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

Discussion in 'Creative Writing' started by Mr Zoat, Jan 27, 2019.

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  1. ThumperOne

    ThumperOne Getting some practice in, huh?

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    I think Kaldur is hampered by the fact that he's just not that great at any one thing, and if you're recruiting based on concentration of power (making a small League that is capable of fighting off alien invasions, as OL indicates the League is/was/should have been originally) then Kaldur is hurt by his lack of specialisation or inherent ability. He is significantly weaker physically than Kon or M'gann, has magic but has only been trained in war magic and so doesn't have the flexibility or skill of a more 'academic' caster like Zatanna, Queen Mera, Fate, etc. (as seen in his difficulty with detecting Sheeda in the last episode), and doesn't have any particularly notable skill at investigation, electronics, diplomacy/negotiation, or basically anything else. He's a good team leader but not a notable strategist or coordinator, good at fighting humans but can't throw down with Kryptonians or Martians; basically just a good street-level hero but not someone who can really help with fighting the sort of extreme threats the JL was originally formed to fight.

    Compared to Kon who is probably about half the combat capability of a Kryptonian (which is already pretty impressive) but can also unleash the power of solar flares at will to destroy entire fleets of enemy spaceships, or M'gann who is capable of massive telepathic power and range (especially with that Starro morph she now has) and is probably not far behind Kon as a physical threat., or Zatanna who has much more flexible and powerful magic and a suit of power armour that probably puts her not far off Kaldur's physical capabilities. Each of them are somewhat well-rounded to avoid crippling weaknesses (though Zatanna is worst off in that regard), but most importantly each of them can leverage their advantages to be useful against serious threats like massive alien invasions, either through overwhelming power or incredible flexibility. Kaldur kind of can't do more than provide very basic magic assistance and take out individual human-sized threats.
     
  2. Siskulous

    Siskulous Know what you're doing yet?

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    As I've pointed out before - apparently to no affect since the FAQ still mentions The Dresden Files - it is the Elder Scrolls mantling that is almost always what's meant when it comes up around here. Or at least I assume so since neither what Grayven has done nor what is described in the FAQ bears even a passing resemblance to the Dresdenverse mantles. I'm still puzzled how Zoat got a pretty good description of TES mantling and attributed it to Dresden, which has mantles that are something completely different. But regardless, Zoat has stated that it's not what's going on with Grayven.
     
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  3. Pinklestia

    Pinklestia Well worn.

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    Power wise Plastic Man is quite poweful, personality wise he is the wrong mindset. If he truly was motivated and worked hard he would be really scary.

    Plastic Man could take out Flash and Aquaman without extra preparation. Batman? Some dye and he could take him out at any time.

    Disguises? He can relly be anyone, the only problem is that he is limited in colors but again, dye or maybe even real clothes and you have the most powerful shapechanger on Earth.

    Plastic Man really is a case of wasted potential.
     
  4. Ardy

    Ardy I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    You’re describing M’gann without super strength flight telekinesis or telepathy. He’s not that good in comparison.
     
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  5. Siskulous

    Siskulous Know what you're doing yet?

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    Aquaman, probably. Flash though? If Flash were handled realistically then he would be beyond unstoppable. There is absolutely no way to counter someone who thinks and reacts on attosecond time scales and can move at several quintbillion times the speed of light (Ok, a couple times the speed of light since that one several quintbillion example was a one-off, the point still stands). It simply can not be done. Fortunately for the sake of good stories though writers never handle Flash realistically.
     
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  6. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    Given he was doing this in the US, adequate is defined by US drug/chemicle testing laws on the subject.

    So I actually do know that it was not adequate. :p
     
  7. Massgamer

    Massgamer Not too sore, are you?

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    Isn't Plastic Man a super shapeshifter? Why is he considered not useful?

    In comics he shows when not joking around he is super dangerous.
     
  8. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Yes, except that never happens. He was a League member for decades before anyone even knew that he could change colours.
     
  9. ThumperOne

    ThumperOne Getting some practice in, huh?

