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

[mastermenthe]

To everyone else who's reading this and might not know what we're talking about, allow me to explain for the uninitiated:

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For some reason the wikipedia plot synopsis i found says "Appa Ali Apsa, the lone remaining Guardian left behind after his brothers left the main universe, has been driven insane by loneliness" and then later on says "Hal Jordan, possessed by the Parallax entity, destroys the Central Power Battery and slew all but one of the Guardians of the Universe, leaving Oa and the Mosaic a barren wasteland."

You can see the problems, yeah?
Was Mosaic some sort of Round Robin?

 

[PDV]

The difference between level 2 Lantern and Level 15~ish.

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I'm pretty sure "rip yourself out of death and back to life via sheer anchoring to the force of your light" is a level 20 capstone. Possibly epic levels.

 

[CrazyNoVa]

I'm pretty sure "rip yourself out of death and back to life via sheer anchoring to the force of your light" is a level 20 capstone. Possibly epic levels.

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What level would quasi-elementals like Alan and Malvolio be?

For some reason the wikipedia plot synopsis i found says "Appa Ali Apsa, the lone remaining Guardian left behind after his brothers left the main universe, has been driven insane by loneliness" and then later on says "Hal Jordan, possessed by the Parallax entity, destroys the Central Power Battery and slew all but one of the Guardians of the Universe, leaving Oa and the Mosaic a barren wasteland."

You can see the problems, yeah?
Was Mosaic some sort of Round Robin?

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What do you mean by Round Robin?

If you mean a continuity snarl, then no, this is technically correct. The Mosaic comic takes place before Emerald Twilight (in which the GL Corps gets nearly wiped out again), and the Mosaic World itself is on Oa. So when Hal went on a rampage across sector zero and Oa, I'm assuming that the Mosaic got caught in the crossfire.

 

[Mr Zoat]

This link has an error due to an extra apostrophe at the end.

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Thank you, corrected.

What do you mean by Round Robin?

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A different person writes every chapter, often without communicating with the previous writer.

 

[mastermenthe]

If you mean a continuity snarl, then no, this is technically correct.

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So the phrase "all the guardians (except Appsa) left the universe, starting Mosaic" does not clash with "Hal Jordan kills all the guardians (except Appsa), ending Mosaic."

 

[Duke Long]

So the phrase "all the guardians (except Appsa) left the universe, starting Mosaic" does not clash with "Hal Jordan kills all the guardians (except Appsa), ending Mosaic."

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It doesn't. Just means they came back from outside the universe at some point before being killed. Presumably Appa expected that return would be impossible so he went mental, but he was wrong and they did come back.

I haven't read the comics so I don't know if that's actually what happened, but just from looking at those phrases there is no contradiction.

 

[CrazyNoVa]

A different person writes every chapter, often without communicating with the previous writer.

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Isn't that just the entire Comic Book industry in a nutshell?

So the phrase "all the guardians (except Appsa) left the universe, starting Mosaic" does not clash with "Hal Jordan kills all the guardians (except Appsa), ending Mosaic."

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It doesn't. Just means they came back from outside the universe at some point before being killed. Presumably Appa expected that return would be impossible so he went mental, but he was wrong and they did come back.

I haven't read the comics so I don't know if that's actually what happened, but just from looking at those phrases there is no contradiction.

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Yes, I believe that The Guardians did come back from their exile with the Zamarons to deal with Appa, and then stayed there until they were wiped out by Parallax.

Also, I assume that wherever they went, Appa couldn't join them, because if he could, he would have probably done so.

 

[Ardy]

So I was rereading a few sections (which means I'm not studying for the bar, damn you zoat for making this entertaining!) and I was curious how Georgia and Dox's relationship is progressing. They are adorable and insane and I want good things for them.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Isn't that just the entire Comic Book industry in a nutshell?

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In practice, yes. In theory, the editors are supposed to hold things together.

So I was rereading a few sections (which means I'm not studying for the bar, damn you zoat for making this entertaining!)

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When I said 'Friends, family, religion. These are the demons you must slay in order to succeed in fan fiction.' I meant writing it, not reading it.

and I was curious how Georgia and Dox's relationship is progressing. They are adorable and insane and I want good things for them.

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Dox hasn't realised quite how much time he's spending with her, and would be weirdly defensive about it if he did.

 

[Mr Zoat]

12th August 2013
22:45 GMT

It's not that the dominators couldn't learn to block me when I travel like this, it's that they haven't done so yet.

