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

Shotiegun11 · Nov 29, 2020

frommerman said:
Well...they need those. Lots of them. Given that they can keep creating rings, people with the ability to wield them against the Reach aren't going to be in short supply. This is a war. You can expect casualties. The nice thing about an army of orange lanterns is that all of them want to be fighting it, by definition.

The SI, in story, has said he doesn't want a Lantern Corps of psychopaths. He doesn't want a legion of monsters only obsessed with the destruction of the Reach.

It's FINE if that's their main desire, if that's their drive, but they need reasons, wants, to not go Orange Light crazy while all of that is happening.

The SI should never have stopped recruiting or trainings the OLC. (Which are apparently his main jobs in it outside of leading them in the field? Even though he hasn't ever once trained to lead lanterns or with leading Orange Lanterns...ever?) These kinds of 'It's fine if I die I just want revenge' Lanterns are a product of the SI not doing his job and just going back to Earth for SO much of the OLC's inception.

EDIT: If I haven't made it clear: This is a failing on the SI's part for not continuing his recruiting through the Honden and training all of the Orange Lanterns.

Chojin Patriarch · Nov 29, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
3rd July 2012
10:38 GMT -5

Sounded easy when Dox described it. And I suppose that not giving me any practice at all certainly prevents the Reach from knowing about it.

To be fair, do they know anything about you besides that you exist, and you're good with Orange Light? I mean, they'd probably assume your Greedport is some manner of FTL effect...

The impeller sublight drives all the ships of the strike force have been equipped with make leaving dock and forming up an impressively rapid affair. None of that messing around with gas or plasma thrusters less advanced navies are forced to engage in. And now that I know it's there, I can.. sort of

feel

what the archmages have done to the ships to make them compatible. It certainly feels like I should be able to do what Dox asks, and if we can get a smaller ship with this setup it will certainly make it easier for Jade to visit Earth. But I'm slightly worried that he's overestimating me.

I'm sure Best Snek will be happy to give you all the power you'll need for this. And I'd make sure it's well-tested and tried before you go taking Jade for daytrips through the Honden.

The people on those ships have.. similar desires. And the spells are far more sophisticated versions of the ones which the archmages used to keep themselves safe. That will keep the objects I bring with me whole. There are Orange Lanterns on those ships, and honestly the

feedback I'm getting

makes me think that's going to make it easier. Though they might have to recharge their rings immediately upon our arrival.

Probably best to have everyone aligned, desire-wise. Makes the 'envelope' you'll need to work them into much smoother.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Feel the Reach planet. That's simple enough; Dox gave me a precise description and I know the general shape of Reach desires. Interesting that they've never thought to include magic defences, but I suppose if the planet is mystically inert it would be rather difficult.

And just how much experience does the Reach have with magic, in general? I mean, we know from canon that magic was able to break an admittedly already-damaged scarab's control programming. That might just be Earth Bullshittm but perhaps the Reach really doesn't encounter mystically active worlds that often. And what few countermeasures they have may be designed solely to break and shatter magic.

"Illustres, all ships are in position. Begin."

I didn't seek Dox out for his winning personal skills. And let's be honest: Hinon didn't seek me out for mine.

Admittedly, she didn't pick you specifically anyway. It was just pure chance you got involved, because you were unusually in touch with your inner avarice.

I don't send out filaments, not for this. Instead, the region of space we're in glows orange, and the Lanterns on board raise their now-glowing rings in surprise.

I focus on the shared desires of the crew, the Lanterns and the links between those things and the desires of the Reach sapients at the far end. I suppose that 'Priest' did give me a little practice, but the magic making the ships work as a single object with their crews makes the whole thing feel quite noticeably… Off. Still, I'm as ready as I'm going to get.

Well, that's not conducive to an easy time. Hopefully the data they gain from this run lets them refine the spells to smooth that out for next time. Because you know Dox expects there to be a 'next time'.

And we're… In. The crew shouldn't be experiencing anything very much. The Lanterns might, and we'll have to follow up on that to make sure that there aren't any undesirable side effects. Concept to.. concept, shared desires showing the way through metaphorical space. I could make this journey myself in moment, but making sure that everyone else comes along with me is making me take things a little easier.

Alright, we're in the general area of the target desire set. Make sure to appear a little way away, because we're going to be jamming hard but need to pick our targets and reorganise at the far end. And quite possibly recover. There's absolutely no way for me to warn people in advance, so

And that's something else they'll probably look to refine. A travel method that leaves you entirely deaf and blind to what's happening outside is not a good thing for a military operation. Hopefully by then they'll have someone else capable of entering the Honden...

back into normal space we go.

I feel a momentary pang of relief as all of the ships reappear, and another as the automatic FTL jammers activate and the ships carrying them move towards the centre of the formation. The ships didn't remain the same distance away from each other, probably due to similarities and differences-

So, no-one got lost in the Honden, I hope. Lanterns are more likely to have been at risk of that anyway.

