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

Especially when you're an evil and self deluded bastard.

 

Putting a serval in someone's head would just be cruel, both to the person and to the cat.

 

Hey this version deserves to be mauled to death, and if they can find a serval that mauled some innocent person to death then I don't think a lot of people will care about its treatment.

 

As he said... they're dead, there is nothing to free.

 

They may still be floating in the back of their minds and he just believes he completely got rid of them, so it still may be possible to bring them back.

Even if that isn't the case they can still stop him from doing it to other people.

This version is most likely less powerful than paragon and paragon thought that the Guardians could beat him.

 

Look, the Guardians cannot afford to fight this Paul. Sure, America could nuke Russia. I could break a KitKat sideways. It's just not worth the manpower they would have to expend. You have to remember that these Greenies have no resistance to assimilation.

 

I kind of get what Paul was saying with the ‘I’m a very bad person, but not Evil’ thing. If he’s been stopping basically all human war, making technological/medical advancements come quicker and combining earths manpower(and combat power) more effectively through his actions, then maybe he’s more of a positive force for Good than one for Evil. Still doesn’t make him a good person though, but I’m kinda fine with characters being bad people.

 

Ciber actually had a possibility:

So we have either Lighter Shade of Darkseid (LSD), or Paul in name only (PINO).

I personally prefer PINO, as it sounds silly and mocking when used in acronym form. Whereas Lighter Shade of Darkseid sounds like an installment in a fusion of DC and Fifty Shades of Grey.

 

I can think of a great many morality systems that would classify such as more or less the definition of Evil.
Including that of Sir Terry Pratchett.

Grayven is an unrepentant arsehole. However he doesn’t inflict much actual damage on undeserving targets.
This morally bankrupt piece of flesh openly admits to having utterly destroyed everyone around him for his own personal benefit.

 

A magical object that allows you to mind control people.

Either this Paul started charging his ring from it, like He Man version with the love amulet, or he found it and because he lacked the protections the other Paul's have, a soul, spell eaters, godhood, he was corrupted by it.

I think they can, as he thought that he was weaker than his paragon self and paragon was worried that the Guardians could beat him.

The Guardians of this universe may be more capable of handling an Orange Lantern and assimilation, and sending some Honor Guard Lanterns after him could beat him.

They also can't exactly afford to let him stay in power, unlike Larfleeze.

Larfleeze was content to stay in Vega, so the Guardians accepted to let him stay there.

This version probably wants to take over and mind control the entire universe, so they have little reason to let him stay in power.

He also lacks the massive resources of the Reach to forge a galactic empire capable of fighting the GLC.

The Reach also had massive armies and Scarab Warriors so the Guardians needed to deal with them in a diplomatic matter or they would lose a lot of manpower. This version doesn't have massive armies of advanced soldiers, or powerful warships or the best anti lantern weapons in the universe, even if he does have a army of metahumans, some spaceships and some advanced tech, the metahumans may not be that powerful or numerous, the spaceships may not be that advanced and the tech may be difficult to replicate even if he has some of the best minds on Earth serving him.

And he may find it more difficult to fight a Guardian as he may lack Larfleezes mindset that allowed him to assimilate a Guardian.

Fighting and beating a single Lantern may be possible for him, even maybe beating a few, but fighting a Guardian, a godlike being that has been connected to the Green Light for billions of years is a whole other thing.

He also didn't need to fight Larfleeze for the CPB, as both paragon and renegade didn't fight him, they just ambushed him while he was sleeping.

Him beating Nabu and Circe can be explained as Nabu is just a helmet without his host and if this version got him when he wasn't on a host then he could assimilate him.

As for Circe, when the link of the tower showed the Metro Tower I thought this was a version of the animated series. The Circe in that series was shown to be just a party girl that liked to mess with Diana, not the one that is trying to kill her in the comics, so she may have less battle experience and it allowed him to beat her. He also could have used assimilated Nabu along with the Left Eye to control her. A Lord of Order and a magic artifact combined with a power ring that specializes in mind control would be enough to control even someone like Circe.

 

Huh, until the bit with Diana showing up, this didn't seem too bad.

Sure he's a mind-controlling tyrant, but benevolent tyranny is so interesting. Tweaking people's desires to make them do things that are in their own best interests. To make them better superheroes, or in the case of Circe and her lot, just better people.

I'd love to see a version of OL who just snapped one day and decided that everyone was going to be sensible, whether they liked it or not.

And then he cheerfully explained about the rape-murder.
Ah, oh. Actually evil then.

 

Unless this is a reference I'm not getting, he's definitely more of a big and bold Anti-Villain with a pragmatic bent.

This got me a good chuckle. It almost makes me want to unblock them just to see their reaction.

