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

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GodKiller999 said:
Good lord he's stupid, Lex might just earn a green ring from trying to maintain his composure in the face of this absolute fool.
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He may be eccentric, but for all we know he could be a cunning business man.

He's a high ranking member of an interstellar corporation so maybe he has some brains under all that insanity.
 
moralrelativity said:
Makes sense. And it's certainly a quite plausible way for language to develop in the future if/when we have such things.
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Especially since we already use "cybernetics" to refer to the cybernetic parts of a cybernetic entity, bringing it into the singular just makes sense.
 
Can someone remind me what happened to the Light in the Paragon timeline? Are they still active?
 
Mr Zoat said:
7th April
17:51 GMT +2

I transition forwards, appearing on the landing platform just as the jet's door opens. A group of the attendant robots-. They start to pile up and make a staircase with their chassises, but fortunately the LexAir jet has an airstair which unfolds from its doorway. The cheapest-bidderbots spot this as they're shoving one another aside for the honour of being the third step and collapse into a pile of thwarted disappointment.
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Oh, boy... Looks like I might have been optimistic about the ClusterCorps' view on synthetic rights... These guys are acting... Well, like slaves...

Mister Luthor appears in the doorway and sees the robots as they regain a semblance of organisation and line up into something that might generously be called a line-up. There are at least five different makes of near-humanoid robot, and those that share an origin look like they've had multiple generations of non-standard repairs and upgrades. No two of them are precisely the same. Mister Luthor doesn't have a puzzled expression on his face, but from the way his eyes linger and the way his face doesn't move I strongly suspect that he can't quite make sense of what he's seeing.
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He's thinking 'What sort of fly-by-night operation are these Aliens running?', I'd bet.

Then he sees me, smiles faintly, and completes his journey down to the landing pad.

"Paul. I had gotten the impression that you were attempting to distance yourself from this endeavour."

"I am, Mister Luthor, but no one wants to listen." I nod as Ms Graves follows him down the stairs. "Ms Graves."
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I bet Lex can commiserate with him over the stupidity of some people.

"'Mister Luthor'?" He affects an expression of mild affront. "What happened to 'Lex'?"

"I made my best offer and you turned me down." I look around. Big as it is, this thing is essentially a space-aged prefab and it's still under construction. I doubt that much of the inside is furnished. "And lied about it."
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Ah, OL... Still haven't considered the possibility that Lex had a not-so-metaphorical gun to his head?

"I'm afraid-."

"Can we skip the obviously feigned denial, please? I understand why you feel obliged to make it, but I'm.. not-. I'm never going to be in the mood."
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You sound like a jilted lover, OL. What would the League say if they could hear you?

Lex fans his palms in a gesture of mock surrender.

"As you wish. Did the Security Council give you any idea of how they intend to handle the situation?"
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And Lex, looking for all the angles as usual. Hoping for some inside info, I see, to get a jump on the competition.

"Remember when you complained about the money the US government is wasting housing the artistic collection of the late Adolf Schicklgruber?"

"Yes?"

"I believe we are about to be amazed by their efficient decision-making. And I'm getting a painfully pointed lesson in how bad the cult of the superhero has become for Earth's command and control processes, so if you want to make me an offer, you're unlikely to get a better opportunity."
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Oh, my. Now that's a declaration of 'I am so done with this shit...'. I'm sure he'll regret saying it later, of course. And I doubt Lex can offer anything he'd want enough to jump ships for.

I get a very thin smile. "Are you unhappy with your relationship with Ted Kord?"

"There's only so much one man can focus on. And you were always my first choice." I look towards the entrance to the building-proper. "Are you just dropping in, or are they expecting you?"
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"Or were you just passing by and thought you'd drop in for coffee?"

"I notified them that I was coming. I was told that I was welcome, but perhaps I misunderstood how welcome." He looks at the robots. "Does one of you have seniority?"

One with mostly-red armour rotates its head to focus on him.

"I am the longest functioning robot here."
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I note that's not a declaration of seniority, merely of age...

"Does that mean that you're in charge here?"

"No, it means that I'm the first piece of equipment in the recyclers if something goes wrong."
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...Ah. :oops: Oooh... Awkward.

"I.. see. Should I take it that the ClusterCorp does not recognize AI rights?"

"It's really more that it doesn't recognise employee rights. But they tell me that if I work really hard then in a century or two I might graduate to loading crane."
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Wow, such upwards mobility...Of course, most of the organic staff are in the same boat...