I give Team Distraction a few moments to get their attention. Dominator vessels tend to have highly hierarchical command structures. Everything will go through the shipmaster unless there's a high caste dominator on board, and even then the shipmaster will probably only refer to them if they need a policy decision. What that means is that if the shipmaster is making decisions about his ships being attacked there should be an appreciable delay in them making decisions about me.

But with the high caste in overall command not here, there's a limit to the amount of intelligence I can gather like this. The dominators on board just don't have strong desires relating to the mission beyond wanting to survive it. I haven't interacted with low caste dominators before, and it's… Interesting the way that their desires appear to be limited by their station. And not in the way that humans would be, where they might want all sorts of things but have stronger connections to things that are regarded as desirable in their subculture. Dominators seem to desire improvements in themselves, better tools for their jobs… And that's about it.

It's an interesting contrast to the Reach, where even a 'poor' Reachian will in effect have a middle class existence. The Dominion does have lower class dominators, rather than use alien slaves or metics for undesirable tasks. And yet there doesn't appear to be any resentment or burning need for personal advancement. As opposed to the psions who did want to advance themselves while still being mostly willing to work within the structures of their own society.

Alright, that's

enough. I appear in… A medical laboratory, a mid caste dominator performing basic tests on the recumbent Lyla. She seems at ease around them, smiling to herself as they move their instruments. In a remarkably human moment that makes me smile I notice that all the dominators in the room are looking at her rather than paying attention to their surroundings. My armour's stealth system activates almost immediately, but there was a good half-second there where they could have spotted me.

And because a dominator ship is almost certainly able to detect phasing but doesn't have a system for monitoring footfall, I'm just standing here. They'd pick me up immediately if they looked, but… There's nothing to cause them to look and the shipmaster is busy. And while Lyla could certainly detect me with telepathy, this armour has a mind shield.

"…in line with predictions. Some cells exist at the lower energy state, but that will most likely correct itself with further solar exposure."

Lyla smiles. "I shall become more powerful?"

"In line with previous estimates, yes. I am uncertain what the process will do to the mundane aspects of your physiology. If you desire your strength to reach the greatest height possible, it may be best to avoid solar exposure and concentrate on expanding your muscles."

"I cannot exercise like this? Kal-El had memories of machines designed to test even his strength."

"You have fulfilled your obligations to us, as we have to you. You are free to ignore my advice. If you want exercise equipment built for you to test your current strength, you will need to agree to new terms."

"You aren't interested at all?"

"That is not the information we came here to gather. Anything else is up to the high caste."

She opens her eyes slightly, regarding the dominator curiously. "Will they give my power to you?"

"That is unlikely. It would not aid me in my duties."

I deposit a gold kryptonite crystal behind me, my armour's stealth system obscuring it from the rest of the room. But the radiation should start-.

"Curious. The activity in your cells is weakening. Can you feel-?"

She sits upright, scowling. "Yes! What is happening?!" Something occurs to her, and she gets and the bed and grabs the physician by his overalls, lifting him off his feet. "If you have betrayed me I am still strong enough to-."

"No." He stretches his arms and cranes his neck to keep in contact with his computer. "If we were betraying you, you would not be coherent enough to complain. The photoreceptive kryptonian organelles which your body generated are still there, but their… Connection to the exotic energy source is being disrupted. This is fascinating. I will be certain to note that you have provided additional data beyond our expectations."

He does want to live, but there's no real fear at the idea of his immediate death. Just a sense that it's extremely undesirable to fail to complete his task.

"Fix it."

"I do not have the required knowledge of dimensional physics." His eyes dip, noticing the fact that her not particularly muscular arm is shaking with the effort of keeping him aloft. "If you put me down, I will resume my examination. Our agreement was to take the kryptonians' power and give it to you. If you do not have it, then we have failed to live up to our end of the bargain. Learning what has happened will further our understanding and is in accordance with our interests."

She calms down slightly, setting him down on his feet and sitting back down on the bed. "Do it, then."

Sound screen around the edge of the room, shield around the edge of the room, drop stealth, target automatic turrets there and there with energy pulses, they're nothing special and appear to be purely for ship security, generate a zeta tube construct and dial…

"What?" The mid caste dominator boggles as he takes me in, while his low caste assistants back off. One takes a look at the shield blocking the door but immediately abandons the idea of trying to break through. "Who-? Orange Lantern."

