VaporWare
Futuristic Robot with Turing Compliant Action
- Location
- The Future
With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Twelve)
- Thread starter Mr Zoat
- Start date
- Status
Empiricist2
Let's play doctor!
- Location
- Baton Rouge
I remember discussing the Joker in my high school philosophy class. If I'm remembering right, my preferred solution, assuming imprisonment and therapy wouldn't ultimately work, was to surgically remove his tongue and hands, leaving him with very few options to communicate or in any way escape confinement, while not also being needlessly cruel. He's not a physical threat, so if you don't give him any way to influence the people around him he's fairly tame.
Huh, they do actually.
Zoat uses some other hex code that's much more readable. Don't remember it off the top of my head.
Given that very little of the normal setting interacts with Earth 50, you could actually probably read Stars, Crossed with only knowing a small bit about Grayven. It's undisputed that it's the best of Grayven, and it's close to undisputed that it's the best two episodes in the entire story.
You'd get more out of it having read everything of Grayven, but it stands on its own fairly well.
- Location
- Canada
Good lord, at that point you should just kill the poor sod.
- Location
- Somewhere out there
Honestly, I don't even think Empiricist's solution would work. Putting the Joker in that kind of crippled state would only generate sympathy. You're creating Sealed Evil in a Can, waiting for someone who feels sorry for the poor sod to come along and do something that ultimately proves to be stupid.
karmafalcon
In the wrong place at the right time.
Knowing the Joker, he'd learn how to manipulate things with his feet. So unless you wanna remove those too...?
- Location
- Hampden Park
COLOR=#3f33cc
Science
If you're reading this, omae wa mo shindeiru.
- Location
- Killeen, TX
I say "he didn't literally castrate himself" you quote Paul saying "I suppressed my testosterone".
Ok, I avoided posting before because I thought maybe it was a fluke. Having seen the responses to the last two chapters, I'm going to go with that being wrong. Being clear, I am speaking about the two most recently chapters and the audience responses to them.
What was Paul doing wrong? Because in reading along with his actions and words in the chapter before last, everything actually seemed on the level to me. And yet people were decrying him left and right while throwing Harley grievous amounts of sympathy. It's not that I don't feel for her situation, but I also saw Paul doing exactly what I would have done in his situation, given his knowledge at the time. Am I on the sociopath scale or something? Help me out here.
What was Paul doing wrong? Because in reading along with his actions and words in the chapter before last, everything actually seemed on the level to me. And yet people were decrying him left and right while throwing Harley grievous amounts of sympathy. It's not that I don't feel for her situation, but I also saw Paul doing exactly what I would have done in his situation, given his knowledge at the time. Am I on the sociopath scale or something? Help me out here.
NemiTheNen
Perpetual Phone Poster
Possibly on the autistic spectrum, probably Aspergers. Which can come across as a bit sociopathic--or rather, what people think sociopaths are like.
*deletes a ramble*
VaporWare
Futuristic Robot with Turing Compliant Action
- Location
- The Future
People really like Harley and hate seeing her hurt. That's honestly about the long and the short of it, coupled with expectation miscalibrations between the audience and Paul, salted up real nice by some very romanticized ideas about romance.
- Location
- Somewhere out there
You're not the only one to have felt that way.
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
It's fans being fans, mostly.
Read as a whole chapter, this would have gotten less/no outcry, but Zoat posts in parts, so people assumed the worst.
Lots of people throughout the story have accused Paul of being unreasonably dense in social situations. Personally I'm part of the camp that finds Paul's lack of social grace both normal and entirely relate-able.
To the people calling Paul's behavior unrealistic: people like Paul absolutely exist, you've just never gotten into complicated, sensitive conversations with them.
To the people calling Paul's behavior unrealistic: people like Paul absolutely exist, you've just never gotten into complicated, sensitive conversations with them.
Hestia&theCourt
Turns out we're plural too.
- Location
- In transition
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It probably helps that a lot of us try not to get into those kinds of conversations because we know we're no good at them.
Xavier Bronze
The Avatar
- Location
- Metropolis
People, admittedly including myself, massively overreacting. SI Paul was insensitive, and stupid. But completely within expected levels, given his history for flubbing relationships.
