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

[Ardy]

No, Grayven actually can't conjure up veteran mercenaries without any effort. He could make some, but that would require considerable time and oversight.

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He has Scandal Savage, who ran her own damn mercenary group! This should not be that hard!

 

[w34v3r]

Reasons Manta is getting special attention:

1. He asked.
2. He's nautical, rare skill set for the high end mercs in DC, sure they can drive boats for a bit but being an actual seafarer is a touch rare.
3. His crew isn't complete trash, they can fight atlantean sorcerers after all.

 

[Queshire]

Assume for a moment that anything any of us can think up in five minutes to get around something has already been thought up and countered by lawyers who have spent decades making laws about these sorts of things...

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What, is the problem the asteroid space station or establishing a nation on it? Frankly the only thing that matters for establishing the nation is that it's recognized as a nation and that you can defend it from those who don't recognize it.

 

[Gantradies]

Sure, and upsides to most of the less plesant things we've made and done.

There were a fair number of medical breakthroughs as a result of the horrors the Nazi's did unto their victims, for example.

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not really, no. they were a group of ideologically-motivated hacks, who had flawed methods and testing criteria, a suspicious lack of control groups in many circumstances, and even when their methods werent flawed to the point of uselessness, their conclusions would be distorted to confirm the narrative they were pushing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4oyv9n/am_i_a_person_living_in_the_west_currently/

 

[Ace Dreamer]

I'm a bit surprised about Grayven referring to the 'dark side of the Moon' to Ms. Lane - is he trying to wind her up? Of course, maybe I'm ignorant of some detail of the YJ/DC Universe, and there actually is one here in this setting... Or, is it just common enough usage that he'd expect 'her readers' to refer to it as that?

 

[Stsword]

I'm a bit surprised about Grayven referring to the 'dark side of the Moon' to Ms. Lane - is he trying to wind her up? Of course, maybe I'm ignorant of some detail of the YJ/DC Universe, and there actually is one here in this setting... Or, is it just common enough usage that he'd expect 'her readers' to refer to it as that?

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Snake possessed Paul turned the moon around so that "people could see the other side," which indicates that Paul wasn't aware that the "dark side of the Moon" is a fiction, so it's not surprising that Gravy doesn't know that either.

That would also be news to at least some DC writers, because, for example, Eclipso had a Moon base on the "dark side of the Moon" to avoid the sunlight he was weak too.

So if Zoat wants to say that there is in fact a dark side of the Moon, DC comics would have his back.

 

[Xelloss]

She shrugs. "There's no way Horne can loose the election."

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"There's no way Horne can lose the election."

 

[Simonbob]

not really, no. they were a group of ideologically-motivated hacks, who had flawed methods and testing criteria, a suspicious lack of control groups in many circumstances, and even when their methods werent flawed to the point of uselessness, their conclusions would be distorted to confirm the narrative they were pushing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4oyv9n/am_i_a_person_living_in_the_west_currently/

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Huh.

I haven't heard that before.

 

[Oglymogly]

Assume for a moment that anything any of us can think up in five minutes to get around something has already been thought up and countered by lawyers who have spent decades making laws about these sorts of things...

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Half of all laws are only made after someone decided to be clever about loop holes and grey areas. So please don't assume that all laws are ironclad, even after decades of revision.

Secondly, most politicians (the side of most governments who preemptively makes the laws) don't bother making laws for things they don't consider faintly possible. And then it's not until the law has been violated or challenged that it is reviewed and evaluated for actual enforceability and practicality. And I expect most spacefaring law hasn't been though that second half too often, IRL or in universe.

So please assume that any body of law has enough wiggle room in it that a combination of power, money, and influence can lead to a result workably close to what you are aiming for. Especially laws in a fledgling field.

But yes, I was spitballing a 30 second idea, that I'm sure won't be the right one. It was more to show the point that there are, and will be, enough loopholes in the law that with some revisions to the plan Lex will get his space nation if he wants it. (With Blackjack and Laserbeams)

 

[Fouredged]

Yes, because international law says a private citizen can't legally own any part of the moon.

And that includes founding a country on said moon.

