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

1st May
07:31 GMT -6


"…President Horne getting a surprising degree of traction in Colorado."

"I…" I nod my head to the side. The gesture will be lost over the radio, but increasing numbers of people watch over the internet these days. "I think it's really more that… With me here… People are willing to look beyond their customary party loyalties and examine the actual content of his platform." I raise my hands. "Though I want to be clear-."
Ah, Grayven giving an interview? These are always hilarious. Bring on the New God of Trolling!

My interviewer raises her pencil-thin eyebrows sceptically. "You're not campaigning for the President."

"Just so. I-."

"Every time you get an interview and promote the President, you say you're not campaigning."
Yeah, she's kind of got a point there. No matter how you spin it, he's still spruiking Horne.

I shrug. "The President is what people ask me about. You can ask me about Senator N-."

"Senator Knight. Since you can't seem to remember his name from one interview to the next."
Guess what his opinion of the man is?

"I was going to say Senator Northrup Bristol…" I frown. "He's still in the running, isn't he?"

"He's still on the ballot paper, but he can't get enough delegates to win the nomination."
Wouldn't it have been hilarious if he did get the guy some support, without meaning to?

And she knows that I'm messing about. I nod to concede the point, and decide that it's time to retire that joke. Senator Bristol didn't have much of a following, even amongst the arch-conservatives who might be considered his natural followers, largely because he sounded dangerously close to wanting to give certain parts of his social ideals… An undue amount of legal authority. Fault-only divorce was one of his more sensible policies.
...So, do his detractors call him 'Senator Batshit'? Because the guy sounds just a little... He's not someone who should have any political power, let's be honest...

"You can ask me about my dealings with Senator Knight if you like, but it won't take very long."

"Okay then. What dealing have you had with Senator Knight?"
Heh. Letting Grayven guide the course of the 'battle'. You've already lost.

"Basically none." I shrug. "I arranged for his protection when Doctor Cochin tried to carry out his coup, and I've been on the periphery of a few discussions he and the President were part of, but that's about it. I don't think we've exchange more than a dozen words. You see; I can only tell you about the interactions I've actually had with people, so anything I say on the subject is naturally going to focus on President Horne. But you can ask me about anything else."
Heh. Knight is almost an afterthought to both SIs, isn't he? Paragon's made an ass of himself trying to ban magic, but recovered. I'll bet Renegade's didn't get that helpful advice...

"Alright then." She turns to the… Internet text-channel thing. "Have you got anything to say about rumours you're dating a horse."

"No, no. Completely ridiculous."
Because she's a Pony. Duh. And not a common, earthly equine, either. She's an alien princess that just happens to look like a pony with wings and a horn. And swirly magical mane. Honestly, open your minds, internet tough guys. :p

"Because they've got pictu-."

"Princess Luna is a pony, not a horse. A horse would be taller. Also, she's from a parallel universe where ponies are intelligent. Really, it's no more weird than me dating a human would be. Also, she went from trying to stab me to dating me, a dramatic improvement on the order in my previous relationship."
Well, you did kind of bring on both stabbings yourself. Though I suppose it's not your fault Starswirl's mirror decided to make you look a bit like Sombra. But you did piss her off.

Her expression suggests that she doesn't quite know how to take that. Jade's doing… I hesitate to call it 'good' work in Africa, but certainly 'productive' and 'beneficent'. Their politicians are mostly-. I should say, their surviving politicians are mostly honest, and we're making progress with their industry. The continent as a whole has never been more stable or principled and Lex is building so many spaceships without having to worry about first world spies.
Heh. And she's earning a nice paycheck for each 'problem' removed, I take it.

"So.. I.. understand that you send your children to a public school."

I fro-. "Oh! Oh, sorry. Ah. In Britain a 'public' school is one you can attend regardless of where you live or what religion you practice. They're still private organisations, rather than public services." I nod. "Yes, all my children attend our local school. Since none of them had what you might call.. normal childhoods, I thought that improving their social skills and.. helping them make connections in the local community was the most important consideration."
I presume he has precautions in case any of them have an issue with their meds.

"That implies you don't think very highly of the quality of the school's teaching."

"No, no, that's… I'm in the fortunate position to have good relations with the genomorphs. I employ a lot of them in Challenger Mountain and I've been involved in helping them find their feet in human society. So it really wasn't that difficult to have a lot of the purely rote learning stuff telepathically inserted into my children's minds. That's a service the genomorphs offer commercially, and since my younger children would have been so far behind their peers otherwise it seemed wise to avail ourselves of it."
And getting stuck amongst a bunch of younger kids, who would likely make fun of them, would not make learning any easier.

