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

[Information era]

Never read Worm, but I am enjoying this "steamrolling a fucked up society" approach.

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It wont work. As soon as an endbringer attacks or golden morning happens, LP is going to die unless he escapes. The world is going to be fucked as soon as he leaves.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Mr Zoat, (In case it goes unnoticed) Vaermina raises the point that Thomas Calvert is not the director at this point in time. Emily Piggot is, and Calvert is an advisor.

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Yes, I know. Lord Protector doesn't say that he's the Director. He merely asks if there's a ban on superhumans being directors.

so now its not just a matter of LP killing her, but a matter of her not even being supposed to be their in the first place.
i know Mr Zoat may not retcon it but i hope he does, its the little things you know, he can easily just change it to another cape he was aiming for, it made no mention of her powers, just her name

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Even if she is in Boston, it's not exactly hard for him to hit her from Brockton Bay. If he looked up local supervillains, found her on the list and then scanned for her then he'd still be able to shoot her.

Zoat can just decide to change that since he's already changed several premises which don't make all that much sense.

He changed it so that not every criminal in Gotham goes to Arkham, but only the ones that are actually mentally ill go there, while those that aren't, even if they're members of Batmans rogues gallery, go to ordinary prison.

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beautiful. more please. how does this paul plan on dealing with scion? i mean he is playing around on his petri dish.

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The Lord Protector has no plans to act against the world's most powerful and least efficient superhero. At most, he'd offer him some advice on improving his effectiveness.

Yes, but after he discovered it is possible to make a Yellow Lantern I think he decided to go with that considering he is much more used to using the yellow ring.

Zoat I think you once mentioned that the SI no longer has orange colored speech when using his ring due to his enlightenment.

If this is true for all enlightened lanterns then you may want to change this:

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No. You'll note that those are from the point of view of another character? The SI can see the fears that the Lord Protector draws upon in making his constructs.

 

[Information era]

The Lord Protector has no plans to act against the world's most powerful and least efficient superhero. At most, he'd offer him some advice on improving his effectiveness.

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... ... ... So he is going to lead directly into golden morning and the end of the human race for this entire multiverse. And the significant risk that Zion figures out enough of the golden light to power himself from it and extend his lifespan indefinitely, giving him hope of completing the cycle and taking away the one thing which could possibly defeat him.

 

[Korfayron]

I'm really hoping for more of Yellow Paul in Worm.

I'm actually hoping for an update from the full spectrum of alternate universe lanterns Warhammer fantasy lantern and Warhammer 40,000 lantern are my favourites.

 

[Mr Zoat]

... ... ... So he is going to lead directly into golden morning and the end of the human race for this entire multiverse. And the significant risk that Zion figures out enough of the golden light to power himself from it and extend his lifespan indefinitely, giving him hope of completing the cycle and taking away the one thing which could possibly defeat him.

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The impression I've gained from Worm fanfiction is that Zion doesn't have the mental flexibility or initiative to do something like that. But they've still got tinkers and Foil and Brockton Bay's best exterminator.

 

[Information era]

The impression I've gained from Worm fanfiction is that Zion doesn't have the mental flexibility or initiative to do something like that. But they've still got tinkers and Foil and Brockton Bay's best exterminator.

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Taylor was guided by literal plot armor (contessa's path to victory) to be the one to demoralize Zion. You have disrupted the plot such that Taylor never becomes a villain and might not even become a cape. The chances of her talking with Doctor Mother, Tattletale, Bonesaw, and Panacea about how powers work and becoming Khepri is now effectively nil. Zion doesn't have mental flexibility in the common sense of knowing what to do without someone suggesting it, but the information processing shards are working in the background without his needing to tell them to do so. If any of them pings "massive energy source" then it will draw his attention about the implications.

The tinker's dont matter unless they all work together will null and two. Foil doesn't matter unless they get Zion to commit suicide.

