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

[Mr Zoat]

Exactly how differently does the public treat Saul? He said that he's in a class of his own because of healing so many sick kids, but do people actually like him, or just think that he's better than the other heroes?

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Due to a minor miscommunication on Butcher's part, Mother's Milk interpreted 'release everything we've got' as including the the pictures they took during the two months they spent trying and failing to find anything bad about Saul. Lots of images of him healing the sick, comforting the traumatised, petting stray cats, things like that.

Also, he was there in the White House. Did Saul actually try and fight Homelander and the other heroes?

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No. Temperamentally, he has trouble with direct violence that he can't frame as helping the person he's confronting. The only real exception is that after he talked Silver Kincaid down he offered to participate in the attack against the G-Men.

Did he ever meet up with The Boys? Is he friends with Wee Hughie and Starlight. or have they never interacted?

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He briefly met Butcher in the White House. He had several conversations with Starlight, and actually made her a bit more upbeat about superheroing. And as such more easily exploited.

 

[Ngamer11]

Due to a minor miscommunication on Butcher's part, Mother's Milk interpreted 'release everything we've got' as including the the pictures they took during the two months they spent trying and failing to find anything bad about Saul. Lots of images of him healing the sick, comforting the traumatised, petting stray cats, things like that.

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At least we now know who public hero #1 on that Earth is.

He briefly met Butcher in the White House. He had several conversations with Starlight, and actually made her a bit more upbeat about superheroing. And as such more easily exploited.

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Please tell me she still has her Happy End with Wee Hughie. Those two deserve it. Also, did Butcher not like Saul and try to kill him out of paranoia or not?

 

[Mr Zoat]

At least we now know who public hero #1 on that Earth is.

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Actually, it's the pilot who was ordered off shooting down the plane that destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge. He's been on a lot of talk shows.

Please tell me she still has her Happy End with Wee Hughie. Those two deserve it.

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Yes, though unfortunately for her she's still with Vought-American American Consolidated, as he convinced her that things can be fixed.

Also, did Butcher not like Saul and try to kill him out of paranoia or not?

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Butcher was strongly considering it. Unfortunately, Saul submitted himself for arrest while he was killing Homelander and proceeded to heal the survivors of the attack on the Pentagon.

 

[Ngamer11]

Yes, though unfortunately for her she's still with Vought-American American Consolidated, as he convinced her that things can be fixed.

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Hopefully it can be, but it probably won't. Maybe she should just ask if she can be in the same team as Saul.

 

[Tzeentch]

The only reason that reporters stopped camping outside our house is that I -as just about the only superhero who actually manages to fulfil the description of the role- asked them not to.

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The fact that Indigo Paul was probably the ONLY person that could be truly considered a superhero MUST have driven Butcher up a wall with paranoia.

HUGHIE: Maybe he actually IS that nice of a guy?

BUTCHER: BULLSHIT HE IS!

 

[Impartial Panic]

"-to executives, but leave it to James to cover all the bases."
Seriously, lady, you think Butcher would go that far... No, wait, he would.

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Not butcher, Stillwell.
James Stillwell tends to cover all his bases and Killing off Bradley so she can't talk isn't out of character.
He was probably counting on her trying to kill herself since he was setting her up as a patsy to begin with.

the worst part is she Knew he was going to do something like this when they both were pushing to be the new CEO.
Stillwell only put token effort because he knew things would blow up with Vic the Veep becoming president.
Homelanders rampage was a bit out of left field but he had contingencies in case that happened.
of course they were less put homelander down and more cover my own ass.

Really, I never read the ending of The Boys, but honestly, I doubt anything good would have come from it

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actually Voight or after the boys American Consolidated is in a bad spot.
everyone hates the "heroes", Stillwell had it hammered in his head that they were bad product,
Hughie is carrying on the Boys mission and has all the blackmail material they collected.

so things can get a lot worse for Voight.

IIRC the kids he's mentioning are the members of Super Duper minus Malchemical.
can't remember if Sauls girlfriend was the Voight Handler or aunty sis.

