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

[Sorrow]

Beings all across the Universe kill Green Lanterns with (relatively) no consequences. It appears Paul is going to make sure everyone and their mother knows not to mess with the Orange Lanterns while giving his Acolyte a lesson in establishing Fear, not experiencing it...

 

[QuiescentQueste]

Allllrighty then.

 

[AidanMorgan]

You know, I think that we might be onto something referring to Paragon as Agent Orange.

I mean, on the one hand, he's been under a lot of novel stressors lately, but his reactions still seem a little bit on the extreme side compared to the baseline we have from before he got mission-killed by a qwa matter Trojan horse. Even before this; he didn't used to jump straight into firing off singularities like they were candy.

Our man might need some therapy.

 

[deccan2008]

Free Yellow Ring! Who's a good candidate to give it to?

 

[AidanMorgan]

Free Yellow Ring! Who's a good candidate to give it to?

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Send it to Batman.

He won't use it, almost guaranteed, but the seeker program would absolutely hound the shit out of him and it'd be hilarious.

 

[Dakkan Sall]

The chains still binding him begin to turn orange and the spider abandons construct and backpedals to increase the distance between them.

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...the spider abandons her construct and...

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I think it's more in the same manner/tone as "Abandon ship!" though I could be wrong.

And with that aside... I think that it's going to be a bit of an informal/unintentional race between Xor and Onik as to which of them manages to reach Enlightenment first, even if it doesn't happen this arc. Both are making good progress from what I can tell.

 

[Galler]

I thought that limb eating part of the update was a bit weird but that's mostly because OL repeating "Eat it" over and over just seemed odd.

OL mutilating himself dose make sense. After all a few updates ago he explained how little bodily mutilation means to him anymore when he has his ring. It also seriously fucks with the power dynamic between the three of them. One of the worst things Onik could imagine the Yellow Lantern doing to him is something his boss would do to himself, just to make a point.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Assuming this one cares about their homeworld.

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That's not their homeworld.

'Onik'
'ring'

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Thank you, corrected.

...the spider abandons her construct and...

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No, it's like abandoning ship. 'He abandons ship'.

 

[Hell's Razer]

Reminder for people:
Mr. Truggs (at least I think it was Mr. Truggs, could have confused him with the other time-traveler, sorry it has been a while)
(edit: I did confuse who it was! Thank you for the correction Ngamer11)
Abra Kadabra who had come back in time mentioned the "Orangest Night" happened in the place of "Blackest Night".
In order for such an event to have a chance of happening, at the very least the top ranks of the OLC need to not be ... hmm, lets go with neurotypical.

 

[Ngamer11]

Reminder for people:
Mr. Truggs (at least I think it was Mr. Truggs, could have confused him with the other time-traveler, sorry it has been a while) came back in time to prevent the "Orangest Night" from happening.
In order for such an event to have a chance of happening at the very least the top ranks of the OLC need to not be ... hmm, lets go with neurotypical.

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Actually, Nylor Truggs came back to make sure Earth isn't conquered by the Reach. The only one who ever mentioned the Orange Apocalypse, or whatever they ended up calling it, was Abra Kadabra.

 

[Hell's Razer]

Actually, Nylor Truggs came back to make sure Earth isn't conquered by the Reach. The only one who ever mentioned the Orange Apocalypse, or whatever they ended up calling it, was Abra Kadabra.

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So I did confuse who it was!
Thank you for the correction. Will edit shortly.

 

[AidanMorgan]

I don't think the thread ever stopped calling it Orangest Night, and I know for a fact I'm not going to.

This does seem rather like it could be an early precursor to that, doesn't it?

 

[Lord Ernest]

These have been some really good segments but I can't deny that I'm a bit disappointed with Sinestro not showing up. There's still a chance that he may, but after that part with the Abbot that sparked my suspicions I remembered WandaVision and decided to manage my expectations.

In other news, I'm also disappointed that the Yellow Lantern appeared after only one Spider Guild world got burned. I though it would take a couple at least. And this neophyte looks totally like a test or bait, something designed to provoke the Illustres to see how he would react or what he would bring to bear to rescue his Corpsman. I hope whoever is watching enjoyed the show at least.

Exactly how important is Chughraghahh to the Spider Guild?