- Location
- Parts Unknown
All according to keikaku...
I think part of the anger comes from the frustration of another Zoatian ship tease.
I want to know this. I'd also love to see a conversation between a couple random people talking about what they think of OL.
Empiricist2
Let's play doctor!
- Location
- Baton Rouge
I personally felt that it was a mistake I could have made, but on reflection would have realized it was a mistake. I'd be less.. pushy.. about it as well, as that's just my personality.
Also this.
That's what omakes are for. Even if you can't get it canonized, they're still enjoyable to write.
@Zoat, email for you.
Escalation (part 1)
- Location
- Hampden Park
17th May
08:01 GMT -5
"Mister Grayven?" The young man who serves the same role as Charlie did on the West Wing… What was his actual job title? Chief gopher… No, probably something vaguer. Personal assistant, maybe. Anyway, Irvine does that sort of thing around here. "The President will see you now."
"Thank you." I get up from my chair, return it to subspace and follow him in the direction of our meeting room. Obviously I know where President Horne and General Lane are, but I don't mind observing protocol if there's actually some point to it. It's like the chair. Protocol calls for me to wait at the President's pleasure, instead of having me get a call when he's available and opening a hush tube to whenever he is. But I'm huge and threatening… Or possibly just really interesting, so it's bad for me to be standing the whole time because people stop what they're doing and start staring. So I sit somewhere out of the way in a chair I made myself, because I weigh two thirds of a tonne and some of the chairs around here are expensive antiques.
Bit of a palaver, but it makes getting on with these people a little easier. I'm strange, but… What was the line from Nineteen Eighty-Four? Follow the small rules and you can get away with breaking the big ones. Though, perhaps given what happens to the character who said that…
The door we're approaching actually has a keypad and some sort of junior vault door between it and the corridor. Ah, a properly secure room. In fact…
Weak security measure as these things go, Corpsman. Still, this is a primitive species. At least they're making an effort.
Lead lined walls, sound dampening technology and a weak… Sort of force field. Not as secure as the version the Light use but it should easily fulfil its purpose. Ahead of me Irvine enters his code and allows it to scan his iris. There's a 'ping' of approval and the door unlocks. He takes hold of a lever, pushes it down and pulls the door outwards slightly, sticking his head around the door.
"Show him in, Irvine."
"Yes sir." He pushes the door open the rest of the way, holding it open for me. It's a bit of a tight squeeze -they usually have to open both sets of double doors for me to get around- but fortunately I just about fit.
I nod to him. "Thank you, Irvine."
He nods back, then looks over to his boss to see if there's anything else he wants. A slight shake of the President's head and Irvine backs out of the door, closing and sealing the door behind him.
I walk over to the table and take my accustomed seat next to General Lane. President Horne is sitting at the head of the table with his Chief of Staff Adrian Myer on his left. As a foreigner and a… Non-exclusive agent, there are parts of these meetings I'm not privy to. Not many things, and since they include me in most of their discussions I do them the courtesy of pretending that I don't know exactly what they've been talking about when I'm not here. It's polite lies like these that make the world go around.
"Grayven." A thin smile from President Horne. "Good of you to join us."
"Wouldn't miss it, Mister President."
"Ah, Sam's been bringing me up to date on our.. research programs. Apparently.. you.. have some concerns?"
"Well. One of the things I raised with General Lane-" I look at him for a fraction of a second. "-was my concern about Major Zmeck. Now, I understand that you can't recant on his deal. He volunteered, his murder conviction disappears. But…" I shake my head. "Any plans to use him in any sort of public role… To say nothing of having him act as a national superhero… Nothing in his psychological evaluations suggests that he's changed his views or.. behaviour. I would be extremely concerned-."
"As it happens, I agree with you." President Horne nods. "The problem we have is that out of all of the sixty seven volunteers who went through the process, he and Captain Adams were the only people who ever came out. And while we might be able to persuade a similar number of terminally ill patriots to volunteer today, we would still have to wait forty or so years to see any benefit."