Dox sends out a request for all ships to report status. It's not directed at me.

-in their desires. Orange Lanterns begin leaving the ships a moment later and I scan the system.

Two rocky planets orbiting close to the sun. Two gas giants with numerous large moons a little further out and a ball of ice with delusions of grandeur… Not all that far away from us, actually.

Sounds like a typical filler system in any space game. Now, to see if anyone's going a little tang-crazy.

Ship beam weapons begin firing at the sensor nodes and jammers seeded throughout the system. They're fragile and will be cheap to replace, but destroying them will slightly degrade the Reach fleet's performance. And speaking of the Reach, the ships on patrol of the system are heading in towards the fleet base on the largest of the inner gas giant's moons. The closer ones are trying to head directly away from the L.E.G.I.O.N. fleet in different directions, presumably planning to fly at best sub-light speed to the edge of our jammers to alert other Reach assets as to what's going on.

Sounds like the Reach have standard procedures for unexpected fleets turning up. Presumably they'd have expected some warning, like a wormhole opening, but good reaction time as is.

Of course, a position going silent is probably going to prompt investigation anyway.

Lanterns start forming up around the ships, and I can feel their eagerness, their readiness to destroy whatever Reach assets they can get hold of. But… These aren't the highest performing Lanterns. No, those are being left to make attacks of opportunity if openings appear in the outer parts of the Reach defence network. These appear to have been chosen for strength. They're people who would gladly die if it meant taking a Scarab Warrior with them.

Great. And waste all that time and effort spent training them. I suppose Dox has his reasons. Maybe these are people he can't trust as easily with more sedate operations...

"All ships report readiness. Advance, Lanterns to the van."

I nod and accelerate towards the fleet base, making sure to remain in the general vicinity of the ships. Out of curiosity I try a minor warp and find that the texture of space is unusually inflexible here. I'm confident that I could overpower the jammers with brute force, but it would certainly consume quite a lot of energy and my speed-

Not the best idea, this is supposed to be a joint operation, not a solo run.

"Clarissi to Illustres."

-would be lower than usual.

So the other lanterns might just be able to keep up. If they could manage FTL themselves.

"Responding."

"Are you able to continue participating?"

"Fit as a fiddle and raring to go."

Thank goodness for ring translation. Can you imagine the confused face Dox would have without idiom equivalency?

"Take a small group of Lanterns and destroy the runners."

"On it."

Ring, personnel files.

And a solid first challenge for OL: Working with people he hasn't personally recruited and trained. Let's see how well he can mesh with complete strangers.

Compliance.

And I'll take a look… Who is nearly overwhelmed with the need to kill Reach citizens right now? Whose self-control is threaten? Who might break discipline and come along anyway if I don't call them?

Which would be annoying, if only because you'd have to apply discipline in the middle of imminent combat.

"Lantern Light-Click Quiet-Cough Rasp."

Shared desires severed as his Darkstar team is slain in combat with a Scarab. He wants that Scarab to be here, but will settle for fighting them later.

So, out for revenge. At least he isn't being touched by Rage.

"Lantern Velus."

Just can't stop killing people.

Useful, if you can keep him aimed at the right people. He might be a problem down the line, especially if he can;t control himself.

"Lantern Brobranbrak."

Pride. This one hates the Controllers for giving zhe's people shelter almost as much as zhe hates the Reach for putting them in a position where they need it. Zhe desires to rule in the Reach's place once they're destroyed.

I'm guessing from a non-binary or agendered race, this one. And that's a concerning side-desire. One to keep an eye on for unwanted conquering.

"With me."

They peel away as the other Lanterns form up into a skirmish line ahead of the fleet, and head in my direction. Lantern Brobranbrak's ring glows brighter as zhe tried to bypass the intervening space in some way, and zhe's spines flex angrily when the jammers prevent it.

And desperate to prove themself, I see. Zhe's going to have to learn to moderate themself in the name of teamwork.

"The Reach has substantial experience in fighting Lanterns. Don't assume that your preferred techniques will work unopposed."

"Yours did."

"I can cheat." Honestly, I really foresee problems with this one. Ambitiousness and dissatisfaction don't make for a good combination.

"I didn't get made Illustres for my pretty face. Though I'm perfectly happy to tutor you if you want to try and replicate my feats."

Pride. Brobranbrak hates an alien offering to help as an act of charity, but assumes that zhe will have to kill me eventually anyway meaning that there's no lasting harm in accepting.

Okay, don't trust this one with your back at any point, especially if they decide they've learnt enough from you...

Dox…

"We're going after that ship there." I accelerate. "Please let me know if I'm going too fast."

Heh. Bet that'll get them fired up to show him what they can do. With any luck, this'll be an easy shakedown for them and the others.

Well, some interesting personalities showing up already.

A Revenge-seeker, a serial murderer and a regular Starscream... Hopefully OL can get some of those rough edges smoothed out and turn them into solid ringslingers.

Darko · Nov 29, 2020

Shotiegun11 said:
The SI has Zero ability to complain here.