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From what I recall, each Spider Guild Chapter is supposedly virtually autonomous. They don't have a centralized empire or some such, they don't precisely cooperate, I don't think. So this planet could be important or the main planet of a certain chapter, but is not like its destruction does a grave damage to the totality of the Spider Guild. What these guys do is try to avenge losses to discourage further war against them or their absolute genocide, I think.
So, if you fight against a chapter or nest, like the one in Vega that is pretty heretical, you may lose or win; but if you win and exterminate them, then you may be in danger of that bit of news going out to the parent Guild Chapter to that nest and get some Spider Guild fleet coming for revenge.

At least that's what I remember from how the Spider Guild was described in this story, correct me if I'm wrong guys.

 

[AidanMorgan]

So, I keep getting hung up on burning this world.

Like, yes, I can see the argument that the spider guilders are uniformly awful and evil, but... something about this whole thing is just...

Look, the Citadel and the Psions, those were deliberate decisions, but this? It's... It's a temper tantrum that's completely depopulated a world. It doesn't matter who it is, I don't like it, because there's no control here. I can't join the rest of the thread in cheering because the spiders are on fire because it's a terrible thing that was done without thought. And yes, even if they are evil, this is still terrible; it is an action which causes terror.

This is not a good thing that Agent Orange is doing here, because unlike the Citadel and Psions, it's not a decision, it's a reaction, and more important, it's not the best way to get what he wants. Alan would have never done this. Not under any circumstances. He'd be disappointed, and I really, really hope this comes back on AO later, because I'm not sure he even remembers the Team, or the League, and I thought that that year of interaction would have more of an impact on how he comports himself.

It's not even that I think the writing is bad, it's good writing, but it's not the kind of good writing that has me cheering, it's the kind that has me worried about things like the fact that one version of our hero already went off the deep end for a bit and got Anti-lifed after a bad breakup with Jade, and I'm not sure what her opinions are on the depopulation of civilized worlds, and we have Orangest Night to worry about still because I'm pretty sure that's coming back in future.

 

[CTrees]

In order for such an event to have a chance of happening, at the very least the top ranks of the OLC need to not be ... hmm, lets go with neurotypical.

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What is "neurotypical" for one species may be abnormal for another. Alien psychology and morals are alien, after all, and humans are not the majority of the Orange Lantern Corps.

 

[Hell's Razer]

What is "neurotypical" for one species may be abnormal for another. Alien psychology and morals are alien, after all, and humans are not the majority of the Orange Lantern Corps.

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I ofcourse meant neurotypical for their species.
Edit: And given that the ilustres of the corps is started as human...
Edit2: Also there has to be some level of common ground at the very least on a sociological level for something like this to function that long.

 

[AverusBlack]

I remember back when an Apokaliptian war machine/creature was attacking Kahndaq (or maybe Qurac or Bialya, I forget) and tried using yellow light against Paragon when it recognized he was a Lantern, though it didn't work because he was already enlightened at that point, plus yellow apparently works better against green than against orange. Was it actually tapping into the emotional spectrum? It's believable that New God tech/magi-tech can do so, given their advanced nature (Scott was able to use Renegade's rings as a power source for his metaphysical surgery after the latter was Anti-Lifed, after all), so I wonder if that's an avenue of research worth exploring. I guess Mister Miracle and Barda are confining themselves to Earth, though, so it would have to be someone else. Paragon could probably manage a better introduction to New Genesis than Renegade could (though that's a very low bar).

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It was using glow tech, yes. However the reason it didn't effect Paul that much was that he'd been dealing with the Terror Thing a few days prior, not his orange-ness. That certainly helped but it was mostly having taken a trot through Siskin's psyche that allowed Paul to handle that so well.

 

[Bud-E]

Does Paul not feel pain anymore or does he just rise above?

 

[Mr Zoat]

Does Paul not feel pain anymore or does he just rise above?

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He can use his ring to block pain signals. Without the ring he can disregard pain fairly well, though nothing like as well as he can with a ring.

 

[DrThoth]

It was using glow tech, yes. However the reason it didn't effect Paul that much was that he'd been dealing with the Terror Thing a few days prior, not his orange-ness. That certainly helped but it was mostly having taken a trot through Siskin's psyche that allowed Paul to handle that so well.

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"Fear me, Lantern."

Yellow lights appear along its back and an instant later I feel the gnawing tension and uncertainty that indicate an empathic fear attack. If I were a Green Lantern that might be crippling. If I hadn't experienced enlightenment and had that encounter with the Terror Thing last week it would be damaging. As it is there's barely any drop off in construct strength.

