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

'I need someone subtle, lets get the guy with powered armour'

Lmao.
The Team is in dire straits when it comes to subtlety, huh?
 
Last time Twilight got put in charge of the country she personally went looking for you in a forest full of magic resistant super vines,
And when she really became the head of state, she led to a major humanitarian disaster, the collapse of the country, the death of 90% of the population and the destruction of almost all other races on the territory of Eques.
This is more terrible than the British government. Celestia or Twilight needs to be overthrown.
 
Does Zatanna go to school anymore? Seems like she should be there too instead of dealing with Paul's worm.
I mean with the growing importance of understanding magic for law enforcement and just general study, Zatana could just work as a consultant for any agency or Laboratory. Also she wants to be a stage magician, besides an understanding of business logistics, higher education is basically meaningless to her.
 
Could be a problem from the Xenforo update, the fonts supported may have been changed since the chapters were published. Font support is very dependent on what your browser/OS/device supports so can be very hit-n-miss when reading online.
Ah yeah, seems to be that. I mostly read on my phone, but I checked on my laptop and it shows up fine there.
 
And when she really became the head of state, she led to a major humanitarian disaster, the collapse of the country, the death of 90% of the population and the destruction of almost all other races on the territory of Eques.

This is more terrible than the British government. Celestia or Twilight needs to be overthrown.
There are reasons why I don't like Gen 5. Opaline Arcana makes no sense. Her being able to do that makes no sense. Twilight's actions make no sense. The Equestrian population's actions make no sense...
Ah yeah, seems to be that. I mostly read on my phone, but I checked on my laptop and it shows up fine there.
That's a relief.
 
While doing a whole reread using the epub, I noticed that there are fonts that don't display here on the site for me. The angels have a really cool font for their speech, and it's much easier to tell when the SI's mind is being influenced by magic.

Do you read from a PC or from a smartphone. I know at least Opera Mobile on Android refuses to use correct fonts, but Firefox on Windows renders them fine
 
There are reasons why I don't like Gen 5. Opaline Arcana makes no sense. Her being able to do that makes no sense. Twilight's actions make no sense. The Equestrian population's actions make no sense...
I disagree here. Considering how bad the Twalight is as a ruler and how susceptible she is to magical thinking, such a terrible decision makes sense. There is almost no information about the actions of the Equestria populations.
 
I disagree here. Considering how bad the Twilight is as a ruler and how susceptible she is to magical thinking, such a terrible decision makes sense. There is almost no information about the actions of the Equestria populations.
Twilight making a stupid decision, certainly. Twilight saying 'if you can't be friends then you can't have magic', not so much.

The Equestrian population divided up into tribal groups. This despite the fact that they've been living together for at least a thousand years, have a day celebrating that fact, and there are mixed tribe families. That's like modern England having the Kingdom of Wessex and the Kingdom of Mercia separating on racial lines.
 
Caught up after I started reading this about a month ago goated ff.
Btw wasn't Paul going to bind Kennedy to the president?
 
Twilight making a stupid decision, certainly. Twilight saying 'if you can't be friends then you can't have magic', not so much.


It's like cutting off the electricity. Magic is the foundation of everything, from everyday life to utilities—taking it away is terrible. A unicorn surgeon doesn't need friends to be a surgeon, but he desperately needs magic to keep his patient alive.

The Equestrian population divided up into tribal groups. This despite the fact that they've been living together for at least a thousand years, have a day celebrating that fact, and there are mixed tribe families. That's like modern England having the Kingdom of Wessex and the Kingdom of Mercia separating on racial lines.
With the settlement of the pegasi everything is okay because they are simply the descendants of those who lived in Cloudsdale - a city where all newborn non-pegasi were
died from a fall
cannot live.

Technically, if you are very stretch your imagination, the city of earth ponies could be seen as a farming clan among which other tribal are very rare .

There is no explanation for the unicorns.

And we mustn't forget that all the tribes quarreled because of one rude person (Opaline). Again (bugg queen)
 
And when she really became the head of state, she led to a major humanitarian disaster, the collapse of the country, the death of 90% of the population and the destruction of almost all other races on the territory of Eques.

Not really? We see dragons and breezies living just fine? Its just the ponies were hidden by G5!Twilight's spell

There are reasons why I don't like Gen 5. Opaline Arcana makes no sense.

