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

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Handlewithcare said:
Paul once again casually shaking the foundations of a society with new/old information.

The discussion was interesting. Balance of power is...difficult at best when it's about expensive, complex wargear.

When there are individuals that can by themselves challenge entire countries it should become impossible, I think.

Unless the countries unite against such a common threat.

An Ozymandias scenario.
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Unfortunately even that is unlikely to work. Everyone is used to superheroes saving the day.
 
Cuchulin said:
Not unless Zoat wants it to work that way.
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No, it always explodes, that's why it's electron degenerate matter.

It's basically the same problem you get with Neutronium.

To the dumb and simplify the issue down a lot, the material is already exploding, it's just the stars intense gravitational field counter acting that explosion that keeps it from actively doing so. Hence if you were to somehow remove a small piece of that matter from it's gravity field it would go boom.
 
Vaermina said:
No, it always explodes, that's why it's electron degenerate matter.

It's basically the same problem you get with Neutronium.

To the dumb and simplify the issue down a lot, the material is already exploding, it's just the stars intense gravitational field counter acting that explosion that keeps it from actively doing so. Hence if you were to somehow remove a small piece of that matter from it's gravity field it would go boom.
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OL has a power ring, so even if that typically happens, he can just make it so it doesn't.
 
Fellow said:
What an odd word. I was gonna make a correction, but a quick Google search shows it to be right.
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yea you get that when you look up old time speeches and such like '4 score and 7 years ago' these days most people wouldn't know what score means in this context without doing a google search but back when the speech happened score was very commonly known to mean 20 so 4 score and 7 was 87 I've heard that one or two languages have changed so completely that early speakers of it and modern speakers of it would not be able to speak to each other if they some how met because neither would recognize what the other is saying
 
"I don't.. think that what Atom has is actually a piece of a white dwarf in any literal sense. And I can just make electron-degenerate matter if he really wants some."

I haven't spent much time looking into Dr Palmer's work. It's a bit like superspeed; so absurdly broken if applied in a military context that I'm hesitating to put it into wider circulation. Dr Dane's formula would be far safer, though… Far less useful, even if I could get it.
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To be fair, OL explicitly says that he hasn't even really attempted to investigate how the Atom's shrinking technology works.

Does it use material from a white dwarf star? Does it use electron degenerate matter? OL doesn't know. The The whole conversation about him making/selling electron degenerate matter was a bit of a false lead in the first place. You notice that OL says he could make some "if he (Atom) really wants some" but he doesn't know if the Atom could actually make use of such material. Leonid and Tao spin this off into a conversation on the assumption it would actually help with shrinking technology, but OL never made any such claim and rather implied the opposite. He doesn't even think that the Atom is using anything literally related to white dwarf stars.
 
To be fair, DC comics 'White Dwarf Star Fragment' seems to include a LOT of strange things that doesn't map to Earth Prime Physics....Sapience evidently being one of them. As are probability alterations, anti-gravity and sensitivity to EM radiation along the UV and IR ranges, and random explosions. That last one is likely the most realistic.

Dr Palmer's tech being weaponized...well marvel went that route with the Ant Man film.

Shrinking tech would likely be more of a 'Theological' issue then that entropy gun, as you are creating and destroying Mass.

A few Sci-fi's have taken on trying to explain the violation of conservation of mass and energy by shunting extra mass to 'subspace'. Much like OL's personal pocket, but a bit messier, since your storing well....parts of yourself.

Animorphs used the subspace method as part of their shapeshifting. They physically rewrote their DNA and reconstructed their bodies each time, thus it was more a matter energy conversion, thus allowing for some added features and problems. Since the body was being rebuilt, when they shifted forms they also got a factory reset on injuries, up to an including missing limbs. So long as what ever damage wasn't Genetic when they sampled it, they could, and DID heal folks of life altering damage this way (as a recruitment tactic in their little child solider war against evil brainslugs). One of the Downsides was that you were quite literally left with your mAss hanging out, since subspace was ALSO their FTL of choice in universe, and your extra parts had a chance to be flies on a windscreen to passing ships....very slim odds since space is big, but has occurred.

Transformers also uses the subspace (Transwarp Space) shifting of mass to explain size changing...this being a bit less creepy since they aren't made of meat like us, but does allow for the Mighty Megatron to go from building sized killer robot to a human sized pistol, and not crush the person holding him. I think the animated universe version even had a character with a 'bag of holding' style subspace pocket, which got highjacked and used as a teleportation method.

