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

I have more to say about this. Isn't the subspace something that was broken into earlier by bona-fide DC earth mad scientists then got told how to lock it by said mad scientists? Uh...I could also see this not going the way the reach wants more.
The children Sivana broke into his subspace pocket because they wanted to take a look at his lantern, which at the time Paul didn't keep stored in it.
Later, Guy taught him how to lock his subspace pocket, resulting in the Thanagarians being able to lock out Paul from being able to access it but being unable to bypass the lock itself.

I would assume that Paul taught other Orange Lanterns how to lock their subspace pocket but if so, it was all offscreen.
 
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IRL Physics took one look at all the brightly colored spandex and ran the other way. While incorporating stuff from real science can enrich a story, I don't come to superhero comics for realistic physics. In fact 'superhero story with hyper realistic physics' tends to be something that makes me go the other way.
i have to disagree with you. i think the more IRL Physics a superhero story successfully incorporates into itself the more awesome and fun it is. because it means that, that superhero story is that much closer to reality.
 
Fleet Traction (part 9)
1st January 2013
20:52 GMT


No desires for you.

The inner orange lights of the scarab and host vanish, leaving the weaker corona of expectations marking its position.

I form a new construct shield but the drones down it at once and my construct ram isn't quite fast enough to destroy it while it's phased in. Fine then. I can still track them, they can't move as fast as my constructs can and they don't appear to have-.

We see the Scarab Warrior prepare to fire, and move-.

There's a sudden burst of heat along the armour of my right shoulder.

That wasn't a construct disruptor. That was… Ring?

Weapon was positron ray.

Partially deflected by my armour's force field and it still burned a line across my shoulder. Positron beams aren't light speed weapons, but at this range they're close enough for most purposes. This armour isn't rated against Scarab Warrior-level opponents.

A drone prepares to fire but I ignore it. I'm not doing badly for ring power, but I can't afford to just throw it-

The drone fires, hitting me in the chest-. And with an awkward gasp I realise that it just shut down my environmental shield and I'm having to breathe normally.

I-.

Ophidian?

Oh dear.

I don't know if they're going to fire but I'm going to evade anyway and-. Good choice! Re-establish contact and re-activate my environmental shield and there we go.

That was terrifying and dodge again and try and hit them with a laser construct which we drop a fraction of a second after it fires to stop the drones hitting it with their counter fire.

I don't think that the laser hit, but it wasn't that powerful a laser and to be honest the Scarab Warrior's self-repair system could easily handle it even if it did hit.

The scarab…

We reach out and restore our light to the host, and twist the desires of the parasite so that it actively wants to be inactive. We're not sure how much mental freedom scarabs have to disobey their hierarchy. Certainly, they haven't ever been slow to throw themselves at Maltus-aligned forces, but that might just be a combination of hate and arrogance programmed into them to ensure that they would always remain friendly to Reach interests.

Of course, if the host is Reach-loyal, that won't help. Or at least won't make me win. But A.I.s are a lot faster at well defined tasks than organics, so it might slow their shared reactions a little.

Dodge, dodge, miss with a hammer, miss with a laser, and the Scarab has stayed in its phased state for a little longer than it needs to. Waiting for an opportunity or grateful that it has agency again? Can't tell.

So okay, no subspace, and the sternguard have actually started accelerating in this direction. It looks like it'll take them a few minutes to reverse their momentum, but while a Scarab Warrior might be manageable without long lasting constructs an actual fleet isn't.

Can't access subspace, and blocking access is a lot easier than breaking in. The actual physics are well beyond me, so-. So I can't force my way through the block reliably. I mean, I can try to steal my own things because I did scan the device that the Sivanas used-.

Not reliable.

So.

Formation there, warp space and accelerate! Energy to matter transmutation would take too long. Use x-ionised blades to carve sheets off armour. Not big sheets, but-.

And a drone hit me with its ray and I'm alone in my own head again. It's only for seconds but the Ophidan's absence chills me to my soul.

Re-establish, and-. Well, that's tiny, but it'll do for now. X-ionise-

"What a fascinating-"

-and block, making sure to let go as the beam is intercepted and grasp it again once the drone falls back into its phased state.

"-technique."

"Thank-"

The Scarab Warrior is doing… Something, and it and the drones are moving to catch up with me. I use a ring scan to try and determine exactly what's different about this sort of phasing, but I don't get anything that means anything to me.

"-you."

Okay, construct scanner. Get me more detail. Work out what's happening there.

Compliance.

Block-block and calculate, and take back a small amount of my hate for normal physics and fly that way. Tricky to judge, but if I-.

