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

TheMidnightRook · Jul 3, 2020

Vaermina said:
anything energetic enough to damage the Starro through the ice, would break the ice waking up the Starro.

Conversely, something energetic enough to break the ice and wake up the Starro (such as, say, a really big laser), would at least potentially be energetic enough to damage the Starro through the ice.

Alternately, it could also potentially be harmed by something as simple as prolonged exposure to the cold.

Darko · Jul 3, 2020

Vaermina said:
Again, in canon it wasn't "magic stasis that might break down" or "a process that might only partially work", it was binary yes or no sort of thing.

As to exotic weapons, there amusingly isn't, miles of ice make an insanely good shield against things like radiation that would normally pass right through matter.

Not sure if there was anything that said it was a 'binary yes or no sort of thing' in the comic.

The explanation that something went wrong during the stasis process makes a whole lot more sense than some 'binary yes or no sort of thing'.

I wouldn't exactly call you an expert on alien exotic weaponry.

Even if ice can make a good shield against radiation, it isn't a perfect one.

If they used the right sort of radiation or energy, then they may be able to damage it

I'd assume that as an advanced alien civilization they would have some understanding of various types of radiations and energies, and be able to build weapons capable of utilising said radiations and energies to pass through ice.

They could have also just engineered some kind of virus that can survive the ice and infect the Mother Star.

Flux Casey · Jul 3, 2020

Darko said:
The explanation that something went wrong during the stasis process makes a whole lot more sense than some 'binary yes or no sort of thing'.

I wouldn't exactly call you an expert on alien exotic weaponry.

No one is an expert on that. It's comic bullshit. Comic story decided (for dramatic purposes) that the mother star is hardy enough that it can be frozen and thawed without consequence. Zoat decided (for... purposes that have yet to be revealed but probably involve a conceit so his latest actions are possible/make sense) that it isn't and that shouldn't work. Both are arbitrary. Don't get that twisted. Neither is more realistic because we're working in fucking comic book physics.

cereal_lurker · Jul 3, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
"When I was first training you and your sister, I thought to myself that if there were any justice in the universe I would be offering you a blue ring. Time permitting, I'd like you to try working with Alan's ring while you're here."

This statement is true, but I'm curious if it is still accurate? In head-hunting, the SI also noted:

Mr Zoat said:
Koriand'r's been able to produce higher peak energy outputs than her sister by a good margin ever since the Ophidian touched her, but she doesn't have the control to match yet.

This seems to suggest that her soul was partly rewritten to be more aligned with Avarice than Hope. Was this a temporary boost after being touched by pure Avarice? Or is the SI thinking that her training with Lantern Scott may return her nature to pre-Ophidian?

Darko · Jul 4, 2020

cereal_lurker said:
This statement is true, but I'm curious if it is still accurate? In head-hunting, the SI also noted:

This seems to suggest that her soul was partly rewritten to be more aligned with Avarice than Hope. Was this a temporary boost after being touched by pure Avarice? Or is the SI thinking that her training with Lantern Scott may return her nature to pre-Ophidian?

Not sure the alterations made her mode avaricious, but they just allowed her constructs to be somewhat stronger, even if her avarice isn't all that much.

cereal_lurker · Jul 4, 2020

Darko said:
Not sure the alterations made her mode avaricious, but they just allowed her constructs to be somewhat stronger, even if her avarice isn't all that much.

Doesn't it? If More Will = More Power for Green Lanterns, and More Avarice = More Power for Orange Lanterns... Wouldn't stronger orange constructs be an indicator of greater avarice? I can understand the effect being temporary and fading over the months since (sort of like muscles atrophying due to lack of use, if that's how it works in the story). But the power effects appeared to persist for at least several days/weeks which suggests that she was continuing to use the power - hence my question.

Darko · Jul 4, 2020

cereal_lurker said:
Doesn't it? If More Will = More Power for Green Lanterns, and More Avarice = More Power for Orange Lanterns... Wouldn't stronger orange constructs be an indicator of greater avarice? I can understand the effect being temporary and fading over the months since (sort of like muscles atrophying due to lack of use, if that's how it works in the story). But the power effects appeared to persist for at least several days/weeks which suggests that she was continuing to use the power - hence my question.

