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

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Mr Zoat said:
Pluto's not all that big.
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Is Lantern Mother of Mercy still in the system? I'm curious how her ring-augmented gravitation senses and power would match up against the interstellar telepathic power of a larger Starro. Would she have any particular reaction to the Star Conquerors? I ask because of the similarity between their forms of mind control?
 
cereal_lurker said:
Is Lantern Mother of Mercy still in the system? I'm curious how her ring-augmented gravitation senses and power would match up against the interstellar telepathic power of a larger Starro. Would she have any particular reaction to the Star Conquerors? I ask because of the similarity between their forms of mind control?
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Think she left after finishing Mars.

She doesn't technically mind control people, but just uses her Black Mercies to put them into a dream like state.

Sorrow said:
I'm beginning to believe Manga Khan should run for President... He appears to be less of a buffoon than the current contenders...
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Careful with the whole no modern politics rule.
 
Hmm. Khan wants money and valuable items. Question: do you think that the full schematics of every device Paragon-Paul has in his ring's extradimensional storage would be valuable enough to pay Khan to leave? After this conflict is over, I mean.

I think so.
 
NightmareWarden said:
Hmm. Khan wants money and valuable items. Question: do you think that the full schematics of every device Paragon-Paul has in his ring's extradimensional storage would be valuable enough to pay Khan to leave? After this conflict is over, I mean.

I think so.
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He probably has most of that data in his own ring and Paragon may not have any interest in whether he stays or leaves.
 
Chojin Patriarch said:
At least you're calling it a Planet. Poor Pluto, ignored because it's the baby of the solar system...
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I'm still salty about the reclassification of what are planets.
- Dwarf planets are not planets because otherwise the solar system would have 15+ planets and somehow it's bad.
- There are only 8 planets in the universe, because one has to orbit Sol to be a planet (otherwise they are "exoplanets", which arent planets either).
 
Ace Dreamer said:
I tend to feel you should add the word 'yet' on the end of this sentence...

Smart thing to do here, which I doubt they'll do, is get all Orange Lanterns on-site to collaborate on creating the biggest Cold Ray construct anyone has ever WANTED to exist, and blasting the area the laser has been targetting.

Someone has been trying to pump energy in there? Cooling the area down seems unlikely to do any further harm, and, you can sort any issues out later, with some carefully localised defrosting. Is there a Starro there? Cooling has a good history of giving them a bad day.
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Ah yes. Rapidly cooling down a massively heated solid. Always a good idea.

Xelloss said:
I'm still salty about the reclassification of what are planets.
- Dwarf planets are not planets because otherwise the solar system would have 15+ planets and somehow it's bad.
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Wasn't Pluto returned to planet status? Also, I read somewhere that the conference that changed in the first place didn't actually have consensus among astronomers. Especially the guys at NASA working on a mission that would do a flyby of Pluto were massively pissed.
 
The whole "Pluto-a-planet" thing both amuses and depresses me.

Amuses, because Pluto is a planet, has always been a planet, and will always be a planet. 'Minor planets' are a subclass of planets. The Big 8? "Major planets". Pluto, Ceres, etc.? "Minor planets". All of them together? "Planets".

Depresses, because people (including some very famous ones) have and continue to raise a stink over it, when, see above, and, the number-one argument they make is "I grew up with Pluto being a planet". We don't do science like that. People grew up with the four biggest Jovian moons classified as planets and people grew up knowing the Earth was the center of the solar system (the universe, even) but science marches on.regardless of their anguished cries of "IN MY DAY!".
 
Ace Dreamer said:
Probably want to watch that, given Rule 8... Basically, 20th Century politics OK, 21st, no.
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I'm not too familiar with the comics version of Manga Khan, but he seems to be a bit less corrupt than Bill Clinton arguably was based on his wiki article. No suspicious "suicides" of his people who might pose threats to his political power, no facilitating the selling of drugs to fund shady government agencies (Clinton has been alleged to have been involved with CIA drug trafficking during his time as Arkansas governor), no sex scandals or lying under oath, etc.
 
Mr Zoat said:
I nod."Plus, since we know the layout of that ball section's power grid, we have the knowledge requires to shut it down from inside."[ /QUOTE]


I nod."Plus, since we know the layout of that ball section's power grid, we have the knowledge required to shut it down from inside."
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Darko said:
'required'
' ,his energy'
'anyone's ever done'
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Thank you, corrected.
maybe 'launch' instead of 'punch' , but I could be wrong.
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As in, he's punching holes in the metal with them.
They probably don't exist in the Earth 16 universe, and why would aliens that live in the Milky Way call themselves 'Andromedans'?
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There are only so many sylables. If anything it would be stranger that they had the same name for that galaxy that we do.
Chojin Patriarch said:
Though that could just have been...
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Thank you, corrected.
cereal_lurker said:
Is Lantern Mother of Mercy still in the system? I'm curious how her ring-augmented gravitation senses and power would match up against the interstellar telepathic power of a larger Starro. Would she have any particular reaction to the Star Conquerors? I ask because of the similarity between their forms of mind control?
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No, she headed back to the periphery to show off on behalf of the Orange Lantern Corps.
 
