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

"All three of our species have empathy, we have sympathy, we have a sense of fairness - they even tell stories like we do, they have art. Shouldn't that be enough? Wasn't that supposed to be enough? But all it does is put us into enough of the same reference frame that we can be horrible by each others' standards."
--Three Worlds Collide, paraphrased

Seemed apropos.

 

I prefer to be horrible by my own standard, as well. If everyone's horrible, no one is.

 

Without spoiling too much: in this case though, one of the species is of an advanced alien race that values individual happiness over individual free will and don’t consider one a prerequisite for the other. The other one is a species that builds their morality system around the act of eating their own babies, which they don’t abuse and do value, in a ritual mass hunt. None of the species are willing to allow the others’ morality system to exist.

The point is, your own standard is still likely based on the general human standard to obviously value individuality and free will, seeing as you are making your comment about individual morality, as well as not harming innocents.

Honestly, it’s a great short story, but the author is a bit too much of a fan of Fate, and compares Fate SN to Shakespeare while also calling his futuristic space ship the Kiritsugu.

 

Could also be some kind of Lightning rod for magic.
Any active magic will power the rune stones' glow.

Any eavesdropping magic will discharge onto the pendants instead of doing it's job.

 

Personally I think that's more a discussion of cultural differences than politics. But that said it can be a very politically charged topic.

 

Hey, that 'feed me' function of the orange light. If an alt. Paul learned to do that before he was able to acquire a personal lantern, would he have been able to use that function to feed on the orange light of, I dunno... say, he gets into a power plant or a small star or something and just wants that goddamned energy for this ring right now would that serve to recharge it in any way?

 

Mr Zoat how did Paul get that much detail off of a yellow fear? I thought he was limited to orange desires for visions like that and just detected the presence of other emotions. Is he getting better at it?

 

It's possible to do, it's just not possible to learn it within a single ring charge while being a remotely normal person.

He's had high-grade empathy for a while. He can see the seven colours and images associated with them in other people.

 

As Zoat said, he's been that good at it for a while now. One of the best examples is when he met Blue Lantern Paul a year ago in story; he took a good look at all of his emotions. See here:

 

Yeah, but theres a lot of remotely non-normal people around. I'm just thinking in hypotheticals, like if a DC vampire had gotten an orange ring. Feeding off other things is a base nature to them, I was wondering if a vampire had gotten one if they could use that to sort their shit out until they were able to acquire a lantern or something, was all. What-if's.

 

Feed me is a little more sophisticated than that. It also doesn't charge the ring.

While there are beings who could charge a ring manually, they're somewhat unusual and extremely powerful in their own right.

 

Didn't Sybarite charge his ring by absorbing magic Demons are made of, wouldn't that mean that most wizards could charge it by directing their magic into it.

 

Not just any demon. Incubi. Demons of lust, a specific form of desire, a type of avarice. I sort of doubt that just any magic would work.

 

That was just the first one, he had a variety of demons after that. Also Zoat mentioned that it was the absorption of magic from the demons that was charging the ring.

 

I’d need to reread the Sybarite posts to be sure but I don’t think he discussed plans for going for Alan Scott’s Lantern initially, after his side-trip with the incubus. Did even the first infusion of demon-magic hook him so much he decided not to pursue it?

 

Seems like it

And here is Zoat explaining how consuming demons charges the ring

 

I figured that Paul got yellow enlightenment during the terror thing arc, but Zoat didn't want to add extra quote marks. The orange marks are already a pain.

 

Now we just need to find the Paul who has a ring set up like The Mandarin. (A gimmick I have a soft spot for.)

 

I've read it before, it was pretty interesting. And yes, while I'm still more-or-less based on the general human standard, what I mean is that if your morality system considers and accepts that every human a horrible person (including yourself), then encountering a race that eats babies is no longer a huge issue; "Oh, you consume and slowly digest your fully-conscious offspring? Cool, that's a pretty unique form of evil! Cmon, lets go get some drinks."

They're no longer a affront that you have to deal with, because if you were going to deal with affronts the first thing you'd be thinking is "Well, the closest awful person to shoot is myself, followed by that guy standing next to me, and then...".

