there's anything left to manifest, but better safe than sorry.

I lead the way down the corridor and then down the stairs, past the police arcane hazard warning notice and down into the basement proper. Not much here now, other than the blackened and charred concrete where the shrine used to be.

"You used incendiaries?"

I like that's a common thing now, warnings about mystical hazards mixed in with the usual police tape.

"Yes. Mage slayers drain magical energy to disrupt spells, but there's a finite amount of energy they can absorb. I felt that physically destroying the shrine was a better bet than trying to drain something that might not be a delicately structured spell and might just be a site of raw power."

Very sensible. Especially since the smiling git's image was the main focus of it.

"Ah." He nods. "And of course you could not be completely sure thet what you saw was really there."

I nod. "I don't know how Boss Smiley works. Is dimensional manipulation inherently disruptive to magic?"

Argh, every time he says the name, I bet the yellow-faced asshole pays extra attention.

"Do you know, I do not know?" He glances at me before giving the carbonised patch of floor his full attention. "Joining the Justice League is giving me so many novel experiences."

"Happy to help. Getting anything, or-."

Certainly expanding his world-view nicely alongside his skill-set.

"Yes… And no. The spell architecture is clearly an elemental binding thet was adapted for something else, but it is… Solipsistic? A shrine to a shrine, excluding all other influences. It is like the box on the internet, where activating the mechanism sends forth an armature to deactivate the mechanism. It would work, but it should not do anything."

It helps that the octopus box there is so cute. With the grumpy face and all...

"He told me that he doesn't exist."

"If something told you thet, then is was a lie. Spirits are not demons; they can lie freely."

It could also have been metaphorical. 'I don't exist in any way you can identify, ha-ha.'

"I was… Thinking. About how computers store data."

"I can use a word processor."

No shade thrown on you, Doctor. I'm sure you've been learning a lot.

"Ah-. The important point is that the term 'cloud' is nonsense. All data is stored in a physical location. Right?"

"Yes?"

Though there are still weaknesses, surely. Whether bad data propagating across multiple servers. or attacks on access points...

"Now, with older forms of data storage, connecting to where the data storage existed in the physical world required things to move around. I remember reading about a computer where they couldn't work out how data was getting from one point to another, because according to the design of the system it shouldn't be able to. It turned out that two locations were close enough together that the data reader could be made to jump across from one-." He gives me a blank look. "Ah, like a record player with two records, and you hit the needle to make it jump to the other record."

Which is insane, but apparently real. I would guess that the drives involved were so close that the write head was inadvertently affecting the second drive alongside the first.

"Ah! I understend now."

"So… Is there a way-?" His eyes widen. "There i-?"

Never underestimate how weird the universe can get, OL. You'll always be surprised.

"An indirect evocation, made by-." His mouth slowly forms into a smile. "Thet is brilliant."

"My knowledge of magic is slightly better than your knowledge of server architecture, but-."

Yes, do explain it for us laymen in the audience.

"You can evoke the God of Lies by evoking the God of Lies. But you can also evoke the God of Lies by lying a great deal."

"Yes?"

Ah. I think I get it. getting someone's attention by doing something they'd notice but not calling to them directly. In the smiling fool's case...

"I… Think this… Do you have an image of the shrine?"

"Yes, but I've seen Boss Smiley manifest through-."

Maybe not show the main icon, then? But surely you can reconstruct it without that.

"Show me images of the individual elements."

I nod, taking out a hologram projector and carefully going through each object one after the other.

Safer than placing them in the same position as the shrine, and especially when showing more than one at a time.

"Yes. See, this? I believe thet these objects are related to his nature. Corruption, governance, and concealed power."

A parking ticket, a police identification badge, a postal ballot… A few other items whose significance escapes me.

Objects people might associate with authority and corruption? Or at least that the summoner in particular does. After all, no-one likes getting parking tickets, and it's easy for a grifter to perceive legitimate authorities as corruptible.

"So he links the corruption to the corruption, and that's enough?"

"It could be. I will need to think about this. Well done, Orange Lantern. We may finally have eh lead on him."

