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

Field Trip (part 3)
3rd January
20:12 GMT -5


I look around the circle. "So how much was she bullshitting me?"

M'gann slumps, and J'onn doesn't look much happier as he activates the table's holographic display. "There have been significant instances of civil unrest in all Martian cities."

An image of Mars appears, covered in markers showing the locations of cities. Most of the markers are the 'X' I associate with the Manhunters, each one split in colour between red and white. A handful of others are marked by a red circle surrounded by a gold ring. M'gann's eyes widen as she takes in how bad the situation has become. On my right, Ghia'ta's eyes dart from marker to marker, clearly astonished at the level of societal decay. On my left, Komand'r looks almost… Irritated?

J'onn points to the globe. "Red indicates the degree of government control, and the extent to which society continues to function normally."

I nod. That only gives a rough idea, but it looks like the central government has lost control of about a quarter of each city. On average; there's quite a range. The capital is about nine tenths red while other places are up to two thirds white.

I point to a red sun emblem. "What are these?"

"In most places, White Martians are reacting against centuries of sanctioned oppression. They have legitimate grievances, particularly now that we know our true origins. It was my hope that once the initial shock has died down all parties might reach a negotiated settlement. Martian society would have to change, but it would survive."

He presses a button and the image of Mars shrinks and moves to the side, images of a group of White Martians taking centre stage. Um. I can just about tell them apart. There are very slight differences in build. But the most notable feature is that they all wear the red circle emblem.

"These are members of a terrorist group called the Hyperclan. White Martian agitators in favour of violently overturning the Red Martian government and establishing a White only government have used that name for a significant period of time. In the past, they have limited themselves to occasional assassinations, but with the current break down in civil order they have begun acting more openly."

He points to a red circle.

"The Hyperclan is now in control of these cities. My ability to give you further information is limited, as there is no Manhunter presence inside of any of them. The last refugees to leave Kriglo-" He points to one of the red circles. "-reported that they killed every government official, but allowed the rest of the non-White population to evacuate. However, when Xan'Xie fell to their control, no such evacuation was permitted."

I nod. "Hostages?"

J'onn bows his head. "That is my hope. The Hyperclan are known to be the most extreme part of the White Rights movement, but it is unlikely that the majority of their new recruits share their fervour."

I have a quick look for their home city of Mel'dilo'rn. Hm. A mere thirty percent unrest, give or take. Though given that they have mixed colour couples…

"Put it in… Human terms for me. How badly are White Martians treated?"

M'gann shakes her head. "It isn't.. uniform. Different cities had different levels of oppression. I just thought that… Knowing where we came from would reduce prejudice, not set off a civil war!"

"M'gann…" I shake my head. "If a civilisation oppresses people, it really shouldn't be surprised if they rise up in violent revolt. I'm confident in my own mind that something like this was inevitable."

She nods reluctantly, clearly unconvinced. "Some.. cities are like Apartheid South Africa. Whites are banned from going to some places or taking some jobs by law. In other places there aren't laws supporting it, but it's still very unusual for White Martians to work in certain industries."

I nod. "And your government is theoretically a meritocracy but in practice no one who isn't Red… Who wasn't born Red can occupy the higher tiers."

She nods again. "Something else I thought would make people happy. I don't know a single natural Red who can cope with fire as well as I can, but apparently I still don't count!"

"So… You're complaining that your people's racism doesn't work in your interests?"

"No, Grayven, I-." She glares at me. "That isn't funny."

"No." Komand'r leans forwards. "It's revolting. Is this what becomes of peoples without an external enemy? They simply turn upon one another?"

I smile wryly. "Amongst humans, the mere establishment of a group at some level is enough to cause outgroup discrimination. Formalised oppression is a little more unusual."

"Should I expect this obscenity from Tamaranians in future?"

I shrug. "Probably not. You had rivalries between demesnes after the Citadel conquest, didn't you?" A small nod. "Societies under stress fracture along previously extant lines. With Tamaran on the rise, I doubt that you have much to worry about. Which is not to say that you shouldn't be sure to involve people from all regions in the restoration."

A slightly more definite nod. "As you did when you recruited your Lanterns."

"The point wasn't to establish.. quotas. To make everyone equally involved. But I did want to ensure that everyone had some stake in things." I gesture to the image of the Hyperclan. "This is what happens when a group has no stake, no way to improve their position and someone who is very clearly to blame."

She frowns at J'onn. "What are your military doing about this?"