The only real exception is that after he talked Silver Kincaid down he offered to participate in the attack against the G-Men.

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oh wow the G-men was a complete shit show, john godolkin fucked them up as kids and then they became monsters.
Voight "cleaned up" the mess by slaughtering the G-men and their Branch teams.
Although Saul may have prevented the Fate of the Pre wiz kids, I doubt Stillwell is about to push him on that.
beats shoving the kids in a shipping container and dropping them in the ocean around iceland.

Well I guess Silver may have a happier ending since she's alive and hopefully reunited with her father.
but the girls going to need all the therapy.

yeah the boys is pretty much a how horrible can we make the world of heroes.

 

[Ngamer11]

Saul, Super Duper, Silver Kincaid, any surviving members of the G-Men, that Batman/Iron Man expy if Saul was able to cure his brain tumor and prevent his death, Starlight, and any other actually decent hero. That could make for a powerful and morally good team. Too bad Saul would never go for it.

 

[Maxx Crowley]

Comic Butcher was very clear about what happens to normal people who fight superheroes: they die.

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I approve of this message.

 

[Mr Zoat]

I approve of this message.

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Though guns are a great leveller against low-mid tier supers. He killed a team prior to his augmentation with a gun and a bit of clever planning, and the US airforce won against Homelander's coup with depleted uranium and power-seeking missiles.

 

[Stsword]

I was kind of hoping that Saul would cure Tek Knight's brain tumor.

Although I didn't read that particular bit, he was a Batman/Iron Man type, and unlike most "superheroes" in the Boys, he was "nice but boring."

Then he got a brain tumor and he became like one of those dogs that tries to hump everything that moves, and everything that doesn't move for that matter.

 

[Maxx Crowley]

Though guns are a great leveller against low-mid tier supers.

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Well of course. If you aren't durable enough to stand up to gunfire, it doesn't really matter if you can shoot lightning out your face.

US airforce won against Homelander's coup with depleted uranium and power-seeking missiles.

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Admittedly, I would not consider that a "Fight" between a Normal person and a Super. Though I'm also used to, and have years of issues of, the US army throwing every god damn thing they can think of at the Hulk with little to nothing to show for it.

I don't know anything about this Homelander or his powers but if he's an evil bastard like several posts have suggested....I'm guessing....Superman analog?

 

[Mr Zoat]

I don't know anything about this Homelander or his powers but if he's an evil bastard like several posts have suggested....I'm guessing....Superman analog?

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There are degrees of analogue.

There are straight up rip-offs, there are 'Superman but' like Supreme Power's Hyperion, and then there's someone like the Plutonian who fulfils a somewhat similar role but very obviously isn't the same man.

Homelander's official Voight-American approved cover story is that he's from the first group. He's actually from the third, emblematic of the sort of lunacy and degeneracy which runs rampant through the The Boys superhuman community. Yes, he's an arsehole and by the end a mass murderer, but you can sort of see how he could have been better. Okay, we know from Flashpoint that if Superman had grown up in a bunker strapped to a nuclear bomb he'd still have been a nice guy, but Homelander has been told from birth that obeying Voight is good and that outside of that bubble he should indulge in whatever way he wants.

 

[IndigoAbyss]

I WANT more Indigo Lantern.
I finally got the reference about Paul having sex with corpses.
Which considering the fact that he's in the Boys universe, doesn't surprise me not even a little. Though this entire thing was really funny to me. ''Hey! Wanna kill yourself? If you do, I'll violate your corpse!'' Shit had me cracking.
Hope to see more of Saul. Also wondering how's Power Ring doing.

 

[Bramble Thorn]

Lord Hades stares.

"Billions."

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Well, I think we can safely say OL's afterlife is not going to be consisting of rolling boulders up hillsides or getting his liver pecked out by vultures, no matter how pissed off Zeus may be at him.

Not until you start making the proper sacrifices you aren't.

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I don't think Sacrifices are like society membership dues, where your membership can lapse if you aren't paid up. I think they are more like the difference between between being a member and being a member in good standing.

It doesn't work like that.