Ace Dreamer said:
I tend to feel you should add the word 'yet' on the end of this sentence...
Smart thing to do here, which I doubt they'll do, is get all Orange Lanterns on-site to collaborate on creating the biggest Cold Ray construct anyone has ever WANTED to exist, and blasting the area the laser has been targetting.
Someone has been trying to pump energy in there? Cooling the area down seems unlikely to do any further harm, and, you can sort any issues out later, with some carefully localised defrosting. Is there a Starro there? Cooling has a good history of giving them a bad day.
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Agreed! We don't want Tsathoggua or Cxaxukluth to wake up.
 
rkyeun said:
Yes he was. It was just America's birth that made him one, not his own.
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If you want to understand something, you look at the boundaries, the fuzzy bits, when and where it joins with other similar things, both in time and space. This is why Platonic Idealism breaks-down, fails. It tells you to look at the central body, the 'core', the 'important bits'. When, the important bits are the boundaries, where that thing turns from, or into, something else.

You may not believe that, think it's a lot of philosophical... waffle, playing with words. But, some people, like Wittgenstein, spent their entire lives picking-away at those words, trying to find what truth they might contain, and found they were often a language game.

So, if someone comes up to you, tries to sell you an Orange Ring, says 'take it, think how powerful it will make you', you look at the boundaries, where it gets its power from, how you recharge it, how it affects you, not just the shiny bit which draws your eyes. :)

(Philosophy? The Queen of Sciences? Maybe, but, yes, she does have teeth, and they can be very sharp. :) )


You might want to read about this song...

Why is this song about drinking? Maybe after you dig deep into philosophy making your head stop hurting with a drink or two (or three, or...) seems the only thing sensible. :)
 
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Plutonian (part 16)
12th April
11:40 GMT

"You still can't see through the walls?"

"No. But given what Doctor Mist was saying… Just waiting until the spell runs out of power is a perfectly viable option, if you want to take it slowly."

"Unless they're sacrificing the hostages for power."

"Ah-? No, that wouldn't work. Magic… Short explanation: while magic energy is universal, unless they're tapping directly into the Dream, magic users are generally manipulating pre-existing structures using pre-existing power flows. Out here there's no system and no ready power source. Ritual sacrifice won't work because there's nothing to respond to it; you can't ritually violate arcane taboos which don't exist."

"You sure they know that?"

"This wouldn't be possible without specific preparation."

"You willing to bet their lives on it?"

I shrug, though the armoured plates covering my shoulders don't move.

"There's nothing stopping them ordering their thralls to kill themselves anyway."

"Illustres Paul?" Koriand'r is looking back through the open hull towards the still-enthusiastically erupting Pluto. "Should that planet be behaving like that?"

"There was a theory that it had subterranean oceans. Depending on their chemical composition and location, that's certainly within the realms of possibility. If you want to see something really impressive, I'll take you to the Rao system when we're finished here."

Major Adams shakes his head.

"No one's going to fire a giant laser at a planet for no reason. The hostages take priority, but we need to find out what that reason is." He looks at Lantern Khan. "There a good place for a command post through there?"

"Yes? Several. I command from wherever I am, and I need to be-"

"That's fine. Just take us to the closest."

"-seen and heard to my best advantage, that I may inspire-"

Major Adams looks at me. I just shake my head.

"-my serfs-. I mean slaves-. I mean thralls-. I mean scum-. I mean valuable employees-. No, wait, that's completely wrong. I don't even know why I said-."

"How about you go inspire them right now?"

"Yes!" He flies towards the closest doorway, a construct butler forcing it open for him and a potted plant being thrown out by the air pressure shift and hitting him in the face. "My people! I come for you!"

Major Adams gives me a low-level glare as we fly after him, and I'm forced to catch the remains of the plant as it slides off Khan.

"Why does that guy have a power ring?"

I repot the plant and set it aside.

"Not all Orange Lanterns are supposed to be combat-orientated. He's a surprisingly -very surprisingly- skilled economist."

I accelerate after Lantern Khan. No other members of the crew are immediately in sight. I can see where they ripped out a dividing wall, presumably to make moving materials to the mining laser easier.

