daimahou
Hear... Feel... Think...
- Location
- 「 」
After that empire of tears episode I find it weird the rings don't at least have measures against scrying... or maybe tha GLs have to ask the Guardians for that upgrade and none of them did?
With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Twelve)
- Thread starter Mr Zoat
- Start date
- Status
- Location
- The UK
I can't find a specific citation on that being specifically how it works, so while I'm reasonably sure I remember it being said I can't prove it. I can cite "scan for things that can't be scanned for" not being a valid tactic though, so that's something, at least.
You are mistaking capabilities for resources.
The things you list are things that took a lot of preparation to pull off. None of them are things that the rest of the world could not have done on their own. Contacting the Reach or Darkseid or any of a hundred worlds can be done by anyone who has contact to a Green Lantern. (Hint - the U.N. has three of them.)
Resources are a finite thing - for example how much manpower you can throw at a project. Another example is the GDP of a country. The Light has always been shown to operate with a minimum amount of manpower and monetary resources. As far as I can tell those limitations exist to promote "comic book level" conflict and because the Light have hard limits on what makes sense for them to have.
Let's look at Lexcorp for example. I'll be grossly unfar and say that Lexcorp is the largest company in our world. According to the Fortune 500 that's Walmart which has an annual revenue of $482 billion. Compare that to the U.S. which had tax income of $3.34 trillion for the same year. Note that's revenue - money taken in. It is not profit nor does it account for things like paying staff or keeping the lights on. Thus even if Lexcorp had $482 billion in revenue it wouldn't have $482 billion to spend on any given project. Luthor is held accountable to his stockholders and will be under "normal" investigations by people trying to figure out what Lexcorp is doing with their income - if only so they can find out if investing in Lexcorp is worthwhile or not.
Furthermore Lex cannot be seen to be doing things that, in your examples above, will let him mind control the Justice League. That's another constraint on the monetary resources he can divert to such a project.
Every member of the Light is under similar constraints. Ocean Master couldn't divert significant numbers of Atlantean mages to help the Light without it being noticed. Queen Bee couldn't send significant numbers of her troops to help a Light plan without it being noticed. (Thus why the boom tubes drop things off in Bialya where she could operate "freely" - though things like spy satellites are still a concern.)
Making scrying wards as pervasive as they are becoming in the story would require resources. They need to get people with the right capabilities into position to establish the wards. That means individuals travelling around the globe. It will generate a paper trail that someone like the Batman can track. Thus they have to spend more resources trying to obscure the trail as much as possible. Then there's the fact that they are attempting to get other organizations - criminal organizations - who are renowned for their "minor trust issues" to allow them to set up the scry wards. There are solutions for that problem such as convincing the criminals that it is a very good bit of security for them to invest in but using said solutions will require time and resources spent convincing them, negotiating with them, and otherwise getting access to things said criminal organizations will have justifiable security concerns about.
Note that while this discussion is one part of the plot hole the other remains unaddressed - Paul still isn't devoting all the resources at his disposal to fixing this issue. He's certainly devoting less than he did to fixing his magical weakness. Heck, given how long the Ophidian has been around and that she's watched the Controllers work why doesn't he just ask her? He might not get a useful answer - and since it is the Ophidian I'd assume any answer will be along those lines - but last I checked he hasn't even tried.
- Location
- Somewhere out there
I would argue that Paul IS doing a pretty good job of devoting his resources to problems he's encountering, and he's just prioritizing. He doesn't have the resources to pursue ward-piercing AND Nabu-removing AND humanity-uplifting AND supervillain-thwarting AND self-care AND relationship-maintenance, etc. all at the same time. Some things have to be deferred to allow those resources to be allocated to things that need to be / can be / want to be done sooner.
And remember, Paul's idea of what's important doesn't necessarily align with yours as a reader, especially since his thought processes are very orange-tinted, and ESPECIALLY since one of his big priorities is living a full human life instead of just being singlemindedly dedicated to superheroing.