"So between the genomorphs teaching them facts and the school teaching them how to use it, you've covered all of your bases."

I nod. "Nearly. I had to cover a couple of things myself. There aren't a lot of New Gods on Earth, so I had to teach Lynne the New God specific things myself. Likewise, my younger children have a tutor for their own arcane abilities. And since American schools are so reticent in that area, I had to cover sex education myself. Which was a little bit awkward, because I had no prior knowledge of how sanitary pads or.. tampons worked, until I needed to find out for my younger girls. If you're a boy, British sex education just skips right past that stuff-. Or at least it did when I was in school."
...And watch the internet comments she's reading explode. Because Americans.

"You..? Ah, you didn't get sex education from… On Apokolips?"

"Sort of. That was a five minute aside from my father's chief torturer during my physiology lectures."

Confirmed by the late and unlamented Father Box.
Presumably, he'd be expected to perform any follow-up study independently... Which, honestly, might have bee fun. If he weren't in the Sado-Masochism capital of the empire...

"I can't say it really stuck out? And that wouldn't have covered 'feminine hygiene' anyway; female New Gods can consciously control their fertility and so have no need for that sort of thing. But when I was growing up in Britain during my 'second childhood', I didn't remember any of that."

"A lot of American parents don't want schools to teach their children about sex in case it encourages them to become sexually active before they're ready to deal with the emotional and physical consequences. How do you feel about that?"
...<facepalm> Goddammit, America. I'll say no more, Rule 8 and all that, no matter how old the ideas behind it are.

"Well… I'm…" I shrug. "Just used to it being part of the curriculum. And.. it certainly didn't make me sexually precocious. But that's a.. wider difference between Europe and America, you know; collective responsibility versus individual responsibility. In Europe it's considered completely natural to make sure that children get a basic education on how their bodies work in school, along with education on everything else. I think… Some parents withdrew their children from those particular lessons, but it was a pretty small number. But in America it's seen as a big deal… So… Fine; you're responsible for your own children. If you don't want to delegate that responsibility then it's your job as parents to make sure they have the information they need presented in the proper context. I don't have a problem with that, either, and like to think that I've discharged mine in a reasonably competent manner."
Nicely summed up. Pity most... No! I said I'll say no more...

She nods. "I see. And what sort of age do you think a parent ought to explain things to their children?"

"The explanations children get for things gets… More complex as they get older. But I'd say that the very basics of how the reproductive organs works, it probably makes sense to tell them that as early as possible. 'This is what your heart does, this is where poop comes from, this is what your genitals do.'"
And her web terminal just caught fire. Literally.

"Ooh."

"Because that way you're not making it sound like it's a taboo subject. You're not drawing any particular emphasis to it, and at that sort of age they're not going to take in the details anyway. If it's not a taboo subject, not only will they not feel embarrassed about asking you questions, it won't be anything like as interesting."
Heh, nice way to look at it...

She sits back in the chair.

"I.. think we're going to get some calls about this."
She's thinking 'Oh, God, please don't let us get fined.. again.'

"Good show, but while I don't really have a problem giving the talk to… Just about anyone, I really think… Children, if you're listening? The best ports of call actually are your parents, not phoning a radio program. I know it's weird and awkward, but they've almost certainly been through whatever you're going through, but long enough ago that they've got some perspective on it."
I doubt any kids are listening to this, but if there are, they are going to have some red-faced parents soon...

"OkayIthinkthat'senoughonthattopic! Ah. Let's try something nice and uncontroversial, like gun control."

"Ah, alright? To the best of my knowledge, President Horne's position is that the Second Amendment is pretty clear on the subject, and the Federal Government shouldn't be infringing on people's right to bear arms."
But...

"His.. voting record as a Senator and his speeches tell a rather different story."

"The fact that he personally doesn't like private gun ownership doesn't change his reading of the Constitution. It's like free speech: 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it'. He is very unlikely to spend any time while in office removing restrictions because he likes living in a country where those restrictions exist, but he isn't going to make more because he doesn't think he has the authority."
How very American of them...

"Okay! Well, ah… This is Karolyn McDermott for DCNN, and we'll be… We'll be right back after these messages. … Probably."
Well, if nothing else, Grayven is good for ratings. If only for the 'turn the radio on, that grey space guy's talking about sex!' aspect.

Ah, Grayven. Truly, you do your divine nature proud. Living up to your true nature as a troll. I bet every time he does one of these, President Horne reaches for the aspirin...Because while they're good for his approval ratings, they give people such a headache! :D
 
Look, Leonid, can we not assume this place is identical to Earth? Just because it has similar plants and wildlife, and can sustain people...