He should have kept recruiting using the Honden to find people this entire time and not left Dox to do it. He shouldn't have left to 'let Dox establish himself'. If Dox can't establish himself as a leader with the SI around then he doesn't deserved to be the leader. Chief Strategist, War Master, Logistics Advisor? Sure.

Leader of the Orange Lantern Corp? No.

Of course a Logic Monster is going to just look for people with useful desires to give rings.

EDIT: The SI should be FAR more involved in the Orange Lantern Corp. In universe.

Hopefully this is a wakeup call to the SI to take his part in the OLC more seriously.

Shotiegun11 said:
Dox has basically chosen Suicide (~~Bombers~~) Lanterns for this mission.

The fact that any of those exist in the OLC is stupid.

The SI is perfectly capable of finding people with 'stable' desires and capable of also guiding lanterns towards better ways of realizing their desires.

Dox just wants people to fight in the war.

EDIT: Of course, this is if the SI was actually involved with recruiting (other than the like 6 Lanterns he's recruited) and training (he's only done one class a while ago and it's never been mentioned again).

EDIT 2:

He wouldn't have found them in the Honden if they weren't at least capable of having strong desires.

Also, one of the things in this story is that the SI PUSHES is that Strong Desire =/= Good Lantern/Strong Lantern.

Wanting TOO much or in the wrong (dead end) ways lead to bad Orange Lantern.

I admit Paul needs to take a bigger role in the OLC, and maybe after this he will.

However I feel the need to point out that OL's actions, which lead to Dox asking him to leave, were taking up the OLC's resources, which they needed for the war, so its not that unreasonable for Dox to want him to leave so they can actually make something organised.

Also I get the feeling that the OLC recruits tend to want to obey someone if they respect them, and if Dox can't show control over people that are his subordinates then he may lose their respect and their desire to fight for him, which would be very bad.

Also there aren't a lot of people in the universe that can safely wield orange rings, and they need to start the war before the Reach can prepare further and drag the war on.

And most of these guys, while strong, don't appear to be all that sane in their desires, like the one who can't stop killing, and this 'I hate everyone no matter what' Lantern, so yeah they may die, but the number of people who can use rings isn't very high in the first place, so Dox can't exactly be picky.

Shotiegun11 said:
Vril Dox in his head where he speaks Coluan slang: 'Imma fuck around till I get me a Larfleeze 2 Electric Boogaloo going.'

Now available in space stores.

But seriously they're much less of a danger than Larfleeze.

He had a Light Fountain with him and billions of years to absird its light.

Also his ring didn't have an AI or a connection to the CPB, so they couldn't just shut it down.

These guys don't have a Fountain and their rings can be shut down.

Shotiegun11 said:
The SI, in story, has said he doesn't want a Lantern Corps of psychopaths. He doesn't want a legion of monsters only obsessed with the destruction of the Reach.

It's FINE if that's their main desire, if that's their drive, but they need reasons, wants, to not go Orange Light crazy while all of that is happening.

The SI should never have stopped recruiting or trainings the OLC. (Which are apparently his main jobs in it outside of leading them in the field? Even though he hasn't ever once trained to lead lanterns or with leading Orange Lanterns...ever?) These kinds of 'It's fine if I die I just want revenge' Lanterns are a product of the SI not doing his job and just going back to Earth for SO much of the OLC's inception.

EDIT: If I haven't made it clear: This is a failing on the SI's part for not continuing his recruiting through the Honden and training all of the Orange Lanterns.

True, but maybe having some of them go of on the Reach during the war is acceptable, as long as the majority don't do that, and after the war the police force they make isn't filled with psychopaths.

w34v3r · Nov 29, 2020

I'm not certain the goal is to be a police force, so far the Orange Lanterns seem to more of a mutual aid society/anti-reach army.

Darko · Nov 29, 2020

w34v3r said:
I'm not certain the goal is to be a police force, so far the Orange Lanterns seem to more of a mutual aid society/anti-reach army.

I think OL wants it to become a police force, but first they need to get rid of the Reach.

Shotiegun11 · Nov 29, 2020

w34v3r said:
I'm not certain the goal is to be a police force, so far the Orange Lanterns seem to more of a mutual aid society/anti-reach army.

Darko said:
I think OL wants it to become a police force, but first they need to get rid of the Reach.

I believe the SI wants it to be a military force, not a police force, and he recognizes that ,at least for a few centuries, it going to be an Anti-Reach force primarily.

EDIT: More Military Force than the GLC's Police Force.

Darko · Nov 29, 2020

Shotiegun11 said:
I believe the SI wants it to be a military force, not a police force, and he recognizes that ,at least for a few centuries, it going to be an Anti-Reach force primarily.

EDIT: More Military Force than the GLC's Police Force.

Or maybe a bit more militant police force, after the war with the Reach is over.

Oglymogly · Nov 29, 2020

I think its important to point out that the pool of potential recruits honestly isn't very large.

