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

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I was agreeing with you save for your whole thoughts on the technology not being there; that we aren't going to agree on since evidently you're discarding any technology developed by Lex Luthor. Who I'm with Paul on; he's a businessman until proven otherwise by something other than meta-knowledge which may or may not be accurate. I'm more than willing to bet that he'd be thrilled to have his company involved with space stuff.

Earlier in WTR we've seen that Star Labs has been developing robotics off the stuff Morrow developed ages ago, so they should be well ahead of us and we can program robots to do surgery. It might take a series of robotic gimbals and whatnot else but they could easily use robotics for assembly and such.

I don't think they should try fueling via dolmen gate because it would be a major problem once you got past the Earth's magic field, however far that extends. A lunar or space station based setup would work quite well on the other hand.

A tractor beam is easily doable in Young Justice; considering they've developed them in real life back in 2013 (for microscopic objects), I can't find the YJ tractor beam that I was remembering so it's probably from the greater DC Universe.

All else fails Paul has a good relationship with Ted Cord and is introducing other technologies through his company; it'd take a longer amount of time for him to be able to break down stuff and duplicate force fields and tractor beams but if you want them they're there.
 
Justice Society IS, relatively speaking, "new." In the grand scale of human civilization, half a century (give or take) is nothing, and JS was never large-scale enough to really warrant special legislation -- it could essentially be handled on a case-by-case basis, and then after it disbanded nobody really thought much about it until supers started showing up in larger numbers.

EDIT: By the way: The Dolmen-refueled ship is actually a better idea than it sounds on the surface, because the hardest part of spaceflight (in terms of energy consumption) is the initial launch. Being able to refuel once in orbit makes interplanetary flight MUCH more viable. Otherwise you have to design a vessel that can hold enough fuel to get itself off the ground AND then also be light enough to propel itself across interplanetary space... while still having enough fuel to do so.
 
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You are missing the point. The point that more than 50 years is more than enough since anyone under 50 has been born in a world with superheroes and supervillains and is also more than enough for the law and society to adapt.

Also then we have things like Black Adam that existed even in the show and we realize that the whole thing about super heroes being new in Young Justice is a a lie. They were more new in the former DCAU than in Young Justice. Since Justice League didn't have a Justice Society yet YJ did.

So yeah, talk about lies.
 
Godogma said:
We have the tech to make a spaceship hull that's much better than what NASA used; they damn sure have materials technology that's superior to ours in YJ...
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We have the tech today. Did we have it in 1974, when the Shuttle's configuration was decided? Remember, the Shuttle was much like the Apollo program--it relied on technology and materials that hadn't even been invented when the program started. And cost is VERY MUCH a factor, even more so when you get away from the bureaucracy of the government and into private sector operations; indeed, the design that NASA chose was actually not the least expensive option considered initially, with much of the cost being spent on capabilities required for an Air Force mission that the White House forced NASA and the Pentagon to merge with the Shuttle program to "reduce costs" by not having vaguely-parallel development programs. The cost cutting came later, after the basic design was selected, to try and pinch pennies in a perpetually shrinking budget environment--and at least two examples of it cost lives, so it's a bit of a sensitive topic.

We don't have superior propulsion tech than hydrogen rockets in RL... they do in YJ...
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Oh, but we do. At least, for certain applications. Kerosene rockets are much better for lower stages, due to not having to have as much deadweight in thermal insulation, and for propulsion once you've reached orbit, we've got plenty of alternatives. Hypergolics are preferred to hydrogen for high-thrust applications requiring multistart capability because they don't require an ignition source, we've successfully tested ion engines and are now using them on a number of unmanned probes and even on communications satellites (for fine-tuning the final orbit), and there's also the nuclear thermal rocket that we got through the end of the static-test stage back in the late 60s as the NERVA program. Hell, we've even done a test flight of a solar sail recently. Chemical rockets, however, remain the best politically-acceptable option for getting from surface to LEO, however (since Project Orion-style nuclear pulse propulsion is... messy)--and they are in YJ, too, given that there was, y'know, the whole mission where the team was protecting a space launch that clearly used a chemical rocket. (Judging by the exhaust plume, a kerosene-LOX rocket, to be specific.)

