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

[Rockinalice]

I have a question why hasn't Paul ever grabed the dormant scarb on earth that ted kord has I just re read the whole thing and this has really been bugging me

 

[Ngamer11]

I have a question why hasn't Paul ever grabed the dormant scarb on earth that ted kord has I just re read the whole thing and this has really been bugging me

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Mr Zoat answered before that Paul is not aware that it even exists. And Ted never told Paul about it either.

 

[jonasquinn]

Mr Zoat answered before that Paul is not aware that it even exists. And Ted never told Paul about it either.

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That seems monumentally stupid on so many levels and ridiculously convenient for the sake of plot

Like, wow that is genuinely SoD breaking

 

[Mr Zoat]

This temple is going to become a holy site for the Lanternists, isn't it?

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It's not so much a 'temple' as a 'hill-shaped pile of rubble' at the moment.

'match the'

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Thank you, corrected.

when are we going to see Lord of Chaos Constantine?

that's one of the things i look forward to the most in this story at the moment

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Eventually. I haven't forgotten about that thread.

 

[Darko]

That seems monumentally stupid on so many levels and ridiculously convenient for the sake of plot

Like, wow that is genuinely SoD breaking

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Scarabs are capable of fighting Lanterns so them having ways to counteract ring scans makes sense.

And Paul may have also not told Ted all that much about the Reach since he didn't think it was that important.

Ted also probably didn't show Paul the scarab since Paul has been bringing him all sorts of tech and he could have forgotten about the scarab. Ted does come off as a bit scatterbrained.

Paul may also not remember much about Blue Beetle from the comics, and he'd certainly not remember anything from the show or tie in comics.

 

[rkyeun]

Sounds like Paragon is about to mindfuck himself even worse then he originally mindfucked himself...

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Nonono, you're Vaermina. You're supposed to be complaining how boring and predictable it is that everything will go right and have no lasting repercussions at all and thereby be a pointless waste of time by your least favorite author who you religiously come to visit every day and read their story like an addiction and make dumb comments about.

 

[Clell65619]

I'm not entirely sure, but I think that Paul's about to reach double enlightenment!

Double enlightenment all the way across the sky! Ah! Ahhhh! So intense!

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So... Two cakes this time.

 

[Rafin]

It's really not hard to understand what's happening. Paul's soul was dispersed by the Qwa explosion. Some relatively small part found the perfectly designed replica if his body and possessed it. Said part, with the support of the Orange Lantern Corps, incorporated more soul fragments and could translate known information from the database into actual memories using the memory fragments within the soul fragments and the perfectly replicated brain he got. Then he absorbed most of the orange light soul fragments still laying around at his place of death, along with some minimal amounts of ambient magic. And now he found another soul fragment that hid in the Honden and was large enough to mantain some kind of identity and voice. Now two sentient soul fragments, one of them embodied and the other attached to a large amount of Leentniar desires, have to (choose to) align themselves enough to fuse back into one.

 

[Ardy]

Dear Team & Batman,

War is going pretty good. Died again. Ophidi-Chan was pissed but got double enlightenment so nbd. Jade sends her love fond tolerance and please watch out for ships filled with qwa-matter.

xoxo
Paul

 

[Chaoswind]

So, a thorough casting down of the old faith, eh? And entirely warranted in her perception. I do hope she's not having similar reactions to Earth religions while serving as sector Lantern... That could be embarrassing. ...She was on duty on Earth, wasn't she, or did I imagine that?

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

We understand: A local berry-equivalent fermented for use as a sacrament. Or just for the priests personal enjoyment. They struck me as that sort.


I presume the Atlanteans have plenty of diagnostic spells both cast and readied. Hope the Lanterns are taking notes too. They may well be attempting this themselves someday.


If the Ophidian is in a mood that you're in danger, protective magic won't help you. She'll just eat that, and then you.


If you want her too, I suppose? Though she'd probably express confusion at first, until OL explains it to her.


Ah, the man can learn! Showing he's more than dumb muscle, I see.


That's an... Interesting way to look at things.


... Huh. That's an impressive amount of self-reflection for someone most would assume has all his brains in his sword-arm. Or his loins. Heck, He may well find his way into enlightenment by himself at this rate...


