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

Discussion in 'Creative Writing' started by Mr Zoat, Jan 27, 2019.

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  1. Gilhelmi

    Gilhelmi Know what you're doing yet?

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    Would Selina make a good Lantern? She does have strong desires and she has strong morals (even if a bit grey at time, legally anyway).

    I guess the question is, what exactly about the Orange light causes people to go crazy?

    PS: Only 17 driven insane, that is not bad for early on. Before the major research is complete, or rather, they become the research to help people in the future. I guess they knew that could happen before they signed up.
     
  2. Stsword

    Stsword Versed in the lewd.

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    She's been a lantern a couple of times in the comics that I'm aware of.

    In Batman In Darkest Night, Sinestro/Joe Chill/Joker made Selina Kyle a Star Sapphire, and Harvey Evil Star's starbrands. For those who didn't read that graphic novel, Sinestro used his ring to assimilate Joe Chill's mind into his own, driving him insane, so making him the Joker equivalent.

    And in Silver Age Giant, the Legion of Doom stole the GLC Central Power Battery, a kryptonian crystal, and the absorbascan, which they used to make their own power rings, using the kryptonian crystal as a prism to refract the color of the central power battery into other colors- Blue for Penguin, Red for Manta, Yellow for Luthor, Orange for Dr Light, and either violet again for Catwoman or indigo, I can't recall.
     
  3. Cuchulin

    Cuchulin Versed in the lewd.

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    I think she might, It might help make up for her losing Bruce to Talia.
     
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  4. Prince Charon

    Prince Charon Just zis guy, you know?

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    Indigo, apparently. The DC Database wiki has a page on it. It's from the year 2000, predating even the formation of the Sinestro Corps by a few years (though obviously long after the first appearance of Sinestro's Yellow Power Ring).
     
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  5. AtomicGeneral25

    AtomicGeneral25 Insert Creativity Here

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    Supposedly? I guess that is a good point, we only have his word for it, and as far as I can remember Constantine has been AWOL since they took down Nabu, right?
     
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  6. Prince Charon

    Prince Charon Just zis guy, you know?

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    He could have gotten it from another John Constantine, for all we know.
     
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  7. Stsword

    Stsword Versed in the lewd.

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    Well he did visit Paul in the hospital after the fight, but after that AWOL, yes.

    So Quinn could be a guy that Constantine trusted with the most powerful magical artifact on Earth, or he could be the guy who poisoned Constantine's smokes and then dissolved his body in lye, or anything in between.

    It would be ironic if instead of Constantine getting Paul killed, Paul got Constantine killed....
     
  8. Sceptic

    Sceptic Critical Irrationalist

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    Or he could be the more orderly part of Constantine that got lopped off and given the helmet by the chaotic rest of him.
     
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  9. Threadmarks: Guys from Gotham (part 9)
    Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    16th February
    23:53 GMT -5


    Seriously?

    I hold the slime man up in a construct-ball. While somewhat protean he doesn't actually appear to be all that strong. I could.. probably freeze him solid without killing him…

    "While I'm not exactly impressed with… Whoever's in charge here's bodyguard, American law allows me to use mentally invasive techniques in order to get information on active supervillains. So you can either tell me who's doing this of your own free will, or without your own free will. You've got until the count of three."

    Snotman just sneers.

    "Fine. Brand."

    His eyes rotate upward as his forehead glows with an orange sigil, the light turning his translucent body an odd shade of purple. Yes, this one is very much in tune with his lower-order desires. He started absorbing and digesting animals but I can see at least… Seven? People he's done the same to.

    This part of the lower levels of the Breed Building has a 'modern fortification meets ancient tomb' aesthetic. Which means that it's probably a relatively young mage serving an ancient one, the worst combination as far as I'm concerned. Not that I'm exactly shivering in my armour given the power level of the help they're employing, but I think I might end up glad that John's on his way.

    Brand complete.

    "Snotman, you want to be helpful. Also, you no longer feel any particular drive to ingest living things."

    "Strega's in charge. She's a powerful sorceress. Though, I suppose that given how powerful you are, you might not care."

    "Never heard of her. Has she done anything I might know about?"

    "She's killed a lot of people, but not all at once. I don't think she's done anything that made the news."

    And isn't that a damning indictment of our society. I'm going to have to talk to someone about setting up a worldwide magic detection network again. I was convinced to put it on the back burner given Klarion's death and the civil liberties issues but if this sort of thing is going unnoticed...

