"Where do you see yourself in five years?"
"Atop a mountain of Reach corpses."
With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Twelve)
- Thread starter Mr Zoat
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"Atop a mountain of Reach corpses."
Massgamer
Advance toward the Future
- Location
- The Future
Most likely, "meat" could just be a way of saying the Reach view non-Reach people as nothing more than livestock for them to raise, breed, and kill at their will which does fit their methodology.
Xavier Bronze
The Avatar
- Location
- Metropolis
It happens. Vision is insanely easy to butterfly out of existence completely in most Marvel continuities that have him. However cool he may be, his origin relies on a long series of very specific events. And while Paul could have conceivably recognized an origin story and allowed it to play its course in the hopes of getting a hero out of it, the morality of such an action is questionable at best.
I call it the Bruce Wayne dilemma. Similar to the baby Hitler dilemma in some ways. If there's a young boy, and you know for a fact that if events are unaltered his parents will be murdered, but that their murder eventually turns that young boy into the single greatest force for good on the earth, does that knowledge justify allowing the boy's parents to die?
On the one hand, allowing the boy to follow his "destiny" is a net positive to the state of the world, and is guaranteed to save more than the two lives that were sacrificed. On the other hand, you just allowed a young boy to become an orphan knowing full well that you could have stopped it at any time in any number of ways. You also doomed the boy to a lifetime of servitude toward the wellbeing of the world. He will never again be as happy as he was before. But, his actions would allow millions of other people to live happier, safer lives.
This same dilemma can be applied to the vast majority of superheroes. And while the balance certainly shifts between examples, (compare allowing Stephen Strange's car wreck vs allowing the destruction of Krypton,) the end reasoning is pretty much the same. Is allowing a large amount of personal pain or even death within a small group justified by knowledge of eventual, indirect consequences that would improve or save the lives of vastly superior numbers of people?
- Location
- Earth Prime
Eh, if the DCverse 16 had it as Destiny, it wouldn't matter that Orange Lantern spared the boy the injury (directly or indirectly due to other things he did); something would contrive to have it happen. It still could, even. All it would take is something mucking up the Zeta Tubes and cutting off Happy Harbor (or "Happy Harbour" now) when Garfield gets a similar injury, with no way to find his blood type quickly enough.
Contrived as heck, if not written very well as its own plot device to be resolved.
Or it could go another direction. Garfield's connection to Megan is due to that incident in canon, but nothing says they can't have a similar relationship just out of proximity and friendship. If he gets inspired by Wally's foolishness when Wally was 12 by the time Garfield is, himself, 12...
Contrived as heck, if not written very well as its own plot device to be resolved.
Or it could go another direction. Garfield's connection to Megan is due to that incident in canon, but nothing says they can't have a similar relationship just out of proximity and friendship. If he gets inspired by Wally's foolishness when Wally was 12 by the time Garfield is, himself, 12...
The thing is, if you're in an SI scenario, there's plenty more room for random variance to screw stuff up. Butterfly flaps it's wings and Bruce Wayne is paralyzed in a training accident before he can become Batman. There's no guarantees, so I'd just prevent the tragedy in front of me, personally.
- Location
- Earth Prime
Well, we've seen how Beast Boy's YJ origin was averted quite naturally. I would guess Jaime's will be averted by Ted Kord not dying. I mean, let's be honest; Jaime's origin is one of massive coincidence, being in the wrong place at the right time. Though again, an equally coincidental origin could be contrived if the author wished.
Though with the Orange Lantern going after the Reach NOW, it seems unlikely that Blue Beetle would have the storyline he has in season 2 at all.
- Location
- USA
A somewhat common truism (I think it's even come up in this fic) is that a Power Ring is the greatest tool in the universe, while a scarab is the greatest weapon.
My interpretation is that the Scientist and the Ambassador are members of the Reach species, with no scarabs. And that the scarabs are their soldiers, and follow their orders.
Yes, he has.
Empiricist2
Let's play doctor!
- Location
- Baton Rouge
Good point, even if it seemed unintentional from Zoat. Although the line should be "Weren't you paying attention" instead of "listening".
