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

Reader mode
I think Grayven needs to go and steal forty cakes.

Mr Zoat said:
"I didn't know it was going to do that! Now I'm stuck with hand-claws and no magic for Celestia knows how long!"

!!!

"Celestia. That would be the big white pony with the suns on her bum, right?"

"You know her?!"

"Um. Just.. stories, really." Okay, I'm in a Detective Comics universe. I've met Superman. There's nothing inherently more strange about encountering someone from Wilson. "Do.. you know her?"

"I-!" And she deflates again. "I was her student."

!PonyPonyPonyPonyPony!

"Like Twilight Sparkle?"

She frowns. "Who?"
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It might have already been asked, but does Sunset remember this conversation?
 
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Mr Zoat said:
We only use the Elements on bad ponies. You're trying to remove a curse and that's… Fine, but it doesn't make you bad.
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This seems morally ambiguous at best. They have a powerful tool for curse breaking but they won't use it to help break someone's curse unless they do crimes first? Who's the real villain here?
 
Ring. Scan every book in the Canterlot library.

By your command.

"If reading 'Canterlot Castle: A History, Volume Two' was enough to get Sunset exiled, surely this is the most evil act ever committed in Equestria."
 
Chojin Patriarch said:
I don't think they've ever been that depressed, ever. It's like trying to describe colour to a person who's been blind since birth. There is simply no compatible frame of reference.
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That seems likely. I think perhaps the best way I have seen in media to represent depression to emotionally immature individuals is [WARNING: SAD FEELS & HORSE DEATH] The Swamps of Sadness from the Neverending Story. It's not perfect obviously but I think it would be valuable in communicating the severity of the problem to these dumb horses, especially since Artax is a horse.

In fact the whole of The Neverending Story 1 is an allegory for depression and hopelessness, even if the audience is too immature to understand it.
 
doug89 said:
Ring. Scan every book in the Canterlot library.

By your command.

"If reading 'Canterlot Castle: A History, Volume Two' was enough to get Sunset exiled, surely this is the most evil act ever committed in Equestria."
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I'm going to be generous and assume that Celestia had the archives warded.
 
Mr Zoat said:
I stand, grinning maniacally, purple and green bubbles bubbling from my horn.

"THEN PREPARE FOR EVIL AS YOU HAVE NEVER BEFORE EXPERIENCED IT! BAWHAHAHAW!"

I turn and prance away. Now I just need to find a lawyer.
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Forget conquest, Graven is the New God of Ham
 
Chojin Patriarch said:
Something closer to the Life Equation (Hiss! The New 52, it burns us!)
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The Life Equation isn't actually New 52.

The basic backstory is that the Martians had a philosophy based on the Life Equation which Darkseid learned about(somehow). He then postulated that if there's a Life Equation proving that Free Will and Happiness and all that other stuff exists and is worthwhile, then there must be an Anti Life Equation that proves the opposite.

Because comics.


Then years later, New 52 happened and did New 52 things to it.
 
Nervaqus987 said:
The Life Equation isn't actually New 52.

The basic backstory is that the Martians had a philosophy based on the Life Equation which Darkseid learned about(somehow). He then postulated that if there's a Life Equation proving that Free Will and Happiness and all that other stuff exists and is worthwhile, then there must be an Anti Life Equation that proves the opposite.

Because comics.


Then years later, New 52 happened and did New 52 things to it.
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And Highfather called the Source the Life Equation back in the New Gods series oh back in the eighties I think.

And Shilo Normon was told by Metron that a Life Equation exists.
 
Handlewithcare said:
The restriction of only working on "evil" ponies is a bit weird too. Like, what if someone is depressed because of a chemical inbalance. Can the magic of friendship do nothing than?

Seems worrying that the only thing friendship magic seems to be good for is to defeat enemies. Like, true friendship can only be created by fighting villains together. That's a bad message to send.
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No, that's just the only thing where the magic of friendship requires special artifacts to pivot it into a different domain. It can act on depression the same way it acts on bad weather or a bad haircut: via your pony friends.
 