 

[Mr Zoat]

I've seen plenty of SI's try and get Eidolon therapy. Haven't yet seen one that tried to get Zion therapy.

Edit: Well, okay, Spider Queen, but that was an omake.

 

[Information era]

I've seen plenty of SI's try and get Eidolon therapy. Haven't yet seen one that tried to get Zion therapy.

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Because it is explicitly stated in canon that within 15 years at most Zion develops enough emotional complexity to start killing everyone.

There literally does not exist a future where zion doesnt kill dozens of billions.

 

[GodKiller999]

It's kinda funny how similar this is to "Kill them all", especially considering how... unique. A fun read in either case though, even if it's not exactly filling.

 

[Vaermina]

It wont work. As soon as an endbringer attacks or golden morning happens, LP is going to die unless he escapes. The world is going to be fucked as soon as he leaves.

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Pretty much.

Hell, if we were playing Worm completely straight to it's canon abilities, Zizz would have started acting the moment it went out on the radio that LP killed Lung.

So I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Behemoth was making a beeline for Brockton Bay this very moment.

Taylor was guided by literal plot armor (contessa's path to victory) to be the one to demoralize Zion. You have disrupted the plot such that Taylor never becomes a villain and might not even become a cape. The chances of her talking with Doctor Mother, Tattletale, Bonesaw, and Panacea about how powers work and becoming Khepri is now effectively nil. Zion doesn't have mental flexibility in the common sense of knowing what to do without someone suggesting it, but the information processing shards are working in the background without his needing to tell them to do so. If any of them pings "massive energy source" then it will draw his attention about the implications.

The tinker's dont matter unless they all work together will null and two. Foil doesn't matter unless they get Zion to commit suicide.

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Also there's the whole bit with Scion's rampage not being a question of "Will it happen?" but a question of "When in the next 15-30 some years will it happen."

Because there's no "it won't happen" that doesn't involve Scion being dead.

 

[Information era]

I've seen plenty of SI's try and get Eidolon therapy. Haven't yet seen one that tried to get Zion therapy.

Edit: Well, okay, Spider Queen, but that was an omake.

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So we have a case of a paul barrelling in assuming he is powerful enough to brute force solve all problems, when in fact not only will he have 0 net impact on number of supervillains, but he has doomed the world.

 

[Darko]

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If you're trying to say that the Penguin has been sent to Arkham in your story then that contradicts this:

Despite what some elements of Earth Prime's Bat-media seemed to think, Arkham Asylum is a maximum security hospital and not a prison. Mr Cobblepot -for example- has never been there, as he's clearly sane.

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No. You'll note that those are from the point of view of another character? The SI can see the fears that the Lord Protector draws upon in making his constructs.

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So other enlightened Lanterns can see paragons avarice when he's using his ring, even if we don't see the orange speech unless he's using the Honded, and if we get a POV from another Orange or enlightened lantern viewing paragon using his ring then there is going to be orange speech when he's doing it?

I've seen plenty of SI's try and get Eidolon therapy. Haven't yet seen one that tried to get Zion therapy.

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There is a fic called Therapy on SV where Taylor gets the power to cure mental illnesses and stay sane no matter what.

She's basically the Only Sane Man in that story, aside from Legend.

 

[SirKaid]

So is Jade!

By this point in the timeline, Purity had wanted out of the E88 for months. ThunderCats Paul loses 30 points.

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Purity had claimed that she wanted to leave the E88. However, given that her actions prior to the split (murdering non-white criminals, mostly) and after the split (same thing) were the same, she's full of shit.

none of the extent supervillains are murderers within the Brockton Bay.

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What in the hell gave you that impression? Lung is literally introduced with him ordering his gang to murder the Undersiders. Oni Lee is a serial suicide bomber. Purity levels several buildings, killing everyone inside, when CPS takes her kid. The Travelers are guilty of dozens of murders thanks to Noelle and her clones. Bitch is a murderer. Regent is a murderer.

