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

16th October 2010
10:02 GMT -5


Artemis frowns her phone, currently showing a compendium of 2nd Edition rules and errata. I've been making an effort to get copies of old White Dwarf and Citadel Journal as well as the actual 2nd Edition rulebook, but given that they predate modern computer-controlled printing it's surprisingly difficult to find a lot of them. I suppose I could just offer to pay Games Workshop to run them off for me, but it's…

"I don't think that's legal."
It doesn't help that surviving copies are often well-used, so that their bindings are struggling somewhat to hold together. The joy of modern gaming printing, where books aren't expected to be kept around for twenty-plus years. Indeed, some struggle for the less-than-five years of an average edition.

I'm sort of enjoying hunting them down.

"What isn't?"
And there's always the option of scouring the internet for scans and photos and building your own copy. Another thing I'd be tempted to do with a power ring. :p

"This says that Vortex Grenades are 'Rare-Two'." She looks up, turning the phone around so that I can see the entry. "You can only take two in your army. So, the warp jump thing doesn't work."

"I know." I nod. "The wargear rarity restriction was added…" When was it? "Hm, I don't actually remember. White Dwarf two hundred and something. The same one where they clarified what the restriction on multiple force fields meant." I shrug. "Less than half of the life of the edition. I built the army assuming that it didn't apply, because otherwise you only get-" I nod. "-two techmarines."
Never mind things like the Virus Grenade, and it's bigger brother, The Virus Outbreak strategy card which even the designers admitted might have been a bit much, and 'jokingly' encouraged people to tear their copy of the latter card up!
(Edit: Corrected by Mr Zoat on the matter...)

"And warp jumps don't scatter if you roll 'hit' anyway, so the teleport homer doesn't do anything."

I nod. "I went through to find mistakes in the Battle Bible, and there's a lot. Just in the wargear section they miss the fact that bionic arms increase strength for throwing grenades and not just hand to hand combat, that the Talon of Horus has a stormbolter attached to it and it gets the to-hit penalty rule for jump packs backwards."
The joy of pre-computer tabletop games development. When if someone made a change, it could go unnoticed until the book was printed.

She turns the phone back towards her, scrolling though the pages until she gets to the jump pack entry.

"Ah, 'models using Jump Packs do not receive the minus one to hit penalty for firing at a fast-moving target'."
I think someone got the logic of the sentence turned around in their head.

I pick up a copy of the Wargear book and turn to page 71 before passing it to her. "It should be 'Troops using jump packs leap in nice slow, predictable curves so models firing at them do not count the minus one to hit penalty for firing at a target moving ten inches or faster.'. Which makes more sense: why would making a jump movement make you better at shooting fast moving targets? And it's not clear what happens when they move twenty inches or more, which should give a minus two penalty, and all of the 'common' wargear items should just be regular equipment, and they made some pieces of wargear limited to a particular character when originally anyone of the right species could use them."
To be fair, a lot of rules the 'games design team' create aren't always play-tested well. Never mind that it's rare for them to play the way hardcore competitive players do with their optimisation processes... That's how you end up with some of the latest edition's oopsies. Like the Eldar's Phantasm stratagem, which the designers had to pulverise with the Nerfhammer
Before, it could allow any Eldar unit to move 7" in the opponent's movement phase. One of the most abused targets of this was often a Fire-Prism grav tank who had advanced to take a potshot at an enemy, only to retreat into cover before it could be fired upon in reply or assaulted. Never mind things like Wraithknights doing a Phantasm Can-Can. :p And that's a gross over-simplification of the issue.
Competitive players would use these tactics, the 'Devastating Wounds' weapon ability and tricks like 'free' stratagems from character abilities, to lead them to an obnoxiously high win rate in tournaments. The September 2023 Balance Datasheet nerf involved restricting it to Infantry models only, making it still useful, but less so than before.
(Devastating Wounds was also changed to be less powerful too. Before and after, It triggers on a 6 to wound. But it went from dealing Mortal Wounds that could hop models - avoiding the usual limitation of high-damage weaponry which could only splatter one model at a time - to simply dealing unsavable wounds.)

"Huh. So why haven't you just fixed it?"

"Because I'd be the only person who knew my version of the rules. If I was actually having a game with someone we'd have to discuss which version we were using, and 'the original rulebook' or 'the battle bible' is a lot quicker than me having to explain my personal fixes. The whole point for me was just to have this army."
The joy of using 'House Rules'. Especially if you're planning to teach someone how to play the game, and have to decide if you want to use the rules as written, or your own 'adjustments'.