Even if the power up persisted it still may not come naturally to her, like how wielding a blue ring might.

Tzeentch · Jul 4, 2020

I wonder if we'll ever see Constantine, Lord of Chaos again.

Maybe he'll possibly be engaged in a bout of fisticuffs with Willoughby Kipling over who's most deserving of being the archetypal chain smoking, alcoholic, streetwise mage with a trenchcoat?

Mr Zoat · Jul 4, 2020

12th April
12:07 GMT

See frond. Grasp. Pull to mouth. Chew.

An old memory. I recognise the species from Green Lantern Corps records; their favourite host from their original homeworld. It was burned to ash by a now-extinct empire who 'totally had this'.

I see other similar desire-sets. Simple creatures eating, sleeping and mating. Defending the herd against predators. Not being mentally complex enough to recognise that the 'oddface' members of the herd were now hosts for the primordial Star Conquerors.

Was one of them the host of the Star Conqueror who eventually became this?

A partially submerged city with six-limbed sentients going about their business, apparently ignoring the starfish on their faces as they greet friends or work at their jobs.

…

What?

Yes, Star Conquerors kept some civilisations sort of functioning, but never 'as is'. They only maintained the things their hosts needed in order to live and procreate. They didn't… Carry on like before but with added starfish.

In the sky, Mother Stars.. look.. down, obscuring the stars and at the same time… Not. There's a sense of… Rightness about this. Either the Mother Star regards this as exactly how things should be, or… Star Conquerors in general do? I can't tell whether this is a stored memory from this Mother Star or telepathically shared memory from another part of the species.

I look.. around, and through the overwhelming orange I feel from the Mother Star observers I.. can feel the other emotion of the people. A… Um, I don't know what sexes this species had. A starfish-faced 'care giver' escorts a small group of starroed children and I can see the bonds of love. A flash of compassion as one being helps another out of the water after they struggled to pull themselves up.

No, seriously, what is this?

I press on, trying to find an actual memory and things snap. Mother Stars fade into nothing as I see lifeless streets, the inhabitants moving 'efficiently' from place to place. Children are kept in orphanariums until they're large enough for a Star Conqueror, the silent caretakers keeping constant watch on children…

Their faces are blank.

What am I seeing?

My ring ever so helpfully flashes up a diagram… The emotion-association patterns are retained in different parts of its neural network, okay. One literal and the other… Imagined?

There's no emotion from the hosts here. The small Star Conquerors don't have a huge emotional range, and the hosts… The Guardians were never completely certain as they had no interest in studying Star Conquerors in situ. But studies of the survivors and the remains of those who were killed suggested that their mental processes were severely distorted. They shouldn't be capable of what I just…

I'm floating over the streets of a city of thralls as they suddenly look up. There's no obvious reason for them to do so. They don't really need to look at loud noises or flashes of light in the way that humans do. Wrong set of instincts. But they've stopped, and-.

The false-reality trembles

A street of happy starfish faces

A street of mindless starfish faces

A city of people

A city of thralls

Emotion

Hollowness

Something… Emerges, from the starfish, from the people, from the thralls, from the structure of the city they live in. I feel ideas and thoughts and memories flow past and up up up into

An eye opens in the sky, the five tentacles of a Mother Star-. No this Mother Star becoming… Visible. They were always… I think they were always there, just…

"You just appear? That was where you were born?"

**QuietPeople DreamEchoes NoDream. So Hungry.**

"I don't understand! What do you eat?"

A section of its neural network lights up

and I'm drawn in to see a young amphibious alien spooking some sort of sea anemone which spits forth a school of bright red aquatic near-slugs and the alien is drawn to them swimming among them

and music interwoven with emotion, fragments of images and scents I can barely grasp

an endless meadow

streets racing past

a crystal refracting the light of a dozen tiny suns

"Is that how you see us? Our imaginations?"

more images than I can easily count or even perceive and something stirs from the part of me that touches the Ophidian as I try and soak them all in.

