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

Reader mode
Chojin Patriarch said:
Hesk's gun ports open, but the rest of his flotilla isn't in any position to join in.
And I don't want to be a worse person than Desire and I'm not-.
Perhaps 'dotted' or 'plotting'?
...that I'm trying to keep pointing away from you!
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Thank you, corrected.
Someguy Somewhere said:
I'm getting a flash of 'Ender's Game' here. And I don't like it. It's on a short list of books I wish I could un-read.
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I only ever read Ender's Shadow.

And now, whenever I think about it I hear 'I AM ENDER! I END THINGS!'
 
Handlewithcare said:
Mouths off to Desire, a few seconds later he is already unsure enough his constructs loose strength.

Hm. Is that why Desire showed up? Because John's lesson has shaken his conviction?
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No he is also being stupid about it, the smart thing to do isn't control the crew it's disable the fucking weapons. So it's less that his convictions are shaken and more that to make this work Zoat needed to make him a FUCKING IDIOT for several chapters.
 
Hmm, interesting. For a second I thought Paul would have called Hensk's spouse, but I don't know if Hensk has one.
 
Handlewithcare said:
Mouths off to Desire, a few seconds later he is already unsure enough his constructs loose strength.

Hm. Is that why Desire showed up? Because John's lesson has shaken his conviction?
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Desire has sod all to do with it.
Paul is weak in the fight because a) he is 'fighting' to preserve the lives of people he doesn't actually want to save and b) is dealing with the conflict of wanting to be like the moral paragons he idolises while still thinking their methods are needlessly inefficient.
 
Darko said:
Mason did a terrific job with the role of Desire.

They made the character both desirable and made you want to punch them in the face.

In short, a great portrayal of Desire.
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I don't watch a lot of conventional tv. Movies, tv series, etc. You may have just pushed me over the edge to checking this out.
 
Uncomplicated Good Works (part 8)
6th December 2012
15:35 GMT

Eight construct spear jab through the ship's shields and silence the bombardment cannons in a series of small electrical discharges. Their capacitors recharge fast, but hitting them right after they fire should minimise the risk of a explosion or dis-

I watch as a single orange light goes out.

-charge, darn it.

My point defence lasers are already firing as I turn and fly towards the ground. Between the angle and the delay only two are fully deflected-. An unstable orbit that will see them come down in a couple of years. For the others, the most I've done is alter the angle, which should hopefully make them easier to intercept. Completely vaporising the shells isn't a good idea, as the vapour keeps its kinetic energy and usually goes from a kinetic impactor to a kineticobaric blaster. Even getting the Guilders to hit them with their positron beams would… Yes, they've entered the atmosphere, cause such a huge explosion and electromagnetic discharge that it would probably be better just to let it hit.

And just teleporting wouldn't help me because I have to have my constructs match velocity in order to catch them.

Okay, okay, zeta tube? Yes, zeta radiation would probably work. Can't just teleport ahead and bounce them because the zeta system needs a few seconds to actually trigger, but it's still better than trying to grab them manually. Set up a construct relay over there and… Faster, damn it. Alan would catch up like-. Yes, good. Zeta tube construct forward and that's the first slug shooting off into space because the zeta tube preserves kinetic energy but not vector.

Agh, Hesk fired them as a spread, plotting most efficient intercept course, and-.

"Lantern Xor, if-"

Head for that one, partially deflected, if I just knock it aside it would probably head back out of the atmosphere but it's really no more effort to zeta tube it, gone, good.

"-you have a-"

Turn without losing momentum, be willing to lose more altitude if that's what it takes to get ahead because they're definitely going to catch up, gaining on that slug with that one within striking distance.

"-moment, I would-"

The slugs are heating up. I can actually see them deforming, and not just from my point defence shots. I think I should be very mildly relieved that these weapons appear to be designed to pierce deeply buried bunkers rather than ravage a planet's surface. Alright, slightly lower rate of acceleration and generate a zeta tube directly ahead-. Gone.

"-appreciate your assistance."

