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

[Old Knife]

I'm kind of interested how the reach would have dated against the time traveling race harvesters

 

[Mr Zoat]

Maybe 'things'

Click to shrink...

No, that's correct. Mkaing him leader is one thing.

I was moving house. Sorry. Here you go.

Click to shrink...

BACK TO WORK, SLAVE EDITOR!

glares
"flak", and possibly additional instances ("flack" is an unrelated word referring to publicity or publicity agents)
I can't figure out what "luck effectives" is supposed to mean. Best I can guess is that you meant "lucky" and "effectives" is jargon/slang for "ships that remain effective".
juluuni

Click to shrink...

Thank you, corrected.

While this is true, dodging would require superluminal detection capability -- which is to say, exotic active scans, because passive scans are also lightspeed (at best) and non-exotic active scans are half lightspeed at best. (Unless the turret telegraphs its shots enough that you know where to dodge before the shot actually fires, but by the rest of the descriptions that's not likely the case.)

Click to shrink...

Yes, power rings have instant detection.
No, you're not boring at all. You're slicing ships apart, not drilling holes through them.[/QUOTE]
Dohohoho!

either 'until a good' or 'having taken place'
'shield is gone'

Click to shrink...

Thank you, corrected.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Do you ever take holidays? Because, apart from four instances that I can remember, you've been posting every single day for years. Or are they pre typed, and posted even on your holiday?

Click to shrink...

I generally write two segments Saturday and Sunday, and one on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So, Tuesday and Thursday I guess.

Mr Zoat, exactly what and how many Construct-Lanterns do Paul and the Renegade have at their disposal? Cause unless Paul went to those other fleets and immediately assimilated their near brain dead crews, he shouldn't have that many. Related to this, how many other Orange Lanterns have Construct-Lanterns in either timeline? I only remember Komand'r having a single Citadelian Construct-Lantern.

Click to shrink...

I don't have a particular number in mind. I assume the SI has about five or six. The Renegade has Ra's and Savage.

 

[Ngamer11]

The Renegade has Ra's and Savage.

Click to shrink...

I remember him also assimilating Brain and Klarion. Also, is Nabu still a construct that teaches Zatara?

 

[Caerwen]

Soo... Anyone else remember that Dr. Morrow is among his constructs? Paul was letting him hang around with Red Tornado. I just pictured him getting panic dumped with the rest of the constructs in this fight.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Soo... Anyone else remember that Dr. Morrow is among his constructs? Paul was letting him hang around with Red Tornado. I just pictured him getting panic dumped with the rest of the constructs in this fight.

Click to shrink...

I certainly hadn't forgotten about him. No.

 

[RichardWhereat]

I certainly hadn't forgotten abou thim. No.

Click to shrink...

Do you have a spreadsheet somewhere where you've recorded everything he's got? Or is it all just memory?

 

[SaltyWaffles]

Zoat, every instance of "flack" should be flak.

 

[CTrees]

This feels rather like the first time I tried playing a Touhou game on Lunatic difficulty. Went right back to Normal for a while... I realize the fight genre is closer to Gradius, but that's series isn't nearly bullet-hell enough to be a good comparison.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Do you have a spreadsheet somewhere where you've recorded everything he's got? Or is it all just memory?

Click to shrink...

If I had a spreadsheet I wouldn't keep forgetting stuff.

Zoat, every instance of "flack" should be flak.

Click to shrink...

I think you missed the boat on that, but if you can point to one I haven't corrected yet I'll do that right away.

 

[moralrelativity]

Zoat, every instance of "flack" should be flak.

Click to shrink...

But who the flack cares?!? *jk*

 

[moralrelativity]

If I had a spreadsheet I wouldn't keep forgetting stuff.

Click to shrink...

Of you could do what I do... start using a spreadsheet and then forget to update it.

 

[ForeverShogo]

Kind of surprised he doesn't just teleport inside one of the ships and blast it from the inside out. Even if what the Reach did to these thralls means they don't have strong desires he can lock on to, he kind of solved that by forcing the desires of others on them.

 

[RichardWhereat]

Of you could do what I do... start using a spreadsheet and then forget to update it.

Click to shrink...

Or we could just update the wiki, and Zoat could use that.


I had a thought.. What if Paul's surname is 'candles' just because they give light, like a lantern? And it has nothing to do with Zoat's last name. It could all be a long con for a stupid pun.

