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

They would if the JSI high command are the equivalent of the Light and the dominators consider them pseudo allies of a sort.

I mean who rules earth? Who evaded justice for their egregious human right violations? The timing of the dominators raid is extremely suspicious and the fact they left without sending the planet back to the pre industrial age is even more egregious and suspicious. If the Dominators left them for future research specimens, the meta gene doesn't need a post industrial space age society to exist, in fact sending earth back a few centuries is what the evil dominators should have done.

The JSI did win a lot from this exchange almost as if this is an example of the Light plans being successful.

 

Reducing the human population means killing people with the metagene, reducing the numbers of children with the metagene in the succeeding generations, which reduces the chances of one of those hypothetical metahumans manifesting in a new and interesting way.

Culling humanity would have been counterproductive to their goals, which is to study the metagene and all its infinite possibilities.

 

Now culling humans without the metagene, well.

 

One thing that Paul has that Commander Scott doesn't is people who can point out when what he's saying is too far and is able to think of a better solution. Because having the former without the latter is just complaining, not helping.

 

You don't have to like it to get it. I mean the JSI common society finally understood it wasn't a game.

 

troubles -> troubled

 

Thank you, corrected.

 

Is this supposed to be implying Constantine is the reason why they went to the wrong parallel? He didn't need to be back long to start causing mischief again.

 

I can't express how much I disliked this. OL being a psychopathic nutcase carries this story, and any change to that will just diminish it.

 

You know, we forget that Paragon has killed more sentient beings than any other Fictional Hero i can think off. And he's really great at expediency but not so great at restraint.
This is honestly a good thing for John to do for him and keep in mind it's his Sinchronicity magic that got them there most likely.

 

At the same time, I think he can be a psycho nutcase while being less socially dense. For an enlightened empath, OL has no actual empathy.

 

He actually shows a lot of restraint most of the time given that he is an Enlightened Orange Lantern that could summon the Orange Light Entity any time he wants in his home universe.

 

Yikes. No wonder John and Paul get along so well. They are eerily similar fucked up in some ways...or maybe just see the fucked upness in their world more clearly than others.

And...Paul pulled John out of the fire and John immediately returned the favour by showing Paul a warning of what could happen if he isn't very careful.

Weirdly wholesome?

 

I'm sure OL could claim 'interdimensional travel experiences' and leave it at that. And yeah, Interceptor... She probably thinks she's hard, but she just got a proper look at the real nature of 'Hard men making hard decisions...'

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

Just not the woman who raised her. The writers of Infinity Inc back in the day had to do something to produce kids of the JSA from somewhere.

Well, that's surprising. Here we were, all going all conspiracy nut on Commander Scott, and...

...It turns out he's not as big a monster as we thought. And clearly has regrets over his decision.

Well, that's clever of you. Let's hope the people play along with that plan.

So, this is probably weighing as heavily on the other 'executive board' members as it is on you, then? But they weren't the public face of JSI leadership...

Probably true. The Dominators are not nice people as a culture, even if a single one might be.. an okay person.

Even if it meant lowering yourself to an immoral act to do so. But you're remorseful about it, at least.

And Superheroes have turned into government servants, as much as any soldier, no matter how fancy their costumes. Such is life?

Admittedly, she probably wasn't much of a supervillain. Especially against fricking Green Lantern.

Yeah, that's about normal for realising your heroes have feet of clay, just like anyone else.

And not all of them were convicted super-criminals.

I see OL understands the necessity of it, even if he isn't necessarily in agreement with the methods.

"One person dying is a tragedy, one million dying is a statistic." Empathy has limits, and so do nearly any other aspects of the human psyche.

Gee, not bitter or anything, OL?

Having second thoughts about some of your methods, OL? Or just frustrated at the conflicts?

Yeah, she's probably going to have to rethink her career.

Especially if John is willing to tap some of that Orderly or Chaotic power of his. And I notice he threw the choice onto the outsiders.

Well, you are nominally in charge of this 'mission'.

I mean, that whole situation was kind of a 'no good solution' scenario for all involved.

Well, sometimes you do have to do things without knowing all the information, OL.

And I can see John going 'eh, fuck that, this ain't my problem.'

...You are going to surrender that to the local authorities, right, John?

Ah, heading off for a bit of a palate cleanser, eh, OL? Gonna go clean the local ocean gyres?

Well, that was... About the best result of some dirty dealing behind the scenes, we could expect, I guess. Amazing how dark a world without a Trinity can get. And OL has some deep thinking to do about his own actions, by the looks of it. I know, 'want the ends, want the means' but some things... They leave a stain that doesn't fade easily. And John there just shone a light on it...

---

"Oh please." He shakes his head.

...she'd have done exactly the same thing as the others given the chance...

 

We can only hope Commander Scott actually retires. Assuming his ring is damaged like Blue Lantern was, he's ageless while having access to the Green Light. One can only hope that he stays out of it to let the organization actually grow and continue beyond him.

 

Well, I'll be... good fucking work, John. Good work.