"Yep. And you're-" The zeta tube swirls to life. "-busted."

Construct tethers grab everyone in the room -Lyta's not entirely out of power so her construct is a bit more solid- and toss them through. A one way trip back to Xudar. If this was a Reach ship then I'd leave a bomb behind, but as this is a Justice League operation I'll just have to leave it.

And by 'it' I mean a box with 'LARGE BOMB' written on it. I-.

I pick up the gold kryptonite and send it back into subspace, because that's not something I want to leave with the Dominion, step

out and walk towards the thwarted desire for personal empowerment that marks out Lyla and

appear onboard the Xudarian flagship surrounded by armed marines guarding the prisoners.

"Thank you, gentlemen." The pink glowing zeta tube construct shuts down behind me. "Thank you, Star Sapphire Ghia'ta."

She gives me a shallow bow as I raise my left hand to my face, using my other ring to generate a teleport jammer.

"Green Lantern Jordan? Spy and other prisoners captured."

"Right." No face, because he's busy. "I'll call everyone off. You get Ursa?"

"She wasn't being held in the same place. I could try, but they'd almost certainly be more prepared this time. And zeta radiation-based travel is something they know how to disrupt."

"Then forget it."

"I take it we're letting them leave?"

"We're not starting a war with the whole Dominion right here, so, yeah."

"I'll tell Lantern Mother of Mercy to abandon pursuit. Lantern Tomar-Re will have other prisoners for us to interrogate, but I imagine that the Guardians will have them shipped back to the Dominion afterwards. Anyone need medical attention on our side?"

"Yeah. Superman and Osiris. I'll bring them to you. Green Lantern out."

 

[NightmareWarden]

Paul's armor has a mind shield, but Lyla was still conscious. Wouldn't there be Xudarian military forces within range of her mind once she's deposited next to the other Lanterns? If she's conscious, then she can take hostages. Kryptonite wouldn't stop that portion of her powers.

 

[CrazyNoVa]

Would it be feasible to use the orange light (or maybe even just a few orange rings with built-in remote self-destruct functions) to drive the Dominators insane with avarice and make them all turn on each other in some kind of civil war? Food for thought if we need a quick way to either cripple or get rid of them.

 

[Chojin Patriarch]

12th August 2013
22:45 GMT

It's not that the dominators couldn't learn to block me when I travel like this, it's that they haven't done so yet.

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Although when they do manage it, you know any operation expected to encounter you will have it set in place. With any luck, OL might have a new trick to bypass their preparations.

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

I give Team Distraction a few moments to get their attention. Dominator vessels tend to have highly hierarchical command structures. Everything will go through the shipmaster unless there's a high caste dominator on board, and even then the shipmaster will probably only refer to them if they need a policy decision. What that means is that if the shipmaster is making decisions about his ships being attacked there should be an appreciable delay in them making decisions about me.

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And if they can't see OL, they're probably being very cagey about his possible locations. That will add some hesitation.

But with the high caste in overall command not here, there's a limit to the amount of intelligence I can gather like this. The dominators on board just don't have strong desires relating to the mission beyond wanting to survive it. I haven't interacted with low caste dominators before, and it's… Interesting the way that their desires appear to be limited by their station. And not in the way that humans would be, where they might want all sorts of things but have stronger connections to things that are regarded as desirable in their subculture. Dominators seem to desire improvements in themselves, better tools for their jobs… And that's about it.

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That is very interesting. Like someone has engineered them to essentially be meat robots, with limited desires and motivated to serve. Presumably done by higher-caste leaders who prefer actually competent and insanely loyal followers.

It's an interesting contrast to the Reach, where even a 'poor' Reachian will in effect have a middle class existence. The Dominion does have lower class dominators, rather than use alien slaves or metics for undesirable tasks. And yet there doesn't appear to be any resentment or burning need for personal advancement. As opposed to the psions who did want to advance themselves while still being mostly willing to work within the structures of their own society.

Click to shrink...

Likely induced by disappointment in independently-minded servants. People who might <gasp> actually refuse an order!

Alright, that's

enough. I appear in… A medical laboratory, a mid caste dominator performing basic test on the recumbent Lyla. She seems at ease around them, smiling to herself as they move their instruments. In a remarkably human moment that makes me smile I notice that all the dominators in the room are looking at her rather than paying attention to their surroundings. My armour's stealth system activates almost immediately, but there was a good half-second there where they could have spotted me.

