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

[Jankl]

So what is the Source as an afterlife like? What is it like in there?

 

[Mr Zoat]

So what is the Source as an afterlife like? What is it like in there?

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It must be very nice, because no one ever comes back.

 

[Steelplaza]

But! The worshippers have rather a different take on it; they expect to exist in Heaven Forever. They expect (and this is the important bit) to be reunited with their loved ones. Which happened for Kent Nelson, though he and Inza may have gone somewhere else.

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Look, it's not Renegade's fault if these people aren't paying attention to how their own religion works. He's not there to manage their afterlife expectations! And who is to say they aren't reunited with their loved ones in the Source anyway? They are welcome to assume that's what happens, and no one can prove them wrong.

And now Iname has to find some way to get her to the Renegade or call him to them before she finishes the dying she started.

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Who says they need to get to Renegade? Iname has many pouches; she might well keep an emergency alchemical healing potion one of them.

Persuader and Iname side-by-side has been a real "Goofus and Gallant" performance. I mean, I can applaud Persuader's determination I guess, but Iname was constantly thinking about the best move in a way that Persuader simply was not.

 

[boo600]

Tell that to the religious people who trusted their souls to him - especially since they're Christian.

I mean, Kaldur probably doesn't give a shit because Ahri'ahn left a big anti-spirit splash. But he's got two people who he promised 'no changes' to, and he doesn't have the evidence Paragon does that the angels do the same thing. He'd actually be covered if he'd triggered an angelic invasion, hilariously - but without that, they're probably going to assume what they want about their default option.

And he did falsely present the effect of newgodhood, even if their religion of choice means the difference is meaningless. What if they switched religions for an afterlife that wasn't effectively obliteration? He should at least tell them, so they know there's no point joining Hellenism or whatever now that their immortal lifespan is the whole of their existence. (So I can point and laugh at whatever happens, with popcorn.)

 

[Vaermina]

Hm. So the Renegade did lie to Zatanna about her still going to Heaven; it's not just for the NG noble caste.

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It's safe to say most of what Renegade tells people is a lie, so this shouldn't really be a surprise.

 

[Mr Zoat]

10th December 2022
09:03 GMT

Taggart stares at his data pad. "Map says… 'Spawning Vats', whatever the fuck that is."

Mazikeen frowns. "Were they trying to create new demons deliberately?"

Taggart holsters his data pad and looks at the sides of the building. "Doesn't look all that demonified."

There are a couple of embossed skulls on the exterior wall which I very much doubt were there before the facility entered Hell, but otherwise it's standard U.A.C. reinforced concrete slabs.

Endymion shakes his head. "Experimenting with powers they did not understand is one thing; it is the basis of all learning. Deliberately invoking those powers when they are proven malevolent would be a far higher level of folly than a rational person should countenance, and we've seen no evidence so far of such behaviour."

I nod in agreement. "I realise that it's low priority, but just in case they were doing that, we should try and come back to record exactly what happened. Someone was supposed to have oversight of this place."

Taggart scoffs. "And they'll get away with it, too." He goes to stand next to the door. "Ready?"

I nod, shotgun at the ready as I stand facing the entrance. There's a gap of five metres, which experience has shown is far enough to draw a bead on the flying skulls and kill them before they can charge me down. Endymion takes the wall opposite Taggart, ready to stab anything that I miss. Mazikeen stands behind me to the right, plasma gun ready in case there's something big on the other side of the door.

Taggart holds his pistol in his right hand, and raises three fingers on his left. Two. He moves his hand to the door release and opens-.

There's a short corridor with walls lined with metal hexagonal panels, which leads to a room of bare rock. One pinkie-type demon has spotted the door opening and is heading towards me, but they're not all that fast.

"One pinkie."

I aim the shotgun and fire, the sound of the shell firing barely audible through my armour's sound dampeners.

"yAAAGH!"

The demon grunts as the shot pellets tear holes in its flesh, but it powers through the knock back and keeps coming. Pump, adjust aim and fire again.

"yAAAGH!"

Further tearing, more bleeding and it no longer has a right eye. And unfortunately the sound has alerted another pinkie behind it, which is hurrying towards me and using its colleague as cover.

"Second pinkie."

Pump, adjust aim… The other eye's probably best. And fire.