    "Does she work for someone?"

    "Um. Maybe? She doesn't let us in her ritual room when she's killing them, and she's mentioned a 'lord' a few times. But I've never met them. She might just be religious."

    It would be interesting to meet an evil magic user who was religious without actively making pacts with the object of their reverence. But not so interesting that I'd actually want to do it.

    I take a giant crumbler gauntlet construct to the stone door ahead of me and erase it, a brief crackle of red light flickering out and then dying as the spell fails to find me.

    For a moment I consider shouting something. Maybe… 'Avon calling!' But it just feels inappropriate and… A bit sexist? Oh well.

    I walk forward, Snotman floating along behind me in his bubble. The flagstones down here have a clear pattern of wear between the exterior door and the interior, as if someone has been walking the exact same route for a very long time. The carvings on the walls appear to be decorative, though my knowledge of magic inscriptions is almost entirely modern rather than historical.

    I create two construct railguns and load mageslayers.

    "Strega, you're under arrest! I will warn you now that I am carrying lethal ordnance and am authorised to use it!"

    The big stone doors at the end of the room are probably concealing her ritual space. Not like there's anywhere else for her to be. And I don't just mean because of the lack of visible exits; there's only so much subbasement space you can purloin in a city like Gotham before someone notices.

    Ah, hang on.

    FEED ME!

    Stone abrades and fades, Snotman loses physical cohesion in his construct ball and a puff of red mist gets sucked away from an apparently empty part of the room, revealing a half-mask wearing woman with red hair wearing a red costume. Her hands are raised in a stereotypical casting-pose, so perhaps she's not as modern as I thought?

    I point my railguns at her. "Last chance."

    "How did.. you..?"

    The railgun round hits the air in front of her, another puff of red bursting as it strikes a rapidly erected barrier spell. The second one strikes her in the left thigh, blasting through meat and bone and only just failing to tear the leg off entirely. The force spins her around and she collapses bonelessly to the ground, moaning faintly as she does so.

    I take another suppression chain out of subspace and attach it to her… Well, there's not much point attaching it to her left leg, but her arms, right leg and neck are solid attachment points. Blood loss and shock have already caused her to lose consciousness and…

    I take a quick look at her desire-structures. Ugh. That's unusual. Far older than a normal human lifespan should allow but actually not all that powerful. But I've seen enough to destroy any desire I might have to actually heal her with my rings. Instead I take an x-ionised blade out of subspace, neatly amputate what's left of it at the hip and then carefully seal off the leaking blood vessels. That will keep her alive and I don't feel any further obligation to her.

    Now, what's behind the door?

    I generate another construct crumbler gauntlet and move to strike the door when a golden ankh flares into being in the air next to me. It flickers for a moment and then stabilises, allowing John Quinn to step through with the helmet on his head.

    He takes a quick look around and his gaze fixes on the severed leg.

    "Bit of a bloody mess."

    "Try reading her aura."

    "Not with that chain on-. Oh the leg, yeah." He kneels down next to it in the direction away from the blood pool and reaches out to it. "Ooh. Nasty. Lots of fatal blood sacrifice." He looks up at the door. "What's through there?"

    "Let's find out."

    I swing the crumbler construct and erase the door. There's a flicker of red light again, but once again the spell fails to find me. Inside the room… Pillars, carvings and a stone sarcophagus a different colour to the stone of the rest of the structure.

    "Recognise it?"

    "Not really, mate. All these ancient sarcophaguses start to look alike after a while."

    I turn up my empathic vision-.

    Green mist flares into life around the sarcophagus… Not sure what that's supposed to be doing.

    Spell eater temperature increasing.

    I add another from subspace and then send the original there to discharge.

    "John?"

    "Some sort of defence-piercing life drain spell. Don't get any closer than you have to."

    "Would you be willing to testify that whoever this is represents an existential threat to Gotham City?"

    "That's impossible to know for sure. Yes, they're powerful enough to threaten the city, but that's not the same as knowing that they would actually choose to threaten it."

    "Fine." I load another set of crumbler rounds and shoot through the spell, destroying the sarcophagus lid. "Let's ask them directly."
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2019
  10. thebishop8

    thebishop8 Umm, ackchyually...

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    *an odd

    *shivering

    Ellipses are needed at the end.