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When Hades heard billions of new converts he spoke in the color of avarice, so they're obviously worth more than just bottle caps.

I'm only half remembering (it's late here), but I believe that it was stated that the souls in the conversion chambers were special in some way. Powerful spiritual magic users i think?

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Theurgy Users; privileged connection to the Source. They were in the matrix rigs so Asmodel/Smiley could use that connection to spoof their own Theurgical permissions.

What is the Maternal equivalent then?

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Dam

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I'd suggest 'bare' as in 'bare him a child' as much more modern. 'Dam' sounds like something exclusively applicable to pets and livestock nowadays.

 

[Mquz]

Well, I think we can safely say OL's afterlife is not going to be consisting of rolling boulders up hillsides or getting his liver pecked out by vultures, no matter how pissed off Zeus may be at him.


I don't think Sacrifices are like society membership dues, where your membership can lapse if you aren't paid up. I think they are more like the difference between between being a member and being a member in good standing.


When Hades heard billions of new converts he spoke in the color of avarice, so they're obviously worth more than just bottle caps.


Theurgy Users; privileged connection to the Source. They were in the matrix rigs so Asmodel/Smiley could use that connection to spoof their own Theurgical permissions.



I'd suggest 'bare' as in 'bare him a child' as much more modern. 'Dam' sounds like something exclusively applicable to pets and livestock nowadays.

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Bare is wrong - bear him a child, means carrying a child to term, so not quite the same thing as dam / sire. You can't say "She is his bear", but you can say "S(he) is his Dam/Sire." Neither can you really say "she damed him", but can say "s(he) bore / sired him."

 

[DAT_NOOB]

There's a Gods and Monsters Grayven? The closest I can recall is the Justice Lords Grayven who leads the Gordanians.

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I thought it was in fools cannon, but apparently not cause I can't find it.
I think it was an omake or something.

 

[DrThoth]

Bare is wrong - bear him a child, means carrying a child to term, so not quite the same thing as dam / sire. You can't say "She is his bear", but you can say "S(he) is his Dam/Sire." Neither can you really say "she damed him", but can say "s(he) bore / sired him."

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You can say 'she dammed him,' I believe; this very fic has a part where Grayven explains his 'family' to the Amazons saying "Orion, dammed by Tigra" which is roughly the same structure.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Ways and Means

24th January
11:12 GMT

I take a look around Barnard's Star System. Not a great deal here, to be honest. One tiny red dwarf only a little larger than Jupiter, and one frozen dustbowl of a super-Earth. I haven't actually bothered coming here before precisely because there's nothing interesting here. And I'm reasonably confident that humans in general won't ever do anything with the place. By the time we get good enough faster than light travel to actually go anywhere, we'll have far better options than this.

Thanks to my rings I'm perfectly aware that there are examples of successfully colonised super-Earths… But that one doesn't have the sort of mineral resources that would make overcoming a surface temperature 150 below zero worthwhile. There are.. some volatile elements down there, but nothing that would make a convenient fuel. And forget solar power; Barnard's Star is the fourth closest star to Earth and it's still so dim as to be invisible to the naked eye. Colonising some of the Sol System's moons would be easier. An artificial habitat would be more useful. This is just.. kind of.. here.

"So? How are you enjoying freedom?"

As far as I can read his expression, my companion isn't any more impressed by the place than I am.

"Very little."

Yeah, I suppose…

Lantern Xor accelerates, flying down towards the impression in the ice left by the crashing of the ship which brought him to this region of space in the first place. I'm really.. not sure where they were going. His species lives quite a way further towards the galactic rim, on the Perseus Arm. We're on a rough line between where they're from to a number of places, but it's still quite a long way to cart a bunch of prisoners.

"Alright. What did you think of the court process?"

"It was inefficient. I was in prison for a quarter year while they investigated events whose cause was readily apparent."

"Oh, come on. I saw where you were living. That was hardly a prison."

He turns his head to glower at me for a moment. "A pretty prison is still a prison."

I suppose for someone as honour-focused as him, the slight caused by what must have felt suspiciously like a presumption of guilt would have been objectionable enough that it spoiled the positive aspects for him.

