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

[Vaermina]

Well, that would mean everyone goes to Heaven since none of their sins matter, after all the soul is 'read only'.

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They do! That's the whole point of the Great Secret of Hell, you can leave at any time.

And there's a difference between possession and a new identity. Even then, I assume they were restored back to their original state.

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No, their original selves actually showed up proving the other things were just orange light created copies.

 

[Darko]

That would arguably be no less evil than what Mindrapaul did in the first place. Because even the Illustress can't recreate what is gone, only extrapolate abd create new desires based on parallel versions of these people whose divergence he doesn't exactly know. Maybe he could use powerful mind reading allies to help him create values that align with their pre-mindrape memories. But in the end it would still be killing existing innocent people and replacing them with new ones.

If my understanding of the Illustress' methods os correct, then he would likely either kill or brand Mindrapaul and then edit all his victims to a very limited extent of severing their direct emotional ties to Mindrapaul, making them forget they had them in the first place, and giving them some basic protection against the ensuing mental trauma. Then he would take care to fix all the power vacuums and non-functional systems that Mindrapaul's sudden disappearance causes out of a feeling of personal responsibility. And then he would feel awful about the whole thing, take all orange rings and lanterns from that galaxy, and never visit again. Until years later someone from there comes to his parallel and convinces him to fix stuff he broke that didn't even know about the first time around.


I assume the amount he influenced to be loyal to him or his longer term goals are far fewer.

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I'd say that it would be less evil since he wouldn't be making them into sex slaves.

I agree with your stated solution to this problem.

 

[Darko]

The humane and probably only solution to the mind altered heroes is to kill them and set up new heroes to help the world. As this Paul essentially set up his own Justice Lord's and are most likely have a similar reputation to the unaltered public, If not I'd the fact everyone was mind altered would destroy any good reputation these heroes have. Another entity that could deal with this Lantern is Heaven, having a Soul now could be his downfall. Heaven were the only people to have killed Paul, they have a good track record with dealing with Pauls

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They may not have even noticed what he's doing and they may not see it as necessary to intervene. We know angels can have odd priorities in the DC comics universes.

Also even if this Paul dies he could still go to a pagan afterlife where his actions may not be considered so bad, or he could have had Circe set up some kind of ressurection system for him.

And while what Vaermina said about about leaving Hell and going to Heaven may be possible, I'm pretty sure you have to repent to do that.

Being tortured every single moment makes it difficult for people to repent.

If this version somehow ends up in Hell then I don't see him repenting as he may not believe he did anything wrong.

 

[Mr Zoat]

They may not have even noticed what he's doing and they may not see it as necessary to intervene. We know angels can have odd priorities in the DC comics universes.

Also even if this Paul dies he could still go to a pagan afterlife where his actions may not be considered so bad, or he could have had Circe set up some kind of ressurection system for him.

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It's not like he left the Right Eye of Zoltec behind.

 

[Rafin]

It can always get worse.

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Yep. One could for instance give a person a set of mutually incompatible values that lead to endless mental anguish. Like turning a person's need to please their new master up to max while not turning down their love of all the things they end up sacrificing for him or the hate of all the unsavory actions they perform for him.
To give an example, instead of replacing the personality of a woman with one that gladly consents to sex, one could replace it with a personality that merely hates seriously fighting back, escaping, or seeking help.
Sorry if I made anyone puke.

It's more that they now agree with his ideas rather than slavish loyalty to whatever he's saying at the moment.

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His ideas in general or just the specific ideas he wanted them to agree with at the time. As in, did he mostly make them into independent people with slightly different values, priorities, and personalities or did he write himself into their psyche? Personally I consider the latter worse than the former.

The humane and probably only solution to the mind altered heroes is to kill them and set up new heroes to help the world

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How ever do you figure that? Many of these people might still be perfectly functional, capable of happiness, and no more a danger to themselves or others than countless other metahumans we would consider deserving of life, even (or especially) if Mindrapaul is permanently removed from the equation.

 

[Vaermina]

Also even if this Paul dies he could still go to a pagan afterlife where his actions may not be considered so bad, or he could have had Circe set up some kind of ressurection system for him.

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That door closed the moment he raped Wonder Woman.

 

[Mr Zoat]

His ideas in general or just the specific ideas he wanted them to agree with at the time. As in, did he mostly make them into independent people with slightly different values, priorities, and personalities or did he write himself into their psyche? Personally I consider the latter worse than the former.

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The former, because he knows that he might be misinformed about specific events.

How ever do you figure that? Many of these people might still be perfectly functional, capable of happiness, and no more a danger to themselves or others than countless other metahumans we would consider deserving of life, even (or especially) if Mindrapaul is permanently removed from the equation.