    *red hair
     
  11. Ngamer11

    Ngamer11 Experienced.

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    I can see OL getting a lot of publicity for this. Superhero foils evil sorcerers who have been killing people in Gotham for years/decades. How would Batman react to learning this was happening under his nose the whole time? Would the police start trusting OL more than Batman? Is this part of what makes Batman and OL's relationship estranged in the future?
     
  12. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Thank you, corrected.
     
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  13. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    There's no way you are winning that argument given the fundamental rights issue at stake and how few people actually end up as ritual sacrifices every year.

    Paul... This is stupid even for you...

    For all you know that could be the Horseman Famine or some other being that could instantly turn you into giblets.
     
  14. Tzeentch

    Tzeentch I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    DOCTOR GOTHAM: Sunnuva-! DOES NO ONE IN THIS GODS FORSAKEN CENTURY HAVE ANY RESPECT FOR ANYONE'S PROPERTY?! Granted, the sarcophagus was something that technically kept me imprisoned these past forty-something millenia, but IT WAS MY PRISON! I mean, look what you did to the ritual-carvings and binding-sigils on the stonework! That was REAL craftsmanship you destroyed there, you know!
     
  15. Cuchulin

    Cuchulin Versed in the lewd.

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    Agreed.

    So true! This sort of thing tends to get OL in trouble.
     
  16. Belenus

    Belenus Versed in the lewd.

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    This chapter is just going back through the other starter zones and finishing their quests for full completion.
     
  17. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    No, the SI got a bug caused by an over-levelled character going to a starter zone which triggers all of the quests at once.
     
  18. Chojin Patriarch

    Chojin Patriarch Veteran Lurker

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    Ugh, oozes. Worst kind of critter to fight cleanly. Intelligent ones? Even nastier.

    Welp, Hard Way it is.

    Ugh, like a humanoid Gelationous Cube? Nasty, nasty, nasty.

    Not that that's likely to stick. It may well be that he was made in such a way that consuming organic matter is how he survives. No great loss either way.

    Well, at least he's not the dumb one. And this is definitely shaping up to be the villianous counterparts of the Shadowpact.

    Ugh. Let's hope she's not crazy and loud too.

    The Lantern equivalent of the old ten-foot-pole.

    So, this lot might not be the first to use this area.

    Warning given. I doubt she's sensible enough to give up...

    Om nom nom.

    Probability of being sensible, low.

    Ouch. Any other situation, that's a fatal wound...
    Correction: 'as it strikes'

    Ow. Nice triage, and a good way to deal with the 'don't want to heal' aspect.

    Ah, backup arrives, after all the hard work is done.

    You know Constantine, this is nothing.

    Heh, must've been a lot, to be that easy to pick up on from her aura.

    Definitely not part of the extant decoration, then.

    Ah, DC, where you quickly grow jaded with the marvels of magic.

    Not something friendly, then.

    I like that OL's covering his legal bases here.

    Hoo-boy. Vaermina's actually right here, kind of reckless to kick the door in... Or off, as the case may be.

    I'm guessing OL's just getting bored with these low-level quests. This is like mashing the Interact key on anything glowing, just to get things over with faster.
     
  19. TheEyes

    TheEyes Well worn.

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    • Rule 8 - No Politics
    Ironically, the low numbers of surface-worlders who practice magic, and high numbers of people who are afraid of it, especially after Roanoke, might make it possible. It's like firearms in every civilized nation on Earth (no I didn't miss any): everyone knows that leaving them unregulated only facilitates crime, so it's better for everyone to have a national registry and strict regulation of who has access to them.
     
  20. Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    Oh yeah, cause this isn't going to go unpleasant places fast.
     
  21. Buggy123

    Buggy123 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    • Rule 8 - No Politics
    Hah! Good one.




    Wait, you're serious? I mean, without going into nigh-political detail, the U.S. has done and is doing plenty of that stuff (way farther back than 20 years), China is China, India is... I have no idea what India is, a lot of the next few down the population list aren't exactly known for being huge sticklers about human rights... And by that point you have a lot of the world's population covered.


    If you're doing it through the UN instead, you basically just need the permanent members onboard. China, the U.S., and Russia are a given (possibly with a stipend that lets them exempt their government-sanctioned magic from detection), and i'm not sure how France would take it. The U.K. might be opposed, given that in paragon-verse they're a demon cult in entirety, but they might find a way to use it to their advantage if they get pressured into it.