Not killing civilians is the first, third, and fourth of the unwritten rules.

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The Unwritten Rules aren't worth the paper they aren't written on. They're nothing more than a pleasant lie that Lisa told Taylor to make crime seem like nothing more than a game of cops and robbers. None of the big players pay more than lip service to them.

That's because it is insulting.

Especially when you consider that Zoat hasn't actually read the source material.

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I don't agree with you often, but you're 100% correct here. People who haven't read or seen or played the media should never write fanfiction involving it.

The criminals stick to the unwritten rules, even though they attempt to get around them at times. Any villain who does break the rules is called out on it to the point of everyone turning on them if they don't make amends.

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This literally never happens. When people thought that the Undersiders had released the E88's identities nobody else gave a shit.

Taylor was guided by literal plot armor (contessa's path to victory) to be the one to demoralize Zion.

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No she wasn't. Contessa can't model Zion. Taylor's victory was a bit of Tattletale and more her own experience with bullying. Contessa's role in the affair was the thirty years of keeping Earth Bet mostly stable, not anything to do with the battle itself.

 

[Information era]

No she wasn't. Contessa can't model Zion. Taylor's victory was a bit of Tattletale and more her own experience with bullying. Contessa's role in the affair was the thirty years of keeping Earth Bet mostly stable, not anything to do with the battle itself.

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There was literally no possible future where Taylor wasn't at the end of the world. Which implies that the brief snapshot Contessa got with the 150,000 step plan was being followed well enough to guide Taylor.

The protecerate was about to do a kill order on the undersiders for how they kept only technically not breaking the code. When coil broke the rules, the undersiders almost turned on him then and there until he promised to make amends. When the ABB started breaking the rules, the surviving members were sent to the birdcage.

And again, you are stretching the definition of murder to include an accidental use of power upon first triggering and someone forced into doing it by a high tier mind controller.

There is also no evidence that Purity murdered people. Because again, that would've resulted in her getting sent to the birdcage.

You can't just go "criminals *obviously* break the rules and murder people, but they don't get sent to the birdcage for it, therefore the rules are bunk" when the people stated to have broken the rules quickly end up in the birdcage or dead. That and you keep ignoring that in canon, the supervillains don't murder people. At best, they get their flunkies to do it for them, but it is incredibly likely that executing a parahuman gang like that would've resulted in him being sent to the birdcage even if he didn't do it himself.

 

[Information era]

The Unwritten Rules aren't worth the paper they aren't written on. They're nothing more than a pleasant lie that Lisa told Taylor to make crime seem like nothing more than a game of cops and robbers. None of the big players pay more than lip service to them.

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And this specifically, the rules were created by cauldron to try to keep the parahuman from going critical mass for as long as possible. It is outright stated in canon that the rules are being enforced by cauldron, villains, and heroes. It is demonstrated multiple times that the rules are a serious deal and that breaking them quickly results in punishment.

 

[Aeess]

The correct thing to do is bring in the army, as you clearly lack the resources to deal with such an major upsurge in violence. That said, if local law enforcement had adequate resources to deal with the level of opposition you face then this situation would not have arisen. You need not worry about collateral damage. I will simply kill all participants."

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You recall how Paragon was worried that escalating things with the Syndicate would risk them causing the death of Billions? That's pretty much what's going tooo happen here. Villains make up the vast majority of the global number of parahumans and if Heroes start attacking them to the point that they think they have nothing to loose, they will hit back Hard, until now pretty much every villain has been holding back to some degree. The resulting chaos would also certainly draw out thrrats like Endbringers or thr Slaughterhouse 9.

 

[SirKaid]

There is also no evidence that Purity murdered people. Because again, that would've resulted in her getting sent to the birdcage.

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She leveled buildings in downtown in broad daylight. Putting aside how it's ludicrous bullshit to do much as suggest that the Nazi supervillain with the hyperlethal power somehow didn't murder people in the decade plus she's had her power, in that moment alone she became a mass murderer.

