• The site has now migrated to Xenforo 2. If you see any issues with the forum operation, please post them in the feedback thread.
  • Due to issues with external spam filters, QQ is currently unable to send any mail to Microsoft E-mail addresses. This includes any account at live.com, hotmail.com or msn.com. Signing up to the forum with one of these addresses will result in your verification E-mail never arriving. For best results, please use a different E-mail provider for your QQ address.
  • For prospective new members, a word of warning: don't use common names like Dennis, Simon, or Kenny if you decide to create an account. Spammers have used them all before you and gotten those names flagged in the anti-spam databases. Your account registration will be rejected because of it.
  • Since it has happened MULTIPLE times now, I want to be very clear about this. You do not get to abandon an account and create a new one. You do not get to pass an account to someone else and create a new one. If you do so anyway, you will be banned for creating sockpuppets.
  • Due to the actions of particularly persistent spammers and trolls, we will be banning disposable email addresses from today onward.
  • The rules regarding NSFW links have been updated. See here for details.

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

What are the chances that after Michael Siskin got killed, a little part of him just woke up on the plain of fear? That's how it works for demons, but it might be different for emotion elementals.
If so, I wonder if he's going to show up as a construct-Lantern when Sinistro gets around to founding the Yellow Lantern Corps, thanks to whoever is forging the rings finding him there.
 
Well damn, new update. Hooray!
 
I find this rather bizarre. There's simply no way in hell civilizations with technology advanced enough to trade with the rest of the galaxy can't readily prevent or reverse aging. Hell, we're already on the path towards that capability IRL (it'll probably take another century of research/development/work to achieve it on a practical, safe level, but we're definitely getting there--we've already proven the ability to reverse aging in mice, better identify the causes of aging, and figure out the mechanisms for slowing or reversing aging. The big hurdle will be figuring out how to implement it on a practical and affordable scale). Even if this species hasn't reached that point technologically, they would undoubtedly learned of many species that have. The capability should not at all be novel. If anything, the only novel thing is the method through which Paul achieved it.

Just because they may have advanced FTL tech that doesn't mean they'll be extremely advanced in all their sciences, so anti aging or reverse aging may still be something not developed enough.

He should be more self-aware (ESPECIALLY given his enlightenment and nature) than that.

His enlightenment just serves to make him aware of his desires, it doesn't make him smarter or wiser.

What are the chances that after Michael Siskin got killed, a little part of him just woke up on the plain of fear? That's how it works for demons, but it might be different for emotion elementals.

Good point, though if Nabu used something special to completely destroy him so reforming is impossible then we may not see him.
 
How close are we actually at in regards to anti-aging technology?

Obviously the trick isnt lasting to where we can have it indefinitely, but where the extension lasts long enough for the next improvement.

Honestly my greatest fear is that I am born just a few years early to hit the horizon of indefinite lifespan, especially when it actually seems possible in the near-future.
 
How close are we actually at in regards to anti-aging technology?

Obviously the trick isnt lasting to where we can have it indefinitely, but where the extension lasts long enough for the next improvement.

Honestly my greatest fear is that I am born just a few years early to hit the horizon of indefinite lifespan, especially when it actually seems possible in the near-future.
Age is literally just cancer. All possible types of cancers, killing your body in a war of attrition, losing every single battle, but only needing to win once to win the war, meanwhile the body's resource mechanisms lose redundancy after redundancy.
 
What the hey! That's an odd time to update, and I should probably have looked in earlier. Damn 'Champions Online' event grind...
27th August 2012
01:29 GMT


"And since I'm sure that this will be awkward and uncomfortable for everyone, I'll go first. I used to fear my own death. Not pain; I've been hurt before and I could get my head around the idea of injuries which caused more pain than what I had previously experienced. I'm talking about the sheer incomprehensibility of the cessation of my conscious existence. When I arrived in this parallel, one of the first things I did was investigate local religious beliefs in an attempt to find out if anything they said about post-mortem existence had any validity to it. When I discovered that it did but that as an outsider I wouldn't benefit from it, I immediately took steps to rectify that."
On the upside, your current arrangements allow for a matter of uncertainty involving the likelihood of you staying dead. Besides the obvious 'fresh cloned body to transfer to', there's the whole Greek Underworld thing, which sufficiently powerful or blessed heroes can just walk out of...

