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

Well if someone else wanted the woman he was dating, getting him framed for murder gets him out of the way, so that one is my guess.

 

Anyone else find it amusing how self centered he's being here?

If the guy really killed his wife and framed Xor for it, the far far far likelier scenario is that the goal was to kill the wife and framing Xor was about getting away with it.

But apparently Xor thinks the universe revolves around him.

Very appropriate for an orange lantern.

 

Mr Zoat, unrelated question(s) for you. When Grayven healed Match, he was already capable of emotions. By contrast, Paragon!Match was kind of a meat robot when it came to emotions. Has he developed the capacity for emotions yet?

Is Hardcastle going to become an antagonist, or is he unimportant? Does he even know that it's Paul's fault that he was found out and is now out of the military?

 

No, it's in the original text; Article 1, Section 6, as transcribed here. (Notably this transcription still includes the 3/5 Compromise, election of Senators by the state legislatures, and a number of other since-amended provisions.) The 27th is something different.

 

Wouldn't Xor be more suitableto be a green lantern ?

 

OL got to him first.

 

Maybe his wife cheated on him so he decided to kill two birds on one stone?

 

I'll take that bet. I'm putting five likes on it being an unrecalled undercover Kryptonian intelligence agent having caused it.

 

Well... that sounds like a stretch in a society of big purple rock people... unless you mean a version of Doomsday?

A politician version of DoomsDay... ElectionDay? IndependenceDay? What would his name be?

At a big stretch... Recount?

 

Well, if we're doing bets.....


I've got 5 on the wife faking her death, so she could run away with Xor.

 

Except he was dating the daughter, not the wife? My bet is the daughter did it, and then either she framed him, or her father did to break them up.

 

Renegade Match was in a panic because he had no idea what was going on around him. SI Match was given far more context to his memories, both by the extended period of time the genomorphs had to work on him and Jor-El's efforts.

Could go either way. Right now he's stewing in his own bile.

He includes the SI in a wide variety of people he considers to be at fault.

 

I'm going to go ahead and bet 5 likes that no one else manages to guess the actual reason for Xor being betrayed.

 

*dryly* a list that doesnt contain himself, i take it?

 

I'm sure by the end of this another alien government will be destabilized. I can't wait.

 

Too bad no one’s worked on reverse-engineering the magic behind the Lasso of Truth (incidentally I can’t remember any use of the Lasso’s magic in canon, can anyone else? Possibly in one of the spin-off comics?). That could be useful for this new mission.
On a related note have Kordtech/Io made any other oricalchum armor like Diana’s? Could be useful for Donna, the Kryptonians and Cassie in the future, at least for crisis situations since I can understand the publicity reasons behind not looking militarized/armored all the time. I’m not sure how defensive Kon’s Nth-metal armor is but I presume oricalchum is better- would be cool if they could integrate the two together so he could keep his flight, but a kinetic belt could work in a pinch as well. Magic being mainstream and productive is one of my favorite things about this fic so I always like to see more of it.
I can’t seem to find the term Alignment for Xor’s homeworld online (though I only browsed wikis for 2 minutes), did Mr Zoat invent it?

Echoing another poster, this incident would probably he caught Renegade’s intention too and I don’t recall any WoZ about what he did about it.

 

Xor is now one of my favorite characters. I feel so bad for him. For some reason he reminds me of Razer from the Green Lantern cartoon, though Xor's situation is more convoluted. I look forward to him getting a bit more depth.

 

A lot of the time the Lasso is preety much the physical embodiment of truth. Canonically, when it broke due to Wonder Woman not believing the truth presented by a person it was holding , as mentioned in this fic (I forgot the guy’s name. The guy who is a king of a country between India and Pakistan), there stopped being a “true reality” and fictional / false things became real. That seems like it would be dangerous to study and probably impossible to copy.

Canonically, Nth Metal is about as good, if not better, than Orichalcum. Also, Orichalcum wouldn’t let Kon fly without a belt. Also, in some continuities, Nth Metal is Ninth Metal And Orichalcum is 7th (I believe, can’t confirm).

Also, a metal that doesn’t bend at all and doesn’t magically absorb force / energy like Nth Metal is preety much worthless (earth r at the very least not worth that much when it comes to fighting, since you are still getting hit with the same hit, and the metal doesn’t cushion / :spread the blow.

 

That would be consistent with what we know of Hardassle (spelling intentional), and the sort of person he seems to be.

I sort of wonder what it would take to get him to accept that it was really his own fault.

 

I'd guess nothing. He is a die-hard anti-extra-terrestrial. I wouldn't be surprised if he considered Paul one too by virtue of not believing his confessed origins. Probably thinks he's a menace or a precursor to an alien invasion. Hopefully he ends up the way he did in JLU, minus the assassination.

 

Rama Khan is the Indian god-King figure.

At least a mention of studying the Lasso would have been nice; Diana’s original armor was divinely crafted and they studied that (or at least worked with the knowledge of divine smithing), and they studied the Star Sapphire (essentially a physical embodiment of Love), archangel wings and a fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, so I don’t think it would have been egregious or notably more dangerous to also analyze the Lasso (I’m using ‘they’ in a general sense to describe everyone involved in the uplift initiative). We haven’t seen other truth-magics either, which could also be potentially useful as a ‘cheaper’ and more widespread mechanism at least among the hero community, if less effective than a truly divine Lasso.
I read that originally it was less about Truth and more a symbol of female charm, compulsion and persuasion that made its targets spill the beans- and you can see echoes of this in Donna’s Lasso of Persuasion (which does beg the question of what else the Amazons are hoarding that could be useful in the hands of trusted heroes instead of just wasting away). Maybe it’s because Marston invented the lie-detector that any nuance or distinction was kind of lost and the Lasso became purely linked to Truth, but that’s just me speculating. I think Diana has done more esoteric and non-truth related things with it in the comics, which would be cool to see from this version. I wonder if Paragon told her about Olympia to get her more ambitious about improving her mystic abilities (her pride, as seen from challenging Shade, should be productively channeled). I recently got into Promethea so I may be projecting a bit in terms of what I want to see from Wonder Woman in the future.