"Of course, that efficiency thing isn't just limited to the Earth side. When you've got an absolute monopoly-."

"Yes, I.. see. Meetings with aliens never seem to go as I expect them to. Perhaps if we-."
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Oh, you have no idea, Lexie boy... Wait until you meet the big gold cheese...

"BEHOLD!"

There's an explosion of orange light as Manga Khan appears before us in an interesting application of ring-based teleportation. The resulting light flare slides over my environmental shield while Mister Luthor, Ms Graves, the robots and the LexCorp jet are sent flying!
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And speak of the devil. I'm guessing he usually doesn't use his ring for anything... I haven't seen that kind of enthusiastic response since the first time Kon took his shirt off in front of OL...

I reach out with construct tethers, grabbing each of them and returning them to their prior positions.

"Hm, good catch, Illustres! What do you think of making it a sporting event? I'm told that Earth's pay-per-view market is exceptionally lively!"
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...Blowing away the people you were about to do business with is generally not good practice, Goldie...

Mister Luthor takes a moment to check that he's on solid ground, then adjusts his tie and straightens his suit. Ms Graves returns her cybernetic to its arm configuration

"Well, it's… Not illegal in Bir Tawil. But there aren't enough Lanterns to make it a team event."
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Go on, OL, let him dig himself in deeper in Lex's opinion.

"So you think that we would need to have different divisions? Yes! Yes. That way we could have a widespread grass roots game."

Mister Luthor's face.. freezes, his mouth slightly open and his left eye slightly narrowed, as if he can't quite believe what's happening. His eyes flick to me for an instant, then he regains his composure.
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I can just see him thinking 'oh god, what have i gotten myself into? This is worse than the Light...'

"It's a fairly saturated market. Perhaps a limited test program first, to test the viability?"

"Yes." He bows his head solemnly. "Boldness without intelligence is how we got fart apples. A worthy reminder."
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...No. No! Do not ask... With a name like 'fart apples'...

He somehow makes his armour shudder.

"L-Ron! Take a memo!"
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He... does know he has to consciously include other people in Transitions?

…

I look around, but the little gold robot doesn't.. appear to have accompanied him.
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<facepalm> How did this guy even clear basic training? Did they even give him basic training beyond 'Want it, it happens.'?

"Product testing comes before wide-scale implementation!"

"Um."
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Shush! Don't interrupt his flow, this is bound to be hilarious! :p In fact, you should definitely record this.

"L-Ron?"

The robots nervously rotate their heads to make sure that their owner's chief minion hasn't snuck in somehow. Receiving no response, Manga Khan stomps up to the closest.
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I can hear the clattering of their joints as it is...

"L-Ron? Didn't you used to be gold?"

"I'm not L-Ron, Lord-Lantern Manga Khan."
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Poor guy... If he's lucky, he might get out of this without being scrapped...

"And shorter. I'm almost certain that I remember you being shorter."

"I'm not L-Ron, Lord-Lantern Manga Khan."
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Does Manga Khan simply have a -20 to spot checks?

"And your voice was a different pitch."

"I'm not L-Ron, Lord-Lantern Manga Khan."
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"Why grandma, what a deep voice you have..." Though I picture the bot as having a light, slightly 'nerdy' tone...

"And you had a gravity-repulsor rather than legs."

"I'm not L-Ron, Lord-Lantern Manga Khan."
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To be honest, I'm not sure how strongly connected the Synthetics are tied to their physical form... I presume some might be comfortable switching bodies like average humans switch clothes...

"And a unified sensor array rather than those little faux-eyes."

"I'm not L-Ron, Lord-Lantern Manga Khan."
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In the background, Lex and OL share a Look. A Look of mutual pain about suffering idiots...

"And three fingers-."

Due to the love of a merciful god, the communicator on Manga Khan's armour lights up, a hologram of L-Ron appearing next to him.
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Oh, thank Eris! We won't be stuck in a loop of back-and-forth for three chapters! Though I bet she's laughing her ass off...

"He's not me, Lord-Lantern Manga Khan."

"L-Ron! You're in two places at once! I didn't know you could do that!"
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Oh gods, the stupid... It hurts...

"You teleported without me, m'lord. I'll be down in a few minutes by shuttle. Please try to keep the monologuing to a minimum until I arrive."

"Very well."

