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

[Ngamer11]

Either "I agree." or "Agreed."

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I think this was Tomar-Re saying he agreed to Paul letting things play out on Xudar, so he also bears responsibility for this mess.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Can Green Lanterns read people's minds in this story?

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Basically, no. They could scan it in detail and use their knowledge of neuropsychology to work out roughly what someone was thinking about, but that's it.

Either "I agree." or "Agreed."

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Thank you, corrected.

I think this was Tomar-Re saying he agreed to Paul letting things play out on Xudar, so he also bears responsibility for this mess.

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Oh, wait, that was it.

 

[Duke Long]

I turn to the next closest ship, which… Has dropped off the stern chase and is trying to target me with its flack. Brute force transition, smack with the construct crumbler and smack again to make a large hole in the hull.

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'flak'

"I agreed to it. I will escort these ships to safety and then return to take the crew that surrendered to you into custody."

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'crews'? Since there were two ships.

Interesting how Tomar-Re says they're likely conscripts, while previously Hal (was it Hal?) was describing them as mercenaries. Are the ones in this system actually different, or is it just Tomar-Re being more generous to them?

 

[Mr Zoat]

'flak'

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Thank you, corrected.

'crews'? Since there were two ships.

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Crew as in 'member of crew'.

Interesting how Tomar-Re says they're likely conscripts, while previously Hal (was it Hal?) was describing them as mercenaries. Are the ones in this system actually different, or is it just Tomar-Re being more generous to them?

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The latter.

 

[boo600]

LOL they remember Starlagg and how that worked out for them. With greenies, there's a certain level of envelope you can push because they're basically cops and function as cops.

Orange lanterns do not fuck around and will kill your ass or worse if you try that shit with them, as far as the Dominion is concerned.

Good. Good.

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Starlagg? I don't remember it, and I searched it in the Story-only and came up empty.

 

[Ngamer11]

Starlagg? I don't remember it, and I searched it in the Story-only and came up empty.

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That's because it should only have 1 'g'. It's the prison where Vril Dox II was kept.

 

[boo600]

Gotcha.

…huh, I don't remember OL inflicting significant damage to Starlag. I thought he held back, what with Green Lantern aid. Did he do anything more than kill a few people? I'm going to have to go reread that bit.

Be right back.

 

[boo600]

Sorry for double posting, but I can't get the colors right in a copy/paste for the quotes.

The governor regards Medphyll levelly for a moment, then taps a device on his right wrist with his left hand.

Teleportation detected.

Could jam it -the governor dissolves into a series of shimmering dots- but killing him could be an escalation and this might end up coming before the Guardians for judgement.

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My eyes move briefly to Medphyll, then I mentally order the horde not to kill anyone.

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This bit, I remembered perfectly.

Much like what I tried to do to Nabu, draining a construct of energy entirely will destroy it. That might be how these things killed the Praexis Demons; there just wasn't enough of them to return to the ring.

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And this is where my memory gets spotty; I personally think of it as a site of trauma. Goodbye, Praexis Minions. You were a lovely part of the story, and I miss you.

And the whole process really hurts!

That's logical, I suppose. I mean, I've got no idea how that mechanism works but intense pain would probably disrupt Green Lantern concentration and therefore their ability to fight effectively. All it does to me is encourage me to dismiss lower lethality options completely.

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Even with Medphyll, Paul switches to lethal here, and…

The railgun fires, targeting the Dominator's centre of mass.

The cold gun fires, aiming a little lower.

I fly sideways at speed, the third red bolt narrowly missing my armour as the Dominator comes further into the room and a second one comes through the doorway behind him.

The crumbler round hits home as I keep flying, causing his personal shield to flare and undulate. Holding but weakened. The cold beam has rather more effect, making the shield -some sort of plasma shell?- visibly fail, though the armour appears to be thermally insulated enough that the cold effect doesn't kill the wearer immediately. However, I can see hoarfrost appear on the outer surface and the Dominator wearing it stumbles. The next crumbler round strikes his breastplate unobstructed, releasing energy in the fashion I've become accustomed to as the crumble field interacts destructively with whatever super advanced material that armour is made from.

And with the flesh beneath.