The left eye ruptures and the demon collapses to the ground. Not sure if that's because a pellet penetrated the brain or some other vital organ, or if I disrupted its physical form to the point that the magic sustaining it can't? Doesn't particularly matter.

Second demon. Pump, adjust aim, fire.

"yAAAGH!"

"Closing." Pump, adjust aim, fire. "Endymion."

"yAAAGH!"

Endymion waits until the moment it clears the hallway and then moves, his sword stabbing into its neck and then slicing upwards. The demon collapses face first into the rocky ground, and doesn't rise.

I trigger my armour's integrated scanner, but I know that it's not really reliable with demons, or when the terrain is imbued with magic. It doesn't look like there's anything else immediately through there, but…

"I have point. Taggart, Endymion, Mazikeen." Three nods, and Taggart switches to his chaingun as I advance.

And scans were correct. A small room with two supporting pillars, each with skulls embossed into the four sides of the second segment up. Openings on the left and right. The left appears to lead into the U.A.C. facility, while the right looks newly dug through the rock… Though someone's taken the time to paint the ceiling blue?

Armour sensors show… Faint noise coming from the right. Sounds like a zombie, and I've noticed that unless something happens right next to them they don't get curious. My team mates fan out left and right in practiced order.

"Hold."

I head towards the right passageway… More bare rock, bending around to the right. I take a moment to feed shells into my shotgun until it's fully loaded.

"One probable right. I'll take care of it. Endymion, watch my back."

He nods, and I cautiously lead the way. The flying demons don't make a lot of noise, and I lost a decent amount of my left rerebrace to an attacker I didn't spot in time.

After the rock comes a panel of… Riveted iron? A small room with a blue-painted floor and concrete walls. One of the walls has manifested an embossed pinkie head. Passageway forwards, door locked with this facility's blue key to the left. And in the middle of the floor-

Aim, fire.

-was a zombie with a shotgun. At this range it's no real effort to ensure that the majority of the pellets strike his face, and there isn't much left of it when he hits the ground.

Explore the passageway, or go back and try the left route?

If killing the zombie didn't draw any attention, then I doubt that any demons are going to wander into this room. And since I don't want to get cut off from the exit, it's probably best to take a look at the other route first.

I give it a moment just in case one of the larger types of demon has gotten stuck in the corridor -something that I've seen more than once- and then fall back. Shame the marines didn't carry any kind of tripwire bomb or proximity mine so that we could mine that passageway.

"Room clear. On me."

Left passageway has walls of… I think it's locally mined iron-rich rock. Curious choice. The corridor is lit by glowing pillars set at intervals against the walls. It bends left at ninety degrees, continues for a few metres and then bends left again-.

"Sound."

Taggart grunts. "Imps."

I move to the right side of the passage, turning so that I'll be facing towards the imps when I reach the corner. Endymion moves to the left, sword ready. Imps don't tend to rush us, but there could be pinkies mixed in with them. Taggart copies me while Mazikeen keeps to the centre.

"Moving."

I move around the corner. The corridor continues on for two metres before ending in a doorway. Through the doorway there's a room with another doorway in the opposite wall. No target in sight, I keep moving so that Taggart can aim at the doorway too.

Two imps step out from the left, and we both open fire! Blood spurts from the closest as its right ride more or less evaporates, and what's left collapses to the floor. The furthest one turns, plasma coalescing in front of its mouth. We fire again as it releases, blood spraying from its head and chests as we press ourselves into the side walls, the plasma bolt flying past and hitting the wall behind us. Another Imp emerges from the doorway on the far side. Since it's not charging plasma I assume that it's a little behind events. Taggart and I both return to the middle of the corridor and fire again, both hitting the chest and doing enough damage to put it down.

"Moving up."

 

[Darko]

building. "Doesn't look all that demonified.

There are a

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Add a " at the end.

 

[Chojin Patriarch]

10th December 2022
09:03 GMT

Taggart stares at his data pad. "Map says… 'Spawning Vats', whatever the fuck that is."

Mazikeen frowns. "Were they trying to create new demons deliberately?"

Click to shrink...

That's Episode 2, Mission 7. They're almost at the Cyberdemon. Still, it's a right pain to run, especially at higher difficulties. Big, somewhat confusing and slow to run even if you know where you need to go...

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

Taggart holsters his data pad and looks at the sides of the building. "Doesn't look all that demonified."