"I feel a corporate motivational speech coming on!"

The automated defences deploy as we cross what I.. think was a raw materials store room. Pulse laser batteries this time. I generate a shield construct for Major Adams while the beams reflect off Lantern Khan's shiny armour and burn slashes across the inside of the room.

Khan makes an identical line of pulse lasers and destroys their metal cousins in a single volley.

"There's a factory oversight centre just up-"

He creates giant hand constructs and pulls the door -and a chunk of the wall- open.

The Star Hunter in the middle of the room blinks, then red lightning leaps from the tips of its tentacles and reduces Khan's armour to smouldering slag! The thralls around it are armed with-

Major Adams fires a scintillating beam of energy from his forearms at the Star Hunter, and I see the circuit runes embedded in its skin light up as it works to shield itself.

-some sort of arcane gun, though they look somewhat bodged. The Star Hunter's red lightning continues crackling out, passing though my construct barrier and striking my armour before being soaked by my spell eater. I form railguns and fire mage slayers as the facially mutilated thralls rouse themselves and-.

Alan's drawn his purple healing ray and he uses it to shoot the closest thrall in the face. The cuts steam and vanish and the thrall collapses.

**Will not stop us. Can not stop us.**

The wards around the room-. No, the entire ClusterShip fail, and I see the trapped desires of the people the Star Conquerors are puppetting twisting and writhing, unable to express themselves-.

Alan shakes me, and I blink as I see that we've pulled back into the cargo area. He backs off slightly as I come to my senses.

"You feeling yourself again?"

I nod. Clever starfish.

Lantern Khan's gaseous form is lurking near the ceiling, orange ring glowing in cover while he takes shots at the thralls with Alan's purple ray. Major Adams is going all out in his assault on the Star Conqueror, trusting Koriand'r to shield him from small arms fire.

Why did that-? My spell eater is dripping down my cuirass, overwhelmed by whatever the Star Conquerors did to try and take me down. I replace it and generate a coilgun as Alan goes back to pulling injured crew out of the line of fire.

**All will be one.**

Message to Batman: Star Conqueror presence confirmed. Engaging.

Message sent.

Major Adams suddenly stops shooting, arms dropping as he lolls in the air. His spell eater has gone into meltdown, and-.

Tiny pieces of debris hurl themselves at his face, only to be defeated by his dilustel epidermis. Trying to cut a star shape? So it doesn't require contact.

I tag Major Adams with a replacement spell eater -need to emphasise how they aren't actually a replacement for a field magician- and then fire an ultraviolet laser at the Star Hunter. Kind of a shame I didn't melt down Nabu's helmet to make an Ace of Order, because that's clearly chaos magic it's using. The laser does nothing but make it realise that I'm mobile again, which means that its shield is general purpose rather than specific.

Brute force and ignorance it is, then.

I don't even bother with a construct. Thick orange beam from my ring to the ward, just enough kinetic force to make it activate and a whole lot of effort draining it. Because-.

The Star Hunter collapses to the deck, the runes in its body flickering out. The few remaining thralls-

"Aaaagh!"

-drop their weapons, staggering as the bleeding wounds on their faces are suddenly a pressing concern. I scan the Star Conqueror, and… It's barely alive, but it is still functioning.

Major Adams appears to have recovered, and Lantern Khan reconstitutes his armour and raises his arms high.

"My people! I have returned!"

Most of them don't throw anything.
 
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Mr Zoat said:
"Ah-? No, that wouldn't work. Magic… Short explanation: while magic energy is universal, unless they're tapping directly into the Dream, magic users are generally manipulating pre-existing structures using pre-existing power flows. Out here there's no system and no ready power source. Ritual sacrifice won't work because there's nothing to respond to it; you can't ritually violate arcane taboos which don't exist."
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Paul really needs to stop declaring unproven assumptions as absolute fact.
 
Vaermina said:
Paul really needs to stop declaring unproven assumptions as absolute fact.
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Paul has a number of researchers working on exploring the Dream and its relation to magic, has himself learnt magic theory, has regular contact with gods and other mythological beings.

You really need to stop declaring in-universe facts as unproven assumptions.

RichardWhereat said:
Perhaps another genocide is in order? Off through the stars, to kill the star conquerors.
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I think an extinction event would be more suited to the species.
 
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Personally I'm not a fan of having magic restricted to just planetside, but Zoat's made it pretty clear that's what he's using here.

I'd probably excuse the lack of magic in space based superhero stories by saying that the majority of super science sci fi tech out in the galaxy is some level of magitech and that most races simply don't differentiate magic from science.
 
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