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

That would be utterly retarded of them...
So par for the course, I suppose.

 

Is this the first time Dox has been greediported since having his enhanced cognition stuff repaired? Because it occurs to me that he might have perceptually been exposed to the Honden for longer than the rest. And/or the snek got interested.

Which ... huh, I wonder if Dox's masterstroke plan is that he WANTS the Reach to build shields "defending" against the Honden and then turn that against them as an embargo of avarice.

Or if he's just making dumb decisions while under orange influence. Or possibly got suborned.

On the other hand I wonder if there was more to the choice of target than just military: wonder what Reach internal politics is like

 

If it's a graviton weapon, then it feels a thousand times heavier, not more massive.

sloughing off

I think that was OL challenging the Scarab Warrior to make a decision.

 

Eh, I wouldn't really call it a hasty decision.

Like, they could have saved this for a decapitation strike, but the Reach is too large and likely too decentralized for that to be super worthwhile.

Spending the surprise on a first strike operation like this where they get to pop the Reach in the nose, blood their Lanterns, and secure enough of a propaganda victory to motivate fence sitters is a worthwhile investment IMO.

The only issues so far have been Grayven showing up to killsteal and Dox being incommunicado. The first has been dealt with and the second is next on OL's to do list.

 

The Scarab is orange enlightened? Cool.

Don't bother? Uh that seems like a rather useful one hit kill.

 

Thank you, corrected.

Yes.

No, that was the SI.

Most Lanterns aren't as fast at it as the SI. Making the attempt would leave them vulnerable.

 

Crumbler tech....clearly the most powerful tech in the universe.

Not much of a showing from the Scarab. I always thought they were somewhat on Par with Lanterns. What with their weapon morphing to match constructs.

And some random earth dude outdoes them. What is on earth that causes this? Is it all the Life Entity? Something mystical?

At this point, The Crumbler should be feared throughout the universe in no time.

 

They may be a match for an average Lantern, but Paul is far from an average Lantern.

 

Matching a Green Lantern, when their weapons and methods prevent using lethal force. Scarabs have been killing people that have been going at them with kid gloves.

I think Blue Beetle in YJ had to talk his bug out of using lethal stuff just about every time they had it as an option. Black Beetle was the strongest one we've seen (he took out Green, which had Martian powers on top of scarab based powers) and Blue ended up matching him shot for shot. Thing is those WERE just straight out power vs power fights. And at a YJ cartoon levels of power. No skill, very little out of the box thinking, other then the hack/counter hack parts. Will give Black a good mark for messing up Miss Martian's phasing though.

Comic book Blue Beetle had weapons on the Theological scale, and could go vs Post Crisis Lanterns pretty well.

Don't think Blue would handle Hal / Paralax or Kyle / Ion combinations any better then anyone else did however.

 

Ah. The curse of perfectionism. Unfortunately, Dox had a blindspot that he failed to foresee.

 

they

He Haha. Better make that blinking lights. Especially in a non repeating pattern. That'll give it a feeling of being more active against something rather than just a random device.
I'm glad he can parse out boom tubes now so that's something.

 

Paul: Dox, yer a wizard.
Dox: I'm a what?

 

Thank you, corrected.

 

Was Dox exposed to Anti-Life or some equivalent? That's the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the black text

 

Not entirely sure, is the reason Dox is upset is cause he was knocked down due to overanalyzing and ashamed of that fact?

 

By not having a blind spot. Sort of.

 

Huh. So he got knocked out by Grayven's godspeech?

 

Not exactly. Well, he was knocked down due to an overload of data from Grayven's appearance, but he should have been capable of handling it. At least the non-magical data. Unfortunately, his recent interactions with magicians/high-magic environment gave him some kind of minor magic sense that he was not aware of. This meant that he also got magical data that he hadn't learned parse properly. Thus, knock-out.

 

He was expecting you to show up, wasn't he? A breach of combat protocol like Dox committed has to be seen to, after all. And who better than the senior field commander of the Lantern Corps?

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

So all's well amongst the fleet operations. Barring any further Reach assaults on their predicted course of travel, anyway.

Yes, please do tell us what the fucking hell happened?

He's not dead, clearly. But is his mind intact? Is he still sane?

Which was very rude, you know. If you insist on being in command, it's on you to be available to give orders.

How forcefully, I wonder? Politely shuffled out by orange hands, or picked up and thrown bodily into the corridor?

An oversight, OL. I know Dox wanted you to be hands-off with the NEMO organisation, but not reading up is a bit slack.