Yeah the comics are really inconsistent in what the equations are, in some comics they allow mind control while in others full on reality warping, though Highfather thinking the white light is the Life Equation makes sense seeing as it embodies life and logically could be used to fight the Anti-Life.

I'm pretty sure that if the OLC is going to try to gain access to the white light in order to make the construct lanterns into people.
How they are going to combine the seven lights i don't know.
They have orange,blue,green and i guess they either make contact with the Indigo Tribe or some of the other Maltusians decide they want to make power rings too and figure out how to do it from the indigo ring fragments OL brought them, Kalmin can probably make a red ring by himself and they have contact with the Zamarons.
And finally for the yellow either when OL destroyed that religion to get Kalmin the hope he needs to forge a blue lantern Kalmin could have collected the fear of the priests who were killed as well as the fear the worlds populace felt when the religion was butchered, even if most people hated the faith having it suddenly be destroyed like that can make several people fearful, or they make contact with Sinestro.

Zoat when is paragon going to meet Sinestro?

What are Georgia and Dox doing now that they can talk?
Any potential for a romance there?
 
Coda said:
Spoken like a true author.
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No, it's just that a thing happens in the last year that requires them to assemble a 'perfect circle'. But actually, they go after Sinestro earlier than that. So... 2013? Maybe? I'm not sure. I've got the event planned but I haven't picked a year for it to occur in.
 
Dur'id the Druid said:
Random thought. Walk up to discord and present the anti life equation as the worst form of order possible. This is even true. Discord will likely wipe it from his existence in disgust. Probably with side effects, but at this point.....
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I have my doubts that Discord is powerful enough to do that.

The Froggy Ninja said:
This seems morally ambiguous at best. They have a powerful tool for curse breaking but they won't use it to help break someone's curse unless they do crimes first? Who's the real villain here?
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MLP in general seems to me a very black and white kind of verse. As in the good guys are really, really good and the bad guys are really, really evil. Dropping a character as gray as Grayven into that place was bound to make for some awkwardness.
 
Siskulous said:
MLP in general seems to me a very black and white kind of verse. As in the good guys are really, really good and the bad guys are really, really evil. Dropping a character as gray as Grayven into that place was bound to make for some awkwardness.
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I don't see what's gray about wanting a curse broken with the best curse breaking tools.
 
You know what Grayven could try? Since the Anti-life is all about order, and it's a math equation, which also depends on order existing, just ask Discord to use his chaos powers on it. Heck, anti-life is very similar to the effects of what Discord did in the comics when he saw a stellar conjunction or something and became Accord. He's also been shown to be able to fuck with math and physics.
 
Mquz said:
You know what Grayven could try? Since the Anti-life is all about order, and it's a math equation, which also depends on order existing, just ask Discord to use his chaos powers on it. Heck, anti-life is very similar to the effects of what Discord did in the comics when he saw a stellar conjunction or something and became Accord. He's also been shown to be able to fuck with math and physics.
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Pretty sure Discord in this setting is just a lord of chaos. So I don't think he has enough mojo to do what you need without some serious soul ripping side effects. He could probably do something, but that's something is probably a different Grayven for every color plus anti-life Grayven, and that just sounds like a bad time.
 
Mquz said:
You know what Grayven could try? Since the Anti-life is all about order, and it's a math equation, which also depends on order existing, just ask Discord to use his chaos powers on it. Heck, anti-life is very similar to the effects of what Discord did in the comics when he saw a stellar conjunction or something and became Accord. He's also been shown to be able to fuck with math and physics.
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He's also been shown fading out of existence if he becomes too orderly.
 
Old World Dudes
  • Threadmarks
    • Mid-summer, 2279
    Morning

    I've never really been a sunny weather person.