Lets look at the criteria Dox was limited by:
They have to have a strong affinity for orange light, but not so strong that they won't take orders or stay on task.
They have to want to fight the Reach more than they want other things in the immediate term. And most people who are handed power try to change things for themselves or people close to them first, before helping strangers.
They have to be willing and able to fight a war/be in battle. And they have to want to be there. So he's looking for battle nuts, or people who want to see specifically the Reach fall. But they can't be too angry or compassionate or scared, or they won't be effective.
Oh, and they can't have been brainwashed by the Reach. Can't forget that, that preemptively cuts the pool way down.

Is it any surprise that the first wave is comprised of less than stable people? Not to mention that Dox is likely putting the ones least 'useful' long term in the most deadly spots.

Also, it wouldnt suprise me to see a decent chunk of Orange Lanterns end up being temporary. Given the power to achieve what they want, and losing the ring once their desires have been filled.

Vaermina · Nov 29, 2020

Citizen said:
Sounds like particularly stable Lanterns going on this mission.

Stable or Powerful, pick your poison because the two are pretty much mutually exclusive with Orange Lanterns.

Ngamer11 · Nov 29, 2020

Vaermina said:
Stable or Powerful, pick your poison because the two are pretty much mutually exclusive with Orange Lanterns.

Not necessarily. It's just that it's a lot harder to get someone who's both. Paul had to go through a lot to get to his current level of power and stability. Remember, these recruits are basically disposable Lanterns that Dox fully expects to die on the battlefield. When they do, he'll just find more. After the Reach is handled, which will take years/decades, Dox and Paul will look for recruits who are both stable and have a strong potential to become stronger Orange Lanterns without losing stability.

Lone Courier 6 · Nov 29, 2020

Ngamer11 said:
Not necessarily. It's just that it's a lot harder to get someone who's both. Paul had to go through a lot to get to his current level of power and stability. Remember, these recruits are basically disposable Lanterns that Dox fully expects to die on the battlefield. When they do, he'll just find more. After the Reach is handled, which will take years/decades, Dox and Paul will look for recruits who are both stable and have a strong potential to become stronger Orange Lanterns without losing stability.

this is why Yellow and Green are more effective, sure less raw power but far more stable and reliable in the long run even if Orange has bullshit tricks.

Hell's Razer · Nov 29, 2020

Chojin Patriarch said:
Hopefully OL can get some of those rough edges smoothed out and turn them into solid ringslingers.

/Cynicism mode On
Or failing that they die here and thus stop being a problem long term.
/Cynicism mode Off

Maxx Crowley · Nov 29, 2020

Well, that was a good showing of orange power from Para-Paul. Always nice to see glimpses of the Titan he actually is.

Gotta say, wasn't expecting the Reach this early. Figured that was more of an end boss.

I wonder if OL should start training orange recruits on earth. Kinda mixing both sets of his duties.

Sordid Snake · Nov 29, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
back into normal space we go.

"Hot Drop on Jita!"

Universe-range instant fleet teleport is a hell of a force multiplier. Shame they only have OL to do it, and wonder if Dox hopes that this action will force other lanterns to break or grow until they can replicate the feet?

But even now OL could move one fleet, instantly teleport to another fleet and move it, and so on.

The Reach could either concentrate their fleets to the most important worlds, letting LEGION divide their fleets into the minimum necessary to overcome fixed defenses and devastate 99% of The Reach, or The Reach could spread its fleet out to all their systems and forcing LEGION to concentrate in an handful of fleets that still would be strong enough to assuredly wreck the targeted world. The Reach can only choose between losing gradually or rapidly.

This is the moment when the losing side pulls out whatever they can find, nukes, gas, doomed counter-charges, for any microscopic chance of not losing is better than an assured defeat.

Long range strikes against members of the anti-Reach coalition or even Earth?

This is also the moment when harming the enemy for the sake of harming the enemy becomes a goal.

"Is Malthus Burning?"

WereDragon · Nov 29, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
Pride. Brobranbrak hates an alien offering to help as an act of charity, but assumes that zhe will have to kill me eventually anyway meaning that there's no lasting harm in accepting.

Dox…

Consequence of the hands-off approach.
If Paul had wanted it done right he should have done it himself.

Ngamer11 · Nov 29, 2020

WereDragon said:
Consequence of the hands-off approach.
If Paul had wanted it done right he should have done it himself.

I agree with the first sentence, but not the second one. Paul wanted it done as quickly, but efficiently, as possible. He's not good at giving strategic orders for a large army, or calculating all the logistics that would go in assembling the army. Dox, on the other hand, is good at things like that. If Paul had stayed more hands on, it probably would have resulted in the same thing that happened in the Renegade timeline: two similar but different groups that both call themselves the Orange Lantern Corps.

Sorrow · Nov 29, 2020

Dox is a logician. He does things logically. He might have more than one reason to bring these Lanterns. It is possible that a lot of them are going to be Suicide lanterns and if you bring the most unstable, least able, the chances are they are going to die.

