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

"The Amazons have a nearly all-female civilisation. Most of their romantic relationships are female-female, and most of the ones that aren't are female-female-female-female-female. So while I'm sure that you're used to dealing excessively familiar admirers, I want to warn you that you're going to draw a certain amount of attention."
'dealing with excessively'
 
In the Renegade timeline is Captian Atom dating that one sorceress from Mordu's home dimension Zerox?
 
I don't remember, man. Probably not. There's no obvious reason for them to spend significant time together.
I don't know where it was but I remember she showed interest and asked Grayven about him when he visited to tell her that the sword of the fallen doesn't kill people it reincarnates them with no magic.
 
I don't remember, man. Probably not. There's no obvious reason for them to spend significant time together.
The army and the government knows that Renegade is doing all sorts of things he's not telling them about, and that magic is involved.

If they know about Zerox then they may have potentially asked Atom to get close to the queen since she's involved with some of Renegade's magic research.
 
You know, I might have been reading this story too long but when Bleez said "I brought my mace" it took me until my third read through of the chapter to realize she meant a can of noxious sprayable chemicals.
 
Her expression hardens slightly. "What did you do to Fabian Everyman?"

"I have no idea who that is. A.. really bad nom de heroique?"

"He was the man I was scheduled to interview after Mister-" She glances at Kevin for a second. "-Inglebrooke."

"Oh, that thing. I stabbed it to death. Don't worry, I learned my lesson with beings of that class after the second time one of them got back up. He won't bother you again."

She frowns in confusion. "What 'class'?"

"I don't know what he was, exactly, but it wasn't human. Some sort of… Multi-body entity? Powerful, but nothing I haven't fought before. My father would have eaten it alive, in his prime." I shrug. "I thought it best not to give it the chance to mind control your entire country, so..."

I've been going back through this thread and reading the comments along with the story - properly, in places I haven't - and realized that no one mentioned who Fabian was.


The Renegade stabbed Nyarlathotep with the sword of the fallen. I genuinely don't know how well the Sword would work on Nyarly; he's got a lot of avatars. Still, given how potent the Second and Third were…
 
You know, I might have been reading this story too long but when Bleez said "I brought my mace" it took me until my third read through of the chapter to realize she meant a can of noxious sprayable chemicals.
Sounds like you were right the first two times. The ambiguity was the joke, but she's still a thanagarian.
 
The Man (part 10) New
3rd June 2013
08:31 GMT -6

"…think we'd actually see any sort of disaster relief." Mayor Myra Connelly-Fermin is attentive, but I see absolutely no flares of hope in her psyche. "What are you planning?"

"The outline is that we use Hub City for the construction and maintenance of farm vehicles. I intend to bring in-. Are you familiar with Dolmen Gates?"

She shakes her head. "I can't say I am."

"No?" I frown… But I suppose that someone trying to run Hub City had larger concerns. "Ever seen Stargate?"

"Sure? You can build those?"

Hm. Well, Dominion stellar gates are a bit like-.

"Sort of. They strictly work in pairs, but if you step through one you come out in the other. I own a company which is involved in using them to simplify global logistics. I can drop your shipping costs to.. an absolute minimum, by enabling transport vehicles to bypass the intervening space. So if you're bringing in metal ore or ingots, it's in your foundries and factories the moment it's excavated or smelted. Similarly, you gain a link to every major farming area in the country. It will be literally possible for people to walk here from central Kansas, look around a showroom, and get a tractor or combine harvester delivered that day."

"Is.. this part of the Justice League's development plan?"

"No, because we didn't have a reliable source of Gates. With Atlantis back in working order it's possible to start buying them again, and I'm trying to get another supplier online."

She shakes her head. "I don't know what that costs, but I know we can't afford it."

I shake my head. "Not a concern. I'm funding it."

"You… Personally."

