Chojin Patriarch
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Which might help to steady him as he adapts to each new enhancement. Just OL being here is a big thing for them, I suspect. One of the Orange Lantern Corps' highest officers here to observe their first group engagement...29th April 2013
12:33 GMT
"And this is the Illustres of the Orange Lantern Corps."
The eight other members of the Effigy Corps stand in two rows as Mr. van Wyck introduces me. Empathic vision is working and… He genuinely wants me to be here. This is reinforcing his authority, showing respect.
After all, the very nature of their empowerment requires independence of action.Good. I can work with that.
Jevek Jos Jar isn't here, but this is the mustering zone so that isn't either surprising or unusual. Hinon doesn't see off Orange Lantern taskforces unless she's joining them as part of the diplomatic team. Dox does for larger groups on longer missions, but Orange Lanterns are mostly left to their own devices.
Could just be that he understands the sensibility of wearing armour, even if you don't need it.I doubt that's something that Controller Jevek will do.
The other Effigies are a mix of N.E.M.O.-aligned species. No clickers, oddly, and the white face mask appears to be unique to Mr. van Wyck. Only two of them have the fire hair replacement, though most of the others are from species that have no body hair. Only one is wearing body armour, which appears to be a Darkstar exo-mantle. I wonder if he's wearing it for basic protection, or if Jevek is actually empowering it?
Close enough to be recognisable to allies or enemies alike, without being mistaken for the other in the fog of battle.Their logo appears to be a white circle with a black… I'm not sure if that's a flame or a hand on it? There's a smaller red flame coming from the wrist, and combined with the red of their… Skin? Bodysuits? The whole thing is actually fairly similar to the Darkstars' design, but… Simplified. Clearly part of the same thing, just not the same part of the same thing.
But not taking a direct hand unless needed, of course. After all... This is a test of their capabilities.I'll ask about the logo design later.
"I'm pleased to meet you all. I'll be tagging along on your first mission so that I can feed back to Clarissi Dox about how you and your successors can best fit into N.E.M.O.'s order of battle. I look forward to seeing you in action."
And you've come a hell of a long way, OL. Now, can Marty manage the same?The former Darkstar raises a hand, looking at me. I make a point of obviously noticing it and then looking at Mr. van Wyck. He looks at me, as if not sure what I'm doing. Then I see his expression of surprise and pride as he works it out.
After all, I was where he is a year and a half ago; the leader of a handful of people with powers like mine joining in a war which the Darkstars had been fighting since the Industrial Revolution.
Heh. I see they're smart enough to wonder about his presence. Backup? Observer? Clean-up crew? No surprise he's asking.He gestures to the Effigy with the raised hand. "Krillik."
"Will you be participating in the battle, Illustres?"
Heh. True enough."If your commanding officer asks me to, I can. However, the purpose of the exercise is to see what you can do on your own, to fully test out how effective your augmentations are in the field. If I do too much, I would undermine that."
Krillik makes a gesture of affirmation, and several of the others look… Pleased? I suppose that if I was told that I was going to be shadowed by Darkstars who would jump in the moment I started having trouble -after having used my ring for a year on Planet Hard Mode- I'd have been a bit annoyed too.
Well, I'm sure they'll acquit themselves with honour and glory."I'll be accompanying you to the edge of the Reach's anti-Lantern interdiction fields, then I'll wait for you to reach your target before teleporting myself to you." I smile. "But if I don't see it, you don't get any points for it."
A few half-smiles, but these…
...Gone full Larfleeze? A reasonable concern for a tool driven by base urges.Actually... Empathic vision and personnel files show… Krillik is indeed a former Darkstar. Applied to join the Orange Lantern Corps when we first formed but didn't pass the personality screening. Not avaricious enough. Good guy, though. One of the others failed screening for the opposite reason: too avaricious. He'd have…
Perhaps his lessened avarice is just that he has what he wanted: Power to fight and win.Huh. Orange light looks a little more muted. So either he reconsidered his life, or Jevek did something to him that gave him better self-discipline. Good move either way. The others appear to have been recruited through L.E.G.I.O.N., all… Ah, several of them have notes relating to psychological concerns, but not all of them and… I suppose a Controller can fix a lot of things when you're up on the slab.
So try not to die, I guess. Then again, they've made it this far, so unless something goes horribly wrong..."Well, that's… It from me. Effigy Prime, back to you."