"But you could."

I hold out my right hand and lift up my copy of Codex: Eldar. "The eldar have plenty of tanks in the larger scale game, and a third party company called Armorcast did larger versions for Warhammer Forty Thousand, but I never saw the rules for them. Games Workshop didn't add eldar tanks into the game until the end of Second Edition, and they didn't make a model for their troop transport until Third Edition. The model in the company army had a turret made from a plastic spoon."
The 90's were a hell of a time. Limited or no options for many armies' models, and an easy-going attitude from Games Workshop about creating your own models to fit things they haven't released. How far things have come... :mad: Now if it isn't in the current boxes they sell, you can't do it.

Her shoulders slump a little. "I don't mind learning the game, but I'm not that into it. If it's got that many problems how come you like it so much?"

I smile, looking directly at her. "Love is not a rational thing. It is quite possible to love a thing despite its faults while.. still being aware of those faults. Still finding those faults.. irritating, sometimes, but not prioritising that irritation over the love."
...And now she isn't sure if he's talking about the game, or himself. :p

Ah…

"In the interests of clarity, you want me to assemble the rules as I prefer them in one place and give that to you?"
Heh. If you released them onto the internet with clear labelling about them being 'one player's refinement', you'd probably revolutionise the 'Oldhammer' community. Not like he'd care about copyright infringement. :V

"Ah." She seems distracted for a moment. Not sure why. "Or I… Guess you could just learn chess."

"European Chess or Chinese Chess-? No, it doesn't matter."
Huh, that's actually a thing. Looks even more complex.

Ring?

Hm? What is it, sport?
Like you aren't paying close attention to the conversation. :p After all, you are emulating Tang before his little evil dosage, grognard side and all.

With all this information, you can handle the formatting, right?

Sure? Want me to pick up contemporaneous artwork to fill in the gaps too?
That depends on how goofy it is.

Yes. I'm not actually all that keen on John Blanche, a lot of his work just looks messy to me.

You do know I can hear your thoughts, right sport?
He wasn't trying to hide it, you know. Blanche's artwork, messy and sketchy as it is, may have influenced the game's mood and style, but it does look... Rough, sometimes.

Okay. Hit it.

Orange lines flick out, enveloping Codex: Eldar and all of the material relating to elder. The Citadel Journal with the expanded Harlequins list and psychic powers, the vehicle cards and vehicle upgrades…
Living the dream of many tabletop gamers there...

And a new and slightly thicker copy of Codex: Eldar lands on the table.

And done.
Hopefully with far superior binding that can withstand the kind of treatment a teenage girl might give it. And no stack of cards to go with it? :p

I pick it up and flick through. Weapons? Yes, the ring added the pulse laser, and the support section of the army list now includes grav-tanks. And Mimes and Master Mimes are listed with the Harlequins. Oh, and the art section now has a copy of that rather nice diorama of the knight and the chaplain, a nice cover for the fact that eldar knights literally never got a model. Good work, ring.

You're welcome. It's nice to be appreciated.
And of course, it's easy to create models of anything you or she might want to play from scratch. Man... We could have had Eldar Exodites that channelled Dino-Riders...

"Hey."

I hold it out to her. "It's turned out well. I'll do the main rulebook next-."
And hopefully refine the layout into a more sensible configuration. Some books of the era, like the Cyberpunk 2020 rules... Yow, all over the place.

"No, about-. Faults."

"Yes? As far as I remember Codex: Eldar was fairly well written-."
For the time. I'll bet it was mostly done by one person who enjoyed the army, but understood game balance...

"No, I mean-. I think.. this is something I should just say to you. It's about Indigo."

"What about it?" She's looking directly at me. "Were you not interested in the eldar?"
Tang, set the toy soldiers aside a moment... This is serious.

"No. That. You call her 'it'."

I nod. "Yes."
Ah, one of those reminders that Tang has a distinct view of the world.

"How come? I mean, it's.. pretty rude."

"Because that's what it is. You wouldn't call a statue of a woman 'she', would you?"
Ah, yes. 'What measure is a man?' Or in this case, a synthetic teenage girl.

She leans back slightly. "Whaw, huh. So, what, you don't think Red Tornado is a person either?"