"I'm authorised to mint Justice League medallions, and I have the gold reserves to.. do so for quite a while. What I need from you is city surveys-. Recent ones, because I'm going to have to demolish a lot of stuff to make way for new roads, railways and factories. Uh, planning permits, if you're still bothering with those, zoning-." I frown. "Are you still doing that?"

"At this point I'll take what I can get." But she doesn't look fully committed to that statement. "There are a couple of areas where people have congregated. I'd prefer it if those could be left as residential."

"Okay, get me those maps and I'll see what I can do. Ah, I've got a Brazilian man I know to do the design work and he's getting in touch with some other Brazilian refugees he knows to act as project leaders, but I want to use whatever local labour you've got."

"Does this man have a name?"

"Helmut Schreiber. He was in the process of completing his architecture doctorate when the Sheeda happened, and… He was starting a new course in America when the Anti-Life happened. And there aren't that many places doing much in the way of interesting building now."

"Okay, what's the catch?"

"The queen of the place that I'm hoping to have make the Dolmen Gates is visiting Earth in a few days. She'll probably want to see Hub City-."

Her eyes widen. "We're not-" She shakes her head. "-in any state to host a visiting head of state."

"No, you're in the perfect state. She'll just be visiting here so I can demonstrate what I plan on doing. The fact that this place has undergone near-complete collapse and can only keep its people fed because America's laws on preservatives are looser than Europe's just makes it clear that I'm telling the truth about why I'm putting so much effort into this."

"It's not.. quite that bad. I've had teams out making contact with farms all across the region. Since wholesalers are pretty much dead-." She stops herself. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, don't worry about statements like that. Black humour beats no humour."

"Food, clean water and sanitation we have. We've traded labourers for food, sent organised looting parties to abandoned homes-. Did you know that gas goes off if you leave it in a fuel tank for a month?"

"Yes."

"I didn't. Not before we tried siphoning from abandoned cars." She sighs. "How long will this take?"

"I don't know. It depends on how fast we can get the Gate, and how many problems the work force generates. This city didn't have the best reputation."

She flicks her eyebrows up for a moment. "As much as I'd like to defend my constituents, everyone who could leave left decades ago."

"I have emergency detox procedures."

I don't care enough to use a power ring on everyone, but according to Dubbilex the g-sanchong symbiotes are ready for human trials. Not only will they filter a lot of unpleasant things out of a human body, but they'll also react unpleasantly to any attempt to add those things to a human body. Yes, they look like a cross between a lamprey and a sea anemone, and they need to be chirurgically implanted, but they do good work.

"Though I will be trying to persuade people who've worked in the sector to move here."

She nods. "Is this part of the Justice League's reconstruction plan?"

"No, this is something I'm doing on my own. As far as I understand the plan, the League's not going to be focusing on this sort of thing until later this year. I think there's a… Nationwide Right to Repair Bill going through committee? Among other things? Ah. What's happening with reconstruction in Illinois?"

"Well, the state's basically bankrupt, and last time the state government tried issuing bonds there weren't any buyers. Tax revenue's… Plummeted, as you can imagine, so there's no money coming in that way. We got a couple of shipments of government cheese, if you're interested."

"I'm not… Keen on cheese."

She shakers her head. "I'm not either, and I've been eating it two meals a day for three months. I don't think I'll ever get the taste out of my mouth."

"Your tax dollars at work. Ah… Right. Is there anything that the city needs right now? I mean, while I'm here?"

She thinks for a moment, eyes moving over the… Paper files on the desk and the shelves all around her office.

"…" … "Everything?"

"Power? I thought that the mains-."

"The nuclear plants are still going, but coal isn't getting to the coal powered plants." She flicks the switch on her desk light, and it's anaemic to say the least. "We've got water to drink, but Hub City's infrastructure's had basically no maintenance since it was installed. We're leaking everywhere, and there literally isn't enough pressure in the system to get it up the hills. We've got enough food that no one is starving, but we're struggling to keep the freezers powered and we don't have a cannery. We're bottom priority at Federal and State level for reconstruction and a lot of people have already left. If I had any kinda life outside of this job I think I'd have just ordered an evacuation."

