Mr Zoat
Dedicated ragequitter
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2016
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Thank you, corrected.
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Thank you, corrected.
IIRC they did rag on him a little.But unlike Earth no one in the region where THAT incident occurred would dare make fun of him.
Aw, OL, you jinxed it... DC Universe timelines are a twisted spaghetti of alternate futures, eras that could never be, and the timey-wimey slush of paradoxes holding it all together...
It may well be that the Sheeda exploit hypertime instead of normal time travel, in which case there's no hope of preventing them. Because it wouldn't be DC if there wasn't an extra bullshit version of super time travel.
There's no actual difference there with how hypertime works.
Hypertime is not static, even as new hypertime realities branch off, hypertime realities also merge back together when the differences no longer matter.
So not only does DC have a multiple choice future, it has a multiple choice past.
The reality where Superman felt like Chinese for lunch one Tuesday instead of Italian only exists as long as there's a difference, when that is no longer the case they flow back together.
As far in the future as the Sheeda are, Paul's transhuman Empire, Starfire's Star Trek Communism in SPACE...ACE...ACE, and Supergirl's Christian Utopia could all be equally valid pasts for them.
The fact that invalidates the entire shtick of Destiny of the Endless? Well as far as I can tell most if not all DC writers not named Gaiman just don't give a shit, even if they're pretending Vertigo and New Earth where the same continuity.
Its head tilts slightly. "Do you want to know how the mighty star-spanning Empire of Earth falls? How the war-fleets of the drug-ascendant god-kings stretched forth their hands from wretched wastelands of Old Terra and slowly strangled the spirit of humanity to assuage their vainglorious lusts?"
Sivana: "IRB what that?"This guy doesn't have inkling about patient consent, does he?
Or, you know, hear me out, he's a Supervillain and he just doesn't give a shit.
Been going through some of my old collection today...because the heavens took a mighty dump and there is white shit everywhere in attention to frigid temps and I can't help but think, that with there being an OL in the Marvel universe (Maybe more than one) and he still has the goal of enhancing baseline humans. Then man, does he need to spend some time in New York, and talk to dear ol' Spider-man.
I mean you have the Goblin formula. Originally jacking strength up to the 9 ton range, in addition to all the other physical enhancements like agility and such. A healing factor on top of that. May or may not increase intelligence.
You have the Scorpion treatment. Which brought Gargan up to twice and strong as Parker, 20 tons originally, with even higher grip strength, agility to match Parker, the adhesive factor, and a (rarely) used "Scorpion" sense that was supposed to be just like Parker's spider sense.
You have the Rhino treatment. Which beyond the nigh-indestructible suit granted increased durability, strength and speed. Somewhere between 20-30 tons originally and then jacked up to 75 tons (The Thing strength) with the Leader's gamma treatments.
To say nothing about The Shocker's far more impressive tech than I think anyone gives him credit for.
Like...the amount of Meta-human formulas developed around Spider-man are almost mind boggling.
To say nothing about The Shocker's far more impressive tech than I think anyone gives him credit for.
I'm not sure what the opinions of a bunch of C and D-Listers that can't hold their own books matter.Yet people like the Avengers or the FF don't really consider them to be big threats because they are almost always beaten by a "Street Level" hero.
Plus his modifications to his armor that when he got the idea to insert "contact plates", which trigger sharp bursts of pressure on detecting impact. This deflects physical strikes, makes him very difficult to get a grip on, and makes his physical attacks extra powerful due to trip-hammer vibration.While not as impressive as the crumbler gauntlets, he'd be up there with Captain Cold for 'oh yeah I'll just invent this while in jail with no higher education' levels of oddball tech development. Highly effective with plenty of commercial use in demolition work. And he's actually one of the few Spider-man villains that was in it for the money rather then revenge or ego.
It may well be that the Sheeda exploit hypertime instead of normal time travel, in which case there's no hope of preventing them. Because it wouldn't be DC if there wasn't an extra bullshit version of super time travel.
The Punisher's main weapon is Batman-grade plot armor derived from the sort of popularity that comes from appealing to all the twisted teenage violent revenge fantasies most superheros can't indulge, and Herman's well aware of that. He knows he'd only be able to beat the Punisher temporarily before the loony got back up and just tried again with someNot...entirely sure why as Shocker could turn Frank into bloody jello easily enough.
the brain slugs and the collective PTSD of the Eugenics wars/WW3Or the rather fascinating monoculture that we see the entirety of humanity stick to, which is just a delightful gigantic, flashing-red warning sign that a culture has something unpleasant going on behind the scenes to maintain it.
the brain slugs and the collective PTSD of the Eugenics wars/WW3
Wrong thread.