I blink. "No, Red Tornado is a person. And his-." Ah. "I think I see the problem."
Ah, so it isn't just a matter of personality and mental complexity?

"I'm…" She shakes her head. "Not sure you do."

Me neither.
Oh, this will be good.

"Indigo is a gynoid, a machine built in the likeness of a woman. It isn't a woman. It doesn't have all of the biological impulses that come with being human, adult, or female. Having three fifths of its brain coming from a gynoid programmed to mimic them means that it can fake it reasonably well, like a chatbot. It's… Sapient, not sentient. It has no real internal life. Red Tornado does."

Artemis frowns. "Are you..? Sure? She seemed like a person to me."
...It's a very good chatbot? Sister's brain is probably doing a lot of the heavy lifting behaviour-wise.

"The ring lets me scan to detect certain emotions. Red Tornado has them. They're pretty weak, but they're there, because he was programmed to observe, mimic and internalise, just like you and I were. Indigo wasn't. It was programmed to obey a list. I'm not trying to insult it. It's making itself useful. But it's not a person."

She thinks about that for a moment, eventually giving me a small nod. "Could she..? Become..? A person?"
I suppose part of it comes from the elemental energies Reddy was built with by Morrow.

"I hope not. I wasn't joking about not understanding her Coluan components. If it turns out that they're that flexible, then… I've got no idea what she might be capable of, or why she might decide to do it. As I said, you can't actually predict her actions based on the fact she looks like a human woman when she isn't one."
At least Tang is keeping an eye on her, I guess? I hope he is, anyway...

Artemis looks concerned. Why is-? Ah!

"It's okay if you're not interested in eldar. I was going to update all of the codices anyway. Where would you like to start?"
Heh. If you felt sassy, you could even back-port modern armies to 2nd edition.

Ah, vintage Warhammer. In all it's sometimes confusing glory. Good to see Artemis was serious about learning it, though. Wonder if she'd lean into the creative side of the hobby too, painting an entire army? Still, concerning to see that Tang has such a strict view of the complexity of artificial minds. I suppose being able to see their emotions or lack thereof makes it much clearer how 'alive' they are.

First link has an extraneous 'v' in the 'https' part.
...and all of the material relating to elder.
... and all of the material relating to eldar.
 
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Are emotions (or rather, connection to a specific emotional energy field) the mark of personhood?
I... think emotional capacity, at least as far as having established preferences and counter-preferences is necessary to have enough of a self to be able to pursue self-interest, which is a prerequisite for personhood.

The way it's being described I'm not sure indigo includes even the most simple levels of adaptive neural learning, and instead it seems to run entirely off of a mix of designed list of contingencies, and possibly contingencies that design new contingencies without any particular scaling preference reaction to any variable, and instead use a flowchart of results rather than a variable preference measure when determining whether a new contingency is intelligently designed.
 
How many full ring-charges would it cost for Tangseid to do Paraphidian's eyeballs-all-over the-world trick, to find all extant copies of the manual and assemble an amalgamated copy?
 
I was under the impression that sapience required sentience. Was I wrong?
The problem with sapience/sentience is that English is a messy language and people (often vigorously) disagree about what words mean. Both words have a history of being used interchangeably to mean 'of human level intelligence' starting in early sci-fi books (1940s on) and most dictionaries will point that out. However, many people argue that the 'true' meaning is linked to the etymological root of the words where sentience implies feeling and sapience implies thinking.


Modes of thought/computation without emotions (such as certain theoretical AI) have been described as sapient but not sentient however that depends on observing the narrow definition of those words that far from everyone agrees with, or even know as being a thing.

That said, the MC's insistence on not refering to Indigo as 'she' leans into the whole thing I'm not going to mention.
 
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I was under the impression that sapience required sentience. Was I wrong?
Yeah, I think Tang has it backwards.

Sentience = can distinguish 'self' from 'not-self'. A dog is sentient. Your goldfish is sentient.

Sapience = 'intelligent life form'. (How to define that is a can of worms, of course. Can't go by 'tool-using', for instance, or else Striated Herons count...it's basically 'I know it when I see it'.)
 