"Okay. Ah. Let's start with power."
 
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"Okay, get me those maps and I'll see what I can do. Ah, I've got a Brazilian man I know to do the design work and he's getting in touch with some other Brazilian refugees hr knows to act as project leaders, but I want to use whatever local labour you've got."
That should say 'he'.

I don't care enough to use a power ring on everyone, but according to Dubbilex the g-sanchong symbiotes are ready for human trials. Not only will they filter a lot of unpleasant things out of a human body, but they'll also react unpleasantly to any attempt add those things to a human body. Yes, they look like a cross between a lamprey and a sea anemone, and they need to be chirurgically implanted, but they do good work.
I'm glad to know Dubbilex is still creating new genomorph types, though hopefully they've ensured nothing like the g-oni can ever happen again.
 
"…think we'd actually see any sort of disaster relief." Mayor Myra Connelly-Fermin is attentive, but I see absolutely no flares of hope in her psyche

After Anti-Life, a lot of people are probably like that.

Are you familiar with Dolmen Gates?"

She shakes her head. "I can't say I am."

"No?" I frown… But I suppose that someone trying to run Hub City had larger concerns

Like trying to stop the city from exploding in a gang war.

Okay, get me those maps and I'll see what I can do. Ah, I've got a Brazilian man I know to do the design work and he's getting in touch with some other Brazilian refugees hr knows to act as project leaders, but I want to use whatever local labour you've got

Nice to know that he's alive and helping.

Brazilian refugees hr

"he"

unpleasantly to any attempt add those

"to add"

I don't care enough to use a power ring on everyone, but according to Dubbilex the g-sanchong symbiotes are ready for human trials. Not only will they filter a lot of unpleasant things out of a human body, but they'll also react unpleasantly to any attempt add those things to a human body. Yes, they look like a cross between a lamprey and a sea anemone, and they need to be chirurgically implanted, but they do good work

I'm reminded of a Twilight Zone episode where an alcoholic has a creature that feeds and grows on alcohol implanted in him.

If he doesn't want it to kill him then he has to stop drinking.
 
Most gas is not going to "go off" from sitting in a vehicle's fuel tank for a month. Maybe gas sitting in a lawn mower will but in a car it's gonna have to sit a lot longer than that to cause issues. Even then old gas can still be perfectly usable if you just dilute it with newer gas.
 
Honestly, is the problem that there is nowhere to go or do people not want to leave? Because Hub City sounds like it's not called Ghost Town out of politeness. If the Illustres hadn't interested himself in trying to revive the place what was the plan? Just survive one more day until you can't anymore?

I'm sure other cities need people, due to the casualties, so they could probably find work somewhere. Take everything you need or can carry and do an exodus or something.

Obviously now the Illustres is involved so things will be on the up, but I'm baffled by this place. They might need to change the name to Orange City with how much he will rebuild and invest in the place.
 
3rd June 2013
08:31 GMT -6


"…think we'd actually see any sort of disaster relief." Mayor Myra Connelly-Fermin is attentive, but I see absolutely no flares of hope in her psyche. "What are you planning?"

"The outline is that we use Hub City for the construction and maintenance of farm vehicles. I intend to bring in-. Are you familiar with Dolmen Gates?"
I suspect that hopelessness is normal for Hub City's survivors. The people too stubborn or too helpless to leave this shithole of a city. And the Anti-Life culling the population probably didn't help do anything but weed out the orneriest of the bunch...

She shakes her head. "I can't say I am."

"No?" I frown… But I suppose that someone trying to run Hub City had larger concerns. "Ever seen Stargate?"
Heh, an apt analogy. If imprecise.

"Sure? You can build those?"