The Dominator falls as the second charges into the room. I take a hit to my right shoulder as I retrain the guns, aiming the cold gun-.

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Probably killed that one, and it's an extra, so let's say one dominator dead,

I fall to the ground as a wave of red energy passes through the room. Constructs failed, armour still functional. My legs thump heavily on the deck as I trigger automatic targeting, my right arm coming up and firing the manual cold gun at the Dominator's head. A red bolt hits my faceplate at the same time-. Something about my kinetic barrier causes it to fail to do very much. Good to know, I'll give spares to Medphyll and Dox when I have a moment. The cold beam strikes home, collapsing his shield and making the soldier fall to the ground. Colours… Not disappearing. I take a moment to fire crumblers at both of their guns and then use the armour's built-in flight systems to head down the hole.

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I'm gonna say two.

Take aim. Fire. The cold gun beams cover the intervening distance in next to no time,-

"Why are you-"

-passing through their shields and supercooling-

"-attacking them? They have hundreds-"

-their armour. Since there's no real kinetic energy involved in the strike the patrol boat just stays there-

"-of those ships and they won't dare fire if-"

-but I can scan the fried interior systems and the frozen pilot.

"-we were in close proximity-"

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He froze a ship, but I don't think he killed anyone in it.

…maybe some of the Praexis demons killed a few dominators/Okaaran guards?

The respondent is a Dominator with a small vertical line in the upper part of his red spot. The senior one, presumably.

"If you'll lower your weapons I'll restore atmosphere to this chamber. I imagine-."

"Agreed. We will lower weapons once atmosphere is restored."

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Tactical maneuver, didn't actually suffocated any of them. And worked with them on their creative reframing of his offer.

You've got a bit of a choice to make. My colleague Medphyll-" I indicate him with my right arm as he comes in through the inner door of the airlock. "-is a dedicated and extremely moral Green Lantern. If you like, you can surrender to him. If you do that, you will be invited to make full confession and then you will be punished in whatever way the Guardians think best. Most likely, you'll be spending a few decades in the Sciencells. That about right?"

"It would depend on the results of a more exhaustive investigation than we have so far performed. If convicted, you may receive a sentence of between thirty years and the remainder of your life. There would also be an element of re-education, and positive steps you make towards addressing the defects in your character that have led you to commit these acts would most likely be taken into account when deciding your tariff."

"Or they might sell you back to the Dominion in exchange for political concessions. They don't mind the Dominion running prisons, but… You know that you crossed the line here, right?"

"What is the alternative?"

"You could surrender to me. But I wouldn't recommend that." Ah, finally. The door on the other side of the room begins deforming, then a Praexis Demon falls mouth first through the resulting hole. The Saremite walks through immediately after, bending awkwardly through the gap and then standing up straight. "Unfortunately, the Orange Lantern Corps' facilities aren't ready for prisoners as yet. So far I've… Had to administer summary justice. One group of traders won't ever leave the world where I marooned them. And a group of soldiers I mind controlled… They wouldn't take a chance when it was offered to them, so I had all eight hundred gunned down. In your case, given the nature of your crimes, I imagine that I'll do that to at least some of you."

The lead high caste Dominator stares at the Saremite. "What is that?"

"It used to be a living creature. Then it invaded my home, and I horribly violated its body, mind and soul. Now, it's a construct, and everything it ever was or knew exists only as part of me. Quite a good deal for me in your case; I imagine that there are all sorts of things which a high caste Dominator researcher would know that haven't made it into the public domain yet. Or perhaps I could do something a little less invasive? Just reach into your soul and rearrange your priorities a little? How would you like to have your loyalty to the Dominion replaced by loyalty to… A local prisoner rehabilitation charity, perhaps?"

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So… he didn't really wreak havoc. He killed a few people, maybe twenty if the Demons were on the ball. But they were set to nonlethal after tunneling, so… I doubt they got even that many, given that he only killed a few dominators personally. Maybe even just two.

He did threaten them, and they do know about assimilation, but they clearly just found it terrifying because of the Data being lost, and because people might find out about what they've been doing in more detail, about what they've learned. The idea of being enslaved, or mentally altered, didn't strike the same fear.

And I don't think Dominators find the idea of death by engine shutdown particularly scary.

