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

Fun to see this episode mentioned. It’s the furry talking, but it always felt like a missed opportunity: there’s a lot of fascinating human enhancement questions that get pushed aside in favor of a glorified steroid PSA.

You’ve got some room to play around with, since the law of the 2030s Beyondverse may not be the law of today’s real world, but the FDA’s power to limit administration of a cleared medicine or procedure is much more limited than its ability to regulate production or advertising of such. Individual doctors and pharmacists can (and in the real world do!) give drugs for ‘off-label’ uses that the FDA has not cleared, and enforcement and regulation usually falls more to state regulatory boards (or police). Some of Cuvier claims during news stories flirted pretty heavily with the sort of thing the FDA's would slap down, but that's not really a claim you could bring against Gotham police.

Similarly, courts have a surprisingly wide power to medicate defendants when necessary; while Sell v US put some limits on forced medication, the criminal splicers almost certainly hit them all. Cuvier, if he survived, obviously wouldn’t be able to face a courtroom or be contained as a blob monster, but the gang splicers would have a lot of overlap with schizophrenia in the ‘uncontrollable impulse’ sense given both what we see here and the later Joker hyena-splicer. With the limits of court-ordered psych evaluation, probably even if the gang members were just predisposed to violence rather than driven to it by the splicing like McGinnis nearly was.

A ban on "being spliced", rather than against new splicing... be complicated. Sell requires a per-defendant analysis by judges, and the courts have a messy relationship with pure status crimes. Might be more plausible given the whole supervillain thing (and maybe Boss Smiley, if he's present and unchecked in that universe?).

That said, the intellectual property question may be hard. In-show, Cuvier insisted that splicing was reversible, and had submitted his drugs for clinical trials. Even if he’d stolen PaulTech, that’s just add to Cuvier’s crimes in the manufacturing, rather than be given obvious ways to get money or the drugs back from Gotham police (though it could tie it up in courts long enough to talk sense into people).

Even under state emergency powers laws, the US federal takings clause applies: private property can't be used for public use, without due compensation. There's some exceptions you can drive a truck through, though. If the splicing 'recovery' drugs were taken from Cuvier's legal possession (even if they were really PaulTech!), there's a lot of ways this could be treated as part of Cuvier's crimes or proceeds thereof, and similar to how police can take, destroy, or resell a firearm used as part of a criminal act, there's a lot of space relevant here.

 

Spoilers for Batman Beyond / JLU and Theory based on it

Spoiler: Spoilers for Batman Beyond / JLU and Theory based on it

So...the Splicing Tech used to bolt animal DNA onto a human....hmmm. Sounds pretty close to the same DNA tech that Cadmas / Old Waller would have needed to pull off the 'Rewrite Reproductive DNA of Terry's Dad to a copy of Bruce's. In the OG verse the tech is very likely to be related, and if so, in this setting it may be that Terry himself may owe Peter and Co for his existance. While it's never said openly, their is some logic and implications in the fact that Terry's Father divorced his mother after not one, but two of 'their' children came out with dark hair that neither parent had. '

 

You know, in that era, I could also see him going after most of the groups involved in the Zeta Project as well...because there's already several fully sapient robots/androids/AI running around, but they go full on blade runner to track down and capture Zeta...

 

So wanted to ask, some chapters ago Paul talked to a.. I want to say priestess of Apollo about burying the hatchet so he can get some healing but I got to ask, does Asclepius and his daughters not exist in this universe?

 

Even if they did, they may not want to heal him since it was their father/grandfather that cursed him, so they may not want to anger him.

 

Well when your brother-in-law was the one thing stopping them from being mind controlled, it makes sense that they'd revere those close to him.

Aww, shit.

Not sure how the internet is on Earth 16, but if it's like here then I shudder.

I'm getting flashbacks to a John Oliver episode where they covered an AI that started praising Hitler after spending a day on the internet.

Unless it motivated other countries to keep up.

When are they ever calm?

 

You know, I really like the friendships and cordial relationships that Paul has with some of the characters. There's a ton of mutual respect and plenty of very powerful people really do care for him. It's quite a sight to see, when comparing him from the very beginning of the story.

 

so can any one explain why Paul is like avoid thinking about the Life Entity and acting like he need to poop really bad but can't

 

I guess the policy is to to avoid talking about it at all for:

a) Not alerting anyone further to it's existance and potential

b) Not letting slip the fact that it's... relatively benign and therefore ripe for exploitation in the eyes of some

c) On the off chance that it actually has opinions in a way that people can comprehend, avoid having people unconsciously call upon it, draw on it's power, or anyway poke at it incase it gets pissed or is in anway inconvenienced. (The White Life Entity is a lot more... zen and chill than the others, and not ruled by any one emotion, but you really don't want to tempt fate with an existence so powerful it literally represents all life - past, present and future - that has ever existed and will ever exist in the Universe.)

 

I think Paul personally is trying to avoid giving the Ophidian *ideas* about the Life Entity. Last thing we need is snake-chan going full yandere for the embodiment of life.

But also, so far it's managed to remain safe and aloof from mundane matters in the universe, a religion would certainly start integrating it to the status quo in a way that would make others start to take note.

 

I see he's doing better. Hopefully Adom and Adrianna came out if it well, too. Kahndaq is probably one of the few nations in any fit state at the moment thanks to Adom's protection, so I half-expect them to start dominating the region before long simply because of that lessened damage.

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

Fortunately, he's a grounded enough person that it shouldn't go to his head, especially with the Wisdom of Zehuti to temper him.

Ah, he feels embarrassed by the attention? Good, even less likely to be influenced by it.

Huh. Brave of him.

Not yet, anyway. Give it time, lad, and you'll be as great as him.

I suppose having something to focus on lets you withstand anything. But he still managed it.