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Very lucky on that drop-in. OL really does need to work on looking into the real-world from the Honden when he's greediporting. All it would have taken was one guy looking the right way and there'd be more '!' than this moment in Metal gear Solid 2. (Thought there was a similar one in MGS1, but couldn't find footage of it...)

And because a dominator ship is almost certainly able to detect phasing but doesn't have a system for monitoring footfall, I'm just standing here. They'd pick me up immediately if they looked, but… There's nothing to cause them to look and the shipmaster is busy. And while Lyla could certainly detect me with telepathy, this armour has a mind shield.

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Covering all his concealment bonus bases, eh?

"…in line with predictions. Some cells exist at the lower energy state, but that will most likely correct itself with further solar exposure."

Lyla smiles. "I shall become more powerful?"

Click to shrink...

Best to head that off before she can manage it.

"In line with previous estimates, yes. I am uncertain what the process will do to the mundane aspects of your physiology. If you desire your strength to reach the greatest height possible, it may be best to avoid solar exposure and concentrate on expanding your muscles."

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Treating the solar empowerment as a multiplier to their base strength? I've seen it done that way in some variations of kryptonians. With Superman only being as strong as he is because he's a corn-fed farmboy with beef.

"I cannot exercise like this? Kal-El had memories of machines designed to test even his strength."

"You have fulfilled your obligations to us, as we have to you. You are free to ignore my advice. If you want exercise equipment built for you to test your current strength, you will need to agree to new terms."

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That suggests her initial service was a mutual contract. They get her superpowers on par with the 'godlike' Kryptonians, they get to study her.

"You aren't interested at all?"

"That is not the information we came here to gather. Anything else is up to the high caste."

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At least there's no danger of them performing unpleasant experiments in the name of Science! unless they're told to.

She opens her eyes slightly, regarding the dominator curiously. "Will they give my power to you?"

"That is unlikely. It would not aid me in my duties."

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More likely they'd install them on very heavily-conditioned combatants. the equivalent of Dominator space marines, basically.

I deposit a gold kryptonite crystal behind me, my armour's stealth system obscuring it from the rest of the room. But the radiation should start-.

"Curious. The activity in your cells is weakening. Can you feel-?"

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Ah, that they spot. Fortunately, they don't realise what it means.

She sits upright, scowling. "Yes! What is happening?!" Something occurs to her, and she gets and the bed and grabs the physician by his overalls, lifting him off his feet. "If you have betrayed me I am still strong enough to-."

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Pointless. He's so conditioned to do his job without complaint that threats of death are insignificant compared to his fear of hailing the high-castes.

"No." He stretches his arms and cranes his neck to keep in contact with his computer. "If we were betraying you, you would not be coherent enough to complain. The photoreceptive kryptonian organelles which your body generated are still there, but their… Connection to the exotic energy source is being disrupted. This is fascinating. I will be certain to note that you have provided additional data beyond our expectations."

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...Okay, there's dedicated to your work, and then there's this. Definitely more proof of some sort of psychological programming going on.

He does want to live, but there's no real fear at the idea of his immediate death. Just a sense that it's extremely undesirable to fail to complete his task.

"Fix it."

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See? That's not a natural mental structure.

"I do not have the required knowledge of dimensional physics." His eyes dip, noticing the fact that her not particularly muscular arm is shaking with the effort of keeping him aloft. "If you put me down, I will resume my examination. Our agreement was to take the kryptonians' power and give it to you. If you do not have it, then we have failed to live up to our end of the bargain. Learning what has happened will further our understanding and is in accordance with our interests."

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Hopefully OL can prevent them realising a particular wavelength will disrupt their abilities. Or at least stop them from recording that.

She calms down slightly, setting him down on his feet and sitting back down on the bed. "Do it, then."

Sound screen around the edge of the room, shield around the edge of the room, drop stealth, target automatic turrets there and there with energy pulses, they're nothing special and appear to be purely for ship security, generate a zeta tube construct and dial…

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Don't forget to fry their recent data uploads, just in case.

"What?" The mid caste dominator boggles as he takes me in, while his low caste assistants back off. One takes a look at the shield blocking the door but immediately abandons the idea of trying to break through. "Who-? Orange Lantern."

"Yep. And you're-" The zeta tube swirls to life. "-busted."

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Excellent. Scry-and-die at its finest.