So these are definitely mercenaries or slaves or something, and they've apparently been told about his capabilities - because the story Starlag has just doesn't make him sound scarier than a normal lantern. More capable, with crumblers and minions - but he didn't assimilate anyone, so if they know, it's because of a briefing, not horror stories being passed around.

 

[AverusBlack]

Gotcha.

…huh, I don't remember OL inflicting significant damage to Starlag. I thought he held back, what with Green Lantern aid. Did he do anything more than kill a few people? I'm going to have to go reread that bit.

Be right back.

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From the Dominions POV, the first time they met an Orange Lantern, he walked into their prison with a greenie, had a look around, INSTANTLY breaks their supposedly lantern proof hiding technique (they totally thought they'd get away with it or they'd never have led the lanterns to that room to begin with) and then like 5 seconds later he has them in check and tells them he's going to more or less eat them alive if they don't surrender to the Green Lantern. Oh and they got the testimony of that group he casually mind controlled along the way, too.

The next time they meet him, he's pulling their asses out of a mess they themselves made during that whole thing with Great Mother. Then he demonstrates the ability to singlehandedly unfuck a situation which they lost control of, spank them and kick them out of the star system. A star system which isn't supposed to be capable of doing anything like that.

They don't have a good track record with Orange Lanterns and they've undoubtedly heard by now of the war with the Reach. The Reach beat the GLC but apparently the oranges are really giving them a run for their money and that makes them scary as hell. They seem to know damn well they're not dealing with cops when it comes to the OLC, they're dealing with people who will tear your shit apart just to solve the issue and 'fairness' or 'collateral damage' isn't anything like a concern the way it is with greenies. The Guardians are more or less playing nice because they're in it for the long game, but the Controllers are waging a war and make the Dominion look like chumps in terms of scientific advancement. There's a lot more of them than the Guardians and the Guardians don't control what might be the largest military defence pact in the entire galaxy.

EDIT: And yes, you make a good point there - greenies DON'T kill. Paul just said fuck it, we ball and started bodying them the moment he got mad enough about it.

I don't really think the Dominion feels fear the way others do with that note about how their colours are dimmed, so yeah, you're probably right in that it's not full of Dominators. But they clearly have a reason to think that an orange lantern will just wreck their whole shit instantly and want none of it.

 

[Duke Long]

"Do you really think that admitting to trading in slaves makes your situation any better? And do you really think I can't recognise Vril Dox the Second? Or that I don't have a recording of a Coluan ship flying here?" I make eye contact with each Dominator in turn. "You're been caught out. The faster you accept that and start negotiating in good faith, the faster we can all get on with our lives."

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'You've'

And this is where my memory gets spotty; I personally think of it as a site of trauma. Goodbye, Praexis Minions. You were a lovely part of the story, and I miss you.

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I'd totally forgotten that they permakilled some construct-lanterns, thanks for reminding me.

I'm gonna say two.

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The mention of the colours not disappearing makes me think that this person is alive. The colours in question are presumably the emotional lights.

He froze a ship, but I don't think he killed anyone in it.

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It says the pilot is frozen. Seems unlikely that they would survive that.

The next time they meet him, he's pulling their asses out of a mess they themselves made during that whole thing with Great Mother. Then he demonstrates the ability to singlehandedly unfuck a situation which they lost control of, spank them and kick them out of the star system. A star system which isn't supposed to be capable of doing anything like that.

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I'm not sure the government knows what happened there beyond mission failure. I think Oh El arrested them all and they're still on Earth.

You prompting me to skim that section did remind me that Oh El left Gary to be vivisected by Great Mother. I liked Gary, I thought he was still alive. Or in the ring, rather. He might well be alive and wishing he wasn't.

 

[Mr Zoat]

'You've'

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Thank you, corrected.

The next time they meet him, he's pulling their asses out of a mess they themselves made during that whole thing with Great Mother. Then he demonstrates the ability to singlehandedly unfuck a situation which they lost control of, spank them and kick them out of the star system. A star system which isn't supposed to be capable of doing anything like that.

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Not quite. While Starlag was an official Dominion project, Great Mother was more like a postgraduate thesis for people doing independent study. High caste dominators would be a lot less cooperative than a group of students who don't really care what the title on their essay is.