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That is a treaty, so it only applies to signatories. Notable exception is China. Lexcorp China could simply bribe the Chinese government with something like their own moon base or spaceships or something for them to back his moon nation plan. Lex gets a moon nation and China gets first mover advantage for being a nation in space. Win/win.

The way the UN then works means their veto prevents the US from fighting it in the UN.

 

[Agumentic]

"There is something illegal about it if those ships are armed."

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Not until those ships are armed with weapons classified as WMD, which doesn't automatically come with destructive potential. Not to mention OST facing Clausula rebus sic stantibus.

 

[Gantradies]

Huh.

I haven't heard that before.

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they shared an issue with ideologically/politically motivated science in general- they were trying to get SPECIFIC results, not actually test a theory- and thats for the ones who WERENT just looking for an excuse to torture people whilst getting patted on the back for "helping" society...

 

[Ngamer11]

She shrugs. "There's no way Horne can loose the election."

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It should be 'lose', not 'loose'. While we're talking about the president, Mr Zoat, has he or any other politician been replaced by a robot duplicate in the Paragon timeline? Or has that been butterflied away?

 

[Pinklestia]

Good question. I always thought he was a minor fringe villain. I'm not all that conversant as a lot of readers however, so I may be missing something fairly well known quite easily.

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Because he is the father of one of Grayven friends?

 

[Aeess]

It should be 'lose', not 'loose'. While we're talking about the president, Mr Zoat, has he or any other politician been replaced by a robot duplicate in the Paragon timeline? Or has that been butterflied away?

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It didn't happen in thr renegade timeline, but in an alternate universe Grayven visited.

 

[Mr Zoat]

"There's no way Horne can lose the election."

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Thank you, corrected.

While we're talking about the president, Mr Zoat, has he or any other politician been replaced by a robot duplicate in the Paragon timeline? Or has that been butterflied away?

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Paragon was stabbed to death.

Edit: By which I mean the character named Paragon, not the main SI.

 

[Silveraith]

My Hyde gives Ms Lane a moment to take in her environment

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Mr.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Mr.

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Thank you, corrected.

 

[Ngamer11]

Paragon was stabbed to death.

Edit: By which I mean the character named Paragon, not the main SI.

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I don't know any character named Paragon, could you elaborate? Also, in my earlier question, I meant did the President Horne or Senator Knight of the Paragon timeline get captured and replaced by robot doubles like what happened on Earth 50 and almost happened in the Renegade timeline? What is SHADE doing in the Paragon timeline anyway? Has Paul's actions affected them in any meaningful way?

 

[Mr Zoat]

I don't know any character named Paragon, could you elaborate?

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Paragon.

Also, in my earlier question, I meant did the President Horne or Senator Knight of the Paragon timeline get captured and replaced by robot doubles like what happened on Earth 50 and almost happened in the Renegade timeline? What is SHADE doing in the Paragon timeline anyway? Has Paul's actions affected them in any meaningful way?

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The SI doesn't know.

 

[Akatsunami]

Assume for a moment that anything any of us can think up in five minutes to get around something has already been thought up and countered by lawyers who have spent decades making laws about these sorts of things...

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Laws can change, problem solved, moving on.

 

[Albert Scoot]

At some point you have to put your foot down and say "look, tiny little blue-green ball, you do not have jurisdiction over the entire universe. I am going to build here and if you have such a big issue with it, come up here and make me leave."


Bah, that's only if you keep thinking inside the box. Venus is actually a fairly good candidate for colonization with floating habitats. Jupiter is... less viable, not so much because you couldn't copy that same concept to a gas giant, but rather because it's really fucking radioactive, to the point that you wouldn't be worrying so much about cancer because you'd die long before that becomes a issue.

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Yeah, pretty much. I'd like to see a country try and enforce space laws when they can barely get off the ground.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Yeah, pretty much. I'd like to see a country try and enforce space laws when they can barely get off the ground.

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The issue there is that all of the currently-operating factories are in the United States. Lex is shifting to the countries currently experiencing 'regime change', but in those he's having to build up the infrastructure first and that's a time-consuming endeavour.

 

[Vaermina]

That is a treaty, so it only applies to signatories. Notable exception is China. Lexcorp China could simply bribe the Chinese government with something like their own moon base or spaceships or something for them to back his moon nation plan. Lex gets a moon nation and China gets first mover advantage for being a nation in space. Win/win.

