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

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Ngamer11 said:
Future OL mentioned that he missed Larfleeze's ring. Does this mean that this recreation will be destroyed or given away at a later date?
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Possibly granted independence, if it's fully intelligent, in which case it'd be missed like John Constantine: an absent friend that Paul has fallen out of touch with.
 
Mr Zoat said:
10th September 2012
18:22 GMT

Lord Malvolio holds his third ring-blank in his left hand as it slowly evaporates.

"And so it ever is. See you anything awry in my process?"
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Fascinating. But is he truly creating a Ring, or merely a construct shaped like one? Or are the two things basically the same, just with the former ending with the construct becoming corporeal matter? Ah, the mysteries of the Spectrum...

I shake my head slowly.

"No, but I only saw a small part of what you did. You… Your green glow is so bright that it's difficult for me to see what you're doing in any detail."
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I'd be curious as to whether the Guardians, Controllers and other Spectrum-aligned Maltusians have so intense a glow in his empathic vision. He's never commented on it with Hinon, so presumably their saturation is either much less than or far more internalised than Malvolio's..

I barely remember what the process for forging a ring was in the comics, just… Ganthet scowling and treating the whole thing like forging a ring with metal. I assume that it was a limitation of the medium, but… Kalmin uses equipment to handle it as well. Maybe it's something that can't be handled by a person just with their connection to the relevant colour.

I could ask Hinon, or one of the other Controllers who've been forging rings for the Corps. Except that the techniques they use might not work for me, and that would implicate them in the whole 'helping Lord Malvolio' thing.
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On the up side, you do know that you manage to work it out eventually. Assuming OL still remembers the future-him encounters clearly enough.

Would someone from 17th century Manchester actually have been called 'Malvolio'? It's a possibility, Shakespeare's plays would have been in circulation if that's where his mother got it from. Given how he was puzzled by me not wanting to give the other Lanterns' names, it certainly seems plausible.

If his parents wanted a joker, well… I imagine that they'd be surprised by how he turned out.
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And to be fair, if his mother's husband was aware that he was... illegitimate, the name he chose may have been some manner of subtle reminder of her actions. Who knows?

"I suppose… Maybe they shouldn't be created as separate units, but paired with particular lanterns. Do you have a normal sized personal lantern?"

"Nay. Priest was of the opinion that personal lanterns are a crutch best avoided."
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Admittedly, that doesn't mean he didn't own one, merely that he didn't use it. It probably sat in his subspace pocket, ignored, once he mastered the Ring.

I blink.

"What?"

"He instructed me that they were an unnecessary crutch, much as a man who have lived a life free from sin has no need of indulgences."
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Ah, so the recharging thing was more of a religious thing. Not necessarily of any faith, merely a Zen-style oneness with the universe... A bit like a Maltusian, letting the Light flow through him, shaping it briefly with his Ring before releasing it back into the stream.

"So… You… Don't need to recharge your ring?"

"I do not. I see that you are surprised."
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...Hmm... Could the Rings of Enhanced Will OL had to deal with not long ago been inspired by Priest and Malvolio's achievements? I wouldn't be surprised of the Guardian who designed them heard of the two and decided to try mental realignment to accomplish that end...

"Surprised that it's possible, and surprised that you got the hang of it back in the seventeenth century."

"What does the age matter to the nature of a man's soul?"
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He's got a point. Consider the state of your soul-stuff, OL. It's less than two years old, in total, since you were basically hollow when you arrived here... And yet look at what you can accomplish.

"Fair point. I just meant that you wouldn't have had all that much time to get the hang of it before running out of power."

"Priest reinvigorated my ring when its fires began to ebb. His tutelage is why my domains are an entire Sector and not merely limited to the Earth, and the memory of the time where we worked together is why I refuse to slay him for his later treachery."
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That would have made for some interesting Ring Log-files for the Guardians if they ever looked...

"How long did it take you to learn?"

"I do not know. We were far from the star of Earth, and the training was too exhausting for me to keep track of the passage of days." He regards me with curiosity. "You mean to say that you have always recharged from your lantern?"
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Not everyone has the benefit of a Zen Master Lantern teaching them personally, you know...

"Yes. Except for the time I was bonded to the Ophidian, but I assumed… The part of us that was her was handling that."