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I forgot about the Terror Thing experience, fair point. His narration doesn't seem to especially credit the Terror Thing over the enlightenment as the primary reason for his resistance, though, so I don't know if I can agree with "mostly". Paragon apparently wasn't affected at all by the Medusa Mask's attack of Love when Krieger used it on him, and he hadn't done anything especially love-related beforehand.

 

[Zig]

You know, I think that we might be onto something referring to Paragon as Agent Orange.

I mean, on the one hand, he's been under a lot of novel stressors lately, but his reactions still seem a little bit on the extreme side compared to the baseline we have from before he got mission-killed by a qwa matter Trojan horse. Even before this; he didn't used to jump straight into firing off singularities like they were candy.

Our man might need some therapy.

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While he's not as close to Artemis as Renegade is, he still cares enough about her not to use that as his name.

 

[Darko]

While he's not as close to Artemis as Renegade is, he still cares enough about her not to use that as his name.

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He has used it on occasion.

For example I think when Guy was reading some of his titles the Agent Orange one was among the ones mentioned.

 

[AidanMorgan]

While he's not as close to Artemis as Renegade is, he still cares enough about her not to use that as his name.

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I'm using it because that's what he's acting like; crazy, possessive, with extreme overreactions to events happening around him.

 

[Vaermina]

You know, I think that we might be onto something referring to Paragon as Agent Orange.

I mean, on the one hand, he's been under a lot of novel stressors lately, but his reactions still seem a little bit on the extreme side compared to the baseline we have from before he got mission-killed by a qwa matter Trojan horse. Even before this; he didn't used to jump straight into firing off singularities like they were candy.

Our man might need some therapy.

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Yea... The thing is... Paul's dead... He died in the Qwa matter explosion...

What we're reading about now is just a Frankenstein Monster with Paul's face and small parts of his soul stitched together along side various alien desires.

 

[Coda]

It's not even that I think the writing is bad, it's good writing, but it's not the kind of good writing that has me cheering, it's the kind that has me worried about things

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That is, I think, as it should be. You SHOULD be worried. This isn't your typical superhero story. You shouldn't count on everything automatically turning out right.

 

[jonasquinn]

I'm using it because that's what he's acting like; crazy, possessive, with extreme overreactions to events happening around him.

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Ehh, I would argue that being very driven to rescue one of your recruits from a Yellow Lantern who happens to be their worst fear isn't possessive so much as the right and smart thing to do

And whether or not killing a planet full of universally despised monsters that invade worlds and eat the inhabitants, assuming that he did kill all of them, is an extreme overreaction is debatable at best

 

[Chaoswind]

Utilitarianism, Paul reaction to this kidnapping would set the tone for the expectations in regards to future attacks...

Aliens are used to killing Green Lanterns without much a reaction from the green lantern corps, Paul is setting the tone that those that attack Orange lanterns without reason better expect to get overwhelming retaliation.

 

[Bud-E]

He can use his ring to block pain signals. Without the ring he can disregard pain fairly well, though nothing like as well as he can with a ring.

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Will Paul add this encounter with the yellow lantern in his game it could be another interesting moral debate knowing the option of killing an entire species of cannibals who are actively targeting you is something that you could do.

 

[Mr Zoat]

27th August 2012
09:21 GMT

"This changes nothing."

The Guilder's environmental shield swells as they create a pair of construct robots.

"The apostate is still the same fear-filled weakling. What has changed in the last few minutes?"

One of the robot constructs opens fire while the other deploys its missile launchers. Onik generates an orange sigil inscribed shield to block the shots.

"I remembered why you need to die."

"Make me."

The missile launchers fire their shots, some missiles moving directly while others fire sideways before correcting their flight paths. Onik raises his right hand and orange rays radiate out, piercing the missiles and causing them to prematurely detonate.

The Guider tries to warp, twitching slightly when she finds that she can't. Transitioning would cost her her constructs so that doesn't even warrant consideration. Instead, she has her robots charge Onik down. Onik responds by-.

What-?

Oh, no, that's not actually the Ophidian, but a large snake construct undulates from his shield, coiling around one robot and biting into the other.

"Fear will not stop me doing what I want!"

The constricted robot switches from guns to circular saws and tries cutting through the snake. But unfortunately for the Guilder, Onik's a devout Lantern. He wants the Ophidian aiding and guiding him in a way that.. would actually be a very bad idea. And he certainly doesn't want her to be stopped by a Yellow Lantern.

