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

Because he's evil.

True he may not be as psychotic as other Apokaliptians, but I'm pretty sure that most Nazis can be said to be less evil than Apokaliptians and that doesn't mean that they aren't evil.

Okay I'm really getting strong EMIYA vibes here.

She's a magical archer, she came from the future where she fought a war and became more cynical and jaded, she has white hair, and now we have something that practically resembles Shirou's Trace On magecraft.

And let's not forget the other parts, like the raised by an assassin bit, the desire to be a hero thing and the tense relationship with a sibling.

True, but the various versions of Paul have never been all that hesitant to help or work with bad guys, no matter how much common sense said that was a bad idea.

He may have said that he wanted to build something and probably even believed it, but just because someone says something that doesn't mean that it's true.

And Apokaliptians may not have all that high standards of building things.

Of course you have.

'is pretty'

He could have used his god powers on them.

Renegade has been able to mind whammy people before and change their behavior.

'to do it to'

In mythology gods can be known by a lot of different names depending on what role they are performing at the time.

I vaguely remember something about space Amazons, and I think Paul once mentioned that Diana had a crazy aunt in space.

So she either helped Grayven conquer this planet, or she already ruled it and is now in Grayven's clutches.

That could explain why he bothered with it in the first place.

 

This was my first guess too.

 

It's easy to forget just how badly Renegade mind fucked himself at times.

Then of course you have times like this... Where his mental narrative has him directly admit that he no longer even remembers his actual history.

 

Isn't there Grail? Grayven's sister who is half amazon?

 

Remember, Renegade, you are not Grayven! I know you've been living this life for so long it's settled like a worn-in coat, but please, try to remember who you are underneath. I mean, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be angry at this, but try to keep in mind you are not him.

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

Heh, I see she's grown more comfortable in using her godspeech after their little sojourn. Sweeping her more exotic senses over the area in hopes of finding some trace of the attackers, no doubt.

One word: Reputation. He's trying to intimidate people into bending their knee to him. "Kneel, or be erased.' Taking a leaf from his Father's playbook, from the looks of it.

So, this would be some manner of colony? Didn't the Renegade maroon one of the Gordanian clans that enslaved Tamaran like that? Or was that the Paragon? God, so long ago... <Reads ahead> Okay, not the Gordanians. Stil...

Oh, god, let's not get into those sort of mind games. It just leads into recursive 'I know that you know that I know...' loops.

So not completely trapped in the middle ages. Hard to imagine a world without the modern mainstays that things like Oil brought us. Petroleum and Natural Gas... Plastics... I bet their design sense was a lot more artisanal than our own...

So not a raid for materials. I can't see a world in this state of development having much to offer Grayven-16. He'd have an easier time getting materials from asteroids. Perhaps his Gordanians were getting antsy about profits?

At least they fought back. Not successfully, it seems, but they fought.

Which is unlikely if they fought. Unless the Gordanians were so overwhelmingly powerful that people surrendered immediately upon realising they couldn't harm them... Something more esoteric was used... Mind control, perhaps.

A 'gray goo' scenario? Would Grayven-16 use something like that? Everything we've seen of Grayvens suggests he'd use force of arms.

So, no fallen weapons or discarded tools? People calmly returned their things to storage as they walked off? Definitely something mental.

Something happened. An entire planet doesn't just turn into the Mary Celeste by itself...

And thus a lot of cargo space. Seriously, that many people, plus animals, would take up a lot of space. More than any fleet could hope to carry easily.

Or technology that provides something equivalent. Something clearly happened here, that much is obvious...

Not even Darkseid could manage that. And the Omega Effect always struck me as primarily line-of-sight in its demonstrations.

Indeed. I'm betting anywhere the Renegade's been recently shows traces of his presence too. Challenger mountain must have a veritable imprint of his being on it by now...

To be fair, I don't know how much she'll get. Especially if whoever was responsible wasn't anywhere nearby... It's never been clear how far New Gods can sense each other from, after all.

So he basically found the local equivalent of the farm's bookkeeping software? That's a pain.

I suppose the Hunter in Green's godly senses are far sharper than the Renegade's...

To quote from Tron Legacy: "He's knocking on the sky, and listening to the echo..."

Perhaps local government, or a higher-ranked leader's summer residence? I suppose it's pretty...

Well, that's good news. What's it going to be, i wonder. Or is she just going to scan the area and reveal the minimap? Seriously, some of this has had a real 'Assassin's Creed' feel to it.