How does she not make sense? We know alicorn came from Skyros as early as the "The Journal of the Two Sisters" book, so her existing cant be what doesn't make- Oh. You meant the actions behind how she did everything dont make sense.

(... Wait, does Sunset know there's apparently a kingdom of alicorns in Pony-Olympus?!)

Yeah, its not surprising that people treat G5!Twilight and co as au version of their G4 selves (in part because of things like Twilight still having her young design and the G5 dragons looking nothing like G4).

This despite the fact that they've been living together for at least a thousand years, have a day celebrating that fact, and there are mixed tribe families.

Not to mention that, prior to its cancellation, apparently it would have rebealed Twilight was still alive in G5... having been trapped in a magic star for the past several hundred years.

With the settlement of the pegasi everything is okay because they are simply the descendants of those who lived in Cloudsdale - a city where all newborn non-pegasi were
died from a fall
cannot live.

Not even that, we later see in "The Storm of Zephyr Heights" that Cloudsdale was abandoned... because the pegasi couldn't fly without magic or return to it.
 
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Worms (part 15) New
12th October 2013
14:52 GMT -5


I look at the map Zatanna requisitioned, and all of the glowing dots on it.

"Eighty two."

She nods. "Should I be more surprised?"

I put my hands on my head, palms on my forehead and fingers in my hair. "Surprised that they sold out to worms, yes. There's selling out, and then there's selling out for so little. I thought we'd find a couple of demon cultists, at least."

"I think the angels probably got them."

"Or a mason? Wasn't America founded by masons?"

"So what do we do about it?"

I glance at the increasingly twitchy Senator Monetti.

"I suppose it would be helpful if we caught a few more with their pants down." Zatanna pulls a face-. "Metaphorically. They don't-"

"Oh."

"-feed from-." I frown. "I mean… They probably could…"

"Recognised, Arsenal, B One Six."


Roy stomps through my construct zeta tube in power armour, and I dismiss it. "What's up?"

"Our government are a bunch of worm cultists?"

"Worm-? What?"

I point to the worm in my construct case, which appears to have gone to sleep.

"It's a manifestation of political corruption."

"Okay… How many?"

"Eighty two."

"Out of five hundred thirty five? I'm a little surprised it's not more."

Zatanna shrugs. "Technically, it's just eighty two summon glyphs. They could be sharing. And it might just be the staffers."

"Is..? President Knight..?"

She shakes her head. "Not as far as I can tell."

"Unless his mental state has improved a good deal since last time I saw him, I wouldn't want him involved in any kind of conspiracy either. He'd be a huge liability."

Roy scans Zatanna's scrying map, then creates a three dimensional image of the centre of Washington D.C.. "We need more manpower… Local police?"

"At least one of the cultists has to be a wizard, but we won't know which one until some poor sap tries arresting them."

"OMACs?"

"They're not exactly subtle."

But who? Jade's Darkstar squad could help, but there aren't that many of them. Particularly if we want to handle this quietly-.

"Wait, what are Kobra up to right now?"

Roy and Zatanna turn their heads towards me simultaneously, and while I can't see Roy's face Zatanna is looking incredulous. Behind them, Tony doesn't look much happier.

"What? Did I miss something?"

Roy dismisses the hologram and turns to face me. "I'm wondering if I did. Kobra? The snake-themed terrorists who tried to nuke India?"

"They surrendered to Doctor Mist. They have operatives who can work covertly, are familiar with magic and… Last I heard were complying with the requirements of their parole."

Zatanna shudders. "If you're worried about the optics of arresting this many elected representatives… I think Kobra would be worse than us doing it. People… Most people don't know about what happened to them."

Tony nods. "I sure as Hell didn't. What was that about paroling them?"

"Ah… Kobra ended up split into two factions. One faction committed crimes to gain power, the other did it due to a sort of spiritual accelerationism. They believed that by causing the collapse of global civilisation, a better civilisation would emerge. We were able to talk them into believing that had already happened, as well as weakening the first half of the organisation to the point where the cultists just absorbed what was left."

"And that's-. You just-. What are they..?"

"They're being closely supervised doing… A wide variety of projects across India, and a few other places where the members of the crime-faction decided to stay with Kobra rather than just becoming regular criminals."