Hm. Well, Dominion stellar gates are a bit like-.
Focus, OL! Let's not mess up Earth any more than you need to already.

"Sort of. They strictly work in pairs, but if you step through one you come out in the other. I own a company which is involved in using them to simplify global logistics. I can drop your shipping costs to.. an absolute minimum, by enabling transport vehicles to bypass the intervening space. So if you're bringing in metal ore or ingots, it's in your foundries and factories the moment it's excavated or smelted. Similarly, you gain a link to every major farming area in the country. It will be literally possible for people to walk here from central Kansas, look around a showroom, and get a tractor or combine harvester delivered that day."
Though driving them back to the farms is probably the slowest part. Although I doubt there's much traffic out there these days outside of farm stuff.

"Is.. this part of the Justice League's development plan?"

"No, because we didn't have a reliable source of Gates. With Atlantis back in working order it's possible to start buying them again, and I'm trying to get another supplier online."
It will be interesting to see if the thaumospheres they're manufactured in do anything to their functionality...

She shakes her head. "I don't know what that costs, but I know we can't afford it."

I shake my head. "Not a concern. I'm funding it."

"You… Personally."
OL is basically the richest single human being on Earth.

"I'm authorised to mint Justice League medallions, and I have the gold reserves to.. do so for quite a while. What I need from you is city surveys-. Recent ones, because I'm going to have to demolish a lot of stuff to make way for new roads, railways and factories. Uh, planning permits, if you're still bothering with those, zoning-." I frown. "Are you still doing that?"
Heh, sounds like the beginning of a SimCity scenario. 'Rebuild from a global superheroic disaster and make this dying city thrive!'

"At this point I'll take what I can get." But she doesn't look fully committed to that statement. "There are a couple of areas where people have congregated. I'd prefer it if those could be left as residential."

"Okay, get me those maps and I'll see what I can do. Ah, I've got a Brazilian man I know to do the design work and he's getting in touch with some other Brazilian refugees hr knows to act as project leaders, but I want to use whatever local labour you've got."
Wait, does he mean..?

"Does this man have a name?"

"Helmut Schreiber. He was in the process of completing his architecture doctorate when the Sheeda happened, and… He was starting a new course in America when the Anti-Life happened. And there aren't that many places doing much in the way of interesting building now."
Haha! Good to see the fellow survived. I hope with his family safe and sound too.

"Okay, what's the catch?"

"The queen of the place that I'm hoping to have make the Dolmen Gates is visiting Earth in a few days. She'll probably want to see Hub City-."
Also, she's an alien older than most existing governments on Earth. and more than a few countries in general, too.

Her eyes widen. "We're not-" She shakes her head. "-in any state to host a visiting head of state."

"No, you're in the perfect state. She'll just be visiting here so I can demonstrate what I plan on doing. The fact that this place has undergone near-complete collapse and can only keep its people fed because America's laws on preservatives are looser than Europe's just makes it clear that I'm telling the truth about why I'm putting so much effort into this."
Let's hope it has the intended effect on her, at least. Who knows how she'll react?

"It's not.. quite that bad. I've had teams out making contact with farms all across the region. Since wholesalers are pretty much dead-." She stops herself. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, don't worry about statements like that. Black humour beats no humour."
True. At least they can laugh about it now.

"Food, clean water and sanitation we have. We've traded labourers for food, sent organised looting parties to abandoned homes-. Did you know that gas goes off if you leave it in a fuel tank for a month?"

"Yes."
As noted, decent gasoline should last a good while. But given Hub City? If the service stations weren't cutting the quality with shittier fuels to maximise profits, I'd be very surprised...

"I didn't. Not before we tried siphoning from abandoned cars." She sighs. "How long will this take?"

"I don't know. It depends on how fast we can get the Gate, and how many problems the work force generates. This city didn't have the best reputation."
And the people know that. So with any luck, they'll do this well just to spit in the eye of the doubters.