I hope it is. I love stupid puns, and I love long cons even more. Just the thought of them makes me shiver, with antici-

 

[Steelplaza]

Of course it's possible that if the SI brings one of these anti-construct guns back to the Controllers/Dox/Sivana they'll poke at it for five minutes, go "eh" and upload a patch to orange power rings that fixes the issue.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Or we could just update the wiki, and Zoat could use that.


I had a thought.. What if Paul's surname is 'candles' just because they give light, like a lantern? And it has nothing to do with Zoat's last name. It could all be a long con for a stupid pun.

I hope it is. I love stupid puns, and I love long cons even more. Just the thought of them makes me shiver, with antici-

Click to shrink...

Sorry, my name has already been in this thread and it wasn't that clever.

Blame my ancestors.

 

[Coda]

Yes, power rings have instant detection.

Click to shrink...

Sure, I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm pointing out that it's an exotic active scan. Those Lantern-scan alarms are probably going bananas.

I think you missed the boat on that, but if you can point to one I haven't corrected yet I'll do that right away.

Click to shrink...

There are a whole bunch in the latest update. I didn't even bother quoting all of them. Here's one from the post just so you can have a link:

flack turrets

Click to shrink...

 

[Aelyx]

Sorry, my name has already been in this thread and it wasn't that clever.

Blame my ancestors.

Click to shrink...

I mean there are Tanners, Smiths, Boots, Millers, etc. There are worse names to be named.

 

[Mr Zoat]

25th August 2012
05:40 GMT

Okay, that's not necessarily too bad.

Through the rent in the shields I get a better scan of the interior of the ship, marking out the rupture emitters, shield generators and the location of the crew. A heartbeat later and the shield is back up, but I got what I need. And it's a little weaker now.

Dox wouldn't have sent me now if it was a last minute thing. If the other fleets are attacking that means that they're doing so early. Something that was causing them to remain where they were hasn't been dealt with as their Reach overlords would have preferred. I hope. If they were literally just hanging around to act as a distraction to me… Then as LIIVI said, I'm performing the useful action of tying up a significant quantity of enemy materiel.

This ship doesn't seem to have a dedicated self-destruct system. Probably because if it comes to it then its primary weapon system can tear it apart easily enough. Power generation is also decentralised. There isn't anywhere where I could score a knock-out blow with one hit. Other than by rupturing the entire hull, but… Yes, even then, individual sections might well maintain power and be able to operate their guns. We don't really have ships like this in L.E.G.I.O.N. because our member worlds wouldn't be able to build them, not because they're not good enough.

I

move

to the outermost ship and repeat my-

Dodge!

-trick with the construct crumblers. There's a slight hesitation in the tracking system and I exacerbate it by firing a couple of physical crumblers as well-. I've hit the shield envelope just fine, but the flak took out a few of my constructs rather than just ignoring them. Flak turrets destroyed-.

This time I spot the Scarab Warrior before they can attack, my lance of orange energy forcing them to break off their charge and evade. Another new one. Three Scarabs represents a significant expenditure of resources, Reach resources that they actually care about. Ordinarily they'd be a higher priority target than this fleet. But I suppose that we've proved that we can beat Scarabs; the jury's still out on this fleet.

The Scarab Warrior hangs back, their overdeveloped thruster array keeping them mobile enough to avoid anything short of a dedicated attack on my part. Their actual weapon appears to be a scaled-up version of the construct nullifier, so the counter would appear to be a physical barrier. Straightforward enough.

If I've worked out a way around their flak defences, the next step is piercing the hull. I know that Threllian recommended avoiding gravity weapons, but I want to see-.

Ship! I

leave

at once, a new target on the other side of the fleet finding itself the object of my assault. This time the flak targets and destroys almost all of the oncoming attack constructs, apparently prioritising time-to-target.

Okay, I can work with that.

Illustres?

I-.

And there the ships are again and I'm

moving

again. I think the crew are recovering. And if the other fleets are moving then the solution is obvious. I

follow the thread

into a command centre inhabited by aqua-skinned humanoids with minor cybernetic grafts, lashing out and pulling

and moving

to empty space, the ships matched to the known profiles of a scaly-skinned humanoid species accelerating away as I pull their desires and

then

pink blobs with numerous pseudopods appear for a moment before losing all motivation

as I return

to the fleet I was fighting moments before and pushing the desires at them. The closest ships vanish, reappearing a moment later much further away, presumably as the drive to move overwhelms them. That gives me a clear view of one of the Scarab Warriors who appears to be.. jerking around aimlessly. I

head

towards them, car crusher construct appearing around them and ramming closed.