Slight change of angle and accelerate, drop the zeta construct to remove air resistance and create a new one ahead, ring calculations show that I'm probably going to be on time.

"Illustres, Hesk is refusing to-"

Slight shift to the right, drop and recreate zeta tube, third slug gone.

"-acknowledge my orders-"

Aaaand next one's further away. The Spiders are trying to evacuate, but when you're worried that your planet is going to be bombarded from everywhere there isn't really anywhere to run to so they've only just started getting people out of Hesk's line of sight.

"-and his crew support him."

Not surprised. And there's not going to be a remote control for the ship because that would be stupid.

"We're condemning them for mutiny."

"Understood."

So I can kill them all and their government won't care, because even if they were on the fence about exterminating the local Spider Guild they're not going to tolerate an Admiral violating orders. And maybe I shouldn't have raised the issue with them, because now they know that no one is answering their commands they're probably going to execute anyone who survives.

Darn it. Worry later.

Next intercept is coming up. This one is heading for an already-evacuated industrial centre. Stopping it won't save many lives, but it will make integrating it into the local economy a good deal easier.

Closer.

Close-.

I feel it as the zeta tube outside of the atmosphere is destroyed.

What? What?!

Hesk turned his point defences on my construct! I can't-. I can make an additional zeta tube down here, but with the added time and air resistance…

Not sure that I'll make it.

Try anyway, of course. I may not be an ideal hero but I'd like to give myself a 'C' at least.

Getting lower, so I can see the larger streets with my naked eyes. This time two zeta tubes and I wince at the sudden increase in air resistance and the increased distance to my other targets. That one gone, but I'm… There's no slack, so add that in to each catch-. No, too long.

Zeta tubes gone, heading for the next target. What can I do what can I do?

Kinetic barrier? I could get one in front of them, but I'm.. not sure that it would absorb the kinetic energy cleanly. I never actually found out whether Terminus uses them like this and this isn't a good place to experiment. On the other hand, I doubt it would be worse than letting them hit the ground.

What else?

The only other thing is trying to… Eat kinetic energy. Which might be possible, but again, I don't really want to experiment with that in this situation.

Okay, another slug. Can I improve the process? Start angling towards the next one as I generate them. Won't increase my speed enough to get them all, but might give me a little extra thinking time.

Fourth slug caught and sent back into space. Two left. Too far apart. Not enough time.

One going to city, industrial and residential. Population in bunkers, not sufficient. Shockwaves will kill most of them.

Other going to primary space port, power generation centre and defence installation. Will cripple economy and make Guild unable to defend the planet because I can very easily see Desire whispering to someone else because why not.

Obvious decision. I turn towards the city. The Queen can rebuild the space port and the locals can rebuild generators, but I can't easily bring that many people back from the dead. It's also the traditionally superheroic thing to do, but that's not my first thought.

I send an evacuation message to the area that will be affected, and… I'll try blocking it, but I'm not going to have time for anything reliable. Too bad.

Closer, closer, and I can hear the screams now as the streak the railgun round is making across the sky is very obvious. Unnecessary, as I am going to get there in time to stop this one, and I-. I can see the lights dimming and vanishing as the Guilders are injured or killed in their panic as they desperately try to escape.

Sorry about the spaceport, and a respectful nod to the Guilders who stayed at their positions.

One last zeta tube pair -slug rebounded- and then-.

What?

An orange shield envelopes the spaceport, thick and multi-layered and flexible enough to bleed off some of the kinetic energy. I transition into close proximity, unifying my purpose with Lantern Xor as we work together to block the shot. Air set on fire takes a cold beam, pressure waves are absorbed by kinetic barriers.

We don't get everything. Quite a lot of the area looks like it's been sand blasted and a lot of the more delicate electronics will need to be replaced. But that was a success.

Xalitan nods at me, his awareness extending into the Honden.

"Illustres. I have learned enough to return to the war."
 