 

[Silveraith]

Thank you, corrected.

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I've found another from that era!

The Dominion is still a going concern,

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an ongoing

 

[CrazyNoVa]

Thank you, corrected.

Not quite. While Starlag was an official Dominion project, Great Mother was more like a postgraduate thesis for people doing independent study. High caste dominators would be a lot less cooperative than a group of students who don't really care what the title on their essay is.

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But the real question is, do they still have to work retail to pay their tuition fees?

 

[Prince Charon]

I wouldn't be surprised if Oa wasn't getting spoofed 'Situation all fine, how are you' responses from the Dominator jamming in-sector. And with three and a half thousand sectors to watch over, I doubt any automated monitoring will notice anything unusual.

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I would like to think that the Dominators aren't that advanced, but I'm not sure.

But the real question is, do they still have to work retail to pay their tuition fees?

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Oh, I suspect that what they have to do is much, much worse...

 

[Mr Zoat]

I've found another from that era!
an ongoing

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No you didn't. A 'going concern' is a company that is going to be able to continue operating for the foreseeable future.

 

[Mr Zoat]

12th August 2013
22:41 GMT

"Purple hair and tattoos?"

Kon nods. "If she looks like the others, yeah."

That's her. In the comics she was an alien living in Kandor, who mentally altered Superman to think he was her husband. Now that I think about it, that doesn't make any sense. There weren't any aliens in Kandor; Krypton had been isolationist for over a century before it exploded, and it's not like Krypton had any need for an alien underclass to do manual labour for them.

And wasn't Kandor part of that Mosaic thing anyway..? Author's note: No. Despite having a guy in the comics who canonically collected cities, they chose to make a character who when last seen was a pleasant old man retiring from active service go mad and abduct cities for no reason instead. Yes, I'm bitter.

"And this whole thing was a dominator plot to steal kryptonian technology?"

Kon shrugs. "That's my best guess. You said they had a space gate on Timaron?"

"Under the surface, yes."

"Were they trying to get kryptonian technology from there, too?"

"I don't know. It's possible that they just put a portal there so that they had one in the general vicinity. I don't even know if they put it there before or after Timaron was ravaged."

Arisia frowns. "Wouldn't someone have noticed?"

"The dominators have a bit of a habit of sneaking research stations into places no one was expecting them. The only difference between that and a gateway is that building a gateway would take longer. They've had forty years since Dru-Zod wrecked the place, but they've had over a century since Krypton abandoned it."

"Okay." She nods. "So the reason why everyone got turned stupid is that Lyla… Wanted to make sure that none of us talked to Zod and Ursa about her? Or-. About Non, because they knew him well enough to notice that he wasn't acting right? And that's why she knocked them out and didn't speak to them again?"

"That's my best guess. Plus, it increased how much we trusted 'Non-Du'. Nothing went missing, but she could have learned all sorts of things by observation."

Kon nods. "So what now?"

"We go back to Xudar, beat Lyla unconscious and then have the genomorphs trawl her brain to find out exactly what she did, and then if relevant put her on trial under the appropriate legal code."

"And Zod and Ursa?"

"Nothing's changed, except that Lyla might be responsible for the things they've been accused of. I'm carrying kryptonite and their environmental shields aren't configured to block kryptonite radiation."

"What if they're on the ships?"

"Then that's up to Jordan and Kal-El. More Jordan, really. I'm happy to pry them open but that might cause a bigger confrontation with the Dominion."

"Bigger than that thing with the guys working on Great Mother?"

"Those were -relatively speaking- nobodies. If their gamble doesn't pay off no one was going to do anything. Whoever did this has a slightly bigger circle on their forehead."

Arisia narrows her eyes. "Didn't you attack a dominator prison?"

"Yes, but I didn't keep hold of the high caste dominators who ran it. The Dominion is far too low on my list of priorities to start a fight right now." Hm. "Unless no one minds if I destroy their core worlds and butcher the entire population. I might be able to do that-."

"No." She shakes her head. "No don't do that."

I nod agreeably. "So the best case scenario is that we take all the dominators here prisoner and trade them back to the Dominion after learning what they were doing. So." I gesture in the direction of Xudar. "Shall we?"