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    I mean, the Controlled Substances Act specifies what drugs are illegal and in what ways, and does that partly through making various precursors and manufacturing chemical's illegal (or controlled, rather). Given this is a magic drug produced by a magic dryad using magic, it seems unlikely that US law covers it. As far as I can tell there are no Federal laws that prohibit purely novel drugs, and while there are restrictions and/or State laws governing selling new drugs or using them on people without their consent or public intoxication regardless of cause, I don't think there's anything in the law that would prevent someone voluntarily using a drug that they made that isn't actually explicitly illegal. There might be criminal liability attached if the user did something illegal or incurred harm due to the drug, but neither of those are the case. And we can probably assume that Green Arrow isn't going to push for OL to be prosecuted for drugging him against his will, given this is a training exercise.

    Do you have some specific knowledge about drug legality that contradicts that? You seem pretty sure that this was illegal. Have I missed something?
     
  10. Siiracai The Supernal

    Siiracai The Supernal Shadows and Balance

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    Everyone seems to forget that OL had about a week to prepare for this event, and likely did research and planning for a long time ahead of that, in anticipation of a time when the League might actually listen to him. He certainly had adequate time to test the poison, and his assistants had a fair bit of time to get ready for this as well. Also, xenotechnological ring powered by avarice means that he could figure out pretty much everything beforehand, as well as run thousands of simulations on the most likely outcome.
     
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  11. Pinklestia

    Pinklestia Well worn.

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    That's the fault of DC buying the character rights and then not knowing what the hell to do with him save for comedy. In the original comics he was scary as hell as he usually used his shape changing to infiltrate criminal gangs and destroy them from the inside.

    He is actually almost inmortal, like Buu from Dragon Ball Z, if you do not destroy every piece of him he can regrow to perfect health, only way slower.

    Look the Flash actually doesn't move all the time at near the speed of light because that's bothersome for him.

    And Plastic Man actually did beat an evil Flash in the comics.
     
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  12. DrThoth

    DrThoth I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Your reasons for Kaldur being unsuitable apply just as well, if not more so, to Queen Mera. Of course, as stated before, her role as a superior mage makes her far more suited to the League no matter its organizational structure or goals. In fact, it makes me wonder about what the DCAU Justice League cartoon would have been like if Mera, instead of Hawkgirl, replaced Aquaman as a founding member.

    That wasn't Kaldur, that was Garth, I believe. But I agree with your points considering the framework of having a small League meant to deal with threats that outclass conventional military forces. It's something they're moving away from, both in this fic and in canon, so it will be interesting to see what possible implications this exercise will have for League organization and policy.

    What happened in this fight?
     
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  13. Aeess

    Aeess I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    According to Greg Weisman the reason why Mera 16 isn't part of the Justice League is simply that she doesn't want to be on the surface world.
     
  14. Ardy

    Ardy I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Sweet mother of fuck, @Zoat can he do that in Earth 16?
     
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  15. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    No. I mean, you could break him into tiny pieces without permanently killing him, but he wouldn't be getting back together without a lot of help.
     
  16. Cuchulin

    Cuchulin Versed in the lewd.

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    That's still pretty useful.
     
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  17. WaleXdraK

    WaleXdraK Not too sore, are you?

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    He was wearing a gas mask when he used his knockout gas, it’s isn’t mentioned when he removed it or even if he removed it before “dying” from the virus/poison.
     
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  18. Pinklestia

    Pinklestia Well worn.

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    Actually he would get back together, it would just take a lot of time since the smaller the parts, the less smart they are. But they still have the instinct to get back together.

    Danmit now I am imagining a grey goo like weapon based on Plastic man.
     
  19. Threadmarks: Bended (part 11)
    Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    2nd March
    15:08 GMT -5


    "-KordTech's exotic materials research."

    Barry nods, already turning north in the direction of Seattle.

    "I'll be there in two minutes."

    Because while he could be there sooner, Orange Lantern had reported using cold fields completely successfully against a parallel universe version of him and he didn't want to dash into a trap. The poison had come as just as much of a surprise to him as it had to Ollie, but he'd recognized it faster and accelerated his metabolism to flush it out before it could 'kill' him. Talk about a Fool's Mate. But fool him twice? He didn't think so.

    "Understood. I'm sending Rocket Red and Lantern Jordan."

    He runs past a car, the children in the back suspended in the action of battering each other with fluffy rabbit dolls.