Last edited:
Mr Zoat said:
6th December 2012
15:35 GMT

Eight construct spear jab through the ship's shields and silence the bombardment cannons in a series of small electrical discharges. Their capacitors recharge fast, but hitting them right after they fire should minimise the risk of a explosion or dis-

I watch as a single orange light goes out.
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Whoops, was that a crewman dying or a construct collapsing? Either way, at least the guns are temporarily disabled. Now, to worry about the shells already in flight. Not a fun way to play catch, is it?

-charge, darn it.

My point defence lasers are already firing as I turn and fly towards the ground. Between the angle and the delay only two are fully deflected-. An unstable orbit that will see them come down in a couple of years. For the others, the most I've done is alter the angle, which should hopefully make them easier to intercept. Completely vaporising the shells isn't a good idea, as the vapour keeps its kinetic energy and usually goes from a kinetic impactor to a kineticobaric blaster. Even getting the Guilders to hit them with their positron beams would… Yes, they've entered the atmosphere, cause such a huge explosion and electromagnetic discharge that it would probably be better just to let it hit.
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Even melting or shattering them will just leave hypersonic shrapnel flying. And while that's not quite on the KKV scale, it's going to make a mess.

And just teleporting wouldn't help me because I have to have my constructs match velocity in order to catch them.

Okay, okay, zeta tube? Yes, zeta radiation would probably work. Can't just teleport ahead and bounce them because the zeta system needs a few seconds to actually trigger, but it's still better than trying to grab them manually. Set up a construct relay over there and… Faster, damn it. Alan would catch up like-. Yes, good. Zeta tube construct forward and that's the first slug shooting off into space because the zeta tube preserves kinetic energy but not vector.
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Ah, the classic Portal trick: "Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out."

Agh, Hesk fired them as a spread, plotting most efficient intercept course, and-.

"Lantern Xor, if-"
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Probably looking to cause the widest level of destruction he can. After all, dropping all his shots inside a kilometer or two wouldn't mess up as big an area as spreading them out. Same logic as a shotgun...

Head for that one, partially deflected, if I just knock it aside it would probably head back out of the atmosphere but it's really no more effort to zeta tube it, gone, good.

"-you have a-"
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Moving at the speed of thought, and still talking too? Now this is a high-level Lantern in action.

Turn without losing momentum, be willing to lose more altitude if that's what it takes to get ahead because they're definitely going to catch up, gaining on that slug with that one within striking distance.

"-moment, I would-"
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And apparently acting like a superhero is making him act like one. Too much focus on a single target, when if he was fully-focused, he'd have been able to snatch all of them in one motion...

The slugs are heating up. I can actually see them deforming, and not just from my point defence shots. I think I should be very mildly relieved that these weapons appear to be designed to pierce deeply buried bunkers rather than ravage a planet's surface. Alright, slightly lower rate of acceleration and generate a zeta tube directly ahead-. Gone.

"-appreciate your assistance."
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...And apparently, he's not even thinking laterally. Could he not subspace them, like he did that missile in Rhelasia?

Slight change of angle and accelerate, drop the zeta construct to remove air resistance and create a new one ahead, ring calculations show that I'm probably going to be on time.

"Illustres, Hesk is refusing to-"
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'Probably' is not close enough, OL. This isn't horseshoes and hand-grenades.

Slight shift to the right, drop and recreate zeta tube, third slug gone.

"-acknowledge my orders-"
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Well, at least he's getting some results...

Aaaand next one's further away. The Spiders are trying to evacuate, but when you're worried that your planet is going to be bombarded from everywhere there isn't really anywhere to run too so they've only just started getting people out of Hesk's line of sight.

"-and his crew support him."
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Whoopie. So all Hesk's men are mind-whammied.

Not surprised. And there's not going to be a remote control for the ship because that would be stupid.

"We're condemning them for mutiny."
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Anything you could plan to use against a rebel, an enemy could learn to use against you...

"Understood."

So I can kill them all and their government won't care, because even if they were on the fence about exterminating the local Spider Guild they're not going to tolerate an Admiral violating orders. And maybe I shouldn't have raised the issue with them, because no they know that no one is answering their commands they're probably going to execute anyone who survives.
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So much for being remembered as heroes, anyway. Though by now they're past caring.