I send all of my clothes other than my pants into subspace in order to show off my tattoos.

"Now I have a soul. And I don't think that people like you who come from a parallel where that's normal understand exactly how great it is to have built-in budget immortality. Furthermore, I've actually experienced organic death twice, so the idea that an enemy might bring enough force to bear to kill me again just doesn't have the same psychological weight."
Dangit, OL, flashing your tattoos to people again. I guess it has been a while since you showed them off, though. And to clear any confusion for the American readers, he's talking about his underpants there.

Lantern Toren nods. "You have no fear of change, then?"

"We learn to fear things that have hurt us in the past. All the change I've experienced over the last two years has been either positive or a step on the way to a positive change I'm reaching for. I no longer fear death because it's a solved problem. I still fear non-existence, it's just further away now than it used to be. I still fear decay, but thanks to my ring I'm not troubled by physical decay any longer."
As the Reach laments, he's made himself very hard to kill. Or rather, very hard to keep dead.

Another nod. "Environmental shields can filter out disease organisms. Wearing it full..." I'm shaking my head. "Time-. That isn't what you mean?"

"I fear decay, due to the association with death. I fear losing functionality. But early on I was so accepting of the idea of using my power ring to solve all of my practical problems that I don't age any more. I cut bits off myself as a demonstration of my ability to regrow parts of my body with my ring. If I got crippled now, I wouldn't despair at permanently losing a capacity, I'd either fix it with my ring or -if I didn't have it on me- work out how to get it back and then fix the problem. At a fundamental level, I no longer believe that there are problems I can't fix with my ring."
Heh, Green Lanterns do get the short end of the stick on that front, don't they? And at this point... Regaining a ring should be a lot easier than ever before. At least until he reaches the point where he doesn't need one at all.

I make an amused snort.

"At this point, if I received a severely crippling injury it might actually be easier to die and resurrect in a new body than to fix the one I was in."
That is an interesting way to look at it. Certainly, if you're capable of respawning into a fresh, undamaged body, at what point does repairing the old become counter-productive?

"You don't lose functionality?"

"It's constantly restored by my ring, so, effectively, no."
So he doesn't even need 'Wholeness Rightfully Assumed' anymore, because he's turned it into a persistent effect. Well, except for the times he takes more damage than the passive heals at a time..

He looks awkwardly at Lanterns Onik and Dul.

"Is that the same for all Orange Lanterns? I can see the advantage in not retiring veterans."
At this point, there are no veteran orange Lanterns besides OL. And Larfleeze, but he likely doesn't want anything to do with the Orange Light if he can help it.

Lantern Dul looks mildly contemptuous. "I have never feared death."

"Which us why you can't do what I do. Tell me." I take an x-ionised sword out of subspace. "If I took this and cut off one of your wings, would-"
Hey, now! You do not talk about a Thanagarian's wings like that, OL...

Armoured wing-cowls appear over her wings.

"-you be able to restore them? Well done on responding rationally like that, but I'd still like an answer."
You're damn lucky she didn't start shooting at you.

She holds out her right arm and draws a dagger with her left hand. Making sure that she has my full attention, she stabs herself in the right bicep. It bleeds freely for a moment, then the wound is concealed by the orange glow.

"Okay, but you're missing the point. I can tell by your scars that you've had injuries to your arms before. And most other parts of your body. But not your wings."
Presumably she keeps the scars as reminders of how she suffered those injuries, whether as a failure or a justified success.

Lantern Onik nods. "They are totemic for your species. Losing them would be a greater psychological shock than even losing an arm."

The glow dies down and her arm… Has a new scar, actually. The flash that cleans her knife is far more thorough.
Never mind the physical injury involved. Those things must have a lot of blood flow. Even with the ring healing the wound, that would also throw off all her proprioception. Imagine losing a large chunk of body mass, outside your centerline, and see how hard it is to stay upright as you compensate for a weight that's not there anymore.

"I don't fear-."

