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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. Idkusername

    Idkusername Versed in the lewd.

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    [​IMG]
     
  2. doug89

    doug89 Versed in the lewd.

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    I'm amused by the enemies OL is facing lately that kill themselves with relatively little effort.

    First it was the Scarabs that self destruct if you try to assimilate them. Then it's fleets of capital ships that detonate if you imply you want to follow them home.
     
  3. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    'pulsers'

    Sometimes the simplest things are the best things.

    Stupid, macho, violent morons.

    I can see why she would feel like that.

    Not that difficult to be in Vega.

    'You've'

    Maltusians exist.

    It worked, didn't it?

    These guys are committed.
     
  4. RichardWhereat

    RichardWhereat Aia airëa Fëanáro.

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    you're using or you've used
     
  5. Handlewithcare

    Handlewithcare Versed in the lewd.

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    Yikes. That cultural trauma runs deep, huh?

    But if Paul got a good look at their psyches he can at
    least track the main fleet now.
     
  6. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    Zoat, the writer, needs some way to maintain a modicum of suspense with how much he has over powered Paragon.

    And well, that's pretty much the only option left at this point that isn't "teleport a black hole into your brain" levels of fuck the other guy.
     
  7. moralrelativity

    moralrelativity Recovering pendant.

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    I enjoy seeing Paul definitively NOT being the best OL in every way.

    Well, that was unexpected. So much for informing their masters... Or did they inform them and the masters triggered a self-destruct on the fleet?
     
  8. Grimnar

    Grimnar Versed in the lewd.

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    The Ophidian and the connection they have is the worst thing to happen in this story. It happened way too soon, distorting the power levels of the entire story.

    He basically got endgame content right out of the fucking tutorial.
     
  9. Chojin Patriarch

    Chojin Patriarch Veteran Lurker

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    Oh well, time to wave the big orange willy around and shock them into stopping. And hope they don't go the way of the Quarians in their Bad End.

    After all, despite the Reach's best wishes, no two races think exactly the same. What one people find honourable, another will consider base cowardice. What one values, another will discard as rubbish. And don't even get started on Religion...

    :pThey hang in the sky in much the way bricks should not, would you say? And their guns sound quite nasty...

    Good thing you're one of them, eh? After all, you're the ultimate all-rounder: Trained for everything, but master of none. Besides the whole spiritual side of things.

    And the lady has a sense of aesthetics, I see. Classy. Good choice of apprentice, OL.

    :confused: Do they think he'll just go away if they keep shooting, or something? Talk about persistent.

    Their weapons cause damage to their own ships? Or are they just flying into the figurative smoke trail? Either way, they're really persistent.. and a little dumb, it seems...

    Probably a sort of psy-ops, to be fair. "Look how mighty our weapons are! See how your defences crumble before them!" Probably goes a long way to settling things without much effort.

    "At least he's large enough not to need to compensate for... Er... You heard nothing!"

    Well, Orange Rings are one of the user-friendliest systems. As long as your ring's VI is up to snuff and your database is extensive. Half the clever stuff OL did early on was mostly because he lacked the latter...

    I'm guessing Colu is a largely isolationist planet, with automata doing the bulk of combat duties... And I suspect the sheer amount of data a Ring's sensors can provide is a big bonus for her...

    Heheh. She's done her time in the figurative trenches, all right...

    Presumably said ship had vital data he only trusted her to be able to get to, and she went in with squads of Marines doing most of the actual fighting?

    Yes, yes, Twelfth-level intellectual snobbery at its finest... Don't be too surprised when Earth surprises you, my dear.

    Oh, he meant the other kind of Mad. I mean, Thaddeus Senior was kind of angry in his early days of crime.

    One? Try a whole family. Never mind all the other hypercognitive types.

    Ah, she looked them up. Bet she's thinking 'What the hells? How does that even work?!'

    Say it with us: Earth Bullshittm!

    Oh, that's hardly surprising. Especially if they continued blocking while chatting, as if it were no big difficulty. Which, for Gozzi, it probably wasn't.

    And if they aren't empowered to negotiate - quite likely if they don't expect to leave any planetary residents alive, given their weapons - they can put him in touch with those who can...

