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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. Prince Charon

    Prince Charon Just zis guy, you know?

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    Probably. There are historical examples, but I think that it would be hard to keep it to just the historical examples if the discussion continued in this direction.
     
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  2. Ganurath

    Ganurath Apologizes For Nothing

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    So!

    Bets on how Paul's multiple solid lines of blue text about reforming villains in Earth -14 will lead to entirely too much disappointment?
     
  3. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    Young Justice schizo tech is generally common place on JLAU Earth.

    JLAU schizo tech is stuff like AMAZO... You know... The thing that defeated all the Green Lanterns.
     
  4. Ngamer11

    Ngamer11 Experienced.

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    That's a sucker's bet. It was doomed to failure before it even began. All we can hope for is for Paul to pick up all the pieces before he heads home and never returns to the hellhole that is Earth -14.
     
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  5. Stsword

    Stsword Versed in the lewd.

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    Huh, I wonder if he will run into the angel Etrigan.

    What Etrigan would look like as an angel appeared once in DC, in one of the Phantom Stranger's origins-[​IMG]

    Yes, that's him with the orange skin and the 80s rock band hair.
     
  6. Threadmarks: Doppelgängered (part 11)
    Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    4th February
    20:17 GMT -5


    Mister Scott nods as I enter the observation room. "You got some good ideas there. Using someplace no one wants as a fallback point. And we were already shutting down mosta Owlman's boondoggles anyway."

    I nod back, then turn to his bodyguard. "Olympia, you're the blood knight of the group. How would you feel about heading to Africa or South America to kill people for money?"

    "It would be a welcome change of pace from hiding as we are now."

    Zatanna regards her with distaste. "I thought that your.. Syndicate was trying to avoid direct confrontation. Were you on Doctor Chaos' team?"

    "No. It was clear to me that Doctor Chaos was merely using us for his own ends, rather than trying to rule the world as the head of the Syndicate. And I will not be used by a shade."

    "Do you think your fellow blood knights would go for it? Or would they just take it as a sign of Management weakness?"

    She stares at me haughtily. "Why do you call me a 'blood knight'?"

    "The term refers to someone who fights for the joy of it. In context, I'm talking about the members of the Syndicate who can't do 'subtle' or 'white collar crime'. The ones who need to fight-"

    And I suddenly understand Owlman. At this point, Bruce Wayne could do the world far more good as CEO of Wayne Enterprises than as Batman, but he can't stop going out and crusade-caping. Owlman could have been richer and more powerful by doing almost anything other than building an apocalypse bomb, but… Once he knew how to build it, he had to build it. Had to use it. Not because it was a good idea, that wasn’t the point…

    "-and will act out if they can't."

    "I am not a petulant girl who cannot control her battle-rage."

    "So are you giving up on forcing Wonder Woman to eat her own intestines? Because a purely rational person would settle for killing her efficiently."

    "She rendered me insensate with my own spear!"

    Mister Scott chuckles, quietly and menacingly. "Think you're making his point for him, doll."

    Olympia snarls quietly to herself, turning her face away from both of us.

    "What's the arrangement for moving Dame Carol out of here?"

    "Gas, magic bindings, then moving a variable endpoint door somewhere we won't want to go again and throwing her out. Olympia, why don't you go get her ready to move?"

    Olympia turns and marches from the observation room.

    "And Zatanna? We'll need you to move the door."

    Zatanna nods slowly. "Because this is Shadowcrest, isn't it? I haven't really…" She places her right hand on the wall, closing her eyes as she… What, connects to the house's magic? "Since it's just me and Dad, we haven't really experimented with everything it can do. But if my.. family has so many magicians here…"

    Mister Scott shrugs. "I'm sure they won't mind throwing in a spell book or two as a thank you present if you pull this off."

    Zatanna doesn't look particularly pleased at the idea.

    "What are we supposed to call you while we're in company?"

    "Depends on how you wanna play it, son. You can call me 'Al' if you want us to be friends. Capo Scott if you want to make a business case for why we should try making peace with President Wilson. Or Power Ring if you want to appeal to the masses as supervillains and give them a target to crush. I'll respond in kind." He waves his right hand nonchalantly. "It's all about getting them into the right head space." He looks thoughtful for a moment. "Hey, ah… I've been wondering… Whatever happened to your me?"

    "I got him a new lantern. He rejuvenated and joined the Justice League."

    "Hah! Ah, you shouldn't ah said that. Now I kinda wanna go fight him. See which of us aged least gracefully."

    "See, this is exactly what I don't get about supervillains like you. What's the point?"

    "Point? The point is to be, son. It's not complicated at all."