Darn it. Worry later.

Next intercept is coming up. This one is heading for an already-evacuated industrial centre. Stopping it won't save many lives, but it will make integrating it into the local economy a good deal easier.
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Yeah, that would make quite the hellacious kaboom when it hits. And then any chemicals and fuel in the area will add to the fireworks...

Closer.

Close-.

I feel it as the zeta tube outside of the atmosphere is destroyed.
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...Because Hesk's ship is still able to do things. Sloppy, OL.

What? What?!

Hesk turned his point defences on my construct! I can't-. I can make an additional zeta tube down here, but with the added time and air resistance…
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And gravity, though I suspect they'll still be moving well above escape velocity heading up...

Not sure that I'll make it.

Try anyway, of course. I may not be an ideal hero but I'd like to give myself a 'C' at least.
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Screw aiming for the top, 'just good enough' is much easier. :p

Getting lower, so I can see the larger streets with my naked eyes. This time two zeta tubes and I wince at the sudden increase in air resistance and the increased distance to my other targets. That one gone, but I'm… There's no slack, so add that in to each catch-. No, too long.

Zeta tubes gone, heading for the next target. What can I do what can I do?
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Oof, did one manage to hit home? That's gonna leave a mark.

Kinetic barrier? I could get one in front of them, but I'm.. not sure that it would absorb the kinetic energy cleanly. I never actually found out whether Terminus uses them like this and this isn't a good place to experiment. On the other hand, I doubt it would be worse than letting them hit the ground.

What else?
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Nested catch-nets, until you can actually stop it?

The only other thing is trying to… Eat kinetic energy. Which might be possible, but again, I don't really want to experiment with that in this situation.

Okay, another slug. Can I improve the process? Start angling towards the next one as I generate them. Won't increase my speed enough to get them all, but might give me a little extra thinking time.
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Still thinking too small, OL. Multiple tubes all linked to one exit, just be sure to offset the timing enough to prevent tele-fragging...

Fourth slug caught and sent back into space. Two left. Too far apart. Not enough time.

One going to city, industrial and residential. Population in bunkers, not sufficient. Shockwaves will kill most of them.
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Ah, the old 'which one first?' dilemma.

Other going to primary space port, power generation centre and defence installation. Will cripple economy and make Guild unable to defend the planet because I can very easily see Desire whispering to someone else because why not.

Obvious decision. I turn towards the city. The Queen can rebuild the space port and the locals can rebuild generators, but I can't easily bring that many people back from the dead. It's also the traditionally superheroic thing to do, but that's not my first thought.
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Better to not let them die in the first place, after all.

I send an evacuation message to the area that will be affected, and… I'll try blocking it, but I'm not going to have time for anything reliable. Too bad.

Closer, closer, and I can hear the screams now as the streak the railgun round is making across the sky is very obvious. Unnecessary, as I am going to get there in time to stop this one, and I-. I can see the lights dimming and vanishing as the Guilders are injured or killed in their panic as they desperately try to escape.
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Excusable. Having a falling star heading right for you would make anyone panic a little.

Sorry about the spaceport, and a respectful nod to the Guilders who stayed at their positions.

One last zeta tube pair -slug rebounded- and then-.
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Well, at least he got most of them...

What?

An orange shield envelopes the spaceport, thick and multi-layered and flexible enough to bleed off some of the kinetic energy. I transition into close proximity, unifying my purpose with Lantern Xor as we work together to block the shot. Air set on fire takes a cold beam, pressure waves are absorbed by kinetic barriers.
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Oh, right. His backup. Right in the nick of time, Mr Big Damn Hero.

We don't get everything. Quite a lot of the area looks like it's been sand blasted and a lot of the more delicate electronics will need to be replaced. But that was a success.

Xalitan nods at me, his awareness extending into the Honden.

"Illustres. I have learned enough to return to the war."
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Oooh, nice. :D Not quite Enlightened, but he must be real close.

