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

Some people might like the Green Chicken Alliance (included a man 'riding' a giant green chicken), but I thought the Fancy Dress Party as a new force in (1980s) UK politics had a lot to be said for it...

Are there likely to be any anti-demon parties in the DC Universe UK political scene, after the house clearing? You might suspect the Liberal Party not to be in favour of demonic sacrifice as an important part of the political process... So, the 'Liberal & Human Rights Party'?

 

I’d imagine if this was DC writing it, the guy with the red power ring would run as part of the Monster Raving Loony party. Though really, imagine if the guy claiming to be an alien conqueror in the election a few years ago runs here.

 

More likely the "Liberal & Human Taste Party".

 

To be fair, I wasn't trying to make anyone read that comic. I did say, right from the beginning, that I dropped it early because it was bad. I just thought the timing of the announcement was an amusing coincidence.

Also my phone's autocorrupt really wanted that last sentence to say "an abusing coincidence."

 

That middle bit is modern politics. Please be careful.

Douglas Granite for President!

 

Hey, didn't Paul have a discussion with WW early on, where he found out that there hadn't been any female PMs yet in the Britain of Earth 16?

 

No, he found out that there'd been two.

 

“Lord Nelson’s got a vote!”

”No, Baldrick, Lord Nelson has a boat.”

 

Did that answer the question of "who elects the Prime Minister"? Because I don't really think it does. In a practical sense it seems like even in a coalition government, the party with the Majority that is going to lead the government selects, among themselves, the person they want to be PM and their coalition partners can continue to support the government or not but they don't get a say on leadership. Grayven keeps making reference to the House of Representatives for instance, and the Speaker of the House is in practice chosen by the majority party in a vote among themselves, and then they all pledge to support the winning candidate (even if it wasn't an individual Rep's first choice) so that their majority of votes will decide the matter and leave the other party unable to affect things.

But what does "among themselves" mean in Parliament? All MPs of that party get to vote? All MPs plus House of Lords Members? All Members? Or is it different for each party and each party has its own selection method?

 

My brother darn near killed himself taking a curvy surface street too fast. (Wrapped the car around a tree. Could barely fit a fist between the caved-in driver's-side door and the center console. The only thing that saved his life was that he was also not wearing a seat belt so he was thrown out of the seat instead of getting crushed. We found pieces of the car half a mile down the road.) Sadly, he was 18 at the time, so no amount of legal wrangling would have prevented that.

And as far as I can tell... yes, it does. I wasn't in a hurry to get my license when I was a teenager (I didn't even bother getting a learner's permit until I was already 16, didn't get my full license until I was almost 18 anyway) so if I were 20 years younger now I probably wouldn't even bother with the hassle and I'd just wait until I was 18. Which... seems to kinda contradict the entire point of the licensing laws, because it means that inexperienced drivers will be getting unrestricted permits.

Even if the laws can be silly, I kinda miss home. I should find some time to go visit my parents.

Probably "everyone is looking at him" but it could possibly also be "everyone looking at him is waiting for him".

When I was 12, my 7th grade social studies class spent some time every week on current world events. Given the significance of these events, we would have definitely covered it in class -- it wouldn't have been part of the standard curriculum, but spending a day on this kind of thing would have been entirely normal.

 

I live in a jurisdiction where local elections are STV, and our last election took several weeks to resolve (and there were no court cases involved). Also it was totally incomprehensible to everyone but voting systems nerds. (And, speaking as a voting systems nerd, fairly incomprehensible to them as well.) STV has serious flaws.

Not strictly true; fixed term parliaments are, as mentioned, very recent.

 

So... I wonder who will become Prime Minister in this fictional story?

 

Well...I wasn't expecting this for any update. So who gripped at Zoat that he then decided we needed a Brit-lesson? Xp

 

All voting systems have serious flaws. It is, in fact, provable that there is no perfect voting system. (As a voting systems nerd, you should be familiar with that already.)

IMO, STV's only major flaw is that the obvious way to implement it might fail to apportion mid-ranked candidates fairly under certain conditions, but the standard way of dealing with that introduces confusing math. (Specific implementations or presentations of STV might have other problems, of course.)

Not necessarily on Earth-16.

 

Grayven just explained it in two short paragraphs.

Only in the UK. Other countries have used them for ages.

Ask me in twenty years.

 

Isn't this just for Senators? One third of them are up for election every 2 years, but I thought all the Representatives were also up for re-election every 2 years?

 

He gave a superficial explanation, about as comprehensive as describing US Congressional elections as "whoever gets the most votes in the district wins". It's technically correct but doesn't cover any of the things voters care about.

To go into a bit more detail: I live in San Francisco. Our last mayoral election had three major candidates, two middling-serious ones, and five or six minor ones. (All Democrats.) In the last week before election day two of the major candidates formed an alliance against the third. 90% of the votes were in by the next morning, and they ran the STV process on an informational basis once a day until they had 100% of the vote. The winner switched at least four times in the next two weeks.
Betting markets were 98% certain that London Breed would win around the two week mark, presumably because running some quality modeling software was worth the few thousand dollars available to someone who could front-run the general public. The actual city government didn't issue an official result for another week.