They nod, and I extend my own environmental shield around them because with all due respect to Lantern Arisia I'm a lot stronger than she is. Space bends and my rings' power reserves tick downwards as I brute force us through the Dominion interdiction field towards Xudar.

Scanning…

"We're coming out behind their fleet. Not sure what they're doing or what's happening on Xudar itself. Two, one, now."

Spacetime wobbles, and we're back to following its rules.

And there are the ships, four military cruisers and a cluster of attack craft, backed up by a smattering of thralls.

"Green Lantern to Orange Lantern."

The cruisers aren't bothering to do anything so gauche as use a gravity well slingshot. Instead, they're just using their own gravity drives to twist around as they pull away from Xudar, the rest of the fleet following as best it can. They aren't actually trying to get their subordinates killed; they just literally don't care whether they live or die.

"I'm here with Kon and Arisia. Situation?"

"Ursa and Lyla are free, and Lyla got kryptonian powers. Any idea where they're going?"

"There's a spatial gate near Timaron. They were hiding it under the planet's surface. Mother of Mercy's in pursuit of their command ship, but with interdiction fields in action she's… A planet. They're not exactly fast or agile."

He nods curtly. "Lyla and Ursa are onboard one of those ships. I don't know which one."

I look at them. I don't know what Lyla looks like, but Ursa…

I add her location to the tactical plot. "Orders?"

"What do you think?"

"We don't really need either of them, tidy as it would be. But we can't let the Dominion do whatever it likes. I could easily wreck a few of those ships without killing too much of the crew. Alternately…" Hm. "Could you make a zeta tube construct?"

"No."

"Can Ghia'ta?"

"Ah… She says 'yeah'."

"Neat. Whoever's in charge will be on the command ship near Timaron, but the shipmasters will be experienced and capable. It would help if I had a distraction."

"Karsta wants to attack, Supes told her 'no'. I know how you feel but he doesn't think this is worth killing anyone over."

I suppose the Doomsday probably wasn't designed to be discriminating.

"Have her pursue on an attack heading, just to make them think she's going to shoot. Move after the alien ships yourself. You can disable them without killing anyone, right?" He nods. "Kon and Arisia can hold their attention here without getting in too much danger."

"What about you?"

"I'm going to board them, of course."

 

[RichardWhereat]

And wasn't Kandor part of that Mosaic thing anyway..?

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Seems bitter

 

[Mr Zoat]

Seems bitter

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Nooooooo...

 

[Chojin Patriarch]

12th August 2013
22:41 GMT

"Purple hair and tattoos?"

Kon nods. "If she looks like the others, yeah."

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A quick round of filling each other in, I see. Now they get to plan their approach and just how much chance they have of taking down the Dominator fleet with two Lanterns and a kryptonian-Themysciran...

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

That's her. In the comics she was an alien living in Kandor, who mentally altered Superman to think he was her husband. Now that I think about it, that doesn't make any sense. There weren't any aliens in Kandor; Krypton had been isolationist for over a century before it exploded, and it's not like Krypton had any need for an alien underclass to do manual labour for them.

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Honestly, I don't think the author of that arc gave much thought to continuity issues, Best case, people assumed she was 'hiding' her alien-ness. For all we know, maybe she influenced a fashion trend of exotic hair colours and tattoos.

And wasn't Kandor part of that Mosaic thing anyway..? Author's note: No. Despite having a guy in the comics who canonically collected cities, they chose to make a character who when last seen was a pleasant old man retiring from active service go mad and abduct cities for no reason instead. Yes, I'm bitter.

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Boy, that was a clusterfuck wasn't it? And I'm not talking about the patchwork planet...

"And this whole thing was a dominator plot to steal kryptonian technology?"

Kon shrugs. "That's my best guess. You said they had a space gate on Timaron?"

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Such a petty reason, but entirely in line for Dominator behaviour...

"Under the surface, yes."

"Were they trying to get kryptonian technology from there, too?"

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Why ask questions you can already guess the answer to? ...The answer is 'almost certainly.'

"I don't know. It's possible that they just put a portal there so that they had one in the general vicinity. I don't even know if they put it there before or after Timaron was ravaged."

Arisia frowns. "Wouldn't someone have noticed?"