Report available.

And I'm sure that Dox will find it fascinating, but is any of it actionable?

Yes.

Okay, that's good-. Or… Not. At least that explains how it blocked my access to subspace. A phased object -probably the scarab itself- is somehow keeping the rest in subspace. Or.. something like that. I think the ring is dumbing it down for me. So a phasic round could in theory hit the scarab, but those are fairly small targets and not exactly fragile. How the drones are managing… Slaved to the scarab? Fine, except I have no-.

Ring, keep-

Block and dodge, because the Scarab Warrior appears to have spotted that something is up and is shooting at us a lot more. We frantically alternate between interposing our small x-ionised plates and normal construct shields as we struggle to sniff out-.

For a moment the Scarab Warrior fully emerges into normal space. My laser hits it at once, but it forms a shield to prevent me hitting anywhere fragile and reconfigures… Something, before vanishing again with only trivial damage.

Looks like I can't just replicate Thaddeus and Georgia's trick and steal the body from subspace. Which is a shame, because a Scarab Warrior without a scarab probably can't self-terminate.

Alright, vector's good, scarab is as off its game as it gets. Let's try this again. I-.

Drones shoot at the same time as the scarab, anti-construct shots pass through the space where my construct shield would have gone if I hadn't opted to evade instead. Somewhere deep in Reach space their creator may be pleased that the function they designed into them worked as desired. We manoeuvre again and attempt to acquire the subspace band being used by the scarab to hide in, and-.

Drones firing constantly, the Scarab phases in and resets again. We calculate and use our body to shield our gravity manipulator construct as we bend space just-.

Ugh, hit again. But did it-

The Scarab Warrior phases out and-

-work-.

-reappears immediately, spinning out of control where the phasic round I fired earlier intersected with their scarab implant. The drones materialise at once and I-.

They melt, their self-destruct systems consuming any technology I could have recovered.

Now for the Ascendants.
 
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Very nice. That's one of the more convincing fights we've seen from Paul lately; one where he's won on the strength of his insight and the skill with his tools, rather than sheer brute force, outside context problemry, or simply by virtue of being more practical and ruthless than his opponents. Not that any of the former scenarios are bad storytelling or un-fun to read, because they're not; just that it feels like it's been a long time since Paul had to dig deep and out-Lantern his opponents.

Well done!
 
Very nice. That's one of the more convincing fights we've seen from Paul lately; one where he's won on the strength of his insight and the skill with his tools, rather than sheer brute force, outside context problemry, or simply by virtue of being more practical and ruthless than his opponents. Not that any of the former scenarios are bad storytelling or un-fun to read, because they're not; just that it feels like it's been a long time since Paul had to dig deep and out-Lantern his opponents.

Well done!
Um... LePaul lost this fight.

His win condition wasn't killing the Scarab. Or even saving the Ascendants. It was escaping without giving The Reach a detailed analysis of his abilities.
 
1st January 2013
20:52 GMT


No desires for you.

The inner orange lights of the scarab and host vanish, leaving the weaker corona of expectations marking its position.
Unfortunately, while they don't have desires, they still have rage, fear and will, if nothing else. And those can be a powerful driving force. It's a pity there's no easier way of tracking it. And hopefully, it's a little unsettled.

I form a new construct shield but the drones down it at once and my construct ram isn't quite fast enough to destroy it while it's phased in. Fine then. I can still track them, they can't move as fast as my constructs can and they don't appear to have-.

We see the Scarab Warrior prepare to fire, and move-.
Sure, if you could get your hands (or rather, constructs) on the drones, they'd be smoked easily enough. The trick is doing it while they're dodging and disrupting constructs...

There's a sudden burst of heat along the armour of my right shoulder.

That wasn't a construct disruptor. That was… Ring?
I doubt they'd equip the Scarab with only anti-Lantern weaponry, after all.

Weapon was positron ray.

Partially deflected by my armour's force field and it still burned a line across my shoulder. Positron beams aren't light speed weapons, but at this range they're close enough for most purposes. This armour isn't rated against Scarab Warrior-level opponents.
Though to be fair, few things are rated for Scarabs. There's a reason they're the pre-eminent power armour of the galaxy.

A drone prepares to fire but I ignore it. I'm not doing badly for ring power, but I can't afford to just throw it-

The drone fires, hitting me in the chest-. And with an awkward gasp I realise that it just shut down my environmental shield and I'm having to breath normally.
Oh, gee. How long has it been since you actually used your lungs, again? :p To be fair, the sudden shock would be a bit disorienting for a moment.