My sword flies towards her right wing, her eyes widening and armoured cowl collapsing as it stops a millimetre from the flesh of her ulnare.
So much for 'does not fear...'. And that fear would get you killed, Dul.

"Yes. You do."

I recall my sword, and wait patiently as Lantern Dul flares her environmental shield and looks about a heartbeat from going for me. Which I'd be fine with; it might help her, actually.
It might cause a bit of a mess in the library, which you're all still standing in, unless I missed a change of location...

"It's perfectly natural to fear losing your extremities, but when you're a Lantern-"

Her environmental shield dims back down to normal levels.
'Oh, thank the heights, he's not actually going to do it....'

"-it actively impedes your ability to defend yourself."

"So I have to let you cut off my wings, huh?"
...No. How is that what you take away from this demonstration? Seriously, Dul, it's like you're trying to grab the wrong end of every stick.

Her voice is fairly level. She's not angry, or even afraid. I've demonstrated that it's perfectly possible to heal with a ring. She's healed with a ring. She knows that it's possible. And she wants to expunge the weakness just a little more than she wants to protect her wing-based ego.

"No, of course not. That would be ridiculous, though I'm sure that there are some Orange Lanterns who do that."
...To test their ability to heal themself, or to remove a weakness? In either case, that ain't healthy.

Onik looks awkward for a moment, then nods. I'll have to talk to Lantern Ragnar about that.

"It's entirely natural to want to avoid injury, but you allowed your fear of losing your rings to overwhelm your desire to keep them. You see why that's bad, right?"
Because Ragnar's sort of settled in as the drill instructor of the Corps, hasn't he? You'd hope he could teach the rookies to heal themselves without any kind of painful display...

"Yes." She nods.

"You've been in combat many times. Have you been worried about using your wings before now?"
And they're pretty big targets. A much larger surface area in the front or back arcs than their bodies, honestly. Surprised there aren't more wing injuries, or is this why they favour melee combat? Less chance of missed shots crippling someone?

"Only as a.. background thing. Our wings have enough Nth metal in them that it's hard to destroy them with something that doesn't kill us outright."

"Are there cybernetic replacements?"
That would be awkward, unless the prosthetic were precisely matched to the original in terms of weight and aerodynamics...

"They don't feel right. And you need to use them as a pair, which…" She flexes her wings. "If you'd only lost one, they would cut the other off as well."

"Chay'ara manages."
Ah... That honestly makes it worse... At least people missing a leg don't need to get the other removed to get replacements.

"Sharon Parker wears the wings of a three thousand year old corpse. That's even worse. Did she tell you that she intends to try to die on Thanagar next time?"

"No, but that's a fairly sensible thing to do. Even if it doesn't work, she'd learn something." Have to see if there's enough DNA in those wings to clone her. "But to return to your wing issue, do you understand why it's such a big deal for you?"
What's really impressive is that those three-thousand-year-old wings are still intact, instead of having rotted away long ago. I would assume the Nth Metal is doing something to preserve them, since even the best-preserved corpses - Egyptian mummies - from that era look pretty bad.

"I'd be less of a Thanagarian without them. Just a common humanoid."

"Just so. It's not the injury, it's the loss of status and the violation of your self-concept. You are a Thanagarian before you are a soldier. Even before you are Paran Dul. And certainly before you're an Orange Lantern."
Ah... You're afraid of being lessened, Dul. Being reduced to something inferior to what you were, in your eyes. If she can internalise the desire to preserve that, she'll be a lot stronger.

"I…" Her voice is quiet, subdued. "Understand. You're right."

"Of course I'm right. It's my job to be right. Need anything else?"
I hope Dul thinks hard on this revelation. And especially hope that she doesn't do something drastic to correct it...

"Not at this moment."

"Rightoh. Lantern Onik-."
Well, looks like she needs some alone time too. Boy, if OL meant to break them down like that in order to build them back up stronger, then he's doing well... If he didn't, well...

"I fear that I have horribly misunderstood the nature of the universe and my place in it, leading to me making increasingly poor decisions in search of spiritual validation while pushing people away and so entirely missing the point of life itself."

