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

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DAT_NOOB said:
At this point, he is A Grayven in that his name is legally Grayven and he possesses memories that paul doesn't, of growing up on apokalypse that he mentioned in stars crossed (which was the arc that had him become more Grayven than paul) and to head off the idea that he's merely lying, why would he lie to the justice lords? they need his help even if he wasn't actually Grayven.
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For the last time... This is Truth with a capital T.

There is no rules lawyering, or "it's true if you squint really hard and tilt your head a bit", or even "I'm going to leave out these rather important bits", it's "this is exactly it".
 
The Truth thing jogged my memory.

Telepathic Blue Skinned Space Elves

Basically, as a telepathic race they speak incredibly bluntly, because any other telepath can 'hear' a lie 'spoken' with their form of communication. A Falsehood doesn't have the same all encompassing levels of detail that a factual conversation would carry, and any modifications stand out from the backdrop like crayon drawings on a photograph.

Thus they can't get away with the little white lies that smooth conversations between each other. Hence that they've went and murdered each other often enough over stupid things that they had to invent a whole caste system with a dedicated interpreter to handle speaking with other groups and races that don't share their abilities.

So, yes you could have a honest and open society, so long as you have a strong control scheme to keep folks from acting out on their opinions violently.
 
Vaermina said:
For the last time... This is Truth with a capital T.

There is no rules lawyering, or "it's true if you squint really hard and tilt your head a bit", or even "I'm going to leave out these rather important bits", it's "this is exactly it".
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Tell me, if I were to show you two images of the Mona Lisa, with one being the original made by Leonardo da Vinci, and one being a copy made by a dedicated and talented artist, would you be able to tell the difference? The same concept applies here.

Paul wasn't always Grayven, yes. But thanks to the surgery his Father Box did on his soul, he mantled Grayven, and became him. What was once a lie is now a truth. He is Grayven enough for Darkseid himself to acknowledge him as worthy enough to bear the name--provided he can overcome the original.

If it looks like a Grayven, sounds like a Grayven, walks like a Grayven, well. Must be a Grayven.

Only difference is, this Grayven is the superior model in comparison to the original.
 
As another comparison, Look at the DCAU, particularly Batman Beyond's Bruce Wayne.

Voices In My Head

Bruce Wayne wasn't Born Batman, he made himself into Batman, over decades of training and fighting. He Chose the name and appearance for practical and emotional purposes. He Identifies with that identity more then he does his birth name. He IS Batman, in his own mind, even if he's laid the cape and cowl aside. The playboy billionare 'Bruce Wayne' persona is a mask he puts on to deal with others, and it's not Him anymore.

At this point, Renegade has been at it for a couple years, and has dramatically changed both his body and mind. He chose a name and constantly refers to himself by it, even in his own internal dialogue. Part of that was practical reasons of even thinking his old name was a risk, but he's grown into it by now. He's Grayven now.

Look back at the recent Alt-Jade story, note that when the Guy's ring comes to her, it refers to her as 'Jade Scott' , rather then Jade Crock, or Nguyen. Even the Ring can tell that she identifies with Alan as family to the point of taking his name as her own.
 
Lazurman said:
.. soul, he mantled Grayven, and...
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1330727_2.jpg
 
Vaermina said:
For the last time... This is Truth with a capital T.

There is no rules lawyering, or "it's true if you squint really hard and tilt your head a bit", or even "I'm going to leave out these rather important bits", it's "this is exactly it".
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This isn't "true if you squint really hard and tilt your head" at this point it is TRUTH all caps, confirmed by the fundamental laws of the universe to the point where he diminishes Grayven-16 by HAVING HIS SOUL WITHIN HIS BODY as was revealed when Renegrayven killed off the citadel.

At this point, every fundamental aspect of Grayven isn't 'paul' it's Grayven New god of conquest, he's effectively Grayven prime.
 