Now the ships, and this time a little faster.

Illustres?

Comparing primary weapons fire now to primary weapons fire immediately before I left… Yes, slower and the prediction is less good. A bit of a surprise that they're doing manual targeting but I suppose that it could be like the Coluans: they don't really need computers to speed up their decision making.

"Here."

And that's the turrets on this side of the ship gone. Armour plates behind me and crumbler ram!

"Busy."

I keep pushing the ram forward, sundering the hull and smashing into the meat of the ship. There's a flare of purple as I hit one of the fracture generators, and a section of the ship's interior evaporates. Relatively weak internal armour, probably not worth knowing. Ring, find me biology.

Compliance.

…

Oh.

It seems that while the Reach might have considered the brains of Threllian's people to be top notch, they weren't anything like as impressed with their bodies. They're directly integrated into the ship. Their life support is directly connected so I can remove them and stow them… Or wreck the ship around them and come back for them lat-.

The ship before me comes apart as it's impaled by purple lances. They don't seem to have specifically aimed for the crew, but-.

Something hits me, my constructs collapsing and my armour shuddering at the impact. What was-?

A brain. The Scarab-. From the Warrior I just killed, it survived and attached itself to one of the spare brains. It visibly reconfigures as it loops around, generating some sort of energy field that.. my ring is struggling to analyse.

I respond with rapid pulses of destruction, and… They hit home, but are visibly drained of power as they do. Right then. It may have a shield but it doesn't have a gun, and there's enough ship hull around me to shield me from flak from the other ships. I generate a singularity projector construct and take a shot… Which bends away from the target and.. sort of stays there. Right, they're familiar with gravity-based weapons. And they're small and mobile but I'm pretty sure that a construct-generated laser would-.

And they're gone. Gravity teleport…

I'll keep my guard up, but there are still a lot of ships here.

"Okay, I've got a moment. I've got a method for destroying these ships but I don't think anyone else in the Corps could do it. Does Dox have new orders for-"

Dodge.

"-me?"

Not as yet.

"Then I've-."

A ship on the far side of the fleet vanishes. Then another. Then-.

Gravity stabiliser!

A ship shakes, then is reduced to drifting, its fracture cannons going dead. The other ships manoeuvre slightly, then-.

Fuck!

 

[Belenus]

Fuck!

Click to shrink...

Oh my. Is this the first time OL has dropped an F bomb?

 

[Darko]

of enemy materiel.

Click to shrink...

'material'

There's a slight hesitation it the tracking system

Click to shrink...

'in the'

I think the crew are recovering

Click to shrink...

'the crews' or 'crew is'

the Coluans; they don't really need computers to speed up their decision making.

Click to shrink...

Because they can do it themsleves.

I'm reminded of this Star Wars species called the Givin.

They're basically math geniuses and expert ship builders, but they don't install life support or navigational systems because their natural skills at math and their ability to survive in the vacuum make those things unnecessary.

Their life support if directly connected

Click to shrink...

'support is'

 

[Aelyx]

Oh my. Is this the first time OL has dropped an F bomb?

Click to shrink...

I think he did a few times during the Dr. Fate announcements.

 

[Someguy Somewhere]

First time in a bit a while....he's rarely said them out loud, but he's got a bit of a potty mouth when you start rending the universe apart around him.

 

[RichardWhereat]

Oh my stars and garters... this is a good page number.

Their life support if directly connected

Click to shrink...

Is

 

[moralrelativity]

tracking system and exacerbate it by

Click to shrink...

and -> and I

 

[Chojin Patriarch]

25th August 2012
05:40 GMT

Okay, that's not necessarily too bad.

Through the rent in the shields I get a better scan of the interior of the ship, marking out the rupture emitters, shield generators and the location of the crew. A heartbeat later and the shield is back up, but I got what I need. And it's a little weaker now.

Click to shrink...

Slowly making progress, eh? Man, Threllian should be proud that his people's fleet are giving the Illustres of his Corps so much trouble. Or annoyed that they're still so strong. At least the damage adds up.