The rest of your post is similarly nonsense, unless you have a citation, but I had to respond to that particular bit of idiocy.

 

[Information era]

She leveled buildings in downtown in broad daylight. Putting aside how it's ludicrous bullshit to do much as suggest that the Nazi supervillain with the hyperlethal power somehow didn't murder people in the decade plus she's had her power, in that moment alone she became a mass murderer.

The rest of your post is similarly nonsense, unless you have a citation, but I had to respond to that particular bit of idiocy.

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Oh, so after someone else broke not just one but two of the rules, revealing her identity and targetting her family, she also broke the rules and mass murdered a bunch of people? Wow, it is almost like the rules exist as a serious check on the limits of cape conflict, backed by the threat of opposing parties also breaking the rules.

 

[Mr Zoat]

So we have a case of a paul barrelling in assuming he is powerful enough to brute force solve all problems, when in fact not only will he have 0 net impact on number of supervillains, but he has doomed the world.

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No, it will have an impact on the number of supervillains, as it will destroy existing villianous power structures and support networks while preventing those networks destorying civil society. It won't stop future supervillains arising, but it will mean that they'll be outnumbered by the heroes.

It means that the canonical route... Probably won't occur. But... That's sort of the point. His approach is perfectly rational based on the information available to him. That similar to why the orange version who actually went to Earth Bet killed Legend; he was in a base where poeple were wiping people's memories and testing drugs on them. Clearly, anyone who turned up to defend the place was evil.

It's kinda funny how similar this is to "Kill them all", especially considering how... unique. A fun read in either case though, even if it's not exactly filling.

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'Kill Them All' was personal. This is detached.

If you're trying to say that the Penguin has been sent to Arkham in your story then that contradicts this:

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That was supposed to be a link to Cobblepot being in a normal prison. I don't have sound here so I can't actually hear it.

So other enlightened Lanterns can see paragons avarice when he's using his ring, even if we don't see the orange speech unless he's using the Honded, and if we get a POV from another Orange or enlightened lantern viewing paragon using his ring then there is going to be orange speech when he's doing it?

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I'm... Going to say 'yes', but I'm also reserving the right to claim that it's due to yellow constructs being strengthened by the fears of other people.

 

[Information era]

She leveled buildings in downtown in broad daylight. Putting aside how it's ludicrous bullshit to do much as suggest that the Nazi supervillain with the hyperlethal power somehow didn't murder people in the decade plus she's had her power, in that moment alone she became a mass murderer.

The rest of your post is similarly nonsense, unless you have a citation, but I had to respond to that particular bit of idiocy.

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Unwritten (well, some are written) rules in the cape community extend to: no murder, no rape, no going after families, you maintain the overall peace (generally meaning keeping the truce and not being such a monster/threat that people can't sleep in their beds at night - Bakuda broke this one). You don't **** with people's secret identities or private lives (ie. their families), etc, etc. Different areas maintain different variations on these rules. Breaking these rules may get you sent to the Birdcage. Consistently breaking them may get a kill order placed on your head. - Wildbow on MythWeavers

"You violated the code by association when you took someone, took control of someone. The same someone who you saw unmasked. You violated the code again when you attacked Triumph's family. So what's stopping us from tearing off your mask right now? The same code you've disrespected and broken?". - Excerpt from Queen 18.3

To the PRT, on the surface, they've got a villain that's getting too big for their boots, who're eliminating competition, breaking the rules, and who could very easily be willing to escalate to start targeting heroes. A murder out in public is very visible and newsworthy, and people in the public get scared. It's controversial. They don't want things to escalate.
To the PRT, more behind the scenes, they have a vested interest in the balance and the unwritten rules. They want to keep parahuman numbers up. So they have task forces who are exclusively trained to keep stuff like this from coming about. - Wildbow on Reddit

"They've broken other unspoken rules," Assault said, looking at Triumph and Miss Militia rather than the junior members. "Shatterbird? Are we really going to let that one slide?"
"Anything goes when fighting the Nine," Miss Militia said.
"The Nine are gone. He's still breaking the rules. He kidnapped and took control of Shadow Stalker. He's affected civilians. Criminals, admittedly, but still civilians." - Excerpt from Interlude 15

And the meetings about Bakuda and the nine. We don't know if there was a meeting against the undersiders when coil doxxed E88 as they were obviously not invited.