Dox was overconfident, wasn't he? Did he not consider the possibility of his being incapacitated during a battle at all? And he calls himself a twelfth-level intellect.

Even a Lantern can be killed, after all. Never mind having his mind blown by something.

One more for the to-do list... Quite high on the priority, methinks.

Not said: 'I'm not leaving until we speak.' I think even Dox can pick up on that subtext...

Hoo-boy. This had better be good. Clearly, he's still processing what happened.

...shiiiiit... Get that man a drink! And maybe confiscate his ring. And anything he could use to injure himself?

Pretty sure, yup. After all, he spoke to the owner. Which, if Dox has been keeping up on the data-feed, he should know.

Well, now we know why he went silent. Partly, at least. Looks like Grayven's Godspeech hit him hard, as the Leader of the enemy.

...Has Dox been through any real training with the ring? Any combat practice? He should have known running full-on like that was a bad idea...

Interesting. Best Snek taking a personal hand in the repair? Let me guess, she likes the shape of his desire to know everything.

Eh? What's that got to do with...

No, seriously, where...

You think he's sensitive to Godspeech? Allergic, even? I suppose that makes sense. If he'd been fully open to all incoming data, the sheer sledgehammer force of Grayven's Domain slamming into him... No wonder he passed out.

Not the Boom Tube, you idiot. What else do New Gods have that you know of, hmm? Still working on his faulty assumptions.

That's not the issue, Dox. Listen!

"Had to be me. Someone else would have gotten it wrong." Good grief. Get this man laid! He needs something to think about other than Data.

After you get your head back on straight, man. First thing...

Like Doccer said, make them blinking lights. Nothing says 'this is doing something important' than blinking lights.

Yes, can you just imagine the hit his rep would take if that were to get out? No-one would take him seriously again.

Yes, a much-needed talk, it seems. After all, one man alone, no matter how smart, cannot operate an entire war by himself.

So, Dox really did get knocked out by Grayven's Godspeech. Sort of. Or at least, that's the story he'll tell people. Hopefully this serves as a wake-up call that no, the twelfth-level intellect can't do everything himself, and he'll have to learn to delegate. Let's hope he can learn the right lessons from this...

 

I call bullshit on this.

Because if he could create Boomtubes he could win this war in five minutes by portaling planet killers onto all of the reach planets.

 

He has already shown the ability before in the story.

 

The way I understood it: he gained a minor magical ability allowing him to perceive...higher data without having been aware if it.

The Ring gave him perfect awareness during the battle (quintessential waveform scan most likely)

Grayven did not just open a Boom Tube, he used his god soul in the process.

That transmitted an extra layer of unfamiliar, new information and Dox was overloaded.

The reason for the black text is probably that this is a core understanding of his being: he is the guy capable of seeing and analysing everything. And he failed in his very own domain. It shook him to the core.



Paul needs to talk to Dox about many things, because it's obvious that being a data junkie isn't the problem, it's a symptom.

Dox pathological need to control everything, to feel safe by knowing everything due to his past has already become an issue and it will become one again.

He desperately needs to learn how to trust someone, how to rely on them.

Hell, a fucking trust fall excercise might do him good at this point.

 

um, remember when OL was training a batch of newbie and Dox show up with a boomtube

he does know how to make one

 

The LEGION could def use more positions and a larger, more defined hierarchy. Strategy, tactics, logistics, administrations, MilInt and security are very different fields of expertise after all.

 

So it was something Grayven did.

A big grey something

Technically he is with the ring, that is if he wants to be.

Please tell me this is just some depression and not Anti Life.

'is that your'

 

Just "normal" despair, I think. But considering Dox's level of control over his emotions, very worrying.

 

What about if he get's laid by Data? (aka Lieutenant Commander Data)

 

Congratulations, you just convinced everyone in the thread that he's the most incompetent commander in the history of military commanders.

 

Grayven happened.

Are any Orange Lanterns really sane?

Tenth level actually.

Ehh, he seems to be black right now so he may not be able to use the ring.

He has been training, but most of that training probably hasn't focused on data overload.

New Gods do seem to like using Boom Tubes and their God Speech may not be widely known.

Also there's not a lot of reason for him to focus on New Gods since Grayven showing up was completely unexpected.

Maybe Georgia can help.

Or he can make a robot girlfriend.

Or a robot prostitute, since some things you don't do with a robot girlfriend.

Hopefully.
And again, tenth level.