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

[WaleXdraK]

War Hounds are a lot stronger than unwanked Marines.

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Heresy! An proper loyalist make sure to extra wank the glorious Astartes! ...........
to be fair even in some books they wank them pretty hard, like that time an unarmored chaos Astartes killed an armored Custodes by piercing his torso with his hand......

 

[Jirachi]

Random questions!
How has Kalmin's research going? I'm assuming that he's focusing on the ship building efforts, though he could (have) be working on any number of things such as making rings for himself and others, anti-anti-lantern techniques, other glowtech projects, upgunning darkstars...
Paul is sharing all of his tech with the controllers right?
What's Kalmin's tech sharing policy? I'm curious if we could get the Sivanas / Kord / some mages / New Genesis interested in the blue light.
I'm really confused as to why the special weapons people don't have a designated role in the steering comitee for the reach war.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Which special weapons people?

 

[Jirachi]

Which special weapons people?

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The people like Jevek working on side weapons projects to fight the reach. There wasn't any special term for them so...
(Since it basically seems to me that if they are having one goal, and are co-ordinating the darkstars, OL corps and LEGION around the goal, the exotic assets people should be part of the conversation, and they obv. aren't from Effigy's bit.)

 

[Mr Zoat]

The people like Jevek working on side weapons projects to fight the reach. There wasn't any special term for them so...
(Since it basically seems to me that if they are having one goal, and are co-ordinating the darkstars, OL corps and LEGION around the goal, the exotic assets people should be part of the conversation, and they obv. aren't from Effigy's bit.)

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The Controllers have three seats. If a Controller working on novel weapons wants a seat at that table they have to convince their fellows that they deserve it.

 

[Jirachi]

The Controllers have three seats. If a Controller working on novel weapons wants a seat at that table they have to convince their fellows that they deserve it.

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Who are the three Controllers on the council right now anyways? I don't think you ever said.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Who are the three Controllers on the council right now anyways? I don't think you ever said.

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Hinon and two procedurally generated ones.

 

[moralrelativity]

and two procedurally generated ones

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DND translation: Random high-level NPCs

 

[Maxx Crowley]

Late series? How many years did he Chunin exam go on for?

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Well....he never did actually get promoted.

Of course, he never actually matured into a Ninja either. He did emerge from his cocoon as an orange clad superhero for which all the rules of the world did not apply.

 

[Khettien]

This may be slightly off topic, but....should a Mother/Father Box and a Lantern Ring AI wind up going head-to-head over some conflict in orders, which side has the advantage, assuming neither is significantly limited in access or resources?

 

[Buggy123]

This may be slightly off topic, but....should a Mother/Father Box and a Lantern Ring AI wind up going head-to-head over some conflict in orders, which side has the advantage, assuming neither is significantly limited in access or resources?

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Both of them are probably on the person of whoever gave them the order, so they effectively have a overarching directive of "don't get in a energetic hypertech cat fight with your master directly between you two."

So, one/both of them probably just asks for clarification.

 

[Mquz]

Well....he never did actually get promoted.

Of course, he never actually matured into a Ninja either. He did emerge from his cocoon as an orange clad superhero for which all the rules of the world did not apply.

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Um... it's true, but you're responding to a comment from half a year ago?

 

[Maxx Crowley]

Um... it's true, but you're responding to a comment from half a year ago?

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>.>....yes well, someone liked a comment of mine, and that brought me back to it, and I didn't look at the date.

Plus, full disclosure, the only thing that equals my burning hatred of Batman....is my burning hatred of Naruto.

 

[Buggy123]

>.>....yes well, someone liked a comment of mine, and that brought me back to it, and I didn't look at the date.

Plus, full disclosure, the only thing that equals my burning hatred of Batman....is my burning hatred of Naruto.

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Wait.

You... look at alerts?

If I tried to look at my alerts, I wouldn't have enough time in the day to sleep:

 

[Cuchulin]

>.>....yes well, someone liked a comment of mine, and that brought me back to it, and I didn't look at the date.

Plus, full disclosure, the only thing that equals my burning hatred of Batman....is my burning hatred of Naruto.

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Yeah, during Shippuden Naruto took a place plant into Road Apples then tried that again with a Cow Pie.

 

[Mquz]

Yeah, during Shippuden Naruto took a place plant into Road Apples then tried that again with a Cow Pie.

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Yeah... it says something when you hear things like the best way to get Shippuden's basic story is through the Ninja Storm video games, even when their first ending (from game 3) is original and they beat Madara. The ending makes sense. Then game 4 is spent just on the final battle arc.