**QuietAloneTired. HurtAloneTired. NoDream. NotDreamHurt.**

"Dreams? You see dreams?"

**AllDream. ManyDream**

"You feed on dreams? You-?" No, hang on. "You are a dream?"

**Remember. RememberDream.**

"How can I help-?"

**Rem… em...**

It-. No, the shut down of the major neural clusters has… Reached what looks like terminal levels. A life form this big is going to take a long time to completely die, but I'm not going to get anything much else out of it. And in case it telekinetically flails around in its death throes I need to keep moving the ClusterShip.

"Illustres to everyone. The Mother Star is dying, and unlikely to present a further danger after today. I… Didn't kill it. I will make a full report available shortly."

Half-glimpsed images continue to flicker through my mind

and I take a moment to check my spell eater and my armour's telepathic defence modules. No, they're all working just fine.

I'm not sure… What to t-.

"My Lord Illustres!"

To think about the Mother Star. I'm pretty sure what to think about Lord Lantern Comic King.

"Lantern Khan."

I turn around in space. Lantern Koriand'r is still towing the ClusterShip, and Alan's gotten outside to cover it if necessary. Lantern Khan's only a short distance from me, with L-Ron held firmly under his right arm.

"Might I suggest that your crew could benefit from your presence at this trying time?"

"Yes. In fact, they're going to be benefiting a good deal more!"

"… Right. What-?"

"I quit." He pulls the ring off his finger and tosses it to me, his environmental shield fading out at once. "My insurance doesn't cover giant starfish gods. No insurance covers that. We'll be leaving the Sol system as soon as we've recalled our planetside assets."

…

I catch his ring in a small ring case construct and stuff it into the most heavily armoured storage compartment in my armour. Then I weld it shut.

"Oh. Nooo."

Darko · Jul 4, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
six-limed sentients

'limbed'

Mr Zoat said:
See frond

maybe 'front'

Mr Zoat said:
and I'm draw in to

'drawn'

Mr Zoat said:
to them swimming among them

maybe 'to them, swimming among them' , just add a comma.

So these things came from the Dreaming?

Huh, maybe Morpheus kicked them out because they refused to sleep with him.

He did send that woman to Hell for refusing him.

egooo · Jul 4, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
"Oh. Nooo."

...I dont think even Khan would believe this one.

RichardWhereat · Jul 4, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
"Oh. Nooo."

Haaaaaaahahahahahahahahah! HAAAAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

FreeGod · Jul 4, 2020

Earth the place with all the weird stuff.

Darko · Jul 4, 2020

egooo said:
...I dont think even Khan would believe this one.

You wanna bet on that

fictionfan said:
Earth the place with all the weird stuff.

Technically this was Pluto.

Twilight666 · Jul 4, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
"I quit." He pulls the ring off his finger and tosses it to me, his environmental shield fading out at once. "My insurance doesn't cover giant starfish gods. No insurance covers that. We'll be leaving the Sol system as soon as we've recalled our planetside assets."

Haha, yep!

Mr Zoat said:
"An anti-Lantern weapon? Do you live on some manner of lawless hell world?"

"Hehaha!" He shakes his head, not understanding. "If you're born on a hell world… How do you know? As far as you're concerned, it's just normal. My primitive ancestors once beat a Lantern to death with wooden sticks. We discovered a dozen ways to kill Kryptonians, generally regarded as being the most ridiculously overpowered species in the universe, after a couple of years. I personally killed the First of the Fallen, and it wasn't even in my dozen toughest fights."

GG scrub!!

Prognostic Hannya · Jul 4, 2020

Oh god dammit did Guardians try to martian-ize the Star Conquerers and end up making them worse? That's totally something they would do, and they absolutely would get the GL core to clean up after their mistakes.

moralrelativity · Jul 4, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
them the hosts of th

hosts -> host

Old Knife · Jul 4, 2020

.... Is this why Dox won't send more lanterns or fleets? Because of giant starfish gods and stuff like this?