Tony shakes his head. "If you're worried about public opinion, using a bunch of Kobra cultists in.. that kind of official capacity is just about the worst thing you could do. People might accept them doing penal labor or whatever, but making arrests?" He shakes his head again, more emphatically.

"Do you have a suggestion?"

"Local police. Preferably with someone from the Justice League overseeing things. And tell the Speaker ahead of time, so he can cover for you. Ah, unless he's… In on it."

Roy shrugs. "There wasn't one in the Speaker's office, but that doesn't necessarily mean much."

"Okay. That sounds reasonable. Zatanna, can you interrogate a worm?"

"You're the one with the universal translator."

I walk over to the construct box, and float it up to eye level.

"Do you want to explain what you are doing here?"

It wiggles in my direction, eyes focusing on me.

"What do you want me to say? I will do what I am told. I will not make trouble."

Tony frowns. "Can't you..? Make it answer?"

Zatanna nods. "Llet eht hturt."

"Muh?"

Its eye shift in her direction for a moment, then its skin.. sort of bulges-.

"Zatanna, stop the-!"

The worm bursts, flesh, bile and blood coating the inside of my construct.

"I… Didn't mean to-."

"It was a manifestation of corruption and you compelled it to be honest."

She winces. "Right."

"Arsenal, can you liaise with the police? I'm going to check in with Batman."
 
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"It was a manifestation of corruption and you compelled it to be honest."

So, would it have been better if Zatanna had asked the worm to give them the information they want instead of telling the truth?

Also, if telling the truth is lethal to the worms, then would that mean Diana's lasso is like Kryptonite to them?
 
So, would it have been better if Zatanna had asked the worm to give them the information they want instead of telling the truth?

This is the problem with elementals. They must adhere to their nature. Maybe even more than fey. "Asking to give the information they wanted" might contain some actionable information, but would be guaranteed to be, well, corrupted somehow, because - as we had illustrated through ludicrious gibs - an elemental of political corruption cannot be honest.
 
So, would it have been better if Zatanna had asked the worm to give them the information they want instead of telling the truth?

Also, if telling the truth is lethal to the worms, then would that mean Diana's lasso is like Kryptonite to them?
Best would be to bribe them for the information.
 
With the settlement of the pegasi everything is okay because they are simply the descendants of those who lived in Cloudsdale - a city where all newborn non-pegasi were
died from a fall
cannot live.
Where was their food coming from?

Even in pre-unification times, pegasus ponies got their food from earth ponies. The number of pegasus ponies who know hot to farm -especially in Cloudsdale, which is made of unfarmable clouds- is very small.
Technically, if you are very stretch your imagination, the city of earth ponies could be seen as a farming clan among which other tribal are very rare.
Equestria has nationwide weather management. Literally everyone encounters pegasus ponies.
And we mustn't forget that all the tribes quarrelled because of one rude person (Opaline). Again (bug queen)
Oh, I'm not giving that a pass either, but that was after I stopped watching due to School of Nonsense.
How does she not make sense? We know alicorn came from Skyros as early as the "The Journal of the Two Sisters" book, so her existing cant be what doesn't make- Oh. You meant the actions behind how she did everything don't make sense.
No, the existence of Skyros (pony Zeist) makes no sense either, it just wasn't relevant to the cartoon until G5. Remember the alternate timeline where Nightmare Moon took over and made it night across the entire planet for several years? And didn't seem to have any trouble from a city of alicorns?
(... Wait, does Sunset know there's apparently a kingdom of alicorns in Pony-Olympus?!)
It's not like Celestia would tell her.
Not even that, we later see in "The Storm of Zephyr Heights" that Cloudsdale was abandoned... because the pegasi couldn't fly without magic or return to it.
Wait. If there's no magic, how are the clouds still stuck together? And if the pegasus ponies couldn't fly, wouldn't they just fall to the ground and die?
 
So, would it have been better if Zatanna had asked the worm to give them the information they want instead of telling the truth?
Better for it sure, but that still wouldn't be the truth, just whatever it thought they wanted to hear, which would be 'yes, you got all of us, good job'.
 
12th October 2013
14:52 GMT -5


I look at the map Zatanna requisitioned, and all of the glowing dots on it.

"Eighty two."
...That's a significant number of worms. I wonder if it's a generally organised group or if each one is individually assuming they're the only one doing this... It would be amusing if each and every one of them thought they were alone in this plan.

She nods. "Should I be more surprised?"