I shrug. "That's not going to get any less because you waited. And I really do think that terminally ill is the way to go, rather than condemned criminals. Frankly,-" I glance at General Lane again. "-you've been lucky that he's played along as well as he has. Even someone without a military mindset would be a better option than… Anyone else like him."
President Horne looks at General Lane. "Sam?"
"To be honest, Mister President, I'm not all that keen on continuing the quantum field experiments at all. We still have next to no idea what happens when people get exposed to it. We've no idea why they got the super powers that they did, no idea why they survived when all of the others appear not to have done. We don't even know much about how they do what they do. Frankly, the whole rig makes me feel like some sorta jungle tribesman playing with a nuke."
"And Major Zmeck himself?"
"We're stuck going into battle with the super soldiers that we have, not necessarily the ones that we'd like to. I don't think taking away his privileges would achieve anything useful. But, I see Mister Grayven's point. Having.. his.. identity… Leak… His victim's family are still around. All it would take is one photograph of him in his Human form getting online, and that's the end of any national program we tried to involve him in."
President Horne nods. "Well, that's that idea put to bed. I assume there's no commensurate problem with Major Adams?"
General Lane shakes his head. "Not at all, sir. To be honest, I think it's worth involving him further."
"I wasn't inclined to meddle with my predecessor's decision when having him as a semi-independent agent was working out so well. I don't wanna twist his arm, General. And the final decision is of course yours. But it would be very useful to have a familiar face leading the campaign."
"I understand, sir."
"Alright, moving on. This… SHADE business."
"I'm glad that Grayven brought them to my attention." He points at the holoprojector. "You mind if I..?" President Horne shakes his head and General Lane presses a button. "SHADE runs a certification program for the military… And federal agents and other law enforcement officials." Various glyphs representing the various agencies appear on the screen, the shield and three black stars of the Super-Human Advanced Defense Executive taking the centre. "Anyone who wants to learn how to deal with metahumans attends one of their courses."
"And how are they funded?"
"Essentially, that's it. They don't get any federal money at all. There are costs for their courses and.. they do consultancy work for just about everyone… Public and private." The corners of his mouth turn slightly downwards. "'Private' is where the problem comes in. I've had no trouble getting the SHADE agents-."
President Horne holds up his right hand. "Wait a moment, General. Are you telling me that an agency that gets no federal funding has the authority to empower federal agents?"
"Yes, Mister President. That's exactly what I'm saying. But that's not all. A good many of the agents my people questioned did not believe that their authority came from SHADE. They seemed to honestly believe that it was a paperwork thing… A technicality, while they were really part of whatever outfit they were planted in. That outfit picks up the bill for the staff. But, they send full reports of everything they do up the SHADE chain of command."
"There's a federal agency so secret that even its agents don't know that they're working for it?"
"That's about the size of it, sir. I made it pretty clear that as of right now they work for me, but that only gets me the agents we know about."
The President looks at him with clear disbelief. "And who was in charge of all of that?"
"I honestly don't know, sir. All of their reports get routed to the Pentagon and to a few secure backup servers. The people at the Pentagon are operating under the same conditions as everyone else. As far as they were concerned, they were contracted as civilian support staff who had to technically be federal agents. From there, we lost the trail. We've got data sharing arrangements with certain private third party agencies who do work for us. Metahuman containment, power harnessing, places like STAR Labs who do research on the equipment tech-villains use… Our best guess is that whoever's running SHADE accesses it that way." He sighs. "I've got people working on tracking everything down, but this has been going on for a long time and they've had plenty of time to muddy the water. Cover their tracks. Unless someone from their inner circle issues a command we can track back to them, I don't know if we'll get anywhere."
"God. A rogue agency." President Horne shakes his head. "Alright. Back off, General. No sense tipping.. whoever it is, off. Keep an eye on their people. Let them make the mistake."
General Lane nods. "Sir."
"Well, ah… Thank you, Mister Grayven, for bringing that to our attention. Next item. Supervillain work release."
08:01 GMT -5
"Mister Grayven?" The young man who serves the same role as Charlie did on the West Wing… What was his actual job title? Chief gopher… No, probably something vaguer. Personal assistant, maybe. Anyway, Irvine does that sort of thing around here. "The President will see you now."