Construct tethers grab everyone in the room -Lyta's not entirely out of power so her construct is a bit more solid- and toss them through. A one way trip back to Xudar. If this was a Reach ship then I'd leave a bomb behind, but as this is a Justice League operation I'll just have to leave it.

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Or sneak-and-yeet, in this case. There's prisoners for the investigation. Hopefully what data they got hasn't been uploaded yet.

And by 'it' I mean a box with 'LARGE BOMB' written on it. I-.

I pick up the gold kryptonite and send it back into subspace, because that's not something I want to leave with the Dominion, step

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Heh. Just sneaky enough to make them paranoid long enough to prevent any useful response. Like the old gag of releasing three pigs into a building painted with '1', '2' and '4'...

out and walk towards the thwarted desire for personal empowerment that marks out Lyla and

appear onboard the Xudarian flagship surrounded by armed marines guarding the prisoners.

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Hopefully she promptly got a radiation shield and restraints locked onto her the second she emerged.

"Thank you, gentlemen." The pink glowing zeta tube construct shuts down behind me. "Thank you, Star Sapphire Ghia'ta."

She gives me a shallow bow as I raise my left hand to my face, using my other ring to generate a teleport jammer.

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No lack of concern over Lyla's current state certainly backs that guess up. She's hogtied and handled.

"Green Lantern Jordan? Spy and other prisoners captured."

"Right." No face, because he's busy. "I'll call everyone off. You get Ursa?"

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With any luck, she'll break free and just happen to end up in Karsta's hands.

"She wasn't being held in the same place. I could try, but they'd almost certainly be more prepared this time. And zeta radiation-based travel is something they know how to disrupt."

"Then forget it."

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Seems a bit short-sighted. If they have her suitably constrained, they're going to get very useful data from her and her child. I'm guessing they're counting on her getting free or simply stopping the Dominators from escaping, and then getting Ursa back in return for their release.

"I take it we're letting them leave?"

"We're not starting a war with the whole Dominion right here, so, yeah."

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Just adding more crimes to their ledger. Which has to have a lot of red in it by now.

"I'll tell Lantern Mother of Mercy to abandon pursuit. Lantern Tomar-Re will have other prisoners for us to interrogate, but I imagine that the Guardians will have them shipped back to the Dominion afterwards. Anyone need medical attention on our side?"

"Yeah. Superman and Osiris. I'll bring them to you. Green Lantern out."

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Hopefully Supes just needs a recharge.Otherwise, there's going to need to be a little intimidation to get Lyla to 'release' her hold on his powers. If that's even how it works.

Apart from getting Ursa back (and she's probably already in more friendly hands if Karsta has anything to say about it) they got everything useful they could out of this. It's going to be very interesting to see what effect Lyla has on the outcome of the trial, though. Wonder if Amalak will decide the Dominators deserve a good kicking...

 

[thebishop8]

Paul's armor has a mind shield, but Lyla was still conscious. Wouldn't there be Xudarian military forces within range of her mind once she's deposited next to the other Lanterns? If she's conscious, then she can take hostages. Kryptonite wouldn't stop that portion of her powers.

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Her wiki page says that after she took Superman's powers her telepathy also started getting boosted by the sun, so it actually is possible that kryptonite now weakens her telepathy as well. I guess we'll see.

 

[Istaran]

Would it be feasible to use the orange light (or maybe even just a few orange rings with built-in remote self-destruct functions) to drive the Dominators insane with avarice and make them all turn on each other in some kind of civil war? Food for thought if we need a quick way to either cripple or get rid of them.

Click to shrink...

It'd be kind of funny if orange light overload made them into paperclip maximizers. Whatever specific job they were supposed to do, they now do it way too much, in a I will turn planets into factories to make more paperclips kind of way.

 

[Duke Long]

enough. I appear in… A medical laboratory, a mid caste dominator performing basic test on the recumbent Lyla. She seems at ease around them, smiling to herself as they move their instruments. In a remarkably human moment that makes me smile I notice that all the dominators in the room are looking at her rather than paying attention to their surroundings. My armour's stealth system activates almost immediately, but there was a good half-second there where they could have spotted me.

Click to shrink...

'tests'
or
'testing'

"That is not the information we came here to gather. Anything else is up to the high caste."

Click to shrink...

Do we know what the actual goal of the Dominion is as a civilisation? They gather a lot of data but it's not really clear to me whether they value that in itself or if they just want to expand their capabilities to support universal conquest or alien extermination or whatever.

"No." He stretches his arms and cranes his neck to keep in contact with his computer.