Well, that ended better than expected. And Lantern Xor revealing he's gained a few levels in badass Orange Light Shaman. Man, though. It looks like that little tet-a-tet with the monochromatic one did a number on his focus somehow. He may need a few days to get his head back on task. Of course, they still have the mind-whammied fleet to deal with before that.
 
john doe 777 said:
Wait did Paul just have trouble stop a couple railgun shots? Tf?
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Yes.

See, this is the obvious result of LePaul being forced into a confrontation he doesn't care about and has no personal stake in.

Now see, a normal human could just trick themselves through that. But LePaul mindbroke himself so much it utterly cripples him.
 
The stuff with John and Desire has nothing to do with him performing less effectively.

What he does is fueled by how badly he wants to do things, and the fact of the matter is that he just doesn't give enough of a shit about the Spiders for him to be able to muster up the kind of focused avarice needed to go all out.

That's literally it.

That said, honestly, I was kind of hoping for a big failure here. He could do with a few more out and out failures to properly motivate him.
 
I kind of hope that the lesson Paul gets from this is that he can't be the 'traditional hero', as that's just not who he is. I understand that he wouldn't like to become something like Commander Scott, but he doesn't have to try so hard to do what a standard DC hero would try to do.
 
Chojin Patriarch said:
Probably looking to cause the widest level of destruction he can. After all, dropping all his shots inside a kilometer or two wouldn't mess up as big an area as spreading them out. Same logic as a shotgun...
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And modern nuclear warfare. The old nine-to-twenty megaton "city destroyer" bombs and missile warheads went out of vogue in the late 60s because it was realized that, since the blast effect of an explosion drops off proportionally to the square of the distance from the burst point, it was more efficient (in terms of nuclear material required--and thus cost) to destroy large soft targets like urban centers by blanketing the area with several small (~250-500 kiloton) weapons than hitting them with a single one large enough to flatten the entire target area. And given how much smaller such weapons could be, you could then pack enough of them into an ICBM's nose cone to be able to hit more than one target at a time, so you didn't need as many missiles to cover all the targets (which really became valuable when the SALT talks started in the 70s).

Mr Zoat said:
Yeah, um. I sort of forgot about that.

I'll come up with something.
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Panic is always a valid reason. The human mind isn't always the best at considering all the options rapidly; Paul could have simply been a bit overloaded (combat has a habit of doing that to people, even veteran troops) and latched onto the first solution he thought of, which didn't leave him with time to think of alternatives if he wanted to enact it.

Sure, it'll make the after-action review embarrassing and painful for him, but AARs are always embarrassing and painful, because there are always better options you could have taken, but just didn't think of in the heat of the moment. (The whole point of an AAR is to dissect all the decisions you made and figure out what you could have done better, so that you know what to do the next time you face a situation. This is, of course, what leads to the old pilot saying that "An accident investigation is conducted by a group of nonflying experts who take six months to itemize every mistake made by a crew who had six seconds to do anything," but the point is to learn from the mistakes made by said crew, so that you only make new mistakes if you find yourself in the same situation.) Take his needing to act right away to stop the bombardment, combined with human brains tending to work serially rather than in parallel (so we tend to come up with one idea at a time instead of an instant full menu of options) and Paul being off his game from his little encounter with Desire, and I don't see anyone rationally blaming him for just not thinking of it until afterwards.
 
Does anyone else get the feeling that Paul is going to be doing a fair amount of 'plan out the fight in accelerated time' in the future? The embarrassment from missing the subspace solution is surely going to smart.
 
Mr Zoat said:
Yeah, um. I sort of forgot about that.

I'll come up with something.
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Hah!
Good old Comicbook "I forgot my own abilities" syndrome.

Also, apparently a Giant Spider has replaced Zoat sometime between when OL first simply subspaced railgun slugs and now.

(Related, can subspacing preserve momentum? Subspace some large fast thing headed towards you, and send it back out headed towards the original sender, still large and going fast...)
 
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