Never mind things like the Virus Grenade, who even the designers admitted might have been a bit much, and 'jokingly' encouraged people to tear their copy of the card up!
I think you're thinking of the Virus Outbreak strategy card, which was listed in White Dwarf as having 'wiped out not just armies, but entire planetry populations'.
First link has an extraneous 'v' in the 'https' part.
... and all of the material relating to eldar.
Thank you, corrected.
How many full ring-charges would it cost for Tangseid to do Paraphidian's eyeballs-all-over the-world trick, to find all extant copies of the manual and assemble an amalgamated copy?
It's not a matter of charge. He's just not capable of wanting something that strongly, or coping with the level of input he'd receive. Best case scenario is that he'd survive the resulting stroke.
Yeah, I think Tang has it backwards.

Sentience = can distinguish 'self' from 'not-self'. A dog is sentient. Your goldfish is sentient.

Sapience = 'intelligent life form'. (How to define that is a can of worms, of course. Can't go by 'tool-using', for instance, or else Striated Herons count...it's basically 'I know it when I see it'.)
Yeah, I thought that was going to happen. Let me change it.
 
I was under the impression that sapience required sentience. Was I wrong?
The terms are so messy it's more practical to establish your own definitions of them. Personally, the ones I prefer are this:
Sapience is just the ability to reason, to establish and verify facts and apply logic to them. You can be sapient without being sentient, which is the ability to reason through bodies of knowledge, but lacking the ability to add new knowledge.<...> Sentience is the ability to feel and have experiences, and from that to learn. Sentience without sapience is a dumb animal that can be conditioned to change its behavior. <...> Sophonce is the term that you're looking for, the ability to self-examine, to change one's values, or indeed to understand abstract value at all. Sophonce is required to have things like art, and requires both sapience and sentience to attain.
 
"Because that's what it is. You wouldn't call a statue of a woman 'she', would you?"
Perhaps not in English, but you would if you were speaking Spanish. And... I suspect some people would. It might be a regional thing, but I know people who refer to paintings with a single subject as he or she, depending on the subject, rather than it. And then there's boats/ships being "she," and sometimes cars get included in that as well... people anthropomorphize objects constantly, even when they don't talk back. And when they do... well, I assume Tang would call Siri or Alexa "it," but in my experience it is very common for people to call those chatbots "she."

I understand Tang's point, and the distinction he is making, but language is messy, even if you conpletely ignore recent discourse on gendered language (which is definitely safer to not discuss on this forum).
 
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Perhaps not in English, but you would if you were speaking Spanish. And... I suspect some people would. It might be a regional thing, but I know people who refer to paintings with a single subject as he or she, depending on the subject, rather than it. And then there's boats/ships being "she," and sometimes cars get included in that as well... people anthropomorphize objects constantly, even when they don't talk back. And when they do... well, I assume Tang would call Siri or Alexa "it," but in my experience it is very common for people to call those chatbots "she."

I understand Tang's point, and the distinction he is making, but language is messy, even if you conpletely ignore recent discourse on gendered language (which is definitely safer to not discuss on this forum).
Fortunately, as an English speaker, I can ignore what sex Spanish or French or German speakers think an inanimate object is. It doesn't have one. It's an object.
 
this one is rented and bent
The word "rent" is already the past tense of "rend." So "rented" is like... well, "bented." If you don't want to say "rent and bent" you can validly say "rended and bent" though that's a slight Americanism according to the dictionary.

"I do physical pain, .
Strange final punctuation.

It appears to have accepted the physical changed I made
changes

for a publics works program
public

His serfs continue to oil the first as he considers my words.
Capitalization on "First"

The joke

———

Vaernina
That's an awfully dangerous division to be performing. (I'm merely poking fun, this isn't meant to be an actual insult.)

Fun fact: gendered language doesn't actually add a gender to the things it describes. It's just shorthand for which mouth-sound the word uses.
English is a gendered language! Our genders are "can be counted" (like rocks) and "can't be counted" (like water).
 
The word "rent" is already the past tense of "rend." So "rented" is like... well, "bented." If you don't want to say "rent and bent" you can validly say "rended and bent" though that's a slight Americanism according to the dictionary.
Strange final punctuation.
changes
public
Capitalization on "First"
Thank you, corrected.
 
Hellish Content (part 19)
Day 22
28th March 2013
09:41 GMT


"At once, master!"

The First rolls his eyes in response to the obsequiousness of the crab-like demon serving as the guard in this part of Masak Mavdil. She scuttles over to a cage-style elevator and pulls a lever, which causes the door to open. She then bows further, gesturing for us to enter.

"Two to go down!"

I follow the First into the elevator, his gaze completely level, not looking around at all at the shaft clearly visible through the bars around us. Once inside he turns around to face the entrance, gaze still level and arms folded across his chest.

