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

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Empiricist2 said:
Posting this in the hopes of it being canonized, although I didn't talk with Zoat about it beforehand so I'm not going to be put out if it doesn't.

The Lantern counter to the new crumbler is similar to bubble wrap. Instead of concentric layers of shields, have a base shield, and lots of small, disconnected shields like bubbles on that layer. A singe crumbler bullet pops one small shield, but doesn't affect anything else. So it takes two sequential hits in the same area to break the base shield. Much cheaper than concentric shields.

Huh, I didn't realize how well tat time would work out. I only put in the time at the last second, and didn't read today's post before posting mine.
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You know, I don't see why all the focus is on passive defenses, I.E. armor. Kalmin mentioned ablative shielding to protect against active defenses, but that literally only protects against heat-based weaponry. Ballistic systems (slower but still perfectly servicable against merely hypersonic projectiles), freeze rays (may or may not halt internal mechanisms depending on the minutia), and focused counter-crumbler fields (depends on precisely how fast a crumbler crumbles), all would be very effective against this sort of round.

And active defenses can't possibly be hard for a ring to achieve, even against hypersonic projectiles. Honestly I'd expect rings to manage tracking even relativistic projectiles, though stopping them would be a issue. We can detect and intercept hypersonic projectiles with modern computer systems, and while admittedly its a little hard to make any sort of turret-like mechanism that can point at a high-speed projectile fired at close range it has been done.

So, if lanterns have access to hypertechnology but are still facing projectiles around the same velocity as we are, active defense becomes trivial. Intercepting it is cakewalk, and it is, after all, rather hard to armor a bullet.

Personally, since constructs appear to be able to do things like emit light, etc without any sort of internal mechanism required, I'd just opt for a series of simple spheres which project high intensity light at incoming projectiles, and have the ring handle the object recognition and such since they're so good at it anyway. Though this doesn't help for ablatively-shielded projectiles, and short-term ablative shielding is not particularly heavy or bulky, so a slug-throwing variant would be necessary. Not sure precisely what form that would take, I don't think constructs can themselves form/expand at hypersonic speeds given we've seen them moving at a relative snail's pace when OL has accelerated before. A viable system might be small magnetic masses suspended and accelerated via a spherical magnetic field, allowing nearly-omnidirectional lines of fire at a moment's notice.

Normally, in sci-fi when I see something like this come up, or rather, see it not come up, I just assume that there's a sort of ECM/ECCM arms race going on in the background that prevents fancy things like bullets which automatically steer into your opponent's skull, or hand-held active defenses that shoot down bullets trying to steer into your skull. But we clearly haven't had anything like that happen here, so it might just be a case of "This is a comic book universe with literally one sensible guy in it".
 
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Is that a parellel I see between the OL/MoM relationship and the Kent/Kara relationship (what with the "go make friends and call me if you need me" bits together like that)

What does it tell us?
 
sockmonkey said:
They keep saying that, but as a planet he could hold literally a billion visitors at a time without a problem. Would having a bunch of people on him creep him out?
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No, in fact there's a storyline in which he was invaded by basically humanoid space locusts- They move in, take everything that isn't nailed down, and then move on.

However, they hadn't realized that Mogo was a living planet.

When Mogo woke up, his response was to offer them the chance to stay and live on him. That offends their sensibilities, so they fly off to despoil the next planet.

Mogo tells Kyle (I think) that it's just as well, he would have been passive aggressive enough to give them miserable weather if they had said yes. Mogo doesn't like being strip mined as much as the next living planet.

Post Flashpoint, Mogo became the new Oa after Oa blew up if memory serves, so I imagine he's getting a lot more socialization in.
 
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Mr Zoat said:
I do actually like the idea of basing an episode around the power difference between high-end superheroes and regular folk, but this clearly wasn't going to be it. Episode after next for sure.
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Regular folk could mean anyone from the cops at Gotham, family members to The Team, or most people on Earth.

If it's Gotham, I can't wait to see if Paul will be uplifting the GCPD up to standards necessary to allow them to take on supercriminals without having to rely on Batman so often.

TWO-FACE: AND IF I DON'T GET MY MONEY, I'M GONNA-! ....What the HELL?

(looks dumbfoundedly at a swarm of high-tech drones descends from the sky, taser-lasers at the ready, each bearing the GCPD insignia on them)

TWO-FACE: ...F@#$-ING Orange Lantern.

Though, considering what's currently happening with Lois grilling Paul for info, methinks that it'll be her story on him that will set the scene for the "power talks".

Though hopefully, Lisa Snart will feature prominently in a future arc, particularly if Paul and Jade go see one of her performances, as she's still a professional ice skater, and thus is still one of the aforementioned, "regular folk"!
 
Monshroud said:
Regular folk could mean anyone from the cops at Gotham, family members to The Team, or most people on Earth.

If it's Gotham, I can't wait to see if Paul will be uplifting the GCPD up to standards necessary to allow them to take on supercriminals without having to rely on Batman so often.

TWO-FACE: AND IF I DON'T GET MY MONEY, I'M GONNA-! ....What the HELL?

(looks dumbfoundedly at a swarm of high-tech drones descends from the sky, taser-lasers at the ready, each bearing the GCPD insignia on them)

TWO-FACE: ...F@#$-ING Orange Lantern.
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All they need there is to upgrade to Metropolis/DC SCU standards.
 
stsword said:
Certainly did when the mad scientists in batman/alien whatever number used Batman's rogue gallery as the genetic donors for human xenomorph hybrid supersoldiers.
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There are shitloads of supersoldiers all over the place! I'm pretty sure they advertise on craigslist! Why would you need to make your own out of insane criminals?!?!?
 