Coda · Nov 29, 2020

Shotiegun11 said:
EDIT: If I haven't made it clear: This is a failing on the SI's part for not continuing his recruiting through the Honden and training all of the Orange Lanterns.

Hard disagree.

First off, this isn't a failing, merely a difference of opinion/priority. Dox understands the required psychology even if he isn't mystically capable of optimizing the search for it, and Dox's priorities were on getting competent fighters for a war with the Reach even if that meant Lanterns that were suboptimal in other ways.

Second, it was pretty clear from the beginning that OL would have to dedicate full time to recruitment in order to even TRY to come up with suitable numbers. This was never going to be a scalable approach. An army cannot have a single person responsible for everything. It does not work. And that's assuming he didn't burn out on the desire to try. Furthermore, even if he could have kept up with the demand, it would have meant his own skills and connections would not be able to be used in any other situation in any other place, because he'd be busy. This was, in fact, the most optimum decision OL could have made.

Third, weighing in on that many decisions would have put OL and Dox at odds more often, and OL explicitly did not want Dox's job. Dox put him on shore leave for a reason.

Vaermina · Nov 29, 2020

Ngamer11 said:
Not necessarily. It's just that it's a lot harder to get someone who's both. Paul had to go through a lot to get to his current level of power and stability. Remember, these recruits are basically disposable Lanterns that Dox fully expects to die on the battlefield. When they do, he'll just find more. After the Reach is handled, which will take years/decades, Dox and Paul will look for recruits who are both stable and have a strong potential to become stronger Orange Lanterns without losing stability.

Not really sure I would call Paul stable given the way he constantly flits from thing to thing...

w34v3r · Nov 29, 2020

I don't think the OLC is ever going to be all one thing or a totally dedicated military/police force. The simple fact of the matter is the the ideal Orange Lantern is someone like Paul who has multiple desires and a good idea of how to balance them, the best Orange Lanterns are almost inevitably going to have their on projects, priorities, agendas, and ideas of how the universe should be.

Senevri · Nov 29, 2020

Shotiegun11 said:
Leader of the Orange Lantern Corp? No.

Well, Paul does not want to do that, so as an orange lantern, that's a no go. I think Hinon didn't want to get distracted from research and fighting Reach was a goal towards which Dox is both capable and competent. As a general purpose leader? Not so much.

Gilhelmi · Nov 29, 2020

Darko said:
Now available in space stores.

But seriously they're much less of a danger than Larfleeze.

He had a Light Fountain with him and billions of years to absird its light.

Also his ring didn't have an AI or a connection to the CPB, so they couldn't just shut it down.

These guys don't have a Fountain and their rings can be shut down.

Well, as we all know, the Sequel is rarely as good as the Original. The Sequel to Larfleeze might be weak compared to the Original, but would still be quite dangerous.

Mr Zoat · Nov 30, 2020

3rd July 2012
10:43 GMT -5

The ship knows that it can't escape, and is turning to give its weapons the best fields of fire.

The Reach have really committed to their beetle theme. The ship heading towards us literally looks like a stag beetle. Oh, the legs are replaced by their gravity emitters and scanners and the 'head' is their primary weapon rather than their bridge or sensor node, but the curve of the armour just shouts 'beetle'. It's as if humans had ships shaped like monkeys. As I watch my ring reports that the primary weapon is firing, but my squad evades without prompting. The primary weapon is slower than light and our sensors are faster than light. It's the secondary weapons that are the actual threat, and all of us should be capable of blocking them.

And there it goes, the beam of antiplasma flying past us to ruin someone's day in a million years. I'd guess that they're just testing that we're not complete-. Yes, there they go, shutting the armour around their primary weapon and powering it down to prevent us destroying the ship with a penetrating hit to the nose. At the same time the gun ports protecting the light speed secondary weapons retract and those will actually require effort to evade.

I don't bother reminding them of this fact. They've been training for this day, and are better motivated in the specific than I am. Instead I add a few evasive jinks to my movement, an action which Light-Click Quiet-Cough Rasp and Velus copy. Brobranbrak on the other hand opts to create an opaque shield, the construct escutcheon containing a layer of ultra-dense material just in case the Reach are intelligent enough to use orange lasers. I suspect that they've got a few, but I doubt that they beat the Green Lantern Corps with green lasers so I doubt they're expecting them to get more than a handful of free kills against exhausted Lanterns.

The ship spins, presenting us with its upper surface and its entire secondary weapons array. My ring shows me its lines of fire with probability figures and I flit through the optimal course as violet rays turn space into a disco. Brobranbrak isn't actually drawing a disproportionate number of shots despite being an easier target than the rest of us, the ship's captain most likely deducing that if zhe's just flying like that zhe's probably confident in zhe's abilities. Eventually, the Reach will start sticking experimental or specialist weapon systems onto smaller ships to take us by surprise, but at the moment this ship's abilities match our intelligence reports perfectly.

"Fire at will."

