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

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Marcus.D.Basterd said:
I was talking more along the lines of the timeline itself, rather then any one thing living or happening in it, being unstable, and i thought that it was a reasonable assumption to make seeing as this one needed more intervention to happen then the one we are more familiar with; occam's razor and all that.
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How did the new one need 'more intervention'?

It only needed 1 time traveler (2 if you include Trapper talking Savage into taking the risks) changing 1 event to cause a shift that lead to a very different direction

Paragon timeline had Truggs, Abrakadabra, Pursuader, Per Dagton's goon squad, the golden gynoid, Rip Hunter, Goldstein, the LSH, possibly others I'm forgetting, all fucking around with history. I'd say theat's the one with 'more intervention'.

As for the timestream itself, I don't see the new one being any more (or less) unstable than the old one. Once you have successfully altered the path of history, the time stream doesn't try to spontaneously change back, it just keeps following the new path. Time itself doesn't care what path it takes.
 
Norgarth said:
As for the timestream itself, I don't see the new one being any more (or less) unstable than the old one. Once you have successfully altered the path of history, the time stream doesn't try to spontaneously change back, it just keeps following the new path. Time itself doesn't care what path it takes.
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Actually wasn't it established previously that time does have elasticity, and tries to snap back?

Didn't Rip Hunter mention that?
 
stsword said:
Actually wasn't it established previously that time does have elasticity, and tries to snap back?

Didn't Rip Hunter mention that?
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Honestly, since at least one of those time travelers was definitely lying/mistaken about how time travel works, I'm not even bothering to pay attention to what any of them said about it, let alone who said what.
 
Norgarth said:
How did the new one need 'more intervention'?

It only needed 1 time traveler (2 if you include Trapper talking Savage into taking the risks) changing 1 event to cause a shift that lead to a very different direction

Paragon timeline had Truggs, Abrakadabra, Pursuader, Per Dagton's goon squad, the golden gynoid, Rip Hunter, Goldstein, the LSH, possibly others I'm forgetting, all fucking around with history. I'd say theat's the one with 'more intervention'.

As for the timestream itself, I don't see the new one being any more (or less) unstable than the old one. Once you have successfully altered the path of history, the time stream doesn't try to spontaneously change back, it just keeps following the new path. Time itself doesn't care what path it takes.
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Because that means that any time traveler that is actually strictly needed for the timestream to exist could be retroactively stopped from doing so "at" any point, if that makes sense, which i imagine would effect the timeline they are in in something like the same way that the tail of a prince ruperts drop effects the drop.


Norgarth said:
As CD said, the Time travelers seem to have different views on that, plus this timeline seems to have maintained itself for what, 1000 years? Sounds pretty damn stable to me.
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...Mesured in what exactly? How do you even determine how long a timeline has stuck around for?
 
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Iron Roby said:
You don't seem to hold your own position:

to the same standard of reasoning. Because "there are patterns in history regardless of culture" and "there aren't" are, fundamentally, equal opposite hypotheses, which can be (dis)proven by trying to search for such patterns in factual history.

I think I found some (specifically about social development), you think you didn't. That means one of us is wrong and I can accept that you think it's me, but that my position is somehow inherently more irrational than yours is a strawman.
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'Historical Constants' are vastly different than 'Inevitability.' You're mistaking one for the other. Furthermore, change is an effect, not a cause. Your stance on 'calcification of the social hierarchy' doesn't touch on whether or not that system is functional, merely that it's old and structured. Changing a functioning governmental system which relies on meritocratic promotion just because you don't agree with its precepts shows bias against that system, not a desire to create a better-functioning one without evidence.

Insofar as removing context goes, bravo, because you've just taken my quote wildly out of it right after you falsely accused me of the same.

Also, learn what a Strawman Argument actually is, please. Unless you're going to refute your earlier position where you called the pressures of democracy inevitable, I've limited myself to what you've given me to work with. It's not strawman to state your argument is a political narrative based on internal logic instead of factual evidence.

I have never once used the words illogical or irrational to describe your stance.

I also don't think you're wrong, not on the actual issue itself, at least, because your stance is an opinion, not an argument. An opinion can be 'good/bad,' but it can't be 'wrong.'

My problem is that you're using the word 'inevitable' where the word 'should' goes. You're describing a series of events and political exchanges that should happen according to your beliefs about how people and the world work. That is an opinion which you're presenting as a fact. You're not being illogical or irrational, you're constructing a narrative which disallows you the possibility of being wrong, which means you can throw away any evidence I present as insufficient.