So basically it's just very, very, very close to being Earth like.

Surprising they haven't advanced visibly in the technological arena. But given their religious and cultural bias, they've focused entirely on the arcane, have they not? And presumably there're reasons to not form overly large cities ('towns' implies a certain size, yes...) besides the obvious limitations of their farming methods...

Technologically they may be primitive, but magically they may be more advanced than anyone on Earth, aside from Atlantis.

They may also not really have any bias, seeing as they let women fight. They may not simply have been interested in technology.

Fascinating. I suppose it's a necessary side effect of being capable of unprotected spaceflight.

Is Leonid capable of doing that in this story?

I knew he had a spaceship, but not that he could fly through space unprotected under his own power.

I doubt Baba Yaga is running around here, Leonid. Wouldn't be surprised, though.

Think he was just joking.

The question is, does the process that creates them actually affect women?

If the Grundymen do go through some physical change then it may change the women to look more like the men.

Unless they evolved under it to not use light. Like Rot Lop Fan's people, evolving to use sound instead of sight because their planet had poor light. :confused: Or am I talking out of my arse?

Comic authors have been talking out of their ass for decades in order to explain the weird things in their comics, so don't worry too much about it.

I expect any flamboyance is kept for private places. If they bother with it at all. As for Sheeda tech, could they even produce it without the support structures needed? Some of it is organic, sure, but not all, or not entirely.

They may not want to produce more of the tech as it's connected to Melmoth.

Calming runes? She must have some anger issues, then. :D

She probably knew she was going to meet OL and wanted to bring some things in case he angered her.

Can you really blame her?

More or less what she asked, but not quite what she wanted...

Ah OL never giving a straight answer.

Honestly. One lot is as bad as the other. The Queen would ravage your lands just as her hubbie would.

Yeah, but they only have a history with Melmoth so they're going to be biased toward him.

Well, belated, but enjoyable. It did take a moment to remember who was with OL in the opening lines, but that's the nature of Mr Zoat's style. And very amusing that Beluah Bleak is the first person to interact with them. Not a great first (second?) impression...

The first time they interacted she was dragged to Hell.

That doesn't leave the best impression on anyone.
 
Welcome to the realization that Paragon has become a boring invincible hero.

We have T-Shirts and membership cards.
I disagree with that notion. It's not that he is invincible, it's that Paul doesn't like to do the face punching thing and tries diplomacy whenever possible, even if he ends up shooting himself in the foot like with Beulah. As such, he has a wide circle of connections and access to lots of cool little toys to use whenever he has to fight. He also has a tendency to stack the deck in his favor as much as possible. I would say Paul is more well prepared and has a lot of back up options than invincible.

Renegade is similar, but as a New God that has Grayven as a template, he is more likely to get up in you face when fighting you, making it seem like he has it harder sometimes, or at least exerts himself more.
 
Ah, Grayven giving an interview? These are always hilarious. Bring on the New God of Trolling!

Well he is much, much larger than an average human.

I also think he once pretended to be a troll when they went to Morgan Le Fay, or at least and ogre.

Wouldn't it have been hilarious if he did get the guy some support, without meaning to?

Well he has been insulting him all this time so chances are that some people who are anti alien, or just anti Grayven, will support Knight on just that basis.

It wouldn't be the first time people have supported a politician for something very, very stupid.

...So, do his detractors call him 'Senator Batshit'? Because the guy sounds just a little... He's not someone who should have any political power, let's be honest...

Neither are a lot of people, though he's certainly at the top.

Heh. Knight is almost an afterthought to both SIs, isn't he? Paragon's made an ass of himself trying to ban magic, but recovered. I'll bet Renegade's didn't get that helpful advice...

Paragon may think more of him, since his version has some very high chances of becoming president seeing as he most likely played a key role in introducing magic to the surface world, making diplomatic connections to Atlantis and his decisive measures during the thing with Manga Khan.

A lot of people the paragon has helped rehabilitate and help make better choices didn't receive the same courtesy in the renegade side.

Because she's a Pony. Duh. And not a common, earthly equine, either. She's an alien princess that just happens to look like a pony with wings and a horn. And swirly magical mane. Honestly, open your minds, internet tough guys. :p

Yeah, the guy deserves any love he can get.

This may potentially also give Kipling the courage he needs to ask Baphomet out, assuming this stories version is in love with her like his Doom Patrol self on TV.