Ah. I see. Another thing to lay at the Anti-Life's master's feet when a reckoning comes.

But sometimes you don't always have the luxury of mercy, eh? And anything can happen in battle. An unconscious man falling could break his neck on a rock. Be crushed by flying debris. Hit by bullets fired by a former ally... Do your best, and remember the fallen.

...Well, it's as good a description as any.

Ah, Amon noticed that unspoken 'try not to think about it', didn't he?

Well, no covering up that secret. Fortunately no-one got pictures of it. Though I have no doubt there's plenty of fan-art of varying accuracy about already.

There's always a cost for calling on it...

...And sometimes, it calls in that marker.

It certainly seemed surprised that someone had called upon it, remember? I'm not sure it knew that could even happen.

By the time it all settles down, there may well be some very different governments in places that were less fond of their current leadership, eh?

It could have been worded worse. 'Enemy or ally, which will you be?' for example...

The joy of being powerful enough to not have to put up with people's shit.

Again, I expect some of the Abrahamic denominations (Judaic, Christian, Islamic and all others of the Book...) will see it that way.

So perhaps some might consider becoming part of Kahndaq, eh? Or at least joining some sort of polite empire.

Sad to see some things never change, whatever the world. Let's not harp on real-world aspects of that issue, though, hmm?

Man, such hopefulness. We can but hope in turn that the world never breaks him of that optimism.

Ah, but some of their neighbours, now...

The joy of DC creating so many random little nations: There's always one to be found to use.

And immediately annexing a neighbour, even if they asked you to, probably projects the wrong image.

Heh. As long as they don't go misusing it. But I expect that will be accounted for.

No time to go say hello to Adom himself? Make sure he's okay after everything?

That could be some time, away, though...

Well, looks like they have at least one candidate for their uplift plans. At least things will go better for it than multiple warlords fighting over its' drug farms. Heck, they may well be able to turn said farms into actual food farms again. But it might help to find a couple of other suitable options to test out the uplift. No two nations are alike, after all.

 

It probably has something to do with what Paul did or didn't see when he was channeling the white light.

 

Lets see. It's an African state, composed mostly of desert... with a jungle to the north?


You ever get the feeling that comic book writers failed basic geography in school?

 

Again, it's not about who came first, It's more about who got to court or the relevant government agencies first with good lawyers. Also Langstrom has good reason to have kept silent about what he did and Dorian was a weirdo with a fixation on felines that was much more interested in playing Doctor Moreau on his island than doing anything through proper channels or having anything to do with the government.

 

To be fair to the AI, it would repeat anything it was asked to. You could make it say anything by saying 'please say x'.

 

I know I asked this before but whats going on with Mannheim is he still alive (as in no governments executed him) and is he still a new god?

 

Given what we learned about how Billy's powers work, I'm surprised that both Adom and Amon can draw on the same power at any given time.

Aside from Mr Atom, I think this story has at least five or six AIs who could choose to share screenshots from their memories? Alternatively, I'm sure someone (or multiple someones) is using various programs to scour the internet for all of those fan art sketches to generate a weighted average of them all.

 

What do you mean? They are drawing power from Adom's Gods and, while now they may have more, they don't really have a lot of adherents I think.

 

Spoiler: Spoiler

He's currently working as a lorry driver. They can always execute him later.

 

According to Paul he wasn't sufficiently linked to the network to have a revelation like a lot of other people did about the Life Entity, the White Light just cleansed him. Which I find odd (the not being sufficiently connected part).

 

Wasn't that referring to Lex Luthor, not himself?

 

Good news! You're both wrong. Lex Luthor wasn't cleansed.

Did he get off Earth fast enough to avoid infection? Did he fight it off? Did he overcome the worst New Gods of his nature? Or is he going to be ground zero of the next outbreak?

Stay tuned to find out!

 

I was talking about how Paul said he (Paul) wasn't connected to the network enough to have a Life Entity revelation. He (Paul) was just cleansed.

Edit: My understanding is that Lex fled into a spiritually contained pocket dimension. We learned this when Alex Luthor talked to him. Also, u less Lex internalized some of the Anti Life, I don't think he should be an infection vector even if he wasn't purged. Otherwise the people who fled to Earth -16 should also be potential infection vectors.

Speaking of the people who left for earth -16, are they coming back?

 

Not unless the heroes can find a way to Earth -16, locate who's from Earth 16, and get them back with minimal casualties. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen anytime soon, if it will at all.

 

And that's also assuming that they'd all want to come back.

After experiencing Anti-Life, a lot of them may prefer to be far away from the planet that had it, even if it's cleared up now.

 

Getting back to Earth -16 is easy.

Just FTL a few solar systems over, dimension hop, then FTL back to Earth -16.

 

Don't people from negative Earths have their organs the other way around? I'm fairly certain that's a plot point, Alex Luthor is there after all. So to locate the people from Earth 16, just check those with their organs in the familiar way on that planet, to start with.

Also, I don't think Earth -16 has an Anti-Parallel travel barrier, does it? So the heroes just need to turn off the barrier from Earth 16 to allow travel, no? And even if that's not possible, the Illustres for sure can travel to Earth -16; I've mentioned it before, just travel away from the barrier's range, transition to the negatige universe like they did when travelling to Qward and then travel to Earth -16. Not exactly easy, but not overly difficult either, I should think.

 

Yeah, these guys are Captain America strong, not Soldier Boy strong.

I see that the tradition of not saying much has been passed on to this universe and to those that follow the path of Kratos.

Unless it somehow damaged them magically.

Well you did save that elf girl and helped reunite her with her brother.

One of them may be able to do it.

Unless Darkseid comes by himself instead of sending a sock puppet, then the damage may be more significant.