    Because he doesn't want to waste anything. These people can still be useful, but only if they can be persuaded to change.

    Hearts and Minds, Gozzi. Make the enemy afraid of you, afraid to fight you, and you've won before a shot is fired.

    Finally, they speak. Now, to see if they'll listen.

    And that doesn't sound good. Evidently they think they can just keep running until they find a place NEMO isn't guarding...

    Uh-oh. OL, that kidn of ultimatum...

    ...Crud. Either they committed suicide to protect their home fleet's location, or their 'Masters' did it for them.

    Well. That went... Goddammit, these people are really trying to make OL want to destroy them, aren't they? Wasting that many lives because he might find them? Are they that paranoid about cultural contamination? Or are they just so used to being defensively secretive that they can no longer think any other way?


    'Challenge', perhaps?
     
  10. AidanMorgan

    AidanMorgan Essentially Overworked

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    Is it just me or do a disproportionate number of updates end with the word "explode!"?
     
  11. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    From what we know from the comics they're isolationist.

    Dox is actually a tenth level.

    But now he's also the crazy kind of mad.
     
  12. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Thank you, corrected.
    You don't think their bad end is being stuck in Sol with no dextro-compatible food and a destroyed relay network? By Orange Lantern standards, dying doing what you want is a good death.
    No, the radiation given off by the SI destorying their 'projectiles' does.
    Thank you, corrected.
     
  13. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    Eh... I would say it's tied with Zoat removing pretty much all of the negatives from the Orange Light.

    Or possibly Zoat creating movable subspace pockets when they were previously stationary since that got rid of the charge limitation by allowing him to just pull his Lantern out and recharge anywhere.
     
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  14. DAT_NOOB

    DAT_NOOB Accused of writing in a far away land

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    I would've thought it would allow the reach to fake a video of OL just murdering an entire fleet after agreeing to talk thereby preventing any of their other allies from attempting to negotiate?
     
  15. Faiir

    Faiir Getting out there.

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    I think this arc is not for me.
    To be honest I think Paragon and Tang are the Pauls I'm least interested in.
    I'm waiting for continued story of X-men Paul and both Warhammer Paul's :)
     
  16. theaceoffire

    theaceoffire Versed in the lewd.

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    Yes, but in the process he's accidentally made an enemy combatant who could be easily defeated by a loudspeaker on a torpedo screaming "I'm following you!!" and "I'm going to get ya!", Which doesn't scream competence or potential danger.
     
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  17. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    X-Men, can do, but after that it's Fallout.
     
  18. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    For some weird reason I was hoping it ould be the Twilight one.

    Maybe its because I've been watching Dominic Noble videos.
     
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  19. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Mormon ninjas, man. Mormon ninjas.
     
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2021
  20. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    Doyle wrote some weird stuff.
     
  21. Doccer

    Doccer I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Saw that coming. Should have let them believe you weren't going to follow them. Much better chance of them delivering the message and not exploding.
     
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  22. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    They may have been paranoid enough to think that he was playing some trick and just blow themselves up even if it looked like he wasn't following them.
     
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  23. DrThoth

    DrThoth I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    This is from the future version of Paragon who's in Gate, so I'm wondering what the Great Awakening is that apparently changes the Japanese flag and presumably other things. I don't recall a Word of Zoat explaining it, but maybe I missed it?
     
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  24. Gilhelmi

    Gilhelmi Know what you're doing yet?

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    Thinking more about this, it could cause quite the interstellar-political incident. Especially with Amalak.

    Krypton did not have a good reputation. So bad in fact that some might liken them to Nazi's. (Except for Earth, who only knew Superman.)

    I wonder what Lantern Gozzi will do. Will she see the logic in the plan to parole largely innocent people, or will she have feelings of loyalty toward Amalak and inform him?

    Will he try and kill off the last embers of Krypton, or accept OL's olive branch of trying to bring back his people (like mentioned a few parts ago)?

    This has the makings of becoming a spicy political and action filled drama.
     
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  25. Laundromat2.0

    Laundromat2.0 Getting sticky.

