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

[RichardWhereat]

I'm confused. Helios is one of the gods I don't know the Roman name of and Apollo doesn't have a Roman name. Who do you mean?

Edit: Helios is Sol and I'm dumb. Still, Helios and Sol are portrayed quite differently in popular media. Helios is never more than "one of the good Titans" playing his role in the Hellenic pantheon while Sol often crosses into Sol Invictus and Solar Empire territory.

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Apollo is the roman name, Apollon or Apollonas are the Greek names. Apollon is the god of quite a few things, including the Sun.

 

[Handlewithcare]

It is, but Professor Prokopios has spent quite a lot of time making sure that Greece doesn't join.

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Well, he probably regrets that now

 

[Prince Charon]

Well, he probably regrets that now

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I'm not sure that we can discuss how helpful they would or would not be without going into modern politics.

EDIT: In fact, I'm pretty sure we can't.

 

[Mr Zoat]

I assume that Tsipras' left wing government never amounted to much in this timeline?

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I don't know enough about Greek politics to comment. You can assume that a great many individuals aren't the same.

Also, what happened to the Greek trade fleet? It was massive, second only to Malta in Europe (including the UK) in gross tonnage and larger than even that in deadweight tonnage. Did it get destroyed more even than other fleets, proportionally speaking?

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Proportionally, probably not.

I'm not sure that we can discuss how helpful they would or would not be without going into modern politics.

EDIT: In fact, I'm pretty sure we can't.

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No, we can talk about the politics of a fictional setting without any problem. Honestly, we could probably talk about actual Greek politics, as few people know enough to start the sort of rows which led to the ban.

Professor Prokopios doesn't regret it at all. Everyone in Europe is getting done over by this. There's nothing about being inside the EU that would help.

 

[Tasoli]

the appropriate legislation and protocols for a small border inside our country,

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Every international trading port should already have free trading zones, same laws that make that possible can be used with almost no modification so this is unnecessery comment here.

 

[Rafin]

Apollo is the roman name, Apollon or Apollonas are the Greek names. Apollon is the god of quite a few things, including the Sun.

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That's just a grammar and pronunciation difference, not an actual name difference. Nobody thinks that Djeezus, Heysus, Joshua and Ιησούς are different aspects of the same guy.

I don't know enough about Greek politics to comment. You can assume that a great many individuals aren't the same.

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My mistake. Tsipras only came to power in 2015. My point was supposed to be that a decent chunk of ministers at that point didn't swear on the bible. But yeah, turns out 2015 was the first time that happened.

Proportionally, probably not.

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Then they should still be the frontrunners of maritime trade in Europe and, in a time where everyone struggles with exactly that, be doing relatively well. On the other hand the government doesn't control or tax the fleets to any real extent, so maybe they are just more busy shipping stuff around for richer nations.

 

[RichardWhereat]

That's just a grammar and pronunciation difference, not an actual name difference. Nobody thinks that Djeezus, Heysus, Joshua and Ιησούς are different aspects of the same guy.

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They are, however, different names.

 

[Maxx Crowley]

It's kinda nice to see a character be able to use his relationship to OL as a positive force.

Also, the fact that Greece's old gods are both clearly real and yet are being ignored due to useless Christian Bullshit (Didn't see the Angelic host step in when the Sheeda attacked now did you? But I bet if the country had prayed to Zeus, thunderbolts would have rained down. In my Greek Mythology book on my shelf, before we even get to the age of heroes, there are about 12 stories of Zeus throwing down with Monsters attempting to attack Greece. Typhon being the most famous) is so utterly true to life it almost brings a tear to my eye.

I mean for fucks sake, there is demonstrable evidence of the Olympians existence and power. You'd think Greece would be crowing about this. "Our gods are real! Our gods are re-al!" Mount Olympus is RIGHT there.

It's odd how much we get from the Roman version of things

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Rome conquered the world. Which is precisely how Abrahamic mythology got spread so far and wide. They brought it to England, who proceeded to conquer the world, and spread that shit further (along with Spain and Italy).

Hellenic god of the sun, and poetry.

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Who...who doesn't know Apollo? Seriously, Apollo is one of the few Greek gods that like...EVERYONE knows.

Helios the sun titan perhaps less known. Though with flat earthers running the mouth more and more, I've been hearing Heliocentric being thrown around a lot more.

Then there is Hyperion...

 

[Mr Zoat]

Rome conquered the world.

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Rome conquered most of Europe, a small part of the Middle East and a small part of Africa. That's not the world.

 

[Maxx Crowley]

Rome conquered most of Europe, a small part of the Middle East and a small part of Africa. That's not the world.

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The known world then.