If they had off-world trade, then there'd probably have been tourists. probably not a lot, I suspect, but some...

Then whoever was here did not have a large presence to New God senses... Either a weak metaphysique, or one used to concealing itself...

Oh, dear. Oh, dear...

...Um. There is one: Grail. One of the 'New 52' era's oddest creations. Daughter of an Amazon Assassin and Darkseid. And at one point, 'New Goddess of the Anti-Life Equation'. While I doubt Mr Zoat would use her in that form, is it a stretch to believe Grayven-16 might have found an ally in a younger half-sibling with a knack for weakening resolve? This... This has all manner of implications if it's true...

And with that revelation - if it's true - things are getting a lot twistier. Things bode ill for the future war between the Renegade and Grayven-16, it seems. And all this because the Renegade felt like playing on some New Genesisian idiots' assumptions in pursuit of power, and got in way deeper than he ever planned to... Well, nice job breaking the game, hero.

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Hey, Darko, A little tip for dealing with invisitext and altered colours: Next to the Undo button on the editor is a 'Tx' button. That removes all formatting from selected text, including colour. It can be useful for regaining default colours in replies and help avoid that 'grey' text...

 

She's from the n52.

Zoat hates the n52, so she's unlikely to show up in this story.

 

No, I think it's the species' homeworld.

It was paragon.

Renegade is more the type that would either destroy them or make them work for him.

It may not have much mineral wealth or petroleum, though I doubt Grayven would need the latter, but it may have something like rare plants that he can somehow use to make bioweapons or something like that, or the genetics of the population is what's he's interested in.

New Gods can influence minds.

Given how advanced New God tech is, Grayven may have shrunk them or changed them into energy and placed them in some safe place, like the future humans did to themselves in Demon with a Glass Hand.

Or he may have some way to expand space inside his ships so they're like a TARDIS.

He was able to destroy a planet in the n52, so he may be able to hit an entire planet, but just let it affect the population.

After Darkseid died and she got it.

Or the crazy aunt in space Diana may have is the one.

Renegade isn't known for thinking things through beyond getting his kicks at the time.

Thanks.

 

Does anyone have any information on who this is? I tried looking it up on my end, and got nothing.

 

I have no idea who that is.

Thank you, corrected.

 

It's this guy.

Spoiler: EMIYA

He's a fairly prominent and well known character from the Fate franchise.

Also goes by Archer.

And despite not knowing who he is you somehow made it so that he and Artemis share a lot of things in common.

 

That's a fun coincidence, though Reading the Traces isn't quite the same as Trace On besides the name, though both do involve sensing the energies or compositions of a certain targeted area, yes. I would expect Shirou's Trace On to be something a (New) God blacksmith or craftsman can do.
I've more been struck how appropriately she's acting as her namesake (I wonder if New God Artemis is going to meet Old God Artemis at some point) as well as fitting her mother's old callsign Huntress. It's a nice distinguishing between her and Tao (I would have liked to see their awkward reunion; as a being analogous to a New God himself, he must have recognized how she'd spiritually changed, and it would have been poignant).

I'm sure Zoat has an expressed an opinion regarding Fate/Nasuverse media at some point, does anyone remember?

 

Fate is garbage. Stop bringing it up.

 

He hasn't watched Fate.

Though I think he said that he didn't like the cultural appropriation.

 

Honestly at this point I think renegade is much more Grayven then a version of Paul. Also, always happy to see more of the New Gods and Artemis in particular.

 

Correct me if I’m wrong but Mr Zoat is a Brit, proud of it, and very aware of his countries history, yes?

 

It's not just that he's evil.
Zoat don't write characters that are just "evil".
And he's not crazy either.
We may not know what his exact motivations were, but we can be sure that taking this course of action did materially advance his plans by some amount commensurate with the effort required to depopulate a planet without a trace.

 

I'm aware of bits of my country's history, yes. When I said that I didn't like the cultural appropriation I don't mean that I'm offended by it, I mean that I think it's stupid. I don't know if an actual historical figure served as the basis for the King Arthur myth, but if they did then I'm fairly sure that they wouldn't have been a blonde Japanese woman.

 

I think he mentioned being offended by the culture appropriation and distortion, exemplified by Arthur being a woman.

A funny thing considering history, but a huge derail anyways.

Fate is absolutely awesome, but like Berserk it suffers from bad adaptation syndrome, yes most of the adaptations are "good" quality wise (unlike Berserk) but the plot suffers a lot from it because the plot was meant to be digested in a visual novel format with each new route building building off each other. It's the same problem Muv Luv has with their adaptations, the quality of the Animes are good, but the plot is better understood when you play the novel in the correct order.