I-.

Ophidian?

Oh dear.
On the upside, once you do get back online with Best Snek, she's going to be pissed at the Reach.

I don't know if they're going to fire but I'm going to evade anyway and-. Good choice! Re-establish contact and re-activate my environmental shield and there we go.

That was terrifying and dodge again and try and hit them with a laser construct which we drop a fraction of a second after if fires to stop the drones hitting it with their counter fire.
Yeah, hit and run seems the order of the day for these things. Don't stand still, don't maintain a construct for long, and don't let them see you bleed.

I don't think that the laser hit, but it wasn't that powerful a laser and to be honest the Scarab Warrior's self-repair system could easily handle it even if it did hit.

The scarab…
Ah, bypassing the host and attacking the symbiont directly? Could work.

We reach out and restore out light to the host, and twist the desires of the parasite so that it actively wants to be inactive. We're not sure how much mental freedom scarabs have to disobey their hierarchy. Certainly, they haven't ever been slow to throw themselves at Maltus-aligned forces, but that might just be a combination of hate and arrogance programmed into them to ensure that they would always remain friendly to Reach interests.
Sadly, their indoctrination programming is probably too severe to allow that to work. But the conflicting desires might give you an opening at a critical moment.

Of course, if the host is Reach-loyal, that won't help. Or at least won't make me win. But A.I.'s are a lot faster at well defined tasks than organics, so it might slow their shared reactions a little.

Dodge, dodge, miss with a hammer, miss with a laser, and the Scarab has stayed in its phased state for a little longer than it needs to. Waiting for an opportunity or grateful that it has agency again? Can't tell.
And no doubt angry at you. Whether for messing with its' head, your continued resistance or your tenacious refusal to just die, I don't know.

So okay, no subspace, and the sternguard have actually started accelerating in this direction. It looks like it'll take them a few minutes to reverse their momentum, but while a Scarab Warrior might be manageable without long lasting constructs an actual fleet isn't.

Can't access subspace, and blocking access is a lot easier than breaking in. The actual physics are well beyond me, so-. So I can't force through block reliably. I mean, I can try to steal my own things because it did scan the device that the Sivanas used-.
Perhaps if you can work out how they're doing it, you can at least let NEMO techs work out a counter, once you get away...

Not reliable.

So.

Formation there, warp space and accelerate! Energy to matter transmutation would take too long. Use x-ionised blades to carve sheets off armour. Not big sheets, but-.
When you don't have any other materials, anything will do...

And a drone hit me with its ray and I'm alone in my own head again. It's only for seconds but the Ophidan's absence chills me to my soul.

Re-establish, and-. Well, that's tiny, but it'll do for now. X-ionise-
To some degree, without that connection, you don't even have a soul. Depending on how literal you consider his bearing the heart of the Ophidian to be...

"What a fascinating-"

-and block, making sure to let go as the beam is intercepted and grasp it again once the drone falls back into its phased state.

"-technique."
Heh, basically juggling his constructs while they try to destroy them. At least he's putting on a show.

"Thank-"

The Scarab Warrior is doing… Something, and it and the drones are moving to catch up with me. I use a ring scan to try and determine exactly what's different about this sort of phasing, but I don't get any thing that means anything to me.

"-you."
The joy of now knowing the ludicrously advanced physics involved.

Okay, construct scanner. Get me more detail. Work out what's happening there.

Compliance.

Block-block and calculate, and take back a small amount of my hate for normal physics and fly that way. Tricky to judge, but if I-.
Skill use under duress: -20 to all skill checks. They're not making it easy for you, OL.

Report available.

And I'm sure that Dox will find it fascinating, but is any of it actionable?

Yes.
So, it's identified some weaknesses, eh? Time to exploit them.

Okay, that's good-. Or… Not. At least that explains how it blocked my access to subspace. A phased object -probably the scarab itself- is somehow keeping the rest in subspace. Or.. something like that. I think the ring is dumbing it down for me. So a phasic round could in theory hit the scarab, but those are fairly small targets and not exactly fragile. How the drones are managing… Slaved to the scarab? Fine, except I have no-.
So, to some degree, the Scarab is hopping in and out of subspace, or something? Or merely emitting a disruptive aura at OL...

Ring, keep-

Block and dodge, because the Scarab Warrior appears to have spotted that something is up and is shooting at us a lot more. We frantically alternate between interposing our small x-ionised plates and normal construct shields as we struggle to sniff out-.
Ah, the good old 'pinpoint barrier' method. So much easier to have the AI handle it, rather than some bridge bunnies with trackballs.