Brobranbrak fires at once, a fat orange beam blasting out of zhe's shield and speeding towards the ship. It tries to evade, but its gravity drive can't redirect itself fast enough without tearing the ship apart and all it manages to do is change a direct hit to a glancing hit. A glance hit that still manages to make its shield shudder and appreciably robs its momentum.

"You sure you don't want first blood?"

Velus sounds slightly nervous, quite at odds with what I'd expect from someone with his desire set. Why-? Ah, I see. He knows he's not at my level and doesn't want to waste his future killing opportunities by provoking me into killing him right now.

"Positive. I'm a results-orientated fellow. As long as they die it doesn't matter to me."

"You'd know."

He uses a weapon construct, which fires a 'beam' of gravity distortions. It's a little like the attack I used to destroy the first Reach ship I encountered, though more focused and efficient. Compared to Brobranbrak's effort it has the advantage of being faster than light and effectively bypassing the shields the ship is using. Unfortunately, the ship's density shifting armour grants it a degree of resistance to attacks like that. Not complete resistance; I can see the line across its armour where the beam is tearing apart the armour. And then the beam turns and three guns are destroyed before the ship starts closing gun ports.

"When I was a boy, I used to like cutting limbs off things before I killed them. Did the same as an adult, actually. Just did it to bigger creatures. Now, I figure this is my level."

And then he dives down, trying to ensure that the ship can't keep its toughest armour pointing at all of us.

"Still doing the same bile, though."

"I can respect your self-awareness. Light-Click Quiet-Cough Rasp? You don't feel like joining-"

The ship changes its targeting program and manages to hit me, the shot doing token damage to my construct armour.

"-in?"

"I will kill them at close quarters."

"As you-"

"RAAAAAAGH!"

"-will."

Brobranbrak's beam triples in size, and strands of energy emerge from the far end and clamp the edge of the ship's shield envelope in place. The ship's acceleration changes as it applies more power to trying to evade, but Brobranbrak is perfectly capable of holding it in place as the pumped beam hits.

The shield breaks, emitters utterly overloaded. The beam carries on into the ship's armour, being partially but not entirely deflected by the uppermost layer. The ship stops, exposed guns and upper surface sensors smashed to pieces and armour flaking as the beam smashes into it.

"Nice shot."

Brobranbrak stops, and the handful of still-functional guns take shots at zhe in case zhe's too exhausted to stop them. No such luck, though I am momentarily puzzled by why zhe stopped-. Oh, because an alien gave zhe a compliment and that disrupted zhe's focus. That's something zhe may need to work on for practicality concerns, rather than power level ones.

Velus fires at the ship's underbelly, and the destruction of its gravity emitters causes it to tumble.

"Come on people, it's crippled and we're not here for prisoners. Kill-."

"At all?" Velus sounds excited. "We're not taking-?"

"If they throw themselves at your feet, aren't armed and you aren't needed elsewhere, take them prisoner if at all possible. But this isn't about capturing intelligence assets. It's about sending a violent message that we can crush them."

"No need to justify it to me. You want a kill shot?"

Space fractures, intense gravity slashing through the ship and x-rays lashing out to fry everything that isn't cleaved in two. A larger ship would have systems to prevent that, but a smaller ship like this can only rely on the system's anti-FTL system.

"I'll give you a kill shot."

"Still reading life signs."

Light-Click Quiet-Cough Rasp surges forward, reaching the hull in a few seconds and tearing into it with construct blades.

"I have it."

I see the orange flares marking the surviving crew members flick out as he travels through the ship's interior, then turn away to look across the system.

The fleet base is bringing its defence screens to full power as the ships finish mustering. A station based on a planet can have far more powerful generators and emitters than a mobile element, and they've determined that coming at us isn't going to work. And they can't throw scarabs at us to board our ships because Lanterns can counter that far more effectively than space fighters. But not all the ships have made it back. One of the ships I'd marked as being too far away has decided to try. Based on our speed…

"That one's our next target."

BlueMangoAdea · Nov 30, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
And they can't throw scarabs at us to board our ships because Lanterns can counter than far more effectively than space fighters.

"that", rather than "than"?

Good chapter. Can't wait for the battle against scarabs.

Darko · Nov 30, 2020

'zhe's probably confident' not 'he'

'this ships abilities' not 'ship's'

'The ships acceleration' not 'ship's'

FreeGod · Nov 30, 2020

I was expecting one of them to try and show off with a really big attack. Are they trying to capture this planet intact or just wreak it? Because if it's just wreak they can throw nukes like candy. Or more deadly stuff.

Darko · Nov 30, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
of the ship's shield envelop in place

maybe 'of the ships shields and envelope it in place'

Mr Zoat · Nov 30, 2020

BlueMangoAdea said:
"that", rather than "than"?

Thank you, corrected.

Good chapter. Can't wait for the battle against scarabs.

Heh.

Darko said:
'zhe's probably confident' not 'he'

Thank you, corrected.