I don't want to play a game where your primary rule is 'I win' or at the very least, 'I can't lose.'
 
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Marcus.D.Basterd said:
Because that means that any time traveler that is actually strictly needed for the timestream to exist could be retroactively stopped from doing so "at" any point, if that makes sense, which i imagine would effect the timeline they are in in something like the same way that the tail of a prince ruperts drop effects the drop.
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Well it looks like most of the timetravellers from the old timeline don't exist in the new one (otherwise you'd think they would have done something to try and reset the timestream to what they believe is the 'right' configuration.

Marcus.D.Basterd said:
...Mesured in what exactly? How do you even determine how long a timeline has stuck around for?
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I was going by time from the divergence point to the present. But if a timeline can be disrupted/replaced without actually being at the deviation point, and replaced with a different one with all memories/history rewritten seamlessly,
then it becomes impossible to measure the stability of any timeline.
 
Norgarth said:
Well it looks like most of the timetravellers from the old timeline don't exist in the new one (otherwise you'd think they would have done something to try and reset the timestream to what they believe is the 'right' configuration.
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Isn't that sort of what happened with the Coluan from the other timeline?
Norgarth said:
I was going by time from the divergence point to the present. But if a timeline can be disrupted/replaced without actually being at the deviation point, and replaced with a different one with all memories/history rewritten seamlessly,
then it becomes impossible to measure the stability of any timeline.
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I was thinking more along the lines of how it would be impossibly to judge which point would count as the "present", since that is a purely subjective existance, and thus any mesurement based on it would also be subjective.

And how exactly would a timeline, or a transportation of something from one point along it to another, be "at" a point along said timeline? By the logic that it is possible to change any one part of it without being from a different part of it, if that makes any sense, any timeline effecting...Effect (affect?), baring those with anomalous existances (i'm thinking anything whos behavior under chaos theory is able to break past the self correcting nature of timelines), would need to come from a different point in that same timeline, which may fall under a meta-timeline which is itself predetermined anyway.

But all of this doesn't matter, because i was talking about the stability and reliability of the disruption event in the first place; you can trust a timeline itself as much as you want, but i wouldn't trust something i don't have any resistance against with something like those time traveling annoyances.
 
Zap Rowsdower said:
Nope, the Mandate puts the Guardians on a peer level with the Emperor. The Emperor cannot give them orders and the Guardians can't give him orders, and they are free to mutually advise and criticise each other.
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I'd be surprised if the Emperor couldn't revoke the Mandate if a Guardian went rogue or something.
 
Crimson Doom said:
Well, Constantine definitely took Nabu's power, that much is fact. Whether that means he's filling the "Lord of Order" slot is up for debate.

Also, if Nabu was lobotomized, he was lobotomized fatally. He's dead, Jim.
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John couldn't take Nabu's power, taking Klarion's connection to Chaos was possible because Klarion took another familiar.

Nabu never did that, so John couldn't take his connection to Order and graft it to his soul, it wasn't up for grabs.

However, since Nabu was lobotomized, John could take the helmet, and with it, the connection to Order the lobotomized Nabu still has.

I believe he's essentially using Nabu/the helmet of fate as the magical equivalent of a lantern's power battery, the same as Klarion was presumably hoping to do when he tried to steal the helmet, and a parallel to Zatara using the construct helmet of fate as a power boost in Gravy's version of Earth-16.

So Nabu is better than dead, he wouldn't be useful if he were dead.

Plus if he went to an afterlife he could potentially come back.

Plus since Nabu never died, Order isn't assigning a replacement.
 
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Mandated (part 18)
  • Threadmarks
    • 24th October
    13:12 GMT +4:30

    Jade shakes her head. "All the rest are covered, but we don't have anyone in Europe who can get there quickly enough."

    I look at Abadun. "I don't suppose that you could teleport us?"

    "Could we? Yes. But we are keeping ourselves for high urgency tasks. There are not an unlimited number of monks here."

    Jade sighs. "We'll just have to fly there ourselves." She turns away to start towards the exit. "Come on. The sooner we start-" She rises into the air with me hot on her heels. "-the sooner we finish."

    "That sounds like defeatist talk to me. Ring, call Harmonious One."

    "Calling."

    Jade glances back as we negotiate the corridors at speed, heading for the open air. "Harmonious One? You can't bring him here!"

    "We'll be out of Persian air space by the time he can respond."

    Brrrrring!

    I generate a phone construct and raise it to my head. "Orange Lantern to Harmonious One."

    "Oh exalted one, My Lord Lantern! How gracious of you-"

    "Can we not?"