The pseudo-Ophidian injects orange light poison into the missile robot, the discolouration spreading through the target construct as the Guilder waves her ring-bearing limb to disconnect it. Her mouth free, the Ophidian doubles back to wind more coils around the saw-wielding robot. A moment later it's no longer visible, and another moment later there's a small puff of yellow as it fails under her crushing pressure.

"How are you that much stronger?!"

"Didn't Sinestro tell you? The strength of your constructs is dependent on your mastery of your own fears and the amount of fear you inspire." I glance back at the planet. "They're too busy being afraid of me to be afraid of you. You have nothing that can scare me, and Lantern Onik's working things out."

"No, Great Master. Lantern Onik has been reminded of what he wants. And how it may be achieved."

His Ophidian construct grows.

"From my mind, a decision.
From my decision, an action.
From my action, completion.
From completion, repose."

The Guilder was watching his snake carefully. Which may explain why she missed his gun construct as he fires, the orange beam punching through her carapace and out of the other side.

Her blood freeze-boils in the void as her environmental shield flickers.

"Kkkkkk."

Onik dismisses his Ophidian construct, but sensibly keeps his shield.

"That didn't rhyme."

"It does in my language." He scans the Yellow Lantern. "Are we taking prisoners, Great Master?"

"We need information. I am indifferent to having a prisoner."

"Unworthy."

The Guilder's ring shakes as she weakly tries to hold onto it.

"Another will be chosen."

The voice isn't Sinestro. Or anyone else's that I immediately recognise. Of course, that doesn't mean anything; setting a ring's AI voice is a simple function.

"Lantern Onik, have you ever assimilated anyone?"

"No."

"Well, now's your chance. We need confirmation of how the Spider Guild got hold of a power ring. Grab her before that ring works its way free."

"I'm still…"

Onik flies towards her, a construct coffin-

The same design of coffin as the monastery uses, I note.

-forming around her as the yellow ring breaks free and tries to go to warp.

I.. let it, and it vanishes in the direction of Karax.

"Identity theft in progress."

"Take her to Karax while you're assimilating her. I'm heading back now to see where that ring's going. If the Guild's ships gain on you, contact me before they reach you."

"Yes, Great Master."

Onik puts his hand on the coffin, where the barely-alive Guilder has been wired into a life support system as the assimilation begins converting flesh into construct. He orientates on Karax for a moment, then the two of them vanish. I

step out and

appear a short distance from one of Karax's self defence fleets. Their larger fleets generally stay closer to the truce line… Have to get Onik to ask how the Yellow Lantern managed to get past them with a swarm of robots.

Tracking the yellow ring… Yes, it's heading this way. So, is Sinestro in the area? Is Lantern Dul secretly playing both sides at the request of her political masters? Is Lantern Toren secretly a Sinestro loyalist?

Or is it the abbot?

I mean, his explanation for how he knew what an apple was makes a lot more sense than the idea that he and Sinestro got together and had a detailed conversation about Earth fruit. I'd be surprised if Sinestro had been on the planet long enough to pick something like that up. But the man held himself in a state of intense mental focus at all times. Guy doesn't do that. It's just about the only method that a non-specialist can use to block my empathic vision. And he spent a significant amount of time asking me about how the yellow light worked, despite making it clear that he thought there was no chance of his being selected for the Green Lantern Corps. None of that was information that a lay person could use to get the better of Sinestro.

The yellow ring returns to normal space and accelerates towards the planet and towards the monastery.

The only real question is whether he got the ring from Sinestro or from somewhere else. But I suspect that's a question I'm going to have answered shortly.

 

[Darko]

This changes nothing."

The Guilder's environmental shield swells as they create a pair of construct robots.

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Trying to scare them, or are you scared.

What has changed in the last few minute?"

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'minutes'

"How are you that much stronger?!"

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Fuck you, that's how.

From my mind, a decision.
From my decision, an action.
From my action, completion.
From completion, repose."

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Onik's oath.

We need information. I am indifferent to having a prisoner."

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You kinda need a prisoner to extract information.

Well, now's your chance. We need confirmation of how the Spider Guild got hold of a power ring. Grab her before that ring works its way free."

"I'm still…"

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If you're going to say alive, I don't think they care.

The same design of coffin as the monastery uses, I note.

-forming around her as the yellow ring breaks free and tries to go to warp.

I.. let it, and it vanishes in the direction of Karax.

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Hope you're going to track it.

So, in Sinestro in the area?

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'So, is'

The only real question is whether he got the ring from Sinestro or from somewhere else. But I suspect that's a question I'm going to have answered shortly.

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The abbot is most likely Sinestro.