"Thank you." I get up from my chair, return it to subspace and follow him in the direction of our meeting room. Obviously I know where President Horne and General Lane are, but I don't mind observing protocol if there's actually some point to it. It's like the chair. Protocol calls for me to wait at the President's pleasure, instead of having me get a call when he's available and opening a hush tube to whenever he is. But I'm huge and threatening… Or possibly just really interesting, so it's bad for me to be standing the whole time because people stop what they're doing and start staring. So I sit somewhere out of the way in a chair I made myself, because I weigh two thirds of a tonne and some of the chairs around here are expensive antiques.
Bit of a palaver, but it makes getting on with these people a little easier. I'm strange, but… What was the line from Nineteen Eighty-Four? Follow the small rules and you can get away with breaking the big ones. Though, perhaps given what happens to the character who said that…
The door we're approaching actually has a keypad and some sort of junior vault door between it and the corridor. Ah, a properly secure room. In fact…
Weak security measure as these things go, Corpsman. Still, this is a primitive species. At least they're making an effort.
Lead lined walls, sound dampening technology and a weak… Sort of force field. Not as secure as the version the Light use but it should easily fulfil its purpose. Ahead of me Irvine enters his code and allows it to scan his iris. There's a 'ping' of approval and the door unlocks. He takes hold of a lever, pushes it down and pulls the door outwards slightly, sticking his head around the door.
"Show him in, Irvine."
"Yes sir." He pushes the door open the rest of the way, holding it open for me. It's a bit of a tight squeeze -they usually have to open both sets of double doors for me to get around- but fortunately I just about fit.
I nod to him. "Thank you, Irvine."
He nods back, then looks over to his boss to see if there's anything else he wants. A slight shake of the President's head and Irvine backs out of the door, closing and sealing the door behind him.
I walk over to the table and take my accustomed seat next to General Lane. President Horne is sitting at the head of the table with his Chief of Staff Adrian Myer on his left. As a foreigner and a… Non-exclusive agent, there are parts of these meetings I'm not privy to. Not many things, and since they include me in most of their discussions I do them the courtesy of pretending that I don't know exactly what they've been talking about when I'm not here. It's polite lies like these that make the world go around.
"Grayven." A thin smile from President Horne. "Good of you to join us."
"Wouldn't miss it, Mister President."
"Ah, Sam's been bringing me up to date on our.. research programs. Apparently.. you.. have some concerns?"
"Well. One of the things I raised with General Lane-" I look at him for a fraction of a second. "-was my concern about Major Zmeck. Now, I understand that you can't recant on his deal. He volunteered, his murder conviction disappears. But…" I shake my head. "Any plans to use him in any sort of public role… To say nothing of having him act as a national superhero… Nothing in his psychological evaluations suggests that he's changed his views or.. behaviour. I would be extremely concerned-."
"As it happens, I agree with you." President Horne nods. "The problem we have is that out of all of the sixty seven volunteers who went through the process, he and Captain Adams were the only people who ever came out. And while we might be able to persuade a similar number of terminally ill patriots to volunteer today, we would still have to wait forty or so years to see any benefit."
I shrug. "That's not going to get any less because you waited. And I really do think that terminally ill is the way to go, rather than condemned criminals. Frankly,-" I glance at General Lane again. "-you've been lucky that he's played along as well as he has. Even someone without a military mindset would be a better option than… Anyone else like him."
President Horne looks at General Lane. "Sam?"
"To be honest, Mister President, I'm not all that keen on continuing the quantum field experiments at all. We still have next to no idea what happens when people get exposed to it. We've no idea why they got the super powers that they did, no idea why they survived when all of the others appear not to have done. We don't even know much about how they do what they do. Frankly, the whole rig makes me feel like some sorta jungle tribesman playing with a nuke."
"And Major Zmeck himself?"
"We're stuck going into battle with the super soldiers that we have, not necessarily the ones that we'd like to. I don't think taking away his privileges would achieve anything useful. But, I see Mister Grayven's point. Having.. his.. identity… Leak… His victim's family are still around. All it would take is one photograph of him in his Human form getting online, and that's the end of any national program we tried to involve him in."
President Horne nods. "Well, that's that idea put to bed. I assume there's no commensurate problem with Major Adams?"