"Closing the door!"

He remains exactly like that as the door closes and our descent begins, waiting until the crab-demon is out of sight before allowing his expression to morph into a grimace.

"Pathetic."

"The obsequiousness? The demon just wanted to please you."

"How hard is it to open an elevator door without making a song-and-dance about it?"

"You could just have said 'thank you'. If the demon knew that you were satisfied with the service, they would probably have shut up. You're kind of a big deal around here."

"Conquest-god, what do you think my aim around here is?"

"Ah..? Convince God that free will in general and humans in particular were dreadful mistakes?"

"And then what?"

"Go back to enjoying a flawless universe as an end in itself."

"But I can't, can I? I've seen the imperfection, the corruptibility of existence and of God. I can't be who I was before that ever again. Even if that all happened, I wouldn't be able to enjoy it."

"But surely if you knew that the alternative was worse and you'd made it better, been proven right, that's not a bad thing?"

"What do I look like?"

"A Greek god."

"And what are the Greeks?"

"Humans?"

"I didn't look like this. Back then. And then I was beyond God's sight by His command."

Ah.

"And now it's part of you and you're stuck as an ungodly thing. It's changed your nature. You can't be who you were."

"Can't be, can't want to be. The thing I want the most would be the worst thing to happen because it would even spoil the memories."

I nod sympathetically. "If you were anyone else, I'd offer you a hug."

"If I was anyone else it wouldn't come up."

But then

"So what's the point of this for you? It's not-. 'If I can't be happy, I'll make everyone else miserable', is it? Because…"

"There are things I like. There are things I like doing. It's all beneath me, you're all beneath me, but pulling the wings off flies can be surprisingly cathartic."

"My father once defined evil as power backed by force-."

"Unusually concise for Darkseid."

I shake my head. "It was a while ago, I may have forgotten something. You know him?"

"He came here once, too. Had that streak of piss Desaad with him."

"And you allowed him?"

"I'm allowing you."

"I have a pact which requires me to help you. I doubt that he did."

"No, but I do find that Anti-Life Equation of his amusing."

"You heard it, then?"

He turns his head slightly towards me, sneering. "I was there when the universe was created. Did you really think some muttered words would do anything to me?"

"No, but it's nice to have it confirmed."

Mother Box?

Ping.

Well I doubt that he'd have written it down. Oh, and about the other thing?

Ping.

Alright. Let me know if that changes.

"Have you studied this place much yourself?"

"No. I took Lucifer down here once, in the hope that he'd either die or become less smug. A failure on both counts."

"What did he want?"

"He was trying to work out how to give humans free will."

Huh? "I.. thought that was what-."

"It was. But apparently that wasn't good enough for him. He seemed to think that God had gone back on the original concept or something, and wanted to do something so that God wouldn't be able to impose order on Creation."

"Learn anything useful?"

"I learned that I hate Lucifer slightly more than everything else. Smug bastard was laughing when he left."

"Why?"

"Because it proved that God wasn't omnipotent, and so could be escaped. As if that's anything to be happy about."

The lift comes to a rest at the bottom of its shaft, but the First makes no move to open the door.

"One of his skills is manipulating power. It's more or less what he was made for. And he still couldn't handle the stuff we collect here."

"Kaahuite, yes, I've heard of it."

The doors in front of us open and he walks out, arms still folded across his chest. I give him a moment and then follow him, the doors closing and the lift rising the moment I'm out.

"I admit that I'm a little curious about what your reaction will be."

"Oh?"

I look around. Looks like a castle storeroom, if a storeroom had supports made of dark grey rock rather than wood. And didn't store anything… Other than tiny black stalagmites.

I stumble a step.

Wu..?

"I was trying to work out how to kill you and get rid of that fucking sword that fucking succubus made out of my 'brothers'. But then I heard you say that your soul went to the 'Source' however you died, and I actually got curious."

I-. He bends down and snaps a stalagmite off the ground.

"What happens if you get killed with one of these? Let's find out."
 
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The First rolls his eyes in response to the obsequiousness of the crab-like demon serving as the guard in this part of Masak Mavdil. She scuttles over to a cage-style elevator and pulls a leaver, which causes the door to open. She then bows further, gesturing for us to enter.
That should say 'lever'.

I look around. Looks like a castle storeroom, if a storeroom had supports made of dark grey rock rather than wood. And didn't store anything… Other than tiny black stalagmites.