For a moment the Scarab Warrior fully emerges into normal space. My laser hits it at once, but it forms a shield to prevent me hitting anywhere fragile and reconfigures… Something, before vanishing again with only trivial damage.

Looks like I can't just replicate Thaddeus and Georgia's trick and steal the body from subspace. Which is a shame, because a Scarab Warrior without a scarab probably can't self-terminate.
And probably isn't all that useful anyway. Heck, the shock of being separated might well be fatal.

Alright, vector's good, scarab is as off its game as it gets. Let's try this again. I-.

Drones shoot at the same time as the scarab, anti-construct shots pass through the space where my construct shield would have gone if I hadn't opted to evade instead. Somewhere deep in Reach space their creator may be pleased that the function they designed into them worked as desired. We manoeuvre again and attempt to acquire the subspace band being used by the scarab to hide in, and-.
Hah, it is diving in and out of subspace. Pity you don't know exactly how it's doing it, or you could disrupt it in mid-transit. See how it likes it...

Drones firing constantly, the Scarab phases in and resets again. We calculate and use our body to shield out gravity manipulator construct as we bend space just-.

Ugh, hit again. But did it-
Sometimes, you need to take a hit to deal a hit. As long as it doesn't end up with a mutual kill or a cross counter.

The Scarab Warrior phases out and-

-work-.
Fingers crossed, whatever you...

-reappears immediately, spinning out of control where the phasic round I fired earlier intersected with their scarab implant. The drones materialise at once and I-.

They melt, their self-destruct systems consuming any technology I could have recovered.

Now for the Ascendants.
...Did. Huh, clever. Basically laying mines in subspace... Sneaky, OL, sneaky.

Well, that was quite a workout. OL proving just why he's the Illustres once again, in a tougher fight than he's had in a while. Let's hope the Nemesis is fuming about their Scarab's failure. Hopefully, whatever was futzing with his subspace access died with the Scarab, though being able to study it would have been nice. Honestly, it's like the Reach know you'll loot anything they leave unattended... :p
 
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Um... LePaul lost this fight.

His win condition wasn't killing the Scarab. Or even saving the Ascendants. It was escaping without giving The Reach a detailed analysis of his abilities.

I disagree? I feel like for this fight, Paul's win condition was defending Karrakan, and that giving the Reach a glimpse of his abilities was part of the price he paid for it, but I can see where you're coming from at least.

And even if he showed some capabilities, he also figured out how to target his shots by attuning to the ephemeral desire of the commander who launched the drones he was shooting, and that's pretty neat.
 
The Reach didn't fully lose this fight, in that they got quite a bit of useful test data.
OL's smartest move would be to offer Thaddeus Sivana the resources to capture a scarab for study in exchange for sharing the data with NEMO.
 
I disagree? I feel like for this fight, Paul's win condition was defending Karrakan, and that giving the Reach a glimpse of his abilities was part of the price he paid for it, but I can see where you're coming from at least.

And even if he showed some capabilities, he also figured out how to target his shots by attuning to the ephemeral desire of the commander who launched the drones he was shooting, and that's pretty neat.
While I get what you're saying.

The problem with that is that he just fed The Reach tactics and technologies that will allow a Scarab warrior to utterly destroy any other Orange Lantern in a 1 on 1 fight.

And that's assuming The Reach stays static and doesn't adapt further.
 
This seems like an example of how dangerous fighting in space is for a baseline human. The lack of cover, the isolation from allies, the fact that "enemy loot" is generally useless mid-fight… Paul can use his power armor quite competently, but it has always been a backup weapon. It doesn't seem like it has been optimized by super-scientists.

Paul still hasn't stuck a power ring on one of his ribs to counter the threat of hand injuries. If we assume there's a limit to what sort of augmentations he'll accept, what could he do to go into his next fight better prepared? The first thing that comes to mind is a way to summon help. "Break this if you're in danger." He breaks it and summons a few demons or some other magical creature from the prepared object. Or drones like Renegade!Paul uses. Perhaps something he can set up while focusing on the terminian forcefield belt.
 
The problem with that is that he just fed The Reach tactics and technologies that will allow a Scarab warrior to utterly destroy any other Orange Lantern in a 1 on 1 fight.
What tactics and technology would that be? Everything the Reach tested here (anti-construct, anti-subspace, superior phasing, whatever disconnected the Ophidian) were weapons they already had and which they could have tested (but not stress-tested) against any other Lantern, probably while winning that fight. Except maybe whatever disrupted the Ophidian connection, but that doesn't matter against anyone other than Paul and Guy.
The desire-based space bending and tracking aren't things they can steal and I don't think they got anything like a good enough scan to reverse-engineer that cold-gun.
 