Lazurman said:
he mantled Grayven
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actually if I could point to the FAQ real quick--
Mr Zoat said:
1330727_2.jpg
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too slow:oops:
Lazurman said:
If I have missed or forgotten the relevant WoG, then I apologize. Though it does seem like it, at least.
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Mr Zoat said:
Mantling?
I have never read The Dresden Files, but I am given to understanding that there in those stories there is a concept called 'mantling', where assuming a supernatural role grants increased power and a number of compulsions.
This is not The Dresden Files. Mantling is not a thing here.
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Right Right....as Zoat has stated repeatedly, this isn't the Dresden Files, there are no "mantles" forced on the universe. It's not a singular role that can be usurped. The ...Portfolio...to borrow a D&D term, is not exclusive. And it is not tied to the identity of any other holders.

Being a God of Conquest does not equal being Grayven, and vice versa.

The only reason Renegade does so is because he first played up a physical resemblance to Grayven, and then proceeded to alter his soul structure to that of a New God with Father Box. While some of the alterations and choices he made were directed to promote that resemblance, it does not draw upon the original Grayven's powers directly. It does not reduce the original at all. New Gods powers come from the Source, as a fragment of the Concept in question, and evidently there is a lot of Conquest, or at least something similar, to go around.

They are similar because they built themselves up along similar soul structures and an unrelated physical resemblance due to the Venom-Buster that Renegade first took, then altered with Father Box's help.

The only thing that is not directly explained or accounted for (as far as I can tell) is where Renegade's Memories of Apokolips comes from exactly.


I'd mostly blame that on Father Box trying to make him more like the original, but it may be possible of some sort of seepage from the original over.

Or some sort of meta-textual thing where Renegade's fictional cover story of being the original, tossed to earth prime and returned, has somehow effected his reality. Now, there IS precedent for THAT in universe, with Constantine's friend getting sucked into a book, because he kept being used in fictional accounts so often he Became that fiction.
 
Ah, I see. To clarify, I was referring to the mantling exemplified in the Elder Scrolls series, not the Dresden Files. "Walk like a god until the god walks like you," something like that. But, yes, Father Box is more to blame here than anything else.
 
Vaermina said:
For the last time... This is Truth with a capital T.

There is no rules lawyering, or "it's true if you squint really hard and tilt your head a bit", or even "I'm going to leave out these rather important bits", it's "this is exactly it".
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Except that in worlds such as the one With This Ring takes place in, reality is warped by belief. Especially when it comes to the divine. Renegade Paul has, as far as the universe is concerned, become a second Grayven.
 
Someguy Somewhere said:
The only thing that is not directly explained or accounted for (as far as I can tell) is where Renegade's Memories of Apokolips comes from exactly.
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Well, nothing in story has ever really proven those memories actually exist ,so my guess is he's just using the claim of "memories" as an excuse to explain certain meta-knowledge.


Xmaster3000 said:
Except that in worlds such as the one With This Ring takes place in, reality is warped by belief. Especially when it comes to the divine. Renegade Paul has, as far as the universe is concerned, become a second Grayven.
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You should read Someguy's post, it explains why you're wrong.
 
Vaermina said:
Well, nothing in story has ever really proven those memories actually exist ,so my guess is he's just using the claim of "memories" as an excuse to explain certain meta-knowledge.
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Actually there are several moments where Renegade has issues with his memory, separating those of his time on earth prime with that of Apokolips.

Right around the time he visited Themyscira, and as he first visited the Justice Lord's earth. There were several times where he'd think about his earth prime parents and instead get a flash of Darkseid and Granny instead. While he does have meta information regarding the comic books, as shows with Paragon, that information is still distinctly 'I read it in a book' rather then 'I lived it'. Renegade's memory seemed to clear up after his attempt to deal with the Anti-Life fragment by tossing it into the source wall. Either the exposure to anti-life, the attempt to say his original name of Paul, or being near the source wall had an impact that helped sort out his head in some manner.