Well, think about it. You'll likely be dragging him away from something important. Like fixing some minor race that seemed like a joke in the original comics but turns out to be amazingly good at something no-one else would expect them to be...


Honestly, I'm sure Alan wouldn't care that much about it getting trashed. He'd probably just be happy that you;'re alive, if not quite hale and hearty yet. But.. if it wasn't in subspace... Is there a chance it got smushed into the Honden somehow?


And so do we, if only to avoid a long plotline of gradual recovery. In- and Out-of-universe motivations for the win.


...Okay, that's not how Best Snek talks. Something is hinky in the realm of Avarice, methinks...


Yes, that's the billion spacebuck question, isn't it?


Bet the thaumaturgists are getting soooo much data...


Well, it's that or look for Reach desires. But that would probably leave you feeling in need of a shower in some cases, I think.


Which will be much harder for an unenlightened Lantern to manage. Hmm... Maybe the loss of enlightenment isn't a setback, so much as a test...


Don't worry, OL. I'm sure you can climb the Difficulty Cliff (That's what happens when the Difficulty Curve grows too fast too quickly. For instance, in games like Dwarf Fortress.)


Or maybe, your Soul, the chunk of it that's Orange Light... Came home.


Because in fiction, Humans get to be super-diverse, but any non-human sophonts? Their entire race get labelled with a single theme. The Warrior race. The Smart race. The Evil race. I would not doubt that Mr Zoat would make it look that way only to flip that trope on its head here...


The instinct of Xenophobia. The Other, the Outside. One thing of many, so much to blame for the way humans are today....


And things just went full-on creepshow. See, when I said this was a test, up there... We know OL gained Avarice Enlightenment as a Human. But that very Human outlook on his avarice has shaped his character. He still thinks in a very human way, even at his most inhuman moments... And yet those inhuman moments show a potential for something beyond.

To truly master the Orange Light, what if he has to learn how to match other forms of desire, of wants and needs. Not just the Human kind but also the Leentniar kind, the Reach kind, the Tamaranean kind, the Maltusian kind... All the various perspectives of Avarice, the way the Ophidian sees the universe. In effect, he had Level 1 Enlightenment. Now he gets to try to reach for Level 2. And what happens when he does?

Oh, this is going to get really esoteric, isn't it? A conversation with (possibly) himself in the heart of Avarice. Hopefully he can reintegrate himself safely. The last thing we need is something like the end of 'Tron: Legacy'...

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It was established that the cult of the eyes was based on her home country/continent and that other nations in her planet disliked her nation even though they didn't have the resources to go to war over it and just limited themselves to take refugees that fled religious prosecution IE women that had enough help to flee the nation.

This was explained when her daughter was talking to Paul about it, and the first time we saw the tentacle serial hugger and her interact for the first time.

 

[Darko]

Dear Team & Batman,

War is going pretty good. Died again. Ophidi-Chan was pissed but got double enlightenment so nbd. Jade sends her love fond tolerance and please watch out for ships filled with qwa-matter.

xoxo
Paul

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P.S.

I made some more cake and I'll be sending over some of it.

Enjoy.

Love,

Pavlos.

 

[Someguy Somewhere]

It's really not hard to understand what's happening. Paul's soul was dispersed by the Qwa explosion. Some relatively small part found the perfectly designed replica if his body and possessed it. Said part, with the support of the Orange Lantern Corps, incorporated more soul fragments and could translate known information from the database into actual memories using the memory fragments within the soul fragments and the perfectly replicated brain he got. Then he absorbed most of the orange light soul fragments still laying around at his place of death, along with some minimal amounts of ambient magic. And now he found another soul fragment that hid in the Honden and was large enough to mantain some kind of identity and voice. Now two sentient soul fragments, one of them embodied and the other attached to a large amount of Leentniar desires, have to (choose to) align themselves enough to fuse back into one.

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Sounds a bit like what happened to Magnus the Red in 40k 30k.

Primarch of the Thousand Sons, and Top Level Psychic Wizard on top of that. Had to stretch himself to his limits to teleport his legion from their burning homeworld to a planet in the Eye of Terror. Fragmented his soul across time and space. The fragments ended up being discrete parts of his personality, and went about hunting each other down to Voltron themselves back into something close to the original. Didn't get all of them, but filled in the gaps with demonic powers and went full Demon Prince.