I hesitate for a moment, then nod. "Good. Good. Well done.""Lantern Toren?"
...Did you seriously just make Onik doubt whether even being an Orange Lantern is what he really wants? Good grief.

I am getting the feeling Graf Toren is now regretting his decision to take part in this little exercise. I mean, OL's three for three in making his students suffer horrifying personal revelations... Let's at least hope they can find themselves becoming stronger for it. Or this will have been something of a wasted trip.
(o_O Also seconding the curiosity at the early post, Mr Zoat. Not going to be home and awake at your usual posting time?)
 
Last edited:
Besides the obvious 'fresh cloned body to transfer to',

After watching Rick and Morty I can't help but imagine all of the clones trying to kill each other.

Dangit, OL, flashing your tattoos to people again

He's very slow at learning things.

Hey, now! You do not talk about a Thanagarian's wings like that, OL...

Paul isn't all that good at picking up social cues

Did you seriously just make Onik doubt whether even being an Orange Lantern is what he really wants? Good grief.

I am getting the feeling Graf Toren is now regretting his decision to take part in this little exercise

Paul is like that guy women sleep with and then regret it for the rest of their life, at least when it comes to some of his teaching methods.
 
'wings to'
'losing your'
Thank you, corrected.
Two updates on the same day.

What's the occasion, Zoat?
House-sitting for parents. I don't really get enough time in the morning to do a normal update.
Mr. Zoat since Paul has died twice has he actually met Death of the Endless and doesn't remember or Will he only meet her when he permanently dies.
Cause from my understanding it doesn't what afterlife someone goes to when you die you always meet her
 
Just because they may have advanced FTL tech that doesn't mean they'll be extremely advanced in all their sciences, so anti aging or reverse aging may still be something not developed enough.
You misunderstand. FTL is inherently harder than stopping or reversing aging.

His enlightenment just serves to make him aware of his desires, it doesn't make him smarter or wiser.
It makes him more self-aware, and it makes him more aware of the emotions of others.
 
It makes him more self-aware, and it makes him more aware of the emotions of others.

Yes, it has made him self aware of his desires and the emotions of others, but it still hasn't increased his intelligence or given him exact knowledge on how he should respond to others emotions or how he should respond in certain situations.
 
FTL is also the sort of technology that can be transferred from species to species without alteration. Medicine, less so.
The technology, sure. The infrastructure and industry? No. Sure, you can buy an FTL ship from another civilization, but that does not give you the infrastructure, industry, expertise, etc, to make them yourself or even maintain the one you have.

And while the medicine would obviously differ to some degree for other races, the knowledge that clinical immortality is entirely possible would not.
 
"Which us why you can't do what I do. Tell me."
Which is why
"I fear that I have horribly misunderstood the nature of the universe and my place in it, leading to me making increasingly poor decisions in search of spiritual validation while pushing people away and so entirely missing the point of life itself."

I hesitate for a moment, then nod. "Good. Good. Well done.""Lantern Toren?"
Paul: "Yeah... I'm going to need a bit longer to work on a proper motivational lesson for that. But, uh, good on you for realizing it? Next. Please."
 
27th August 2012
01:29 GMT

Mr Zoat, some corrections from the latest:
"It's perfectly natural to fear losing your extremities, but when you're a Lantern-"


Her environmental shield dims back down to normal levels.
Too many lines there.
...but you allowed your fear of losing your rings...
...but you allowed your fear of losing your wings...
Have you been worried about using your wings before now?
Have you been worried about losing your wings before now?
 
"I fear that I have horribly misunderstood the nature of the universe and my place in it, leading to me making increasingly poor decisions in search of spiritual validation while pushing people away and so entirely missing the point of life itself."

I hesitate for a moment, then nod. "Good. Good. Well done.""Lantern Toren?"
So... The same problem Paragon himself has... Well... That's certainly not going to be an easy fix...
 
Age is literally just cancer.
Not quite. Cellular senescence can be seen as a defense mechanism against cancer, but the parts associated with aging which involve various plaque build-ups in your tissues, aren't. Cells dividing into wrong types isn't exactly cancer either, although it's related.
 