There are a couple of embossed skulls on the exterior wall which I very much doubt were there before the facility entered Hell, but otherwise it's standard U.A.C. reinforced concrete slabs.

Click to shrink...

I see he's on map duty. An Automap would be a bonus here...

Endymion shakes his head. "Experimenting with powers they did not understand is one thing; it is the basis of all learning. Deliberately invoking those powers when they are proven malevolent would be a far higher level of folly than a rational person should countenance, and we've seen no evidence so far of such behaviour."

Click to shrink...

Sadly, some people never stop to ask themselves "Just becasue I can, does that mean I should?" In this case, the answer was probably 'Of course I should!'

I nod in agreement. "I realise that it's low priority, but just in case they were doing that, we should try and come back to record exactly what happened. Someone was supposed to have oversight of this place."

Taggart scoffs. "And they'll get away with it, too." He goes to stand next to the door. "Ready?"

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Hopefully those responsible were the first to die.

I nod, shotgun at the ready as I stand facing the entrance. There's a gap of five metres, which experience has shown is far enough to draw a bead on the flying skulls and kill them before they can charge me down. Endymion takes the wall opposite Taggart, ready to stab anything that I miss. Mazikeen stands behind me to the right, plasma gun ready in case there's something big on the other side of the door.

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Ah, taking the slow, methodical approach. Just like real-world soldiers would. As opposed to the ludicrous speedruns (someone finished this level in fifteen effing seconds?! HOW?) or just haring in with shotgun blazing...

Taggart holds his pistol in his right hand, and raises three fingers on his left. Two. He moves his hand to the door release and opens-.

There's a short corridor with walls lined with metal hexagonal panels, which leads to a room of bare rock. One pinkie-type demon has spotted the door opening and is heading towards me, but they're not all that fast.

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Well, I suppose OL is a bit confident, given he's got heavy armour and plenty of ammo. It's a lot less fun when you respawn and find him coming at you with only a pistol...

"One pinkie."

I aim the shotgun and fire, the sound of the shell firing barely audible through my armour's sound dampeners.

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Always nice how Doom evaded the 'useless outside an arbitrarily short range' a lot of gaming shotguns suffer from. It's still a lot better up close due to pellet spread.

"yAAAGH!"

The demon grunts as the shot pellets tear holes in its flesh, but it powers through the knock back and keeps coming. Pump, adjust aim and fire again.

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Then again, I suppose this is more realistic than actual gameplay.

"yAAAGH!"

Further tearing, more bleeding and it no longer has a right eye. And unfortunately the sound has alerted another pinkie behind it, which is hurrying towards me and using its colleague as cover.

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Ah, yes. Where there's one, there's always more.

"Second pinkie."

Pump, adjust aim… The other eye's probably best. And fire.

The left eye ruptures and the demon collapses to the ground. Not sure if that's because a pellet penetrated the brain or some other vital organ, or if I disrupted its physical form to the point that the magic sustaining it can't? Doesn't particularly matter.

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Accurate to the game, though. Average 'shots to kill' for a Pinkie is 2.62 with the shotgun.

Second demon. Pump, adjust aim, fire.

"yAAAGH!"

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At least this one's closer to start with.

"Closing." Pump, adjust aim, fire. "Endymion."

"yAAAGH!"

Endymion waits until the moment it clears the hallway and then moves, his sword stabbing into its neck and then slicing upwards. The demon collapses face first into the rocky ground, and doesn't rise.

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I suppose that saves ammo, at least.

I trigger my armour's integrated scanner, but I know that it's not really reliable with demons, or when the terrain is imbued with magic. It doesn't look like there's anything else immediately through there, but…

"I have point. Taggart, Endymion, Mazikeen." Three nods, and Taggart switches to his chaingun as I advance.

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Not a patch on the 'IDDT' cheat, though. Tap it in twice and you get all entities shown on the minimap.

And scans were correct. A small room with two supporting pillars, each with skulls embossed into the four sides of the second segment up. Openings on the left and right. The left appears to lead into the U.A.C. facility, while the right looks newly dug through the rock… Though someone's taken the time to paint the ceiling blue?

Click to shrink...

And people say Doom was all browns and greys and greens? Heh. Now, Quake, that did suffer from the 'muddy coffee filter' issue of the later 90's and early 2000's...

Armour sensors show… Faint noise coming from the right. Sounds like a zombie, and I've noticed that unless something happens right next to them they don't get curious. My team mates fan out left and right in practiced order.