The way the UN then works means their veto prevents the US from fighting it in the UN.

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You have no idea how corporations work...

Also that would mean war with the rest of the world... So... Yea...

Yeah, pretty much. I'd like to see a country try and enforce space laws when they can barely get off the ground.

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Wrong universe.

 

[Buggy123]

Also that would mean war with the rest of the world... So... Yea...

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...really? A small, private force of space ships would prompt the entire world to turn against China?

Wrong universe.

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Nope, to the best of my knowledge, technological development on Earth-16 is similar save for the occasional xenotech/schizotech exception. The U.S. in Zoat's universe went to the moon with hydrogen, kerosene, oxygen, and solid titanium balls. Modern day space tech is pretty much in the same spot as real-life Earth until the SI started pushing.

 

[Ardy]

You have no idea how corporations work...

Also that would mean war with the rest of the world... So... Yea...



Wrong universe.

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What a surprise, Vaermina thinking he knows better about a system that doesn't exist than the people experiencing it in the story.

 

[Maxx Crowley]

...really? A small, private force of space ships would prompt the entire world to turn against China?

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Yes.

Of course they would.

I mean, Vaermina said it. After that, how can there be any doubt?

Of course, even taking the countries of the world and their feelings into consideration is practically just a courtesy. If Grayven wants to back a space fleet being built. There isn't much the governments of Earth can do about it.

 

[Mr Zoat]

24th January
20:33 GMT

Well, Canis was right. Not seeing any art here.

This is the fleet support base that was closest to Mellifera. Rather than bombard the planet, Devlos instead opted to do.. something to the system's star. It's still there, but far dimmer and colder than it was a few centuries ago. I'm honestly struggling to think how he could have done that. While I'm aware of plenty of devices that could affect a sun they're mostly macro-scale themselves. Suns are quite large, and have a fair bit of energy in them. Devlos's armour was never described as anything other than a brute force implement, so given that he fought Green Lanterns I can only assume that it was ludicrously powerful. Eat a sun for fuel powerful.

I use a construct claw to halt a slowly rotating piece of debris and then shove it out of the way. The Free Tartarath fleet burned it two centuries ago, and even with vacuum insulation it's still reached 4 kelvin. No record of them trying to salvage it, but the elements of the Tartarath military who avoided Devlos during his initial takeover were his most fanatical opponents. They would have considered the whole place contaminated. Which goes some way to explain the thoroughness of the destruction.

Mellifera's people adapted, with help. The population plummeted from its 36 billion peak as the heat they loved vanished and the surface froze, but they don't have the aversion to being underground or in confined spaces that many winged species have. Most of the population live underground these days, and the world is covered in a layer of snow. They don't look at the stars any longer.

…

I wonder if there's an intelligent sun I could recruit?

No, no, there are plenty of ways to fix this that don't involve a new recruit. Inasmuch as it needs fixing. The people currently alive are fine as they are. The damage happened two hundred years ago. The ecosystem is gone, not under threat.

A semi-complete corpse floats past me in a cloud of frozen blood crystals.

But that's something I'm going to have to deal with.

"Illustres to Lantern Mother of Mercy."

There's a slight delay, then a construct of the trunk of her core appears over my ring.

"Yes?"

"I'm sending you the location of a series of destroyed space stations. No immediate rush, but I want you to visit them and consume them. Catalogue everything you find, then return to Sol."

"Understood."

"Feeling any better with all of the ghosts gone?"

"Small oddities which I noticed are now absent. My dreams are easier now. Now that I know they were there, it pleases me that their uncomfortable after life experience is made more pleasant."

"Glad to hear it. Illustres out."

Her tentacles wave. "Illustres?"

"Yes?"

"The first humanoid I encountered. The one whose brain raised me to true intelligence. Is he amongst them?

"I don't know. Hades has barely begun processing them. Is it important?"

"I would like to speak with him directly. His death was important to me."

"I'll ask. Anything else?"

"No. Mother of Mercy out."

The image vanishes, and I take another look at the drifting wreckage.

Ring, any evidence that anyone has been scavenging here recently?

