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

Ardy · 2026-10-16T23:15:05+0100

Darko said:
And people have willingly joined groups or ideologies that are unpopular or illegal, so Smiley being a bad figure is not a deal breaker for them.

No one joins the nazis after living in a concentration camp, and EVERYONE ON EARTH got hit with the anti-life.

If Smiley revealing himself would get him more converts/power/influence, then Smiley could do that himself, and since he doesn't, then that's not really a reason to assume it's a bad idea.

It doesn't matter if you have a skeleton in your closet or you want power, even sociopaths horribly suffered under the anti-life, and all but the insane would prefer to lose influence rather than go through it again.

You keep acting like this is a pre-anti life world, when it very much is not. It'll take a generation before people are willing to stop taking it seriously.

Darko · 2026-10-17T00:05:25+0100

Ardy said:
No one joins the nazis after living in a concentration camp, and EVERYONE ON EARTH got hit with the anti-life.

If Smiley revealing himself would get him more converts/power/influence, then Smiley could do that himself, and since he doesn't, then that's not really a reason to assume it's a bad idea.

It doesn't matter if you have a skeleton in your closet or you want power, even sociopaths horribly suffered under the anti-life, and all but the insane would prefer to lose influence rather than go through it again.

You keep acting like this is a pre-anti life world, when it very much is not. It'll take a generation before people are willing to stop taking it seriously.

People can move on from things surprisingly quickly.

It's stupid, but it's true.

And while Boss Smiley does have the ability to mind control people, his power is subtle enough and different compared to the crushing brutality of Anti-Life that most people are not likely to make the comparison.

As long as Smiley gives them power without destroying their minds, then they'll do what he wants.

Ct613hulu · 2026-10-17T01:59:27+0100

Boss Smiley could also justify cooperation with him by claiming (likely accurately) that he is an enemy of Darkseid. We still don't have much information on Boss Smiley's true nature of long term goals but what we do see appears to be in natural opposition to the absolute oppression of Darkseid. They are natural competitors for control over humanity.

BR549 · 2026-10-17T06:10:50+0100

NightmareWarden said:
not quite a Thanatos Gambit here, but Smiler is well positioned to set those up regularly.

Xanatos. Thanatos is the Greek god of death.

(Note that it took me far too long to catch on that the main conflict in Gargoyles is the battle of David and Goliath...)

Frozen20XX · 2026-10-17T07:04:29+0100

BR549 said:
(Note that it took me far too long to catch on that the main conflict in Gargoyles is the battle of David and Goliath...)

... Don't feel bad, I didn't make the connection until I just read your comment...

Mr Zoat · 2026-10-17T07:53:17+0100

Penal

16th October 2013
15:32 G.M.T. -5

Beautia looks up as I descend from the sky, a pair of heavy duty purple healing rays held on a construct loading crane. "Thanks, Paul. This is great."

I set them down on the helipad tarmac. "I'm just sorry we can't build them faster. Themyscira doesn't-."

"Doesn't have any manufacturing-" She nods to the hospital porters, and they carefully load the purple healing rays onto transport dollies. "-and KordTech is busy, I know. Frankly, I'm surprised-." She frowns, then gives me her full attention. "Has something happened in Washington recently?"

"Y-eah."

Her face relaxes slightly, trying to divine more information from me. "Is it something you can tell me about? I already heard about Senator Leahy. "

"Something like that. A lot of people in Washington found a good reason to be more agreeable and cooperative to League efforts. Why do you ask?"

She glances back at the hospital. "I wasn't exactly ready to publish my final report yet. With something like this we like to have good information on how the device affects everything, just in case there's some corner case adverse reaction. But we've officially gone from a regular study to a 'technically-we're-doing-a-study-but-in-practice-it's-a-full-roll-out' situation."

"Are there any reasons to go slower?"

"Yes. We don't know what the long term affects are on cancer rates. But… If what you're really asking is 'Is it worth doing anyway?'…" She nods confidently. "Yes. Definitely. I'm just surprised that we're getting an official go-ahead."