 

[Cuchulin]

Yeah... it says something when you hear things like the best way to get Shippuden's basic story is through the Ninja Storm video games, even when their first ending (from game 3) is original and they beat Madara. The ending makes sense. Then game 4 is spent just on the final battle arc.

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Yeah, between the villain behind the villain behind the villain shit and new invincible OP Sharingan power as well as almost all Naruto's new Jutsu being Rasengen variations... I just totally gave up on the series well before the end. The only bright spot about the ending was Naruto marrying Hinata and have a couple kids, him become Hokage doesn't count because he had wait until Kakashi stepped down.

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th February
05:31 GMT

There's… Barely enough space down in the computer core room for me to phase in. My heavy armour adds a great deal to my volume, and while I could have built dedicated stealth armour I decided that a more generalist suit was better for when the people trying to kill me have anti-phasing weapons and decent sens-.

I phase out again as a technician wanders back through the space I'm standing in. Oh, this is annoying. Don't IT people usually work from their own stations rather than hanging around the server?

The technician stops next to me and crouches, carefully removing a panel on the computer core's exterior and waving a probe-tool into its interior. Fine, he's going to be there for a little while. Keeping my stealth system active I phase back in and reach out my left arm towards the core. My gauntlet doesn't quite touch it, and.. in this position I don't think I can make it. But the gap is a few centimetres, my filaments are near-invisible and I can phase out before anything can react to me being here.

My filaments reach out… And that's the core. Load everything.

Compliance.

Personnel records… Yes, Onisia Van worked here, and allegedly left because the project was complete. Her appraisals are actually rather complimentary. Nothing about her death. Xalitan Xor's record… Huh, that is his original name. I suppose there wouldn't be much point renaming him, the mental programming would ensure that who he was before wouldn't be that important to him. And yes, they do dispose of the bodies as medical waste.

Hygienic.

Over five hundred thousand War Hounds currently in service, which seems a little on the large-. Ah! Because their fleet's weapons attenuate horribly when fired through an atmosphere, meaning that they can't reliably bombard ground targets. They have to land troops to destroy ground targets. And there isn't much in this region of space that could actually stop them. Even if the defending party shot their drop pod, they'd have a better than average change of surviving the terminal velocity fall and walking it off.

Records of the other transformation candidates, psychological evaluations of their own staff… Yes, even the Nazis had trouble with their soldiers having breakdowns so I can see why it might become a problem here. As would being too hostile to the children who will shortly gain the ability to smash you into mush.

A whole lot of basic information, more data to add to my map… Yes, there isn't anything in this facility that threatens me. If I didn't mind killing everyone I wouldn't even need the Ophidian's help. Still, no reason to get careless. I withdraw my filaments and phase, heading towards the system responsible for the mental imprints.

Corridor, corridor, large room which appears to be… Physical therapy for the recent conversions. Then another-.

There's a piercing beeping sound, and the soldiers on duty suddenly look more alert, preparing their guns. The War Hounds-in-training mostly look around in confusion or fall over in surprise. An alert of some sort. That… Shouldn't have been my fault. They don't have any way to detect me directly, and if me accessing the computer tipped them off then it would have sounded immediately. A drill then? Or have Xor and Guy started and this base is going active because of that?

Not an immediate concern. If anything, the fact that they're distracted will make accessing the programming system easier. I resume my journey. Part of a kitchen, a guard station with a squad leader querying what's going on over his personal communicator…

And here we… Are.

Oh. That's where they got the technology.

Technicians are entering what appears to be test data on the system. A system that bears a remarkable resemblance to the Citadelian laboratory I saw on Hny'xx. Ex-Citadelian..? No. No, they don't sell that sort of technology, and wouldn't be able to adapt it to a new species even if they did. A psion did this. They wouldn't see anything wrong with cutting out brains, reprogramming them and sticking them in new bodies. They also wouldn't be interested in doing the work themselves once they had the system up and running. Nothing in the files I acquired about a psion, or… This could be psions, and official effort of the government of Wombworld rather than the efforts of a few specialists hiring themselves out.

But they're not still here. They wouldn't let aliens fiddle with their equipment unsupervised if they were. And there's nothing about members of another species in the database. Psions have different diets to the locals, radically different behaviours and they're physically very dissimilar. They also take brutal revenge when someone does something stupid like killing their people at the end of the contract so that hasn't happened.

I guess-. No. This happened long before I went to Vega for the first time. But… I might have enabled the psions to do more things like this in other places. But again, they're hardly the only high tech arms traders in the galaxy. Don't know.