Darko · Jul 4, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
easily count of even perceive

think it should be 'or even'

Stsword · Jul 4, 2020

Reminds me of justice league 3000.

The leaguers were rather annoyed to find a planet of starros, who were allowed to enslave the planet because they had filled out the proper paperwork first.

The league illegally picks a fight with the starros.

To discover that the aliens they were possessing were psychologically rabid animals that would tear each other limb from limb in a self-genocidal orgy of violence. No, I won't pretend like that revelation makes sense.

BlueMangoAdea · Jul 4, 2020

Do the Star Conquerors simulate a... utopia(?) for their hosts while the host are being enslaved? Do the hosts retain their... dream while being controlled? What?

Darko · Jul 4, 2020

Stsword said:
Reminds me of justice league 3000.

The leaguers were rather annoyed to find a planet of starros, who were allowed to enslave the planet because they had filled out the proper paperwork first.

The league illegally picks a fight with the starros.

To discover that the aliens they were possessing were psychologically rapid animals that would tear each other limb from limb in a self-genocidal orgy of violence. No, I won't pretend like that revelation makes sense.

So basically this:

Diraniola · Jul 4, 2020

The JLU cartoon did have an episode with starros that showed the POV of the thrall. I believe superman had a wife and son on krypton and Batman saw his father beat up the mugger that in reality killed him.

Vaermina · Jul 4, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
12th April
12:07 GMT

So, a completely anti-climatic ending.

And if Zoat were playing things straight, Paul would have just been infected by the Hatorei's madness. Because that's what this particular bit was about, but of course the "no negative side effects" SI protection is in effect so nothing will likely come of it.

Prognostic Hannya said:
Oh god dammit did Guardians try to martian-ize the Star Conquerers and end up making them worse? That's totally something they would do, and they absolutely would get the GL core to clean up after their mistakes.

Nope, that's just the story of how Starro the Conqueror came to be.

Galacticplumber · Jul 4, 2020

Diraniola said:
The JLU cartoon did have an episode with starros that showed the POV of the thrall. I believe superman had a wife and son on krypton and Batman saw his father beat up the mugger that in reality killed him.

I think you're thinking of the black mercy from mother of mercy. Specifically still under villainous control at the time.

Darko · Jul 4, 2020

Diraniola said:
The JLU cartoon did have an episode with starros that showed the POV of the thrall. I believe superman had a wife and son on krypton and Batman saw his father beat up the mugger that in reality killed him.

That was a Black Mercy, one of the things Mother of Mercy makes that gives people good dreams while they slowly die.

It would make sense if the Starros give their hosts good dreams to keep them docile.

SaltyWaffles · Jul 4, 2020

Well that was...a trip.

And good riddance to Manga Khan. He outstayed his welcome...and made the OLC look really damn bad.

Flux Casey · Jul 4, 2020

I... Find myself struggling to figure out what the point of this episode was. Or the previous one for that matter.

Manga Khan showed up, mildly upset global politics and trade, is now fucking off with no consequence
Russians launched a space fleet, it got stolen by freaking star conquerors, resolved with minimal fuss
Turns out Pluto is a Mother Star... But it died two updates after appearing without intervention
Atlantean politics is chugging along at no particular consequence

Is... Is that it? I mean feel free to remind me if I missed anything but it feels like most of the last forty updates did absolutely nothing, save for a couple of funny moments.

Chojin Patriarch · Jul 4, 2020

Mr Zoat said:
12th April
12:07 GMT

See frond. Grasp. Pull to mouth. Chew.

An old memory. I recognise the species from Green Lantern Corps records; their favourite host from their original homeworld. It was burned to ash by a now-extinct empire who 'totally had this'.

Heh, I bet that empire came to regret that. Have to wonder if this is the Mother Star's own memory or one inherited from a progenitor.

I see other similar desire-sets. Simple creatures eating, sleeping and mating. Defending the herd against predators. Not being mentally complex enough to recognise that the 'oddface' members of the herd were now hosts for the primordial Star Conquerors.

Was one of them the hosts of the Star Conqueror who eventually became this?