"Hold."

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It is funny when you cruise by them and they're just running in place...

I head towards the right passageway… More bare rock, bending around to the right. I take a moment to feed shells into my shotgun until it's fully loaded.

"One probable right. I'll take care of it. Endymion, watch my back."

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This would look like a hilarious co-op skin-pack on the outside. The doom-guy, a knight in armour, a hot demon lady and a 'Power armour guy' as player sprites... More like you'd see in Quake 3 Arena.

He nods, and I cautiously lead the way. The flying demons don't make a lot of noise, and I lost a decent amount of my left rerebrace to an attacker I didn't spot in time.

After the rock comes a panel of… Riveted iron? A small room with a blue-painted floor and concrete walls. One of the walls has manifested an embossed pinkie head. Passageway forwards, door locked with this facility's blue key to the left. And in the middle of the floor-

Click to shrink...

Man, the classic game textures are all over the place, aren't they? Amusingly, the full Doom II spread has 616 textures, including some from Wolfenstein 3d...

Aim, fire.

-was a zombie with a shotgun. At this range it's no real effort to ensure that the majority of the pellets strike his face, and there isn't much left of it when he hits the ground.

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Not quite gibbed, but he sure ain't getting back up without an Archvile handy.

Explore the passageway, or go back and try the left route?

If killing the zombie didn't draw any attention, then I doubt that any demons are going to wander into this room. And since I don't want to get cut off from the exit, it's probably best to take a look at the other route first.

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Especially if there are windows so you can see into other parts of the map. Though that has the risk of aggroing enemies. More than a few levels have tiny gaps to allow mobs to 'invisibly' spot the player - tiny slots at floor or roof height, usually.

I give it a moment just in case one of the larger types of demon has gotten stuck in the corridor -something that I've seen more than once- and then fall back. Shame the marines didn't carry any kind of tripwire bomb or proximity mine so that we could mine that passageway.

Click to shrink...

Though of course there are mods for that kind of thing. Fortunately this dimension seems to be accurate to the games.

"Room clear. On me."

Left passageway has walls of… I think it's locally mined iron-rich rock. Curious choice. The corridor is lit by glowing pillars set at intervals against the walls. It bends left at ninety degrees, continues for a few metres and then bends left again-.

Click to shrink...

On the upside, because Doom maps were two-dimensional planes, you won't encounter rooms above or below others. Did make for odd paths when they had a walkway cross another room. Often using a wall that rose or falls behind the player's passing.

"Sound."

Taggart grunts. "Imps."

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Easy kills, especially with their current gear. Just watch out for the fireballs.

I move to the right side of the passage, turning so that I'll be facing towards the Imps when I reach the corner. Endymion moves to the left, sword ready. Imps don't tend to rush us, but there could be pinkies mixed in with them. Taggart copies me while Mazikeen keeps to the centre.

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Of course, mixed enemies make for potential infighting. Always nice when you can trick the mobs into killing each other...

"Moving."

I move around the corner. The corridor continues on for two metres before ending in a doorway. Through the doorway there's a room with another doorway in the opposite wall. No target in sight, I keep moving so that Taggart can aim at the doorway too.

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Always got to watch for those kind of rooms. They often have hidden rooms that open up to catch you from behind.

Two Imps step out from the left, and we both open fire! Blood spurts from the closest as its right ride more or less evaporates, and what's left collapses to the floor. The furthest one turns, plasma coalescing in front of its mouth. We fire again as it releases, blood spraying from its head and chests as we press ourselves into the side walls, the plasma bolt flying past and hitting the wall behind us. Another Imp emerges from the doorway on the far side. Since it's not charging plasma I assume that it's a little behind events. Taggart and I both return to the middle of the corridor and fire again, both hitting the chest and doing enough damage to put it down.

Click to shrink...

Huh. I thought they threw them with their hands. Then again, I usually killed them too quick to watch closely...

"Moving up."

Click to shrink...

No rush, I guess. Deimos isn't really going to get any worse in the next couple of hours. Angelica, on the other hand...

It's a strange feeling to see someone moving so slowly in Doom, like it's a tactical shooter rather than the Run-and-gun game. Especially when Doomguy Classic is inhumanly fast even before you get into quirks of the engine. Still, they don't get respawns, and don't have ammo drops laying around everywhere to pick up. So better safe than dead...