I didn't know where this was going until halfway through and when I got it, I think I had the same epiphany as the Illustres. Sometimes, I suppose, not because you're right means that you're in the right.

John and Paul definitely deserve each other as friends. I think they can keep each other's bullshit in check.

 

Ha! LePaul got Constantined!

 

No wonder Paul got his ass kicked so bad. He was the only one of John's friends involved in a Constantine Plan.

 

Constantine plans are multi purpose.

In addition to the obvious, this one also showed LePaul he was the big fish in a little pond who was the little fish in the lake.

 

Hah! This is pretty close to Paul's perfect earth, and woops.

As an aside, finally figured out the continuity for the Transformers story. I'm pretty much OOTL on modern stuff, but I wikicrawl.
Anyhoo, for a while I wondered if this was the Animated continuity, and that... Would have been awkward.

 

Thank you, corrected.

 

I disagree. If someone has thought of a variety of approaches and picked one based on a narrow set of priorities due to having blind spots or tunnel vision, having people around them who will pull them out of that mindset and point out factors they didn't notice or consider may be all that is required for a better approach.

 

I am massively confused by Paul's reaction here. I thought he's Orange Enlightened, no? How is he so confused and experiencing cognitive dissonance over this? Shouldn't he clearly know what he wants and then deal with it? In this case, a world where goody two-shoes have input, because it makes him feel safer on his own path, and where he doesn't have to see someone with Grandpa Scott's face be the voice of cold hard logic, because he's sentimental like that?

I mean none of this is news to Paul. Or at least it shouldn't be. And given what I know about his powers, such stuff shouldn't stump him even of it were. If this arc causes him to second-guess himself and and dither around for the next ten arcs then I'll be very disappointed.

Edit: On a different note, where was Alan 16 during this conversation?

 

He knows what he wants. He doesn't necessarily know how to get it. The issue here is that he's now uncertain if his approach will actually get him what he wants.

No, it's about something completely different.

Helping the survivors.

 

I can’t help but side with Commander Scott here, is what he did the most morally righteous thing to do? No. But what alternative did he have? It’s easy for Lord of Balance John to come in and judge him but I’m thinking of what options he had. If the options were a) give meta-criminals to the Dominion, b) give meta-heroes, c) defiantly refuse and then lose the whole planet. I really don’t see any decision that wouldn’t make John pissy. And the coverup issue seems more coincidental more than it is damning.

‘Ends justify the means’ is a very harsh philosophy but for a role like Protector of the entire planet, it makes perfect sense why the JSI exec board would agree with option a). And I don’t think this can really be compared to the Justice Lords, they took power over the US forcibly; as far as we can tell the JSI answer to the UN and they were handed powers to protect the planet.

It seems that Alt-Alans are really interesting characters, I wonder how a conversation between Capo Scott, Commander Scott and Blue Lantern would go. Some kinda side story would be fascinating to read.

I think he wants a stronger more efficient Justice League that has more involvement in global affairs but feels that copying the JSI might not be the way to go about it.

I really hope he gets a sidekick or companion to ground him and remind him of human empathy. Or maybe a Motherbox since he’s nearing New Godhood

 

I don't think the point is John being annoyed, the goal/reason for this was showing OL a possible result of the means he has been working towards.

This reality-roadtrip was synchronicity putting OL where he needed to be to learn a lesson that needed to be learned.

 

I love this chapter.
First, OL power was countered and we got something more than another nearly-Godman adventure. But that, of course, was just a warm-up.

OL looking in a moral mirror was just priceless. It even has these classic opposite-but-same vibe, I mean old Green Lantern veteran vs young Orange Lantern upstart. What's more interesting, Scott is even more moral than OL. It's not "just squeamishness", it's not OK to be at piece with the situation. It's a trolley problem where you have to throw a 10000 big guys you can choose hoping it will stop the trolley from killing billions. I bet OL would do the same, but, until this very conversation, he won't feel even slightly sorry (as was shown on him killing brainwashing brownies). Alan at least hated it has to be done, if not who was sacrificed.
And Paul did not like what he saw.
I think that's first time we saw him being unable to decide some morally ambiguous question. To the point he said Constantine should decide, because he's a responsible guy who mostly makes good decisions, yes.
Whatever comes next, I'm excited to see.

Still not sure why lots of people call him sociopath. He does have conscience, it just works in a mysterious ways. Blue and orange morality is much closer to the truth. That would never go away.

For next ten arcs -- sure. And yet, something should change, like approach to problem solving or self-awareness of how he sound to everyone around, or, you know, being actually sad he had to kill those brownies even if he had no real choice (while still not being sad at all for extermination of inherently villain species). Maybe something completely different, but no change at would be strange.

 

Oh that was great. I love Constantine getting one up on Paul, and showing him a mirror to look at the way he goes about things. Because he does tend to go 'sure but we're doing it my way'

 

Most interesting episode I’ve read in a while. Hats off to you, Zoat.

Although does this universe have a Paul?