They have forcefields in YJ, we don't.
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We do. They're still in laboratory status, but DARPA has successfully lab-tested forcefields that could be used as transparent protection for military vehicles in the future; the current estimate is that we'll probably be able to start testing practical ones in the late 2020s. And that's just the unclassified information; it's quite likely that they're about ten years ahead of that in the "black project" world.

Am I being salty about bureaucracy? Yes, anyone that's remotely interested in space would be irate about how NASA's bureaucracy decided to do things.
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It wasn't "NASA's bureaucracy" that decided to do things that way. It was the White House, in the form of Vice President Spiro Agnew, that made the decision that we would follow the path we did. NASA's original plans for a Space Shuttle were for a small reusable spaceplane that would use a relatively small (Titan II-class) booster as a first stage, possibly refitting the booster with some form of flyback/recovery technology to let it be reused, which would be used to ferry crews and supplies to Skylab and a follow-on space station, with new low-cost expendable/semi-reusable boosters for launching satellites and an Apollo-derived program for further lunar exploration and a manned Mars mission. Agnew cancelled every aspect of that except the first Skylab station (which would only be served with leftover Apollo hardware) and the Shuttle itself, which he insisted be combined with the Air Force's requirement for a spaceplane that could launch into polar orbit, do... things to Soviet satellites, and then land back at the launch site after just one orbit or put massive spy satellites into orbit. That dictated the size of the spacecraft, which then dictated a lot of other things that made the Shuttle into a committee-designed clusterfuck of inefficiency.

There's a damned good reason that all American spacecraft of the post-Shuttle era have been variations on the Apollo "capsule" concept--it's by far the most efficient way to do things.
 
As far as what can be built on Earth 16, consider that the Light built multiple flying, space capable Ice Fortresses and used them for an expendable distraction.
 
Godogma said:
I was agreeing with you save for your whole thoughts on the technology not being there; that we aren't going to agree on since evidently you're discarding any technology developed by Lex Luthor.
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More like a large chunk of what he uses isn't exactly commerciable due to using alien parts, machines or compounds (hello kryptonite) that can't be reproduced, another large chunk now falls to 'magic', which hits the bottleneck of magic users, which gets worse considering who he called to protect his home.

Another good chunk he keeps for himself and doesn't share, much like every other superscientist ever.
Godogma said:
Who I'm with Paul on; he's a businessman until proven otherwise by something other than meta-knowledge which may or may not be accurate. I'm more than willing to bet that he'd be thrilled to have his company involved with space stuff.
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He is part of the Light, you know?
We have proof that he is a supervillain with all the hoarding tropes it entails in YJ, we know a chunk of this is also true in WTR.
We have Cadmus, we have the Starro thing, we have his AI, the forcefield of his home (which we don't even know if it was reproducible tech, but he certainly isn't selling), the defenses on his building, the bodyguard with a laser gun arm (tho he was enticing not!korea with that tech, but it's quite minor in comparison). If we extend to the tech the Light has shown or things from YJ that haven't come to pass, it goes significantly further.

All things he's not sharing and he's only using for self-preservation or super-villainy.

Just because Paul is in denial and somehow believes he can redeem Luthor doesn't make him any less of a villain.

Not that he's against making a buck, but he's against using his coolest toys to do it.
Godogma said:
All else fails Paul has a good relationship with Ted Cord and is introducing other technologies through his company; it'd take a longer amount of time for him to be able to break down stuff and duplicate force fields and tractor beams but if you want them they're there.
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This requires him to do the opposite of what he said in the press conference about sharing alien tech.