    Orange Lantern had asked him about it one time, when he was just starting out. He'd wanted to know if he was fast from his perspective as well. And he saw where he was coming from right away. Logically, if his body was moving faster than everything else, from his point of view wouldn't he just be running normally through a world of statues? Or if it was just his body that moved faster, wouldn't he have big problems with steering and control?

    He hadn't really thought about it before he took his shot of Jay's formula. If Jay hadn't had any problems with it, why would he? And then they went running to test it out and he accidentally ran around the world when they tried to test his top speed. And it had been quick, but after a moment he could remember all of the things he saw, a million still images from every country he ran through, a million stationary objects he remembered dodging around.

    He got the best of both worlds, and when Orange Lantern brought up the alternatives he was damn glad about it.

    "Rocket Red?"

    In Klamath Falls, an inattentive driver suddenly found their phone out of their hand and on the back seat, while the wandering cat they hadn't noticed found itself safely in a nearby garden.

    "It's a secure facility, and Kord himself is on site. The only way we'll know what the attackers are looking for is by getting into their computers."

    Dmitri… Yeah. Barry honestly hadn't been all that happy with a serving US military officer joining the League. After getting Jay's Cold War horror stories -and especially after learning that the same man was in charge of the program- he's been extremely sceptical about having Rocket Red onboard.

    When he asked, Dmitri admitted that him being there was basically a PR stunt but that he wanted to do a good job anyway. He'd expected a denial, and that response had left him feeling a bit awkward about putting him on the spot like that.

    Of course, in a situation like this, he'd be the one out of the three of them whose powers didn't have a direct counter. Hell, he'd joked about green lasers to Hal after they first met. He didn't think they were actually a viable option. Good thing Orange Lantern hadn't spread it about -or told the villain team for the exercise- because the League's Lanterns had dealt with their first opponents pretty easily while he'd been stuck checking up on places that had already been raided.

    "You made any progress working out what the plot is?"

    "No. Even with you cataloguing everything that's been stolen, there are simply too many things they could be used for."

    "Do you think they need it all, or are they running a load of redundant thefts in case they don't get everything?"

    "I think it's more likely that they have several potential plans, and will select the best one based on what they manage to acquire."

    "Isn't that kind of 'metagamy'?"

    "It's good planning. I'd do the same. An intelligent villain wouldn't be overly concerned with how they achieved their objectives."

    "And do we know what that is?"

    "They were able to hire large numbers of street gangs at short notice. That means that they are well connected with the criminal underworld and have a sizable amount of capital to work with. But at the same time they can't make purchases themselves, otherwise they wouldn't need to commit theft. What makes me curious is how they intended to move what they've stolen. Where the thefts were successful the objects stolen would be extremely difficult to transport. Someone should have seen something."

    You can't pay off everyone.

    "So it's not a game thing. They aren't just vanishing when they get so far away from the place they were taken."

    "No. Not unless they're reaching somewhere we can't follow."

    "Teleporters?"

    "Not according to Lantern Gardner and Icon. Doctor Mist has checked for magic-based teleportation and found nothing."

    Alright, so-.

    "Mirror Master stole the entire contents of the First Bank of Central City's vault by hiding it in a mirror."

    "No mirrors were reported on-site."

    "It-."

    "But that would be easy to miss. I'll send Lantern Scott to check the area."

    "Not Stewart?"

    "Checking for poorly-defined classes of object is harder with green rings."

    Makes sense.

    "Nearly on-site. Location of Green Lantern and Rocket Red?"

    "Green Lantern is there now. Rocket Red will be with you in three minutes."

    Slower than Dmitri's actual top speed, but sonic booming through Seattle for an exercise wouldn't be the right thing to do. But in an actual emergency they'd radio a warning and do it anyway, so maybe he should ask Orange Lantern to take that into account?

    And then the roads and the fence and he stopped a block away behind a solid wall.

    "Flash." Hal floats down and nods in greeting. "Took you long enough."

    Ever since Hal cracked going faster than light in an atmosphere, he'd kept making that joke. And by the sounds of it he wasn't going to stop anytime soon. God help him if he ever learned to do it at a tactical scale.

    "You think Green Arrow being dead is supposed to make us charge in there?"

