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

[Darko]

Remember Justin? He was a scary guy, wasn't he?

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As scary as any fanatic.

It occurred to me that a mimbari reading Small Gods by Terry Pratchett would find the fact that Vorbis sat in the desert for 100 years to be utterly hilarious

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Makes sense, given their sense of humor revolves around attempts and failures at spiritual growth.

 

[Mr Zoat]

As scary as any fanatic.

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The joke is that in-universe he's a really big deal, the lynchpin of the shadows' operations in human space and an important political operator in his own right. In the series, he's that old man Sheridan talks to for two minutes before doing something he'd planned to do anyway. Also... Was his name mentioned in the series? I don't remember it. I learned it from the card game.

 

[mastermenthe]

Remember Justin? He was a scary guy, wasn't he?

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I had forgot he even existed.

It occurred to me that a mimbari reading Small Gods by Terry Pratchett would find the fact that Vorbis sat in the desert for 100 years to be utterly hilarious.

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Why would they find it funny?

 

[Mr Zoat]

Why would they find it funny?

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Makes sense, given their sense of humor revolves around attempts and failures at spiritual growth.

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Basically, Vorbis dies and is no longer able to delude himself that he's hearing Om's voice. And then rather than start walking (everyone else who dies in the story is shown taking the initiative regarding their new location) he just sits down, unable to function, for a hundred years. He only starts moving when Brutha dies and starts helping him, as he did earlier when they were stuck in the desert together.

 

[Vaermina]

It appears to be a large mechanical sphere.

The only races that consistently use it are the pak'ma'ra and the Gaim.

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Translator's are standard equipment, however verbal one's are limited to single languages while text based one's tend to cover any written language in their database.

Translator: A translator, or translation device, contains
a sophisticated expert system capable of translating one
language into another, complete with inflection and idioms
as appropriate. These devices are generally either handheld
or hung from the neck of the wearer. Each translator
functions for eight hours using an internal power supply.
It can translate to and from two specific languages (e.g.
an English/Gaim translator or an EnglishNree translator).

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I'm still waiting for a Vault Dwelling for Sanity and Profit (Fallout/SI) update.

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Or you could check out the much better written Star Trek and Stargate story's I'm writing.

That's one of the nifty things about B5 - a lot of things aren't technologically handwaved away. Things are either visibly complex and difficult like the translator, or are simply all but absent - for instance, IIRC only the Abbai had energy shields for their ships, everyone else - including, as I recall, the Vorlons and Shadows - used armor.

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The Abbai have gravitic shields, the Vorlon's use electromagnetic shields, the White Star's also have electromagnetic shields.

The Shadows have personnel energy shields, however their ships use energy diffusers to radiate impacting energy off into hyperspace.

And the Minbari sort of have nascent gravitic shields that do weird things to sensors.

I'm guessing that unlike the main storyline Paul this one isn't in the habit of acquiring databases and doing planet scale sweeps with his ring as standard procedure? Because if he is, I expect Vorlon ship data warfare countermeasures to at least notice, if not be able to stall the ring. Not to mention the possibility of active Glow manipulation being noticeable by itself.

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Non-swarm Vorlon ships have pieces of Vorlons in them, so that would end very badly for Paul.

Also, with all the Shadow tech floating around it is really really bad idea to go around randomly downloading databases.

 

[GhostKing 666]

IIRC only the Abbai had energy shields for their ships, everyone else

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Among the Younger Races, the Abbai are the only ones that put gravitic shields on all their ships. The Brakiri also have the technology(they managed to get it from the Abbai), but it's owned by one of their megacorps so only ships built by said megacorp have gravitic shields.

The Drakh are a Middle Born race though and do have their own version of gravitic shields.

And the Hyach have their own version of shield technology, called Harmonic shields, that are the only ones that block lasers(but nothing else).

As for the Vorlons, they prefer EM shields and living adaptive armor, which is what the White Star with its Vorlon technology uses.

And the Minbari sort of have nascent gravitic shields that do weird things to sensors.

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Minbari Jammers aren't a shield, though they are similar. It uses a gravity field to deflect and bend sensors around and away from the ship. Similar principle but used in a different way.