"Did you learn anything?"

"Yes." He comes to a stop about forty metres above the ground. Whatever surface water was melted has long since refrozen, though with no precipitation the larger parts of the wreckage are still exposed. "I do not like being punished for things that I have not done. It does not matter to me whether those punishing me believe that I have done it or not."

"I was hoping for something a little more profound. Have you developed an opinion on how a judicial system should work?"

He huffs. "What is there to say? A liar can lie in a heartbeat. Or take many days to say nothing, and force others to wait for them." He raises his right hand. "Can this ring make people honourable? Can it make their codes make sense?"

"The ring can do anything you want. But before you act, you should understand what you are asking."

He scowls, but he isn't scowling at me. He's scowling at the stupid, over-complicated universe he's forced to live in.

"I am honourable. I know I am honourable. When I do wrong as I know wrong I accept punishment. I exchange guilt for service or for pain. But I have behaved honourably, I have obeyed your people's law-rules and still your people say I am bad."

"You know that it's not that simple."

He takes a newspaper out of subspace and throws it at me. "See what they say!"

I catch it in a construct and take a look at the cover. Hm. The Patriot. An article covering his absolute discharge. It's… Well, it's slanted, which is to be expected given its target audience and the fact that most of the people he killed or crippled were from the area. But I can't see any factual inaccuracies.

"Yes? You did.. kill quite a few people. You can't really expect their community to be happy about that."

"They should have trained them to have better morals. I was force-educated to be a weapon and I would not attack someone who was not an enemy soldier."

"So is that the take-away? Do you want to take that approach, teach people the virtue of personal responsibility?"

"No." He wiggles his head. "Yes. I don't know. No."

"Xor, you've had four months to think about it."

"It is difficult."

"Xor, I'm your instructor. If you need help learning something, talk to me. Tell me what it is."

He doesn't reply. Instead, he thrusts his left hand forwards and scans the wreckage.

Okay… "Question for you. You have a house. The house is on fire. The house contains every object that you value." He grunts quietly in acknowledgement as the ice vanishes. "You have time to remove one thing from the house before it and everything left in it is destroyed by the fire. What do you remove?"

"Are things that have been destroyed in the house?"

"Yes."

"My armour, from when I was a Warhound. Normal fire would not harm it, but this fire is made of philosophy."

"It's the most dangerous kind."

I wait a moment. John checked this ship out not long after it crashed here. No survivors, but there are bodies down there. Xor was confident that all of the crew got out and he was the last prisoner to evacuate, so I'm working on the assumption that whatever killed them was the thing which triggered the evacuation in the first place.

"Interesting choice. Why the armour?"

"My armour was personal. Its scars, my history. It means more than any weapon, and is more useful than any other memento."

"Why the armour… And not the fire?"

His excavation beam blinks out. "What?"

"Why not the fire?"

"You said I could take out one valuable object. I do not value fire."

"No, I said that you could take one thing. The fire was in the house. Xor, I think we need to-."

"Incoming ship detected."

Xor and I both turn to look upwards. Not that we can see it from here, but I suppose some instincts are ingrained. Ring-scans show the ship to be an Ungaran… Looks like an old ore-hauler. Odd place for it to come-.

There's an explosion, and the ship jolts in space.

And I'm mildly pleased that Xor is accelerating upwards without needing me to order him to. But I still arrive first as I transition to the ship. An orange construct patch over the hole will prevent further atmosphere loss…

"Orange Lantern to ship-."

Another part of the hull blisters and explodes, a red figure drifting out of the resulting hole. Male humanoid, a white theatrical mask covering his face, his hair appearing to be made out of fire and his arms looking like claws made of flames.

"Who are you and what-?"

"This is my ship, I found it, it's mine. Get lost."

"Either you can explain yourself better than that, or-."

The figure extends their right hand towards the ship, space… Wavering as its hull begins to fall apart where it's pointing. At least seven members of the crew are still on board.

"You're-"

My destructive pulse hits the figure in the chest and knocks it away from the ship.