The above of course somewhat mirrors a theory that the Primarchs themselves are all fragmented parts of the Emperor's Personality when they were created.

 

[Sorrow]

I think Paul is about to meet his own personal Lantern, with himself inside. One who has been watching himself trying to re-achieve a enlightenment that he already had, but is going about it the wrong way. One does not reach enlightenment by traveling the same well worn path travelled before, because one is not the same as when one first travelled that path. So, Paul has changed, grown and lost parts of himself. To, in this case literally, find himself, he needs to NOT think like the old him did, but like the new him does. If that makes ANY sense.

 

[Agent Orange]

Once Paul finds himself they'll have to fight it out. There can be only one after all. We saw how this story goes with Clayface and his fork. There will be cake flying everywhere, mark my words.

 

[DeathlessProficiency]

It reminds me of Professor Black and his killing spree against the Light.

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The what? Is this from a story I should read?

 

[Gilhelmi]

Once Paul finds himself they'll have to fight it out. There can be only one after all. We saw how this story goes with Clayface and his fork. There will be cake flying everywhere, mark my words.

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I remember the Changelings from Star Trek: DS9. They were one, and they were many.

Maybe their Souls will flow together like two glasses of water poured into a pitcher.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORR, Now I just had a fun thought.
We get 2 Pauls from now on. Enlightened Paul will be action-packed fighting the Reach, while New Paul will go back to Earth and reconnect with his friends and work on the Uplift Project which I have been wishing to see more of.

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS! YAY!

Still, I will most likely enjoy the story no matter what happens next.

 

[Dur'id the Druid]

I remember the Changelings from Star Trek: DS9. They were one, and they were many.

Maybe their Souls will flow together like two glasses of water poured into a pitcher.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORR, Now I just had a fun thought.
We get 2 Pauls from now on. Enlightened Paul will be action-packed fighting the Reach, while New Paul will go back to Earth and reconnect with his friends and work on the Uplift Project which I have been wishing to see more of.

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS! YAY!

Still, I will most likely enjoy the story no matter what happens next.

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Heheh, it's not like we get to see several 'Pauls' already in this story. I remember some Hulk authors who wanted to make several different colored Hulks, then figure out what it means. Please don't do that.

 

[Maxx Crowley]

Heheh, it's not like we get to see several 'Pauls' already in this story. I remember some Hulk authors who wanted to make several different colored Hulks, then figure out what it means. Please don't do that.

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Red Hulk was one of those things that no one ever asked for, and never should have been.

 

[Cuchulin]

Red Hulk was one of those things that no one ever asked for, and never should have been.

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I'd agree with you but Red Hulk gave us Red She Hulk.

 

[Maxx Crowley]

I'd agree with you but Red Hulk gave us Red She Hulk.

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Yeah, and before that, Betty was Harpy.

Being a Gamma mutate is one thing. But being another Hulk, a creature born of Banner's unique psyche, only...you know....RED, is astoundingly lazy.

I could have also done without all the sudden She-Hulk/Red She-Hulk porn.

 

[Cuchulin]

Yeah, and before that, Betty was Harpy.

Being a Gamma mutate is one thing. But being another Hulk, a creature born of Banner's unique psyche, only...you know....RED, is astoundingly lazy.

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Rick Jones was once a Hulk and Bruce's cousin is She Hulk. Red Hulk was a Hulk partly because he was made to be one by a group a super genius villains and party because he has a hate boner or Hulk the size of Galactus.

 

[Maxx Crowley]

Rick Jones was once a Hulk

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Technically he fell into the "bath" that held the Real Hulk who has been split apart from Banner. Which lead to the return of an even further Mutated Leader, and the Return of the First Hulk, the Gray Hulk, AKA Joe Fixit.

So, much like Rick and Mar-vell, Rich technically just merged with the actual thing.

Red Hulk is a lazy palette swap. Plus, Ross was already Zzzax that one time.

AND we already had a "Dark reflection" of the Hulk in the Abomination. Though I'm not going to get into the whole Devil Hulk thing and all that.