'this ships abilities' not 'ship's'
'The ships acceleration' not 'ship's'

Why would it be a plural when he's talking about one ship?

FreeGod said:
I was expecting one of them to try and show off with a really big attack. Are they trying to capture this planet intact or just wreak it? Because if it's just wreak they can throw nukes like candy. Or more deadly stuff.

Nuking it wouldn't work. Sublight missiles are really easy to intercept in space, and most forms of teleportation are jammed.

Darko said:
maybe 'of the ships shields and envelop it in place'

No, it was supposed to be 'envelope'.

Darko · Nov 30, 2020

Chojin Patriarch said:
And just how much experience does the Reach have with magic, in general? I mean, we know from canon that magic was able to break an admittedly already-damaged scarab's control programming. That might just be Earth Bullshittm but perhaps the Reach really doesn't encounter mystically active worlds that often. And what few countermeasures they have may be designed solely to break and shatter magic.

Magic active planets are apparently fairly rare in the universe, so they may not have any experience with magic.

Chojin Patriarch said:
Okay, don't trust this one with your back at any point, especially if they decide they've learnt enough from you...

Ehh, he may be able to work on him and make him loyal.

Some of the characters that he's given rings to would have turned on him the moment they thought he wasn't useful anymore if their characteristics were true to their comic self's, like Komand'r.

Chojin Patriarch · Nov 30, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
3rd July 2012
10:43 GMT -5

The ship knows that it can't escape, and is turning to give its weapons the best fields of fire.

I see they'd rather make a fight of it than go down with knives in their back, so to speak. Respectable, but futile.

The Reach have really committed to their beetle theme. The ship heading towards us literally looks like a stag beetle. Oh, the legs are replaced by their gravity emitters and scanners and the 'head' is their primary weapon rather than their bridge or sensor node, but the curve of the armour just shouts 'beetle'. It's as if humans had ships shaped like monkeys. As I watch my ring reports that the primary weapon is firing, but my squad evades without prompting. The primary weapon is slower than light and our sensors are faster than light. It's the secondary weapons that are the actual threat, and all of us should be capable of blocking them.

I mean, it's an effective shape. Streamlined, mostly, sloped and curved armour to ensure glancing hits and gives a good aesthetic overall. I presume the vaguely earth-like shapes of the insects are a case of convergent evolution...

And there it goes, the beam of antiplasma flying past us to ruin someone's day in a million years. I'd guess that they're just testing that we're not complete-. Yes, there they go, shutting the armour around their primary weapon and powering it down to prevent us destroying the ship with a penetrating hit to the nose. At the same time the gun ports protecting the light speed secondary weapons retract and those will actually require effort to evade.

Aw, the mini-boss is smart enough to cover the big, glowing weakpoint. Time to break out the sledgehammers, then.

I don't bother reminding them of this fact. They've been training for this day, and are better motivated in the specific than I am. Instead I add a few evasive jinks to my movement, an action which Light-Click Quiet-Cough Rasp and Velus copy. Brobranbrak on the other hand opts to create an opaque shield, the construct escutcheon containing a layer of ultra-dense material just in case the Reach are intelligent enough to use orange lasers. I suspect that they've got a few, but I doubt that they beat the Green Lantern Corps with green lasers so I doubt they're expecting them to get more than a handful of free kills against exhausted Lanterns.

Bro playing the tank, giving them a big obvious target to distract them from the DPS allies. I suppose OL is playing the Support role.

The ship spins, presenting us with its upper surface and its entire secondary weapons array. My ring shows me its lines of fire with probability figures and I flit through the optimal course as violet rays turn space into a disco. Brobranbrak isn't actually drawing a disproportionate number of shots despite being an easier target than the rest of us, the ship's captain most likely deducing that if zhe's just flying like that he's probably confident in his abilities. Eventually, the Reach will start sticking experimental or specialist weapon systems onto smaller ships to take us by surprise, but at the moment this ship's abilities matches our intelligence reports perfectly.

That must be demoralising. seeing them dodge or flat-out soak your shots with no meaningful effect...

"Fire at will."

But how will they hit him on Earth? And why would you want them to shoot Will Harper (The clone Roy,) anyway?

Brobranbrak fires at once, a fat orange beam blasting out of zhe's shield and speeding towards the ship. It tries to evade, but its gravity drive can't redirect itself fast enough without tearing the ship apart and all it manages to do is change a direct hit to a glancing hit. A glance hit that still manages to make its shield shudder and appreciably robs its momentum.

Now, now, Bro, size isn't everything. A tighter beam would put more of its energy onto a smaller point, after all...

"You sure you don't want first blood?"

Velus sounds slightly nervous, quite at odds with what I'd expect from someone with his desire set. Why-? Ah, I see. He knows he's not at my level and doesn't want to waste his future killing opportunities by provoking me into killing him right now.

I bet he's been getting that feeling a lot around the other Corps members. His people must be a cutthroat lot. Assuming that attitude is normal.

"Positive. I'm a results-orientated fellow. As long as they die it doesn't matter to me."