    I shake my head. "The nearest thing I've got to a rival on Earth Sixteen is a man named Nylor Truggs. He steals pieces of schizo tech and then develops them for wider use. I think he's planning on using what he's collected to fight against an oncoming alien invasion."

    "Sounds like a superhero to me."

    "He murders the people who own any technology they're not using to his satisfaction."

    "Sounds like a really focused superhero. We had this guy called Brother Love who used to mind control people who.. weren't getting along. Course, that was back in the sixties…"

    "He murders them as a point of principle; they don't use what they've got so they don't deserve to live."

    Mister Scott nods, smirking. "Now that sounds more like a supervillain."

    "But how does it make sense?! Why do you people.. do these things? There must be.. some.. reason I'm not seeing."

    "Well, sure. Sure there is, son. Of all the books I've read, all the plays and films I've watched, no one put it quite like George Orwell. 'Always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless.'"

    "Nineteen eighty four. I never grokked it. The social control stuff… Sure, totalitarian governments use their control to reinforce their control. That makes sense. But real world dictators have a high quality of life. The Inner Party make their own lives objectively worse every time they do anything. And as far as I could tell, their own anti-technology policies would eventually remove their ability to maintain their control. I mean, I'm not Kantian, but that's… Just… Dumb."

    "You.. sweet, innocent boy." He shakes his head fondly. "I don't know if I can explain it to you. How did your Alan Scott get started? Let me guess, he was… Driving a train someplace, someone held him up and he.. tripped over his ring?"

    "His employer tried to blow up the train he was working on for the insurance money."

    He nods. "I used to work the railroads too. 'Till I realised how much money I could make holding 'em up instead. Built up a decent stake but the law was on my tail. Cornered me and my guys in an old railroad shed we were using for a bunkhouse. I grabbed an old train lantern to brain a guy with…" He shrugs. "And as I killed 'em one by one, I started to feel their fear, making me stronger."

    "Conditioning. The ring conditioned you. You made them afraid, it makes you feel good-."

    He shakes his head, visibly frustrated by my comment. "No, no, come on. Do me the courtesy of letting me have my own motivations. My ring lets me feel fear, it doesn't make me feel anything about it one way or the other."

    Or so I'm sure you'd like to think.

    "After I killed 'em all, I took all my money, went to Gotham and invested, bought a.. radio company. I was rich and powerful, and when you're rich and powerful most rules are things for the little people. And it wasn't enough. I kept a secret identity for years, not because I made money out of it, but because I wanted to doWhatever I wanted. I wanted a sort of power you don't.. get from money or connections. I wanted people to look up at the sky and pray that my yellow light didn't fall on them. The money was just a way of reminding people how powerless they were. Hell, half the time I just burned the stuff. Easier than working out how to fence it. Your.. Alan, did he ever run with a posse?"

    I nod. "The Justice Society."

    "I founded the Crime Lodge. A club for people like me to meet up and brag about things. To hang around the only other people like us, who.. lived like we did. And maybe push each other a little further. People came and went, but a few of us… We made that place, made it untouchable. Made ourselves untouchable."

    "My Alan gave it up because of a senate investigation. Why did you quit?"

    "Same reason I told Ultraman his whole Syndicate thing was doomed from the get-go." He sighs. "We got too big."
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2019
  7. Queshire

    Queshire Not too sore, are you?

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    Heheh, it's like some twisted version of a grandfather talking about the good ol' days.
     
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  8. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    You don't understand Owlman in the slightest...

    He built and planned to use the bomb because he was driven insane by a brief glimpse of infinity.
     
  9. moralrelativity

    moralrelativity Recovering pendant.

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    Not just "like", actually "is". Well, I'm not sure if Power Ring has got grandkids but at least he's old enough to.
     
  10. Chojin Patriarch

    Chojin Patriarch Veteran Lurker

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    So, basically you lose nothing in this deal. The best kind.

    I can understand that.

    She stares at me haughtily. "Why do you call me a 'blood knight'?"

    Like the Scorpion, stinging the Frog in the middle of the river.

    The question is what kind of magic will they contain. Presumably not the fun kind.

    Ah, Curiosity about what could have been.

    Scorpion and Frog again...

    "Man, that was a weird time. Musta been all the drugs."

    I suspect the message of the book in this universe was a little different...

    Remember, this is still the man who could channel Will enough to use a broken Ring.

    Heh, wondering if the ring has hidden control cues from Volthoom or Krona?

    And that is how you write a well-motivated villian. He's not in it for money, or mundane Power, not out to conquer the world. He just wants to have fun with what he can do. So what if that means people get hurt, they're no-one he cares about.