There are a batch of disembodied brains sitting submerged in techno-organic cradles as the device does its work. In another part of the room technicians wheel away the last of the debrained… Bodies, while the automatic cleaning systems get to work cleansing the stains left by the chirurgery. But, that means that the area is now clear for me. I fly there and then phase in and wait.

The alarm has stopped and none of the soldiers in here look particularly worried. I suppose that it would.. make sense to have this section on a separate system. Brains are sensitive things, and I doubt that they would want a great many additional variables from the children.

No, no one's reacting to me. I extend filaments from my foot into the room's floor, gradually working them towards the cabling below. Now, there wasn't anyone on the staff who was at anything like Onisia's level when it comes to this sort of programming. That seems a little short-sighted to me, but if the programming allows those subjected to it to be adaptable enough but not too adaptable… I mean, it's not as if their brains are going to redesign themselves and necessitate a programming update.

Connection established.

And that's the program. That's how you compel people to be honourable. Or at least how you do it by so totally shaping their schema that they can't think in other ways. And in my ring is the patch that will alter it to something a little different.

Now that I've seen this place, is that still how I want to respond? How much harder would the societal reform process become if I simply erased this facility? Answer: quite a lot, as national security is a very popular rally flag. Something that looks like an external attack will result in people affirming their loyalty to the state and its government. And Xor doesn't actually have a problem with the generality of what happens here. If the government had kept up its end of the deal he'd probably be trying to stop me. And Onigar was pretty clear about wanting to shut this place down once the current government is suitably reformed.

Upload complete.

I remove my filaments and repair the hole in the floor.

Yeah.

I look at the brains again, whose concept of honour will now include an inclination to gradually come to disparage a leader who demonstrates a lack of the qualities they hold dear. I certainly wouldn't create this, but… I'm not going to tear it down in this situation. The psion link on the other hand, that I do need to follow up on. Nothing on the main server, nothing on the system here. I don't.. think that the Guardians have ever tried to impose a galactic ban on dealing with the psions, if only because that would involve telling people who've never heard of them who they are, where they are and what they can do, but it would certainly give Guy more ammunition when the Guardians ask about this later if I can get hard evidence.

The facility's offices aren't far from here. The commander might have a separate system for ultra-secure records, though of course it's quite possible that there aren't any records here.

Ring, message to Lantern Gardner. 'Please attempt to secure records relating to contact between Alignment government and the psions.'

Message sent.

I watch as a new batch of technicians wheel in a tank containing a War Hound body, tubes from the monitoring system connected through the gaping hole in the top of the skull directly to the brainstem.

I phase out once more and head for the offices.

 

[Mquz]

Yeah, between the villain behind the villain behind the villain shit and new invincible OP Sharingan power as well as almost all Naruto's new Jutsu being Rasengen variations... I just totally gave up on the series well before the end. The only bright spot about the ending was Naruto marrying Hinata and have a couple kids, him become Hokage doesn't count because he had wait until Kakashi stepped down.

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From what I hear, Boruto gets worse... namely, more aliens that manage to somehow beat both Naruto and Sasuke, so now Boruto has to somehow compete with that. The power curve just seems really messed up. I just wish they made the show about actual ninjas who ninja instead of summoning meteors. Really, the best fanfic explanation I've seen for the sharingan (this was from a crack fic that actually made sense, though I forgot what it was called) is that it really just lets you cast whatever genjutsu you want by looking people in the eye, as well as see through genjutsu. So things like the giant skeleton, or the teleport, or the meteor from space... , or the 72 hours in a minute thing... all just genjutsu / distractions. Of course, in that fic the leaf was really reminiscient of Oceania, leaving people actually susceptible to that sort of thing.

 

[Chojin Patriarch]

There's… Barely enough space down in the computer core room for me to phase in. My heavy armour adds a great deal to my volume, and while I could have built dedicated stealth armour I decided that a more generalist suit was better for when the people trying to kill me got anti-phasing weapons and decent sens-.

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Dedicated stealth armor does tend to need to skimp on things like defense.

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

Personnel records… Yes, Onisia Van worked here, and allegedly left because the project was complete. Her appraisals are actually rather complementary. Nothing about her death. Xalitan Xor's record… Huh, that is his original name. I suppose there wouldn't be much point renaming him, the mental programming would ensure that who he was before wouldn't be that important to him. And yes, they do dispose of the bodies as medical waste.

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Better than recycling them into food.