 

[Duke Long]

I trigger my armour's integrated scanner, but I know that it's not really reliable with demons, or when the terrain is imbued with magic. It doesn't look like there's anything else immediately through there, but…

"I have point. Taggart, Endymion, Mazikeen." Three nods, and Taggart switches to his chaingun as I advance.

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Ah, I was wondering why he was point, and of course it's because his heavy armour makes him the toughest person there, perhaps save Endymion (I don't know how tough he is).

I move to the right side of the passage, turning so that I'll be facing towards the Imps when I reach the corner. Endymion moves to the left, sword ready. Imps don't tend to rush us, but there could be pinkies mixed in with them. Taggart copies me while Mazikeen keeps to the centre.

Click to shrink...

Two Imps step out from the left, and we both open fire! Blood spurts from the closest as its right ride more or less evaporates, and what's left collapses to the floor. The furthest one turns, plasma coalescing in front of its mouth. We fire again as it releases, blood spraying from its head and chests as we press ourselves into the side walls, the plasma bolt flying past and hitting the wall behind us. Another Imp emerges from the doorway on the far side. Since it's not charging plasma I assume that it's a little behind events. Taggart and I both return to the middle of the corridor and fire again, both hitting the chest and doing enough damage to put it down.

Click to shrink...

I think these three instances of 'Imps' and 'Imp' should not be capitalised. There are uncapitalised instances in earlier chapters, and your present scheme is to not capitalise species names.

 

[CrazyNoVa]

At this point, I'm just expecting something like this to happen:


View: https://youtu.be/iWaKOxExp_0

 

[Mr Zoat]

Add a " at the end.

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I think these three instances of 'Imps' and 'Imp' should not be capitalised. There are uncapitalised instances in earlier chapters, and your present scheme is to not capitalise species names.

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Thank you, corrected.

Ah, I was wondering why he was point, and of course it's because his heavy armour makes him the toughest person there, perhaps save Endymion (I don't know how tough he is).

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Taggart hasn't quite adjusted to the novelty of letting the officer go first.

 

[ForeverShogo]

On the previous afterlife talk . . . Heaven as an eternal paradise as a reward for good people is objectively a thing in DC. It's not just the Silver City. The Silver City is just one part of Heaven. The whole thing with ignoring Heaven's existence and acting like the Silver City is it, with the angels trying to get people to become one with the Source instead of ushering people into paradise is something Zoat just kind of made up.

Though it's not enough to just be a generically good person if you want to get into DC Heaven. You also have to have done enough good deeds in life to gain entry.

Except for the little detail that if someone who has already made it into Heaven is willing to vouch for you, you don't even need to have met the good deeds requirement. Which I feel, in practice, would mean that the good deeds requirement just isn't a factor anymore. Maybe I'm crazy, but if someone was of sufficiently good moral character to get into Heaven and had the motivation to do enough good deeds to pass that check that they'd also be the kind of person who would of course vouch for other souls hoping to get in. So there should always be at least one person poking their head out and going, "Let them in. They're cool."

 

[Steelplaza]

On the previous afterlife talk . . . Heaven as an eternal paradise as a reward for good people is objectively a thing in DC. It's not just the Silver City. The Silver City is just one part of Heaven. The whole thing with ignoring Heaven's existence and acting like the Silver City is it, with the angels trying to get people to become one with the Source instead of ushering people into paradise is something Zoat just kind of made up.

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It's all something "some writer" made up. Which is trivially true, but I actually mean something specific here.

There is a Superman editor who ensures that writers keep to whatever continuity DC has around Superman at the moment. Same for Batman. In general editors is supposed to look out for continuity for even minor characters. But there is no "Heaven editor". There is no continuity bible for DC heaven. Any new writer can have heaven and the afterlife work however they want, subject to maybe "don't be out of tone for the rest of the comic".

You posted a lot of stuff about how heaven works, even using gotcha language like "Except for the little detail that if-". Which specific comic are you basing this off? Do you think other writers and editors agree with the writer and editor who had that take? Is any of this from the Young Justice series that (the first two seasons of) more or less form the backbone for With This Ring?

I know this is a little antagonistic, but you came on pretty strong like there was One True Continuity for DC universe heaven, and there just isn't. At most you could say that you personally really liked the take that whatever comic you're pulling this from had.