"Priest warned me that it might take longer than a normal man's mortal span to learn the required techniques. Even now he questions my mastery."
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He'd probably still do that after a thousand years, Malvolio. Such is the prerogative of a Teacher: Messing with their student.

"Did he ever make a central power battery?"

Lord Malvolio actually smiles.

"Methinks that he would condescend even unto the Guardians for their reliance on such fripperies. No, he did not."
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Heh, there's a fact that surprises nobody...

"Modern Earth has a saying: perfect is the greatest enemy of good enough. One powerful Lantern however impressive just won't achieve as much as a dozen who need personal lanterns. I don't think that the Guardians would intentionally cripple their Lanterns, so there must be something else going on."

"A man may oil and sharpen his sword without caring a whit for its wellbeing."
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Something which most of the Guardians seem to live by... Ganthet and Sayd seem to be more mindful of their troops' well-being, thankfully.

"Yes, but it's still sharp and free from rust at the end of that. 'You can recharge without a personal lantern' is just… Too big a deal."

"I think there is more to the affair on their part, but in truth I do not know them well enough to be sure in my condemnation."
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It's about control. Making the Central Power battery was likely intended to lock the Green Light under their control. And to be fair, it basically has. Everyone using it makes use of a Ring to do so. The fact that Malvolio has been able to effectively create a fork of the battery will probably tick them off to no end once they learn of it.

They did have Guy researching high complexity techniques… But I'm focusing on ring crafting at the moment, and I'd rather get a cooperation agreement in place before asking Guy to talk to the man who punched Jordan through a planet. Guy loves the Green Lantern Corps, and I can't see that conversation going well.

"Okay, so you've never tried forging a ring using a personal lantern?"
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Honestly, Guy may like the Corps, but that doesn't mean he has to like the Guardians too. 'Too many sticks up their asses, most of them', that sort of thing.

"Having none, I have not."

"I'll give it a go then." I float my newly created personal lantern up to me. "Please don't mess me about when I transubstantiate."
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Yeah, if he's going to be nudging the Ophidian, best not to have any other light too near...

"Continue at your leisure."

Okay then. I don't step out, but rather hold up the lantern in my left hand and press my right hand against the spout part.
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This is going to be fun...

Rings are a focus of the desires of their users, but… I don't think anyone wants a ring purely to have the ring. I mean, in some places it's a status symbol, but what they want is the status. Others want all sorts of outcomes…

Are there any ring-shaped desires in here? Preferably marked with the orange sigil? I can search for desires relating to control and creation and shape them, but I've got no more reason to believe that will work than…
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The joy of treading new ground without a map.

Anything else I could try, so I may as well try it as well, I suppose.

The Honden is now richly decorated in ring-adjacent desires, and I regularly check them to make sure that no one in my Corps is heading for crazy town.
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Given he's likely the only person who can casually shut a ring off, I expect he gets called in when someone does go full Larfleeze...

Ring-adjacent…

Do rings have spirits? Are ring AIs spirits? I wasn't joking about thinking that I might end up coming here full time once I die properly, so I suppose…
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Or at least something that thinks it's you. Given the quirky nature of your soul, who knows what'll actually happen?

Is there anything here that doesn't fit?

Yes, my Agent.

Other than you, you beautiful snake you.
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Oy, leave the flirting for later, you two. :p

Yes, my Agent. Here.

Oh. That's…
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What better guide for this than the embodiment of all Avarice, after all? I suspect she can sniff out any desire near-instantly...

Interesting.

I withdraw my right hand, a ring around my right ring finger.
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Now, what's he got? An actual ring, or merely a lump of metal shaped like one?

"You have managed the feat? How?"

"I don't think I have." I take a closer look at the ring. Simply design, no additional AI… "This is Larfleeze's ring. It was destroyed when I… Died. Completely disintegrated by qwa-matter. It-."
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Huh. Well, at least he got it back. I guess the desire he tugged on was his regret for having lost it...

Malvolio's head jerks up, and his face twists into a snarl.

"Your pardon, Lord Illustres, but it seems that I must return home. Some fool has tried to release mine most contentious prisoner."
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Oh, for... Is it Priest, or another Lantern? Or a local warlord who was a little upset about Malvolio's return?

Well, if nothing else, OL can give Malvolio a few pointers on high-speed FTL methods, so he won't have to drag his whole retinue back home... I'm curious to see who or what the prisoner is, if Malvolio has that strong a feeling about their release. Let's hope we get to see them soon. And at least OL will have extra charge to help deal with it...
 