In terms of the Nth metal, I may not have a full understanding of its capabilities in this setting, though I know it’s not an incredible anti-magic material like the DCAU. I can’t recall direct comparisons of strength or toughness between it and oricalchum, but the latter is more mass-producible now, on Earth at least (would be interesting to see the Thanagarian Empire weaken from an economic reason like a more competitive alternate metal than simple comic-book military fights)- and maybe you could attach plates oricalchum (which should have better magic-resistance abilities than Nth metal either innately or through further enchantment) to the existing armor. If it could hold or channel Helios’s divine energy then that would be even more spectacular (a Paladin Kon using that sword from the Queen of Fables episode would be great, and a nice departure from the classic Superman aesthetic- we need to differentiate the styles of the Kryptonians we have running around in both timelines).

I’m not sure about the numbering but given that the first seven metals should just be the classic ones used in the ancient world (gold, silver, mercury, copper, iron, tin and lead, corresponding to the seven classical ‘planets’), Oricalchum would probably not be seventh but possibly eighth.

 

He is giving himself a small kick for not finding a way to make supervillains the military's responsibility earlier. But that's about it.

Oh yes you have. Gaolbreak. They used it on Hugo Strange to make him confess.

 

If you mean YJ canon, I believe none.

Abilities from the comics, which Zoat may or may not choose to make applicable- unbreakable, infinitely elastic, mind control (or just making people be truthful), superhuman feats of skill, restore sanity, can even bind the gods themselves, destroying the undead by channeling the power of Gaia (including Black Lanterns), ridiculous levels of protection- As in WW once saved the day by wrapping two nuclear bombs explode into her lasso and her lasso absorbed it all harmlessly, and it was used by Genocide to attack people spiritually.

As for "some continuities" and Nth metal, that would be one continuity- Rebirth era DC with Dark Knights Metal, where WW's plane and bracelets are the 8th Metal, the metal of the gods, otherwise unnamed, but in legend that would make the closest equivalent adamant(ine), and the 10 metals are Element X and it's nine lesser derivatives- Nth Metal, 8th Metal, Dionysium, Prometheum, Electrum, Batmanium, and 3 unreferenced metals.

Orichalcum in the legends was a precious metal used for decoration like gold and silver. In DC lore, it was a hard Atlantean metal (from the Atlantean city state Thierna Na Oge), but most recently it was the metal of Sandman's whistle.

 

I don't know that much about Hardcastle, but from what I've learned just from this story I'm going to guess one of those people he considers at fault isn't Hardcastle.

 

It couldn't have been earlier than 1998, because that's when I turned 16.

But I looked up current Kansas law and holy crap is it convoluted. Did teenage joyriding get really bad after I left or something?

 

Nice to see Hardcastle forced into retirement, but that just makes me worried about who got his old job.

Because General Eiling wasn't exactly a great example of wisdom either.

Hope it's General Lane. Grayven's version of him seems to be on the ball.

Kinda hard to find examples of rationality in the DC universe when it comes to military leadership.

 

We do only see General Lane in his interactions with Renegade, who probably earned his respect with killing Klarion and generally less idealistic mode of heroics. I do agree though that he seems to be quite reasonable regardless of that- the classic Zoat treatment of characters that weren’t in canon YJ (excluding season 3).

Rationality and military leadership, or even general governance, is tragically rare mainly to make storytelling easier, unless the protagonists are part of those establishments. Though given military funding for Hollywood, they often get decent portrayals too.
One of the things that I loved about this setting was seeing mundane governments and militaries participating in the Renegade take-down of the Light- they likely couldn’t have done much to the key figures but they’re necessary to destroy the infrastructure and institutions of the Light in a way that shallow righteous face-punching can’t- treating the disease instead of just surface symptoms, as it were. I can appreciate the difficulties in differentiating the Paragon and Renegade storylines but it does make me sad at times to see that Paragon isn’t really involved in politics to any great degree, barring Atlantis and Khandaq (which both fit more into the ‘superhero ghetto’ anyway, similar to how the Daily Planet sent Lois Lane to cover the New York Bleed-generator just because a superhero was involved). His lack of interest in being proactive with the Light might make sense given his ultimate philosophy of encouraging independence among human societies (and possibly among superheroes, though I can’t really see any adult heroes actually being influenced by him, except Guy), but I do think his ingroup’s wellbeing matters more to him in terms of the hierarchy of his desires, and the Light are a constant threat to them with all the knowledge that they stole, as well as their resources.
Now he did eradicate the League of Shadows basically single-handedly, at least in terms of political influence, and obviously done a lot for the political structures of multiple alien societies (and is about to do it again); I’d argue the latter makes his seeming preciousness about Earth politics a little more grating though. I realize I’ve repeated these sentiments a few times but it does feel like the pacing of episodes and overarching storyline has stalled a bit recently. They’re still great to read about but I do feel his lack of proactiveness in dealing with or at least discussing the Light with the League makes his character a bit inconsistent.

 

Woohoo! 19th most likes on the site! Coming for you Alexander!

 

*looks at bolded*
What now?