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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. w34v3r

    w34v3r Versed in the lewd.

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    I love chapters where the everyday and the fantastic mix like this. That's something a lot of stories gradually forget in favor of more action and 'drama'.
     
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  2. PrinceJonathan

    PrinceJonathan Versed in the lewd.

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    You must be doing it wrong then because reading the occasional Grayven is suppose to feel like having your brain smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick.
     
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  3. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Alright, the Mojave Brotherhood suck. No matter which focus you do, you die. Side with the rest of the Brotherhood and Vegas and the NCR smash you. Side with California and the Legion does. I'm either going to play another Enclave game or try Tlaloc.

    And why do robot regiments have manpower requirements? They're flipping robots! That's the whole reason I built them, and it turns out that manpowerwise I might just have well build more power armour units!
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2019
  4. Diraniola

    Diraniola I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    You ok there, Zoat?
     
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  5. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Eh...

    I tried a thing, and as far as I can see it can't be made to work so it feels a little like I've wasted my time even though until I spent that time I couldn't have known that. Elijah's just bad, giving you defensive buffs you don't need. McNamara sort of works as long at the NCR doesn't get gangbanged, but they'll never stop Caeser's Legion before they overrun your capital and most of your factories and then you're basically spectating. Hardin gives you a tonne of power armour early on, but there's no way to change your recruitment laws even thought he's supposed to be the militant one so enjoy your 3%. There is no point with any of them where you can kill Vegas.
     
  6. Diraniola

    Diraniola I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    I just wondering if you know you're posting in the WTR thread. It's kinda a non sequitur.
     
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  7. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    It may become relevant later.
     
  8. Dragonvx100

    Dragonvx100 Not too sore, are you?

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    So my favorite version to read about is actually Grayven, he doesn't usually make choices I would make, but he makes his choices with flair!
     
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  9. Shotiegun11

    Shotiegun11 Know what you're doing yet?

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    The SI gonna add to the workload of the new game company he's an investor/stockholder in then?
     
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  10. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Mid-summer, 2279
    Morning


    I've never really been a sunny weather person.

    No. No, that's not true. From what I remember of my early childhood, I enjoyed trips to the beach or to Eastbourne's parks during the long summer holiday. But the older I got, the more I came to dislike the high heats of summer and appreciated the more clement weather of Autumn.

    And now here I am, in the middle of summer, in a desert, under a near-cloudless sky, with only loose robes and a two hundred year old fedora shielding me from the baking heat. And I'm.. actually happy. I mean, I've sort of believed that the human brain wasn't really designed to copy with the society we'd built for ourselves for a while, but I'm still surprised by exactly how much happier I've become since… Not exactly 'downshifting', but… Embracing a more 'simple' way of life.

    There's no internet in post-apocalyptic Nevada. No television. Only two or three radio stations, and most of the time you're lucky if you can get good reception on one. Consumer culture? When I arrived, people here were happy that they could just about produce enough food for everyone. As Moist von Lipwig said in Making Money, you can't eat gold.

    And now, things are going to get a little more complicated.
     
  11. Someguy Somewhere

    Someguy Somewhere The Critical Fumbler

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    So....a Paul that shows up in Fallout.

    Strip minds a space rock only to find an earth he can't spend it on, and no way to recharge a ring....hmm.

    Hope he's lucky on finding a good library. Not so much Uplift as Relift
     
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  12. Maxx Crowley

    Maxx Crowley I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    I have no idea where this came from, but I hate everything about it. Sure, I can get down with some Bat-killing...but the fact is that, that just isn't Superman.

    Just...no.

    Because it's very easy to ignore Grayven. Para-Paul consists of the Bulk of the story, but even with full Rene-Paul episodes, they can be easily skipped without missing a scrap of relevant Plot.
     
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  13. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Actually, it is Superman 12. It came up a couple of times that if that version gets pushed hard enough and something bad happens to the people he cares about, he can end up doing some unSupermanly things. In one episode of Superman: the Animated Series Lois' death leads to him setting up a police state by allying with Lex Luthor. In the scenario described above, he set up what he regarded as a perfect government in the US with the rest of the Justice Lords. No supervillains, little crime, everything... Working. And it fell apart -in his mind- because Batman backstabbed the rest of the team. And he might just have taken that out on Batman, but Hawkgirl and Green Lantern turns their backs on him too. At that point his circle of friends was down to Diana and he felt betrayed by his friends and by the people he was helping.
     
  14. Mquz

    Mquz Versed in the lewd.

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    Zoat seems to be playing the Old World Blues mod for Hearts of Iron 4. It’s based on the fallout world, and there are a lot of factions with multiple possible leaders for each. Being a fan-made strategy game mod, not all sides are created entirely equal, with the developers sticking with rule of cool over ease of access and several factions requiring particular strategies that are hard to pull off to have their specialties be useful.
     