Finally, remember that this is a work of serial fiction. There are a lot of things that happen off-screen in the interests of pacing. If the Ophidian gave OL an answer that was effectively unhelpful, why waste words describing it?
Basically this, the random Swiss bank with scry wards on all their servers barely got a mention as well. We have no kind of follow up on the paper trail for that bit of silliness and it kind of tests the bounds of probability for scry wards to be so wide-spread but no action being taken (the drone thing doesn't count because it completely jumped in with no introduction, suddenly he can see magic)
We need to read even those few words so that the protagonist doesn't pull random power-ups from his ass but is seen working at a problem. On the other side it's also funny (not), seeing random powers get introduced for a plot point then nerfed to irrelevance.
You can argue about the prioritization but there are a few simple things Paul could try - things that require little to no effort on his part - which would negate the entire problem. Would they work? I have no idea because we never see them. Instead we get nothing.
As for why this is important, I'm seconding @drasteed here:
We do need to see the attempts. If they were trivial and failed attempts this gets even easier for Mr Zoat to pull off.
Picture this..
It is the beginning of any generic "the Team gets briefed" scene. Robin, Kid Flash and OL are there early. The scene starts with Robin and Kid Flash laughing about how they had a blast doing something relaxing. They're friends so having a movie night in Mount Justice is a good starting point. KF mentions, sadly, that the ladies weren't around. Robin chimes in that Miss Martian was busy with her telepathy training but he has no idea why Artemis wasn't there.
That can all be done in a few sentences.
Cue the part that matters for this discussion - KF asks why OL wasn't there. That's when OL mentions that he was trying the "two rings scanning at the same time" trick to get around scry wards. He lost track of time trying to get it to work. Specifically OL mentions that it did not work and he doesn't know how to make it work. He's going to go back to the drawing board (or just ask the Controllers when he gets a chance) but wait! Bat-Interrupt! Batman has arrived with the rest of the Team being deployed on their current mission.
That's a minimal writing approach to include the information in the story. Mr Zoat could then wait an arc or so and have another short sub-scene where OL is throwing a scroll on magical theory into sub-space. KF asks why he's studying magic and OL could mention that he's making another attempt. Turns out that he's having a hard time and not even Aqualad, Garth, Tula, and Sephtian have been able to get him through the basics. One line by Aqualad can point out that even the basics take years - that's why the Atlanteans have entire academies devoted to it and start young.
(And so on and so forth for all the things OL tries which don't work.)
- Location
- Hampden Park
Canon's like that sometimes.
Yes, and I'm sure that Superman's a bit peeved that everywhere has lead lined walls these days. And real life police get annoyed that they can't track people who take the batteries out of their mobiles. Sometimes something really convenient gets countered.
- Location
- Canada
We often get words on recap of thing that have already happened or of the plain "not much of a point" fairly often though, so dedicating a sentence on this sort of thing wouldn't exactly be a waste.
- Location
- Hampden Park
This came up a while ago, but it was in the discussion so you may have missed it. The 'two point' thing referred to the type of ward Bane used and only applied to magic detection.
I'll point out that scry wards only block the ring's simple and oh so very useful scan. Optic scans, infrared scans, EMR scans and such like conducted by the ring or
The time required to do the thaumatic engineering for a thing like that is quite considerable. The SI got one because he actually did need some sort of autoscry system. He could get more, but that's taking their time away from other projects.
May be my technical ignorance here, but aren't they still called servers if they're just being used to run local area networks?
I very much doubt that somewhere trying to hide from a Lantern would use wifi.
Last edited:
daimahou
Hear... Feel... Think...
- Location
- 「 」
Since when did you, the author, have a power ring to create constructs with?
- Location
- Hampden Park
Thank you, corrected.
- Location
- Canada
The SI doesn't know.Since when did you, the author, have a power ring to create constructs with?