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I love these guys so much, very glad we got a scene with them. I hope these guys will be involved in the trial rather than just being sent to Oa, but they'd probably refuse to say anything I suppose.

"I do not have the required knowledge of dimensional physics." His eyes dip, noticing the fact that her not particularly muscular arm is shaking with the effort of keeping his aloft. "If you put me down, I will resume my examination. Our agreement was to take the kryptonians' power and give it to you. If you do not have it, then we have failed to live up to our end of the bargain. Learning what has happened will further our understanding and is in accordance with our interests."

Click to shrink...

'him'

 

[Mr Zoat]

Would it be feasible to use the orange light (or maybe even just a few orange rings with built-in remote self-destruct functions) to drive the Dominators insane with avarice and make them all turn on each other in some kind of civil war? Food for thought if we need a quick way to either cripple or get rid of them.

Click to shrink...

Technically yes, but they inhabit a fairly large volume of space. You'd need a lot more capable of good orange light manipulation. And then there's the fact that the dominators wouldn't necessarily react in that way, and that they're technically capable of detecting it and blocking it.

'tests'
or
'testing'
'him'

Click to shrink...

Thank you, corrected.

Do we know what the actual goal of the Dominion is as a civilisation? They gather a lot of data but it's not really clear to me whether they value that in itself or if they just want to expand their capabilities to support universal conquest or alien extermination or whatever.

Click to shrink...

As far as anyone can tell, it's just something they think is neat.

 

[Vaermina]

I pick up the gold kryptonite and send it back into subspace, because that's not something I want to leave with the Dominion, step

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Little late for that given you just handed them a first hand recording of how Gold Kryptonite works.

 

[Chaoswind]

Would it be feasible to use the orange light (or maybe even just a few orange rings with built-in remote self-destruct functions) to drive the Dominators insane with avarice and make them all turn on each other in some kind of civil war? Food for thought if we need a quick way to either cripple or get rid of them.

Click to shrink...

They would turn around and work on understanding the orange light and power rings in order to present their findings to their society to make their circles bigger.

They don't seek opportunities beyond their caste and station, but if one falls right on top of their hands then they are going to attempt to use it as that dominator attempted to do when Paul got involved with the mothership that was eating the mother star and he saw that as an opportunity to research Paul (even tried to negotiate to use non invasive methods to research him). Bypassing their case system with power and brute force appears to not be concepts on their minds (probably got stripped out), but using opportunities of circumstance to work within the caste structure to increase their circles is fair game.

 

[WereDragon]

"Right."[/COLOR] No face, because he's busy. "I'll call everyone off. You get Ursa?"

"She wasn't being held in the same place. I could try, but they'd almost certainly be more prepared this time. And zeta radiation-based travel is something they know how to disrupt."

Click to shrink...

Given he really doesn't want to execute a pregnant woman I'm surprised he is so eager to leave her, and her unborn child, in Dominator hands.
Either that or he already knows she is on the Doomsday but for some reason his internal narration is refusing to acknowledge it.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Given he really doesn't want to execute a pregnant woman I'm surprised he is so eager to leave her, and her unborn child, in Dominator hands.
Either that or he already knows she is on the Doomsday but for some reason his internal narration is refusing to acknowledge it.

Click to shrink...

Ursa is a nice to have.

They would turn around and work on understanding the orange light and power rings in order to present their findings to their society to make their circles bigger.

They don't seek opportunities beyond their caste and station, but if one falls right on top of their hands then they are going to attempt to use it as that dominator attempted to do when Paul got involved with the mothership that was eating the mother star and he saw that as an opportunity to research Paul (even tried to negotiate to use non invasive methods to research him). Bypassing their case system with power and brute force appears to not be concepts on their minds (probably got stripped out), but using opportunities of circumstance to work within the caste structure to increase their circles is fair game.

Click to shrink...

There's an interesting bit in the Invasion! series, where a junior dominator intrudes in a meeting of the leaders of the Dominion and says that he thinks that they've badly misjudged the situation on Earth. They give him a funny look, point out that he's a junior analyst with no experience of aliens, and tell him to buzz off. But that's all they do to him. My government would do worse than that to me if I walked in on a cabinet briefing.

 

[CrazyNoVa]

There's an interesting bit in the Invasion! series, where a junior dominator intrudes in a meeting of the leaders of the Dominion and says that he thinks that they've badly misjudged the situation on Earth. They give him a funny look, point out that he's a junior analyst with no experience of aliens, and tell him to buzz off. But that's all they do to him. My government would do worse than that to me if I walked in on a cabinet briefing.