Since we're talking about biological immortality (damnable flesh prisons) at the moment, I feel it would be pertinent to mention that there is at least one species on Earth, a jellyfish, that has actually evolved something that functions close enough that the difference is a moot point.

But, while I agree that the interstellar civilizations that can create matter and energy out of effectively nothing not all being immortal, augmented super-people is stupid, sci-fi writers also totally fail in most cases to understand both the scale (a fully industrialized Sol would house tens of quadrillions and be able to output the entirety of The Imperial Navy, Star Wars or 40k, in a single day for example) and implications of the technology of their universes, so the fact that the comic book sci-fi civs don't do any of the stuff we totally can under currently known science isn't much of a surprise.

Gotta' have that easy conflict on hand for your stories about Righteous Face Punching after all.

Edit:Spelling.
 
I -still- think Siskin is still alive. He was an elemental, having his shell destroyed shouldn't have killed him, and I doubt Fate had the time to properly annihilate him considering the circumstances.

Nabu was an extremely powerful and experienced magic user, so he may have honestly completely destroyed Siskin in such a short time.

I think it was mentioned that they couldn't find a trace of him, so that could confirm that he's permanently dead.
 
Mr Zoat, some corrections from the latest:

Too many lines there.
Thank you, corrected.
Yeah, the extra line had me reflexively searching for invisitext.
I wish I'd thought of that.
Mr Zoat, I was rereading Episode 107: Back Door and it got me wondering. Has Inviolate!Lex left the Renegade's universe yet, or is he still around?
He's still around. He's taking advantage of the relative calm to do some upgrades.
 
Nabu was an extremely powerful and experienced magic user, so he may have honestly completely destroyed Siskin in such a short time.

I think it was mentioned that they couldn't find a trace of him, so that could confirm that he's permanently dead.
What I personally think is that Nabu didn't have the time to completely destroy Siskin, so he just ripped his soul/elemental body to shreds, like what happened to Paul's soul. The remaining pieces then flowed back to the plain of fear, as that seems to be the thing foreign energies do when they lose their connection to the material world. It was also implied by Sephtian while they were testing Siskin's golem body that there was still quite a lot of power left after Nabu originally tried to kill the terror thing. This makes it more unlikely that a single move from Nabu could completely destroy Siskin.

What I consider to be a quite good outcome is that some of Siskin's pieces remained semi sentient. They could then go around and piece themselves back together from whatever else remains, just like Paul did with his soul. Siskin would likely lose a lot of the humanity he had left, especially if he had to get used to living on the plain of fear. If his consciousness did remain, he could prove to be quite the formidable elemental, as he already has experience with attaching himself to foreign fear sources, and he won't struggle as much with motivation, focus, and logic like other elementals seem to do. I also think that Parallax is currently being held in the green central power battery, so the central entity of the plain of fear won't even be present.
 
Medidiction (part 13)
27th August 2012
08:32 GMT


I hold up the lumpy purple fruit.

It looks edible, scans say that I can digest it and it smells faintly of custard. I slice it in half with a construct knife… Yes, odd fig-like interior but…

Ah. I send construct peelers to remove the skin and then pick-

"Customarily, those are eaten-"

The abbot sits down opposite me at the canteen table, a bowl of muesli in front of him.

"-with the skin intact."

"I have a bit of a thing about textures."

I cut off a small piece of the fruit's flesh and put it into my mouth. It tastes… Well, that's not custard. Maybe more… Floral? It puts me a little in mind of a potato, only… Not, obviously.

"Seems edible enough."

"I assume that you scanned it?"

"Naturally, but the fact that I can digest it doesn't necessarily indicate that I want to. I mean-"

I take an apple out of subspace and put it down next to his bowl.

"-do you know what this-?"

"Apple." He picks it up in his right hand and bites into it. He chews, smiling slightly as he tastes it. "A little sweeter than I was expecting, but I imagine that your species have developed multiple commercial varieties by now."

I frown. "Okay, I know that we don't export fruit… Or anything, so how do you know about 'apples'?"

"The records of Green Lanterns of Sector Two Eight One Four. A few of them took the time to describe the societies they encountered when they visited your homeworld."