    No. No, that's not true. From what I remember of my early childhood, I enjoyed trips to the beach or to Eastbourne's parks during the long summer holiday. But the older I got, the more I came to dislike the high heats of summer and appreciated the more clement weather of autumn.

    And now here I am, in the middle of summer, in a desert, under a near-cloudless sky, with only loose robes and a two hundred year old fedora shielding me from the baking heat. And I'm.. actually happy. I mean, I've sort of believed that the human brain wasn't really designed to cope with the society we'd built for ourselves for a while, but I'm still surprised by exactly how much happier I've become since… Not exactly 'downshifting', but… Embracing a more 'simple' way of life.

    There's no internet in post-apocalyptic Nevada. No television. Only two or three radio stations, and most of the time you're lucky if you can get good reception on one. Consumer culture? When I arrived, the people here were happy that they could just about produce enough food for everyone. As Moist von Lipwig said in Making Money, you can't eat gold.

    And now, things are going to get a little more complicated.

    I glance back at the perimeter wall protecting our 'capital'. Most of it predates the war which burned the world, something I find jolly impressive. The material we've used to patch the places where it's crumbled away is a good deal less resilient, but to a casual observer it makes it look continuous. Not that I think we'll need it, but…

    The robe standing next to me flaps slightly. "They're coming."

    I don't respond out loud, but nod and begin walking through the open gate to greet our visitors. The robe appears to believe that is the correct course of action as well, and jerkily follows me. As I pass through I glance back at the fortified gatehouse and make momentary eye contact with Keanan. He isn't happy about me going out like this, and he's even less happy about leaving the gate open with a potentially hostile force in the area. We compromised on laying a mix of plasma and fragmentation mines just inside the entrance, but… If this goes badly I very much doubt that they'll be useful.

    Looking out across the shimmering salt flats, I can just about make out the plumes of dust being thrown up by the wheels of the oncoming vehicles. An obvious drawback of living in such a well-known pre-war site is that anyone with a map knows where it is. Around here, pre-war military bases are often treasure-troves of valuable weapons and other equipment, and with our nearest civilised neighbours being hard-pressed by one of their less pleasant neighbours it only makes sense for them to come and have a look.

    Hm. Let's see. Our wall-guns are in perfect working order. They probably won't expect that, but they will almost certainly assume that at least some of them will be working. We could hit them with lasers from here, and that's… Something they know. Which means that the two-. No, three trucks that I can see, are the advanced scouts. The officer in charge -and if we're lucky, the civilian government representative- will be back behind the ridgeline, out of sight and out of range.

    I pick up the pace a little, my left hand reaching for the small ring which hangs from a thong around my neck. An orange power ring. Fully functional when I arrived, I've long since expended all of its power. The tribe accepted me as one of them when I used it to open up the high security areas of the base which had remained inviolate for two hundred years, and… I'm grateful that its power allowed me to survive the fallout from that. But again, I don't miss it. It was useful while it lasted, but I simply didn't have it for long enough to get really attached.

    The trucks are closer now, and from the way the dust plumes are getting smaller I'm going to guess that they're slowing down. I release my ring and hold out my hands to either side so that they can see that I'm if not unarmed then at least I'm not carrying a weapon in my hands right now. Then there's another plume as two of the trucks turn off, one moving to the north and the other to the south. The remaining truck accelerates once again, moving towards us at speed.

    Ah, yes. On the canvas sides of the two trucks which turned away I can just about make out the two-headed bear symbol of the New California Republic. The fact that the New California Republic is sending an emissary here isn't surprising. If anything, it's odd that they've taken this long to get around to it. We're only about a hundred miles from their capital Shady Sands here, but without satellites or aircraft I suppose it's not all that easy for them to scout us out. And of course they've had their own, more urgent problems.