Seems like their passive defensive abilities aren't all that strong compared to their offensive abilities. Black Beetle had his suit damaged, albeit briefly, by Arsenal's laser arm. On the other hand, Blue Beetle had trouble doing anything meaningful against Black Beetle, so IDK.
I believe it's a bleed generator, but I don't remember any mention of it.
He got his powers due to seeing his mother dead, and his powers were templated off of M'gann's blood (I'm fairly sure this is the majority opinion of the community, even if it isn't directly stated in the show). Although the blood transfusion and his mom dying never happened, he could still experience some similarly traumatic event and gain some metahuman power. He likely wouldn't be Beast Boy, but Garfield Logan could gain powers of one description or another.
Xavier Bronze
The Avatar
- Location
- Metropolis
If memory serves, he's a Metahuman. So the blood transfusion activated his dormant Meta-gene. You couldn't reliably do the same to other humans and get the same result.
Empiricist2
Let's play doctor!
- Location
- Baton Rouge
I don't think it was purely from the blood transfusion, because his shapeshifting is different from Martian shapeshifting in a few ways: 1. He doesn't conserve mass, while Martians do, 2. He can't change color while Martians can, and 3. He can only change into animals, which isn't how Martian shapeshifting works at all. M'gann has shown the ability to make more arms appear wherever, so she's not limited to preexisting forms.
Plus there's the whole Reach experimentation thing where powers get activated by extreme stress, which fits what happened here.
Xavier Bronze
The Avatar
- Location
- Metropolis
It's implied the "animals only" part is psychosomatic, a consequence of his trauma that he could work to get past. He does change color, if only between different shades of green. And unless his clothing is shapeshifted like M'Gann, which would seem to break both "animals only" and "shades of green", he has some way of "stowing" those somewhere when in animal form that he can retrieve them from later. All that taken together means his shapeshifting is most probably potentially much more powerful than a Martian's.
Empiricist2
Let's play doctor!
- Location
- Baton Rouge
From the YJ wiki:
Equipment
- Bio-Suit: Miss Martian gave Gar a Martian Bio-Suit and pre-telepathically programmed it for two settings:[28] form fitting collar or full body-suit.[3]
- Location
- Hampden Park
He didn't call the Negotiator 'meat' when he removed him from office, though he did call the Light and the Team 'meat' while the Negotiator was there.
hance1986
The One Above All.
Going by what you said about how Reach society is either 'kill 'em all' or 'enslave them all' regarding aliens, 'meat' could just be arrogance and superiority, seeing anything not Reach as 'meat for the slaughter'.
Not to cross streams too much, but that attitude reminds a little of the Draka. In the books beyond accusations of author fiat as to their victory, the Draka attitude was that their victory over the ferals was not just a societal goal, but something almost inevitable.
That theme and attitude I see here or in what Zoat says. Kill or enslave, and be friendly long enough to continually fuck everyone else over.
The GLC should have removed this cancer from the stars. That they didn't means it now is harder.
- Location
- Hampden Park
The Green Lantern Corps doesn't have the manpower.
So.
It has been vaguely implied, but not made outright clear, that the following are true:
A) The Reach engage in mind control of all individuals within their grasp within certain limits. Like demons, one cannot be part of the Reach without wholly agreeing with them - because all dissenters are personality-killed or body-killed.
B) Paul knows this from a mix of GLC database entries and his own knowledge of canon.
This has not been made explicit in story, and would cast a very different light on what Paul has been doing if true.
Spider Guild gets treated with some degree of kindness because they have a culture of evil, but are not wholly dedicated to it, have individual variance beyond it, and could stop doing it in the future.
Demons don't, because one does not count as a demon unless they are personally, devotedly, near-irrevocably or wholly-irrevocably evil; if you aren't evil, your soul is butchered for power.
Gordanians do, for the same reasons as the Spider Guild.
Reach don't, for the same reasons as demons - with less 'thousands of years of injecting Magical Evil and torture' and more 'nanotech mind-control on whatever scale they're confident they can get away with'.
Zoat, could you clarify?
It has been vaguely implied, but not made outright clear, that the following are true:
A) The Reach engage in mind control of all individuals within their grasp within certain limits. Like demons, one cannot be part of the Reach without wholly agreeing with them - because all dissenters are personality-killed or body-killed.
