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

BlackCoat13 · 2026-10-07T06:50:53+0100

Mr Zoat said:
"Senator, you and that thing are under arrest."

Look, Paul, what a man and his... worm get up to in the bathroom is their business, especially since it appears to be consensual.

Chojin Patriarch · 2026-10-07T07:17:35+0100

Mr Zoat said:
12th October 2013
14:34 GMT -5

"…like you said, and we've got a good cross-party consensus on it."

I nod as Tony leads me through the offices of the Russell Senate Office Building, one of the buildings where the elected senators of the American Federal Government have their offices and do all the sort of non-public-facing work which has given their calling its reputation.

Senator Moretti handling the introductions to people who might be able to assist with OL's campaign, eh? At least it looks like the Eye Drive is getting approval across the aisles. After all, who'd work against a treatment like that?

"Trade away any good horses?"

"Not this time." He snorts. "Strangest experience of my career. I just pointed out what you were saying about us becoming irrelevant, and… We are giving them a chance to get behind an Alzheimer's cure."

'Horse-trading' being a term for the give-and-take of political dealings, if I remember rightly.

"Treatment."

"If you've got no symptoms, are you really ill?"

"You'll eventually get to the point where just backing up your memories isn't enough."

That's the thing, Alzheimer's isn't just memory loss. It's neural degradation. It's associated with memory loss because that's the most obvious symptom.

He glances my way for a moment. "You're an under-promise and over-deliver kinda guy, aren't you?"

"I try to provide accurate information."

Admittedly, going the extra mile isn't always a good idea, because you do it once and people start to expect it all the time...

"You ever thought about running for office yourself?"

I give him a sidelong look, left eyebrow raised. "I try to provide accurate information."

"Heh, good answer."

At least he doesn't mind politicians being made fun of. Certainly, he knows how bad some can be...

"Besides, to paraphrase the Lex Luthor from Universe Twelve: 'Do you know how much power I'd have to give up to become a Senator?'."

"Luthor said that?"

It is fitting that he use that Luthor.

"No, he said: 'Do you know how much power I'd have to give up to be President'."

"Their Luthor was running for President?"

"Not seriously, but he faked it to cover up what he was actually doing. But getting back to the-" We step around some staffers. "-point..?"

It was mostly a distraction, yes. But by and large it succeeded. Superman and the League were so busy looking for the catch Luthor did his thing without them noticing the real plays.

"Are there other cybernetics? Something that could back up the rest of the brain? Or... I don't know, replace it?"

"Replace the brain?"

I suppose if you somehow maintained continuity of consciousness...

"Yeah. What was that..? Movie, with Robin Williams? The one where he played that robot who wanted to be legally human."

"Bicentennial Man?"

The film, based on the Asimov novel (because of course it was Asimov.)

"Yeah, that's it. So he was a robot who had his whole body replaced with meat, right?"

"I don't remember the film, but in the book they couldn't replace his brain."

But he did get it modified to gradually break down like a real human's would. Effectively giving him the ability to die like a human being.

"Ah, who reads books these days? But, we've got robot citizens. If there was a robot like him in our America, he wouldn't be human, but he'd still be a person. So's a guy who replaces his arm with a robot arm. So what about a guy who replaces his brain?"

"Assuming it was replaced piece by piece and like for like, and the system allowed for all the things the human brain allows for, and care was taken to ensure that the soul remained attached, then they'd still be themselves."

Though I dread the effect such a process would have on the person.

"Can that actually happen?"

"There's not a lot of data, but in theory, yes. Shouldn't be that hard to avoid, but I wouldn't rush towards roboticisation just yet."

Like in Cyberpunk, where undergoing non-medical augmentations gradually reduces your character's Humanity Score and correspondingly their human Empathy. When they reach zero, they cease to be a playable character... Shadowrun has a similar balancing mechanic, where augmentations reduce a person's magical Essence, their very measurable Soul, until they become a Cyberzombie.

"Is there some supervillain who actually has that technology?"

"Doctor Carapax managed something like that. We're not really sure how, and the lack of sensory input drove him a bit peculiar. After the Life Broadcast, KordTech built him a human-like body using Doctor Morrow's technology."

Well, good to see he turned his life around, I guess. Hopefully using his talents for Science now...

"Morrow. That's the guy you copied when you made the Eye Drive."

I nod. "Brilliant man, but the closest he got to uploading himself was creating an android that thought like him and shared a copy of his memories. His colleague Doctor Ivo couldn't tell the two of them apart."

Best not to mention the Orange Light 'ghost'... That's a very different kind of 'immortality'

"Huh. I don't suppose you can just… Pull a mind out of a human body and stick it in a machine, can you?"

"You sort of can, but you run into the whole 'copy versus transfer' problem. The human mind is a complex series of chemical potentials and electrochemical patterns. When you say 'transfer', what exactly are you doing to the original? How do you 'transfer' chemicals?"