She flicks her eyebrows up for a moment. "As much as I'd like to defend my constituents, everyone who could leave left decades ago."

"I have emergency detox procedures."
...I hate to say it but recreational drugs probably are a big seller out there, just to lessen the depressing reality.

I don't care enough to use a power ring on everyone, but according to Dubbilex the g-sanchong symbiotes are ready for human trials. Not only will they filter a lot of unpleasant things out of a human body, but they'll also react unpleasantly to any attempt add those things to a human body. Yes, they look like a cross between a lamprey and a sea anemone, and they need to be chirurgically implanted, but they do good work.
So, akin to an additional kidney? Hey, it's a late start compared to the Renegade but it's a step on the path to making Astartes. 😏

"Though I will be trying to persuade people who've worked in the sector to move here."

She nods. "Is this part of the Justice League's reconstruction plan?"
The implicit question being 'Does the League know you're doing this?

"No, this is something I'm doing on my own. As far as I understand the plan, the League's not going to be focusing on this sort of thing until later this year. I think there's a… Nationwide Right to Repair Bill going through committee? Among other things? Ah. What's happening with reconstruction in Illinois?"
I suspect very little is actually in progress...

"Well, the state's basically bankrupt, and last time the state government tried issuing bonds there weren't any buyers. Tax revenue's… Plummeted, as you can imagine, so there's no money coming in that way. We got a couple of shipments of government cheese, if you're interested."
Stuff like MREs are probably a staple food item, I bet.

"I'm not… Keen on cheese."

She shakers her head. "I'm not either, and I've been eating it two meals a day for three months. I don't think I'll ever get the taste out of my mouth."
...That can't be great for her nutrition, no matter how good or bad the cheese is.

"Your tax dollars at work. Ah… Right. Is there anything that the city needs right now? I mean, while I'm here?"

She thinks for a moment, eyes moving over the… Paper files on the desk and the shelves all around her office.
I suspect this is going to be a long list. Best to focus on triage.

"…" … "Everything?"

"Power? I thought that the mains-."
Probably a good start, if she's working on paper right now.

"The nuclear plants are still going, but coal isn't getting to the coal powered plants." She flicks the switch on her desk light, and it's anaemic to say the least. "We've got water to drink, but Hub City's infrastructure's had basically no maintenance since it was installed. We're leaking everywhere, and there literally isn't enough pressure in the system to get it up the hills. We've got enough food that no one is starving, but we're struggling to keep the freezers powered and we don't have a cannery. We're bottom priority at Federal and State level for reconstruction and a lot of people have already left. If I had any kinda life outside of this job I think I'd have just ordered an evacuation."
I'm betting a lot of the money that should have went to that sort of thing before Anti-Life found its way into the city council's pockets...

"Okay. Ah. Let's start with power."
Preferably things that can't be looted and resold, though who a criminal would try to resell to here would be a mystery.

Well, this is gonna take a lot of work. Some of which OL might have to do hand-of-player style like it's a city-builder sim. If they had the resources, it might be easier to knock everything down and build a new city, but that isn't really an option. Still, if he can swing the upgrades, this might become something of an example of what human culture can become...
 
Most gas is not going to "go off" from sitting in a vehicle's fuel tank for a month. Maybe gas sitting in a lawn mower will but in a car it's gonna have to sit a lot longer than that to cause issues. Even then old gas can still be perfectly usable if you just dilute it with newer gas.
Except the lack of knowledge on this subject is also part of the problem. As mentioned it's also dependent on how cheap the gasoline is...
 
Does the OLC have anyone other than Lantern Natu who might be medically inclined? And are there any other specialists in non-directly-war related fields, e.g. electrical engineering or urban planners?
 
Does the OLC have anyone other than Lantern Natu who might be medically inclined? And are there any other specialists in non-directly-war related fields, e.g. electrical engineering or urban planners?
Nax is experienced with medical procedures, albeit for the purposes of painful vivisection. One of the clickers was recommended by Paul to act as a diplomat due to his previous experiences as a Darkstar. The only other one I can remember is Hieronymous as a magic expert.
 