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It also wouldn't be practical, as he wants to remain covert and having to get a new world-renowned team up and running would require either more time or activity than he wanted to spare.

 

[Darko]

It's not like he left the Right Eye of Zoltec behind.

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If you hit hard enough or with the right tools you can break a lot of things, even the magical physical resistance granted to someone by a magical artefact.

That door closed the moment he raped Wonder Woman.

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There are other afterlives aside from the Hellenistic and Abrahamic ones.

They may not even know what he did and if this version of Hades is a villain then he may thank this version of Paul and not punish him.

This universe may be set in a version of JL Animated, because of the Metro Tower, so if the events of the show happened Hades would have a lot of reasons to hate Diana.

 

[Darko]

How ever do you figure that? Many of these people might still be perfectly functional, capable of happiness, and no more a danger to themselves or others than countless other metahumans we would consider deserving of life, even (or especially) if Mindrapaul is permanently removed from the equation.

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It also wouldn't be practical, as he wants to remain covert and having to get a new world-renowned team up and running would require either more time or activity than he wanted to spare.

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So either altering this versions desires to not include mind wiping innocents or raping them, or altering the desires of his slaves to not be loyal to him or potentially have a breakdown over what happened to them if he manages to insert their previous desires into them, could work.

Or just killing this version of course.

 

[Mr Zoat]

So either altering this versions desires to not include mind wiping innocents or raping them, or altering the desires of his slaves to not be loyal to him or potentially have a breakdown over what happened to them if he manages to insert their previous desires into them, could work.

Or just killing this version of course.

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Altering his desire to do something wouldn't necessarily stop him if he felt it was necessary for a greater purpose.

 

[Darko]

Altering his desire to do something wouldn't necessarily stop him if he felt it was necessary for a greater purpose.

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So just killing him and altering his slaves should work.

Also it would be difficult to consider rape as serving some kind of greater purpose and if the paragon is very thorough with his alterations then he could remove this versions ability to justify his more depraved actions.

His justifications may be somewhat logical from a disturbing point of view, but I'm pretty sure that if he tried to explain it to a halfway decent person who is capable of opposing him, like the paragon and his various other versions, they may agree that his reasons and justifications are logical, but it wouldn't stop them from trying to take him down.

Renegade considered it stupid that the Lords tried to invade their League counterparts for no good reason, Raul hates evil people, Saul is compassionate and while paragons moral system and mindset may not be completely human standard anymore that doesn't mean he wouldn't be disgusted with what this one was doing.

He also wasn't all that thrilled that he let the Syndicate keep functioning so he may want to avoid doing something like that again. He wasn't eager to start genociding the Psions after he did that to the Citadel, so he may not be eager to help another evil person stay in power after the Syndicate fiasco.

Letting this version stay in power would also be dangerous, without altering him at least, since he has been corrupted by a chemical formula and possibly a magic artifact, so the chance of him doing something horrible because he considers it necessary even when it's not is too much of a risk.

 

[Galacticplumber]

Okay... I totally want this variant to die too, and even agree with the general implementation plan we've outlined. I think most do in fact. Not all, but most. Are we going to keep repeating this desire with variations on the precise kill method until the next update? I'm not against that or anything, but I'd like to know in advance so I can start preparing bond villain deathtraps.

Lasers that look snakes attached to the heads of acid immune sharks...

 

[Darko]

Okay... I totally want this variant to die too, and even agree with the general implementation plan we've outlined. I think most do in fact. Not all, but most. Are we going to keep repeating this desire with variations on the precise kill method until the next update? I'm not against that or anything, but I'd like to know in advance so I can start preparing bond villain deathtraps.

Lasers that look snakes attached to the heads of acid immune sharks...

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Don't forget the man mauling sevrals.

Ooohhh, mutated sevrals whose saliva can increase their victims pain tenfold.

 

[infinityDivided]

Okay, I know that what he's done is really messed up, but can we skip the talk of torture? This iteration of Paul was explicitly corrupted; he wouldn't do most of this in his right mind. Fixing him is the ideal scenario.

Putting him down for the sake of others is one thing, torturing him for the crime of being mind-raped is another.

 

[Rafin]

That door closed the moment he raped Wonder Woman.

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There are pagan deities that don't care about the Greek pantheon or the rights of women. Hell, Paul could set up his own afterlife by making enough people believe in something and then having powerful arcane entities reinforce whatever section of the Dreaming gets affected by that.

Or he just travels to hell and mindrapes enough demons to have a kingdom waiting for him in the event of his death.

I'd say that it would be less evil since he wouldn't be making them into sex slaves.

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They wouldn't be sex slaves after their slaver died. Even this iteration of Paul wouldn't program anyone to just generally want to bond with someone and serve them sexually.