B) Paul knows this from a mix of GLC database entries and his own knowledge of canon.
This has not been made explicit in story, and would cast a very different light on what Paul has been doing if true.
Spider Guild gets treated with some degree of kindness because they have a culture of evil, but are not wholly dedicated to it, have individual variance beyond it, and could stop doing it in the future.
Demons don't, because one does not count as a demon unless they are personally, devotedly, near-irrevocably or wholly-irrevocably evil; if you aren't evil, your soul is butchered for power.
Gordanians do, for the same reasons as the Spider Guild.
Reach don't, for the same reasons as demons - with less 'thousands of years of injecting Magical Evil and torture' and more 'nanotech mind-control on whatever scale they're confident they can get away with'.
Zoat, could you clarify?
During the GLC-Reach war, did the Lanterns have lethal force engaged? And were the Reach given the GLC's full and undivided attention?
The explanation I was going to go for in my DC SI was that while the Reach were able to engage in total war against the Corps, the GLC themselves still had the no-kill rule, and they had most of their forces focused on the rest of the galactic crises. Meanwhile there weren't any worthwhile allies the GLC could call on for support in the area, so it was entirely Lanterns and primitive space fleets of neighboring races the Reach hadn't subsumed yet.
Emerald Oracle
Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force
- Location
- The Else
Y'know, it's sort of unfortunate we've just moved on from Tamaran. The latest issue of Green Lanterns revealed that tone of the ...new I suppose? First Seven Lanterns is actually a Tamaranean. Granted, he's from before his people evolved into quite so humanoid a form so he's a bit more feline, but given we've seen him for all of about 4 pages including his origin story I do find that Tyran'r is pretty awesome.
He has a real He-Man/Conan vibe to him, and he's still running around nowadays as the sentinel of the ancient Vault of Shadows in Sector 180, where the Guardians hide their honored dead secrets as opposed to the Chamber of Shadows, which was where they hid their prisoner secrets.
For what it's worth the other Seven revealed so far are an Old Goddess of Urgrund, a White Martian refugee from a Clint Eastwood movie, and an ancient female ancestor of the Dox family of Colu.
He has a real He-Man/Conan vibe to him, and he's still running around nowadays as the sentinel of the ancient Vault of Shadows in Sector 180, where the Guardians hide their honored dead secrets as opposed to the Chamber of Shadows, which was where they hid their prisoner secrets.
For what it's worth the other Seven revealed so far are an Old Goddess of Urgrund, a White Martian refugee from a Clint Eastwood movie, and an ancient female ancestor of the Dox family of Colu.
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- Location
- United states
Pretty sure Zoat outright mentioned that the Reach was just too big and technologically advanced for the GLC to fight without taking massive casualties, losing an immense amount of resources and taking decades to over a hundred years. People seem to keep overestimating power rings and underestimating the races that are very high on the tech tree.
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- Location
- australia
soooo the guardians decided to play "if i ignore it, it cant hurt me?" >.<
the problem is, if fighting the reach would be a Pyrrhic victory, ignoreing them long-term like the will-mainlining idiot-savants have is outright STUPIDITY.
long-term, its either "be crippled for several decades/ a human-mortal "generation" after breaking this rabidly expansionist polity apart, or have literally everything we EXIST for,everything we've WORKED for for EONS burnt to ashes when the force balance shifts enough that they decide to stop PRETENDING to follow the treaty"
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AFAIK, the first and only time the GLC Kill Restriction was lifted was during the War of Light when there were two other full scale Lantern Corps at war with them. Also, IIRC, the restriction was only lifted for Red Lanterns and Sinestro Corps members.
Empiricist2
Let's play doctor!
- Location
- Baton Rouge
Just because the GLC isn't fighting a war against them doesn't mean nothing is being done. The Guardians may be working on destabilising the Reach from the inside so as not to require the GLC to tear itself apart against them. Instigating a civil war so that the Reach rips itself apart then cleaning up the scraps is easier than fighting a unified Reach.
The Guardians have been in this business for millions of years, and are still alive and in power. They probably have something planned even if it isn't obvious.
Plus, while the Green Lantern Corps may not be taking shots at them, there's nothing saying the Corpse isn't.
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