 

[Cuchulin]

Rome conquered most of Europe, a small part of the Middle East and a small part of Africa. That's not the world.

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As far as they were concerned they had basically conquered the world or at least all the parts that really mattered.

 

[Bramble Thorn]

The known world then.

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Yes, every person in China had dementia at that time, and had no idea where they were.

 

[Khettien]

The known world then.

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I get what you mean, and I even recognize the quote, but...Rome never conquered (all of) Persia. Much less the rest of the Silk Road(s).

 

[Doccer]

give birth to demon children."

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Best that plan doesn't go anyway. If you raise them in a society being called 'demon children' then that's what you're gonna get one way or another.

 

[Rafin]

They are, however, different names.

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Not according to Google and Wikipedia. Also not according to my experience as someone who fluently speaks Greek and Italian and has an amateur interest in mythology. If I were to create or modify a setting where the Greek gods either were divided into the Roman ones or merged with them then I would consider Apollo to be an exception.

Even to the Romans Apollo was the "Greek god". They adopted his worship from Greek cults on the Italian peninsula and had no surviving equivalent god other than Sol, who they equated with Helios, not Apollo.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Best that plan doesn't go anyway. If you raise them in a society being called 'demon children' then that's what you're gonna get one way or another.

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Disagreements where one side has super powers and the other calls them 'demon children' tend to get resolved swiftly and definitively.

 

[BlueMangoAdea]

Disagreements where one side has super powers and the other calls them 'demon children' tend to get resolved swiftly and definitively.

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Heh. Literal demigods taking over the Greek government after being discriminated against, Brazil style.

 

[Darko]

Disagreements where one side has super powers and the other calls them 'demon children' tend to get resolved swiftly and definitively.

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And bloodily.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Heh. Literal demigods taking over the Greek government after being discriminated against, Brazil style.

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You laugh, but that's a real concern. Earth societies are very unstable at the moment, and military forces are depleted. Both force majeure and éminence grise take overs are a concern.

 

[BlueMangoAdea]

You laugh, but that's a real concern. Earth societies are very unstable at the moment, and military forces are depleted. Both force majeure and éminence grise take overs are a concern.

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Oh, I'm certainly not denying the possibility. I am just amused by the absurdity of the situation, even if it's plausible.

 

[RichardWhereat]

Who...who doesn't know Apollo? Seriously, Apollo is one of the few Greek gods that like...EVERYONE knows.

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Yes, precisely, Apollo is how they know him. The name the Romans gave him, rather than his Greek name.

 

[Rafin]

Yes, precisely, Apollo is how they know him. The name the Romans gave him, rather than his Greek name.

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Again, that's literally just an artefact of pronunciation. Ending male nouns on -ων is just a thing in the prevailing dialect of Greek language. It's like how Herodotus is known as Herodotus instead of Irodotos or how Plato is known as Plato instead of Platon or Platonas (as the Greeks call him these days). Those are real people that definitely were never split in two or syncretized.

In Christianity it happened to pretty much all the main cast over and over again, with everyone having their own spelling for Yeshua, Petros, Yohanan, Matityahu and Lucas.

Such pronunciation drifts are qualitatively different from something like Zeus vs Jupiter or Athena vs Minerva.

 

[Coda]

as he faux skin was an early casualty of the process

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Oops. Forgot to post this one. "his faux skin"

Zeus vs Jupiter

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Actually, that one IS a pronunciation shift -- consider the epithet "Zeus Pater". Though in that case it's probably divergence from an ancestral religion that preceded both of them rather than syncretism.

 

[Cuchulin]

Actually, that one IS a pronunciation shift -- consider the epithet "Zeus Pater". Though in that case it's probably divergence from an ancestral religion that preceded both of them rather than syncretism.

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Same likely goes for Dis Pater and the word Deus.

 

[DrThoth]

Actually, that one IS a pronunciation shift -- consider the epithet "Zeus Pater". Though in that case it's probably divergence from an ancestral religion that preceded both of them rather than syncretism.

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Same likely goes for Dis Pater and the word Deus.

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As I understand it, proto-Indo-European religion has the sky god Dyeus Pitar, and the former word also gets use as a general term for gods/divinities (Sanskrit and Avestan/Iranian 'devas', Germanic 'tiwar'). The term Zeus comes from Dyeus, and Jupiter comes a transformation of the whole phrase. The 'modern' figure of Zeus also syncretizes the proto-Indo-European thunder god Perkwunos, as shown by one of his epithets 'Zeus Keraunos'.
The thunder god most famously exists in a more modern form as Thor, but Indra might also be relatively well-known (though they share the same roles rather than clear etymological connections). In Norse/Germanic traditions, Dyeus Pitar seems to have become Tiwaz, who's now better known as Tyr, so Odin wasn't always head of the Germanic pantheon (maneuvering himself into power is quite in-character for him, symbolically).