- Location
- Hampden Park
Several different ways, none of which are perfect.
For legitimate concerns such as industry and government, LexCorp is now offering weak anti-magic protection and incorporating scry wards into -for example- corporate logos. They're quite up front that they can't offer full protection, but after the Klarion thing people are still buying.
For less legitimate concerns, Savage is doing something similar.
For mundane criminals, the League of Shadows have outfitted their operatives and are selling the design.
For science supervillains, Brain is sharing the love.
And each of those groups are using different warding techniques to reduce the chance that one set will be associated with any other.
That's a question that you, the author, are going to need to provide additional information to really resolve.
Why? Because the wifi thing isn't the problem. Run with this -
- Would a ring scan be able to tell that Computer A is sending data to Computer B over a network?
- If so then the ring scan will also be able to immediately pinpoint that Computer A is sending data to "nothing special here" over a network. That's not normal and should be ringing alarm bells for OL.
- If not, why doesn't the hyper-advanced computer/ring figure that out?
Note there are two possible solutions here.
- Computers don't have to connect to a network or the internet. A single computer can be set up as the "invisible server" for (example-not-at-random) LexCorp. That "server" sits alone in an office somewhere in Lex's tower. When information needs to be "hidden" it is put on a removable drive and physically connected to the invisible server. To access the information you need to be physically at the computer.
- Scry ward everything! Every computer used in the hidden lab, all the network cables, the keyboards and mice - everything! The ring's scan wouldn't pick up anything because "there's nothing to see here." It neatly sidesteps the logical problem above with a ring noticing network activity. Note that based on what you've said about how ring scans work I don't believe that you could scry-ward a wifi. The network would have to be via physical cables.
Is any of that shown in-story? I'm asking because as far as I can tell the lack of information is what's killing several people's suspension of disbelief.
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
If you are arguing from a purely semantic standpoint then yes, the manor world governments have more resources and manpower.
A vast majority of those resources are absolutely irelevant compared to the utility that most of the superpowered individuals bring to the table.
They don't need hundreds of amateur hour magicians running around the clock to set all this up. They have a Nabu equivalent magician in one of their member spots, get that person to do it. Surely Klarion or Satannus can take a break from drowning kittens to ward some shit every day, they don't even have to sleep. The later can probably just send some demons to do it for him.
This is not taking into account that they had access to more magic users in the time period between League of Shadows takedown and they were captured and locked up by Fate.
While yes, if you looked at raw money, natural resources and power the world governments come out on top, the Light has access to individuals who are of comparable utility value if you look at their effective powerset. It doesn't really matter how many paper clips are in the Pentagon or how many tanks and fighter jets the US military can field at a notice.
That is the entire point of OL's uplifting program: for some reason these governments are not applying or don't have access to resources they should be looking into acquiring and applying. From a technological standpoint they have access to easy interstellar travel and a whole bunch of biological based schizotech. I could go on addressing other areas... but there's a reason that Grayven is pissed at Savages focus on cackling supervillainy instead of moving his organization in the right direction. They still have so much going for them as an organization that isn't being put to effective use. The Lights just less shitty at applying all this bullshit comic book science and magic than the governments are. They don't hold a candle to OL but they are certainly getting better.
Drich
Von Neumann Writing Machine
Well, aside from the eco-footprint of a giant fucking building. Lots of computers mean heat, and that has to go somewhere. There's also the electricity requirements for the building, and if isn't self-powered, it's drawing from the grid, and if a particular spot of the grid happens to show that it's apparently vanishing into nothing, then that's a big warning symbol. If it's self-powered, then one needs to consider what the hell is powering it. Solar panels are exceedingly unlikely, on account of not being a good enough power source for a giant building.
Generators create heat, and need to vent out pollution that has been produced. Higher-tech methods of energy generation may very well cause effects on the surrounding environment that can be detected, and, again, if one scans that area and it shows nothing, then that's a big warning flag. If it's generating too much power and offloading into the grid, same thing, Energy apparently coming from nowhere, warning flag.