TFAni_Decepticon_Air_Swindle_Optimus_Hand.jpg

Honestly if China and Russia were looking for new weapons tech, then the League's Zeta Beam Transporters are likely a better source of fully functional death ray tech waiting to happen. Like OL pointed out in the mental training session, Zeta beam tech that teleports you by breaking you down and putting you back together is very good at the Breaking You Down Part. Back Here
**Guys! Look at this.** Wallace waves at us from where he's perched on top of the now visible bioship and Kaldur leads the way outside. It looks like Wallace is wearing one of R-. One of Robin's computers. I blink and he's right in front of us waving the screen under our faces. **It's giving off zeta beams. The same stuff that powers our zeta tubes. T-this thing doesn't disintegrate, i-it teleports. Rob is alive!**

Kaldur leans forwards to get a better look at the screen, which appears to show a diagram of the gun attached to the bioship with zeta radiation concentrations highlighted. **Perhaps. I am not familiar enough with-.**

**No, no perhaps. They're all alive.**

Ooooooh.

"Gauss flayer."

I say it before thinking. Wallace and Kaldur both look at me for an explanation.

**I... I don't recognise the gun, but I have heard of something with a similar effect. Zeta radiation...** I bow my head and close my eyes for a moment. **Nothing says it has to teleport all of an object at once.** I open my eyes to the looks of shock on their faces. **Given how we observed it functioning.. the outer parts of the target disappearing first... And then comparing our general technology level to theirs... I'm sorry, I don't think it's very likely.**

The hope he'd briefly felt drains from Wallace's face. Wait, what's tha-.
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Martian Manhunter, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Various Lanterns with an environmental shield active have passed through the things...no mention of having to compensate for their powers when teleporting them, and between them you've got durability, organic and ring tech force fields and magic all holding these people together getting bypassed completely.

That's Earth Tech, expensive enough to take up most of the League budget, but not insurmountable by the superpowers to allow for much shittier version to be portable(ish) and able to teleport fragments of a few ounces here and there.
 
Chojin Patriarch said:
Stupid, stupid military logic. "Oh, our weapons are about to be useless? Better use them to wipe out half of humanity now!" Thank goodness wiser minds prevailed...
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Actually, it's eminently logical in the context of the situation.

If you operate on the base presumption that the only thing keeping your side and their side from shooting at each other is the fact that the first to shoot results in both sides dying, and suddenly you learn they are about to change the situation to one where they would be able to shoot you and your shooting back would be the equivalent of a rubber bullet, you can only conclude that they will shoot you the moment they can get way with it, and, thus, since you're about to die anyway, yes, you do shoot first while you still can.

(Of course the entire thing is underpinned by false assumptions - both about the fundamental nature of nuclear weapons and the fact that mutually-assured destruction was a situation forced on the world by a number of actions including many that can only be explained by deliberate malfeasance, but that's probably not a discussion for here...)
 
thebishop8 said:
Change "change" to "changed".
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Darko said:
Maybe 'surprises'
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Thank you, corrected.
Chojin Patriarch said:
And if they don't work, there's always plain cold-forged iron to try. I assume that'd have some effect on the Sheeda... Besides the effect a railgun slug has on anything unprotected.
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One at sufficient relative acceleration. But iron has no special effect on the Sheeda.
And you'd be amazed where you can get into when you're the size of a High-Grade Gunpla with the strength of twenty men...
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I thought it was one man, just focused on a smaller area.
Which the participating countries would be yelling about from minute one. So unless the UN can manage to hamemr out something, or someone makes a private equivalent...
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Pardon?
Grimnar said:
Hahahaha.

This is funny, Starfire is a funny guy.
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Ah...

The version of Russia in this story has no desire to expand its borders by force, without making reference to Russias that may exist in other works of fiction. Space is far more appealing.
 
Darko said:
OL has a power ring, so even if that typically happens, he can just make it so it doesn't.
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Actually he can't, because it's literally not something that's possible.

He couldn't even really hold the material together with forcefields, since the power levels necessary to do so would quickly deplete his ring charge.
 
Vaermina said:
Actually he can't, because it's literally not something that's possible.

He couldn't even really hold the material together with forcefields, since the power levels necessary to do so would quickly deplete his ring charge.
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A lot of things in this story aren't possible in the real world.

A lot of things in comics aren't possible in the real world.

Yet they happen all the time.

People have believed for centuries that some things are just not possible, but eventually they were disproven so it honestly may be possible that one day this will also be possible here.

And he has a ring made by a hyper advanced civilization, so his chances of actually doing it are very high.
 
Vaermina said:
No, it always explodes, that's why it's electron degenerate matter.

It's basically the same problem you get with Neutronium.

To the dumb and simplify the issue down a lot, the material is already exploding, it's just the stars intense gravitational field counter acting that explosion that keeps it from actively doing so. Hence if you were to somehow remove a small piece of that matter from it's gravity field it would go boom.
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*coughs* to dumb and simplify
 
Mr Zoat said:
He can't link to the subspace pocket he has back in Universe 16.
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So Witchworld is in a parallel universe? Or "merely" in a pocket one? I'm asking because Grayven had no trouble accessing his subspace bubbles when he and Knight got portaled to the other 'demiplane' (Morgana le Fay's Britain).