Now, during those bits of cognitive discordance, he didn't learn anything new, only got a feeling of personally experiencing events. For example, he never knew anything of the OG Grayven's Mother. What I suspect, but have no true evidence of, is that this was Father Box's influence, as while the box had a great deal of information on Apokolips, it never told him anything about 'his' mother, as it was not in it's memory. The Box was reporting to Darkseid for some time on Renegade, and knew his physical history of 'human -> rock monster' rather then being a new god from the start, as it was the tool he used to get that far. It could be, again just guess, that the box was under orders to make him more like the son that Darkseid Wanted, rather then the ones he got. Leaving out a possibly caring mother figure is something darkseid might have wanted, thus not filling in the gaps himself.

As for the 'reality is warped by belief' aspect of things, Xmaster's not entirely wrong with that. DC and WTR wise, reality is warped by The Dream, which is the source of all Magic. Souls are established to be magical constructs tethered to the mind and body of individuals. Every living being (aside from hollow men) have a soul that impacts both themselves and everything around them. There is also The Source, which....we can't properly evaluate as aside from Sunset's brief study of Renegade's Source based abilities and how they interact with magic and vice versa. As well as what ever angelic connections to the Source we've observed. There is PLENTY of reality warping going around, and again pointing out the 'fictional guy sucked into a book' bit, belief might be part of how it works.
 
Grayven can't be god if acquisitive conquest since that would make him unable to resist acquiring something when possible - he just resisted acquiring Wonder Woman. If anything, maybe he's righteous conquest?
 
Lazurman said:
Ah, I see. To clarify, I was referring to the mantling exemplified in the Elder Scrolls series, not the Dresden Files. "Walk like a god until the god walks like you," something like that. But, yes, Father Box is more to blame here than anything else.
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My god that actually makes more sense. I heard it as you mantle and become the god "Walk like a god until you become the god", but in this case mantling has only really happened with gods who are already dead. Namely Lorkhan/Shezarr and Sheogorath. Lorkham died creating the world and was reborn as Shezarr or was Shezarr all along or something, after which lore goes that Tiber Septim mantled Shezarr, becoming Talos, but if Shezarr is a sentient form of energy, wouldn't it make more sense if, in seeking a thing to be after death, it essentially changed itself to be the ultimate exemplar of "man". The pinnacle of it's own creation? So Talos is dead, but there's an identical duplicate of him running around in god form?

As for Sheogorath, there was a fairly powerful curse involved, and the Hero of Kvatch was running around using several powerful symbols of office. The Greymarch happened, so while Jyggalag was temporarily freed of the curse, he was killed. Thus the curse still existed, but was separated from him. A sort of mass of bad ideas with no actual sentience - the "madness" of Sheogorath. So with no Jyggalag to full in the blank / imprison, the energy behind the curse changed to become the hero / changed the hero to become the sentience behind Sheogorath? The one imprisoned by the madness? This is kind of similar to Dresden Files mantling, except the mantle itself is malevolent. Fitting for a Daedra.
 
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Someguy Somewhere said:
As for the 'reality is warped by belief' aspect of things, Xmaster's not entirely wrong with that. DC and WTR wise, reality is warped by The Dream, which is the source of all Magic. Souls are established to be magical constructs tethered to the mind and body of individuals. Every living being (aside from hollow men) have a soul that impacts both themselves and everything around them. There is also The Source, which....we can't properly evaluate as aside from Sunset's brief study of Renegade's Source based abilities and how they interact with magic and vice versa. As well as what ever angelic connections to the Source we've observed. There is PLENTY of reality warping going around, and again pointing out the 'fictional guy sucked into a book' bit, belief might be part of how it works.
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No... He is entirely wrong about it... And Zoat has directly told us he's entirely wrong about it...
 