Which is why stuff like his clones are maintained in a 'Blank' state.

"If they're encoding a memory, can't you just transfer it to some other medium?"

"You can create a copy of it in another medium, certainly. And then I suppose that you could destroy the original, but at that point what's the difference between what you've done and creating a copy?"

He thinks for a moment, and then shrugs. "So how would you deal with it?"

Yeah, the old 'Transporter problem'. Ship of Theseus taken to the extreme.

"I can use my rings to stop my brain falling apart, my mind is mostly energy-based and I have backup bodies hidden around the place in case anything happens to this one. For someone else… High-end health magic can reduce the rate of decay to the point where something else will kill you before it becomes a problem."

And soul-based magic is an option for the extremely skilled or powerful. Just have to watch out if you play with duplication spells.

"Magic like that's not something we can roll out en masse."

"I know, I was trying to fix that as well, and then… Everything happened."

A reasonable frustration.

We reach the door to Senator Bradley Covington's office, and Tony knocks on his door. "Brad, it's Tony. You in?" He turns to me. "What exactly is 'high-end'?"

"High quality. If it was focused around a wearable artefact, if would be expensive to make at the moment, but there wouldn't be any ongoing costs."

The challenge would come in with the development, crafting and maintenance of said artifacts.

"Mm." He knocks again. "Brad, you taking a shit in there or something? Open the door already."

"Problem?"

He shrugs. "I dunno. I said I'd be along around half two."

Could be 'entertaining' someone and lost track of time.

I scan-. Baffles, which is actually a good thing, because government offices should really be warded. Infrared shows that he's in there on his own-.

Chemical analyser is detecting blood.

As in, blood in open air? That's probable cause to force entry, certainly.

I grab the handle, use a construct to undo the mechanical lock and deactivate the magnetic lock, and push the door open.

"Senator, are you-?"

If it is something as simple as 'polling the constituency's body', they can apologise later.

What?

Senator Bradley Covington is sitting on a chair with a tube in his arm, blood travelling out of him and into-.

I seriously doubt this is an approved medical procedure, and not the sort of thing you usually do in your office.

A worm. A fat and happy worm.

He sits up, irritation being overcome by apprehension as he sees me.

...Okay, this is all kinds of fucked up.

"Ah, look, this isn't-."

"Senator, you and that thing are under arrest."

It doesn't even need to be illegal, this is just that suspicious arresting them is probably a good start to sorting it out.

Somehow, I doubt this is going to turn out to be something innocuous like some sort of extra-marital affair. Unless this is how Uncle Sam is getting the blood he's been watering the Tree of Liberty with? Either way, doing it in this sort of setting seems unsafe. Senator Covington is going to have some explaining to do, methinks...

GhostKing 666 · 2026-10-07T07:18:21+0100

Mr Zoat said:
It sounds like the depiction in the RPG was very different to the depiction in the television series.

No, the Minbari's "stealth" as they misname it in the show was always depicted as an active system that could get turned on or off. aka a Jammer field.

View: https://youtu.be/T_CdkEIWrGo?t=1930

The only thing the RPG did was explain how the fuck the system worked, because the show kept it as just magic pixie dust that just worked with no explanation.

Look, if you want B5 fanfics that can be trusted to be actually accurate, then anything done by Lightning Count or had Lightning Count help it is basically guaranteed accurate.

Dur'id the Druid · 2026-10-07T08:46:23+0100

So I'll be the first to ask, does anyone have any idea what this worm is?

Ngamer11 · 2026-10-07T09:05:59+0100

Dur'id the Druid said:
So I'll be the first to ask, does anyone have any idea what this worm is?

It was mentioned earlier in this episode and featured in previous ones. They're representations of corrupt American politicians.

Dur'id the Druid · 2026-10-07T09:30:58+0100

Ngamer11 said:
It was mentioned earlier in this episode and featured in previous ones. They're representations of corrupt American politicians.

So this is a physical manifestation from the realm of dreams and ideas? Not ome sort of takeover from aliens?

Jankl · 2026-10-07T09:33:02+0100

Dur'id the Druid said:
So this is a physical manifestation from the realm of dreams and ideas? Not ome sort of takeover from aliens?

More specifically the Heartlands which I think is in the collective unconscious of the United States of America, not the dreaming. Tho I am not 100% sure if those are connected or not.

Ngamer11 · 2026-10-07T09:44:21+0100

Dur'id the Druid said:
So this is a physical manifestation from the realm of dreams and ideas? Not ome sort of takeover from aliens?

Jankl said:
More specifically the Heartlands which I think is in the collective unconscious of the United States of America, not the dreaming. Tho I am not 100% sure if those are connected or not.

More specifically, the Badlands, the evil counterpart of the Heartlands.