She isn't Japanese... It's just the Anime art style.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/t..._sleeve.png/revision/latest?cb=20121213224947

That one is a Finnish noble lady.

 

Though there is a Japanese character introduced later with the same iconic face. But I'll stop talking about Fate now (Though there are powerful beings in the franchise associated with desire and avarice that would be interesting to see interact with Paragon, though how he deals with Slaaneshi forces in the Warhammer Fantasy/40K universes is probably similar enough).

Does the Renegade or any of his associates have any plans for Hell? Experimenting with demonic magic is risky, sure, but I think between him and the accessible aid of Sunset, Circe, Adom and (less accessible but still plausible) John Constantine, they could manage it. Given that it's where the majority of people in the world are ending up after death, including potentially a fair number of his employees, it seems like something to consider if Renegade wants to eventually dominate and/or overhaul the Earth's thaumosphere. Seeing Sybarite's demonstration of the versatility and usefulness of demonic abilities, I think it's something Renegade would be interested in, and plausibly have less moral compunctions about assimilating demons compared to other kinds of beings.

He's brushed up against demon magic in his work with the vampire/succubus children I suppose, which leads me to ask, how old is the oldest one of those kids? I think it should be Paul, right? Is he (and/or his similarly aged siblings) interested in training to be an enforcer for Renegade, or something else? Has Renegade considered asking the League/Team to take on the oldest kids and Lynne or at least develop some kind of working partnership? Seems like a good step towards long-term cooperation, given a lot of the Team are New Gods or aliens who age very slowly, and Artemis's metaphysical bonds to Renegade.

Moving things back to the Paragon side and speaking of afterlives and religions, does Lantern Onik have a great deal of knowledge regarding the events on the planet of the eye-blinders? What's his opinion of how things went down there?

 

Zoat once mentioned that in the future renegade will conclude that Hell serves no one and start doing his own Harrowings on it.

He may be at least a teenager.

Renegade probably doesn't feel like there's a need for cooperation with the League.

He used to cooperate with them since they may have had things that could help him or because they were the Earths only defence against alien attack.

Now Renegade has a lot of his own resources and his Earth is getting a fleet.

Plus Renegade still has contacts with lots of powerful people, like Circe, Sunset, Manchester Black, who can train his children if needed.

Renegade once mentioned that they were going to get training in magical combat, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he'll be an enforcer, rather it's just Renegade making sure they can defend themselves.

 

Very progressive of them to enoble a grey rectangle.

I don't have an exact age in mind. He was prepubescent when the Renegade rescued them, but he'd had a pretty poor diet so might be older than that implies.

Not especially.

"Lad, you're having as near to a normal childnood as I can give you, whether you like it or not."

He approves strongly.

 

I believe that is a reference to Astarte.

Whether he's inspired by the pre-crisis or new earth incarnation I couldn't say.

So she's probably either a crazy dead woman who thinks she's Wonder Woman when she meets her, or a space pirate with the scientific ethics of a Nazi.

 

Good way to get Lucifer to smite your ass.

 

Plague of Ghosts already happened in setting, which means Lucifer left Hell.

Hell's not his problem anymore and he may have already fucked off from reality.

Either way, he doesn't give a shit anymore and trying to make him give a shit is more likely to piss him off than anything that Grayven's doing.

 

Yes and No, Lucifer is connected to hell because he created it and it sorta feeds off the excess of his existence.

And that connection doesn't go away ever.

 

Zoat's using the Hellraiser canon of Hell being formed around the First of the Fallen.

And Lucifer doesn't take kindly to being obligated to anyone or anything.

 

Hellblazer canon is that Hell formed around Lucifer after he fell.

I believe I have posted the comic panel before.

 

Is Paul ever planning to help out the spirit of misery that lives in Erebus, outside the gate to Tartarus? I can't find where they first met, although I know that it was during the wonder woman origin investigation. I think he promised to help her, even if it was only taken at face value.

 

Thanks. I looked up the Citizenry in the story, and found what Paul says about them; he thinks it's the latter.

That was Akhlys, Greek goddess of Misery. She shows up in Episode 40: Carpe Tempus.

 

Hellblazer canon is that Hell formed around the First of the Fallen when he was cast out.

Who, might I remind you, is not Lucifer.

Lucy was Fourth of the Fallen, tops.

Hellblazer # 59, pg 22-23;

Spoiler