 

[jonasquinn]

Scarabs are capable of fighting Lanterns so them having ways to counteract ring scans makes sense.

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That's not the bit I have a problem with

And Paul may have also not told Ted all that much about the Reach since he didn't think it was that important.

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Paul literally tells almost anyone that will listen about the Reach, all it would take is Paul loosely describing them as "An insectoid race that send machines that look like beetles called Scarabs to primitive worlds" which would immediately make Ted go "Hey, that sounds a lot like the weird alien technology my mentor gave me years ago"

Ted also probably didn't show Paul the scarab since Paul has been bringing him all sorts of tech and he could have forgotten about the scarab. Ted does come off as a bit scatterbrained.

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Considering all the projects they've done together one of the first things Ted would say to Paul is "I've got this extremely advanced piece of technology that my mentor used for years and I was suspicious of not to use myself can you take a look at it?"

Paul may also not remember much about Blue Beetle from the comics, and he'd certainly not remember anything from the show or tie in comics.

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Considering Paul's extensive knowledge of the DC Universe it would be extraordinarily convenient if he somehow had absolutely no idea about the existence of the arguably more famous iteration of the Blue Beetle, especially with him being the character with the largest connection to The Reach

Basically any explanation for why Paul doesn't know that Ted had a Scarab depends entirely on them both being idiots and acting out of character, the only feasible one that could work is Mr Zoat retconning it so that the Scarab either hasn't landed or hasn't been discovered yet and the previous Blue Beetle just used regular technology like Ted

 

[Ngamer11]

Considering Paul's extensive knowledge of the DC Universe it would be extraordinarily convenient if he somehow had absolutely no idea about the existence of the arguably more famous iteration of the Blue Beetle, especially with him being the character with the largest connection to The Reach

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Actually, Paul's knowledge isn't that extensive. He's only read the things he's interested in. Plus there're the things he forgot or never took the time to commit to memory.

 

[Stsword]

Basically any explanation for why Paul doesn't know that Ted had a Scarab depends entirely on them both being idiots and acting out of character, the only feasible one that could work is Mr Zoat retconning it so that the Scarab either hasn't landed or hasn't been discovered yet and the previous Blue Beetle just used regular technology like Ted

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Zoat was so much not a Blue Beetle fan that Paul thinks BB 3's name is Jamie.

And the connection to the Reach is very much a Jaime thing, the scarab was a magic artifact before that.

DC literally showed Nabu making the scarab in Rip Hunter's Time Masters out of Rip's temporal communicator.

And this is what Garett looked like in YJ

Spoiler

Does that look like a Reach Scarab Warrior to you?

The outfit isn't even close.

 

[Chojin Patriarch]

The what? Is this from a story I should read?

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From 'It's an Unliving' over on SB, an SI-Lantern with a Black Ring. I won't spoil anything for you, but it's a good read. One thing it takes advantage of on SB? The 'Glow' BBCode, which SV and QQ regrettably lack...

Belated edit: Oh, and it's not dead-dead, just.. napping while the author does real-life stuff...

 

[jonasquinn]

Actually, Paul's knowledge isn't that extensive. He's only read the things he's interested in. Plus there're the things he forgot or never took the time to commit to memory.

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Even if his knowledge isn't perfect it's still pretty damn extensive and covers far more fringe characters than Jaime, who is again arguably the most famous Blue Beetle

Zoat was so much not a Blue Beetle fan that Paul thinks BB 3's name is Jamie.

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But he still knows that he exists and of all the characters that Paul knows about to be so specifically ignorant of this one character so as to not even know the most important aspect of them that's relevant to him is extremely convenient

And the connection to the Reach is very much a Jaime thing, the scarab was a magic artifact before that.

DC literally showed Nabu making the scarab in Rip Hunter's Time Masters out of Rip's temporal communicator.

And this is what Garett looked like in YJ

Spoiler

Does that look like a Reach Scarab Warrior to you?

The outfit isn't even close.