And I don't think anyone, even now, could tell you how strong a victory Ms. Breed achieved. Was it a landslide? Scraping by? I was watching those daily runs and I still have no idea.

STV spits out results which are totally opaque, and that's a very bad foundation for a system which ostensibly derive their legitimacy from the will of the people.

 

The system could be programmed to state the results at each 'elimination round'. What proportion of a candidate's final votes are first, second, third, etc preferences are in the system. They have to be for the votes to be transferred.

 

Paul talked earlier about how he didn't have any canidates in mind for blue lanterns. But wouldn't Hinon be able to create an algorithm for recruitment about that easily enough, plus Paul's emotional sight ability does indeed work on other colors. After seeing Alan for a while, he probably basically gets what stable hope structures look like, and should be able to discern what makes a good blue lantern. Especially if they can get maltusians making blue rings, I really think a blue lantern corps idea has a future.
(Violet and Indigo are 'taken', so probably inelgible, though I wouldn't be suprised if Kalmin could get around any security on those lights, and do have the far from center problem. Red works, but isn't something that Paul feels comfortable with, and Yellow doesn't work well against indoctrinated soldiers. Blue (and honestly red) seem like the best ideas for the moment.)

 

I thought that back when Paul first recruited Koriand'r he said something about. Yep found it, 23 July: 2307 GMT (pg 48 of the story only, last post on page).

I have been hoping that he gets back to this someday. The twin princesses ruling together. One bringing Hope to her people, the other fulling their Desires.

Just seems poetic. Besides, Alan could help lead a new corp of Hope filled Lanterns. Keep his legacy going forever.

 

I swear to Godzilla, if you just brought back the whole, page after page after page after PAGE, of people bitching about Starfire and the color of the ring she has like the world itself was doomed because of it, I'm going to hope you sneeze really hard and bang your head on something.

 

Oh, uhhhhh, in my defense I hadn't yet read the whole thing thru and only very recently started reading comments. I only started commenting in the last couple months.

I really try and avoid these situations, but I keep tripping back in to them. People really started a flamewar over that? I mean, she could probably weld both since both hope and desire influence her so strongly.

 

In my opinion, the establishment of another Lantern Corps is probably not something that's going through our Illustres' mind right now. He couldn't get another Green Power Battery for Alan but since he knew Alan was hopeful enough (about him and his legacy, primary) he convinced Kalmin to make him a Blue Power Battery and systems to reconfigure the Power Ring Alan already had; that was a commission, probably a one time thing, 'cause I don't think Kalmin is going to make him another and, as he said to Guy once, all the Controllers that knew something about Power Ring technology already attuned themselves to the Orange Central Power Battery and can't make things of other colors.

If Alan gets inspired later on (or Ganthet after he gets some report about Alan and has some time to think about it) to establish the Blue Lantern Corps I'm sure the Illustres will want to help him in anyway possible, but that's already Alan's prerogative (I honestly hope for a space adventure between Alan and Paul, that may give him inspiration).

On the other hand, I don't know if Koriand'r, at this point, could use a Blue Power Ring as well as the Illustres thought before, it depends on how well you think Hope and Desire can synergize. Remember after all that Koriand'r got her soul a bit modified by the Ophidian herself and, even though Paul tried to rectify that and she can still feel the other emotions well enough, she ended up with a stronger connection to the Orange Light at the end of it. Besides that it has been a few months since then, where she has learned to probably be an effective Orange Lantern and although it may not be as bad as before the Central Power Battery got turned on, the Orange Light still affects and her way of thought could have been changed as well; instead of hoping for stuff, she may already be conditioned to want things or to focus her desire to do it herself.

 

Very well. For now, I shall keep leashed the doggo of war. But he's watching.

I wouldn't call it a flame war. More like a bunch of min-maxing nerds bitching about things being "suboptimal." Sure, Kori currently has the most powerful weapon in the universe on her finger that is powered by want. But if she has a blue one, she'd gain plus 10 hopey bonus!

It just went on and on and on....

 

So you're telling me the problem is in fact with excessive media coverage of a voting system that isn't designed for incremental tallying. That's not STV's fault, that's... getting too close to debating about modern politics so I'm going to drop it here.

 

I debated on my response to this, but I think I will risk the doggo of war......

Because, I am an avid min/maxer. Though, I sometimes prefer a more balanced approach as well. IF it wasn't a flame war (which I do hate), then I would have enjoyed over-analyzing a non-canon fictional character. Sounds like a good way to spend an evening.

I work in a machine shop, so I min/max my cycle time with part quality all the time. Drives me crazy when I have to slow a tool down to fix chatter, digging through hundreds of lines of code to find the right spot, but oh of much fun when it comes out near perfect.

 

Mr Zoat seems like they made a tv adaption of The Boys now. Haven't seen it yet so can't say if any good but thought I share since I remember you read comics and even made an alternate Paul in that verse.

 

I'm still confused about the dolphin. There's a dolphin? Why is there a dolphin? Who is the dolphin? What powers does the Dolphin have? Is it going to thank us for giving it fish, and fly away just before the Earth explodes?

 

Is him not talking in verse a symbol of changed status, or an error?

Also, lolnope Guy, you get the trustworthy ones to train, and the expendable ones to practice dangerous techniques.