"Little. The Manhunters are more frequently deployed as police than as soldiers. Naval assets have been deployed to contain the Hyperclan, but this sort of civil uprising is… Unprecedented. And since we are not certain how their more… Exotic abilities function-."

"Wait." I frown. "Wait. You come from a species of telepathic telekinetic shapeshifters but they've got something else?"

"Yes. A wide variety of abilities, not unlike those of metahumans. I would like to know whether or not the Light had any contact with them."

I shake my head. "Not as far as I know. It would rather go against their ideology… And there wasn't an obvious 'face' for it. Not impossible, though. Certainly, there weren't any operations I was aware of that involved the use of martian operatives." He nods. "So to return to my original question..?"

"She did not lie concerning the sanctity of the monastery. Members of the Hyperclan delight in violating the taboo against attacking Red Martians. But the majority of demonstrators in the city you are visiting are far more peaceful. It is unlikely that you will be troubled."

"And the school trip?"

He dismisses the image of the Hyperclan and brings up an interior view of the city of Mel'dilo'rn. "The school you selected has a mixed population, and is located in a city which has historically been less colourist than many other places. There have so far been no violent demonstrations near it." He sighs. "However, I would advise that anyone who visits does so with an armed escort, and that you are prepared to return them by boom tube at short notice."

I nod. I wanted to introduce some of the Center's older children to their martian contemporaries, to broaden their horizons and perhaps to give Doctor Williams access to better teaching techniques. The martians have actually systematised that sort of thing, while he's been forced to puzzle things out as he goes. I'll… Have to check that everyone and their parents understand the potential risks.

"J'onn, what is your government doing to resolve this?"

"There have been negotiation attempts. But the disunited nature of the opposition means that there is no one person with whom negotiations could be undertaken. I am… Concerned, that the situations will deteriorate to the point that the ruling council will order an attack. If that happened, even if it was successful, Martian civilisation would never recover."

No. It wouldn't. "Ghia'ta, how good are your telepath baffles?"

"I can prevent a telepath of Miss Martian's ability from detecting my presence."

I nod. "Good. This… Is a Martian internal matter. However, a bloodbath isn't in anybody's interests. Take a look at the cities the Hyperclan have taken over." She nods. "Don't report on their defensive measures, but do report on the general conditions within."

"I understand."

"Thank you. So, J'onn, who in your government is pushing for what?"
 
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I shake my head. "Not as far as I know. It would rather go against their ideology… And there wasn't an obvious 'face' for it. Not impossible, though. Certainly, there weren't any operations I was aware of that involved the use of martian operatives." He nods. "So to return to my original question..?"
Maybe you should ask your Vandal Savage construct about it...
 
"Some.. cities are like Apatite South Africa.
"Some.. cities are like Apartheid South Africa.

I nod. "And your government is theoretically meritocratically but...
I nod. "And your government is theoretically a meritocracy but...
Reads a bit cleaner. (Also couldn't find the form you used online.)


Hmm... I'm guessing in this timeline, the Hyperclan was able to secure Ma'alefa'ak and undo his programming without interference. Presumably, M'gann and Kon-El didn't visit him during their trip, or the timing of the trip didn't align with the attack we saw in Paragon timeline...
(And apparently I missed quite a few errors, or you fixed them before I read it...)
 
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"Oh I think I have an idea. They probably have used shapechanging to copy metahuman abilities. That kind of thing is technically possible after all. But I wonder were they got the genetic samples?"

Really Grayven, is not like you can't explain their abilities with in universe knowledge.
 
"Oh I think I have an idea. They probably have used shapechanging to copy metahuman abilities. That kind of thing is technically possible after all. But I wonder were they got the genetic samples?"

Really Grayven, is not like you can't explain their abilities with in universe knowledge.
Their shapeshifting doesn't work like that. It's shapeshifting, and that's pretty much it. Clothes, details, etc they can mimick, but there are limits.

It's really more like they just squeeze their mass into whatever shape, and rearrange muscles, etc, to fit. For instance, a normal martian form is actually physically weaker than a martian imitating a human because humans have shorter, thicker limbs. They certainly can't change into Superman's shape and get his strength and invulnerability, or anything like that.

Granted, M'gann can change into a Star Conqueror form and gains increased abilities from that, but that's largely due to the fact that she splits up her brain into several multitasking parts. Raises a lot of questions about how shapeshifting your own brain works, but imitating superhuman powers it is not.
 
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Their shapeshifting doesn't work like that.

Megan being able to copy the abilities of a Star Conqueror suggests otherwise.