He takes another bite and chews it slowly. I do the same, focusing on my own fruit. With my power ring abilities being what they are I don't strictly need to eat. Regularly, anyway; the desire to ingest is so built in to the human psyche that it wouldn't be a good idea to stop eating completely even if I could. But there's no real link between my health and my diet. I could just eat chocolate for every meal if I wanted. Or that ridiculously sugar-rich cereal with the 'marshmallows' that Wallace eats despite not needing to any more. But instead I mostly eat a normal diet. It's a good habit in case I'm forced to go without a ring for an extended period or eat in company.

"Are you making progress?"

"Yes, though that's about all that I can say. Xor managed to turn off his ring yesterday, and Dul is a little more engaged with the program."

"And Lantern Toren?"

"It's a rather different way of thinking, and Green Lanterns aren't selected for their adaptability. The Guardians actually have Guy Gardner going through their list of abilities that former Green Lanterns developed to see if he can replicate them."

"I don't believe that I've heard of him."

"Really? Guy Gardner, Host of Ion? I thought-"

The abbot freezes in shock.

"-that would be bigger news."

"He is.. merged with Ion constantly?"

"No, but he's pulled it off at least twice. The first time wasn't deliberate; he was just focusing really hard and had a breakthrough. The second time was. I'm not sure what not having Ion in the Green Central Power Battery actually does to it, but Guy's only using it sparingly."

I frown.

"I think he converted to Lanternism, actually. I'm a little surprised that he hasn't visited."

"We will be happy to receive him if he appears." He loads his spoon with muesli. "Your quarters were sufficient?"

The quarters we were offered were Spartan and possessing of a Green Lantern theme. Perfectly adequate and free of distractions. Naturally, I redecorated, changing the theme from green to orange.

"Yes, thank you. I assume that we're not besieged by the curious masses?"

"There has been some interest. Fortunately, the people of Karax respect our work enough that they have merely been messages of curiosity and enthusiasm rather than anything too intrusive. What are your plans for today?"

"I want to do more work on instinctive emotional responses. We touched on fear yesterday, but really we need to do all of them."

"Yes, you mentioned that you encountered a yellow power ring user other than Sinestro." He frowns. "I thought that he was the only one."

"Parallel universes. Al Scott lives on a parallel universe version of Earth. If I had to guess, his ring was an early prototype Kalmin-"

The abbot's eyes dart to stare directly into mine at the mention of his name.

"-made before he could complete his masterpiece for Sinestro. Or… Parallel universe. Maybe they have their own Kalmin, or their own Krona, or perhaps all of their Guardian-equivalents are evil. I don't know. And… He wasn't the only yellow ring user I encountered. The other one was a parallel universe version of me."

"If there are so many other rings, why don't Green Lantern Corps records mention them?"

"The Green Lantern Corps is a paramilitary police organisation. They're not explorers or scientists. Going to parallel universes on a jolly isn't really their job."

"Did you learn anything about how they used their rings? Anything that might give us some clue about how Sinestro uses his?"

"I didn't see Al Scott fight. And frankly I didn't enjoy his company enough to want to-."

"You didn't-" The abbot frowns. "-fight him?"

"No, that whole situation was a mess. I mostly-. Here." I generate a datapad with my full report on it and slide it across the table. "In summary, I had a choice between a devastating war which would probably eventually be pyrrhically 'won' by the 'good' guys, who weren't particularly good, or arranging for a mutual de-escalation that allowed some of the bad guys to temporarily escape justice but caused the least collateral damage. I didn't spend time socialising or training with him."

"I see. And the other?"

"He'd achieved enlightenment by constantly reflecting on his fears and forcing himself to feel them. Accepting them as part of his psyche. He did that because he didn't have a personal lantern and had to come up with an alternate way to recharge."

"Is it possible to recharge a power ring through meditation? There's no mention of that in our archives either."

"Not without access to certain types of arcane artefacts. It's like the difference between plugging a battery into a recharging station and building a wind turbine and a transformer." I shrug. "But yes, it's possible."

"Fascinating. Tell me more."
 
Last edited:

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top