    "-to remember that this… Humble functionary-"

    "Do you want to help or not?"

    "-is your most obedient-"

    "We might lose the last six hundred years."

    "-s-. Ah. Should I come to you?"

    "Yes please. Meet us at the Persia/Europe border."

    "Oh, yes. It's only a few hundred miles long. It won't be hard at all to spot a single man-sized object. When you say 'lose the last six hundred-"

    Jade's scramjets fire with deafening force as we get far enough away from the monastery to use them.

    "-years', what exactly do you mean by that?"

    "Are you on your way?"

    "Yes. It just takes a moment or two for the hat to get big enough."

    "A Vandal Savage from an alternate time line created this timeline six hundred years ago by travelling back in time and causing the Night of Stone Knives. Now he's back in this present and we don't know where he is or what he's doing."

    "Oh. Ah. Wait a moment." I trigger my scramjets while he thinks about it. "Ah… The hat… It's.. talking to me."

    "Is it talking about how to get us to Europe faster?"

    "It's.. talking.. about time. Ooooh, it's all so beautiful."

    I accelerate to catch up with Jade. Of course, Nabu's anti-chaos magic user sentiment might not be entirely unjustified. I once saw the Harmonious One spend four hours staring at a plasma ball, and the hat itself talking is.. not a good omen as far as productivity is concern-.

    A red slash tears across the sky, and Jade and I fly straight into it!

    24th October
    11:18 GMT +3

    And out of it-! And… We're here? I decelerate as the countryside of Wallachia flashes past. The Heavenly Guardians have an… Understanding with King Vlad, which means that he shouldn't take umbrage at this violation of his territory. And as the number one cause of the Persian Empire not expanding into Europe he also has one with the rest of the continent, including the parts that would ideally like to see him staked at a crossroad. The holiday home which Mr Truggs fingered as having an auxiliary function as Savage's getaway is rapidly approaching, a translucent dancing dragon circling around it suggesting that Harmonious One got here ahead of us.

    Jade smiles at me as she loses altitude. "If he was that efficient normally I'd actually try getting him promoted."

    "I don't think the hat paying attention to current events is likely to be a good thing."

    The Harmonious One himself is near the front door, gesticulating at.. a couple of figures in cloth-swathed armour. Vampire knights of the Order of the Dragon. Overcast sky? Yes. Vulnerability to sunlight becomes much less important when your elite can control the weather. Screaming face tabard means… Scream Queen, and the Cross of St George with a blood droplet means.. Andrew Bennett.

    He looks up as we approach. "Lanterns. What brings you here?"

    Jade lands just in front of him. "According to an informant, this is one of Vandal Savage's hideouts."

    "Vandal Savage? I thought that I recognised the scent from somewhere."

    I land next to Jade. "If you're not here for him..?"

    Scream Queen turns her helmeted head towards the manor. "Blood. It's officially a collection of holiday flats, but now it reeks of blood. About… Thirty different sources, which are as many people as are registered as staying here. Local police opened the door, saw the bodies and then called us."

    None of us make a joke of it. The Order test the self control of aspirants extremely harshly before letting them join, and the penalty for a knight who loses control on active duty is to be impaled and left in sunlight. It's not as quick as some films make it look.

    Jade nods, then gestures towards the door. "It's your country. But we need any clues on Savage's current whereabouts."

    Mr Bennett nods. "Of course. Do you have an accurate plan of the-?"

    Scan and map.

    A three dimensional model of the manor's interior appears before me. It's divided into apartments with some common areas… Mr Truggs said that only a handful were ever occupied at any one time, with the rest being reserved for Savage or his guests. Mr Bennett and Scream Queen look it over and then move, their bodies and armour partially transformed into mist to enable them to run at superhuman speed and flow around obstacles.

    I monitor their progress through the manor as Jade waves her right hand in front of Harmonious One's unresponsive face. "Harmonious One?"

    "Something's very wrong, you know." He.. sort of manages to focus on her. "Destiny is not so flexible as to allow time to be mistaken."

    "The only 'mistake' is that Savage is free."

    "No… No, you don't akgh." He winces, pulls the hat from his head and then fans himself with it. "A history that has already happened has a momentum to it, a presence that continues even when the history ends. For little shifts it can be lost in the background… Correct itself. But for major changes energy has to come from somewhere. Sustaining… Us, for six hundred years… The hat isn't sure how it could be done. But then I thought… Were we here for six hundred years last week? Because if we weren't, then the equation starts to look a lot more possible."