(go to 2:20 to see the scene of him defending his love for her and how she has a heart even if she doesn't have a torso)



Will Luna suckle renegades baby carrot like a bashful foal?

Of course not, she's not a bashful foal.

And the world will hopefully have less judgement in it by then for their love.

Heh. And she's earning a nice paycheck for each 'problem' removed, I take it.

Renegade is a good boss.

I presume he has precautions in case any of them have an issue with their meds.

The likelihood of that is the same as Lex Luthor having unresolved sexual feelings for Superman.

So highly likely that he has precautions.

And getting stuck amongst a bunch of younger kids, who would likely make fun of them, would not make learning any easier.

Ya think.

...And watch the internet comments she's reading explode. Because Americans.

Ah the internet and Americans...

Two things that should not be allowed to mix.

Ah, Grayven. Truly, you do your divine nature proud. Living up to your true nature as a troll. I bet every time he does one of these, President Horne reaches for the aspirin...Because while they're good for his approval ratings, they give people such a headache! :D

Renegade may have given him something more powerful than an aspirin, though even that may be reaching its limit.
 
Not really. Remember, they are descendent from the kidnapped inhabitants of the Roanoke Colony, which was composed of approximately 112-121 colonists at the time of their disappearance. And doubtlessly at least a few died during their enslavement and liberation.

They had a very small starter population and it's only been a little over 400 years since their displacement to Witchworld. Technological advancement requires a large population, and while they've grown in number I still doubt they have the population of even one of the smaller American colonies during the Revolution.

What development they've had, has naturally been focused on infrastructure development(as they found themselves on a truly untamed wilderness without even natives to possibly get help from and no trade or immigration from a "mother country") and integrating magic into their society(which in itself would have drastically boosted them above the capabilities of a 16th century American colony).

They aren't stagnate, they've just had different needs and priorities, as well as a lack of the pressures that lead to an industrial revolution. Give them another half millennium, and assuming their population bottleneck doesn't cause them too many problems(at least problems that cant be fixed with magic and sheeda blood), their population will have grown large enough to have developed even more significant diverges from their colonial forebears, and possibly even start a magitech industrial revolution amongst them.

They would be VERY inbred. Melmoth adding himself to the mix helps but not really since he spread himself around to everyone.
 
So basically it's just very, very, very close to being Earth like.



Technologically they may be primitive, but magically they may be more advanced than anyone on Earth, aside from Atlantis.

They may also not really have any bias, seeing as they let women fight. They may not simply have been interested in technology.



Is Leonid capable of doing that in this story?

I knew he had a spaceship, but not that he could fly through space unprotected under his own power.

If the Grundymen do go through some physical change then it may change the women to look more like the men.

Necessity is the mother of invention. And Limbo Town has free superstrong slave labor, so building machines to save on labor wouldn't be as attractive.

As for Leonid, his mutation is continuing, at least in the comics. First he was strong and tough, then he got energy powers on top of that, and then something killed Leonid in the comics, only to turn out that meat suit he was born with wasn't so necessary anymore.

99163-178023-red-star.jpg


Whether Zoat is going to use that, well unless he feels like being talkative on the subject we'll just have to wait and see if Leonid doesn't die when killed. :)

Edit: Now that I think about it, oddly parallel to X'Hal's transformation from flesh and blood to pure energy.

As for Grundymen, seeing as Cyrus Gold was not 6'7 and 980 lbs of muscle, I think it's safe to say that yes, there is a physical transformation involved. Whether it would make a dead woman look like a man, couldn't tell you.
 
As Beulah said in Rhelasia, grundywomen do exist and she believes that she will eventually become one.

Melmoth picked up some Native Americans as well. Not a huge number and genetic diversity is a slight problem, but Sheeda are mildly superhuman and their engineered components are fixing a lot of problems that might otherwise occur.
 
Honestly: I had some sort of presentation on sex in all 3 of the local California public schools I went to starting in 5th grade which might be a bit late. They also covered it in middle school biology. That said, I live in a big city with good schools.

And you're all owed to talk about sex and biology on national public radio. Or really, any radio. Heck, there's very few kids who listen to radio. Though NPR had some very good programs when I was a kid. It was sort of like the BBC in quality and content.
 