    And need I remind you that OL has the relatively-recent Roanoke incident to use as justification, among other things? Seriously, there are lots of examples of countries doing more than this with less justification than that. Both in recent can't-be-discussed history and not so recent history.
     
  22. Handlewithcare

    Handlewithcare Versed in the lewd.

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    I really enjoy watching OL roflstomp his way through Gotham :D
     
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  23. FreeGod

    FreeGod If you see a God on the road fuck it!

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    Batman should leave more often.
     
  24. Moderation: Rule 8 - Comment in the context of the story
    TotalAbsolutism

    TotalAbsolutism Magnificent Bastard Moderator

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    Keep your commentary to the context of the story only; bringing real-world politics into this will not end well for you.
     
  25. Buggy123

    Buggy123 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Aren't details like that sort of unavoidable, here? Earth-16 is based off of the real world, so a lot of things that are true for Earth-16 are true for the real world as well. This plot point is a significant aspect of the story, and you can't discuss the point without touching on topics that apply to the real world just as much as Earth-16.


    I mean, as another example, the Justice League is at least nominally under the authority of the U.N., and the limitations and rulings set upon the League has come up repeatedly. And it's, more-or-less, the same U.N. as the real world.
     
  26. Queshire

    Queshire Not too sore, are you?

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    That isn't a new rule Buggy. The thread's run into it before. Anything more recent than 20 years ago is a no go.
     
  27. Buggy123

    Buggy123 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Yes, but none of the stuff I brought up was a within-20-years thing. It may or may not still be true, but all of it was true as of 20 years ago and farther, unquestionably.

    And it's all immediately plot-relevant points, as well.

    And, okay, if it's still not allowed even though its arguably 20+ years ago and immediately plot relevant, that's fine, I won't do it. But then why are other people allowed to bring it up in the first place? I wasn't the one who brought up this plot point, I was just responding to someone else with a counterpoint.
     
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  28. TotalAbsolutism

    TotalAbsolutism Magnificent Bastard Moderator

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    I appreciate that it makes discussion difficult sometimes, but frankly it's better than the alternative.

    The issue is less the question (Can Orange Lantern get the nations of this world to agree to this monitoring method) and more the direct parallels (Nations X, Y and Z have done Shady Thing Q in the real world). If you want to pull examples of shady stuff that has been ascribed to the various fictionalised governments of the DC universe then that should be fine.
     
  29. Buggy123

    Buggy123 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Alright, fair enough, I'll do that then.



    I'm pretty certain Vaermina won't respond anyway, but for form's sake I'll correct my argument:
    In Paragon-verse, the world recently suffered a traumatizing attack that effected... basically everyone. Every parent on earth briefly, and sometimes permanently, lost their child. While this has faded from the public attention a little, it's not as if people have forgotten.

    And general magic education is still very poor, despite OL's best efforts. It's entirely possible that a lot of people see magic as "that weird and scary stuff that took my child from me, but some heros also use for good". A person thinking in those terms isn't going to have a lot of objections for a global magic-monitoring system; they aren't going to be affected, the good guys have nothing to fear, and it helps catch the bad guys.

    Furthermore, there's plenty of history of DC governments dropping the ball and pulling shitty or shady stuff. For one, on the U.S. side, there's Shade, and people like General Hardcastle remain in power. Something like half of the U.K. governance are participants in a cannibalistic, slavery-using, sacrifice-making, demon-worshipping cult.

    Really, "government does something stupid, evil, and probably in violation of basic human rights and dignity" is one of the big comic book tropes.


    And, on top of all this, what if OL got the League or other major superheros to vouch for it? That might be a hard sell for some of them, but it'd lend it a lot of credibility if the major heroic magic users were pushing for it.
     
  30. TotalAbsolutism

    TotalAbsolutism Magnificent Bastard Moderator

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    Heck, I'll chime in on this 'cause I find it interesting; he may be able to at least get his foot in the door with basically the equivalent of a global nuclear strike early warning system; some method that can detect magical power build-up above level 'X' simply by suggesting that there really isn't a system in place to stop some sufficiently dedicated crazy person with access to the right books from doing literally just that again.

    It would be a good point to start from, at the very least, and neatly shut down most objections to any sort of 'Big Brother' style universal monitoring method by starting from what you could suggest, to the populace at large at least, is an unreasonable level of magical energies to be channeling.
     
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