And also this:

Doesn't M'gann, in canon, change her blood to give Garfield Logan a blood transfusion? That argues that perhaps their shapeshifting isn't quite as simple as you suggest.

The people behind Young Justice are liars. How does "Superheroes being new" equal to "Wonder Womn has been ab active superhero for decades"?

A lot of things they said about the show like "Superheroes not being as powerful" ended being fake.
 
Doesn't M'gann, in canon, change her blood to give Garfield Logan a blood transfusion? That argues that perhaps their shapeshifting isn't quite as simple as you suggest.
I don't remember what Zoat's word on that situation is, but in general it does seem like that's the sort of shapeshifting he's going for.

At the very least, I'd figure that it'd come up in the story by now if martians could replicate metahuman abilities with a dna sample, given that OL has been on a team with a martian for quite a while by this point.

Megan being able to copy the abilities of a Star Conqueror suggests otherwise.

Yeah, but those abilities are basically telekinesis and related mental abilites. That's more like using your pre-existing abilites in a different way with a new approach, as opposed to adapting entirely new abilities from a completely different source of power.

And M'gann apparently can't replicate all of the abilites of a Star Conqueror, either. When (in a Zoat-sanctioned omake) she was training with OL in Star Conqueror form (in part to prepare them both for fighting other Conquerors), M'gann had to borrow his Praxis Demons as a stand-in for the smaller Starro parasites that Star Conquerors can produce from their own body. If M'gann could do that, presumably she would've.
 
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Which makes me wonder....okay, so I've watched some TotalBiscuit recently, and he was playing some Warhammer 40K games. To be honest, his excitement and passion for parts of the games is what is making me very curious about 40K to begin with.

But on that point, OL does seem to know what 40K is (I swear literally every English youtuber is a fan) so...why not fabricate some sort of Heavy Bolter? Which, as I understand it, basically fires armor piercing explosive rounds (and I love everything about that.)

I'm sad to say we lost TotalBiscuit last may to cancer. He did good work, and enjoyed doing his stuff to the end.

I'm a recovered 40k enthusiast ( "Plastic Crack" is one of the more colourful terms for the hobby, given the pricing for models), so I'll jump in on this one.

While I love the lore, 40k weapons are several shades of crazy. For those folks that have never partaken in this particular sci-fi universe I'll give a short description of what a Bolter is:

Picture a Gyrojet rocket pistol from the James Bond film "You Only Live Twice" and the AA-12 Full automatic shotgun with Frag-12 exploding shells from the film "The Expendables"...you got that? Now picture if they had a very, very angry baby, and you're in the ball park. It's a select fire, .75 caliber rocket propelled firearm, with armour piercing high explosive ammo. Which are waved around by 7 foot tall genetically augmented, power armored crazies, who wave them around like a sub-machinegun.

As cool as huge grenade bullets exploding xenos and heretics apart from the inside is....it's not exactly practical. Real world doesn't use mini rockets like the Gyrojet because, unlike a normal bullet a rocket needs to burn to accelerate up to speed. Means that up close, they're not moving fast enough to do much damage (the Gyrojet around could be stopped with your finger at the end of the muzzle, despite being lethal man stoppers 20 meters down range). The other reasons were price and quality control, with the rocket vents sometimes being miss aligned and sending a shot wild. As for explosive ammo, it's considered overkill on a anti-personnel level, since something like the .75 cal size hole in your torso is likely to kill you enough as it is. It's bulky, unstable and hard on logistics. 40k can wave some scitzo-tech explanations at this over the years, but it IS part of the reasons why the Bolter is left to the special forces Space Marines, while the run of the mill Imperial Guardsman gets the 'puny' Mars Pattern Lasgun.

If we have the tech to make effective explosives fit in a bullet, then we generally use that as propellant instead and use lots of smaller faster bullets instead. Once you get enough mass moving fast enough, weather or not it explodes becomes mostly redundant. This is where the rail gun comes in.

Railguns are being developed in real life that would use inert ammo and electricity to fire ammo fast enough that it's reaches that 'redundant' catagory. Paul, if he feels the need, can change the size, mass and muzzle velocity of his Construct Railguns ammo to fit whatever need he has at the time, and if something bigger comes along he can simply scale the power levels up to match on the fly. Poke a hole in a piece of paper, remove a Cobra Terrorists trigger finger, or core a battleship lengthwise. It's only a matter of scale for Paul, with the limiting factors being mostly air resistance and over-penetration. Firing too fast in atmosphere and your bullet has been rendered hypersonic confetti, and with too much power for a target and you've reduced the civilians behind them to chunky salsa.