 

[Information era]

No, it will have an impact on the number of supervillains, as it will destroy existing villianous power structures and support networks while preventing those networks destorying civil society. It won't stop future supervillains arising, but it will mean that they'll be outnumbered by the heroes.

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Dude you don't understand. Capes are pushed into conflict. ALL of them have a voice in the back of their head telling them to fight other capes. If there are no villains, then it is inevitable that the heroes will turn on each other after being driven insane by their own power.

They also don't really have support structures other than the number man managing their accounts. Everything else is a local 'your boss paying your bills' type.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Dude you don't understand. Capes are pushed into conflict. ALL of them have a voice in the back of their head telling them to fight other capes. If there are no villains, then it is inevitable that the heroes will turn on each other after being driven insane by their own power.

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Quite possibly. I would point out however that there isn't anything preventing them competing in non-criminal ways or combating mundane criminals, and that the Lord Protector doesn't know about the conflict drive.

 

[Ganurath]

Wait a minute. Isn't Purity supposed to be in Boston at this point in the timeline?

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Nope. Her Interlude that I linked earlier has her living in The Towers, the prime residential section of Brockton Bay's Downtown. CITATION!

"I saw your info. Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt. First located in Hesse, Germany, moved to London, then Brockton Bay, Boston, then Brockton Bay again. No kids. Cat. Nothing interesting about you, besides the obvious. I'm thinking you even have your dinners on rotation. Chicken and rice on Mondays, Steak and potatoes on Tuesdays? Something like that?"

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It was Night and Fog that were in Boston.

There are more examples of people being wrong about canon, but the only one I've seen from Mr Zoat is the erroneous belief that Legend knew about the connection between Cauldron and the Case 53s. The rest of Cauldron giving him the mushroom treatment was the overarching plot of his Interlude.

 

[Information era]

Quite possibly. I would point out however that there isn't anything preventing them competing in non-criminal ways or combating mundane criminals, and that the Lord Protector doesn't know about the conflict drive.

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You are trying to treat 'conflict' as a game of semantics. Shards push capes into fighting other capes. There isn't two ways about it. And whether or not LP knows about the conflict drive doesn't have an affect on whether or not his plan backfires horrendously in his face. He doesn't get an out just because he decided to jump into things after having done all of two minutes of research.

You are trying to argue against a system that was set up by the best precognitive and analytics capes that exist.

So in short, whatever you are thinking of as a replacement, fits into the same category as "why didnt they just use x against the endbringer"

short answer, "they tried it, it didn't work".

Also, he is being a literal justice lord right now. You yourself wrote about how what the justice lords and justice league did only caused oceans of shit to hit a fan at such speeds that most a state died as a starter.

 

[Dragonvx100]

So I'm a little disappointed he is killing Purity, I don't really like her as a character and think she isn't a good person but she is trying to be better and make the world a better place even though her racism stops her from succeeding. To be fair though she is technically using her free time to stop criminals without even getting paid, even if she only stops minority criminals. But because I don't really like her I'm only a little disappointed.

 

[Darko]

Also, he is being a literal justice lord right now. You yourself wrote about how what the justice lords and justice league did only caused oceans of shit to hit a fan at such speeds that most a state died as a starter.

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The Lords didn't need to do some of the things they did, like invading an alternate universe.