"As opposed to what?"

"I.. guess the.. Justice League just telling us to do it? I'm still going to have to oversee the rollout, train the doctors and nurses, and… As you know, there's going to be a huge bottleneck when it comes to building them… We're not eliminating traumatic injuries worldwide just yet."

"Is there some reason not to celebrate that I'm not hearing?"

"I just got off the phone with LexCorp. They're fishing for a contract to supply us."

"Er… Certain unsubstantiated allegations aside, is there a reason to reject them? Surely we want as many purple healing rays in production as we can get?"

"He wants to provide them at cost."

"Oh no."

"It's a problem because-."

We're both nodding. "Because he must be making back the money somewhere, and if you can't work out where then you're being bamboozled."

She rubs her forehead. "He's wanted to get more involved in the arcane technology market since you opened it up. It could just be a way to build his brand reputation."

"It's not just that. The Justice League took over funding a lot of government projects when the banking sector collapsed. This will involve the League paying him, which I'm sure he'll find profoundly satisfying."

"Oh. I was surprised when my research grant kept getting paid. I just thought that maybe Mannheim didn't mess up anything fundamental."

"Technically, he didn't mess up the Federal Government. It's just all the bits that it's connected to." I take a moment to think. Mr. Luthor is handling a lot of stuff to do with rebuilding. This isn't the first League-related contract he's taken, not by a long way. And it's a healing tool. "Do we have a real problem with working with LexCorp?"

"Can purple healing rays be turned into weapons?"

Can they? Baroness von Gunther's research was focused on non-destructive devices. Weaponisation potential wasn't something that she wrote about. From what I understand of how they work..? Not… Easily. Even if you messed around and reversed the energy flow… That would be really hard, because the system they work by causes energy to flow from high density areas to low density ones. If you try to make it go the other way around then you're talking about active uptake which requires a lot of energy to come from somewhere. With that much energy you'd be better off using a plasma gun outside of very specific circumstances, and it would need a lot of work.

More radical transformations… I do remember something from the comics called a 'purple death ray', but I've got no idea how it worked. Could you change a load of things and blast unhealth into someone? Maybe? Probably? But again, there must be easier ways to do it. Nothing else immediately comes to mind.

"Everything can be a weapon, but I can't see an efficient way to make it a weapon. I'd be more worried about them using it politically, but given the state of the world… We've got bigger problems than LexCorp returning to profitability."

"Alright, I'll-" My ring blinks. "-tell the administrator-."

"Excuse me." I move my ring to my ear. "Orange Lantern."

"The North American OMAC conversion facility has come under attack. Highest priority."

"Yes, Batman." Scan. "Beautia, sorry, need to go, keep up the good work."

Armour.

"Stay s-."

Transition.

16th October 2013
14:35 G.M.T. -6

Construct armour, full scan.

Turning people into OMACs doesn't take a lot of space, but between the training school, barrack, commissary, mass teleportation array, briefing rooms… I think the League -or possibly just Batman- bought an abandoned university campus.

There isn't much left of the actual conversion centre. Surrounding buildings have flash damage but no fires, suggesting a disintegration effect. Perimeter security… Walls and barbed wire still in place, though the force field dome is gone. Primary and backup emitters damaged, no collateral damage. Either an area effect attack designed to cause feedback or a large number of small devices. Main power plant, backup power plant and reserve batteries destroyed…

Relay scan results, deploy hydra heads.

Compliance.

With the teleportation system down, whatever OMACs live here wouldn't be able to return quickly. But the OMACs should be spread out all over the area, and I'm not seeing a single one.

I gesture towards the campus and the hydra heads fly out, searching for points of interest. Getting closer to the conversion facility… Yeah, disintegration is looking more likely. The damage pattern matches what NEMO demolition munitions-.

Ah Hell.

"Orange Lantern to Batman. Main conversion facility destroyed, moderate damage to other locations. OMAC garrison absent, no bodies detected. No hostiles detected. No radiation or other signs of ongoing risk. Recommend a full forensic examination. Staying on overwatch."