Mquz said:
My god that actually makes more sense. I heard it as you mantle and become the god "Walk like a god until you become the god", but in this case mantling has only really happened with gods who are already dead. Namely Lorkhan/Shezarr and Sheogorath. Lorkham died creating the world and was reborn as Shezarr or something, after which lore goes that Tiber Septim mantled Shezarr, becoming Talos, but if Shezarr is a sentient form of energy, wouldn't it make more sense if, in seeking a thing to be after death, it essentially changed itself to be the ultimate exemplar of "man". The pinnacle of it's own creation? So Talos is dead, but there's an identical duplicate of him running around in god form?

As for Sheogorath, there was a fairly powerful curse involved, and the Hero of Kvatch was running around using several powerful symbols of office. The Greymarch happened, so while Jyggalag was temporarily freed of the curse, he was killed. Thus the curse still existed, but was separated from him. A sort of mass of bad ideas with no actual sentience - the "madness" of Sheogorath. So with no Jyggalag to full in the blank / imprison, the energy behind the curse changed to become the hero / changed the hero to become the sentience behind Sheogorath?
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Elder Scrolls lore: Not even once.
 
Lazurman said:
Elder Scrolls lore: Not even once.
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There is no Elder Scrolls Lore - that's the beauty of the series. It's all up to interpretation/ fan theory. Plus I'm preety sure most of that is based on prevailing fan theories / mantling, but with a different original interpretation. Though it's mostly based on the fact that the Altmer are trying to wipe away the memory of Tiber Septim as Talos - in this theory thus changing Talos into either another human or Shezarr. Also the fact that Skyrim Sheogorath claims to have been the hero of Kvatch, but doesn't act like him for the most part.
 
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Bended (part 3)
  • Threadmarks
    • 28th February
    15:17 GMT +5:30

    Dr Munro looks at me dubiously.

    "Have you asked Lex about this?"

    "Of course not. If I talk to Lex about it, they'll start to think that I'm actually trying to kill them."

    "Why would they think that?"

    Ah… Yes. The 'legitimate businessman' problem. Coming from Earth Prime, the fact that Lex Luthor is the bad guy is well known. Even amongst Earth 16 superheroes it's-. Well, amongst the better-connected ones, it's known in the same way that it's known that Racer X is Speed Racer's brother. Everyone watching knows, no one in-universe knows. But amongst people out of the loop, they genuinely believe that he's a legitimate businessman. Maybe a bit sleazy or corrupt, but that's due to the job and not due to his actual personal characteristics.

    How to break it to one of his project leads?

    "Because he's a supervillain."

    "I'm… I'm sorry?"

    "Yeah, he…" I bring up a construct showing the sub-levels of LexCorp I flew through during the Young Offenders' attack. "He's attempted to have Superman assassinated on multiple occasions, he was one of the people behind the Roanoke Island Event, he backs all sorts of-."

    "Wait wait wait." He shakes his head. "Wh-? You're the one who told him to hire me!"

    "I told him about the Danner Formula because I thought he could be rehabilitated if I proved that he could fulfil his objectives in other ways, because he's very good at disguising what he does and finding evidence hard enough to get him convicted was prohibitively difficult. It.. didn't work. I still don't fully understand why."

    "I-." He looks around at the laboratory complex. "We're making super guard dogs for him. Do you not think you should have told me about this sooner?"

    "I didn't -and still don't- have proof I'd feel comfortable relying on. A few winks and nods, a few remarkable coincidences. Because if I did have proof, he'd have been arrested by now. And the work you're doing is very useful to human civilisation and Ted Kord didn't have the same sort of resources."

    Though he's getting there now. I wonder if Lex regrets his decision after seeing how much KordTech's share price has gone up? I only know about that aspect because the commercial law firm which arranged my purchases wrote to me about it. And given his behaviour regarding that part of the business I could easily believe that Ted doesn't know at all.

    "So, yeah, that's why I don't want him knowing about this exercise. Are you in?"

