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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. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    I think OL wants it to become a police force, but first they need to get rid of the Reach.
     
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  2. Shotiegun11

    Shotiegun11 Know what you're doing yet?

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    I believe the SI wants it to be a military force, not a police force, and he recognizes that ,at least for a few centuries, it going to be an Anti-Reach force primarily.

    EDIT: More Military Force than the GLC's Police Force.
     
  3. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    Or maybe a bit more militant police force, after the war with the Reach is over.
     
  4. Oglymogly

    Oglymogly I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    I think its important to point out that the pool of potential recruits honestly isn't very large.

    Lets look at the criteria Dox was limited by:
    They have to have a strong affinity for orange light, but not so strong that they won't take orders or stay on task.
    They have to want to fight the Reach more than they want other things in the immediate term. And most people who are handed power try to change things for themselves or people close to them first, before helping strangers.
    They have to be willing and able to fight a war/be in battle. And they have to want to be there. So he's looking for battle nuts, or people who want to see specifically the Reach fall. But they can't be too angry or compassionate or scared, or they won't be effective.
    Oh, and they can't have been brainwashed by the Reach. Can't forget that, that preemptively cuts the pool way down.

    Is it any surprise that the first wave is comprised of less than stable people? Not to mention that Dox is likely putting the ones least 'useful' long term in the most deadly spots.

    Also, it wouldnt suprise me to see a decent chunk of Orange Lanterns end up being temporary. Given the power to achieve what they want, and losing the ring once their desires have been filled.
     
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  5. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    Stable or Powerful, pick your poison because the two are pretty much mutually exclusive with Orange Lanterns.
     
  6. Ngamer11

    Ngamer11 Experienced.

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    Not necessarily. It's just that it's a lot harder to get someone who's both. Paul had to go through a lot to get to his current level of power and stability. Remember, these recruits are basically disposable Lanterns that Dox fully expects to die on the battlefield. When they do, he'll just find more. After the Reach is handled, which will take years/decades, Dox and Paul will look for recruits who are both stable and have a strong potential to become stronger Orange Lanterns without losing stability.
     
  7. Lone Courier 6

    Lone Courier 6 Wanderer of threads

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    this is why Yellow and Green are more effective, sure less raw power but far more stable and reliable in the long run even if Orange has bullshit tricks.
     
  8. Hell's Razer

    Hell's Razer Passive Member

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    /Cynicism mode On
    Or failing that they die here and thus stop being a problem long term.
    /Cynicism mode Off
     
  9. Maxx Crowley

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

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    Well, that was a good showing of orange power from Para-Paul. Always nice to see glimpses of the Titan he actually is.

    Gotta say, wasn't expecting the Reach this early. Figured that was more of an end boss.

    I wonder if OL should start training orange recruits on earth. Kinda mixing both sets of his duties.
     
  10. Sordid Snake

    Sordid Snake (Verified Viper)

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    "Hot Drop on Jita!"

    Universe-range instant fleet teleport is a hell of a force multiplier. Shame they only have OL to do it, and wonder if Dox hopes that this action will force other lanterns to break or grow until they can replicate the feet?

    But even now OL could move one fleet, instantly teleport to another fleet and move it, and so on.

    The Reach could either concentrate their fleets to the most important worlds, letting LEGION divide their fleets into the minimum necessary to overcome fixed defenses and devastate 99% of The Reach, or The Reach could spread its fleet out to all their systems and forcing LEGION to concentrate in an handful of fleets that still would be strong enough to assuredly wreck the targeted world. The Reach can only choose between losing gradually or rapidly.

    This is the moment when the losing side pulls out whatever they can find, nukes, gas, doomed counter-charges, for any microscopic chance of not losing is better than an assured defeat.

    Long range strikes against members of the anti-Reach coalition or even Earth?

    This is also the moment when harming the enemy for the sake of harming the enemy becomes a goal.

    "Is Malthus Burning?"
     
  11. WereDragon

    WereDragon Bookwyrm

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    Consequence of the hands-off approach.
    If Paul had wanted it done right he should have done it himself.
     
  12. Ngamer11

    Ngamer11 Experienced.

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    I agree with the first sentence, but not the second one. Paul wanted it done as quickly, but efficiently, as possible. He's not good at giving strategic orders for a large army, or calculating all the logistics that would go in assembling the army. Dox, on the other hand, is good at things like that. If Paul had stayed more hands on, it probably would have resulted in the same thing that happened in the Renegade timeline: two similar but different groups that both call themselves the Orange Lantern Corps.
     