Renegade may have actually approved of some of the things they did if they didn't decide that invading a world where society is stable and didn't need them.

The society in Earth Bet is utter shit and it would be laughable if you suggest that it is anything but that.

The problem with the League and the Syndicate was that when the League took down the high ranking members they left without doing an inspection on what will happen.

The various Paul's tend to be cautious and I don't think this version is just going to leave without setting up something to notify him on the various happenings in Earth Beta after he finishes his killing.

 

[Sordid Snake]

Particularly when the author throws around ridiculously silly numbers, like 10^80 Earths (or, at least, parallel dimensions)...

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That is still about 10^36225 times less than Heinlein (6^6^6)

 

[CTrees]

Quite possibly. I would point out however that there isn't anything preventing them competing in non-criminal ways or combating mundane criminals, and that the Lord Protector doesn't know about the conflict drive.

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The fact that the conflict drive is literally a push to fight has been addressed. There are some additional mechanics with cluster triggers that really crank it up to eleven in some cases.

Beyond that, NEPEA-5 is punitive legislation designed to drive parahumans out of the business world. It is effective enough at preventing making a livelihood through non-combat application of powers (ex., "Skitter could be an exterminator!"), that it directly lead to the creation of The Elite, the largest parahuman villain organization in the US. We also have some confirmation that using powers in mundane ways (ex., "Kaiser's steel creation could be used for cheap building construction!") would eventually fail, because the shards don't like it. Then we have things like Watchdog keeping an eye on stock market manipulation and parahumans being prevented from competing in sports...

Most non-criminal ways of satisfying the conflict drive are, in fact, prevented.

I'll also point out that we have one or two examples of parahumans going after mundane criminals, and how that ended up. Most obvious is Shadow Stalker, who went to far, killed a couple people, and got pressganged into joining the Wards. Next is Glory Girl, who had her sister to clean up her mistakes. And then I believe Chevalier was mostly going against mundane criminals before getting recruited, but it's been awhile since I've read the relevant interlude. For an example on the other side, Gavel was another violent vigilante, but one that ended up in the Birdcage. The laws of the world, and the drive of the shards, are such that targeting mundanes only will only work for awhile.

 

[nick012000]

Dude you don't understand. Capes are pushed into conflict. ALL of them have a voice in the back of their head telling them to fight other capes. If there are no villains, then it is inevitable that the heroes will turn on each other after being driven insane by their own power.

They also don't really have support structures other than the number man managing their accounts. Everything else is a local 'your boss paying your bills' type.

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If there were no villains, most heroes wouldn't start going insane. They'd just start having their powers get more and more prone to going off without them intending to. It'd be like how Canary accidentally made her ex cut his dick off by telling him to "go fuck himself" after a performance, or how in Ward, Victoria's uncle noted that his power got a lot more hair-trigger after he retired from the cape life until he decided to join up with the local police department and go into small-town heroism under a new hero identity.

 

[Sordid Snake]

• • Respect the secret identities of fellow parahumans.[4]​[5]​[6]​[1]​ Private lives are a needed outlet and taking that away is asking for trouble.[2]​
    • No attacking the civilian family members of parahumans.[7]​[5]​[2]​[8]​
  • No violence or using powers during a meeting between multiple parties.[9]​
  • Try not to use lethal force.[10]​[11]​
  • No widespread attacks against civilians.[12]​[2]​

Not killing civilians is the first, third, and fourth rule. ​

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I disagree.

The first only protects civilian relatives of parahumans.

The third is not a rule, its an exhortation.

And the fourth hinges on "widespread", so occasional attacks on small numbers of civilians are by the text ok.
(Not that it wouldn't get you arrested of course, or net you a price on your head, but you wouldn't get a kill order put on you. To break rule four you have to do something like what Bakuda did during her spree, or behave like Lung. But Lung got away with it since Cauldron who are the puppetmasters behind the Protectorate regarded him as a vital asset against the Endbringers)