None found.

Right. I construct-grab a lump of debris and transmute it into an alert beacon. If anyone does come this way it'll ping me an alert. Same as the last four. I then turn away and fly out of the centre of the debris field into open space.

Ring, plot course to the next station.

Course plotted.

Two, one, go.

Space bends and… I'm not there yet. Ugh, I think I'm becoming jaded already. The space stations are all built on similar lines, but the damage patterns are different. The attack reconstructions my ring makes are unique.

Alright, come on. At least-.

Warp terminating.

Space snaps back in as I appear on-. Well, not the edge of the system because there isn't one. Rather, there's a planet that at some point in the galaxy's past was torn free of its home system and sent freewheeling across the void. Reminds me of the episode of Star Trek Enterprise, where the set designer completely blanked on the fact that plant-analogues on a world without sunlight wouldn't have leaves.

There are a lot of frigid planets around here.

Ring, is anything around here interfering with FTL?

No.

Right, plot route and transition closer. Let's get this over-

Space skips.

-witharmour!

Lasers slash across my construct armour, and kinetic rounds slam into it a moment later! This station has very evidently been restored to functional-

FTL interdiction fields now active.

-ity. Secondary batteries are deploying and pointing my way and I'm stuck at sublight speeds. I plot a meandering course to bring me closer to the station and fire a volley of destructive pulses at the-. The plasma field surrounding the station shimmers, but manages to absorb the pulses. Fine, I know how to deal with those. Shield construct-

The lasers that can hit me are, but the kinetic weapons have been reduced to chance impacts by my evasive pattern.

-to protect the railgun, load crumblers and fire.

The lasers switch targets immediately, but a combination of my movements, the speed of my shots and the hard to detect profiles of my rounds results in a quarter or so hitting their target. The plasma shield ripples, and I spot hull-mounted emitters spark as they overload. The section of shield in front of me collapses and I fire-

The secondary weapons -positron beams- draw a bead on me and open fire.

-destructive pulses against the station's weapon emplacements. With no ship to keep intact it's a relatively simple matter to use magnetic fields to turn the shots away from me, while their armour isn't tough enough to block my shots. Turrets are reduced to twisted scrap as I slow to a stop to get a better look at what I'm fighting. I raise both arms and gesture, pulses of orange light raining down across this side of the station and eliminating shield emitters and weapon hardpoints.

Ring, is FTL available?

Interdiction fields still in effect.

Fine. I didn't see any ships…

I generate a crumbler gauntlet construct and slam it into the outer hull.

Let's see who's been rebuilding.

 

[Chojin Patriarch]

I'm honestly struggling to think how he could have done that. While I'm aware to plenty of devices that could affect a sun they're mostly macro-scale themselves. Suns are quite large, and have a fair bit of energy in them. Devlos's armour was never described as anything other than a brute force implement, so given that he fought Green Lanterns I can only assume that it was ludicrously powerful. Eat a sun for fuel powerful.

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Yep, more weight towards the 'sun-eater-based Maltusian armor' theory...
Also: 'While I'm aware of plenty of devices'

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

I wonder if there's an intelligent sun I could recruit?

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OL, you can't fix everything...

"I'm sending you the location of a series of destroyed space stations. No immediate rush, but I want you to visit them and consume them. Catalogue everything you find, then return the Sol."

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Gathering corpses, eh? And hopefully taking their ghosts along for the ride.
Also: 'then return to Sol.'

"Small oddities which I noticed are now absent. My dreams are easier now. Now that I know they were there, it pleases me that their uncomfortable after life experience is made more pleasant."

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Perhaps 'afterlife'?

"I would like to speak with him directly. His death was important to me."

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Paying honour to the being that gave her full sapience. Not many lifeforms get that opportunity,

I construct-grab a lump of debris and transmute it into a alert beacon.

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I construct-grab a lump of debris and transmute it into an alert beacon.

The secondary weapons -positron beams- draw a bead on me and open fire.

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Oh, boy. Black Circle again.

 

[Sockmonkey]

Plant-analogues on a dark world might have leaf-like structures if there's wind. Imagine fronds made of something that works like muscles in reverse. Turning the motion of the wind flexing them into chemical energy.