    That sounds like something I should worry about. "What happens when the power runs out?"

    "The hat doesn't know, but at a rough guess? The universe makes itself as much like what it should be in the most efficient way possible. That… Probably isn't survivable for us."
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • What's hilarious to me is that a whiles back I had an idea for a SI fic called Another Sort of Ring, where said ornament is the Von Carstein ring and - he wakes up long ago during Teth Adom's time- he is an eternal foe to Savage and Al Ghul- and he met the JSA in WW2- stufff like that.
     
    Typos:

    Mr Zoat said:
    "Could we? Yes. But we are keeping ourselves for high urgency tasks. There are not an unlimited number of monks here.
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    Missing end quote.

    Mr Zoat said:
    Scream Queen turns her helmeted head towards the manor. "Blood. It's officially a collection of holiday flats, but now it reeks of blood. About… Thirty different sources, which as many people as are registered as staying here.
    Click to expand...
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    "are as"
     
    Mr Zoat said:
    24th October
    13:12 GMT +4:30

    Jade shakes her head. "All the rest are covered, but we don't have anyone in Europe who can get there quickly enough."

    I look at Abadun. "I don't suppose that you could teleport us?"

    "Could we? Yes. But we are keeping ourselves for high urgency tasks. There are not an unlimited number of monks here.

    Jade sighs. "We'll just have to fly there ourselves." She turns away to start towards the exit. "Come on. The sooner we start-" She rises into the air with me hot on her heels. "-the sooner we finish."

    "That sounds like defeatist talk to me. Ring, call Harmonious One."

    "Calling."

    Jade glances back as we negotiate the corridors at speed, heading for the open air. "Harmonious One? You can't bring him here!"

    "We'll be out of Persian air space by the time he can respond."

    Brrrrring!

    I generate a phone construct and raise it to my head. "Orange Lantern to Harmonious One."

    "Oh exalted one, My Lord Lantern! How gracious of you-"

    "Can we not?"

    "-to remember that this… Humble functionary-"

    "Do you want to help or not?"

    "-is your most obedient-"

    "We might lose the last six hundred years."

    "-s-. Ah. Should I come to you?"

    "Yes please. Meet us at the Persia/Europe border."

    "Oh, yes. It's only a few hundred miles long. It won't be hard at all to spot a single man-sized object. When you say 'lose the last six hundred-"

    Jade's scramjets fire with deafening force as we get far enough away from the monastery to use them.

    "-years', what exactly do you mean by that?"

    "Are you on your way?"

    "Yes. It just takes a moment or two for the hat to get big enough.""

    "A Vandal Savage from an alternate time line created this timeline six hundred years ago by travelling back in time and causing the Night of Stone Knives. Now he's back in this present and we don't know where he is or what he's doing."

    "Oh. Ah. Wait a moment." I trigger my scramjets while he thinks about it. "Ah… The hat… It's.. talking to me."

    "Is it talking about how to get us to Europe faster?"

    "It's.. talking.. about time. Ooooh, it's all so beautiful."

    I accelerate to catch up with Jade. Of course, Nabu's anti-chaos magic user sentiment might not be entirely unjustified. I once saw the Harmonious One spend four hours staring at a plasma ball, and the hat itself talking is.. not a good omen as far as productivity is concern-.

    A red slash tears across the sky, and Jade and I fly straight into it!

    24th October
    11:18 GMT +3

    And out of it-! And… We're here? I decelerate as the countryside of Wallachia flashes past. The Heavenly Guardians have an… Understanding with King Vlad, which means that he shouldn't take umbrage at this violation of his territory. And as the number one cause of the Persian Empire not expanding into Europe he also has one with the rest of the continent, including the parts that would ideally like to see him staked at a crossroad. The holiday home which Mr Truggs fingered as having an auxiliary function as Savage's getaway is rapidly approaching, a translucent dancing dragon circling around it suggesting that Harmonious One got here ahead of us.

    Jade smiles at me as she loses altitude. "If he was that efficient normally I'd actually try getting him promoted."

    "I don't think the hat paying attention to current events is likely to be a good thing."

    The Harmonious One himself near the front door, gesticulating at.. a couple of figures in cloth-swathed armour. Vampire knights of the Order of the Dragon. Overcast sky? Yes. Vulnerability to sunlight becomes much less important when your elite can control the weather. Screaming face tabard means… Scream Queen, and the Cross of St George with a blood droplet means.. Andrew Bennett.

    He looks up as we approach. "Lanterns. What brings you here?"