 

[Darko]

Ok, I know that what he's done is really messed up, but can we skip the talk of torture? This iteration of Paul was explicitly corrupted; he wouldn't do most of this in his right mind. Fixing him is the ideal scenario.

Putting him down for the sake of others is one thing, torturing him for the crime of being mind-raped is another.

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Ehh, good point.

Killing or alterations in order then.

They wouldn't be sex slaves after their slaver died. Even this iteration of Paul wouldn't program anyone to just generally want to bond with someone and serve them sexually.

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He can get rid of their desire to be loyal to him and serve him.

Getting rid of their desire to serve him would be a good thing as there is a chance he could come back if he is killed, he does have a Lord of Order and Circe enslaved so he could have gotten them to set up some kind of resurrection system for him.

Even if his ring and his other equipment is taken from him that could still leave his brainwashed thralls who he can still command and potentially get other equipment from them.

Coming back to a world where he lacks his main weapons and no one feels anything even closely resembling loyalty toward him would be just wonderful.

Not for him of course.

 

[Galacticplumber]

Ok, I know that what he's done is really messed up, but can we skip the talk of torture? This iteration of Paul was explicitly corrupted; he wouldn't do most of this in his right mind. Fixing him is the ideal scenario.

Putting him down for the sake of others is one thing, torturing him for the crime of being mind-raped is another.

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I was at least half joking after noticing the everything start to repeat itself. If it was going to keep going until the next update, variance in the word salad would be preferable. I just took the swing that most likely to either be accepted, or taken as the absurd joke it was.

 

[GodKiller999]

This is not Uplift. A magic child soldier has realized what this grown man hasn't: Do not make your world an extension of you.

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The average person wouldn't know, uplift is generally seen in relation to them, not the elites of the world.

 

[Coda]

The humane and probably only solution to the mind altered heroes is to kill them and set up new heroes to help the world.

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Ah, so you mean, doing exactly the same thing, except wasting the meat in the process.

 

[rkyeun]

What a horrible thought. Could you imagine if Humanity's purpose was to please a single being. All our highs and lows, our sufferings and achievement, everything that has occurred since existence, all for something else's satisfaction

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I used to be a Christian, so yes.
But since having everyone be my personal worship-slave doesn't satisfy my values, CelestAI wouldn't do that.

 

[Sockmonkey]

That's a somewhat interesting point, though with an obvious solution.

Anything in space has enough potential energy to crash back down to earth with devastating force. As such, they are certainly able to cause 'mass destruction'. They are, however, not classified as weapons because that is not their primary purpose, for much the same reason that a scissor or knife isn't one, but a dagger is. Though both can stab, one category is built as a tool with an incidental application for applying hurt, whereas the latter is built for that.

And with super-expensive equipment such as space stations etc. or even the rockets needed for space flight, it simply isn't feasible to use them as devices of mass destruction.

Even if you wanted to do that, you would have to, A, either directly launch the space vehicle at the target directly after launch from orbit, and at that point you might as well no bother and simply use an ICBM; or B, you set a mass in orbit, then you spend money, time and manpower to keep the mass in orbit, then spend money on another propulsion system to bring the orbiting mass down on the target fast enough, and may have to shoulder further costs if it requires exercise course correction and the requisite fuel, or other maintenance. You would also need quite a bit of these to get proper covergae of the Earth. On the the other hand, you could simply invest in inter-continental missiles with an actual payload and a not-significantly longer ETA.

I am not particularly knowledgeable about rocket science, and this is somewhere between applied facts and educated guesswork.

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Because if that nonsense counted all forms of space program, satellites, telescopes, hopefully terraforming missions, and the necessary repairs for all of those things would be illegal and.... no.

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If it doesn't have any WMD type of weapons on it then I don't think it counts as one.

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http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/prelimnotes.php#johnslaw
Our current rockets can just barely make it into orbit with multiple stages and/or extra boosters.
Ballistic missiles can't even do that. They just do sub-orbital ballistic arcs akin to a self-propelled artillery shell.
Most of the stuff we stick into orbit just coasts along and doesn't have to ability to de-orbit itself.
If your ship has the power to take off from the ground, get into orbit, and come back down in a powered descent without needing disposable boosters or other external assistance, you have something that can take out a city just by pointing it's main engines at it. Remember this would be something more powerful than the Saturn V rockets used for the Apollo missions.

 

[Darko]

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/prelimnotes.php#johnslaw
Our current rockets can just barely make it into orbit with multiple stages and/or extra boosters.
Ballistic missiles can't even do that. They just do sub-orbital ballistic arcs akin to a self-propelled artillery shell.
Most of the stuff we stick into orbit just coasts along and doesn't have to ability to de-orbit itself.
If your ship has the power to take off from the ground, get into orbit, and come back down in a powered descent without needing disposable boosters or other external assistance, you have something that can take out a city just by pointing it's main engines at it. Remember this would be something more powerful than the Saturn V rockets used for the Apollo missions.