 

Didn't the Marvel verse Paul get dead, Hand Ninja rez'ed and then lopped off one of their Mandarin's hands?
I seem to recall something about their Wisdom asking Mrs OL, Hella Goddess of the Dead, if she wanted to put on a cape and join in the fun.

EDIT:

Found it
https://forums.spacebattles.com/thr...i-thread-eleven.311139/page-810#post-17055294

 

That was an omake.

 

That’s missing the point of a morality system: the point is, that you follow it. Ideally, you strive to be good, and what good is is defined by the system. Everyone isn’t good, but tolerable people try to mostly be good according to the system and definetely don’t constantly try to get you to break your moral laws. The problem comes when others have different values. When they don’t even try to be mostly good according to your morality system. They are, be definition, irredeemably evil according to your system. For example, Muslim extremists obviously consider themselves good, but their morality system is based on a twisted version of Sharia Law. To them, the things we value as a consumerist culture are the great evils of our time and they will do nearly everything to wipe them out. To us, they are for much the same reason.

Those aliens are much the same. By allowing ourselves to feel pain, we are perpetuating great evil and are according to those aliens hurting the absolute good of the universe. Likewise, by not eating our babies and letting them live, we are perpetuating an evil according to the other aliens. They will do anything to make us do these things and ensure that their version of good is spread across the universe.

 

Cited, not sited.

 

Actually... is this all a way to keep their child soldiers from breeding with their general population? Maybe there’s something off with either their brains (they’re not actually orphans), or their bodies sexual systems. Especially since she’s cited for activity related to War Hounds.

they might not care about civilian opinion, but they do abou that of the GLC

 

Odd phrasing, but not impossible. Not sure if it's a typo.

 

Not what he meant...

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

A question still unanswered, really.

So he could have been anything from ten days to ten years.

Nice diversion. Guess this is actually bothering him.

Outside statistical norms, though? I wonder...

Translation convention, or a phrasing he learned from OL and Guy? Interesting.

Did they even investigate the attempt?

Extraneous space between word and quotation mark...

Ah, you're a good Lantern, not a decent one. (if you'll excuse the borrowing of 'This Bites' terms)

Patsies. Disposable thugs.

That was quick...

Canar holds out his right hand and...

Oh-ho.

She has been cited for 'political disruption' relating to the War Hounds."
(unless intentional?)

So: 'Clean up your act and shut up, or...'

Easy, romeo.

Hopefully this whole thing doesn't get Guy busted back down...

Bit mangled. maybe delete 'made'?

Or... She's involved somehow. ...What, just saying...

No taking chances about blurting out something awkward.

Amazingly tense, for four guys sitting around talking...

 

You're absolutely right about all of this. The problem is essentially that (by my morality system) all people who I know to exist are immoral, and do immoral things. This includes myself; I am immoral and regularly and unavoidably do things I consider immoral. It is effectively impossible for me or any other human being to be good or attempt to be good.

It is... theoretically possible for people who I don't find immoral to exist, but while I haven't exactly checked every person on the planet, I'm reasonably certain none of them qualify. The Baby Eaters don't qualify, and I don't remember if there are enough details about the Super Happy Fun People to give a answer on them. And I don't particularly care about the magnitude of immorality; past a certain point, I don't really think it matters if you've got 9,217 Immorality Points or 5,122,430,666 Immorality Points.

This left me with a bit of a conundrum, because morality is a fairly important factor in social interactions; a default of "BAD BAD BAD BA-" is really not very conducive to... anything. And you can't really sort by "badness" and set a cutoff, because it's all so high that I can't effectively distinguish between anyone; the only choices left are "everyone is bad" or "no one is bad". So, I basically just went with "no one is bad", and also created a 'meta-morality' system where I move individuals to the "everyone is bad" category if they are sufficiently annoying at the moment. That last bit might sound a little odd, but I would unavoidably lash out at anyone/anything that makes me angry anyway, and I think that's the most effective and succinct rationalization for that behavior.


So, by this system, Baby Eaters would get the default answer of "not bad" in most situations.

 

Thank you, corrected.

 

The thick plottens.

Seems like the Alignment realised that "honour" and "totalitarian control" do not mix well and are silencing or discrediting War Hounds.