I put my hands on my head, palms on my forehead and fingers in my hair. "Surprised that they sold out to worms, yes. There's selling out, and then there's selling out for so little. I thought we'd find a couple of demon cultists, at least."
To be fair, do you know what they were getting out of these deals? Just an easier time gaining office? More skill in navigating political minefields, perhaps? Discreet amounts of cash, maybe...

"I think the angels probably got them."

"Or a mason? Wasn't America founded by masons?"
Eh, depends on how deeply they ascribed to the tenets of the order.

"So what do we do about it?"

I glance at the increasingly twitchy Senator Monetti.
Finding out just how many colleagues may be involved in this is probably a bit of a shock. Or worse, he's concerned for any of his less-legal interests being exposed.

"I suppose it would be helpful if we caught a few more with their pants down." Zatanna pulls a face-. "Metaphorically. They don't-"

"Oh."
Yeah, I have no doubt at least one person in office is doing something of that sort. Just based on statistical likelihoods...

"-feed from-." I frown. "I mean… They probably could…"

"Recognised, Arsenal, B One Six."
Ah, good, the 'subtle' guy is here.

Roy stomps through my construct zeta tube in power armour, and I dismiss it. "What's up?"

"Our government are a bunch of worm cultists?"
Jury's still out on whether that's better than being demon cultists or not. Depends on the quid-pro-quo of the setup, I guess.

"Worm-? What?"

I point to the worm in my construct case, which appears to have gone to sleep.
At least they have a clear captured example to point to.

"It's a manifestation of political corruption."

"Okay… How many?"
At least, that's the assumption. Not that it's likely to be anything else, given what they saw during their visit with Uncle Sam.

"Eighty two."

"Out of five hundred thirty five? I'm a little surprised it's not more."

Zatanna shrugs. "Technically, it's just eighty two summon glyphs. They could be sharing. And it might just be the staffers."
But running off simplest logical cause and effect, it'd be the top man (or woman) in each office. Maybe a staffer got them set up, but once it's done...

"Is..? President Knight..?"

She shakes her head. "Not as far as I can tell."

"Unless his mental state has improved a good deal since last time I saw him, I wouldn't want him involved in any kind of conspiracy either. He'd be a huge liability."
Ah, not in the best shape? Lingering after-effects of everything in the past year, or...

Roy scans Zatanna's scrying map, then creates a three dimensional image of the centre of Washington D.C.. "We need more manpower… Local police?"

"At least one of the cultists has to be a wizard, but we won't know which one until some poor sap tries arresting them."
Which could result in injured cops, or worse.

"OMACs?"

"They're not exactly subtle."
They're more the sledgehammer to the Team's scalpel.

But who? Jade's Darkstar squad could help, but there aren't that many of them. Particularly if we want to handle this quietly-.

"Wait, what are Kobra up to right now?"
...wat. 😕

Roy and Zatanna turn their heads towards me simultaneously, and while I can't see Roy's face Zatanna is looking incredulous. Behind them, Tony doesn't look much happier.

"What? Did I miss something?"
...I don't think their big change of heart is very well-known, OL...

Roy dismisses the hologram and turns to face me. "I'm wondering if I did. Kobra? The snake-themed terrorists who tried to nuke India?"

"They surrendered to Doctor Mist. They have operatives who can work covertly, are familiar with magic and… Last I heard were complying with the requirements of their parole."
Which was a heck of a coup for him and OL, but still...

Zatanna shudders. "If you're worried about the optics of arresting this many elected representatives… I think Kobra would be worse than us doing it. People… Most people don't know about what happened to them."

Tony nods. "I sure as Hell didn't. What was that about paroling them?"
I'm guessing the League hasn't felt the need to publish a press release about it.

"Ah… Kobra ended up split into two factions. One faction committed crimes to gain power, the other did it due to a sort of spiritual accelerationism. They believed that by causing the collapse of global civilisation, a better civilisation would emerge. We were able to talk them into believing that had already happened, as well as weakening the first half of the organisation to the point where the cultists just absorbed what was left."
Still amazed that worked, but having folks in snake-themed gear wandering around DC probably isn't the greatest look.

"And that's-. You just-. What are they..?"

"They're being closely supervised doing… A wide variety of projects across India, and a few other places where the members of the crime-faction decided to stay with Kobra rather than just becoming regular criminals."
Admittedly, their overall infrastructure would be improving conditions, I guess?