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

Dox wouldn't have sent me now if it was a last minute thing. If the other fleets are attacking that means that they're doing so early. Something that was causing them to remain where they were hasn't been dealt with as their Reach overlords would have preferred. I hope. If they were literally just hanging around to act as a distraction to me… Then as LIIVI said, I'm performing the useful action of tying up a significant quantity of enemy materiel.

Click to shrink...

LIIVI, for those unaware, is an Imperial Assassin from the 40k fan-story 'Love Can Bloom.' Suffice to say, I'm still assuming they're moving to target him in response to his poking. Or the shock to their systems OL's been causing with his 'yank desires away' trick has set them off on prearranged targets early...

This ship doesn't seem to have a dedicated self-destruct system. Probably because if it comes to it then it's primary weapon system can tear it apart easily enough. Power generation is also decentralised. There isn't anywhere where I could score a knock-out blow with one hit. Other than by rupturing the entire hull, but… Yes, even then, individual sections might well maintain power and be able to operate their guns. We don't really have ships like this in L.E.G.I.O.N. because our member worlds wouldn't be able to build them, not because they're not good enough.

Click to shrink...

To be fair, a heavily compartmentalised system is probably safer in boarding actions, by allowing each part of the ship to ignore boarders as needed. Especially if each section has its own units to fight them. Never mind the deflection or prevention of electronic warfare attacks.

I

move

to the outermost ship and repeat my-

Dodge!

Click to shrink...

Yes, still big guns targetting a somewhat squishy human (under the shields and armour...) I suppose if he could continue this unmolested, he could wear them down very slowly.

-trick with the construct crumblers. There's a slight hesitation it the tracking system and exacerbate it by firing a couple of physical crumblers as well-. I've hit the shield envelope just fine, but the flak took out a few of my constructs rather than just ignoring them. Flak turrets destroyed-.

This time I spot the Scarab Warrior before they can attack, my lance of orange energy forcing them to break off their charge and evade. Another new one. Three Scarabs represents a significant expenditure of resources; Reach resources that they actually care about. Ordinarily they'd be a higher priority target than this fleet. But I suppose that we've proved that we can beat Scarabs; the jury's still out on this fleet.

Click to shrink...

I guess the juluuni fleet wasn't judged valuable enough to warrant scarabs. Or he simply killed them so quickly they couldn't activate.

The Scarab Warrior hangs back, their overdeveloped thruster array keeping them mobile enough to avoid anything short of a dedicated attack on my part. Their actual weapon appears to be a scaled-up version of the construct nullifier, so the counter would appear to be a physical barrier. Straight forward enough.

If I've worked out a way around their flak defences, the next step is piercing the hull. I know that Threllian recommended avoiding gravity weapons, but I want to see-.

Click to shrink...

Can't help trying it out for yourself, can you? I mean, for all you know, something about their systems could turn it against you.

Ship! I

leave

at once, a new target on the other side of the fleet finding itself the object of my assault. This time the flak targets and destroys almost all of the oncoming attack constructs, apparently prioritising time-to-target.

Click to shrink...

Sounds like they're trying close-range jumps to try and get him. I suppose if they squashed him between two ships, that might be enough to slow him down...

Okay, I can work with that.

Illustres?

Click to shrink...

Ah, Threllian again? What's he got now?

I-.

And there the ships are again and I'm

moving

again. I think the crew are recovering. And if the other fleets are moving then the solution is obvious. I

Click to shrink...

Time to get trippy again...

follow the thread

into a command centre inhabited by aqua-skinned humanoids with minor cybernetic grafts, lashing out and pulling

and moving

to empty space, the ships matched to the known profiles of a scaly-skinned humanoid species accelerating away as I pull their desires and

Click to shrink...

Two more of the remnant fleets, I see? Caught in mid-transit, by the looks of it.

then

pink blobs with numerous pseudopods appear for a moment before losing all motivation

Click to shrink...

And reading that description immediately makes me think of Hanar... Or Flumphs.

as I return

to the fleet I was fighting moments before and pushing the desires at them. The closest ships vanish, reappearing a moment later much further away, presumably as the drive to move overwhelms them. That gives me a clear view of one of the Scarab Warriors who appears to be.. jerking around aimlessly. I

Click to shrink...

Looks like a lucky hit. Better capitalise on that, then.

head

towards them, car crusher construct appears around them and ramming closed.

Click to shrink...

Heh. Going for simple, eh? I bet Guy will have some ribbing for you if you ever show him this...

Now the ships, and this time a little faster.

Illustres?