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Before, maybe. But after the planet had basically been abandoned? Pretty much a given.

"The dominators have a bit of a habit of sneaking research stations into places no one was expecting them. The only difference between that and a gateway is that building a gateway would take longer. They've had forty years since Dru-Zod wrecked the place, but they've had over a century since Krypton abandoned it."

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Though the timaronians were a space-going species, no? That must have been some impressive stealth technology to go unnoticed.

"Okay." She nods. "So the reason why everyone got turned stupid is that Lyla… Wanted to make sure that none of us talked to Zod and Ursa about her? Or-. About Non, because they knew him well enough to notice that he wasn't acting right? And that's why she knocked them out and didn't speak to them again?"

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Seems as likely a reason as any. I don't know what the chances of them meeting the real Non-Du in the Zone were, but they might have had suspicions at some point.

"That's my best guess. Plus, it increased how much we trusted 'Non-Du'. Nothing went missing, but she could have learned all sorts of things by observation."

Kon nods. "So what now?"

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That is the million-dollar question, isn't it? Let's start with righteous face-punching first and sort the fiddly bits out later, hmm?

"We go back to Xudar, beat Lyla unconscious and then have the genomorphs trawl her brain to find out exactly what she did, and then if relevant put her on trial under the appropriate legal code."

"And Zod and Ursa?"

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Zod still gave the order, so he's up shit creek. Ursa... Maybe commuted sentence to life in exile on the new colony?

"Nothing's changed, except that Lyla might be responsible for the things they've been accused of. I'm carrying kryptonite and their environmental shields aren't configured to block kryptonite radiation."

"What if they're on the ships?"

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Well, that's handy. The trick well be exposing them without them evading you. Superspeed is a right pain.

"Then that's up to Jordan and Kal-El. More Jordan, really. I'm happy to pry them open but that might cause a bigger confrontation with the Dominion."

"Bigger than that thing with the guys working on Great Mother?"

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That was a mere science project. This is an intrusion into another species' sovereign space, possible conspiracy to commit genocide and theft of advanced technology...

"Those were -relatively speaking- nobodies. If their gamble doesn't pay off no one was going to do anything. Whoever did this has a slightly bigger circle on their forehead."

Arisia narrows her eyes. "Didn't you attack a dominator prison?"

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Hey, they had someone he wanted. If they'd just let him go when he asked nicely...

"Yes, but I didn't keep hold of the high caste dominators who ran it. The Dominion is far too low on my list of priorities to start a fight right now." Hm. "Unless no one minds if I destroy their core worlds and butcher the entire populations. I might be able to do that-."

"No." She shakes her head. "No don't do that."

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The best part is that it's hard to tell if he was joking or not. Fortunately Arisia's taking no chances.

I nod agreeably. "So the best case scenario is that we take all the dominators here prisoner and trade them back to the Dominion after learning what they were doing. So." I gesture in the direction of Xudar. "Shall we?"

They nod, and I extend my own environmental shield around them because with all due respect to Lantern Arisia I'm a lot stronger than she is. Space bends and my rings' power reserves tick downwards as I brute force us through the Dominion interdiction field towards Xudar.

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The difference between level 2 Lantern and Level 15~ish.

Scanning…

"We're coming out behind their fleet. Not sure what they're doing or what's happening on Xudar itself. Two, one, now."

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Best not to fly straight in and catch a stray plasma bolt or something with your face.

Spacetime wobbles, and we're back to following its rules.

And there are the ships, four military cruisers and a cluster of attack craft, backed up by a smattering of thralls.

"Green Lantern to Orange Lantern."

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Ah, comms work this close in? Handy. I'm guessing Hal has an alert script running for whenever OL comes into range.

The cruisers aren't bothering to do anything so gauche as use a gravity well slingshot. Instead, they're just using their own gravity drives to twist around as they pull away from Xudar, the rest of the fleet following as best it can. They aren't actually trying to get their subordinates killed; they just literally don't care whether they live or die.

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Of course. They're inferiors, after all. And Dominator egos are so big that anyone not of the same rank is clearly a barely-sapient animal to be commanded...

"I'm here with Kon and Arisia. Situation?"

