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

Paul is doing the intimation thing rather well. Of course it's easy when you have overwhelming force.

 

If they've gained notoriety then they most likely have done some very, very bad things.

If he lets them live then the people they are trying to save from the Reach may lose some faith in him and the OLC, and they need that faith.

 

this isnt a police action this is war, those tend to be pretty different.

 

It's not a secret on Earth.

But Paul's in space dealing with the Reach.

 

Aside from the random Ring lanterns Larflees sent out being 'slaves' and such, Paul's first big public appearance in Vega, working for the queen of the spider guild, in front of all the other pirates started off with him mind controlling a potential assassin in front of everyone. I'm sure that story got around pretty quick in similar circles. And even if the story didn't filter down to them via the grape vine, the Reach themselves have likely started a anti Orange Lantern Corps PR campaign that would be more then willing to play spin doctor with what little they know so far.

 

Thank you, corrected.

There's a lot of theories that didn't pan out. Lone Gunman. Communism. Geometry.

 

Yep, he's taking them down easy as pie cake. Probably feels like an endgame MMO character walking through the starter zones... Grey mobs, grey mobs everywhere...

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

They're basically privateers, then. Private citizens given limited capacity to roam and raid anyone not flying Reach colours... Something that wouldn't fly on Earth, under modern rules of engagement.

Probably dependant on how willing they'd be to change their ways, I suppose? I suspect they've grown quite accustomed to raiding, and just declaring 'Oh, they weren't Reach, so it's fine.'

Nice guy OL. After all, killing them is a waste of useful resources. Whether it be any information they can provide, or their future service.

Wait, do they think he'll kill them if they surrender? Has the Reach been telling tall tales about Orange Lanterns?

Hey now, he's only done that once. To a large group, anyway.

Honestly, what did they think they were doing? Did no-one on the crew stop and ask "Are... Are we the bad guys here?"

Probably a shell company, funded by another company and another, in a chain reaching back to the Reach themselves. Plausible Deniability, and all that...

As long as the 'development' is Reach space expanding. At the cost of local populations...

In simpler terms: Come along quietly, or there will be trouble. ...Well, more trouble.

Sounds like the crew is taking matters into their own hands... Or whatever manipulation extremities they might have. No guarantee they're anthropomorphs.

Yeah, that's a pretty clear sign of surrender. Or some bizarre form of 'just kill us now, then.'

Given he just shot his boss in the back? I'd say he's claiming it whether he does or not.

And you don't want that. It might prove to be.. terminal...

Rather reasonable, really. It all comes down to how nice a group of privateers they were...

Because that will imply collaboration, and the next orange Lantern they face might not be so reserved as OL.

Ah, the shooting's started elsewhere? I see Dox is wasting no time at all.

So be very clear: Just how useful can you be to him?

So, that's the world they're hitting, the lightly-touched annexed planet. Anyone recognise the name? The DC Wiki finds nothing.

Anything more than something even the most basic ring-user can manage to learn? Because they aren't really showing their best cards here.

Because of course the Reach had infiltrators in the fleet. They're such control freaks, why would they allow anything to operate independently without being monitored?

Not subtle, then. I wonder if the guy was a member of the crew before they started under the Reach, or if he joined after?

Easily replaced tool, probably. About as valuable as a surveillance bug... in a Bond movie.

I bet they thought they were safe when he flickered out of sight. Bet there were spikes of Hope...

Pfft, no. As if OL would allow you a gun to shoot him in the back, or a horse to run away on?

Basically dismantling his fleet's ships with about as much concern as, say, buttering a slice of bread, probably goes a long way into convincing him to play nice.

Now, let's see what Dox and the NEMO fleet have been getting up to, eh?

A pleasant little diversion. Like stopping during a timed quest to pick up a crafting material node. OL really doesn't take this kind of side-work seriously, does he? Just a little thing to get him out of Dox's hair for an hour or two...

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Should these be 'shears'? In which case, the 'snips' in the first case might work better as 'snip'?

 

They probably have.

If they are just pirates then that's probably standard operating procedure when capturing a vessel, kill all on board, or just sell them into slavery, or keep them as your own slaves.

And said group was full of sociopathic monsters, unlike Tangseids group.

The Reach don't really use a lot of skull imagery, and their tech seems to be colored blue, which is a heroic color.

I think a lot of people would make that mistake.

It may have shown up in the comics, but was never given an official name, like that planet with the blind women.

Unless he's trying to prove a point.

 

You think Geometry is a discredited theory? Like On the list of bad science it goes young earth creationism, followed by triangles and rhombuses?
That tessellating tiles are juat a hoax perpetrated by M.C. Escher then?

There is a difference between known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.

Yeah, Grayen coming in like a space flea to surprise attack their surprise attack may have been an to much to plan against specifically.

But things going fubar in the heat of combat because the guy in charge of everything got taken out and he made no effort to designate a unified chain of command or make any accommodation for something happening to take out the commander of a battle during the battle he was present at?