If the Sheeda invasion increased the amount of people willing to deal with Hell in order for protection, I feel like people should also have reached out or be reaching out to less actively malevolent forces with genuine pleas and prayers out of desperation. Folkloric customs and superstitions in a lot of Christianized places often have roots in pre-Christian religious practices; Ireland is a prominent example of this, even if the Fair Folk are their own mix of problems (but there would have been something poetic about Sidhe vs. Sheeda being shown). If Morgaine le Fey somehow used the situation to her advantage by coming to Britain's aid and then proclaiming herself monarch, and there not being the military resources left to contest her, that could have been interesting. I don't know how people in Kahndaq fared with Adom, Isis and Osiris around, but I can't imagine he would be displeased with a revival of older Egyptian practice.

I imagine Hell still gets a lot of traffic because it's just more widely known about, the natural consequence of the influence of Christianity, especially after the Fawcett City incident. After the Silver City though, it would have been nice to see the angels actually acting positively/tangibly upon the world in response to people's prayers. I wonder if it's a somewhat similar situation as the Guardians' view of things, in that the Sheeda are technically human and so the whole thing is an internal human affair that angels can't officially interfere with (or the Congregation's existence is as far as they/God are going, but it's hard to gauge their global level of effectiveness). But still, there are plenty of non-Christian entities that still have sufficient fame for people to know about and plausibly pray to, and it would have been nice to see some story consequences of Thana's evangelism, which I know I keep going on about, and see a positive side of Zeus for once as a protector and defender of human civilization (which wouldn't excuse his dickish behavior but would at least make things more complicated and interesting besides the idea that he's just too powerful to be deposed. As things stand I kind of hope things are working towards him being deposed by the Paragon eventually, directly or indirectly through a faction of gods favorably inclined and empowered by him). I just remembered Hera should have been around acting like a human television host or something, so what did she do when the Sheeda were invading? Zagreus had also made a commitment to aiding humanity after his conversation with Paragon, though I don't remember all the details of that.

 

[Cuchulin]

Hell is also more "user friendly", it's people WANT to be contacted and bargained with for favors like power.
Other places with strong pre-Christian roots (other than the Americans, Africa, Asia, ect) are Iceland where IRL people at least somewhat still believe Elves along with trolls are real, parts of Scandinavia still take the Norse gods at least a little seriously and strong traces of old Slavic paganism still linger in Eastern Europe. Odds are SOMEONE must have at least tried going to Baba Yaga or old Slavic gods like Perun or Chernobog for help.

 

[Mr Zoat]

4th August 2012
15:13 GMT

I sag slightly as Lantern Natu walks into the waiting room.

"What more is there?"

Lantern Natu shakes her head. "No. We're finished with you. I just thought that you might be interested in the results."

"Yes, of course I am. I-." I frown. "Does this make you my doctor?"

"I'm a chirurgical specialist. General practice isn't my field. If you want a personal doctor, the Darkstars have a medical corps. Your personal medical information can be passed along to anyone you authorise."

"Alright then. So what am I?"

"As you've probably realised-" She generates a wire frame construct which appears to be describing something dimensionally exotic-. Oh, that's me. "-your core self is increasingly immaterial. Though not to the degree that an actual god's avatar is; you do still need a body to live."

"So if I die in deep space without a handy cloned body around?"

"You can't maintain your consciousness without a medium any more than I can. But you're more.. organised. If you cloned a body for anyone else in that situation, nothing would happen. You just need a little orange light, and your consciousness decompresses on its own."

"So we're cloning me."

She nods.

"That seems like a logical precaution. I can't order you to do that, but not everyone thinks as quickly as Lantern Gozzi."

"How complete would the clone have to be?"

"You only need a brain to sustain your consciousness, the same as the rest of us. You'd probably need a few moments to adapt, but you could use a ring to transmute a new body. You wouldn't have any sensory input, and that's been shown to have adverse psychological consequences in most humanoid species… Though not among individuals who have achieved enlightenment. Not that we know for certain that it doesn't, there just aren't enough examples to draw a conclusion."

"And if I don't have a ring then I'd be stuck."

She nods. "I'd recommend including eyes at the very least."

"Would cybernetics work?"

"I'm… Not sure how you were planning to sustain a living brain without cybernetics, but… Yes?"

"No, I mean, integrated. One of the reasons that I've been shy about using cybernetics is that I've been assuming that my ring would destroy them as they weren't part of my self-concept."