  15. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Not all sides are created equal in Hearts of Iron IV proper, either. Try surviving as Tannu Tuva.

    It's just a little frustrating that the developers did Mexico instead of finishing the west coast. Arroyo still doesn't have a unique focus tree. Heck, the Enclave doesn't have a unique focus when it arises from New Reno or the NCR.
     
  16. Ardy

    Ardy I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Oh thank god, I thought he was just having a stroke and mixing up RPGs and RTS's.
     
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  17. Sceptic

    Sceptic Critical Irrationalist

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    Hmm. I'm not sure he's technically Pan-Galactic, yet.
     
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  18. Lazurman

    Lazurman That Others May Fap

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    Maybe it's like the Adeptus Mechanicum's Legio Cybernetica? A human handler in charge of their robotic minions, to better ensure no uprisings?
     
  19. moralrelativity

    moralrelativity Recovering pendant.

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    Thanks. I appreciate your summary.
     
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  20. ForeverShogo

    ForeverShogo Not too sore, are you?

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    Okay. I decided to do a refresher on what happened with the Justice Lords universe and Wonder Woman abandoning her universe to ride Lord Batman's dick. It's actually stupider than I remembered.

    In Batman Beyond, the effects of Lex Luthor's power disruptor are temporary. When the Lords’ powers are restored, Lords Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl refuse to choose sides in the conflict between Lord Superman and Lord Batman (as Lord Batman had eventually managed to convince the three of them that the Justice Lords' methods are wrong) and leave Earth in disgust. Lord Superman marries Lady Wonder Woman during their war against Lord Batman and his benevolent followers. When the League returns to the Lords’ world to help Lord Batman, the League's Wonder Woman and Lord Batman fall in love; she remains in the Lords’ world and marries him. The League's Batman is heartbroken; he and Wonder Woman were attracted to each other, but he thought a romantic relationship in the team would cause trouble.

    Decades later, Lord Batman dies fighting the other Lords; the world remains under their tyranny, with wars between Lord Superman and Lord Batman's followers. Although the League's Wonder Woman returns to mainstream Earth, Superman and Batman's successor Terry McGinnis are suspicious; their Wonder Woman and her Lady counterpart are identical, and they think this Wonder Woman may be Lord Superman's wife working as a spy. McGinnis travels to the Lords' world, and learns about Lord Batman's death. The comics introduce parallel-universe versions of Terry McGinnis and Dick Grayson. In this world, Lord McGinnis never meets Bruce Wayne (and never becomes Batman); Lord Grayson is an officer on the Justice Lords' task force, despite being Lord Batman's partner decades before. Lord Superman arrives on the League's world with his followers—including the Justice-Lord versions of Warhawk, Aquagirl, Micron, Captain Marvel, the Flash, and Curare—telling the Justice League that Wonder Woman is his wife.

    Years after Wonder Woman's marriage to Lord Batman, her Lady counterpart lures her husband out of hiding and murders him; Wonder Woman kills Lady Wonder Woman in retaliation for her husband's death and marries Lord Superman, conceiving their son Zod so their followers will declare a truce. However, their marriage is a sham; Zod is conceived from the genetic engineering of his parents' DNA with technology from Krypton, Themyscira and Project Cadmus. After Lord Superman discovers that Terry McGinnis has traveled to his universe, he returns to his world to confront him and his counterpart. McGinnis discovers a Batsuit, more advanced than his own, made by Lord Batman to counter Lord Superman's powers. McGinnis dons the Batsuit to battle Lord Superman, with his counterpart as a witness. The first fight ends with Terry faking his death (with the Batsuit) when Lord Superman uses heat vision. Terry later discovers that the suit is powered by synthetic kryptonite, with which Lord Batman planned to defeat Lord Superman.

    When Lord Superman returns to the League's world, he fights Superman, Bruce Wayne and Wonder Woman in the Batcave and Zod arrives to help his mother. Terry defeats Lord Superman when the fight spreads to Gotham's downtown area, while the rest of the League defeat the rest of the Justice Lords. Superman sends Lord Superman to the Phantom Zone, where he meets Superman's old enemy Jax-Ur and begins to make plans with him at Jax-Ur's suggestion. Seeing the Lords' world finally at peace, Wonder Woman returns to the Justice League and Wayne Manor. Bruce Wayne plans to build another synthetic kryptonite Batsuit, in case Lord Superman escapes. As McGinnis and Dick Grayson upgrade McGinnis' Batsuit based on Lord Batman's design, their counterparts repair Lord Batman's Batsuit (which McGinnis returned); Grayson intends to groom McGinnis' counterpart as the new Batman for the Justice Lords' world.

    And yes, you read that correctly, Lord Superman named his kid Zod.

    And that recap says that the new Justice Lords include an alternate Captain Marvel. Not actually sure that's accurate, since the Lord in question was called White Adam.