The hologram shuts down.
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Oh, thank you, he might stop talking! OL's ring is probably running constant Wholeness Rightly Assumed just to preserve his sanity...

Then Manga Khan stomps right up to the robot so that it's forced to bend back slightly.

"Why were you pretending to be L-Ron?"
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Well, random customer service unit, it was nice knowing you... Throw yourself on his mercy and he might just bust you down to janitorial roomba....

Ohhh, this is going to be a long conversation... He may have a penalty to Spot checks, but Manga Khan evidently gains +40 to Jump, when leaping to conclusions!:V I bet Lex is really, really wishing he hadn't come here right now...

They start to pile up and make a staircase with their chassises,
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I'm pretty sure it's not spelt that way... But it might be an OL-ism...
 
Lex must really be regretting trying to do business with Manga.

I mean at least Savage tries to pretend that he's intelligent and not just some idiot.

Eris must be suffering from stomach cramps right about now from all the laughter.
 
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Poor Lex, he is having his mental image of what he thinks should be a major leader in a galactic scale business shattered right before him. Just cause aliens have made it into space doesn't mean that galaxy isn't full of fools as well.
 
Massgamer said:
Poor Lex, he is having his mental image of what he thinks should be a major leader in a galactic scale business shattered right before him. Just cause aliens have made it into space doesn't mean that galaxy isn't full of fools as well.
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Lex doesn't exactly think all that highly of non humans in the first place, but even his low standards may be blown out the water with Manga.
 
This is going about as well as I assumed it might...

Reminds me of Vapula in the In Nomine tabletop rpg... A demon prince prone to SCIENCE! of the most drastic sort. A gentleman by the name of Moe Lane proposed a junior demon by the name of 'Sparky', who had the job of trying to ensure Vapula didn't do anything too destructive to Hell's purposes...

You might wonder where the authors of 'In Nomine' got ideas like that? Well, if you look at Vapula in a more 'traditional' sense, you might start to work it out...

(You know the bit about burning copies of the D&D rules in some US states? I don't know what they'd do with the In Nomine rules...)
Stsword said:
Yeah, the Cooperative are at the "oh that's just bullshit" level of technology. :)
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I got the impression that this was a re-branding of Banks's The Culture, and an attempt to collide it with comic book superhero-ing. I'm unclear how much DC respect the canon that the writers created, or whether they're (just) retcon-ing anything that doesn't suit the sort of stories they want to tell...
 
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Mr Zoat said:
Mister Luthor's face.. freezes, his mouth slightly open and his left eye slightly narrowed, as if he can't quite believe what's happening. His eyes flick to me for an instant, then he regains his composure.
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I am really curious about what must be going through Lex's head right now. Whatever expectations he had about this guy must have been completely blown away after meeting him face to face. I kinda hope this guy spills the beans about what happened on Rimbor. I can just imagine Manga Khan saying that he is surprised someone as powerful and reasonable as the Illustres would work with intergalactic criminals like the "Justice League" as a non sequitur.
 
Ngamer11 said:
I am really curious about what must be going through Lex's head right now. Whatever expectations he had about this guy must have been completely blown away after meeting him face to face.
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Well he was certainly blown away after his first encounter with him, quite literary I should remind you.
 
Am I the only one who is wondering what the stock markets are looking like, after the arrival of Manga Khan? You might suspect Mr. Luthor takes... an interest in that sort of thing.
Darko said:
Well he was certainly blown away after his first encounter with him, quite literally I should remind you.
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I might wonder if there's a camera crew recording this encounter... Pretty sure a lot of news channels would pay well for that...
Fun things for Eris to do... 'Borrow' the Inviolate Lex Luthor and Mercy Graves, post-story, throw-in a memory patch for the pair of them of the last couple of weeks of experiences of their local versions... See what happens next. :)
 
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Ace Dreamer said:
Fun things for Eris to do... 'Borrow' the Inviolate Lex Luthor and Mercy Graves, post-story, throw-in a memory patch for the pair of them of the last couple of weeks of experiences of their local versions... See what happens next. :)
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Lex from Inviolate would be shocked that a version of him is doing stupid Villain stuff without being manipulated by anyone.
 
darkevangel10 said:
Chassis is both the singular and plural, just pronounced differently to differentiate. Cha-see vs Cha-seez
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I just broke out into giggles reading this. Manga Khan has to be my favourite character now haha. He reminds me of that superhero in Rachet and Clank or any borderlands comic relief.

thanks for the laughs.
 
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