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It would most likely depend on the tech they use so its possible that the engines may not be capable of being weaponised, or at least not to the level that they'd be considered to be a WMD.

 

[Ace Dreamer]

If you hit hard enough or with the right tools you can break a lot of things, even the magical physical resistance granted to someone by a magical artefact.

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If you know what you are doing you can take-down a wearer of the Right Eye, but, note that canon has the wearer at ground zero in a nuke, and unharmed... You could read Mr Zoat as saying he's got both Eyes, maybe done something to himself so he can carry both. So, he's got both Kelly and Diablo's abilities...

Looking at the power description of the Right Eye it reminds me of the trick of hiding the vulnerable, human, body in another dimension, then creating a fake body and a perceptual link, with filters. If the other dimension has a (initially) programmable set of reality rules, such as locals need no sustenance and don't age, then that might fit the described characteristics. Or, maybe the other dimension only allows a raw mind, with no physicality? And, this might suggest ways that the invulnerability can be cracked.

Please note, there's hints the Eyes are alien tech... What do aliens use them for? If your star drive is nasty enough maybe the Right Eye lets you use it, safely, and the Left Eye lets you 'deal with' annoying locals.

Further research is required.

 

[GodKiller999]

It's amusing to me that what people get the most hung up about is him altering WW to make her want to have sex with him, I get that it's more visceral in some way, but really, him permanently soul raping people to twist them into more useful versions of themselves is so much more evil than the WW thing. If that's the part that made you object with his methods you seriously need to reconsider your moral system, it's insignificant in the face of what he's done.

 

[LurkingInTheDeceit]

If nothing else, this chapter has already generated six pages of discussion in comparison to the two of the last one. So a success I think.

 

[Darko]

If you know what you are doing you can take-down a wearer of the Right Eye, but, note that canon has the wearer at ground zero in a nuke, and unharmed... You could read Mr Zoat as saying he's got both Eyes, maybe done something to himself so he can carry both. So, he's got both Kelly and Diablo's abilities...

Looking at the power description of the Right Eye it reminds me of the trick of hiding the vulnerable, human, body in another dimension, then creating a fake body and a perceptual link, with filters. If the other dimension has a (initially) programmable set of reality rules, such as locals need no sustenance and don't age, then that might fit the described characteristics. Or, maybe the other dimension only allows a raw mind, with no physicality? And, this might suggest ways that the invulnerability can be cracked.

Further research is required.

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Paragon can just throw him in a sun if he needs more power than a nuke to finish him off.

The thing may not also be that powerful in this story.

He also has a lot of ways to deal with exotic effects, like the FEED ME technique that he used to beat Ungols reality bending armour.

It's amusing to me that what people get the most hung up about is him altering WW to make her want to have sex with him, I get that it's more visceral in some way, but really, him permanently soul raping people to twist them into more useful versions of themselves is so much more evil than the WW thing. If that's the part that made you object with his methods you seriously need to reconsider your moral system, it's insignificant in the face of what he's done.

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True that him mind wiping them is evil, but with WW we found how far he's willing to go after he does that.

He essentially destroyed her entire personality, while for the other good guys he may have just done some alterations to make them more loyal.

She may also not be the only one he twisted into a sex slave as Circe blushed when he complimented her, WW is probably just his favorite.

 

[Sockmonkey]

Isn't there an actual thread for OL morality debates? Or was that just on SV?

 

[Darko]

Isn't there an actual thread for OL morality debates? Or was that just on SV?

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There are ones on SB and SV, but not here I think.

 

[GodKiller999]

True that him mind wiping them is evil, but with WW we found how far he's willing to go after he does that.

He essentially destroyed her entire personality, while for the other good guys he may have just done some alterations to make them more loyal.

She may also not be the only one he twisted into a sex slave as Circe blushed when he complimented her, WW is probably just his favorite.

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I'm saying that the "how far after" is a wrong way to think about, when you've soul raped them you're already reached a certain degree, the sex stuff is way lower on the evil bar compared to that. It's like caring more about a leader who committed genocide kicking a dog than the genocide part.

 

[Ace Dreamer]

Paragon can just throw him in a sun if he needs more power than a nuke to finish him off.

The thing may not also be that powerful in this story.

He also has a lot of ways to deal with exotic effects, like the FEED ME technique that he used to beat Ungols reality bending armour.

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Problem is Kelly's Eye is not a supers story, it is a 'Unique Power' story, where the Eyes are the only exotic thing, except for super-science (Doctor Diamond) in the later bits. It's possible throwing him in a sun is not good enough, and you need to go exotic. SI OL might be able to defeat him, but it's likely to be a really nasty fight.