Avernus said:
Yes it is. OL has been repeatedly and loudly complaining about all the technology that is ignored or outright suppressed on Earth 16.
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He is repeatedly and loudly complaining about the super crowd not sharing the good toys.

You know what the result of that is? everybody else not having those toys. There being nobody else with the tech knowledge and experience to replicate most of this stuff because it wasn't shared in the first place.

So no, the tech is not there to do it, and definitely not in a cost-effective fashion because the personnel and the industry are entirely absent.

Avernus said:
As far as what can be built on Earth 16, consider that the Light built multiple flying, space capable Ice Fortresses and used them for an expendable distraction.
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Truggs cheated massively on the engines of those, so you can't consider them what YJverse regular industry can make.
 
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aabbcc said:
He is repeatedly and loudly complaining about the super crowd not sharing the good toys.

You know what the result of that is? everybody else not having those toys. There being nobody else with the tech knowledge and experience to replicate most of this stuff because it wasn't shared in the first place.
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He was complaining about it being actively suppressed by the non-super crowd.

The image changes again. "This is a picture of Earth's first interplanetary teleporter. Show of hands, who thinks it was developed since two thousand?" I wait patiently while they look around and a few hands start to creep up. "Come on, don't be shy. Okay, keep them up aaand raise yours if you think it was developed since nineteen ninety?" More hands. Most are now up. "Good, thanks for playing along. Nineteen eighty?" A few more. "Okay, thank you, you can put them down. That, is Professor Erdel's original zeta tube generator. It was built in the nineteen fifties. When it was first activated-" I set the display to do a slideshow of pictures taken from newspapers of the time. "-it caused brownouts and blackouts across three states and transported Mister J'onn J'onzz -the Martian Manhunter- to Earth from Mars. Take a moment to think about that. Earth has had interplanetary teleportation technology for sixty years."

"President Nixon approved the development of the space shuttle in nineteen sixty nine. It costs four hundred and fifty million dollars to launch a space shuttle today. Once you factor in all of the other costs of the program it works out as costing over a billion dollars per launch. All that time, Doctor Erdel's company was being denied funding by the Federal Government. Despite having a product that was -by galactic standards-" I switch the slide back to the graph. "-something we might have expected to develop about two hundred years later. They limped by for decades on university funding, only able to make small scale models and tests. A ride to the moon via a current generation zeta tube would cost you about forty dollars a time once the system was set up. And today, the only people who use zeta tubes on Earth are the Justice League."

Another round of eye contact. "And if that fact makes you angry? Then you're in good company, because it makes me bloody angry. Human technological development is being retarded by stupid people. And I'm not having it any more."

<snip>

"Doctor Morrow was building AI's in the nineteen thirties and today they're just about the only ones that exist." The hologram shows a family photo of him with his three creations. "Why? Clifford DeVoe built a cybernetic implant that made him telepathic and telekinetic in the forties, a device that let a pudgy man in his fifties take on the Justice Society." The display shifts to show a newspaper picture from the time. "Not 'a member of the Justice Society'. All of them. At once." I take a metal helmet out of subspace. "This is as accurate a recreation as I can make. This thing uses transistors, for goodness sake. So where's my gods damned telepathy machine?" I take the new and improved model out of subspace. It takes the form of a skullcap. "This is what it looks like if you make one using modern technology instead. We're still working on how to safely and removably attach it to someone's brain." I send them both back into subspace.
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Avernus said:
He was complaining about it being actively suppressed by the non-super crowd.
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He has one example of being ignored (which may be the fault of the guy not knowing how to market it, a lot of stupider and harebrained shit has gotten funding IRL, and any idiot can see a military application to proven teleportation tech), the others were 100% complaining about underwear crowd hogging and mad scientists being mad scientists, he later postulated that outright suppression could be a cause for a potential, say, Vacuum Man, but he didn't provide actual examples.

Now, granted, it could certainly happen, but the specific techs being discussed as not being there, those being tractor beam and robotics good and flexible enough to do the proposed job outside the caped crowd, should not be affected by that.
 