I also patch myself into the defence satellite control systems and feed them my targetting data.
'targeting'?
Did the Reach want to make sure that their own Lantern would be able to interface with it? Okay, so what where they..?
'were'
Having Alan or Kal-El tell me that they like the way I've altered my approach would make me feel far better. And it's not as if I have any sort good feelings for Grayven and Company.
'sort of'
It's not that they're not a threat to me, but it's more on the level of that Sodom and Gomorrah are to Kal-El. Yes, they could kill him, but once the initial transmutation didn't work it was pretty obvious which way the fight was going to go.
'on the level of the threat that Sodom'?
"Or is it you who's the AI? Is that how you came back from being totally disintegrated?"
You know, this seems like a good idea. If it's possible to produce an AI with enlightenment (which seems likely, though maybe it's not possible) then it would probably also be possible to mass-produce it to obtain an army of Paul-tier Lanterns (which might even be better than Paul, given that they'll be able to all share experience easily and maybe have some degree of super-intelligence).
That was terrifying and dodge again and try and hit them with a laser construct which we drop a fraction of a second after if fires to stop the drones hitting it with their counter fire.
'after it fires'
But A.I.'s are a lot faster at well defined tasks than organics, so it might slow their shared reactions a little.
'AIs', since the apostrophe is unnecessary and you have spelled it without the dots in recent chapters.
I mean, I can try to steal my own things because it did scan the device that the Sivanas used-.
'I did scan'?
I use a ring scan to try and determine exactly what's different about this sort of phasing, but I don't get any thing that means anything to me.
'anything'?
We calculate and use our body to shield out gravity manipulator construct as we bend space just-.
'our gravity'
 
An excellent fight. Am I right to assume Paul doesn't know some scarabs being taken off my force can kill the host, or does he know and not care?

I hope paul eventually yoinks a Scarab for his personal use.

It would be absolutely hilarious if Ted developed technology based on the scarab he has for Paul with it taking Dox to note it's based on Reach tech.
 
Partially deflected by my armour's force field and it still burned a line across my shoulder. Positron beams aren't light speed weapons, but at this range they're close enough for most purposes. This armour isn't rated against Scarab Warrior-level opponents.
Looks like it's finally time to hit up Hephaestaean for that ultra high-end power armor.
 
Now that I think about it, Heph made some cybernetics for a goddess of misery to better deal with it, so maybe he can use that to manage Anti-Life.
That reminds me…. she should totally teach classes on how to deal with Anti-Life. She's basically had centuries of practice.
 
Boy, are you in the wrong place then.
Not at all! One of the cornerstones of good fantasy writing is that the reader can believe that the universe obeys a certain set of underlying rules, even if they aren't necessarily obvious. And what I really appreciate about With This Ring is that Mr Zoat does that. The things we've observed that superpowers and advanced technology can do have rules and boundaries that we're able to understand, and they're presented as a set of features added on top of a baseline that's mostly consistent with Universe Prime's physics. There are some obvious differences, especially when it comes to the implications of relativity, but we can usually import our understanding of how the world works, which is a powerful tool in making a believable setting.

I'm having to breath normally.
breathe

So I can't force through block reliably.
through the block
 
Not at all! One of the cornerstones of good fantasy writing is that the reader can believe that the universe obeys a certain set of underlying rules, even if they aren't necessarily obvious. And what I really appreciate about With This Ring is that Mr Zoat does that. The things we've observed that superpowers and advanced technology can do have rules and boundaries that we're able to understand, and they're presented as a set of features added on top of a baseline that's mostly consistent with Universe Prime's physics. There are some obvious differences, especially when it comes to the implications of relativity, but we can usually import our understanding of how the world works, which is a powerful tool in making a believable setting.
And also when I don't know the real physics.
breathe
through the block
Thank you, corrected.
 
Boy, are you in the wrong place then.
no im very happy where i am right now. from my perspective, zoat tries to add realism and consistency to dc that i enjoy. i very much enjoy this story.

"What a fascinating-"

-and block, making sure to let go as the beam is intercepted and grasp it again once the drone falls back into its phased state.

"-technique."
that is foreboding. now whatever taskforce knows a little bit more about us.
 
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You had to bring real science into it.
To be fair, I wasn't the one who BROUGHT real science into it, I just joined in that train. And I think it's important to point out because it's nice to know exactly what we're violating and why it's a big deal. The cold gun is nonsense and it's amazing.
 

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