This is trippy, just like i thought it would be...

A partially submerged city with six-limed sentients going about their business, apparently ignoring the starfish on their faces as they greet friends or work at their jobs.

…

What?

I concur... This can't be something real...

Yes, Star Conquerors kept some civilisations sort of functioning, but never 'as is'. They only maintained the things their hosts needed in order to live and procreate. They didn't… Carry on like before but with added starfish.

I have to wonder what part the Starros played in this culture? Were they fitted at birth with a Starro symbiont? What if someone's Starro died but they lived? Would they be ostracised, euthanised or simply fitted with a new one? This raises so many questions!

In the sky, Mother Stars.. look.. down, obscuring the stars and at the same time… Not. There's a sense of… Rightness about this. Either the Mother Star regards this as exactly how things should be, or… Star Conquerors in general do? I can't tell whether this is a stored memory from this Mother Star or telepathically shared memory from another part of the species.

...That just raises even more questions!

I look.. around, and through the overwhelming orange I feel from the Mother Star observers I.. can feel the other emotion of the people. A… Um, I don't know what sexes this species had. A starfish-faced 'care giver' escorts a small group of starroed children and I can see the bonds of love. A flash of compassion as one being helps another out of the water after they struggled to pull themselves up.

No, seriously, what is this?

Seriously, has the world gone mad, or just this Mother Star?

I press on, trying to find an actual memory and things snap. Mother Stars fade into nothing as I see lifeless streets, the inhabitants moving 'efficiently' from place to place. Children are kept in orphanariums until they're large enough for a Star Conqueror, the silent caretakers keeping constant watch on children…

Their faces are blank.

Blank of emotion? You'd expect there to be something in an un-bonded child...

What am I seeing?

My ring ever so helpfully flashes up a diagram… The emotion-association patterns are retained in different parts of its neural network, okay. One literal and the other… Imagined?

Presumably the 'perfect' world he saw first was the dream, and the latter the reality.

There's no emotion from the hosts here. The small Star Conquerors don't have a huge emotional range, and the hosts… The Guardians were never completely certain as they had no interest in studying Star Conquerors in situ. But studies of the survivors and the remains of those who were killed suggested that their mental processes were severely distorted. They shouldn't be capable of what I just…

I'm floating over the streets of a city of thralls as they suddenly look up. There's no obvious reason for them to do so. They don't really need to look at loud noises or flashes of light in the way that humans do. Wrong set of instincts. But they've stopped, and-.

And that just makes it so much creepier...

The false-reality trembles

A street of happy starfish faces

A street of mindless starfish faces

So, something shattered their imagined world? Did the Starros believe they were bringing the dream to people, when it was actually the latter reality? Did... Did the Starros consider themselves to be helping people?

A city of people

A city of thralls

And the contradiction between perceived and real drove them mad? Was this Dream of the Endless taking action to stop a perversion of his realm?

Emotion

Hollowness

Oh this is bad, isn't it?

Something… Emerges, from the starfish, from the people, from the thralls, from the structure of the city they live in. I feel ideas and thoughts and memories flow past and up up up into

An eye opens in the sky, the five tentacles of a Mother Star-. No this Mother Star becoming… Visible. They were always… I think they were always there, just…

...Was... Was that the birth of a Starro god? a Nightmare?

What is going on?!

"You just appear? That was where you were born?"

**QuietPeople DreamEchoes NoDream. So Hungry.**

"I don't understand! What do you eat?"

Maybe... Maybe it eats the dreams of the people with Starros applied?

A section of its neural network lights up

and I'm draw in to see a young amphibious alien spooking some sort of sea anemone which spits forth a school of bright red aquatic near-slugs and the alien is drawn to them swimming among them

and music interwoven with emotion, fragments of images and scents I can barely grasp

Cue the trippy music.

an endless meadow

streets racing past

a crystal refracting the light of a dozen tiny suns

This feels like some trance writing or something... The Mother Star must be having one hell of a trip.

"Is that how you see us? Our imaginations?"

more images than I can easily count of even perceive and something stirs from the part of me that touches the Ophidian as I try and soak them all in.