You ever see that episode of Stargate, where SG-1 compares the Jaffa staff weapon to their own earth made P-90? It's a similar issue here. The Bolter is a weapon of fear, made to intimidate your enemies. The Railgun is a weapon of war, made to kill your enemies.

If you want to poke around some of the physics and exotic ideas in Sci-fi weapons, I'd suggest poking Project Rho. It's a site to help sci-fi writers with hard science, and they've got a good collection on side arms.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmintro.php
 
M'gann had to borrow his Praxis Demons as a stand-in for the smaller Starro parasites that Star Conquerors can produce from their own body. If M'gann could do that, presumably she would've.

Dude do you even read what you type?

Why would she create mind controling parasites? She wants to be a Hero and doesn't have her soul made of orange light not is she Pragmatic Neutral like Oh El.

Not to mention that those parasites? Is basically how Star Conquerors reproduce.
 
Dude do you even read what you type?

Why would she create mind controling parasites? She wants to be a Hero and doesn't have her soul made of orange light not is she Pragmatic Neutral like Oh El.

Not to mention that those parasites? Is basically how Star Conquerors reproduce.
They were explicitly doing a training exercise to prepare for combat with other Star Conquerors. Not quite 'no holds barred', but mind control was definitely on table; she was manipulating his senses to try to disorient and blind him. If she could make actual Starro parasites, she would because it'd be a better exercise, just like if OL had weak enough barriers for her to mind control him outright, she would. Regardless of what method she uses, she can just stop as soon as the exercise is clearly over, because that's how training exercises work.

If you're standing in for a actual combatant in a training exercise, and then don't do things that a enemy would, then you're just letting your partner down. Using a paintball gun instead of a real gun during a combat exercise is reasonable, because you don't want to actually kill your training partner(s). Refusing to point your gun at them is not.
 
I think that A) Megan wasn't gonna to basically have babies just for a training exercise and B) There was the risk of her not able to control the parasites.
Why? Why would we assume that what is basically just a unusual form that she shape shifted into would:

A: Give her the entirely new ability to split off bits of herself.
B: Create the thus-unmentioned risk of having those new bits gain a mind of their own.

I mean, yes, maybe it turns out that the default form of martain reproduction works like that. They're described as amoebic, so maybe they make new martians by just shapeshifting off new chunks. But even if that was the case, then that still wouldn't be a actual new ability (and most likely they'd behave nothing like Starro parasites), and so it wouldn't be evidence that she could actually fully replicate Star Conqueror abilities.
 
Picture a Gyrojet rocket pistol from the James Bond film "You Only Live Twice" and the AA-12 Full automatic shotgun with Frag-12 exploding shells from the film "The Expendables"...you got that? Now picture if they had a very, very angry baby, and you're in the ball park. It's a select fire, .75 caliber rocket propelled firearm, with armour piercing high explosive ammo. Which are waved around by 7 foot tall genetically augmented, power armored crazies, who wave them around like a sub-machinegun.
Don't forget that the bolts are tipped with armour piercing water.
I think that A) Megan wasn't gonna to basically have babies just for a training exercise and B) There was the risk of her not able to control the parasites.
Yes, M'gann does not want to produce horror babies.
 
Are there any other kinds of babies?
...

It depends from whose perspective. From the perspective of most fish, fish babies are really convenient. Spawn and forget. They even get to eat them later if they swim in the wrong places. The horrifying bit is what their own bodies to do them in order to make them reproduce.

For comic martians, they could probably split off a part of themselves to act as a facehugger type Star Conqueror and reincorporate it later. In this story they can't do that.
 
She nods reluctantly, clearly unconvinced. "Some.. cities are like Apartheid South Africa. White are banned from going to some places or taking some jobs by law. In other places there aren't laws supporting it, but it's still very unusual for White Martians to work in certain industries."

Should be ' Whites '
 
Well, there's one obvious solution to this problem: give the Martians an external enemy to unite against.

False-flag an attack by the Guardians, maybe?

Or maybe just cause an *actual* attack by the Guardians, if you can arrange for suitably slanted information to be leaked to the more corrupt members of them like Scar.
 
Well, there's one obvious solution to this problem: give the Martians an external enemy to unite against.

Sure. Given that J'onn has presumably been sending reports back home, it wouldn't be too tough to argue that the Martians need to start preparing to defend themselves against Earth (just in case), and gradually transition to unifying the society around Earth as a threat that might end up hurting Mars as collateral damage even if not deliberately.