    Once we reach a decent distance from the gates I stop and patiently wait for them to reach us. And I make a point of not paying undue attention to the grey-coated figure who jumps out of the back of the northern truck and sets up what I'm sure is a sniping gun of some sort. My tribe doesn't make much use of projectile weapons. Making gunpowder is awkward, let alone forging bullets for them. And since the pre-war garrison here was mostly armed with laser weapons anyway…

    The truck pulls to a stop about five metres away, whereupon it stops and the squad of lightly equipped soldiers in the back pile out. They don't point their weapons at us-. Well, most of them don't and the one who does gets glared at by his NCO until he stops.

    I nod politely as the NCO walks closer, his gun at rest across his chest. "You drew the short straw, huh?"

    I smile. "I volunteered, yes."

    His brow twitches as he hears my accent. I suppose that he might never have heard one quite like it. It's not that strange, but most tribes in this region have a similar general sound, even if their specific modes of expression vary from tribe to tribe.

    "My name is Sergeant Mitchell, and I'm part of the Second Infantry Company of the New California Republic. You know what the NCR is?"

    Which isn't nearly as insulting a question as it sounds. News travels slowly around here, and we trade mostly with tribes to the south, rather than the NCR proper to the west or the Rangers to the north-west. There isn't a lot of traffic -none at all, actually- and our only real contact with the NCR comes via the occasional visit to New Vegas.

    "Yes, I know the NCR. My name is Krono." Well. It isn't. But even now I can't say my actual name so why worry about it? Though maybe next time I won't ask a five year old to select my nom de guerre.

    "Mm. And who's yer friend?"

    "This-" I glance at him. "-is Goris. He's a bit shy around new people."

    "He armed?"

    "He's not carrying any weapons." I smile. "How can I help the NCR?"

    "We've heard that there's a raider tribe livin' in this area, a nasty bunch callin' themselves the Sky Reavers. You know anythin' about them?"

    Ah, that's how they're going to play this. It's a little sad that even after the Bitter Springs Massacre the NCR seems to have trouble telling tribals apart.

    "I suppose you could say that I'm the tribe's leader. Now, anyway."

    He nods in satisfaction. "Well that saves us a whole lot of time. You know what the NCR does to raiders?"

    "The tribe's raiding behaviour was a result of an unfortunate mental illness that afflicted the tribe's then-leaders. Since I took over, we've been making amends with those among our neighbours who we've attacked. Feel free to confirm that with your contacts in Ashton."

    He nods noncommittally. "Yeah, we'll do that. What kinda mental illness did they have?"

    What should I call it? The NCR doesn't use mystics, and if you haven't seen that sort of thing in action there's an understandable tendency for people to be sceptical.

    "They claimed they could hear whispers from the sky, ordering them to conquer and destroy the wasteland's other inhabitants. The whole tribe ended up praying to the 'Sky Lords' at their behest."

    Which is true, though a massive oversimplification. A more complete explanation would mention that the more sensitive settlers had been badly affected by the zetan neurotropic initiator that the pre-war researchers were playing with in the basement, developing minor psychic powers while becoming completely obsessed with getting into the high security areas. When I turned up with a power ring they glommed onto me at once, believing that I was the solution they'd been praying to their alien gods for. I didn't realise exactly how crazy they were until later. The fragmented alien computers might have been able to resist American researchers before the war, but they couldn't stop an orange power ring wielded by a desperate man.

    "But they don't do that no more?"

    "I.. was forced to kill most of them. The survivors decided to see things my way. They still believe in the Sky Lords, but they now think that they're evil."

    "Heh." He nods. "Alright, Ambassador Granger's gunna be negotiating a settlement on behalf of the NCR. You alright to meet him?"

    "Certainly."

    "Okay." He turns back to the truck. "Lenny! Signal forward base! Tell 'em we got someone to negotiate for the Sky Reavers!"

    "Yes Sergeant!"

    "Oh, ah, Sergeant? The tribe isn't called that any more."

    He turns back to me. "Oh yeah? What's it called now, then?"

    "The Sky Walkers."
     
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