Over five hundred thousand War Hounds currently in service, which seems a little on the large-. Ah! Because their fleet's weapons attenuate horribly when fired through an atmosphere, meaning that they can't reliably bombard ground targets. They have to land troops to destroy ground targets. And there isn't much in this region of space that could actually stop them. Even if the defending party shot their drop pod, they'd have a better than average change of surviving the terminal velocity fall and walking it off.

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The advantage of being humanoid tanks, I suppose. Much like Astartes or Spartans.

There's a piercing beeping sound, and the soldiers on duty suddenly look more alert, preparing their guns. The War Hounds-in-training mostly look around in confusion or fall over in surprise. An alert of some sort. That… Shouldn't have been my fault. They don't have any way to detect me directly, and if me accessing the computer tipped them off then it would have sounded immediately. A drill then? Or have Xor and Guy started and this base is going active because of that?

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Or something else you haven't foreseen? Who knows.

But they're not still here. They wouldn't let aliens fiddle with their equipment unsupervised if they were. And there's nothing about members of another species in the database. Psions have different diets to the locals, radically different behaviours and they're physically very dissimilar. They also take brutal revenge when someone does something stupid like killing their people at the end of the contract so that hasn't happened.

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So they're long gone. Looks like a trip to Vega is definitely in order.

No, no one's reacting to me. I extend filaments from my foot into the room's floor, gradually working them towards the cabling below. Now, there wasn't anyone on the staff who was at anything like Onisia's level when it comes to this sort of programming. That seems a little short-sighted to me, but if the programming allows those subjected to it to be adaptable enough but not too adaptable… I mean, it's not as if their brains are going to redesign themselves and necessitate a programming update.

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Not without outside help...

I look at the brains again, whose concept of honour will now include an inclination to gradually come to disparage a leader who demonstrates a lack of the qualities they hold dear.

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A small change, but one that will add up over time...

Ah, No-clip and No-target cheats make stealth sections so much easier, outside of scripted moments...

 

[Twilight666]

From what I hear, Boruto gets worse... namely, more aliens that manage to somehow beat both Naruto and Sasuke, so now Boruto has to somehow compete with that. The power curve just seems really messed up. I just wish they made the show about actual ninjas who ninja instead of summoning meteors

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eeeeh... I mean that was the adaptation of one of the movies.
Most of the rest is basically the equivalent of Wave or other similar leveled movies and filler missions from the original series.
On the other hand there is a manga and it moves slowly so the current episodes could be considerred like the filler seasons between the Sasuke retreaval and Shippuden, so you could consider the whole things to be filler as well

Really, the best fanfic explanation I've seen for the sharingan (this was from a crack fic that actually made sense, though I forgot what it was called) is that it really just lets you cast whatever genjutsu you want by looking people in the eye, as well as see through genjutsu. So things like the giant skeleton, or the teleport, or the meteor from space... , or the 72 hours in a minute thing... all just genjutsu / distractions. Of course, in that fic the leaf was really reminiscient of Oceania, leaving people actually susceptible to that sort of thing.

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Pretty sure that is Sasuke Uchiha and the Power of Lies

 

[Old Knife]

Aren't you going to steal a warhound body? For science?!

 

[Handlewithcare]

Huh. I wonder what motivation the Pisons could have had? A useful army made form another species?

Also, the assumption that they are actually gone seems a bit premature. For all we know they are behind the Alignment government.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Huh. I wonder what motivation the Pisons could have had? A useful army made form another species?

Also, the assumption that they are actually gone seems a bit premature. For all we know they are behind the Alignment government.

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Psions will just do stuff for money.

 

[infinityDivided]

Psions will just do stuff for money.

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Booooorrrrriiiinnnngggg./s

 

[thebishop8]

I wonder if the Guardians removed the ban on Green Lanterns traveling to Vega now that Larfleeze is gone.

 

[Mquz]

Booooorrrrriiiinnnngggg./s

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They also do stuff for Science!!! Or just for shits and giggles. It's not like they really need the money all that much.

 

[Mquz]

eeeeh... I mean that was the adaptation of one of the movies.
Most of the rest is basically the equivalent of Wave or other similar leveled movies and filler missions from the original series.
On the other hand there is a manga and it moves slowly so the current episodes could be considerred like the filler seasons between the Sasuke retreaval and Shippuden, so you could consider the whole things to be filler as well

Pretty sure that is Sasuke Uchiha and the Power of Lies

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Thanks

 

[moralrelativity]

Better than recycling them into food.

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Why?

 

[Mquz]

Why?

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Because Soylent Green is people? It's a trope that sounds gross, and depending on one's beliefs may be immoral.