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aabbcc said:
He has one example of being ignored (which may be the fault of the guy not knowing how to market it, a lot of stupider and harebrained shit has gotten funding IRL, and any idiot can see a military application to proven teleportation tech), the others were 100% complaining about underwear crowd hogging and mad scientists being mad scientists, he later postulated that outright suppression could be a cause for a potential, say, Vacuum Man, but he didn't provide actual examples.
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I didn't want to quote two entire snippets.

You are clearly trying to re-interpret the story Mr Zoat is writing. It's been made clear in-story again and again that available technology just isn't being used. If that doesn't fit the way you personally want the setting to work, well, you can write your own YJ fan fiction; nobody will stop you. But Mr Zoat isn't required to write it that way.
 
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Carpe Tempus (part 6)
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    • 20th March
    12:18 GMT +3

    "You've really lived in the Underworld your whole life?"

    Melinoë glances at me and rolls her eyes again as we fly back over the orchard, heading in the direction of the Gate of Dusk. Turns out that the inhabitants don't have a way of telling directions relative to the ones we living folk use upstairs. Instead of following the magnetic field or the direction of the planet's rotation they refer to directions by the nearest Gate, the four fortified entry points to the Underworld. Most of the Dead enter from the Gate of Shades… South, if you like. Unusually heroic souls -or those favoured by one god or another- would simply turn up in the west, through the Gate of Dawn. To the 'north' is the Gate of Horn and Ivory, a direct passage to the Dreaming for anyone willing to chance it.

    "Erebos."

    "Gesundheit."

    "What?"

    "In German, it's the polite thing to say after someone sneezes. You said a word without any explanation that would let me work out what you were talking about, so you may as well just have sneezed."

    She scowls. "Nearly every pantheon has somewhere for their worshippers' dead. If you call it 'The Underworld' the whole time no one knows which one you're talking about. This is Erebos, after the Titan whom Father defeated."

    "Odd to name your kingdom after a fallen enemy."

    "Not when you use his body to make it."

    I nod and look around. I assume that there's a roof somewhere above us but I can't see it and the ring's scans get a bit odd when I try detecting it. "Surprised it doesn't whiff a bit by now."

    "Why would it? He's still alive." Ahh. "So's Tartarus, actually. Father had to sew them together to make the system work."

    "Ahh."

    Her hands go to her hips. "Really? That's what disturbs you? I have horns, you know."

    "Yes, and jolly pretty ones they are too. The lighter cream and white contrasts beautifully with your skin. I'll show you a G-Gnome sometime. They have red horns, doesn't work at all."

    Her eyes widen slightly. "What? No, shut up. I'm not talking to you."

    She accelerates towards our destination, descending through the air as she goes. Is it.. air..? Logically, the Dead would have no need to breathe. Would the gods? And they can definitely eat, so... I don't know. Maybe Sephtian could make more sense of the magics working here. Or.. maybe the extra overwork would finally be too much for him and he'd explode.

    I shrug and fly after her. Hm, while I'm here though… I take a small piece of obsidian out of subspace and generate a filament between myself and the ground. And transition… No, seriously, transition? Huh. Can't transition here. Wonder why? I return the stone to subspace and start making an actual effort to catch up. The ghost lights in this part of Erebos have a slightly orange tint to them, finally giving the area we're passing over a slightly hellish appearance. Which is odd, because the part of Erebos most like Hell is the Fields of Punishment and those are Hornwards of the palace. And mostly empty, the Dead of Ancient Greece having long since served the punishment Hades believed due to them for their crimes.

    Finite torment for sinners. Because anything else would be barbaric. Suck it, Jehovah.