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Even if Paul somehow has absolutely no idea that the Scarab has any connection to The Reach other than sharing a name, which if he had even the tiniest inkling of he would investigate, he's friends with Ted and the two of them have done extensive work on combining science and magic

Surely at some point Paul would have asked "Hey Ted, why don't you use your predecessors magic suit" or "Why don't we look at that and see if it has anything interesting we can learn from it?" To which Ted would respond "Oh yeah, I realised that it's actually a weird alien exosuit in the shape of a beetle" which would set off every alarm bell in Paul's head

And even if that didn't happen, which it would, it still doesn't explain why Ted, who knows about the Reach, never thought to mention the strange piece of alien technology his mentor used that almost perfectly matched the description of The Reach's preferred method of conquest down to its name

 

[Darko]

Paul literally tells almost anyone that will listen about the Reach, all it would take is Paul loosely describing them as "An insectoid race that send machines that look like beetles called Scarabs to primitive worlds" which would immediately make Ted go "Hey, that sounds a lot like the weird alien technology my mentor gave me years ago"

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Can you give a link to where Paul explained the Reach to Ted?

Because it's possible that he just didn't tell Ted about them, or he didn't elaborate much, or Ted wasn't listening all that much.

Considering all the projects they've done together one of the first things Ted would say to Paul is "I've got this extremely advanced piece of technology that my mentor used for years and I was suspicious of not to use myself can you take a look at it?"

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Ted is also scatterbrained and with Paul bringing him new pieces of tech and magic he may just forget to do that due to being excited.

Considering Paul's extensive knowledge of the DC Universe it would be extraordinarily convenient if he somehow had absolutely no idea about the existence of the arguably more famous iteration of the Blue Beetle, especially with him being the character with the largest connection to The Reach

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Paul doesn't know everything about the DC universe.

He may have just not found the Jaime character interesting and eventually forgot about him.

Basically any explanation for why Paul doesn't know that Ted had a Scarab depends entirely on them both being idiots and acting out of character, the only feasible one that could work is Mr Zoat retconning it so that the Scarab either hasn't landed or hasn't been discovered yet and the previous Blue Beetle just used regular technology like Ted

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The scarab is on this Earth, and no the only explanation is not them being idiots, but rather that they're both very busy and may not know how important certain pieces of info are.

From 'It's an Unliving' over on SB, an SI-Lantern with a Black Ring. I won't spoil anything for you, but it's a good read. One thing it takes advantage of on SB? The 'Glow' BBCode, which SV and QQ regrettably lack...

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Really hope this fic is not dead.

Even if his knowledge isn't perfect it's still pretty damn extensive and covers far more fringe characters than Jaime, who is again arguably the most famous Blue Beetle

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Looks like Jaime is just one he doesn't know about.

But he still knows that he exists and of all the characters that Paul knows about to be so specifically ignorant of this one character so as to not even know the most important aspect of them that's relevant to him is extremely convenient

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It was probably done for the sake of the plot so that we can get a storyline from it.

An SI that knows everything would just be a boring thing.

There actually was some thing in a previous episodes which pointed to Paul not knowing that much about Jaime.

When Raul traveled to another universe he mentioned a guy in blue armor, which is probably Jaime, but didn't seem to know anything else.

Surely at some point Paul would have asked "Hey Ted, why don't you use your predecessors magic suit" or "Why don't we look at that and see if it has anything interesting we can learn from it?" To which Ted would respond "Oh yeah, I realised that it's actually a weird alien exosuit in the shape of a beetle" which would set off every alarm bell in Paul's head

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Unless he doesn't know it's a magic suit or advanced alien tech and just thought it was human ingenuity.

He also wants Ted to work on making advanced tech rather than fighting crime.

And even if that didn't happen, which it would, it still doesn't explain why Ted, who knows about the Reach, never thought to mention the strange piece of alien technology his mentor used that almost perfectly matched the description of The Reach's preferred method of conquest down to its name

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Again, give a link where Paul explains the Reach to Ted and how they go about with their conquests and the scarabs.

 

[Vaermina]

Actually, Paul's knowledge isn't that extensive. He's only read the things he's interested in. Plus there're the things he forgot or never took the time to commit to memory.

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Also he gets a lot of fanon mixed up with canon, which only works out for him because the author decides to run with the fanon instead.

 

[Cuchulin]

Also he gets a lot of fanon mixed up with canon, which only works out for him because the author decides to run with the fanon instead.

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Wouldn't you if it was your SI fic?