All the talk about the Dolmen Gates and the mention of transport and urban renewal/planning got me thinking about the underused aspect of such tech, in the spirt of logic this fic is known for I'll share my idea:

If memory serves me right there was one pedestrian dolmen gate in London and a bunch of cargo gates used by trains and trucks. Now, I think were sleeping on passenger gates – specifically on true fixed lined rapid planetary travel.

If I remember correctly the gates only connect 2 stops (i.e., only taking from stop A to stop B), which I think can work well for some sort of pedestrian underground mall (like those found in Japan) with gates making a long mall network, with ways to go up to different areas of the world (Like a gate to France connected through the system)

But if we ignore the 2 stops limit requirement than it become really interesting. Because all the pedestrians want to get to different destinations through the same gate (I assume it can 'switch' to a different destination gate) to avoid people accidentally stopping in Panama running lines would avoid such a problem. The best way to run a line is or
A) some sort of ped ''traffic light'' for when the gate is calibrated to the correct destinations.
B) Running a vehicle, probably a train for the efficiency, longer life time, and steel-on-steel friction, as some sort of a metro service with lines, stops.

And the metro idea is really neat, it allows things like disregarding stop-density nonlinear lines or the image of taking a metro line which takes 2 seconds to go from Paris to Dubai. It would probably won't be that hard for the SI to create.
 
And are there any other specialists in non-directly-war related fields, e.g. electrical engineering or urban planners?
Electrical engineering? Yes. Several were involved in military roles which included electrical engineering before joining the Corps. Urban planners? Maybe a couple? But if they wanted to keep doing that rather than fighting the Reach then it's unlikely that Dox would have given them rings.
 
Electrical engineering? Yes. Several were involved in military roles which included electrical engineering before joining the Corps. Urban planners? Maybe a couple? But if they wanted to keep doing that rather than fighting the Reach then it's unlikely that Dox would have given them rings.
It might be useful to do an Orange Light Scan of the Earth, look for those who want to fix things, then use the ring to sort by apparent profession and temperement, then establish a Orange Light Engineer Corps, a temporary force of humans eager to put down the rings when the job is done.
 
It might be useful to do an Orange Light Scan of the Earth, look for those who want to fix things, then use the ring to sort by apparent profession and temperament, then establish a Orange Light Engineer Corps, a temporary force of humans eager to put down the rings when the job is done.
Such people would require constant oversight in the short and probably medium order to avoid creating more damage than they fixed due to the crazy-making qualities of the orange light. It... Could work, but there are problems.
 
Such people would require constant oversight in the short and probably medium order to avoid creating more damage than they fixed due to the crazy-making qualities of the orange light. It... Could work, but there are problems.
I kinda assumed the principle of "subordinate rings" and the concept of "ring AI with preset agreed-upon task-guidelines" would automate away most the problem-causing behaviors.

"Congratulations, you now have a temporary orange ring that will assist you in your specific taskset and help prioritize your labor with the network of the greater Corps by establishing mission objectives both for you and by you."

I just see it as a case of "I really wish i had a proper tool for this right now" writ small but repeatedly.

AKA, gamify the reconstruction effort.
 
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"Helmut Schreiber. He was in the process of completing his architecture doctorate when the Sheeda happened, and… He was starting a new course in America when the Anti-Life happened. And there aren't that many places doing much in the way of interesting building now."
Adolf Junior, that's a callback! And he's bringing the wife and kids too, if they survived. Y'know, I wonder if he might start making offerings to Hepheastean or another god after encountering the Americans affected by Paul for weeks on end. The benefits to Hub City would be nice, but what I'm really after is him getting enough divine juice to literally punch (or throttle) the ghost of Hitler if he is ever summoned up to cause suffering or tyranny.
 

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