Dunno how to quote from another forum so I'll just copy it:
She checks behind her, then backs up to the last corridor junction to allow us to advance. I advance at strolling pace and turn-. Hm. I take a blank gold disk out of subspace and set it on top of her sheet pile. "Thank you. Gentlemen?"
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It's from Embattled (part 8).
 
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Agent Orange said:
So Witchworld is in a parallel universe? Or "merely" in a pocket one?
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Its a Sheeda nature preserve in the Sheeda's home era. Surprise! :)

I'm only half joking. The local sun is a white dwarf. The Sun in the Seeda's era would probably be a white dwarf. The portal was powered by techno-magical correspondence magic drawn from tiny Sheeda.
 
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Sordid Snake said:
Its a Sheeda nature preserve in the Sheeda's home era. Surprise! :)

I'm only half joking. The local sun is a white dwarf. The Sun in the Seeda's era would probably be a white dwarf. The portal was powered by techno-magical correspondence magic drawn from tiny Sheeda.
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What? You think they never left Earth and just went to the same future Dr. Sivana's been trapped in?
 
Agent Orange said:
What? You think they never left Earth and just went to the same future Dr. Sivana's been trapped in?
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Yes. The sun, the setup of the gate, the fact that OL conspiciously haven't scanned any large area, let alone the whole planet or system. It would also explain why the subspace pockets are gone but can be reestablished: The original pockets were destroyed or passed on to others during the intervening eons, so they arn't there to contacted anymore.
 
Sordid Snake said:
Its a Sheeda nature preserve in the Sheeda's home era. Surprise! :)

I'm only half joking. The local sun is a white dwarf. The Sun in the Seeda's era would probably be a white dwarf. The portal was powered by techno-magical correspondence magic drawn from tiny Sheeda.
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Melmoth is trying to avoid his ex wife, who wants to kill him, so bringing the Puritans with him to the Sheeda home era would be a very bad idea.
 
Mr Zoat said:
"Like a unified planetary military created for the purpose of, one, defending the Earth from external threats and, two, defending human expansion off Earth."
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In order for that to work, I imagine it would have to take the possible members of said planetary military to make make magically binding oaths/contracts, so as to prevent corruption of any sort.
 
Tzeentch said:
In order for that to work, I imagine it would have to take the possible members of said planetary military to make make magically binding oaths/contracts, so as to prevent corruption of any sort.
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Maybe they can adapt a similar system to the one the Puritans use, minus the whole children born with the curse.
 
Darko said:
Maybe they can adapt a similar system to the one the Puritans use, minus the whole children born with the curse.
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Only to find out that you have to have Sheeda blood and be a Puritan for it to actually bind you ;)

[Joke warning - because I know someone will take it as a serious comment]
 
Sordid Snake said:
I'm only half joking. The local sun is a white dwarf. The Sun in the Seeda's era would probably be a white dwarf. The portal was powered by techno-magical correspondence magic drawn from tiny Sheeda.
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One of the local suns is a white dwarf. The other one is a middle aged main sequence.

Oh, and if people want to discuss real Russian foreign policy, please do so elsewhere or by PM. While is dislike the expansive interpretation of Rule 8 that would very clearly be a breach.
 
Sordid Snake said:
Its a Sheeda nature preserve in the Sheeda's home era. Surprise! :)

I'm only half joking. The local sun is a white dwarf. The Sun in the Seeda's era would probably be a white dwarf. The portal was powered by techno-magical correspondence magic drawn from tiny Sheeda.
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No, the sun shining above the Sheeda's world is weirder than that. Not at any natural stage in a sun's lifecycle, and he could feel the sun draining the life out of him whenever he went outside.
 
On the one hand, Vae's right in that electron-degenerate matter outside of the core of a star would be explosively unstable.

On the other hand, it's already been established in-story that there are hypothetical technologies that would be capable of containing it. More specifically, it's been established that there are hypothetical technologies that would be capable of containing neutronium, which is even more extreme -- indeed, not only containing it, but hiding its mass. It wasn't even that long ago: as you may recall, it was one of the hypothetical sources of the anomaly that turned out to be the Mother Star. (And yes, Zoat's original phrasing in that segment needed a correction for it to actually work, but he made that correction.)

And if such a technology exists and can be powered by non-Lantern power sources, it's pretty plausible that a Lantern could replicate it without draining ring charge at a ridiculous rate.

Mr Zoat said:
I'd druther know now
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Fellow said:
What an odd word. I was gonna make a correction, but a quick Google search shows it to be right.
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Actually, there is technically an error there that could be corrected... Within the dialects that use it, "druther" does follow certain rules -- it's a contraction of "would rather" and in that context it follows the same patterns that the full phrase does. That is, it ought to be "I druther know". However, by the same token, the very nature of it being dialect means that people say it wrong anyway as the historical derivation gets lost to time.

After all, we say "an orange" instead of "a norange" despite the latter being the original.

EDIT: I might actually end up using the word in real life. It's used natively in the dialect in my region.
 
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