  13. Sorrow

    Sorrow Getting sticky.

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    Dox is a logician. He does things logically. He might have more than one reason to bring these Lanterns. It is possible that a lot of them are going to be Suicide lanterns and if you bring the most unstable, least able, the chances are they are going to die.
     
  14. Coda

    Coda Versed in the lewd.

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    Hard disagree.

    First off, this isn't a failing, merely a difference of opinion/priority. Dox understands the required psychology even if he isn't mystically capable of optimizing the search for it, and Dox's priorities were on getting competent fighters for a war with the Reach even if that meant Lanterns that were suboptimal in other ways.

    Second, it was pretty clear from the beginning that OL would have to dedicate full time to recruitment in order to even TRY to come up with suitable numbers. This was never going to be a scalable approach. An army cannot have a single person responsible for everything. It does not work. And that's assuming he didn't burn out on the desire to try. Furthermore, even if he could have kept up with the demand, it would have meant his own skills and connections would not be able to be used in any other situation in any other place, because he'd be busy. This was, in fact, the most optimum decision OL could have made.

    Third, weighing in on that many decisions would have put OL and Dox at odds more often, and OL explicitly did not want Dox's job. Dox put him on shore leave for a reason.
     
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  15. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    Not really sure I would call Paul stable given the way he constantly flits from thing to thing...
     
  16. w34v3r

    w34v3r Versed in the lewd.

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    I don't think the OLC is ever going to be all one thing or a totally dedicated military/police force. The simple fact of the matter is the the ideal Orange Lantern is someone like Paul who has multiple desires and a good idea of how to balance them, the best Orange Lanterns are almost inevitably going to have their on projects, priorities, agendas, and ideas of how the universe should be.
     
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  17. Senevri

    Senevri Not too sore, are you?

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    Well, Paul does not want to do that, so as an orange lantern, that's a no go. I think Hinon didn't want to get distracted from research and fighting Reach was a goal towards which Dox is both capable and competent. As a general purpose leader? Not so much.
     
  18. Gilhelmi

    Gilhelmi Know what you're doing yet?

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    Well, as we all know, the Sequel is rarely as good as the Original. The Sequel to Larfleeze might be weak compared to the Original, but would still be quite dangerous.
     
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  19. Threadmarks: Over Reaching (part 6)
    Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    3rd July 2012
    10:43 GMT -5


    The ship knows that it can't escape, and is turning to give its weapons the best fields of fire.

    The Reach have really committed to their beetle theme. The ship heading towards us literally looks like a stag beetle. Oh, the legs are replaced by their gravity emitters and scanners and the 'head' is their primary weapon rather than their bridge or sensor node, but the curve of the armour just shouts 'beetle'. It's as if humans had ships shaped like monkeys. As I watch my ring reports that the primary weapon is firing, but my squad evades without prompting. The primary weapon is slower than light and our sensors are faster than light. It's the secondary weapons that are the actual threat, and all of us should be capable of blocking them.

    And there it goes, the beam of antiplasma flying past us to ruin someone's day in a million years. I'd guess that they're just testing that we're not complete-. Yes, there they go, shutting the armour around their primary weapon and powering it down to prevent us destroying the ship with a penetrating hit to the nose. At the same time the gun ports protecting the light speed secondary weapons retract and those will actually require effort to evade.

    I don't bother reminding them of this fact. They've been training for this day, and are better motivated in the specific than I am. Instead I add a few evasive jinks to my movement, an action which Light-Click Quiet-Cough Rasp and Velus copy. Brobranbrak on the other hand opts to create an opaque shield, the construct escutcheon containing a layer of ultra-dense material just in case the Reach are intelligent enough to use orange lasers. I suspect that they've got a few, but I doubt that they beat the Green Lantern Corps with green lasers so I doubt they're expecting them to get more than a handful of free kills against exhausted Lanterns.

    The ship spins, presenting us with its upper surface and its entire secondary weapons array. My ring shows me its lines of fire with probability figures and I flit through the optimal course as violet rays turn space into a disco. Brobranbrak isn't actually drawing a disproportionate number of shots despite being an easier target than the rest of us, the ship's captain most likely deducing that if zhe's just flying like that zhe's probably confident in zhe's abilities. Eventually, the Reach will start sticking experimental or specialist weapon systems onto smaller ships to take us by surprise, but at the moment this ship's abilities match our intelligence reports perfectly.

    "Fire at will."