    Oh, and canonically the Lords ruled the entire planet. Not just America. (Lord rule being over America only is a change made for With This Ring.)

    =============

    As for the stuff about Old World Blues and robots using up manpower . . .

    It's a limitation of the game mechanics. Divisions literally can not function without manpower to be spent in battle. Even if you try to do something like buff their stats super hard but give them, like, 1 Manpower cost as an absolute bare minimum requirement . . . It just won't work. The instant a 1 Manpower division enters combat it's morale will go from 100 to 0 and it will immediately route. Assuming it isn't flat out destroyed because any damage at all, no matter how good the stats, would still drop that 1 to a 0.

    tl;dr

    The game literally can not support the idea of robot armies that don't eat up manpower.
     
  21. NightmareWarden

    NightmareWarden Versed in the lewd.

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    Hmm. If Grayven gets snatched like Green-Jade, then Grayven's crew will have to split themselves between searching for Grayven, continuing with his (volatile) duties/experiments, and fending off assassins. At least these new foes will carry some interesting gadgets for Grayven to toy with when he returns home.

    Ohhh dear. What if Grayven isn't alone when he is snatched? What if his dear daughter gets dragged along?! Papa-Bear Renegade-Paul (in a situation where he doesn't need to keep up the Grayven act) should be interesting! Or messy.

    Edit:
    How many times are you going to send this poor man to hell, Mr Zoat?! I hope you are getting your card stamped for some sort of prize, because that fate sounds miserable.
     
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2019
  22. DrThoth

    DrThoth I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Just to confirm, this is all canonical to the DCAU? Because...words fail me....
     
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  23. Threadmarks: Bended (part 2)
    Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    25th February
    15:21 GMT -5


    "Good afternoon, Mister Waddill."

    "Ah…"

    The elderly parapsychic looks up from his park bench a little nervously. Honestly, I'm a little surprised that he's still alive. Parapsychics in a society with little to no magic knowledge generally get overwhelmed with their own visions and… Either go insane or kill themselves to stop the visions. Even the better psychiatric hospitals, the ones whose staff know the techniques telepaths can use to control their contact with other people's minds, can't help. Parapsychic readings aren't blocked by mnemonics or mental discipline, either from the user or the target. Parapsychics can't help each other; if anything, having other parapsychics around makes things worse.

    And yet, Mr Waddill is in his eighties, and apparently in rude health. I only know about him because Alan mentioned him in relation to my own work at Belle Reve; a supervillain who actually went straight and stayed there. Possibly that had something to do with him not having had anything to do with any sort of supervillain fraternity or with him not having gone to prison. Hardly anyone knew who he was, and so he could still get legitimate employment.

    He'd be a fascinating case study if-.

    His wife orientates her head in my approximate direction. "Who is it, Johnny?"

    Nervousness blossoms into a pantomime of panic as he gestures to her. She's blind so can't immediately identify me, but she probably doesn't know about his brief fling with supervillainy many decades ago and I doubt that he's told her.

    I'd criticise him, but…

    I mean, I told Jade.

    "Ah, sorry. My name is-"

    "Paul."

    "-and I'm the.. former apprentice of an old business colleague of your husband's."

    "I didn't realise that.. Mister Green still talked about me."

    "It came up in conversation. I've developed.. business relationships with a few people similar to the one he had with you. And on that subject, I was wondering if you'd be willing to help me-?"

    "I'm not.. involved in that…" He shakes his head emphatically. "Sort of work any more. I've been retired a very long time. I'm really not sure I can help."

    I shrug. "It's my money to waste, right?"

    I glance at his wife. The scars across her face where the belt destroyed her eyes are faded but visible. I seem to have been running into my caring cap rather a lot lately as far as healing goes. On the other hand, Mr Waddill is very good at his abandoned occupation and I.. do.. want to persuade him.

    I extend a filament to his ears. "I can also restore your wife's eyes as a signing-on bonus."

    His eyes widen a fraction. I can see the conflicting impulses inside him, his love for his wife and boundless compassion for her condition warring with his fear of discovery and of alienating her. I'm fairly confident which way it's going to go-.

    "I suppose it is. I'm kind of busy now, but if you give me your number we can set something up later."

    "Thank you, Mister Waddill. I assure you, you won't regret it."

    25th February
    17:01 GMT -6


    Abra's eyes flicker as he considers my proposal. Literally flicker, his implant uses his optic nerve rather than plugging directly into his visual cortex. Given his array of implants and his burgeoning use of subtle sorcery, I can't be completely sure what he's using them for.

    He blinks and gives his head a small shake, the flickering fading. "Why are you asking me?"

    "Supervillainy never made much sense to me. The way I see-."

    "'If you have the power to do it, you have the power to make more money legally', yes. Leonard mentioned it. In my own case it was never about financial reward."