Empiricist2
Let's play doctor!
- Location
- Baton Rouge
From what I know, it's a pretty broad term. A file box connected to the local network may be called a server, or NAS more specifically, or you could have a desktop computer running a game server. There's nothing in the definition that strictly requires a server be connected to the internet or use Wi-Fi however, even if it is generally true of most servers.
Like Coda said, anything designed to be secure almost certainly wouldnt use Wifi, and in a world with superheroes they would probably take even further steps.
There's another way that the ring could scan large areas without it being ludicrously overpowered. The ring can detect at the very least avarice, and probably other lights going by the "Will detected." lines. If it needs to scan for a person, it detects concentrations of emotions and scans the DNA of each human at those concentrations. Some data analysis could drastically reduce the number of searches it performs as well, like eliminating people of the wrong gender or that are in improbable locations. While it's still a huge amount of processing, it's not on the same level as scanning every point on the Earth's surface and looking for the correct DNA.
Probably this. It makes sense to do this even in real life if you want some data really secure.
Also, note that most of the time locations aren't sufficiently well warded to hide that they are warded. They're just sufficiently well protected that someone won't be able to easily get information about the warded area. Relatively easy to find what is and isn't warded, but for stuff like the Swiss bank in Hullevow it's sufficient. Very few things shown so far are protected enough to conceal their existence from dedicated efforts.
Not explicitly, as it would be difficult for OL to directly talk to one of the Light members and have it revealed, but the gist of it is a fairly simple deduction from how basically every Light operated thing is warded. Them spreading it to other criminal and commercial enterprises is logical when you assume the Light are at least somewhat intelligent.
"An amateur mage could steal basically all your business records, secret technology advances, and dick pics sent to that girlfriend you don't want your wife to know about. Without you even being aware there was a security breach. With a growing magitech revolution, mages will become increasingly common. How many wards do you want?"
Refrigeration runes.
Drich
Von Neumann Writing Machine
More magic that needs to be developed, and distributed. Will they also make anti-pollution runes that get rid of all the harmful byproducts, as well?
Also, have to hope that all that stuff needs no maintenance or workers. Because if cars and people are disappearing into nothing, warning flag to note its existence. Not to mention the fuel requirements for generators, which need to be delivered, something that's going to undoubtedly create paperwork, not to mention whatever vehicles deliver it.
You absolutely missed Mr Zoat's explanation for how they're doing it, didn't you?
As for having their super-mages do it, Klarion could have been working on scry-warding things. Would that be a more valuable use of his time than working on the Light's actual goals? Like, say, the Starro-tech that let them compromise the League? Or would he view that as being more valuable than his own pursuits separate from the Light? Say, getting his claws on Nabu's helmet? Klarion can only work on one thing at a time. He has his own goals and ambitions. The same is true for all members of the Light - past and present.
It also doesn't address the problem that having someone ward the Light's computers wouldn't cause the kind of proliferation we're seeing in-story.
Finally note that you're assuming Klarion and Satannus don't need to rest. As far as I know everything in the DCU requires some degree of rest - even New Gods, Guardians, or Satannus. It might not be sleep but they aren't capable of being productive 100% of the time. So, if you're going to insist that they don't do you happen to have a citation?
Lex is selling this magitech. He's got to be advertising it to some degree. That's the kind of thing that would get League attention. There isn't much they could do about it - it isn't illegal, just for example - but it would get their attention.
Cue another short conversation where someone mentions the proliferation of scry-warded computers and a short response. OL being mildly annoyed would be in-character. (Not angry but irritated.) KF being upset because he's fairly idealistic and this lets the criminals get away with things. Aqualad shutting it down by pointing out this kind of thing is what responsible governments do. Atlantis has been doing this sort of thing since before the Europeans colonized the U.S. is a possible example. Given how long their civilization has been around that would be pretty believable.