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Alienated (part 12)
  • Threadmarks
    • 8th October
    17:34 GMT -5

    "Plato?" Raquel looks more curious than surprised. "I thought you liked Theory of Justice?"

    I slide the next batch of chopped celery into the cauldron-like saucepan. I'd rather gotten out of the habit of cooking for this many people. But given the amount of time I've been spending in the mountain since my return to Earth I can't really complain about getting kitchen duty every so often.

    "Sure, as a work of political philosophy. It just occurred to me that the only work of philosophy that covered superheroes was Republic."

    That gets a frown. "What you talking about? You were the one saying that Truggs was right about superheroes being a bit crazy but not crazy enough. Doesn't that match what Nietzschie-"

    "Nietzsche."

    "-said about creating new moralities? That it was confusing, uncomfortable and most people wouldn't do it."

    I nod as I start adding the stock. "Yeah. Yeah, fair point. It's just that from what I remember of Nietzsche, he thought that once someone did it-. "

    "They'd stick with it 'cause they'd already decided their old moral code was stupid. Whereas what you and Truggs think the League is doing is trying to stay within their old moral code while doing something that.. sometimes can't fit inside it."

    "I'm not sure that Nylor and I see it in quite the same way. But broadly…"

    She squints slightly. "Anyone ever tell you you've got a nasty mind?"

    "Not that specifically, no. But what I took away from Nietzsche was that having a morality you don't believe in is self destructive. So if none of us feel like joining the police force but insist on saying that police are important to law enforcement…"

    "That's a contradiction 'cause we don't act like we do. We fight crime, hunt down criminals and none of us really care what the police think about it 'cept when they actually try an' make an issue of us being vigilantes."

    "But if we don't actually believe in law and order, what do we believe? Or what should we? I mean, to my mind that's at least as important as hand-to-hand combat training. We're not just going to have to hit things in the field, we're going to have to make decisions with massive legal and political ramifications."

    "More you than me."

    "Really? Have you ever been to Arnus' homeworld?"

    "No. But… Huh."

    "Right. If he ever does decide to visit home, he'd probably-."

    She shakes her head. "I asked, and he told me he thinks of Earth as home."

    "Oh. Okay, well, his former home. You'd be the first Human to visit there. Not.. a government or UN appointed diplomat. You. And they'd probably form policy relating to us based on what you said. Remember how you felt when I said I'd started making more kinetic belts? Not doing that was a decision you made."

    "And you think I was wrong."

    "I think you were wrong. I don't know you were wrong. And I don't know what metric you were using to make that decision."

    "I didn't even think about it." Her eyes unfocus slightly as she sits back in her chair. "If you wanna make the world a better place…"

    "Take a look at yourself, and then make a change."

    "Which is how you got to Plato. Because of how he said guardians should be educated to be guardians, which is kinda what's happening to us."

    "The guardians weren't supposed to own property. Superheroes don't get paid. The difference is that the Guardians' upkeep was paid for by the state, while we're volunteers doing it pro bono publico. I still find it amusing that the most avowedly capitalist nation on Earth idolised Kal-El, a man who has never been paid for the work he does as Superman."

    "Do you think he should? Hell, do you think I should get Icon to release more Terminus technology?"

    "I don't know. What metric do you think you should use to decide?"

    She glances aside. "Whether Icon'll let me or not."

    "Heh. Well yeah, that's… Important. Given that he hasn't for.. two hundred years? I think we can guess what he thinks. But if we're talking about cultivating virtues in ourselves-."

    I look around as the door opens and Kon wanders in, followed by Roy and Kara. "Didn't Plato say that guardians shouldn't marry and people shouldn't know who their biological parents are?"

    "There's a logic to that. If-."

    A look of distaste passes over Kara's face. "If they don't know who their family are, they can't show them any preference."

    Raquel shakes her head. "No, they'd still identify with other guardians more than anyone else. And I'm pretty sure that anyone with a calendar could make a pretty good guess about which kid was whose."

    "Which leads us onto the problem of groupthink, and Mill and Taylor's insistence that free discussion on all topics was essential-."

    "When are we eating?"

    We all look at Roy. He shrugs.

    "Sorry to bring down the tone, but…"

    "About two hours." Chicken legs, bay leaf and turn up the heat a little… "You getting hungry already?"

    "Just wanna know if I've got time to rebuild my armour's targeting system before dinner."

    Kara sags. "I'm really sorry-."

    "Hey, it's not a problem."

    "What happened?"

    "She-." / "I-."

    They look at each other and Roy shrugs. She sighs. "Earth technology is… It's so much more primitive than what I had on Krypton. I keep thinking that I should be able to use what I know to improve things. Except it's so much less advanced and.. just.. alien that nothing I know applies to it. And I got frustrated and I.. kind of forgot I had super strength, and…"

    Ooh. I look at Roy. "Can you fix it, or do you want me to-?"

    "Really, it's not a problem. I like working on my armour." He turns away, smiling as he does so. "I'll be finished before dinner."

    Maybe Red Arrow gave me a rather slanted impression, but he's surprisingly easy-going.

    Raquel sits back so she can look at Kara without straining her neck. "If you're having trouble with your flying, you could try out the ring course."

    "I'm.. not sure that it's a good idea for me to fly inside a mountain. I can fly through mountains."

    Kon shakes his head. "It's not a problem. After I bounced off the walls and ceiling a few times we added in kinetic barriers. If you miss your turn now you just stop."

    "Okay…" She nods, perking up slightly. "Yeah, that sounds like fun. But… Do the barriers cover the floor as well?"
     
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