    I'm not sure how big I was expecting the Gate to be. Huge, probably. I mean, Hades wasn't much larger than me but that was probably for practical reasons and primordial beings like the Hekatonkheires are likely massive. If they shoved the -presumably unwilling- Titans down here after the war, along with any other eldritch thing that pissed them off enough, then surely the entrance must be large enough to grant them access? But to be honest, it doesn't look much bigger than a normal doorway. A choke point thing, maybe?

    Melinoë has already landed and she's talking to someone… A woman, I think. Looks a bit on the thin side, a tattered cloak clutched around her chest by bony, long-nailed fingers. That's not right. Why would someone here look like that? I frown as I accelerate again.

    "…permission, but I'd prefer it if you could talk to him first."

    The thin woman's bones figuratively creak as she inclines her head, and I get a good look at her face. Cuts cover her cheeks, some scabbed over and others bleeding freely. Her nose is running and I'm handing her a box of tissues before I become fully aware of it. My nose ran a lot in primary school and I remember all too well how unpleasant it is for that to be happening and have no control over it. "Melinoë, would you introduce me to your friend?"

    The woman looks at me curiously for a moment, then tries to pull a tissue out of the box with painfully arthritic looking fingers. She scratches at the uppermost one for a moment, then I take pity and pull one out with a filament for her. "Allow me."

    The woman takes the tissue and begins wiping her nose as Melinoë frowns at me once more, in puzzlement rather than irritation this time. "This is Akhlys. There's no point trying to make her happy. She's misery personified."

    "Does she have to look the part, though? Hades doesn't look like a corpse."

    "I don't know, this is just how she-"

    BABUM.

    "-is what was that?"

    The rings glow brilliantly. "Ophidian's Benediction, Akhlys." Orange smoke flows out of the rings and covers her. I'm not exactly sure if my usual biomantic techniques can work on divine or semi-divine beings, but damn it I'm going to try. She looks like a famine victim someone took a whip to!

    BABUM. BABUM.

    Melinoë's eyes widen slightly. "Stop it. Stop it now."

    BABUM.

    The orange vapour flows into Akhlys' wounds, binds itself to her limbs and flares as it tries to respond to my desires, my despising of the wrongness of her broken down state. For a moment I see her whole and hale, outlined in orange light. Radiant. Beautiful.

    And then everything I've ever valued is gone and I'm lost and it's like a crushing weight and I can barely think beyond my immediate misery and tears are flowing down my cheeks and I can't stand or look up and my mouth is dry and my skin throbs in pain and the tiny grains of stone in the ground under my hands grate and cut as the hunger begins to gnaw at my-.

    I gasp and look up, choking back my own sobs as Akhlys lays her right hand on my left shoulder.

    "Thank you. For your consideration." She turns to look at Melinoë, the cuts on her face already starting to reappear. "I do not think this one will be dissuaded."

    I shake my head, blink to clear my eyes, then have the ring Rightly Assume my Wholeness. "Keep the tissues." I rise to my feet. "This isn't the end of the matter."

    Keeping one eye on me, Melinoë lays her left hand on the slab of stone covering the doorway, then pulls it away as the slab sinks into the ground. "That was interesting. Try to do something interesting with Cottus as well."
     
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    • Mr Zoat said:
    Her hands go to her hips. "Really? That's what disturbs you? I have horns, you know."

    "Yes, and jolly pretty ones they are too. The lighter cream and white contrasts beautifully with your skin. I'll show you a G-Gnome sometime. They have red horns, doesn't work at all."

    Her eyes widen slightly. "What? No, shut up. I'm not talking to you."
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    Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
     
    Zoat, were you accurate in that the Greek afterlife has limited punishment lengths for the bad folk? Didn't know that was a thing for any religious afterlife...
     
    I've noticed that OL's ringwork is associating with Ophidi-chan more and more.

    I wonder if he's tried non-ring construct creation recently.
     
    It occurs to me that Paul really blew his wad with his tribute to Hades. What's gonna happen when he needs another favor? Hades is gonna expect something even greater. He really should have stuck with one or two gifts as opposed to bringing so much.
     
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