"A lot of American parents don't want schools to teach their children about sex in case it encourages them to become sexually active before they're ready to deal with the emotional and physical consequences. How do you feel about that?"
That is frankly stupid, and the sad part is that it's actually real. This whole notion is beyond retarded, since teen swill be teen either way. Making sure nobody gets hurt and that nobody becomes pregnant at the tender age of 15 is done via proper education on the subject and not fear mongering. they'd just watch porn and then do something stupid and get themselves or their partner pregnant. The American Sex ED is so ridiculously dark ages that I pity anyone that had to go through it.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nun
Nope Catholic nuns might be more common (I said might because I haven't done the research to confirm that or disprove that) but they're not the only religion to have nuns
Alright, but I'm fairly sure that a) the nuns most people (outside some buddihist majority countries) think of upon hearing the word 'nun' are catholic and b) there are no puritan nuns.
 
Alright, but I'm fairly sure that a) the nuns most people (outside some buddihist majority countries) think of upon hearing the word 'nun' are catholic and b) there are no puritan nuns.
There are also Orthodox and Anglican nuns. No Puritans, though; among non-Anglican Protestants, it looks like there's just Lutheran monasteries in Europe and one Methodist monastery in the US, according to that Wikipedia page that ChiChi linked.
 
Technologically they may be primitive, but magically they may be more advanced than anyone on Earth, aside from Atlantis.

They may also not really have any bias, seeing as they let women fight. They may not simply have been interested in technology.
As I said earlier, it's probably more of a population thing as well as their isolation. Their focus has been on building up infrastructure as their population grows and integrating magic into their society. Developing "technologically" requires a large population, a thriving economy, a large number of "educated" people with the free time to come up with new ideas, a need and often times contact with other cultures.

Right now, while their population would be surprisingly educated by the standards of most 16th century peoples(pilgrims and puritans promoted universal literacy) and these people go even further by promoting a universal magical education, the lack of population and infrastructure around when they came here means a lot of their efforts would have been spent building rather then inventing, their isolation would have made it impossible for "new ideas" to spread to them and their seemingly universal use of magic means that if someone did come up with something new, it was probably magical in some way(like their magic muskets).
 
there are no puritan nuns
And just to head off any possible "but what about" responses: Not only are there no Puritan nuns, there could not be Puritan nuns. The modern interpretation of "Puritan" casts it as some ideal of moral purity, but they chose the name of their sect to represent purity from Catholicism, an ideal they thought Anglicans fell short of. If God's grace is meant to be available to everyone, then the very idea of forming a religious sisterhood separate from society in order to be closer to God is in and of itself an affront to Protestant ideals.
 
I mean, far too many people fail to take into account the part of the 2nd Amendment referring to maintaining a well-regulated militia. Or that the US government considers the National Guard to be the only legally recognized militia.

So technically the government could ban private gun ownership without violating the Constitution.

As for the, uh, interesting confession regarding Beulah Bleak . . . Good news! Despite the way the word 'puritanical' is often used these days, the Puritans were actually quite happy to have lots and lots of sex.

The Puritans believed that everything God created was naturally good — including intercourse. They weren't hostile to sexuality. They saw sex and love as important factors to help a man and a woman form a passionate relationship and strengthen it.

Now, they still thought you should be married before you started boning down, and they would have been opposed to homosexuality, but the Puritans still liked sex. They didn't just like sex. Puritans fucked. Hell, you could even get into serious trouble in a Puritan community if you didn't regularly have sex with your spouse. Men and women both could basically take you to trial over it.
 
"OkayIthinkthat'senoughonthattopic! Ah. Let's try something nice and uncontroversial, like gun control."

I know exactly why I find this so humorous. Grayven is one entertaining troll to watch sometimes.

Though, I am in the camp of enjoying OL Paul more. I just find the up-lift stuff awesome.

I was thinking that if this was ever adapted into an animated series. (I know, it is impossible, unless a fan bought DC and all it's properties and hired Mr. Zoat.) Then you would want to use both characters in the same setting to balance and play-off one another. Drop Grayven from having any Power Ring (or get him a Yellow Ring later on), but keep the different take on "New God of Conquest" aspect of him conquering people without using force. Then OL Paul could be more focused on the up-lift and building the Orange Lantern Corp stuff, while still heroing on the side.

OL is more of the Philosopher hero who usually out thinks his opponents with rhetoric, where Grayven is still intelligent but focuses more on the politics and fighting. I think they would work well together, but still butt heads occasionally causing the story to progress.

"Have you got anything to say about rumours you're dating a horse."

Ah, they said the same about Catherine the Great but that was slanderous lies as well.

Any fool can see that Princess Luna is a pony of great notoriety and prestige.
 
Come to think of it, this team is pretty top-tier, isn't it? Wonder Woman, three different Lanterns, Dr Fate, Zatanna's dad, a Russian Superman-expy, and a (relatively minor) New God. Shows how seriously the Justice League is taking the threat.
 

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