Click to shrink...

Wow. So the real-life English government treats their employees worse than the evil space empire filled with sociopathic alien mad scientists?

There's a few jokes to be made about that for sure, but for the life of me, I can't find them.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Wow. So the real-life English government treats their employees worse than the evil space empire filled with sociopathic alien mad scientists?

There's a few jokes to be made about that for sure, but for the life of me, I can't find them.

Click to shrink...

I don't work for the British government (after 24th June), but otherwise yes.

 

[lancelot]

"Right." No face, because he's busy. "I'll call everyone off. You get Ursa?"

"She wasn't being held in the same place. I could try, but they'd almost certainly be more prepared this time. And zeta radiation-based travel is something they know how to disrupt."

"Then forget it."

"I take it we're letting them leave?"

"We're not starting a war with the whole Dominion right here, so, yeah."

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Till they have cloned Kryptonian slave soldiers because that's going to work out really well. How are they this stupid and short sighted, and worse Paul is apparently that short sighted too because he's not even pointing it out. At best you'll have members of the Dominion empowered just like a Kryptonian. Did he at least destroy the medical scan data?

 

[CTrees]

Wow. So the real-life English government treats their employees worse than the evil space empire filled with sociopathic alien mad scientists?

There's a few jokes to be made about that for sure, but for the life of me, I can't find them.

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I'm suddenly reminded of the section a few years back where Grayven crossed over with The Laundry Files.

 

[CrazyNoVa]

It'd be kind of funny if orange light overload made them into paperclip maximizers. Whatever specific job they were supposed to do, they now do it way too much, in a I will turn planets into factories to make more paperclips kind of way.

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Why stop at paperclips? Let's have them all obsessed with their weird hobbies, and then declare war on each other when those hobbies inevitably clash with one another.

They would turn around and work on understanding the orange light and power rings in order to present their findings to their society to make their circles bigger.

They don't seek opportunities beyond their caste and station, but if one falls right on top of their hands then they are going to attempt to use it as that dominator attempted to do when Paul got involved with the mothership that was eating the mother star and he saw that as an opportunity to research Paul (even tried to negotiate to use non invasive methods to research him). Bypassing their case system with power and brute force appears to not be concepts on their minds (probably got stripped out), but using opportunities of circumstance to work within the caste structure to increase their circles is fair game.

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You forget three important details:

One, you assume that the Dominators would somehow be capable of resisting the Orange Light's influence, which is far from guaranteed.

Two, you forget that when someone succumbs to the Orange light, they tend to act both very irrational and antisocial, meaning that any affected Dominator wouldn't give a damn about social norms or caste stuff and all that, and they'd go crazy on EVERYONE.

Three, that's why I specified a self-destruct function. So that if the Dominators don't succumb, we can make the rings self-destruct to prevent the Dominators from studying or exploiting them.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Till they have cloned Kryptonian slave soldiers because that's going to work out really well. How are they this stupid and short sighted, and worse Paul is apparently that short sighted too because he's not even pointing it out. At best you'll have members of the Dominion empowered just like a Kryptonian. Did he at least destroy the medical scan data?

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They already have all of that. Lyla was on Krypton for years. Did you think she wasn't sending reports? Do you think that the Dominion doesn't know how to back up data?

 

[lancelot]

They already have all of that. Lyla was on Krypton for years.

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Considering that they're scanning her in the first place there's apparently a difference between a Kryptonian under a red sun, and an empowered Kryptonian.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Considering that they're scanning her in the first place there's apparently a difference between a Kryptonian under a red sun, and an empowered Kryptonian.

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Sure, and it's very interested to see how all of the bioengineering they did to her that no one else has is shaking out, but none of it is essential. Kryptonians were spacefaring for a long time. There are plenty of placese they could get tissue samples, including from Amalak, the man who put an open bounty on any kryptonians.

 

[PDV]

Would it be feasible to use the orange light (or maybe even just a few orange rings with built-in remote self-destruct functions) to drive the Dominators insane with avarice and make them all turn on each other in some kind of civil war? Food for thought if we need a quick way to either cripple or get rid of them.

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Given what he saw of the limited ambition and avarice they have, that wouldn't work.

Dominators seem like someone's science project that got loose. Report the information to your creators, eventually, but they've disappeared.