"Ursa and Lyla are free, and Lyla got kryptonian powers. Any idea where they're going?"

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Surprised OL didn't make a face at just how bad things got while he wasn't looking. Perhaps he'll rib Jordan about it during the after-action phase.

"There's a spatial gate near Timaron. They were hiding it under the planet's surface. Mother of Mercy's in pursuit of their command ship, but with interdiction fields in action she's… A planet. They're not exactly fast or agile."

He nods curtly. "Lyla and Ursa are onboard one of those ships. I don't know which one."

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Well, at least they're not ravaging the planet with a super-fight.

I look at them. I don't know what Lyla looks like, but Ursa…

I add her location to the tactical plot. "Orders?"

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Safe bet is anyone that doesn't look like a Dominator desire set... Wonder how likely it is that they'd be in the same place for convenience...

"What do you think?"

"We don't really need either of them, tidy as it would be. But we can't let the Dominion do whatever it likes. I could easily wreck a few of those ships without killing too much of the crew. Alternately…" Hm. "Could you make a zeta tube construct?"

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And you know the second OL rolls up, they'll be off using whatever exemption loopholes exist in their interdiction. Leaving very little time to disable them...

"No."

"Can Ghia'ta?"

"Ah… She says 'yeah'."

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Useful. I expect for the reasons of getting people into the Timaron system to head the Dominators off.

"Neat. Whoever's in charge will be on the command ship near Timaron, but the shipmasters will be experienced and capable. It would help if I had a distraction."

"Karsta wants to attack, Supes told her 'no'. I know how you feel but he doesn't think this is worth killing anyone over."

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Ah, Clark and his gentle heart...

I suppose the Doomsday probably wasn't designed to be discriminating.

"Have her pursue on an attack heading, just to make them think she's going to shoot. Move after the alien ships yourself. You can disable them without killing anyone, right?" He nods. "Kon and Arisia can hold their attention here without getting in too much danger."

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Relatively speaking, I suppose so. It'll be good practice for Arisia at least.

"What about you?"

"I'm going to board them, of course."

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Ideally ending this quickly by capturing the highest-rank commander in-system. And recover Ursa and Lyla as a side-benefit.

Well, hopefully OL coming at them will put the wind up the Dominators. A literal rock and a hard place, with the Doomsday behind and him in front... The Dominator fleet is about to have a very bad time, I think. And once they're sorted here, they can zeta-tube over to Timaron and assist Mother of Mercy in restraining the rest. A decent plan, to be sure. Let's see if it survives contact...

 

[NightmareWarden]

Karsta wants to attack, Supes told her 'no'. I know how you feel but he doesn't think this is worth killing anyone over."

I suppose the Doomsday probably wasn't designed to be discriminating.

"Have her pursue on an attack heading, just to make them think she's going to shoot.

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Yep, here's where things may go awry, if not completely "wrong." This will justify (in the short term) why we got a Karsta POV segment.

Karsta does not like aliens. She is keenly aware that OL can mind control people and he spun a moon around… and he recently modified her body. She's too rational to make revenge against Paragon Paul a goal, but it probably factors into how she'll make decisions during this conflict. Frankly, if she makes a good showing here, it will make her job with the kryptonian settlers easier. And it means people will give her concessions if they need her in the future, knowing that she'll push back like she could in this situation.

 

[Mr Zoat]

stroy their core worlds and butcher the populations

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Thank me, corrected.

 

[Duke Long]

"Unless no one minds if I destroy their core worlds and butcher the entire population. I might be able to do that-."

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I imagine that would be risky even for Oh El. But I suppose perhaps his biggest advantage here is that he can bypass their interdiction, which might allow him to ignore the majority of defences that would normally stop an attack on their core worlds before it could destroy them.

Would probably still be safer for them to have a swarm of habitats which won't suffer massive damage from a single strong attack, in addition to being maybe more efficient, but given that the Dominion has sorcerers they do have at least one good reason to be inhabiting some planets. Another might be that the planets have interesting biospheres that the high caste enjoy evilly experimenting on, though if they're alien biospheres that could pose an issue for their purity culture, if they have a problem with all aliens and not just sophonts. Maybe they're all dominionformed and therefore have no alien life. Or maybe they live in arcologies which are kept pure. That would also make them more resilient to attack, since even an attack that ruins the biosphere might not kill most of the planetary population if they stay inside their shielded and self-sufficient arcologies.