    28th February
    19:33 GMT +9:00

    Colonel Park frowns faintly.

    "I do not understand what agreeing to help the Justice League will entail."

    "Well, that depends. We're assigning roles blindly, so there's a good chance that all that will happen is that the people working at the site-" I point to the file concerning one of North Rhelasia's research and development hubs. "-will just have to carry around cards with 'No Information' written on them for a day, and they'll probably never see a member of the League. There's a small chance that one of them will have a role in the exercise, probably something along the lines of 'conceal this information' or 'conceal this object'."

    "You do not want us to fight the Justice League."

    "Of course not."

    "Even as an exercise, using rubber bullets and dummy explosives."

    "The League is… The League wants to avoid implying that they're training to destroy national militaries. This exercise is designed to simulate their response to a well-networked supervillain. While there will be combat segments, I'll be handling those with my own resources well away from civic infrastructure."

    "And how long will this take?"

    "Assuming that the site is even involved, the League would be on site for… Maybe an hour? The people on site would have the possibility of a visit hanging over them for a week or so, but as I said: they don't need to actually do very much."

    "Why was this site in particular chosen?"

    "Because it's hard for the League to reach, and the laboratories there are sophisticated enough to credibly play a role in the plot. Part of what I'm doing is creating a thread of evidence that the League can track if they find it. There wouldn't be much point in implying that certain parts came from somewhere which they couldn't have come from."

    "What do you know about what happens at that site?"

    "Most of what I know is available from publically accessible sources. Of course, I also have access to the 'high risk locations' file your government provided the League."

    His eyes narrow. "That was supposed to only be shared with Justice League members."

    "Actually, the agreement which your government signed includes anyone deputised by the League, as the League didn't want to define a formal recruitment process at the time. If you feel that the North Rhelasian government was misled about that, I can only apologise. If you wish to make a formal complaint, you will have to address it to the League."

    He appears to decide to let it go.

    "Would you need to meet with the people working there?"

    "If they're selected for participation, a brief meeting would be helpful. I'm afraid that I won't be able to schedule it in advance, as I'm trying to avoid the potential for metagaming."

    "Can you select a time during which they will need to be available, and then simply not arrive if they are not required?"

    "Yyy.. es, that should work."

    "Will there be a public announcement after the exercise is complete?"

    Meaning a PR opportunity with members of the League.

    "While the fact that an exercise is happening isn't a secret, there isn't any plan to make public announcements about how it went. Obviously, that sort of information is exactly the sort of thing that a supervillain wanting to take a swing at the League could benefit from. If they end up being involved, I would like the opportunity to thank the participants in person."

    Which doesn't exactly thrill him. I'm not much of a PR coup, and some of his colleagues are still annoyed about the whole 'bringing traitors back from the dead' thing. I suppose I'm just lucky that the forest Euanthe made hasn't killed anyone yet.

    "Will facilities in the South also be participating?"

    "I have made such a request. The government gave me their tentative approval, subject to the directors of the facilities in question giving it theirs."

    A mild twitch, and I strongly suspect that I've got him. If I just asked the South, his government would moan about it. If I just asked the North, they could turn it down with no loss of face.

    "I suppose that it is more likely that the South would consort with supervillains." He nods. "You will have my decision within two days."

    "Thank you, Colonel. You've been most helpful."

    29th February
    20:53 GMT

    Evan McCullock cautiously raises his pint glass in my direction.

    "Aye, well, yer payin' fer it, pal. I'm yer man soon as the cheque clears. We'll no' be doin' anything illegal, aye?"

    "Not at all. Nothing could be further from my mind."
     
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    • Normally I would expect this to be a lead in to the a revel that the Justice league was keeping track of Paul to be just as meta as he was with the last exercise, but well Paul is unscryable, teleports everywhere and is capable of scanning himself for any bugs or trackers. Even if he doesn't find any I expect that he cleans himself regularly like a shower.
     
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