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    I don't agree with most of you guys, I really enjoy the Ophidian connection and the more mystical aspects of the Orange Light. Paul may seem overpowered, but honestly, we're more than 4m words in so that doesn't really bother me. If we were to transpose the serial's development onto a more standard fantasy series, we're not in the first installments anymore. Paul's main goals once he got his feet under him - of learning to use his powers with the League, of defeating Larfleeze, claiming the Orange Central Battery, and founding the OL Corps have already been accomplished. If he wasn't overpowered at this point, his growth would have to be so slow that it'd feel frustrating. We're at the point in the series where the real big bads of the entire galaxy are starting to line up, and for Paul to confront them he has to be strong.

    Also, there's a lot of problems that can't be solved with a bigger gun, and those are also hella interesting.
     
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  26. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    Except Paragon doesn't need to confront and defeat the big bads of the universe.

    You can have stories where the main character looses. In fact, the best stories actually tend to be built around that. And that's because building narrative stakes is important for telling a compelling story.

    For example, Peters story is more an Orange Lantern story played straight.
     
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  27. Radix

    Radix Not too sore, are you?

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    Except that Paul has been at his present power level for over 75% of the fic. He didn't grow and reach it naturally, he got a sudden power spike and plateaued.

    Not to mention it would not be glacial for him to develop naturally to where he is now. Frankly he could be half as powerful as he is now and still have experienced a bunch of power boosts.

    Subspace pockets means that the traditional weakness of a limit in charge is gone. That is a tool that could be useful. There are no real downsides to him using the Orange light, when traditionally it's power was balanced by being less stable than Green Light. But here most of the lanterns seem to handle it very well, especially considering they are not exactly the exceptional like the GLC.

    And you are right that there are problems that can't be solved with a bigger gun, but hte issue is that Paul is not coming across them. Most episodes have Paul curb-stomping whatever he comes across. Most of the time is him talking to people and getting info-dumps.

    Plus a Power Ring isn't just a bigger gun. It is a supercomputer, fabricator, teleporter, and pretty much anything else you could ever need. Paul at his power level can't be stopped by very much except for something with raw power given that he can go around almost anything else.

    The only things that have held him still are Grayven and the insane Green Lantern who was pure will. Both of whom are metaphysically more powerful than him. The conflicts are still fights. He has no real opposition in most of his efforts, and he isn't really getting conflicts that play against his strengths.
     
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  28. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    Don't forget the Spell Eaters which render magic all but useless against him.

    And the magic tattoos that render him invisable to almost everything.

    And the Magic ring AI that bypasses the other big limitation of power rings. IE that you need to be able to invision and hold in your mind every piece of what you want to make.
     
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  29. Threadmarks: Back Door (part 15)
    Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    9th July 2012
    06:41 GMT


    "Should have seen that happening, really."

    Lantern Gozzi nods as she examines a floating chunk of debris.

    "Because they were contaminated by talking to you, and you implied that you could follow them if they returned home. Of course."

    "The only thing that surprises me now is how fast they were able to rig their ships to explode. That sort of system would be a liability in combat."

    "Perhaps they assume that their assault forces won't be returning."

    "I'd be surprised. This is a lot of mass of ship to write off that casually."

    "Just the crew, then? Ah."

    I pause my own scanning. As far as I can tell, they projected a distortion effect into their own superstructure, causing their fuel reserves to undergo nuclear fusion. The area around what I think are the fuel reserves is… Gone. Reduced to slag. Other parts of the ship are somewhat intact but they either borrowed Reach Lantern-defying technology or developed it independently. It's still quicker for Lantern Gozzi and I to go through this piece by piece than call in a L.E.G.I.O.N. salvage team.

    "Anything useful?"

    "A part of their communication system. It appears to have been furthest from the centre of the explosion. If I can get some idea of their range, we can narrow down how close their main fleet is."

    A reasonable idea. Even with systems that can communicate instantly, there are usually some limitations. L.E.G.I.O.N. doesn't have that problem and the Reach get around it with a somewhat energy intensive system for long distance communication. Most species don't have that advantage.