    "Now Flash; no metagaming. We're both professionals."

    Professionals in a dangerous business who'd been fortunate enough not to have a friend die before. Hal had seen other Lanterns die, but they'd been colleagues and not friends. Barry actually wasn't sure how he'd react to Ollie dying.

    "Can you scan the research center?"

    Hal shakes his head.

    "KordTech started warding all their buildings. I could do it with a construct, but that'll tip the people inside off that we're here."

    "So we could wait for Rocket Red, or-." Barry blinks. "You can make a telescope construct, right?"

    Hal looks mildly insulted.

    "Yeah, easy."

    "So far, even the more skilled thefts have just been hit and run. There are plenty of ways to counter an attack, but they've all been lightly equipped. If you flew up high enough, you could observe the site passively with a telescope. Count how many guys they've got inside."

    "Yeah, I thought about it. You don't think they'd spot that?"

    "No. I mean, sure, if you were right over the building they'd spot it, but a tiny green light miles up in the sky? I wouldn't think so."

    "Right. I'll do that. You going to scout the site?"

    "Yeah. But I'm going to be really careful. Someone like Orange Lantern isn't going to set up a wargame that never escalates."
     
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2019
  20. Zig

    Zig Not too sore, are you?

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    Russian?
     
  21. Razorfloss

    Razorfloss I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    The league have to be thanking gods that ol isn't a bad guy
     
  22. Handlewithcare

    Handlewithcare Versed in the lewd.

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    So nice to see competent Leagers...Legionairs?

    Too many fics hand the canon protagonists the idiot ball.
     
  23. Valint

    Valint I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    I think the point is that Barry wasn't even thrilled about a U.S. military officer (Captain Atom) joining the League, and a Russian one was a step even further.
     
  24. Flux Casey

    Flux Casey The Colonel

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    Either this needs to be Russian, or US needs to be italic. Depending on if he's specifically put out by a Russian or if he's comparing the situation with Atom like "That was bad enough, now Russians too".
     
  25. Ganurath

    Ganurath Apologizes For Nothing

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    Leagueie Weagueies.
     
  26. thebishop8

    thebishop8 Umm, ackchyually...

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    This sentence needs work.

    *wait instead of want.
     
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  27. Chojin Patriarch

    Chojin Patriarch Veteran Lurker

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    Taking it slow, of course. Not because of sonic booms, though... After all, Cold Guns are a thing.

    Smart. And the benefit of superpowers.

    A very good question indeed. And one much discussed across the internet.

    I can imagine. Think about the first example there: running normal speed through a world of statues. You'd be bored stiff after a few subjective minutes, minimum, and what would cross-country sprints be like? An ultra-marathon?

    Nice to see he handles the little things in passing...

    Captain (now Major) Adams is a decent guy, though. None of the leaguers knew Dmitri.

    It's probably good no villain has figured it out, either. All it would take is one laser sight...

    Caught me for a second as to who was speaking which line, but it could work either way anyhow.

    After all, Barry and Bruce are two of the League's best investigators. It makes sense they'd be lead on the background stuff.

    Especially one with the pull to make multiple raids at once. Have they considered the possibility of a Cult, like the Shadows or Kobra?

    And that thread leads them to...

    A pretty obvious conclusion...

    Bam! Give those two a bit of bonus XP for figuring that out.

    And following up on theories. This is why these two are damn good.

    Something the Greenies are no doubt vexed by...

    Not really worth the haste. And the boom might cause a panic, you know DC citizens...

    Love the interplay between old friends here.

    At the very least, he'd find himself acting more cautiously, more aware of his own fragility. After all, besides his superspeed, he's an ordinary human.

    Feel OL's pain!

    Do keep up, Hal...

    And if he can learn to keep his glow down, like OL has...

    Cue on-site supervillain goon.

    Loving the look at the League's perspective. It'll be interesting to see them take it more seriously as their teammates go down.
     
  28. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    ...

    US is in italic. It's literally in your quote.
     
  29. moralrelativity

    moralrelativity Recovering pendant.

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    purchases?
    the purchase?
     
  30. Flux Casey

    Flux Casey The Colonel

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    ...

    I have hilariously bad eyesight.
     
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