I stumble a step.

Wu..?

"I was trying to work out how to kill you and get rid of that fucking sword that fucking succubus made out of my 'brothers'. But then I heard you say that your soul went to the 'Source' whatever you did, and I actually got curious."

I-. He bends down and snaps a stalagmite off the ground.

"What happens if you get killed with one of these? Let's find out."
This makes me glad that Paul took care of the First of the Fallen the first chance he got and that he's basically been rendered harmless. Now I hope the Renegade can get out of this situation without losing too much of anything.
 
Day 22
28th March 2013
09:41 GMT


"At once, master!"

The First rolls his eyes in response to the obsequiousness of the crab-like demon serving as the guard in this part of Masak Mavdil. She scuttles over to a cage-style elevator and pulls a leaver, which causes the door to open. She then bows further, gesturing for us to enter.
At least the place has a certain style about it. No evil castle would be complete without a rickety-looking elevator that descends into places Man quails to tread. Is the demon-crab lady at least wearing a little hat?

"Two to go down!"

I follow the First into the elevator, his gaze completely level, not looking around at all at the shaft clearly visible through the bars around us. Once inside he turns around to face the entrance, gaze still level and arms folded across his chest.
Fortunately, the elevator is probably mystically powered, and thus is unlikely to have a weight limit concerning its occupants. Since neither the First nor the Renegade are small men.

"Closing the door!"

He remains exactly like that as the door closes and our descent begins, waiting until the crab-demon is out of sight before allowing his expression to morph into a grimace.
Not a fan of the theatre?

"Pathetic."

"The obsequiousness? The demon just wanted to please you."
Seems to be an automatic reflex in Hell, really. At least in his personal presence.

"How hard is it to open an elevator door without making a song-and-dance about it?"

"You could just have said 'thank you'. If the demon knew that you were satisfied with the service, they would probably have shut up. You're kind of a big deal around here."
The First being nice? That's like... :confused: Asking Santa Claus to swear!

"Conquest-god, what do you think my aim around here is?"

"Ah..? Convince God that free will in general and humans in particular were dreadful mistakes?"
A little debate that could probably outlast the entire universe...

"And then what?"

"Go back to enjoying a flawless universe as an end in itself."
A pleasant little clockwork world, ticking away until Entropy collapses it once more? Sounds dull.

"But I can't, can I? I've seen the imperfection, the corruptibility of existence and of God. I can't be who I was before that ever again. Even if that all happened, I wouldn't be able to enjoy it."

"But surely if you knew that the alternative was worse and you'd made it better, been proven right, that's not a bad thing?"
It strokes the Ego, sure, but that high can only last so long.

"What do I look like?"

"A Greek god."
How appropriate, his usual mortal form is a Greek man. :p

"And what are the Greeks?"

"Humans?"
Writ large, with foibles and failings more operatic than any man...

"I didn't look like this. Back then. And then I was beyond God's sight by His command."

Ah.
I shudder to picture it. Probably something so eldritch that a human mind would shatter seeing its true many-angled glory.

"And now it's part of you and you're stuck as an ungodly thing. It's changed your nature. You can't be who you were."

"Can't be, can't want to be. The thing I want the most would be the worst thing to happen because it would even spoil the memories."
A small blemish in the purity of the cold white flame of your soul, huh?

I nod sympathetically. "If you were anyone else, I'd offer you a hug."

"If I was anyone else it wouldn't come up."
Well, no hug for you anyway, so there.

But then

"So what's the point of this for you? It's not-. 'If I can't be happy, I'll make everyone else miserable', is it? Because…"
It's just his nature. The nature he has now, anyway. Broken as he is by his Fall.

"There are things I like. There are things I like doing. It's all beneath me, you're all beneath me, but pulling the wings off flies can be surprisingly cathartic."

"My father once defined evil as power backed by force-."
Sounds overly simple for Him. I'm sure he's misremembering. Darkseid would take a far longer soliloquy to speechify that point.

"Unusually concise for Darkseid."

I shake my head. "It was a while ago, I may have forgotten something. You know him?"
...Darkseid versus an edgy twelve-year-old. I'm not sure which would win in a chuunibyou contest... :p

"He came here once, too. Had that streak of piss Desaad with him."

"And you allowed him?"
To be fair, He has a lot more metaphysical oomph than just about anyone.

"I'm allowing you."