For all that he is a super scary old man I can at least respect that he loves his family and is aware of his limits."And they tried to kill me and my family. The fact that I do actually care for a few people means that Orange Lantern was probably correct in pronouncing me sane. I'm just very nasty."
Ah, the inevitable instant laboratory. Classic super-scientist logic.There's a small circular area in the Oregon High Desert where an open-walled laboratory appears to have been deposited. Sivanadroids moves to and fro, setting up equipment and erecting force field emitters to keep out the dust and… Unwanted superheroes, presumably.
I transitioned Miss Ryan back into town without us. I'm letting Doctor Sivana take the lead, and Berly is flying alongside me using her kinetic belt. She's also been shooting me irate glares.
If he is insane, he's at least productively insane."What is-?"
"How long have you been working with the insane mass murderer Thaddeus Sivana?"
"'Working with' is putting it a little strongly. And I'm not convinced that he's legally insane."
It wasn't an insult, certainly. Think of it as a friendly term of endearment, like 'Buddy'."So how would you put it?"
"I've been trying to keep an extremely dangerous weapon pointed at the people who've exterminated worldwide civilisation at least once."
"Five times." Beryl's head jerks in the direction of Dr Sivana's rocket place. "I've been using some of my own suspendium reserves to track their temporal shifts. They've ravaged worldwide Earth civilisation on five separate occasions, about five hundred years apart at their end. And while I like 'extremely dangerous' I'm really not fond of being described as a 'weapon'."
Pot, meet kettle. Both of them possess atypical mindsets by average DC citizen standards."Doctor, you've freely admitted to me that your social skills aren't very good. Your reactions to human society are sufficiently atypical that I feel that -as a metaphor- describing you as someone who can best be handled by treating them as an explosive with 'This End Towards Enemy' printed on it is fairly reasonable."
"Ah, so you were referring to your inability to fully grasp my mindset, rather than describing me as a tool to be wielded."
...In this timeline at least. Thank you, Grayven."There's a degree of overlap, but that was my principle intent. I've no desire to offend you so much that you select me as your next target once the sheeda are dealt with."
"Oh, there's very little chance of me doing that. Have you ever heard of a man called 'The Spider'?"
"I have. He was a racketeer, thief and terrorist. And then he vanished, and hopefully he's dead."
No rules to play by, yes. It's why anti-heroes like Punisher or Wolverine are popular."He also worked for British intelligence."
"Don't bloody remind me. I don't know what they were thinking."
"A few years ago I managed to get hold of the records of an associate of his, a man named Professor Pelham. He wrote that The Spider told him that he found other criminals to be far more challenging foes that the police, as they operated under fewer restrictions on their methodology. I didn't think much of it at the time-"
I see they didn't think to collect more. Shame, leaving them in place allows them to push someone to breaking.Beryl and I land just outside of the laboratory area as Dr Sivana brings his plane in to land and a couple of Sivanadroids remove a containment unit from inside the nose cone.
"-but having decided to pit myself against the sheeda, I can't help but wonder if he was on to something." A sivanadroid reaches up with telescopic arms and lifts him out of the cockpit, then deposits him on the ground and returns to its other work. "The Batson boy represented a static obstacle; resilient but disinclined to innovation. But the sheeda, all of the genius and malice of a desperate and corrupt civilisation!" One of the sivanadroids plugs the containment cylinder into what looks like a large fish tank, and a moment later the Mind Destroyers is visible within its confines as Dr Sivana strides over to stand before is, rubbing his hands as he does so. "I don't mind telling you that I'm positively giddy with excitement!"
Which, I note by his attempt at sociability, is kind of successful."I'm glad to hear it."
"You needn't worry… Squire, wasn't it?" Dr Sivana turns his head to look at her, and his smile… Well, it comes a little short as far as reassurance goes, but it's an improvement on what he used to do and he actually noticed that an effort would be appropriate. "Orange Lantern's intentions are quite noble. He has been trying to encourage me in the direction of reform."
Well... No, I got nothing. If he's anything like the golden age Sivana at his worst, he was a fairly nasty fellow."You're not someone like Leonard Snart, a thief with a rough childhood. You had every opportunity not to be a monster and you threw it away."