    I'm reminded of a scene from 'Down Periscope'. Kelsey Grammer's character fakes being unable to perform a piece of navigation in order to trick a member of his submarine's crew into thinking that their special skills are crucial and so gain the confidence they'd previously lacked. Near the end of the film the member of the crew works it out, but since they'd completed the task successfully it didn't matter.

    A flotilla was destroyed here, far from a living world. The souls of the dead might make it to the world we were protecting eventually, but right now they're swarming about us in the confusion of the recently dead.

    And I can see them.

    It's never really come up before. On a living world souls generally go to their final rest a little quicker than this. When I destroy ships I usually just move on, or leave the spiritual aspect to Lord Hades.

    But I can't shield entire systems. Even if whoever was in charge of these ships did actually send a message back about the level of resistance they encountered, we've got no guarantee that it will amount to more than a mild pause. Perhaps just an information bulletin. I can't afford to not offer-.

    "I believe that I have them."

    "From a broken communication device?"

    "No, from a number of factors, of which this debris is only one. I assume that you're following your cultural imperative and 'letting me work it out for myself'?"

    "Not exactly. I was just wondering how long I should leave it before doing something that I'm reasonably confident will get us the location. Would you-?"

    "Their souls. You can.. see them?"

    "If I unfocus a little. Jade's reluctant, but I do strongly recommend picking a religion and leaving your executor some sort of instruction on where you want your remains interred."

    "I've always known that Colu was mystically inert, but I assumed that arcane phenomena were limited to places like Earth."

    "No. It turns out that 'inert' just means 'not very ert'. Everywhere in the material universe is linked to the Dreaming, and hence to magic. The souls of the crew are mere-"

    I hold out my left hand, feeling the imprint in the Honden and pulling it to me.

    "-wisps, but they still have weight to them."

    They really are very simple things. I wonder… Is Lord Hades giving the souls of the aliens he judges complexity they never had before? Or is the lack of a connection what causes this? Are his new subjects integrating so well because he's effectively making them human?

    "You may as well bring them."

    "I'm not sure that I can. Certainly not safely. Using them to find 'home' would necessitate me not caring about them. So let's try your way; we can always come back if you're wrong."

    "Very well. I've also notified the local L.E.G.I.O.N. assets that they can find these wrecks here to study in detail."

    W-?

    I nod. "Because they might have to fight them if we're not quick enough."

    "Yes." She pings me some coordinates. "I think that it would be best if you accompanied me. They will probably have countermeasures ready and be in a high state of alert."

    I float closer to her and grab her with a construct tether. "Probably best if you let me fly us there. My construct strength carries over into FTL speed. Armour up."

    She nods, generating a construct version of Amalak's organisation's boarding armour.

    "Two, one."

    Space bends and-. Keeps bending? Why-? A trap, or-? Gravity, some sort-.

    Flatten.

    Space snaps back, and the rings show me the colossal wave of x-rays shooting away from the not-actually-all-that-small black holes I just jumped into, the generators being converted into vapour immediately. The ships are further away, the larger ones moving to interpose themselves between the smaller vessels and the oncoming radiation wave. They've got FTL sensors, then, at least in the larger ships.

    Transmit.

    Compliance.

    "Alright try. Three out of five. I won't hold it against you."

    Scans of the system show a large fleet, but it appears to be comprised entirely of warships. No tenders, no workshops, no docking cradles.

    "But it didn't work. I want to negotiate with your government, and I don't believe that your civilisation can survive having the ships here destroyed as well as the raiders who killed themselves to try and prevent me finding you."

    With the radiation wave having passed us by, I untether Lantern Gozzi and reach out across the void, flattening space around the ships as they try to alter it to increase their agility.

    "I understand that you do not habitually have direct dealings with aliens. However, in this instance the price of not doing so will be the discontinuation of your people as a technologically sophisticated species. Which means that you will no longer be able to flee the Reach. If you choose not to speak with me, you will immediately receive the worst option. Continuing as you are is thoroughly off the table."

    "Speak to me or I start shooting."



    "We will hear you."
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2021
  30. BlueMangoAdea

    BlueMangoAdea Alive. For now.

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    Finally. Very (somewhat understandably) paranoid and hostile people.
     
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