Comparing primary weapons fire now to primary weapons fire immediately before I left… Yes, slower and the prediction is less good. A bit of a surprise that they're doing manual targeting but I suppose that it could be like the Coluans; they don't really need computers to speed up their decision making.

Click to shrink...

If I remember the briefing right, Threllian's people were prized by the Reach for the brains. And only the brains, because they were impressive organic supercomputers...

"Here."

And that's the turrets on this side of the ship gone. Armour plates behind me and crumbler ram!

Click to shrink...

At least it's getting easier to cut through the defences.

"Busy."

I keep pushing the ram forward, sundering the hull and smashing into the meat of the ship. There's a flare of purple as I hit one of the fracture generators, and a section of the ship's interior evaporates. Relatively weak internal armour, probably not worth knowing. Ring, find me biology.

Click to shrink...

Weak internals because I doubt anyone could get this close without being destroyed. Makes sense, really.

Compliance.

…

Oh.

Click to shrink...

Ah, not good news for the mission?

It seems that while the Reach might have considered the brains of Threllian's people to be top notch, they weren't anything like as impressed with their bodies. They're directly integrated into the ship. Their life support if directly connected so I can remove them and stow them… Or wreck the ship around them and come back for them lat-.

The ship before me comes apart as it's impaled by purple lances. They don't seem to have specifically aimed for the crew, but-.

Click to shrink...

And this is why he couldn't just linger inside a ship. Precise targetting plus guns that can ignore solid objects plus confined space equals killbox.

Something hits me, my constructs collapsing and my armour shuddering at the impact. What was-?

A brain. The Scarab-. From the Warrior I just killed, it survived and attached itself to one of the spare brains. It visibly reconfigures as it loops around, generating some sort of energy field that.. my ring is struggling to analyse.

Click to shrink...

Doesn't do too well when it doesn't have the mass of an anthropoid body, does it? It must have been desperate to fight him.

I respond with rapid pulses of destruction, and… They hit home, but are visibly drained of power as they do. Right then. It may have a shield but it doesn't have a gun, and there's enough ship hull around me to shield me from flak from the other ships. I generate a singularly projector construct and take a shot… Which bends away from the target and.. sort of stays there. Right, they're familiar with gravity-based weapons. And they're small and mobile but I'm pretty sure that a construct-generated laser would-.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, they're not going to stand still for you...

And they're gone. Gravity teleport…

I'll keep my guard up, but there are still a lot of ships here.

Click to shrink...

And the fight goes on. A pity he won't be able to get as much biological data as he'd like...

"Okay, I've got a moment. I've got a method for destroying these ships but I don't think anyone else in the Corps could do it. Does Dox have new orders for-"

Dodge.

"-me?"

Click to shrink...

It's only been a few minutes. Not even Dox is that fast, OL.

Not as yet.

"Then I've-."

A ship on the far side of the fleet vanishes. Then another. Then-.

Click to shrink...

Oh, that's not good. Either they're running, or they're clearing the line of fire...

Gravity stabiliser!

A ship shakes, then is reduced to drifting, its fracture cannons going dead. The other ships manoeuvre slightly, then-.

Fuck!

Click to shrink...

Okay, not quite an explosion, but fairly on mark for a typical Paragon cliffhanger.

What's the bet another of the fleets has shown up, and they brought some big guns with them? That or the fleet he's fighting is targetting their own vessel to deny him loot. Which is cold as is, but also what I'd expect from people as smart as Threllian's. If any data from the Juluuni fleet got through to the Reach, they'll almost certainly know he's going for captures as well as kills...

 

[moralrelativity]

Or we could just update the wiki, and Zoat could use that.

Click to shrink...

Wait.... There's a wiki?!?

 

[Mr Zoat]

'material'

Click to shrink...

No.

'in the'

Click to shrink...

Thank you, corrected.

'the crews' or 'crew is'

Click to shrink...

No, that's correct.

'support is'

Click to shrink...

Thank you, corrected.

and -> and I

Click to shrink...

Thank you, corrected.

 

[Mr Zoat]

There are a whole bunch in the latest update. I didn't even bother quoting all of them. Here's one from the post just so you can have a link:

Click to shrink...

The one post I didn't correct was that day's post. Thnak you, corrected.

 

[RichardWhereat]

Wait.... There's a wiki?!?

Click to shrink...

And an FAQ. It discusses how Zoat is using Mantling.