While I get hold of Jade.

"Orange Lantern out."

BR549 · 2026-10-17T08:04:03+0100

This is what happens when you don't feed your Darkstars before midnight.

RichardWhereat · 2026-10-17T08:10:07+0100

BR549 said:
This is what happens when you don't feed your Darkstars before midnight.

What happens when he gets his wet?

Tbryan · 2026-10-17T08:27:33+0100

RichardWhereat said:
What happens when he gets his wet?

We get an update in the NSFW thread

Cuchulin · 2026-10-17T08:29:33+0100

Tbryan said:
We get an update in the NSFW thread

LOL!!

Chojin Patriarch · 2026-10-17T08:58:37+0100

Mr Zoat said:
Penal

16th October 2013
15:32 G.M.T. -5

Beautia looks up as I descend from the sky, a pair of heavy duty purple healing rays held on a construct loading crane. "Thanks, Paul. This is great."

Heavy duty? For bulk use in emergencies or for faster, more potent healing on a single person? At any rate, their size seems unwieldy. I would assume these are going to be mounted on a stationary rig in an operating theatre somewhere...

I set them down on the helipad tarmac. "I'm just sorry we can't build them faster. Themyscira doesn't-."

"Doesn't have any manufacturing-" She nods to the hospital porters, and they carefully load the purple healing rays onto transport dollies. "-and KordTech is busy, I know. Frankly, I'm surprised-." She frowns, then gives me her full attention. "Has something happened in Washington recently?"

And no doubt anyone other than STAR Labs would struggle to produce the stranger aspects of the technology.

"Y-eah."

Her face relaxes slightly, trying to divine more information from me. "Is it something you can tell me about? I already heard about Senator Leahy. "

"Something like that. A lot of people in Washington found a good reason to be more agreeable and cooperative to League efforts. Why do you ask?"

Almost suspiciously so, in fact. A pity OL hasn't the time to dig into it, being pulled in so many directions as is.

She glances back at the hospital. "I wasn't exactly ready to publish my final report yet. With something like this we like to have good information on how the device affects everything, just in case there's some corner case adverse reaction. But we've officially gone from a regular study to a 'technically-we're-doing-a-study-but-in-practice-it's-a-full-roll-out' situation."

And any rare reactions will have to be found on the go. It would likely to be a rare occurrence on the level of metagena activation.

"Are there any reasons to go slower?"

"Yes. We don't know what the long term affects are on cancer rates. But… If what you're really asking is 'Is it worth doing anyway?'…" She nods confidently. "Yes. Definitely. I'm just surprised that we're getting an official go-ahead."

Ah, that would be an issue, I suppose. Given that Cancer cells can grow just as rapidly as normal cells under that sort of stimulus...

"As opposed to what?"

"I.. guess the.. Justice League just telling us to do it? I'm still going to have to oversee the rollout, train the doctors and nurses, and… As you know, there's going to be a huge bottleneck when it comes to building them… We're not eliminating traumatic injuries worldwide just yet."

So at this point it's a select few American hospitals thus far. With Beautia having to set each one up personally. A bottleneck indeed.

"Is there some reason not to celebrate that I'm not hearing?"

"I just got off the phone with LexCorp. They're fishing for a contract to supply us."

"Er… Certain unsubstantiated allegations aside, is there a reason to reject them? Surely we want as many purple healing rays in production as we can get?"

If Lex is involved, then he wants something out of this, you know that. Recognition for expanding production, perhaps...

"He wants to provide them at cost."

"Oh no."

"It's a problem because-."

Oh he is definitely angling for some benefit to himself for sure, then.

We're both nodding. "Because he must be making back the money somewhere, and if you can't work out where then you're being bamboozled."

She rubs her forehead. "He's wanted to get more involved in the arcane technology market since you opened it up. It could just be a way to build his brand reputation."

It can't be that simple, surely.