Like a drone show, many individual objects creating a larger pattern that's only clear from a distance.

Well, at least it's something that can be puzzled out. Slowly but surely, they will pin down the badge-headed bastard and nail his ass. But that is a long-term goal, methinks. For now, let's speculate on what the title could mean. Something to do with feeding the world, perhaps? If I remember right, a lot of farms simply collapsed during the Anti-Life...

BR549 · Tuesday at 7:21 AM

Signaller said:
So is the theme here things that actually have lies in them, or things that certain segments of the population associate with the concept of lying, whether or not that's accurate?

Not lies - that was just Dr. Mist using an example - but corruption. Who hasn't felt that a parking ticket was given to them just to meet a quota? Who isn't familiar with the concept of the 'dirty cop'? Who hasn't felt that their guy would have won an election if only the other guy hadn't cheated? The other trinkets that Paul mentions almost certainly continue along the same lines. And these things all make Boss Smiley...smile.

I'm surprised there wasn't a copy of the Daily Mail around there somewhere, since it was banned from being used as a source on Wikipedia (in our past, in the fic's future) for what could generously be called unreliability.
Ref: https://www.theguardian.com/technol...s-daily-mail-as-unreliable-source-for-website

For those interested in Wikipedia's side of things, click here to learn more.

BlueMangoAdea · Tuesday at 7:26 AM

Indirect summoning using dimensional shenanigans is a pain to find huh. I suppose this is one of the adaptations villains made when they realized the extent of Paul's scanning capabilities.

Duke Long · Tuesday at 7:58 AM

Mr Zoat said:
6th September 2013
09:36 GMT

Over a full day later, huh? As he said, everyone is busy.

Mr Zoat said:
"Uh-uuuuuuuugh…" Marvellous. Weird knotholes in reality that technically aren't magic. One of the few areas left that I don't know anything about, and don't know anyone who knows anything about. "McCulloch just bought the Mirror Master equipment and Scudder's dead. Charles Halstead's dead, so if he ever had anything to do with the second Psycho Pirate -which was never proven- we can't easily ask him."

Looking forward to whenever we see more of this. Sounds like the sort of nonsense that will be fun to investigate, whether it stays bizarre or ultimately gets a clever explanation.

Mr Zoat said:
"it is good thet you do not resort to extremes all of the time. But do I need to remind you thet the King of Tears is from such a place?"

I squeeze my eyes shut. "Apparently, yes. I thought it was just from a parallel universe with different physical laws to ours?"

'It'

Huh, I thought the same. Glad to hear it was wrong, because I feel like that increases the chance of those guys coming back. I thought they were fun.

Mr Zoat said:
"He told me that he doesn't exist."

"If something told you thet, then is was a lie. Spirits are not demons; they can lie freely."

'it'

Interesting that Nommo thinks it is clearly untrue (which is what I also assumed earlier), yet Oh El got results from using it to figure out a plan of attack.

Very cool magic stuff, I wonder if this is standard practice for someone as sneaky as Smiley or if he has recently stepped up his game due to his enemies being so skilled.

Mr Zoat · Tuesday at 8:36 AM

Duke Long said:
'It'
'it'

Thank you, corrected.

boo600 · Tuesday at 8:43 AM

Mr Zoat said:
Mister Miracle has a great deal of work. All of us do. Do you think it is necessary for him to make this a priority?"

"No, I suppose not. It's just a little frustrating. Do you want to see where the shrine was?"

It's sort of funny that Boss Smiley is protected by Paul cutting corners; he really needs to go recruit a New God (Allyn, anyone?) for checking over Earth. Drag 'em through the Honden.

Mr Zoat said:
Yes. See, this? I believe thet these objects are related to his nature. Corruption, governance, and concealed power."

A parking ticket, a police identification badge, a postal ballot… A few other items whose significance escapes me.

"So he links the corruption to the corruption, and that's enough?"

"It could be. I will need to think about this. Well done, Orange Lantern. We may finally have eh lead on him.

Now this stuff, the magic reasoning, is really cool. And it's lovely to see them finally making actual progress by actively pursuing the Emoji Bastard.

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

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