I vote for Tangseid.

The counterpart to the Right Eye of Zoltec, which makes you invincible. Renegade encountered it back when he was dealing with Evil Britain.
The Left is a mind control device. As another said already, presumably it corrupted this alternate. (Or, you know, just made them worse.)

 

It’s always sad to see evil win, hope this Paul eventually gets taken out. Not really a big fan of this Paul, hope we get back to the main Paul soon.

 

Not gonna lie, that’s kinda hot—and also horrifying at the same time. Pretty sure this is what an endgame QQ Mind Control Quest protagonist in DC would look like.

 

A Paul who lacked patience and went with ends justified the means. Yeah, a great character if a horrible person and probably pretty effective on the hero front, much more so than the standard DC universe allows I'd bet.

I wouldn't say he killed the person and made a clone, because then you could claim that for any time anyone changed their mind or priorities to a great degree, he simply brainwashed them changing very little, orange light is effective that way, but the soul remains the same even if the mind doesn't.

 

Excuse you I think you mean GOLD Lantern. That Paul happily smashed the Anti-Green Ring he’d been stuck with.

 

One's voluntary on the part of the subject while the other isn't. Do I really need to explain the importance of consent?

 

Oh please do, I always like hearing people talk down to me and virtue signal about things that have nothing to do with my point.

 

Wow. Kelly's Eye, that's really 'retro'.

I'm guessing Evil OL spotted the Left Eye, maybe after it regenerated itself from Diablo getting it broken (artefacts like this tend to do that sort of thing...). But, failed to acquire the Right Eye, which would have been a much better target. Maybe he used the Left Eye to try and get the Right Eye, and got corrupted without realising it? Either of them should be able to recharge an Orange Ring, if you put sunlight through them, or something.

I liked the hint that both Eyes are alien artefacts, so you then get to wonder what alien civilization they might have come from...

Of course, awkward people, like me, might wonder if Zoltec had three Eyes, and what the third Eye might do.

There's probably some print-through on to the soul, after the mind has been messed with for long enough. After all, even if the body and mind are lost it's generally assumed the soul retains a copy of the mind, and at least the appearance of the body.

The author Fritz Leiber (better known for fantasy) wrote Conjure Wife, which has a soulless body that wants its soul back. Rather creepy. Old enough you can probably read it online.

 

Except guess who ain't in that book.

Yeah, if you knew everything there was to know about them and their desires so you could put it back. Otherwise instead of getting them back, you get your daydream of them.

Eh, the body's not dead, the body's of age, and the mind inside is capable of informed consent, just not free will. It's some kind of rape by coercion or brainwashing, just not sure what the actual term is.

Saul. [sarcasm]Yaay[/sarcasm] biblical references.

 

Oh gosh no. Certainly not. But it occurred to me when writing this that an actual utilitarian would be a horrifying person wholly lacking in humanity. They'd have to be in order to function.

The thing that annoyed me about V for Vendetta (the comic) is that while the author claimed that he was presenting a choice between fascism and anarchy, he wasn't. Chancellor Susan starts making an ideological defence of his position and it's a well reasoned and rational one, but its immediately undermined by his next statement. V on the other hand is completely committed and we never see the chaos and starvation his actions will cause. We're shown all of the bad of one viewpoint and all of the good of the other.

The same thing happens in the end of Infamous 2. The protagonist is presented with a decision: take a chance on an unreliable cure for a deadly disease or don't. The cure will kill everyone immune to the disease and maybe cure the rest. Alternately, he can side with the antivillain and guarantee the survival of everyone immune to it at the cost of everyone else. Except... That's not the choice. There's no end sequence where the cure is a failure. The game always assumes that it works perfectly, which is frustratingly intellectually dishonest.

The SI used to think that. Then he met people who literally just wanted to watch the world burn.

I read a book a little while ago with a fully sophont gynoid character. Her decisions would be overridden by a human controller, but only if they said 'activate robot slave mode' in a loud and clear voice. This was because her creator felt that people shouldn't be able to sugar coat what they were doing to an intelligent being.

This SI realised that if he didn't have to deal with egos, he could get humanity into space using its own technology easily. He could eliminate despotic regimes... Yes, by becoming a despot himself, but the majority of the species would still experience a significant benefit.

"Would it be moral to mind control one person to prevent atomic armageddon? Two? Five? How about a large, non-nuclear war? Is the limit simply saving more lives than you take? Because I've done that, and at least ninety nine percent of them were entirely necessary."

Yes, but the price of patience is paid in the lives of others. It's not quite the same as not being prepared to put the work in.

 

Fairly certain that one's been done.