Given that Paul has access to the Honden at need, it would seem that an automate recharge from the Honden wouldn't be a hard thing to achieve for him.

It's actually a bit weird since we've seen him drain the environment for charge before and again he has access to a dimension filled with the orange light that's owned by a friendly ophidian. This would seem like a natural evolution.
 
NightmareWarden said:
I have a theory. Malvolio has found one of the strongest tools in any setting: wordplay.

Malvolio, master of the Green Light, can recharge his ring…

AT WILL!
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FeepingCreature said:
Clearly, Paul needs to realize that he can have more charge whenever he wants.
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Ryumancer said:
Well, i suppose we did already know that Alan and Blue ring Paul could hope for a recharge.
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Rage, rage against the dying of the light
 
Chojin Patriarch said:
I'd be curious as to whether the Guardians, Controllers and other Spectrum-aligned Maltusians have so intense a glow in his empathic vision. He's never commented on it with Hinon, so presumably their saturation is either much less than or far more internalised than Malvolio's..
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I suspect the difference between the two is akin to looking at a sun and a Dyson swarm.
The difference in brightness is due to how much more of the power output is being harnessed vs simply being radiated away.
 
Stsword said:
The Presence's successor made her own universe and then merged with it to become a pantheistic deity. So if that was actually stated then it just makes no sense, becuase either the Presence is a local god or a universal god and it's very clear that the Presence is a universal god in Lucifer.

And in New Earth cosmology which was never the same as Vertigo, which is why the two universes got merged in Flashpoint, it was directly stated by an angel that the Presence was a pantheistic deity. "You thought the Presence would be on its throne in Heaven? The Presence is everywhere, everything, everyone."

And when Mr Miracle visited Heaven he felt the Source. Which since the Presence is pantheistic, the Source=Presence, because the Presence is literally everything.

And when Maggedon was going to destroy the universe the angels were making their plans to make the next universe.

And when the Lords of Order, angels of the Presence, destroyed the universe in Dr Fate, the Presence recreated the entire universe.

So the Presence is also a universal god in New Earth continuity as well.
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I'm not saying that The Presence isn't powerful enough to make the multiverse, there are a lot of characters that should have enough oomph to manage making a universe or two at least, I'm saying that (baring some weird retroactive Dreaming nonsense like what happened to the cats in that one Sandman comic) he seems to be a regular god that works the same way all the Earth ones do based on his own admissions in various comics and a statement from the author of the original Lucifer run. Though considering that second one is a Twitter statement that almost certainly didn't go through editorial processes I understand not accepting it as a valid source.

Now if he was made into the actual creator deity of DC by aforementioned retroactive Dreaming nonsense then sure, whatever, but the guy very plainly says he was created by something else, which, if we say that he actually is an independent actor from The Dreaming, leaves only Retconn and The Overmonitor (or any similar beings/groups of phenomenal cosmic power), and The Overmonitor didn't even know creation (including The Presence) existed until it randomly stumbled across it.

There's also the fact that "The Plan" he has can just fail in several cases (including the very existence of The Laughing Magician and that one time Superman didn't want a fancy sword, among many, many others) that make it very unlikely that The Presence is actually an all powerful, all knowing, omnipresent god that made everything to me.

Again, not saying he isn't really strong or that he literally can't be any of those things, but with all the evidence saying otherwise I find it highly unlikely that he is anywhere near as important as people seem to think he is.
 
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Radiant Knight said:
Build for yourself a Lantern of your own Will.

I mean really, I'm surprised Paul hasn't been like, recharging his ring off the Honden whenever he goes through it.
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This could indicate that you can't use the Orange Light like that or he simply doesn't know the technique and that it doesn't automatically recharge when he enters the Honden.
 
NightmareWarden said:
I have dubbed a potential para-elemental plane of Fear the "hypercube of fear," based on the assumption that it would have many layers and would feel inescapable.
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Just to give juping off point/ my 2c

Font of will
Spring of hope
Pit of rage <
Field of love
...
Font and spring are synonyms.
fits in with blue+green = biiig badda boom

Maybe switch them now I think of it
Baptismal Font/ Saint Walker.
WILLspring/ wellspring

Love blooms, but can also become a tangled thorny overgrown mess.