    Brobranbrak fires at once, a fat orange beam blasting out of zhe's shield and speeding towards the ship. It tries to evade, but its gravity drive can't redirect itself fast enough without tearing the ship apart and all it manages to do is change a direct hit to a glancing hit. A glance hit that still manages to make its shield shudder and appreciably robs its momentum.

    "You sure you don't want first blood?"

    Velus sounds slightly nervous, quite at odds with what I'd expect from someone with his desire set. Why-? Ah, I see. He knows he's not at my level and doesn't want to waste his future killing opportunities by provoking me into killing him right now.

    "Positive. I'm a results-orientated fellow. As long as they die it doesn't matter to me."

    "You'd know."

    He uses a weapon construct, which fires a 'beam' of gravity distortions. It's a little like the attack I used to destroy the first Reach ship I encountered, though more focused and efficient. Compared to Brobranbrak's effort it has the advantage of being faster than light and effectively bypassing the shields the ship is using. Unfortunately, the ship's density shifting armour grants it a degree of resistance to attacks like that. Not complete resistance; I can see the line across its armour where the beam is tearing apart the armour. And then the beam turns and three guns are destroyed before the ship starts closing gun ports.

    "When I was a boy, I used to like cutting limbs off things before I killed them. Did the same as an adult, actually. Just did it to bigger creatures. Now, I figure this is my level."

    And then he dives down, trying to ensure that the ship can't keep its toughest armour pointing at all of us.

    "Still doing the same bile, though."

    "I can respect your self-awareness. Light-Click Quiet-Cough Rasp? You don't feel like joining-"

    The ship changes its targeting program and manages to hit me, the shot doing token damage to my construct armour.

    "-in?"

    "I will kill them at close quarters."

    "As you-"

    "RAAAAAAGH!"

    "-will."

    Brobranbrak's beam triples in size, and strands of energy emerge from the far end and clamp the edge of the ship's shield envelope in place. The ship's acceleration changes as it applies more power to trying to evade, but Brobranbrak is perfectly capable of holding it in place as the pumped beam hits.

    The shield breaks, emitters utterly overloaded. The beam carries on into the ship's armour, being partially but not entirely deflected by the uppermost layer. The ship stops, exposed guns and upper surface sensors smashed to pieces and armour flaking as the beam smashes into it.

    "Nice shot."

    Brobranbrak stops, and the handful of still-functional guns take shots at zhe in case zhe's too exhausted to stop them. No such luck, though I am momentarily puzzled by why zhe stopped-. Oh, because an alien gave zhe a compliment and that disrupted zhe's focus. That's something zhe may need to work on for practicality concerns, rather than power level ones.

    Velus fires at the ship's underbelly, and the destruction of its gravity emitters causes it to tumble.

    "Come on people, it's crippled and we're not here for prisoners. Kill-."

    "At all?" Velus sounds excited. "We're not taking-?"

    "If they throw themselves at your feet, aren't armed and you aren't needed elsewhere, take them prisoner if at all possible. But this isn't about capturing intelligence assets. It's about sending a violent message that we can crush them."

    "No need to justify it to me. You want a kill shot?"

    Space fractures, intense gravity slashing through the ship and x-rays lashing out to fry everything that isn't cleaved in two. A larger ship would have systems to prevent that, but a smaller ship like this can only rely on the system's anti-FTL system.

    "I'll give you a kill shot."

    "Still reading life signs."

    Light-Click Quiet-Cough Rasp surges forward, reaching the hull in a few seconds and tearing into it with construct blades.

    "I have it."

    I see the orange flares marking the surviving crew members flick out as he travels through the ship's interior, then turn away to look across the system.

    The fleet base is bringing its defence screens to full power as the ships finish mustering. A station based on a planet can have far more powerful generators and emitters than a mobile element, and they've determined that coming at us isn't going to work. And they can't throw scarabs at us to board our ships because Lanterns can counter that far more effectively than space fighters. But not all the ships have made it back. One of the ships I'd marked as being too far away has decided to try. Based on our speed…

    "That one's our next target."
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2021
  20. BlueMangoAdea

    BlueMangoAdea Alive. For now.

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    "that", rather than "than"?

    Good chapter. Can't wait for the battle against scarabs.
     
  21. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    'zhe's probably confident' not 'he'

    'this ships abilities' not 'ship's'

    'The ships acceleration' not 'ship's'
     
  22. FreeGod

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

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    I was expecting one of them to try and show off with a really big attack. Are they trying to capture this planet intact or just wreak it? Because if it's just wreak they can throw nukes like candy. Or more deadly stuff.
     