General Lane shakes his head. "Not at all, sir. To be honest, I think it's worth involving him further."
"I wasn't inclined to meddle with my predecessor's decision when having him as a semi-independent agent was working out so well. I don't wanna twist his arm, General. And the final decision is of course yours. But it would be very useful to have a familiar face leading the campaign."
"I understand, sir."
"Alright, moving on. This… SHADE business."
"I'm glad that Grayven brought them to my attention." He points at the holoprojector. "You mind if I..?" President Horne shakes his head and General Lane presses a button. "SHADE runs a certification program for the military… And federal agents and other law enforcement officials." Various glyphs representing the various agencies appear on the screen, the shield and three black stars of the Super-Human Advanced Defense Executive taking the centre. "Anyone who wants to learn how to deal with metahumans attends one of their courses."
"And how are they funded?"
"Essentially, that's it. They don't get any federal money at all. There are costs for their courses and.. they do consultancy work for just about everyone… Public and private." The corners of his mouth turn slightly downwards. "'Private' is where the problem comes in. I've had no trouble getting the SHADE agents-."
President Horne holds up his right hand. "Wait a moment, General. Are you telling me that an agency that gets no federal funding has the authority to empower federal agents?"
"Yes, Mister President. That's exactly what I'm saying. But that's not all. A good many of the agents my people questioned did not believe that their authority came from SHADE. They seemed to honestly believe that it was a paperwork thing… A technicality, while they were really part of whatever outfit they were planted in. That outfit picks up the bill for the staff. But, they send full reports of everything they do up the SHADE chain of command."
"There's a federal agency so secret that even its agents don't know that they're working for it?"
"That's about the size of it, sir. I made it pretty clear that as of right now they work for me, but that only gets me the agents we know about."
The President looks at him with clear disbelief. "And who was in charge of all of that?"
"I honestly don't know, sir. All of their reports get routed to the Pentagon and to a few secure backup servers. The people at the Pentagon are operating under the same conditions as everyone else. As far as they were concerned, they were contracted as civilian support staff who had to technically be federal agents. From there, we lost the trail. We've got data sharing arrangements with certain private third party agencies who do work for us. Metahuman containment, power harnessing, places like STAR Labs who do research on the equipment tech-villains use… Our best guess is that whoever's running SHADE accesses it that way." He sighs. "I've got people working on tracking everything down, but this has been going on for a long time and they've had plenty of time to muddy the water. Cover their tracks. Unless someone from their inner circle issues a command we can track back to them, I don't know if we'll get anywhere."
"God. A rogue agency." President Horne shakes his head. "Alright. Back off, General. No sense tipping.. whoever it is, off. Keep an eye on their people. Let them make the mistake."
General Lane nods. "Sir."
"Well, ah… Thank you, Mister Grayven, for bringing that to our attention. Next item. Supervillain work release."
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- Location
- Australia
extremely concerned
- Location
- madison
well shade sounds properly terrifying. I wonder how they make sure no one ever mentions that due to a paperwork thing they need to write up more reports. I also wonder if it was set up with mind control or was at one point legitimately part of the US government.
NexysDhyArchen
Throne Breaker
I would expect the most likely non Light instance of SHADE coming into being would be the Nixon era. Full on Cold War plus super shady backroom policies and little to non oversight of "national security" agencies plus actual concerns over super human opponents could quite easily resulted in some group of CIA /FBI officers sharing 'concerns' with good old Nixon and getting quiet permission to go black.
- Location
- madison
then after few decades of no accountability and the kind of insanity that complete lack of oversight breeds and you have essentially a league of supervillains who claim to be making the hard choice for the good of the country. The scary thing is they might actually think they are helping America. After all, everyone they trust enough to show the whole picture too agrees with them, so they must be hard men making hard choices rather than a bunch of lunatics crippling the ability of the US government to effectively regulate metahumans.
I wonder what they are up to in the paragon world? probably laying low though I doubt they can watch the world move past them for too long without doing something spectacularly stupid.
I wonder what they are up to in the paragon world? probably laying low though I doubt they can watch the world move past them for too long without doing something spectacularly stupid.
- Status