    Man, this is a great alternate Alan. Better than some (looking at you, nu52.)
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2019
  11. Buggy123

    Buggy123 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    See, this? This is why I am convinced that the #1 most urgent thing humanity needs is a firmware update.
     
  12. FreeGod

    FreeGod If you see a God on the road fuck it!

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    Good luck finding volunteers for it.
     
  13. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Thank you, corrected.
     
  14. Prince Charon

    Prince Charon Just zis guy, you know?

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    There will be some, certainly.
     
  15. Lord Ernest

    Lord Ernest At the End...

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    Ah, Alan is officially Best Grandfather in both universes. Can you imagine having this guy as grandpa? Obviously you would grow up to be a Supervillain, but I don't know how you could avoid fearing and respecting the heck out of that guy.
     
  16. RichardWhereat

    RichardWhereat Aia airëa Fëanáro.

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  17. Scholar of Time

    Scholar of Time Master of Lurking

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    Mm. Methinks you have become super invested. Remember, Orange Lantern Illustres is not always correct in his own summations. That's what makes him compelling :)
     
  18. Bigking321

    Bigking321 Not too sore, are you?

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    This is strangely pleasant so far. Nice friendly philosophical discussion and planning with someone with a radically diffrent worldview.

    Love it.
     
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  19. Mquz

    Mquz Versed in the lewd.

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    Could be both. I’m sure his loss of sanity didn’t help his decision making.
     
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  20. Mquz

    Mquz Versed in the lewd.

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    Sounds a lot like the joker, except done well. Probably the best way I’ve seen his motivation described is he wants to see what he can get away with. It doesn’t matter if he wins or loses so long as he’s having his fun and making others have one hell of a bad day.
     
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  21. Oglymogly

    Oglymogly I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Ah, this update reminded me that this is the same Alan who cut off Baul's thumbs the first time they met. He could have not agonized him like that, but I bet he still smiles every time Baul rubs his hands.
     
  22. Buggy123

    Buggy123 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    You wouldn't need as much luck as you think, especially if you know where to look. Heck, Richard threw his hat in the ring within all of 5 minutes.
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2019
  23. Cuchulin

    Cuchulin Versed in the lewd.

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    And that boys and girls is how you do a affably evil character that at the end of the day is unquestionably a really evil bastard.
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2019
  24. Handlewithcare

    Handlewithcare Versed in the lewd.

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    I mean... let's be honest here.

    All of us know what Alan means, that idea of...direct power can be intoxicating.
     
  25. Rebu

    Rebu hey, little Anna, you're the one

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    I've never understood that argument. Batman has helped save the world on multiple occasions.
     
  26. Ct613hulu

    Ct613hulu Experienced.

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    My understanding is that this argument is based on the idea that the world saving work that Batman has done in his capacity as a member of the Justice League is something that he could not have possibly predicting when he was preparing to become Batman and was not part of the intended role of Batman.

    Bruce Wayne committed to the goal of "doing Good" by punching criminals while dressed as a Bat far before it became evident that an organization like the Justice League would have an urgent need for his services.
     
  27. Queshire

    Queshire Not too sore, are you?

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    Or rather, Bat's treating the symptoms and not the disease. He could work like Paul; encouraging the spread of life saving schizo tech and magic, redeeming villains and so on. Instead he does Batman stuff.
     
  28. Cuchulin

    Cuchulin Versed in the lewd.

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    Reminds me of a bit Batman White Knight Bruce learns that his fellow members of Gotham's 1% are using Batman to make money in very unethical ways and have made sure that Arkham is there to make it's inmates worse much of the time not better. In other words Bruce's fixation on dealing with his childhood trauma by beating up criminals gets in the way of him making the world a better place in a more productive manner.
     
  29. frozenchicken

    frozenchicken Here to Read the Articles

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    You could conceivably create an alternate universe where Bruce focused entirely on being the Wayne CEO, made the lives of people in Gotham better, caused a bunch of Gotham Rogues to become heroes, culminating in all of them working together to save the world on multiple occasions where Batman would otherwise have been required.
     
  30. Lord Ernest

    Lord Ernest At the End...

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    I'm a Batman fan for all my life but I do admit that Bruce Wayne being Batman doesn't really resolve the problem that he vowed to fight. He is just crazy and obsessed, maybe even addicted, to being Batman and can't let it go. I'm sure there is not only better ways to fight crime, there is more intelligent and logical ways to fight crimes with his smarts, money and general resources.

    Personally, if he still wanted to be Batman and fight crime in that way, I think he should have embraced his successorship of Ra's al-Ghul and then converted the League of Assassins into his own personal League of (Power Armored) Vigilantes. He could probably make a crime sweep city by city like that.
     
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