  23. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    maybe 'of the ships shields and envelope it in place'
     
  24. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Thank you, corrected.
    Heh.
    Thank you, corrected.
    Why would it be a plural when he's talking about one ship?
    Nuking it wouldn't work. Sublight missiles are really easy to intercept in space, and most forms of teleportation are jammed.
    No, it was supposed to be 'envelope'.
     
  25. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    Magic active planets are apparently fairly rare in the universe, so they may not have any experience with magic.

    Ehh, he may be able to work on him and make him loyal.

    Some of the characters that he's given rings to would have turned on him the moment they thought he wasn't useful anymore if their characteristics were true to their comic self's, like Komand'r.
     
  26. Chojin Patriarch

    Chojin Patriarch Veteran Lurker

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    I see they'd rather make a fight of it than go down with knives in their back, so to speak. Respectable, but futile.

    I mean, it's an effective shape. Streamlined, mostly, sloped and curved armour to ensure glancing hits and gives a good aesthetic overall. I presume the vaguely earth-like shapes of the insects are a case of convergent evolution...

    Aw, the mini-boss is smart enough to cover the big, glowing weakpoint. Time to break out the sledgehammers, then.

    Bro playing the tank, giving them a big obvious target to distract them from the DPS allies. I suppose OL is playing the Support role.

    That must be demoralising. seeing them dodge or flat-out soak your shots with no meaningful effect...

    :p But how will they hit him on Earth? And why would you want them to shoot Will Harper (The clone Roy,) anyway? :D

    Now, now, Bro, size isn't everything. A tighter beam would put more of its energy onto a smaller point, after all...

    I bet he's been getting that feeling a lot around the other Corps members. His people must be a cutthroat lot. Assuming that attitude is normal.

    o_O ...Know what?

    Heh, blunting the possible response shots, and limiting their options. Do they keep the damaged part facing away, possibly exposing more lightly armoured areas, or risk taking more damage to prevent that?

    Ah, Moot point. With four lanterns, they can keep the ship bracketed from every angle. And force them to either split fire, lessening the damage, or concentrate, reducing the defensive spreads.

    Hey, if he knows he's a sadistic asshole, more power to him. Might make for a good step on the path to enlightenment,

    Claiming the boarding option, then. He'll have to wait for an opening, though.

    :p Careful, get too angry and you'll lose functionality there...

    Looks like they've crippled it. If their ship are anything like a Federation vessel, control panels are probably exploding all over. But I expect they have sensible fail-safe setups, not fail-flashy...

    Gotta work on keeping your mind on what you want, bud. If that had happened when they could shoot at you, you'd be dead.

    Oh, that'll get them excited. Two of them, at least.

    In other words, don't go out of your way. The Reach will no doubt claim this whole battle as an atrocity because of things like that.

    Man can bring the Boom when he wants to. admittedly, it's only useful for squashing bugs, but hey, you get your jollies where you can.

    Rip and Tear time. It's going to be a real horror show in there, total slasher flick... :D

    And doesn't that just say so much about how much he's changed in the course of the story...

    Heh. Too bad they're too far away to see any gesture he'd make. Can you imagine the reactions if they saw OL pointing at them?

    Well, that's a good way to get relative rookies fired up. I mean, they might have made minor actions out there (The clicker lost squadmates out there, after all) but this? This is an all-out assault. No sneaking. No running away. Just tearing at the foe until they die or surrender... That's got to be good for the soul...
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2020
  27. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    At least the ships look better than the Apokaliptian vessels from YJ.

    Seriously I know Darkseid has an ego, but having his face on the ships?

    Because he's an asshole.

    Granted the Light probably made him that way, so shoot the Light.

    I think he's just a run of the mill sociopath, albeit one that can wield a ring.

    His own desires.

    I don't think that's wise.
     
  28. BlueMangoAdea

    BlueMangoAdea Alive. For now.

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    I mean, if a person is a sadistic asshole regardless, I would prefer that person to be aware of the fact and consider it when they make their decisions.
     
  29. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    Yeah, but giving more power to them, specifically ring power in this case, seems like a bad idea.
     
  30. BlueMangoAdea

    BlueMangoAdea Alive. For now.

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    The phrase "more power to [someone]" does not mean literally giving them more power. It is a phrase used to show one's approval. In this specific case,
    CP is approving the self-awareness of the sadistic asshole.
     
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