Tony shakes his head. "If you're worried about public opinion, using a bunch of Kobra cultists in.. that kind of official capacity is just about the worst thing you could do. People might accept them doing penal labor or whatever, but making arrests?" He shakes his head again, more emphatically.
Especially after stuff like the 'deputised super-villains' thing during the Anti-Life.

"Do you have a suggestion?"

"Local police. Preferably with someone from the Justice League overseeing things. And tell the Speaker ahead of time, so he can cover for you. Ah, unless he's… In on it."
Sounds like they'll need to call in Blaze or Mist...

Roy shrugs. "There wasn't one in the Speaker's office, but that doesn't necessarily mean much."

"Okay. That sounds reasonable. Zatanna, can you interrogate a worm?"

"You're the one with the universal translator."
Not sure how much use any testimony will be, but getting some information out of it would be a good move.

I walk over to the construct box, and float it up to eye level.

"Do you want to explain what you are doing here?"
And if it doesn't, it soon will.

It wiggles in my direction, eyes focusing on me.

"What do you want me to say? I will do what I am told. I will not make trouble."
...gaaaah.

Tony frowns. "Can't you..? Make it answer?"

Zatanna nods. "Llet eht hturt."

"Muh?"
Wait, no...

Its eye shift in her direction for a moment, then its skin.. sort of bulges-.

"Zatanna, stop the-!"
Please tell me this isn't a matter/anti-matter thing.

The worm bursts, flesh, bile and blood coating the inside of my construct.

"I… Didn't mean to-."
At leat it wasn't too energetic.

"It was a manifestation of corruption and you compelled it to be honest."

She winces. "Right."

"Arsenal, can you liaise with the police? I'm going to check in with Batman."
At least she'll know better for next time, assuming they can catch another one in the act.

At least he's passing the buck upstairs early, handing this off to Batman this soon. ...Who will probably leave them in charge of the case anyway. They're going to have to move fast once all the arrests start, or folks who get the news might start disposing of evidence. Hopefully none of the other folks involved will have quite as extreme a reaction as Covington...
 
Wait. If there's no magic, how are the clouds still stuck together? And if the pegasus ponies couldn't fly, wouldn't they just fall to the ground and die?
To my, very limited, understanding, magic itself isn't gone, just pony (possibly "person") magic (and we know from Twilight's holo-message that pre-existing magical items remained active/reactivated with the return of pony magic) so it's possible that the clouds were distinct enough from the people pushing them (and considering multiple species have the "can physically interact with clouds" magic that's plausible) and I think that the loss of magic was at least somewhat gradual, so they probably had time to realize that staying there was untenable before more than a few dozen ponies died.

The aforementioned holo-message also mentioned magic changing over time to handwave away why setting elements are different.
 
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I don't think it's impossible for the worms to tell the truth, but that it has to be gained through corrupt means. Like bribing them for the information.
 
Equestria has nationwide weather management. Literally everyone encounters pegasus ponies.

I mean, not entirely nationwide. Look at the Everfree Forest, which has no weather managment.

Oh, I'm not giving that a pass either, but that was after I stopped watching due to School of Nonsense.

I mean, aside from the fact Twilight and go were not qualified teachers and it was a dumb concept in general, at least the Student Six were decent enough characters on their own?

No, the existence of Skyros (pony Zeist) makes no sense either, it just wasn't relevant to the cartoon until G5.

We don't really know how Skyros works. For all we know its a magical pocket dimension rather than Alicorn Cloudsdale. Would explain why they didn't do anything.

(Or the alicorns didn't see it as worth interveening since Nightmare Moon didn't seem to have any notable issues with eternal night affecting plant life and crap)

G5, despite claiming to be a sequel to G4, was pretty much just using it to artificially gain interest from the G4 fanbase due to it mostly doing its own thing and playing loose with the lore of the previous gen.

And if the pegasus ponies couldn't fly, wouldn't they just fall to the ground and die?

The magic didn't disappear instantly. RD revealed in a video message Zipp found that "Twilight's sealing the magic today", presumably because she wanted to ensure no pony died from the magic sealing thing.

Better for it sure, but that still wouldn't be the truth, just whatever it thought they wanted to hear, which would be 'yes, you got all of us, good job'.

OL could have assimilated it? Would that have worked?
 
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