Web of compassion?

Something in the back of my mind...something about Buddha?

Fear also web... den...cavern?
Parralax had batface didnt it?
...swamp. I like swamp. misty, messy, drags you down.
Why yes, my brain did crash on dagobah what of it?

I like the idea behind hypercube, it just doesnt have the same snappy ring to it that honden has.
 
Where is Parallax? And what is it doing? Is it trapped in the green central power battery? And if so, does this prevent it from accessing the plane of elemental fear?
 
Where did the term 'Honden' come from in the first place anyway? Paragon doesn't seem especially acquainted with Japanese culture (I don't even remember him making any references to anime or manga, but I might have missed it since Zoat has at least some familiarity with Gate), and I don't see why the Ophidian would employ that term in particular.
I haven't reread Paragon's first visit to the Honden, which I probably should have, but I'm not sure it'll give me an answer since I think I'd have remembered that.
 
I've got questions about elementals. Mostly emotional elementals. Are they naturally occurring? We've seen huge ones like the Ophidian and Ion, which seem to have come prepackaged with the universe, but we really don't see any lesser ones, like how hell is crawling with lesser demons. Demons can be converted into emotional elementals under certain circumstances, like was done to that succubus who became a love elemental. I believe that the terror thing was created by concentrating fear with magic and psychic powers. Michael Siskin's soul probably went through a conversion process, like the succubus, to get turned into fear element by his connection with the terror thing. But do weak emotion elementals ever just pop into existence without someone purposely trying to make one? Or do already existing elementals have the capability to produce more of themselves? I'd guess that's what the Ophidian did with Paul's soul, just breaking off some desire element to shape it into a soul for him. I'd love to see some more about elementals. Sadly, I doubt that DC comics has much of a consistent ruleset for their capabilities.
 
Mr Zoat said:
"I don't think I have." I take a closer look at the ring. Simple design, no additional AI… "This is Larfleeze's ring. It was destroyed when I… Died. Completely disintegrated by qwa-matter. It-."
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Tgere was that comic of the Ophidian telling Larfleeze that he has spent so much time in the Orange that he doesn't really need his ring to control stuff anymore.

Perhaps the Ring is the Personal Lantern? We already know that Central Batteries can be any size so if the Lantern and Rings work why not?

And how does a Ring, an object, made of an Elementary Color 'run out' of energy? It's made of the stuff so if it really hit zero wouldn't it disappear?
 
I expect the process of recharging your ring without a lantern is similar to the process of creating a lantern. Just skipping a few steps. It might be that logically if you have the skill to make a lantern then you shouldn't need one.
 
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FreeGod said:
I expect the process of recharging your ring without a lantern is similar to the process of creating a lantern. Just skipping a few steps. It might be at logically if you have the skill to make a lantern then you shouldn't need one.
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Opening a hole in space and pulling something out is one thing. Opening a hole in space and stabilizing it so that you can pull stuff out whenever you want is a step up.
 
9th August
18:36 GMT -5
One of the things the ring actually does have instructions on is how to make more rings. At the most intense level of desire I could generate under test conditions the ring tells me that it would take me five months' continuous effort to forge one. At my actual peak output it would be more like a week, but there's no way I could sustain that. Think I'll put that on the back burner.
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This is from when Artemis is introduced and he gets her with the chili. He should know how to make rings assuming he still has the database from his original ring.
 
Kuma said:
This is from when Artemis is introduced and he gets her with the chili. He should know how to make rings assuming he still has the database from his original ring.
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I think that was supposed to be theoretical. In actual practice it's a lot harder than Paul thought it would be.
 
DrThoth said:
Where did the term 'Honden' come from in the first place anyway? Paragon doesn't seem especially acquainted with Japanese culture (I don't even remember him making any references to anime or manga, but I might have missed it since Zoat has at least some familiarity with Gate), and I don't see why the Ophidian would employ that term in particular.
I haven't reread Paragon's first visit to the Honden, which I probably should have, but I'm not sure it'll give me an answer since I think I'd have remembered that.
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Well anything Zoat is aware of, Paragon would be. So if he knows the term to use it in the story, he would know it when he is in the story.

Plus domt forget Renegade knew enough to start an Ogre Tentacle Orgy cult or whatever when he first went Big Grey from the Venombuster formula.
 
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