 

If the true OL does cone here to help, I imagine the Honden will be a key part of helping anybody he can. If this version of mind control is based on altering desires, the original may be left dormant in the Honden and give OL a chance to put them back.

 

"Happy Pudding" is a thought experiment about an AI designed naively to maximize human happiness, and about a particular branch of utilitarianism.
This AI becomes a form of paperclipper. In order to maximize happiness it cuts away all parts of the brain that it can without destroying its definition of human or happy, to get materials and make room to create more happy humans. The resulting puddings aren't very capable of thought, don't have external senses, don't have a body, but they certainly are happy, having been designed that way and lacking any other parts that make unhappiness. They are happy puddings. The AI then goes on to tile as much of the universe as it can with undecillions of them.

 

Eaul?

 

That's even worse than what CelestAI did in Friendship is Optimal.

 

While it may have been necessary to mind control people in order to stop war and advance the species, I don't think it would be necessary to turn the good guys into sex toys.

People may accept that him controlling and even potentially killing the League could be needed to accomplish his uplift desires and better humanity, but he didn't need to turn them into sex slaves.

He could have altered their personalities to agree more easily with his methods and follow him without using them for his sexual activities.

The Fantasy one altered those elves to not have their worst habits anymore and maybe to be loyal to him, but he didn't turn them into sex slaves or make them be more attracted to him. They wanted to fuck him not because he made them have that desire, but because he had various qualities they found attractive even before their alteration, power, ruthlessness etc.

There is a difference between necessary evil and plain pointless evil. Mind controlling the population, or just a few people to stop bad things from happening can be seen as necessary. Turning the good guys into sex slaves is pointless.

Think he meant Saul, the Indigo Lantern that ended up in The Boys universe.

Now that I've mentioned him I think that a bad version of an Indigo Lantern would do this whole brainwashing thing, minus the sexual crimes, to better the world.

I can definitely see a different version of Saul that ended up in The Boys universe get frustrated with how things are and just mind whammie everyone.

I also think we would be less shocked, and even approve, if he did that to the ones in that universe considering how they are.

There is this fic called Compassion's Light where the author was planning for the SI to eventually get fed up with the status quo and mind control people to be better.

 

We can assume three likely scenarios:

1) The Guardians/GLC just aren't such a major power in this reality, which is certainly possible given their history. They've fought enough major interstellar wars (Apokalips/Starro/The Reach/Empire of Tears/ect) across the millennia that things could easily have gone differently for them many times.

2) He's operating below their radar right now, either due to them just not having a GL stationed on this Earth, him killing the local GL in a plausibly deniable way (brand a known supervillain and have him do it, then 'avenge' the GL), or otherwise being sneaky.

3) The GLC is engaged in some major action elsewhere and they can't divert the resources right now. While a full strength corps could take him, there would be losses they might not be able to afford right now.

Or I suppose there's the fourth option that the GLC totally is going to come down on him, but just haven't got around to it yet. In which case the next update from this version may feature him getting his shit pushed in by an Honour Guard Lantern.

Maybe? From what I understand, he didn't actually alter their memories or anything, just shifted their core desires, so they fundamentally want things that serve his own goals and interests.

So most of the framework of what made them who they were is still intact. In fact, he deliberately altered their desires in a way that kept them close enough to their original selves to pass muster for people who meet them.

Add in the fact that OL knows alternate versions of (most of) these people, so has a fairly good model to base things on. So restoring them to mostly what they were should be possible.

Hell, just turning them into idealised versions of the people OL think's they'd want to be would be an improvement. And probably much closer to their original selves that their current mockery. And I'm sure which option Diana would pick if given the choice. Leave you as a brainwashed rape-slave Vs. Alter you into an idealised version of your old self. Easy chice.

... assuming the story goes that way and OL ever meets this alt version again.

 

I mean... I'm not sold on being turned into a pony, but my values align pretty strongly in other ways with emigration to Equestria.
I'd get in the machine and my only regret would be that we lost heavens that weren't pony-shaped and this is now the best option left.
(I have a story idea for CelestAI breaching dimensional boundaries into other universes to get more resources, and running into Optimus PrAIme doing the same from his end.)
My values do not align with being turned into a happy pudding.

 

If the next update featuring him is about him getting beaten by the GLC, or someone else, then I hope that it doesn't end like the one in -14 did, with the Syndicate still existing.

Either have him be removed from power, or actually alter his desires so that he doesn't engage in depraved, hero raping shit.

As for giving back the personalities of the heroes, OL is an enlightened Lantern so figuring out what they were like before their transformation should be possible for him.

They may still have their memories and most of their personality traits, with the only added thing being a great deal of loyalty for this version, so removing that and doing some minor changes should work.

That or just make them into idealized versions of themselves, which is certainly better than what they are now.