That is something even a doofus would recognise as a thing that can happen. I mean it is covered in most battle manuals. That taking out the enemy leadership is a good thing to do if you can do it.

 

I mean, I'm sure the other Orange Lanterns have been turning others into constructs which is a much more permeant version of enslavement compared to Paul's branding. It was mentioned in earlier update not to attempt to turn Scarabs into constructs since they had suicide devices.

Orange Lanterns main ability is turning thing into constructs so natural that news of it would spread.

 

You'd be surprised what private military companies can get away with.

Not necessarily. Depending on how they're organised, it might go to the next most senior captain, who would probably be on one of the other ships.

Almost none of the named worlds will be canon worlds, as I don't think any Reach-held worlds get named in canon.

Thank you, corrected.

I'm quoting Joey Tribbiani. I wanted to find a video clip of the episode where he says it, but couldn't find one.

 

I love the sheer confusion and fear that some of these random people have, who have acknowledged that the nice polite orange man just does whatever he wants and roll with it lest he very politely render you down to your constituent atoms.

 

I wanna say a thing about the Reach claiming Paul has Mind Control, they might not know it to be true, but that doesn't mean their PR wing cannot claim it to be true, it could be a happy coincidence for it to be true.

 

Paul did make his big galactic debut when he mind controlled that assassin in Vega, so they may have found out about that when they researched him.

Other Orange Lanterns have probably also mind controlled someone, so the Reach may have found out about it from observing them.

Also the Reach were allied with the Light, so they may have told them about Paul's abilities.

 

That's true, but I am saying that just because a person is right doesn't mean they actually have info, they could be right by accident.

 

Vega is a long way away from the Reach. The only obvious way for them to find out would be if Grayven told them, and I doubt that they'd take his word for it.

 

Maybe, though that still leaves them finding out about it from watching other Orange Lanterns do it, or from the Light.

 

i could legitimately see it as believable that they got Intel/rumors from Vega, and did research to confirm them-
the Citadel might have been a relatively localized power bloc, but we're still talking an entire star-fairing power/race obliterated in less time then the average CITY falls to an invasion against land/air/sea-bound forces ,especially prodded given rumors from their connections to the light-

you could liken it to a good chunk of old Europe sitting up and paying attention when japan dismantled the Tsarist Russian navy in the war before ww1-still a distant problem, and still a second/third-class power getting stomped against the curb, but it was one of the minnows that did it...

 

It's... Would really more like Mercia hearing about the Chinese defeat in the Goguryeo–Sui War. They... Might, after enough time passed, but it would be a long time later and fourth or fifth hand.

 

The Reach told them and other Oranges may have used it.

Oh El lack of humanity has made it so I don't care about him anymore, he has basically become a walking plot device.

Is like if Watchmen was all from the point of view of the naked blue guy, it would be boring.

I know how very temping is to write walking plot devices instead of characters but I didn't like it in the Ambush Bug snips and I don't like it now.

You have to use it on moderation and when you reach the point when your main character can just fix the universe by poking at it then is better if it stops being the main character.

There is a reason why holding back the plot rock is a thing.

 

Should be 'Please bear in mind'

 

Thank you, corrected.

 

A while ago someone brought up a character from Jason Blood's comic who studied magic scientifically, and was able to separate Blood and Etrigan. Does anyone remember what the character's name is?

 

Elphius Levi.

He basically made a sludge composed of foreskins and liposuctioned fat to separate them.

You planning on adding him in this story?

Will it be in the paragon or renegade side?

 

Thank you. Just a name check on the Renegade side at the moment.

 

I remember renegade mentioning something to Luna about Circe having a meeting with ancient magic users so she could get them up to speed on modern magic.

 

Sounds strangely similar to something that Dr Universe was doing from Spinnerette. Of course he was being asked to clone Hitler...so the ingredient list was being questioned a bit.

 

But it fits Dox character from what I remember of L.E.G.I.O.N: He always reasoned that since he was the only 10th level intellect, he could do anything better than anyone else, so why let them do it, since he knew they'd just fuck it up compared to himself? (Apparently "opportunity cost" is at least an 11th level concept).

And if anyone asked him "You never tell us anything about your plans! What if some unknown unknown or OCP takes you out suddenly?" he'd invariably answer something like "To a Tenth Level Intellect(tm) nothing is unknown and nothing is outside the context of a Tenth Level Intellect(tm), so it simply can not happen. I can prove this formally, but you would not understand the proof, since you are not a Tenth Level Intellect(tm)! Neener! neener!"

(Unfortunately nobody ever asked him how if a 10th level intellect is perfect in every way, such a thing as a 12th level intellect exists too, since they both would be perfect in every way and thus indistinguishable. The obvious conclusion is that as a 10th level intellect he simply doesn't understand 11th+ level concepts and his almost literally astronomical ego prevents him from acknowledging that there are things he doesn't understand)

 

He has the same "I am my worst enemy" problem Luthor has?