BartlettMagic · 2026-10-07T10:24:51+0100

Mr Zoat said:
He shrugs. "I dunno. I said I'd be along around half two."

an American wouldn't phrase it this way... and i'm embarrassed to admit that i don't know if you mean 1:30 or 2:30. but, for the sake of the correction, he would just say "I said I'd be here at one/two thirty"

CTrees · 2026-10-07T11:45:30+0100

Would be amusing if it was actually just, like, a magical dialysis method, because OL isn't involved in every single magitech development program.

Mr Zoat · 2026-10-07T12:10:00+0100

BartlettMagic said:
an American wouldn't phrase it this way... and i'm embarrassed to admit that i don't know if you mean 1:30 or 2:30. but, for the sake of the correction, he would just say "I said I'd be here at one/two thirty"

[Sniffs suspiciously]

Why does it suddenly smell of Hun in here?

Darko · 2026-10-07T12:43:50+0100

Chojin Patriarch said:
At least it looks like the Eye Drive is getting approval across the aisles. After all, who'd work against a treatment like that?

Politicians that receive money from pharmaceutical companies that create medication for the alzheimers.

Chojin Patriarch said:
Like in Cyberpunk, where undergoing non-medical augmentations gradually reduces your character's Humanity Score and correspondingly their human Empathy. When they reach zero, they cease to be a playable character... Shadowrun has a similar balancing mechanic, where augmentations reduce a person's magical Essence, their very measurable Soul, until they become a Cyberzombie.

Yeah, cybernetics getting rid of your soul may sound corny, but it may have some basis in fact.

Human behavior is basically the result of a billion little chemical explosions happening in our bodies due to things like hormones, glands, etc., so becoming too much of a machine can potentially get rid of those parts.

Chojin Patriarch said:
and not the sort of thing you usually do in your office.

It's probably not the most disgusting thing a politician has done in their office.

Chojin Patriarch said:
Somehow, I doubt this is going to turn out to be something innocuous like some sort of extra-marital affair. Unless this is how Uncle Sam is getting the blood he's been watering the Tree of Liberty with? Either way, doing it in this sort of setting seems unsafe. Senator Covington is going to have some explaining to do, methinks

My guess is that due to Dr. Mist placing a barrier on the Badlands, plus the Anti-Life and White Light events, has weakened the Badlands in such a way that they can't subtly influence people, so they're being a bit more direct.

As to what the politicians are getting, my guess is that these things promised them power.

Maybe they can see into the psyche of the American people and tell them what they have to do if they want to be elected.

CrazyNoVa · 2026-10-07T13:44:47+0100

Mr Zoat said:
"Ah, who reads books these days? But, we've got robot citizens. If there was a robot like him in our America, he wouldn't be human, but he'd still be a person. So's a guy who replaces his arm with a robot arm. So what about a guy who replaces his brain?"

"Assuming it was replaced piece by piece and like for like, and the system allowed for all the things the human brain allows for, and care was taken to ensure that the soul remained attached, then they'd still be themselves."

So, the "Ship of Theseus" paradox, then?

I guess that makes sense. There's only so much of yourself you can replace and change before you become a complerely different person altogether.

But the question is, what about Paul? Considering everything that's happened to him in this story, one could make the argument that the paradox applies to him too. In fact, it applies to both the Paragon and the Renegade, because they've both been deconstructed and reconstructed in mind, body and soul. At this point, how much humanity is there really left in them? Or rather, how much of Paul Tallowin is there really left in them?

Jankl · 2026-10-07T13:47:32+0100

Darko said:
Human behavior is basically the result of a billion little chemical explosions happening in our bodies due to things like hormones, glands, etc., so becoming too much of a machine can potentially get rid of those parts.

I always wondered how the brain does it. He is just a brain in a machine right. So how does he get all the right chemicals, nutrients and hormones in his brain if he no longer has a body? Does he just know how to perfectly balanced all of that and have his mechanical dome create it for him? I guess a super genius would be able to manage?

hkim · 2026-10-07T15:35:32+0100

Jankl said:
I always wondered how the brain does it. He is just a brain in a machine right. So how does he get all the right chemicals, nutrients and hormones in his brain if he no longer has a body? Does he just know how to perfectly balanced all of that and have his mechanical dome create it for him? I guess a super genius would be able to manage?

welcome to why it's not really a thing outside of fiction, really

Vaermina · 2026-10-07T18:14:02+0100

GhostKing 666 said:
No, the Minbari's "stealth" as they misname it in the show was always depicted as an active system that could get turned on or off. aka a Jammer field.

View: https://youtu.be/T_CdkEIWrGo?t=1930

The only thing the RPG did was explain how the fuck the system worked, because the show kept it as just magic pixie dust that just worked with no explanation.

Look, if you want B5 fanfics that can be trusted to be actually accurate, then anything done by Lightning Count or had Lightning Count help it is basically guaranteed accurate.

Yup, it's not even a throwaway line but one of the pillars the entire episode rests on.

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

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