"It's not just that. The Justice League took over funding a lot of government projects when the banking sector collapsed. This will involve the League paying him, which I'm sure he'll find profoundly satisfying."

"Oh. I was surprised when my research grant kept getting paid. I just thought that maybe Mannheim didn't mess up anything fundamental."

...Or maybe it could be that petty.

"Technically, he didn't mess up the Federal Government. It's just all the bits that it's connected to." I take a moment to think. Mr. Luthor is handling a lot of stuff to do with rebuilding. This isn't the first League-related contract he's taken, not by a long way. And it's a healing tool. "Do we have a real problem with working with LexCorp?"

As we've seen, the engine of government is turning, but the gears are in neutral when it comes to government agencies functionality.

"Can purple healing rays be turned into weapons?"

Ah, someone in Paragon timeline finally realises...

Can they? Baroness von Gunther's research was focused on non-destructive devices. Weaponisation potential wasn't something that she wrote about. From what I understand of how they work..? Not… Easily. Even if you messed around and reversed the energy flow… That would be really hard, because the system they work by causes energy to flow from high density areas to low density ones. If you try to make it go the other way around then you're talking about active uptake which requires a lot of energy to come from somewhere. With that much energy you'd be better off using a plasma gun outside of very specific circumstances, and it would need a lot of work.

The Renegade managed it somehow.

More radical transformations… I do remember something from the comics called a 'purple death ray', but I've got no idea how it worked. Could you change a load of things and blast unhealth into someone? Maybe? Probably? But again, there must be easier ways to do it. Nothing else immediately comes to mind.

It's probably some clever technobabble thing.

"Everything can be a weapon, but I can't see an efficient way to make it a weapon. I'd be more worried about them using it politically, but given the state of the world… We've got bigger problems than LexCorp returning to profitability."

"Alright, I'll-" My ring blinks. "-tell the administrator-."

Honestly, given how big Lexcorp is, it probably represents a significant part of DC America's economy anyway.

"Excuse me." I move my ring to my ear. "Orange Lantern."

"The North American OMAC conversion facility has come under attack. Highest priority."

Oh, that's trouble. The Illuminati boys taking a more active hand, or someone else, I wonder?

"Yes, Batman." Scan. "Beautia, sorry, need to go, keep up the good work."

Armour.

"Stay s-."

Heh, she is a compassionate one, isn't she...

Transition.

16th October 2013
14:35 G.M.T. -6

Construct armour, full scan.

Going in heavy, I see. Something wrecking an OMAC facility has to be bad news, given the personnels' capabilities.

Turning people into OMACs doesn't take a lot of space, but between the training school, barrack, commissary, mass teleportation array, briefing rooms… I think the League -or possibly just Batman- bought an abandoned university campus.

Makes sense, really. Plenty of space, plenty of rooms to repurpose as needed...

There isn't much left of the actual conversion centre. Surrounding buildings have flash damage but no fires, suggesting a disintegration effect. Perimeter security… Walls and barbed wire still in place, though the force field dome is gone. Primary and backup emitters damaged, no collateral damage. Either an area effect attack designed to cause feedback or a large number of small devices. Main power plant, backup power plant and reserve batteries destroyed…

So something blew outwards from the centre? A stealth bomb placement, perhaps.

Relay scan results, deploy hydra heads.

Compliance.

With the teleportation system down, whatever OMACs live here wouldn't be able to return quickly. But the OMACs should be spread out all over the area, and I'm not seeing a single one.

And at worst, they can just fly back.

I gesture towards the campus and the hydra heads fly out, searching for points of interest. Getting closer to the conversion facility… Yeah, disintegration is looking more likely. The damage pattern matches what NEMO demolition munitions-.

Ah Hell.

That's not good. Because the only people with that sort of ordnance would be...

"Orange Lantern to Batman. Main conversion facility destroyed, moderate damage to other locations. OMAC garrison absent, no bodies detected. No hostiles detected. No radiation or other signs of ongoing risk. Recommend a full forensic examination. Staying on overwatch."