"Not 'every opportunity'." He turns back to the tank and starts pressing buttons on the control panel. "Though I suppose that I did have more than him. And since I suspect that you're about to mention it-" He glances my way. "-not that I'm picking up on that as a result of an improvement in my understanding of social conventions, but you can only be heroically lambasted so many times before you pick up how it goes, no, I don't feel bad about any of the people I killed. No, most of them hadn't done anything in particular to offend me, they were just sort of there. I don't feel bad now and I suspect that even if I became as 'reformed' as I can, I still wouldn't feel bad."
He's just not a good man. Hopefully he won't make the mistake of gloating at the Sheeda before he destroys them..."And you're only doing this because you find it fun."
"And they tried to kill me and my family. The fact that I do actually care for a few people means that Orange Lantern was probably correct in pronouncing me sane. I'm just very nasty."
Ha!"Have you been able to extract its orders?"
"Oh, yes. I was just going through its records."
I wait for a moment, but he doesn't say anything else.
"And?"
No point mentioning Klarion. He's dead, after all."The people they were attacking were best-fits for their priority targets. But those targets aren't particularly well defined. The sheeda queen appears to believe that a group of seven soldiers were the greatest threat to her efforts to harrow our civilisation. Unfortunately, she didn't know anything else about them, so the Mind Destroyers are programmed to attack groups of seven people. Her ex-husband is also on the target list. Apparently, he fled back in time after being deposed-."
"Melmoth, yes. He kidnapped a lot of puritans and used them to found a colony in a nearby parallel universe. They deposed him, but I'm not sure what happened after that."
Not a nice guy, then."They were suppose to look for any trace of him as well. That appears to be how they ended up here." He strokes his chin. "Once I work out how to get write access, I should be able to turn these things into long-range sheeda detectors. Which will certainly come in use if this 'Melmoth' is active on Earth to any degree."
"He might be able to give us all sorts of information."
"He led several Harrowings himself."
I doubt there's any Sheeda pleasant enough not to continue the Harrowings. Better to delete them and hope nothing worse pops up."And you have a moral objection?"
"No, but I've committed myself to ending the sheeda, not changing which of them is in charge. Having them swap places doesn't make any sense." He frowns. "To me. Does it make sense to you? I sometimes miss things."
Again, generally nasty people. Not worth trying to preserve any part of their culture."I don't know." She glares pointedly at me. "How optimistic are we feeling?"
"I was planning on branding him and then placing him in Belle Reve for the rest of his life, however long that might be. In the unlikely event that he has reformed, I might reconsider."
Dr Sivana frowns faintly, then shakes his head. "No, I definitely think I'm missing something."
The joy of Avarice Enlightenment, 'end justify the means' logic."My aim is to prevent the Earth being harrowed. I don't much care about the sheeda in and of themselves. In the unlikely event that Melmoth thinks he can make them reform I'll probably let him try. For much the same reason that I'm willing to work with you."
"Ah! Rationally pursuing your objectives, even at a dreadful cost to others! That's an ideology I understand!"
That'd just aim him at you too. Smart move.Beryl bows her head and shakes it.
"Though naturally I won't get in the way of your efforts against them."
"Now, I'm not saying it was aliens, but...""Glad to hear it! Now, this thing wasn't able to track down Melmoth, but according to its memories there was definite evidence that he was here at some point. Without any real direction they were just latching on to people who matched their target criteria to at least the lowest level and talking them to death. It appears that they thought that he might come back at some point, though their evidence supporting that belief appears to be somewhat weak."
"What evidence is that?"
"The butterflies, naturally."
I expect that she is going to have some more sharp words with Paul. Which is likely to be frustrating because Paul is never uncertain and only ever changes his mind if given new information.Beryl is... having a moment, and hour and probably day.
Yeah, she is having a Day.
I expect that she is going to have some more sharp words with Paul. Which is likely to be frustrating because Paul is never uncertain and only ever changes his mind if given new information.
Paul could ignore her nod every now and then and have his ring give him a summary. He won't, but that is just because he has gotten really good at multi tasking.In this case the new information is: "how long will Beryl yell at me whenever I do this stuff."
Still, I like her as a character. Like a more-fun Robin.
Should be "Mind Destroyer" singular, unless he has several swirling around in there in which case it should be "Mind Destroyers are". Also "it" rather than "is" further along the sentence.One of the sivanadroids plugs the containment cylinder into what looks like a large fish tank, and a moment later the Mind Destroyers is visible within its confines as Dr Sivana strides over to stand before is, rubbing his hands as he does so.