"I have a pact which requires me to help you. I doubt that he did."
And we still can't be sure that hasn't had an effect on you, Renegade...

"No, but I do find that Anti-Life Equation of his amusing."

"You heard it, then?"
The pieces He has, at least...

He turns his head slightly towards me, sneering. "I was there when the universe was created. Did you really think some muttered words would do anything to me?"

"No, but it's nice to have it confirmed."
One of the few things that could resist the full Equation. Could be a useful ally someday... If they can avoid pissing him off now.

"There are traces of exposure, but none of the usual marks on his soulstuff. Not going to extract anything useful from it."

Well I doubt that he'd have written it down. Oh, and about the other thing?

Ping.
"Still running as expected. Which I suppose is a good thing at this point..."

Alright. Let me know if that changes.

"Have you studied this place much yourself?"
As if the First would put that much effort into Hell.

"No. I took Lucifer down here once, in the hope that he'd either die or become less smug. A failure on both counts."

"What did he want?"
I guess since even a fallen Angel is still an Angel, Kaahuite would be a threat.

"He was trying to work out how to give humans free will."

Huh? "I.. thought that was what-."
Seems kind of redundant. Unless he was thinking something more... Esoteric than what the First worked on.

"It was. But apparently that wasn't good enough for him. He seemed to think that God had gone back on the original concept or something, and wanted to do something so that God wouldn't be able to impose order on Creation."

"Learn anything useful?"
Ironically, isn't that what the Anti-Life Equation is? A program to impose order on everything?

"I learned that I hate Lucifer slightly more than everything else. Smug bastard was laughing when he left."

"Why?"
Lucifer does tend to have that effect on people. Love him or hate him, there's no middle ground.

"Because it proved that God wasn't omnipotent, and so could be escaped. As if that's anything to be happy about."

The lift comes to a rest at the bottom of its shaft, but the First makes no move to open the door.
Which Lucifer has basically done, really. Unless his little private walkabout universe still counts as part of this one...

"One of his skills is manipulating power. It's more or less what he was made for. And he still couldn't handle the stuff we collect here."

"Kaahuite, yes, I've heard of it."
Angel, after all. And this is pretty much the nadir of the one place the Presence does not care to look.

The doors in front of us open and he walks out, arms still folded across his chest. I live him a moment and then follow him, the doors closing and the lift rising the moment I'm out.

"I admit that I'm a little curious about what your reaction will be."
Well, that's not concerning at all. No doubt the First can just step out of here at any moment. But what if he decides the Renegade needs a stay?

"Oh?"

I look around. Looks like a castle storeroom, if a storeroom had supports made of dark grey rock rather than wood. And didn't store anything… Other than tiny black stalagmites.
Ah. This would be Kaahuite. Tiny amounts gathered for... Reasons.

I stumble a step.

Wu..?
I see. It's like weaponised, concentrated #NULL#. Anathema to anything with a soul aligned to the Presence... Or the Source.

"I was trying to work out how to kill you and get rid of that fucking sword that fucking succubus made out of my 'brothers'. But then I heard you say that your soul went to the 'Source' whatever you did, and I actually got curious."

I-. He bends down and snaps a stalagmite off the ground.

"What happens if you get killed with one of these? Let's find out."
Oh dear. A last moment double-cross. Whoever could have seen this coming? :rolleyes:

Well, a bit sooner than I expected him to betray the Renegade. Guess he really doesn't want to have the Sword around anywhere it might get pointed at him. And whatever the Kaahuite is doing to the Renegade, this makes the perfect opportunity to take it away from him. So, then. How will the Renegade get out of this pinch, I wonder?
 
oh i think the First has made an error here, he took the Source-backed New God of conquest to a place outside the reach of the Source's light...

an unconquered place, ripe for the conquering.
that or, being outside the Source's light, it's rendered him utterly powerless.

so this could be the place where Grayven is at his most powerful, or his least.. could see it going either way really.
 
Darkseid versus an edgy twelve-year-old. I'm not sure which would win in a chuunibyou contest... :p

Darkseid.

He is King Emo.

To be fair, He has a lot more metaphysical oomph than just about anyone.

Plus the First may have wanted to show them how you really torture people.

As if the First would put that much effort into Hell.

I mean, he may have done it if he was bored.

I guess since even a fallen Angel is still an Angel, Kaahuite would be a threat

Though I'm guessing the most it would do to Lucifer is make him get a headache.
 

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