"You'll need to talk to a psychologist about that. But I can't see why connecting things from outside of the brain would disrupt your resurrection."

"So I'd need my whole brain."

She frowns.

"I don't understand why that's hard to accept."

"Oh, no, it isn't. I'm just worried what happens if the Reach get hold of one of my spares." She nods in understanding. "Our ships are tough, not invulnerable. I'm resigned to them getting a sample of my genetic material eventually, but I'd rather that they didn't get a copy of my thoughts or memories."

"The brain needs to be genetically yours. It doesn't need to have your memories encoded on it."

"Ah. No problem then, I suppose. Anything else?"

"Your body isn't quite identical each time you've restored yourself. I'm currently working on the assumption that it's due to changes in your self-concept, but I'm not telepathic."

"Just as long as I'm not changing into Larfleeze."

"There's no need to worry about that. Each version of you has been genetically and physiologically human. I assume that you haven't been tempted to try genetic modification either?"

"No, same issue as cybernetics."

"I've seen genetic modification go wrong far more often then cybernetic implantation. Given how good you are at manipulating things with your ring, you could probably avoid most of them. But I recommend avoiding it unless you really need it."

"You..? Do you have problems with that yourself?"

Her faces takes on a stern expression.

"I joined the Corps because it was the right thing to do. We're not friends. I don't intend to answer personal questions."

"That's fair. Do you want me to take some sort of message to your cousin Amon Sur? I.. think you're each the only natural family-."

"I don't want you-. Involved in any of my personal relations, either."

"That's… Fine in theory, but…" I shrug. "We're using power rings. And while I don't think I told you anything you didn't need to hear, I appreciate that I have disrupted your life in a fairly substantial way. If I can make that up to you, then I will."

"Are you.. negotiating with me?"

"I suppose? I want to make up for what I did up to you, and since you're not coming up with anything I thought I'd suggest things. Did you get your student loan paid off?"

"Yes. Okay, let me…" She looks away. "Think about this."

"I have healing beams. They won't recharge away from a thaumically active world, but they can repair most things."

"You couldn't bring me Sinestro's head, could you?"

I should probably ask Dox for a summary of their conversation at some point. Honest deniability has its benefits, but given that I am the person who would probably get sent against him I think getting all the details ahead of time would be wiser.

"That's… That has political sensitivity. And I don't know where he is, anyway."

She gives an amused snort. "But you're sure you can beat him?"

"Given how often Lantern Jordan's beaten him, and the usual outcome of a spar between Jordan and I… Pretty sure. Even if he's been somehow both staying under the radar and engendering fear across the galaxy, I'd be reasonably confident in single combat with most other Lanterns. And I'm sure that the Guardians would have noticed Parallax going missing. But if… That's not really an option?"

"I don't… Really think there's anything. Try to do that less?"

I shrug. "Again, if it was just me, I've got a galaxy full of physicians. But it's not. It's what the Corps needs. It's what needs to happen for the Reach to lose. And… You've seen our records on what they're like, right?"

She nods, eyes dipping.

"I've spoken to the survivors. Given what I know about the government line on Korugar, I thought I'd check with primary sources."

I nod. "Perfectly reasonable. So, I'm cleared for duty?"

She shuts down her display construct.

"As far as I can tell, you're as healthy as you've ever been."

"Thank you. Then it's time to see where Dox wants me."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Oops. Forgot to post this one. "his faux skin"

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Thank you, corrected.

 

[Someguy Somewhere]

"You couldn't bring my me Sinestro's head, could you?"

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[Darko]

You wouldn't have any sensory input, and that's been shown to have adverse psychological consequences in most humanoid species…

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Don't worry, Paul is far, far from a standard humanoid.

Things that would drive others mad would just be curiosities for him.

You can't drive insane what is already insane.

Well you probably could, but you get what I'm saying.

Though not among individuals who have achieved enlightenment.

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Not a lot of those around.

Unless some already achieved it.

I know that future Paul said some did.

She frowns.

"I don't understand why that's hard to accept

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Paul can be incredibly dence.

You couldn't bring my Sinestro's head, could you?"

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Here's another person who wants his head, the other being Kalmin.

If he kills Sinestro then his relationship points with Natu and Kalmin go up and Kori gets a blue ring.

I should probably ask Dox for a summary of their conversation at some point

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Gee, you think.

probably get sent against him I think getting all the

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Maybe 'him, I think'

Given how often Lantern Jordan's beaten him, and the usual outcome of a spar between Jordan and I… Pretty sure.

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Careful there Paul.

You may have beaten Hal in spars, but those are just sparring sessions, so Jordan was probably not fighting as if it was an actual life or death battle, so he may have been holding back.