    Jade lands just in front of him. "According to an informant, this is one of Vandal Savage's hideouts."

    "Vandal Savage? I thought that I recognised the scent from somewhere."

    I land next to Jade. "If you're not here for him..?"

    Scream Queen turns her helmeted head towards the manor. "Blood. It's officially a collection of holiday flats, but now it reeks of blood. About… Thirty different sources, which as many people as are registered as staying here. Local police opened the door, saw the bodies and then called us."

    None of us make a joke of it. The Order test the self control of aspirants extremely harshly before letting them join, and the penalty for a knight who loses control on active duty is to be impaled and left in sunlight. It's not as quick as some films make it look.

    Jade nods, then gestures towards the door. "It's your country. But we need any clues on Savage's current whereabouts."

    Mr Bennett nods. "Of course. Do you have an accurate plan of the-?"

    Scan and map.

    A three dimensional model of the manor's interior appears before me. It's divided into apartments with some common areas… Mr Truggs said that only a handful were ever occupied at any one time, with the rest being reserved for Savage or his guests. Mr Bennett and Scream Queen look it over and then move, their bodies and armour partially transformed into mist to enable them to run at superhuman speed and flow around obstacles.

    I monitor their progress through the manor as Jade waves her right hand in front of Harmonious One's unresponsive face. "Harmonious One?"

    "Something's very wrong, you know." He.. sort of manages to focus on her. "Destiny is not so flexible as to allow time to be mistaken."

    "The only 'mistake' is that Savage is free."

    "No… No, you don't akgh." He winces, pulls the hat from his head and then fans himself with it. "A history that has already happened has a momentum to it, a presence that continues even when the history ends. For little shifts it can be lost in the background… Correct itself. But for major changes energy has to come from somewhere. Sustaining… Us, for six hundred years… The hat isn't sure how it could be done. But then I thought… Were we here for six hundred years last week? Because if we weren't, then the equation starts to look a lot more possible."

    That sounds like something I should worry about. "What happens when the power runs out?"

    "The hat doesn't know, but at a rough guess? The universe makes itself as much like what it should be in the most efficient way possible. That… Probably isn't survivable for us."
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    Well the choice is now out of their hands, either they fix things and their timeline is erased, or the earth blows up anyways.
     
    Mr Zoat said:
    Sustaining… Us, for six hundred years… The hat isn't sure how it could be done. But then I thought… Were we here for six hundred years last week? Because if we weren't, then the equation starts to look a lot more possible.
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    This reminds me of Terry Pratchett. In one of his books some people said something like the following:

    "How long has that shop been there?"

    "What? It's always been there."

    "Yes, but had it always been there yesterday?"

    [EDIT] Oh, GreatGreyStrike got there slightly slower but with the ACTUAL QUOTE. I guess you win this one! *shakes fist angrily*

    Chaoswind said:
    Well the choice is now out of their hands, either they fix things and their timeline is erased, or the earth blows up anyways.
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    At some point this may turn into a case of evacuating friends and family.



    By the way, I suggest not quoting entire story posts. If you aren't responding to a particular part, just the first few lines of the post should be enough.
     
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    Mr Zoat said:
    Were we here for six hundred years last week?
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    This is positively Pratchettian. Specifically - Soul Music:
    'That shop,' said Sergeant Colon. 'That shop there ... was it there yesterday?'

    Nobby looked at the peeling paint, the little grime-encrusted window, the rickety door. "Course,' he said. 'It's always been there. Been there years.'

    Colon crossed the street and rubbed at the grime. There were dark shapes vaguely visible in the gloom. 'Yeah, right,' he mumbled. 'It's just that ... I mean ... was it there for years yesterday?'
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    And in The Last Continent:
    O' course, when I say thirty thousand years,' said the kangaroo, 'I mean it depends how you look at it. Even them hand paintings on the top've been there five thousand years, see. And those faint ones ... Oh, yes, got to be pretty old, tens of thousands of years, except—'

    'Except what?'

    'They weren't here last week, mate.'

    'You're saying they've been here for ages ... but not for very long?'

    'See? I knew you was clever.'
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    And that would explain why this timeline is going to cease to be, because they straight up can't do anything about it. It's too distinct from the natural flow of time, so it can't be corrected for via judicious use of time travel. Probably, anyway.

    There may be some survivors of the timeline, if they can whip up the tech for it, but it's going to be Jor-El time shortly at best. Though, hm, given that the Phantom Zone is beyond space and time it's entirely possible they could port the planet's population into it and then out again after the timeline had reset. The Phantom Zone is weird.
     
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