I'm not sure how long it would take people to notice the other attempts at proliferation.
Oh, for bonus points this is the beginning of the ECM / ECCM magical revolution for the "mundane" countries. Atlantis has been doing this for quite some time. I'd be very surprised if they didn't have some idea of how to counter that kind of protection - for spying on each other if nothing else.
Edit: Forgot to finish that thought about Atlantis - I'm curious to see how long it takes Atlantis to start putting up "technical transfer" blocks to prevent their ECCM from getting out. I'm also curious to see how long it takes before the nations of the world (like China, for example) to start their own research into this sort of thing. Have they started already? Are they hitting a brick wall? Are they struggling to find someone who vaguely knows what they are doing magically?
Last edited:
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
I mean there's only so many logistics you can get into before the author just throws his hands up , middle fingers extended to the heavens. It's reasonable to me that "They thought of how to get around that" can just be assumed or hand waved when it gets to that level of technical details
And yeah, I wrote and posted that before I saw his post. Seemed like a reasonable assumption to make. Im posting from my phone, so excuse the reply lag.
And yeah, I wrote and posted that before I saw his post. Seemed like a reasonable assumption to make. Im posting from my phone, so excuse the reply lag.
Last edited:
A Power Ring is an explicitly overpowered device on a level few others can reach. Also they have processing power and scanning capabilities to scan whole sectors of space (either galactic or universal) to find the most suitable host. Above all else I find it awkward in-story that the computing and analyzing abilities of a Ring would be ever called insufficient for a task.
I would never expect any single member of the Light to spend time doing menial tasks as warding something themselves, except maybe 1-2 very important locations. The dissemination of knowledge should occur gradually and if LexCorp is selling standardized ward packets it has the weakness of being open knowledge and easy to disable by any mage that spends time to study the ward scheme. Also it must be shown in-story that the spread of wards is coming from a specific source such as LexCorp and OL should've had a reaction to that specific thing being what Luthor focuses to sell. How convenient for Light operations.
Edited in:
The scry wards have been a point of contention since they were introduced as an easy to use/'easy to solve' problem for the scanning capabilities of a Power Ring. The easy to use portion seems to have exploded, but the easy to solve part never got any attention even when the problem was getting ridiculously disproportionate on OL's performance.
Last edited:
- Location
- Somewhere out there
If we're talking about wifi, and if they're not using an encryption system that the ring can trivially break (e.g. WEP) then the answer to the first question is "no." They can tell that Computer A is transmitting, but not that it's specifically transmitting to Computer B.
If the ring CAN break the wireless encryption, then the ring can tell it's communicating with a service at a particular IP address, but then it has to break the encryption on THAT channel to determine what the data being communicated is.
Knowing the IP address means that the ring's default scan function will get blocked by the scry ward, because magic operates at a conceptual level and an IP address is meaningful enough as a "location" to interfere. (This isn't stated by WoZ but it's the only answer consistent with the observed phenomena.) The ring would have to resort to normal hacking techniques that any computer can use to penetrate it at that point.
Yes, the hyper-advanced ring KNOWS it's being blocked. Doesn't mean it can do a whole lot ABOUT it without further explicit instruction.
zhuull
SB still lying to protect Racists what else is new
So was having him use an obscene "American" gesture instead of a more traditional English one with two fingers a deliberate attempt to show how evil the doppelganger is?
**Edit**
Damn these ninjas! I blame Ra's.
Last edited:
- Location
- Hampden Park
I'm a little unclear as to what you're asking. Power rings can detect and monitor wifi signals easily. Earth computers can do that.
No, because the SI doesn't know it.
Oh, I made a mistake earlier. Obviously the League of Shadows isn't doing anything in the SI timeline. Assume it was Kobra or whoever.
- Location
- US
Hmmm... was this a mistake or "a mistake"?
- Status