I mean, from a human perspective, a stagnant navel-gazing Martian society is the best case scenario, with a chaotic society in shambles the next best. A unified and revitalized Mars, ready to take an active role in extra-planetary affairs, is pretty much the worst case scenario for humanity, without a human-friendly puppet in charge or a strong alliance that doesn't exist (and probably can't, without a unified human government).
 
are the characters that are exclusive in the Grayven side story going to appear in the Illustres OL side and vise versa?
 
As cool as huge grenade bullets exploding xenos and heretics apart from the inside is....it's not exactly practical. Real world doesn't use mini rockets like the Gyrojet because, unlike a normal bullet a rocket needs to burn to accelerate up to speed. Means that up close, they're not moving fast enough to do much damage (the Gyrojet around could be stopped with your finger at the end of the muzzle, despite being lethal man stoppers 20 meters down range).
This is accurate for the normal-human-scale bolters, that people like Commissars use, but the Space Marines have a dual-propellant system -- "normal" bullet propulsion (which may be railgun, for all I know, bolters supposedly have AIs Machine Spirits, so it's not out of the question that they have enough local power generation for it, especially when linked to the PA) and the gyrojet rocker. It's actually mentioned in one of the novels that firing a Space Marine bolter would break a normal, unaugmented human's arm.

The other reasons were price and quality control, with the rocket vents sometimes being miss aligned and sending a shot wild. As for explosive ammo, it's considered overkill on a anti-personnel level, since something like the .75 cal size hole in your torso is likely to kill you enough as it is. It's bulky, unstable and hard on logistics. 40k can wave some scitzo-tech explanations at this over the years, but it IS part of the reasons why the Bolter is left to the special forces Space Marines, while the run of the mill Imperial Guardsman gets the 'puny' Mars Pattern Lasgun.
To be clear, IIRC the bolter was originally developed as an anti-Ork weapon, a species which can, in fact, survive a .75 cal hole through the torso. It is rather overkill against normal human opponents, but seeing as Astartes are usually only sent against powerful enemies (Orks, Dark Eldar, Chaos Space Marines, Demons, other very tough xenos/warp creatures/worshippers), it's a perfectly reasonable primary weapon.The only time they'd use them against normal humans are during rebellions or against massed cultists, where the bolter's ammo is a bit wasted, yeah. The have other weapons for that sort of thing, like chainswords.
 
As cool as huge grenade bullets exploding xenos and heretics apart from the inside is....it's not exactly practical. Real world doesn't use mini rockets like the Gyrojet because, unlike a normal bullet a rocket needs to burn to accelerate up to speed. Means that up close, they're not moving fast enough to do much damage (the Gyrojet around could be stopped with your finger at the end of the muzzle, despite being lethal man stoppers 20 meters down range).
Just to note, Bolters do have normal explosives to propel them forward. The gyrojet was added to make it keep increasing velocity after it left the barrel because they'd gotten to the point where if they made the initial propellant detonation any larger the kick would stagger even a space marine in power armor. So instead of giving up on making it go faster, they added a gyrorocket so it would continue to increase speed after it left the barrel.
Don't forget that the bolts are tipped with armour piercing water.
That's deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, not necessarily water. Incidentally, have you ever heard of metallic hydrogen? I pretty much headcanon it as that, even if I know that's not what the authors probably meant.
I mean, from a human perspective, a stagnant navel-gazing Martian society is the best case scenario, with a chaotic society in shambles the next best. A unified and revitalized Mars, ready to take an active role in extra-planetary affairs, is pretty much the worst case scenario for humanity, without a human-friendly puppet in charge or a strong alliance that doesn't exist (and probably can't, without a unified human government).
I don't see why individual human nations can't form alliances and trade deals with individual martian states even in the case of Martian unification. I doubt any resultant superstate would be so micro-managing as to control who its members can and can't trade with. And if it was I doubt it would last very long.
 
are the characters that are exclusive in the Grayven side story going to appear in the Illustres OL side and vise versa?
You mean, like Circe? Or Nylor Truggs?

Unless someone died, everyone in either timeline is around in the other.
That's deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, not necessarily water. Incidentally, have you ever heard of metallic hydrogen? I pretty much headcanon it as that, even if I know that's not what the authors probably meant.
Yes, but I'm not convinced that would be any better for armour penetration. For a start, it would turn into hydrogen gas or water at room temperature and pressure.
 

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