"-under arrest."

He rallies, apparently unhurt. "Like fuck I am."

 

[Mr Zoat]

I thought it was in fools cannon, but apparently not cause I can't find it.
I think it was an omake or something.

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Grayven visited the setting in an omake.

 

[Ngamer11]

Looks like Paul is going to have his first real argument with the Controllers. Exactly how long ago was it when they made Effigy? I assume he was a failed attempt to create their own analogue of the GLC.

 

[Ardy]

I'm finding the lack of corpse-fucking in this segment odd, but I think I'm coming around.

 

[RichardWhereat]

He's simple, He's not pratchett simple.

 

[Vaermina]

"The ring can do anything you want.

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You know Paul... Lying to the guy who just finished an impassioned speech about how he detests liar's probably isn't the best idea...

 

[Huttj509]

He's simple, He's not pratchett simple.

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I think OL's being metaphorical (as well as the Pratchett reference). If you have issues with many aspects of human behavior, there might be a root cause that would be a more appropriate target to focus on rather than all the individual bits that bug you.

 

[Belenus]

You know, even though I disagree with quite a lot of Paul (and presumably Zoat's) philosophy, I do always enjoy reading these chapters. You have a way of presenting the ideas that enhances the story without being preachy.

 

[Chojin Patriarch]

"Alright. What did think of the court process?"

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"Alright. What did you think of the court process?"

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

I was in prison for a-quarter year while they investigated events whose cause was readily apparent."

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I was in prison for a quarter-year while they investigated events whose cause was readily apparent."

I catch it in a construct and take a look at the cover. Hm. The Patriot.

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The local paper of the town that got torn up?

...the fact that most of the people him killed or crippled were from the area.

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...the fact that most of the people he killed or crippled were from the area.

"No." He wiggles his head. "Yes. I don't know. No."

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The joy of moral quandaries.

Okay… "Question for you. You have a house. The house is on fire. The house contains every object that you value." He grunts quietly in acknowledgement as the ice vanishes. "You have time to remove one thing from the house before it and everything left in it is destroyed by the fire. What do you remove?"

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An informative question...

"It's the most dangerous kind."

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Indeed.

"Why the armour… And not the fire?"

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Wait, what?

"No, I said that you could take one thing. The fire was in the house. Xor, I think we need to-."

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And that says so much about OL. Deal with the cause, not the effect.

Ring-scans show the ship to be a Ungaran… Looks like an old ore-hauler.

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not 'an Ungaran'? Or is it some complex pronunciation that makes it count as a consonant?

There's an explosion, and the ship jolts in space.

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And for once, the explosion is not at the END of the post...

Another part of the hull blisters and explodes, a red figure drifting out of the resulting hole. Male humanoid, a white theatrical mask covering his face, his hair appearing to be made out of fire and his arms looking like claws made of flames.

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Oh, this is going to be fun...

"This is my ship, I found it, it's mine. Get lost."

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Hmm, suprisingly little wanting, if it's not orange.

He rallies, apparently unhurt. "Like fuck I am."

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Oh, not a good first impression...

Well, someone is going to have a lot of explaining to do...

 

[AidanMorgan]

Technically fire isn't a thing to be removed so much as a chemical reaction that affects other things.

But then again, this fire is made of philosophy. XD

 

[oct9010]

The figure extends their right hand towards the ship, space… Wavering as its hull begins to fall apart where it's pointing.

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Sounds kind of... Burning Martian-y.

Was there ever any followup on what the Controllers did with the surviving Burner in the ship he sent them? I couldn't find anything after the first Controller he met calling it a "fascinating specimen" from a cursory search of the story-only thread.

 

[Handlewithcare]

So did this guy fuck up Xor's ship as well?

Also, another human, really? Earth is ridiculous.

 

[Stsword]

So did this guy fuck up Xor's ship as well?

Also, another human, really? Earth is ridiculous.

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Hey now, Effigy is the Controller's fault.

They came to Earth to do cattle mutilation, some anal probing, and superempowering, you know, the usual alien things on an Earth holiday.