 

[WereDragon]

12th August 2013
22:41 GMT

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A refreshing change to see OL not being out-powered and out-finessed.

Mother of Mercy's in pursuit of their command ship, but with interdiction fields in action she's… A planet. They're not exactly fast or agile.

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Skill issue. Or arguably a preparation issue. If she had modded her rock shell with decent real-space engines she could be fast.

 

[Ngamer11]

Unused Pony
Common Sense Titans
Scion Error

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I was reading some of the omakes and found that these link to the page after the one with the respective omakes in them.

 

[CrazyNoVa]

Nooooooo...

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Suspiciously specific denial is suspicious.

But seriously though, how do you feel about the Mosaic story? I'm reading it right now, and while I haven't finished it yet, my impressions so far are that it's really trippy and batshit crazy.

Not to mention that John's philosophical rants can get really…abstract, sometimes (in fact, now that I think about it, he often reminds me of the Batman from Batman: Odyssey). Which is pretty jarring, considering that most media I've seen John in tends to portray him as the sanest and most rational Earth lantern.

 

[Mr Zoat]

I was reading some of the omakes and found that these link to the page after the one with the respective omakes in them.

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Thank you, updated.

Suspiciously specific denial is suspicious.

But seriously though, how do you feel about the Mosaic story? I'm reading it right now, and while I haven't finished it yet, my impressions so far are that it's really trippy and batshit crazy.

Not to mention that John's philosophical rants can get really…abstract, sometimes (in fact, now that I think about it, he often reminds me of the Batman from Batman: Odyssey). Which is pretty jarring, considering that most media I've seen John in tends to portray him as the sanest and most rational Earth lantern.

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I haven't read it.

 

[Ngamer11]

Scion Error

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This link has an error due to an extra apostrophe at the end.

 

[CrazyNoVa]

I haven't read it.

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You haven't? Fair enough. It came out relatively recently, but it is rather obscure, and even though I've been a DC fan for many years, I hadn't heard about this story myself until recently.

To everyone else who's reading this and might not know what we're talking about, allow me to explain for the uninitiated:

Following an incident where the Green Central Battery was destroyed and the Green Lantern Corps got crippled, the Guardian Appa Ali Apsa chose to stay on Oa, (which at the time had become desolate) as a caretaker to keep its energy alive to sustain the few remaining Green Power Rings. However, he was feeling really lonely and depressed. His misery and isolation caused him to slowly go insane. Ex-lantern Priest tried to help Appa, but unfortunately, it didn't work. In his madness, Appa killed Priest after he refused to give up his own mind to merge with the Guardian.

Now completely insane, Appa Ali Apsa was desperate for companionship, and he tried to end his solitude by transporting multiple cities from multiple planets to Oa, as his playthings and company, not unlike hpw an artist can make multiple colors and patterns, and then stick them together to create art. A mosaic, if you will.

Hence, the titular "Mosaic World". All of those cities were cities that Appa had visited during his very long life, including one from the USA (presumably from his travels with Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen, because yes, he was that same Guardian who accompanied them on their travels during their crossover comic where they travelled around the country in the 80's).

Naturally, Appa's fellow Guardians and the Green Lanterns took offense to that, and although they initially tried to reason with him, they were forced to fight and ultimately kill poor Appa. However, even though Appa was gone, the damage was already done, because his Mosaic World was still there. The Guardians decided to assign John Stewart to watch over the Mosaic, and the titular book is about his bizarre adventures while trying to keep order on a world populated by both humans and various alien species, all the while confronting his own fragile sanity. Oh yeah, and he also has to deal with the fact that he also got all of Appa's memories after the Guardian's death too.

Also, Sinestro's ghost briefly possessed him, and he was a snake for some reason. Like I said, this series is weird.

 

[hkim]

It came out relatively recently

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It came out 30 years ago. I guess that's recent relative to like, the Golden Age, but...

 

[CrazyNoVa]

It came out 30 years ago. I guess that's recent relative to like, the Golden Age, but...

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Yup. It came out in the 90's, but it's still quite young by comic book standards.