Mr. van Wyck nods. "In case any of you have forgotten, our target is a Reach tertiary shipyard. Priority target is any ships under repair or construction, then the space docks themselves. If their fleet hasn't turned up, we can wreck whatever's left." He hesitates. "Honestly…" He makes a fist with his right hand. "I'm a bit eager to try these upgrades out on their bigger ships…" He smiles, pseudo flames flaring. "But this is a trial run to see what we can do and get us used to killing the Reach for real. Bigger ships tomorrow."
Not one for any formal command style, then. Very much a bro leading bros.A couple of them nod.
"Right, come on." He rises into the air, the other Effigies joining him a moment later. "We've got a long flight ahead of us."
Let's hope it inconveniences that one Reach commander who seems to keep turning up whenever he's around.They all zoom upwards, accelerating away from Maltus and towards Reach space. We'll actually be flying around Reach space for a good distance before turning inward, and… That's a pretty good place for me to make a distraction attack. Reach forces who encounter me appear to be under orders to 'retreat in good order', so letting them know where I am is a low-risk endeavour.
Not a difficult technique for an advanced Lantern, I suppose.I
step out, looking for the patterns of desire that represent the Effigy team. Finding it, I
return to normal space and bend space to match the effect of their telekinesis.
Probably tricky to communicate in transit otherwise. If they're FTL, any non-entangled signal will be light-years back before they can pick it up.Mr. van Wyck has taken the lead, a position that's a natural one for a leader to take in an organisation like ours: one where personal combat skill counts for more than organisational ability. I fly past the rest of the squad and pull up alongside him, matching my 'bubble' to his so that we can speak privately.
Wonder how long he stayed up practising that little speech and sweating over how he'd do.
Very much a looser command style than other branches of NEMO. After all, their boss treats them like smart, reusable ordnance."I noticed. None of your targets on this mission have armour significantly better than the ships you destroyed. But this is the first time you've had command."
"They all know what they're doing." He glances back towards his team. "If I need to tell them stuff… This isn't really something we can do wrong. Just… Less right. They're learning, I'm learning."
Making sure he's dotted his 'i's and crossed his 't's, eh? I imagine said exercises were still live-fire, though.I nod. That's probably about as much as I can… Say 'do you want advice or assistance?' without coming right out and saying it, which would be counterproductive.
"I take it that you've done exercises together?"
And every system will have to be won individually, one slow step at a time..."Yeah. Just a couple. Small fleets, a listening post or two. Nothing like this, but we're not going to win this war without destroying things that matter."
I nod. "Alas, no."
Anything to break up the pre-engagement jitters, eh? Though it is a good idea to compare notes.We fly for a little while without speaking, turning very slightly to make an arc around the periphery zone.
"How did-? You get started? Being in charge of things?"
Though not without giving Batman a few headaches in the meantime."You know how I was on the Justice League's youth team?" He nods. "On our first mission, I made a couple of sensible observations. Since I had the spare time I did some planning exercises in my spare time. Eventually, our team leader needed a holiday and I was the natural choice to take over temporarily."
So long ago. Several years in-universe, quite a few more outside."What was it?"
"The President of Qurac got mind controlled. We had to sneak around his palace, free him and defeat the people controlling him. It went… Not perfectly, but we achieved our objectives without anyone dying." I chuckle. "And then we nearly blew the whole thing because some Bialyan soldiers decided to raid a wildlife sanctuary on the border and… Superheroes, we had to get involved."
You never know how you're going to deal with it until you are, sometimes. You can prepare and study all you like, but when the time comes..."Anything you weren't expecting?"
"Well, they had Apokoliptian weapons, but they were all 'made for export' things and they weren't that much harder to deal with than normal guns."
"No. Like… Being in charge."
Not so easy a task in a war like this, but if Effigy teams operate like loose little warbands, that might be a better method than large-scale deployments.I shrug. "They were all people I'd known for months. I was living with two of them. And it was a lot less… Formal? Than a military unit. In terms of.. motivating them, I just made it clear why I was assigning the tasks I was. They could follow my reasoning, so they understood why things were happening and what they were supposed to be doing." I shrug. "I didn't like it or dislike it, if that's what you mean." I smile. "But if being in charge was hard, then the people in charge wouldn't be able to do it, right?"
"Heh." He smiles back. "Yeah."
All right. Knowing OL's luck, this may go horribly well. For instance, a Reach fleet with a lot more power than they expected might be on-site, and they get to see just how big a force they can stand up to before retreating. Let's hope they all make it through this in good shape, or Marty will end up having quite a time of it.