    "Right! See, I'm having to come up with a 'villain', and they can't have financial motivations because that would be stupid, so you're exactly the sort of person who can help me."

    "I… See." He glances in the direction of the room's concealed camera. "You understand that I have no desire to fight the Justice League in reality."

    I flare my eyes for a moment.

    "Now, we both know that's not exactly true."

    "On balance, I stand to lose too much to… Indulge myself."

    "Better. But planning something out and hearing about the results in a way that doesn't risk your parole and won't hurt anyone?"

    "I.. suppose."

    "One of the other guys I've got working on it once broke into the headquarters of the Justice Society and looted their trophy room. If his mental condition didn't require him to precisely follow the steps of the last man to try that, he'd have got out before Green Lantern could have caught him."

    Abra manages a disinterested frown. "How did he do that?"

    "He's a parapsychic. He has a particular affinity for the thoughts and abilities of criminals. Meaning that if you work together face to face he'll be able to think exactly like you."

    Abra gives the idea a small smile. "I suppose it's one way to get intelligent conversation."

    "Or anyone else in here, which we'll have to be a bit careful about."

    He nods. "This could be an interesting challenge. Who else is involved in the planning?"

    26th February
    02:37 GMT +8


    "Yes." / "Yes."

    I regard Thaddeus and Georgia a little nervously.

    "You do both understand that this is a wargame, yes? We're trying to upskill the League in preparation for the fight with the sheeda. You can't do anything permanently disabling."

    Thaddeus rolls his eyes. "Yes, we know. We have this conversation with Tia and Mom every week."

    Georgia smiles as she considers the idea in more detail.

    "Along with contributing our villainous insight, we could also create status trackers to virtualise their injuries. And since the conflict should ideally be double-blind, we could design it to record the results of their investigations and pass along information they uncover."

    "Or incorrect information, if they mess something up."

    "Or to you, if they outsmart you. I assume that you're taking the role of primary antagonist?"

    "With everything else that I've done, I think it would be a bit unfair if they didn't get a chance to take a swing at me. Thank you both for agreeing to join in."

    Thaddeus shrugs. "Dad never let us have a go at Marvel on our own. This way, we get to go after Marvel and all his friends without even doing anything wrong!"

    I wince, and he thinks for a moment.

    "Too much?"

    "Little bit."
     
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2019
  24. Queshire

    Queshire Not too sore, are you?

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    Ahaha, I'm getting a real heist movie vibe from this. You know, gathering the team and all. Are we going to see the wargame in action complete with flashbacks as they lay out their planning?
     
  25. Ngamer11

    Ngamer11 Experienced.

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    This is going to be awesome. I can't wait to see the Justice League's reactions when they see what Paul has prepared to use against them.
     
  26. Grimnar

    Grimnar Versed in the lewd.

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    This arc is kind of amazing.

    Does anyone remember when the leagues review was? Because this fic is too long and the episodes thing has shit formatting.
     
  27. AidanMorgan

    AidanMorgan Essentially Overworked

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    I can't stop laughing! Oh, man, this is great. I can't wait for the wargame!
     
  28. Ardy

    Ardy I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    I haven't been this excited since we found out Zauriel was going to be hanging around Paul!

    (when is that happening, by the way, Zoat?)
     
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  29. Aeess

    Aeess I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Cuchulin, Ardy, DrThoth and 2 others like this.
  30. ForeverShogo

    ForeverShogo Not too sore, are you?

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    On wondering if the stuff I posted is even DCAU canon . . . Probably. But who can really say with the way comic book canon works.

    All I can really say is that was the idea they went with for Wonder Woman. They actually thought about a different scenario for introducing her to the Batman Beyond comics.

    The other scenario they considered? Batman and Wonder Woman would have actually ended up hooking up, no running off to alternate universe Batman required. Then I guess despite how hard the DCAU shipped them, even if Batman Beyond had him forever alone, they were going to have Diana abandon Bruce and the rest of the Justice League the moment she became pregnant. At which point she was going to fuck off to Themyscira to raise the child as a proper Amazon.

    Eventually Bruce and Diana's daughter was going to get curious enough about her father that she'd leave Themyscira to visit Gotham. Have some adventures with Terry. Don't remember what they were going to name her. Only that it was going to be the first time Bruce got to meet her, and Diana was going to show up to take her back to Themyscira. With that also being the first time Bruce had seen her since he got her pregnant.

    Because whoever the fuck the writers were for the Batman Beyond comics seem to think Wonder Woman is all about abandoning her friends and loved ones.

    Oh, and when talking about the actual show . . . Bruce Timm at one point considered bringing in Helena Wayne, daughter of Bruce and Selina, as Huntress instead of introducing a hypothetical Batgirl Beyond. So that's two potential daughters they ultimately decided against.
     
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