Hopefully without contamination... I shudder at the thought of a Starro embodiment.

**QuietAloneTired. HurtAloneTired. NoDream. NotDreamHurt.**

"Dreams? You see dreams?"

It sounds concussed... I suppose it is, given the circumstances it's awakening in...

**AllDream. ManyDream**

"You feed on dreams? You-?" No, hang on. "You are a dream?"

...Wat.

**Remember. RememberDream.**

"How can I help-?"

**Rem… em...**

And the spring's run down. Looks like it's gone.

It-. No, the shut down of the major neural clusters has… Reached what looks like terminal levels. A life form this big is going to take a long time to completely die, but I'm not going to get anything much else out of it. And in case it telekinetically flails around in its death throes I need to keep moving the ClusterShip.

Meanwhile, what of Pluto? Is it cracked open like an egg, or was the Mother Star just laying under the surface? I think there's going to be repercussions from this...

"Illustres to everyone. The Mother Star is dying, and unlikely to present a further danger after today. I… Didn't kill it. I will make a full report available shortly."

Half-glimpsed images continue to flicker through my mind

and I take a moment to check my spell eater and my armour's telepathic defence modules. No, they're all working just fine.

Once he works out what the hell just happened. Maybe the Ophidian was looking through the things he just saw?

I'm not sure… What to t-.

"My Lord Illustres!"

To think about the Mother Star. I'm pretty sure what to think about Lord Lantern Comic King.

And it's nothing you'd care to repeat in polite company, I'm betting.

"Lantern Khan."

I turn around in space. Lantern Koriand'r is still towing the ClusterShip, and Alan's gotten outside to cover it if necessary. Lantern Khan's only a short distance from me, with L-Ron held firmly under his right arm.

Well, if it's comforting for him... Are you sure that's actually L-Ron, or just a dummy chassis, like some sort of body pillow?

"Might I suggest that your crew could benefit from your presence at this trying time?"

"Yes. In fact, I they're going to be benefiting a good deal more!"

...What? Wait, what are you talking about? Don't you have responsibilities to...

"… Right. What-?"

"I quit." He pulls the ring off his finger and tosses it to me, his environmental shield fading out at once. "My insurance doesn't cover giant starfish gods. No insurance covers that. We'll be leaving the Sol system as soon as we've recalled our planetside assets."

...Wow. Okay. Not even he's prepared to deal with Earth's bullshit. I guess there's not enough money in the universe to make it worth it?

…

I catch his ring in a small ring case construct and stuff in into the most heavily armoured storage compartment in my armour. Then I weld it shut.

"Oh. Nooo."

"No need to sound so disappointed, Illustres. If it's any comfort, I, Manga Khan, shall spread the word: If you come to Earth, be prepared for anything!"

Well... Got to wonder how he'll write that up for his reports to Batman and Dox. If they didn't know him as well as they do, I suspect there'd be drug tests in his future. I suspect Dox is going to be annoyed at losing Manga Khan, too. And what happens to Venturia now?

In fact, I they're going to be benefiting a good deal more!"

Could probably delete the I.

Whenever Possible · Jul 4, 2020

Wait, so are mother stars "born" directly from the Dream when enough hosts are subsumed by Starro? The dreams/emotional energy that they would normally have catalyzes into the Mother?

So they're actual gods, then, aren't they?

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

Well worn.

Connoisseur.

The Colonel

Getting sticky.

Connoisseur.

Getting sticky.

Connoisseur.

Versed in the lewd.

Dedicated ragequitter

Connoisseur.

Getting sticky.

Aia airëa Fëanáro.

If you see a God on the road fuck it!

Connoisseur.

I trust you know where the happy button is?

Knight of the Yuri Crusade

Recovering pendant.

Not too sore, are you?

Connoisseur.

Versed in the lewd.

Alive. For now.

Connoisseur.

I trust you know where the happy button is?

Well worn.

Not too sore, are you?

Connoisseur.

I trust you know where the happy button is?

The Colonel

Veteran Lurker

Versed in the lewd.

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