"You'd know."

...Know what?

He uses a weapon construct, which fires a 'beam' of gravity distortions. It's a little like the attack I used to destroy the first Reach ship I encountered, though more focused and efficient. Compared to Brobranbrak's effort it has the advantage of being faster than light and effectively bypassing the shields the ship is using. Unfortunately, the ship's density shifting armour grants it a degree of resistance to attacks like that. Not complete resistance; I can see the line across its armour where the beam is tearing apart the armour. And then the beam turns and three guns are destroyed before the ship starts closing gun ports.

Heh, blunting the possible response shots, and limiting their options. Do they keep the damaged part facing away, possibly exposing more lightly armoured areas, or risk taking more damage to prevent that?

"When I was a boy, I used to like cutting limbs off things before I killed them. Did the same as an adult, actually. Just did it to bigger creatures. Now, I figure this is my level."

And then he dives down, trying to ensure that the ship can't keep its toughest armour pointing at all of us.

Ah, Moot point. With four lanterns, they can keep the ship bracketed from every angle. And force them to either split fire, lessening the damage, or concentrate, reducing the defensive spreads.

"Still doing the same bile, though."

"I can respect your self-awareness. Light-Click Quiet-Cough Rasp? You don't feel like joining-"

Hey, if he knows he's a sadistic asshole, more power to him. Might make for a good step on the path to enlightenment,

The ship changes its targeting program and manages to hit me, the shot doing token damage to my construct armour.

"-in?"

"I will kill them at close quarters."

Claiming the boarding option, then. He'll have to wait for an opening, though.

"As you-"

"RAAAAAAGH!"

"-will."

Careful, get too angry and you'll lose functionality there...

Brobranbrak's beam triples in size, and strands of energy emerge from the far end and clamp the edge of the ship's shield envelop in place. The ship's acceleration changes as it applies more power to trying to evade, but Brobranbrak is perfectly capable of holding it in place as the pumped beam hits.

The shield breaks, emitters utterly overloaded. The beam carries on into the ship's armour, being partially but not entirely deflected by the uppermost layer. The ship stops, exposed guns and upper surface sensors smashed to pieces and armour flaking as the beam smashes into it.

Looks like they've crippled it. If their ship are anything like a Federation vessel, control panels are probably exploding all over. But I expect they have sensible fail-safe setups, not fail-flashy...

"Nice shot."

Brobranbrak stops, and the handful of still-functional guns take shots at zhe in case zhe's too exhausted to stop them. No such luck, though I am momentarily puzzled by why zhe stopped-. Oh, because an alien gave zhe a complement and that disrupted zhe's focus. That's something zhe may need to work on for practicality concerns, rather than power level ones.

Gotta work on keeping your mind on what you want, bud. If that had happened when they could shoot at you, you'd be dead.

Velus fires at the ship's underbelly, and the destruction of its gravity emitters causes it to tumble.

"Come on people, it's crippled and we're not here for prisoners. Kill-."

Oh, that'll get them excited. Two of them, at least.

"At all?" Velus sounds excited. "We're not taking-?"

"If they throw themselves at your feet, aren't armed and you aren't needed elsewhere, take them prisoner if at all possible. But this isn't about capturing intelligence assets. It's about sending a violent message that we can crush them."

In other words, don't go out of your way. The Reach will no doubt claim this whole battle as an atrocity because of things like that.

"No need to justify it to me. You want a kill shot?"

Space fractures, intense gravity slashing through the ship and x-rays lashing out to fry everything that isn't cleaved in two. A larger ship would have systems to prevent that, but a smaller ship like this can only rely on the system's anti-FTL system.

"I'll give you a kill shot."

Man can bring the Boom when he wants to. admittedly, it's only useful for squashing bugs, but hey, you get your jollies where you can.

"Still reading life signs."

Light-Click Quiet-Cough Rasp surges forward, reaching the hull in a few seconds and tearing into it with construct blades.

Rip and Tear time. It's going to be a real horror show in there, total slasher flick...

"I have it."

I see the orange flares marking the surviving crew members flick out as he travels through the ship's interior, then turn away to look across the system.

And doesn't that just say so much about how much he's changed in the course of the story...

The fleet base is bringing its defence screens to full power as the ships finish mustering. A station based on a planet can have far more powerful generators and emitters than a mobile element, and they've determined that coming at us isn't going to work. And they can't throw scarabs at us to board our ships because Lanterns can counter than far more effectively than space fighters. But not all the ships have made it back. One of the ships I'd marked as being too far away has decided to try. Based on our speed…

"That one's our next target."

Heh. Too bad they're too far away to see any gesture he'd make. Can you imagine the reactions if they saw OL pointing at them?

Well, that's a good way to get relative rookies fired up. I mean, they might have made minor actions out there (The clicker lost squadmates out there, after all) but this? This is an all-out assault. No sneaking. No running away. Just tearing at the foe until they die or surrender... That's got to be good for the soul...

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