Not telling Batman the probable suspects outright, of course. He wants to make sure himself before he calls it in.

While I get hold of Jade.

"Orange Lantern out."

She and her team are going to have some explaining to do.

I'm not sure why Jade and her team would have done this, given they're basically working with the League while monitoring for possible black projects stuff, like an unofficial internal affairs team... But who else could get a hold of NEMO special armaments? Could the Light be running a false-flag operation, or has Jade's team gone rogue? We're bound to find out...

Vaermina · 2026-10-17T09:22:39+0100

Chojin Patriarch said:
I'm not sure why Jade and her team would have done this, given they're basically working with the League while monitoring for possible black projects stuff, like an unofficial internal affairs team... But who else could get a hold of NEMO special armaments? Could the Light be running a false-flag operation, or has Jade's team gone rogue? We're bound to find out...

Really? Feels a bit obvious to me.

They investigated the place and found out it was being used to create an army of mind controlled super soldiers. So the Darkstars did what they were trained to do and blew it up.

boo600 · 2026-10-17T09:45:21+0100

Mr Zoat said:
More radical transformations… I do remember something from the comics called a 'purple death ray', but I've got no idea how it worked. Could you change a load of things and blast unhealth into someone? Maybe? Probably? But again, there must be easier ways to do it. Nothing else immediately comes to mind.

"Everything can be a weapon, but I can't see an efficient way to make it a weapon. I'd be more worried about them using it politically, but given the state of the world… We've got bigger problems than LexCorp returning to profitability."

So the Light is going to get purple death rays, which bypass armor/constructs/inorganic cover, and Paragon isn't going to be prepared for them. Lovely.

Renegade did have a Father Box by the time he went to Themyscira; 'I just flipped it around' was… probably shorthand for something simple but difficult. (Apokalyptian tech is rather… focused.)

Mr Zoat said:
Relay scan results, deploy hydra heads.

Fuck yes. It's always nice when he remembers to take advantage of his own iconic ability.

Darko · 2026-10-17T09:59:02+0100

Chojin Patriarch said:
The Renegade managed it somehow.

The Renegade had an advanced piece of arcane tech in the form of Father Box, do modifying the ray wouldn't be that difficult.

Chojin Patriarch said:
Heh, she is a compassionate one, isn't she...

She sorta made it her thing in order to atone for the crimes her family did.

Chojin Patriarch said:
I'm not sure why Jade and her team would have done this, given they're basically working with the League while monitoring for possible black projects stuff, like an unofficial internal affairs team

Jade and her team were investigating Batman, so they either found something he was doing, or someone else was taking advantage of the facility.

Chojin Patriarch said:
But who else could get a hold of NEMO special armaments? Could the Light be running a false-flag operation, or has Jade's team gone rogue? We're bound to find out...

There were those Free Lancers that sold supervillain tech to aliens, so maybe the Light is in the galactic black market and bought some NEMO or Darkstar tech from the Reach, Grayven or Apokalips.

Vaermina said:
Really? Feels a bit obvious to me.

They investigated the place and found out it was being used to create an army of mind controlled super soldiers. So the Darkstars did what they were trained to do and blew it up.

They most likely knew that already, either because it's not that secret, or because Paul told them.

timeForced · 2026-10-17T10:09:28+0100

Depending on how automated the facility was Jade or whoever was in charge of an infiltration (if it was the Darkstars) may have prioritized secrecy. They are military infiltrators not undercover cops. OMACs could qualify as combatants.

WereDragon · 2026-10-17T10:18:16+0100

Mr Zoat said:
Certain unsubstantiated allegations aside

Unsubstantiated only because Paul, for reasons that stopped making sense a long time ago, refuses to investigate the malevolent megalomaniac.

"The North American OMAC conversion facility has come under attack. Highest priority."

"Yes, Batman." Scan.

Given their strained relations I'm surprised both that Batman is calling Paul and that he is making contact personally.

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

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This is filth! FILTH!!

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This is filth! FILTH!!

Aia airëa Fëanáro.

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