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

Reader mode
Chaoswind said:
Funny how Olie though his way to the usefulness of a teleporter in this scenario and dismissed it because earth doesn't have the power generation to hook one of those to the power grid without causing a blackout.

Earth is bullshit Olie.
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Sort of.

The teleporter issue has been discussed by the Justice League, because there are obvious problems with the zeta tube network. Fixed end points are the big thing, but it's actually really expensive to set up and maintain. The best alternative would be a point to point teleporter like they use in Justice League Unlimited, but that requires a whole network of what are effectively spy satellites to be reliable globally and they aren't sure that the Security Council would sign off on it. The next best system does indeed use stupid amounts of power.

For a superheroes it isn't really practical to plan for every possible form of bullshit. You can only really plan for the fact that there might be bullshit.
 
Arrow seems to have forgotten the fact that there are metahumans with teleportation abilities, as well as magic based teleportation existing. Of course, magic teleportation usually requires two connected points of concentrated mystic energy, whilst most teleporting metahumans need to have a line of sight or to have been where they are going at least once. Of course, if he roped someone with some ability that is similar into it (*cough* Mirror Master *cough*), then they cannot really predict the limitations of what the villains in the scenario can do.
 
Siiracai The Supernal said:
Arrow seems to have forgotten the fact that there are metahumans with teleportation abilities, as well as magic based teleportation existing. Of course, magic teleportation usually requires two connected points of concentrated mystic energy, whilst most teleporting metahumans need to have a line of sight or to have been where they are going at least once. Of course, if he roped someone with some ability that is similar into it (*cough* Mirror Master *cough*), then they cannot really predict the limitations of what the villains in the scenario can do.
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I'm not holding my breath, but in DC's Young Heroes in Love, it was established there is an entire clan of people with the inherent ability to play with portals.

Offramp was limited to portals between two points in space, at least until he got older at which point he was able to drive to the 853rd century and see Superman's return.

Another Traveller, if memory serves, said something along the lines of not only being able to open portals between time and space, but between reality and unreality and life and death to boot.

Whether any one of them travels through time and space and different universes in a police box is sadly unrecorded....
 
Feel kinda bad for GA, on edge and working hard to prove to others and himself that he deserves to be on League.
 
Bended (part 8)
  • Threadmarks
    • 2nd March
    15:12 GMT

    I carefully didn't react when I received the notification via my transceiver. Starting in Star City. Hm. I wonder if that's because they want to score an early 'kill' and think Mr Queen's a weak link..? The tech sector in Star City is reasonably well developed. A successful 'theft' there will give the villain team a reasonable number of 'tech points', and the place is lightly defended compared to a military installation. So that could be the sole reason. The Star City zeta tube is also a good distance away from it, so unless one of the League members with enhanced speed heads that way Mr Queen will be dealing with it on his own.

    Batman stopped checking up on my recent activities after Mr Hol and Mr J'onzz agreed that it was blatant metagaming. Reluctantly agreed, but… Yes. The knowledge that something is going to happen today is more than meta enough. They're basically limited to looking at 'anomalous' reports, which does somewhat include me. I gave them a bye on that, because there are only so many 'available in the wild' ways to look for these things. I haven't told them what resources the villain started with because they wouldn't know that, and villains in reality can start with all sorts of infrastructure under their control. Possibly something I can refine for next time; some sort of trade off between potential data leaks and expansiveness?

    The Sivanas' GM devices are recording everything that happens, but only feeding back to the villain side the things that they 'actually' report back. The mookbots will have to manually radio sightings of Green Arrow -or whoever else turns up- back to base in order for the villains to 'know' that he's responding rather than local police.

    Local police very much can involve themselves, as I felt that that incentivises League members to improve their relationships with other law enforcement groups. There has to be some reward for not being a complete iconoclast. Mr Queen's relationship with the police was… Pretty neutral before he joined the League. He'd been around for long enough that he had a working relationship with some officers, but there wasn't anything official in place. Even now, his relationship isn't as good as Batman's is with the Gotham police.

    I look through the hull in the direction of Mr Queen. I know him well enough that I can… Sort of home in on h-.

    Really? He's worried that I'm singling him out? I might need to talk to him about that.

    With none of the Green Lanterns around I should be able to scan the area without giving the game away. But perhaps…

    I raise my right hand to my forehead and

    relocate

    to the Watchtower's garden before taking a closer look.

    Mr Queen appears to have taken it slowly, well done him. He's carefully picked his way around the outer sentries, and… No, the villain side has only used basic mookbots for this. A 'local gang', they aren't particularly good at what they do, but they can't really leak much information either. Though… Yes, one nasty surprise to go with the low power plasma weapons standing in for conventional firearms. Mr Queen only has basic armour and there isn't all that much bullet-resistant cover around. If he starts taking hits he'll be eliminated quickly, which is a problem for him because he's wearing green in a city during the day.

    He takes an arrow out of his quiver for each sentry… He hasn't checked whether they're robots or not, but that would be fairly hard for him to do. The gas rounds he's using won't work but they will 'work', as they would work on the people these mookbots are pretending to be. There's an explanation of that written on a note attached to their chests, just in case he gets curious about that.

    He checks their positions carefully. He doesn't have the sort of drones or deployable monitoring devices I know Batman would use in a situation like this, but with his heavier 'primary' equipment load and lack of an arrow car it probably wouldn't be practical for him to include that sort of stuff. He's carefully checking wind speed and direction…

    He looses, some shots fired upwards in an arc and others fired directly. He's moving the moment the last has left his bow, heading for a third storey balcony on the building which the mookbots are 'ransacking'. He stops to check that the sentry there is out and starts briefly when he sees the mookbot's face-.

    And promptly backpedals because he's seen that the flesh is synthetic and that means it couldn't possibly have been knocked out by the gas. Ring, trigger 'accurate' description on Mr Queen's GM device.

    Compliance.

    It's not a lot, just a message saying that the mookbot is supposed to look like a living human mook and as far as he can tell is behaving like one. He might end up believing that that's supposed to be a trick, but there's not really that much I can do about that.

    He checks its neck. What's he-?

    "Can I feel a pulse?"

    The GM system is adaptable enough to handle basic enquiries. The result is a bit like a text-based adventure game for the blind, but it'll be able to describe the mookbot's condition without much difficulty. I wonder if he'll have trouble separating in-game knowledge from out-of-game knowledge? No, he.. appears to be accepting it and taking the mookbot's hoodie in order to give himself a degree of camouflage. He chuckles for a moment as he spots the written explanation, then dons the hoodie and hides and zip ties the recumbent mookbot. Then he moves on, checking for a camera and then applying a small electromagnetic disruptor to the key card reader in order to gain access to the building.

    He's handling it well so far, but these mookbots are acting on the most basic level. They're not really the challenge here.

    Alert.

    Other locations are coming under 'attack', in places with no Justice League presence. Mr McCulloch will be leading one or two, in the company of 'pro' mookbots. Unless the security systems in those places are very good at their jobs, those will result in a far higher level of successes while leaving a clear indication of who is carrying out the thefts and what they're trying to acquire. As well as giving more information about who could be behind it: anyone carrying out thefts like this is clearly unable to acquire what they want legally, either due to outstanding warrants or lack of funds. Technically it's the latter in this case and the boss wasn't ever actually charged with any crimes, though that's a very technical 'technically' and I suspect that I'm going to get a few glares over this.

    Interestingly, the League don't officially know about Mr McCulloch. I don't remember what happened to Mr Scudder in the comics -if I ever even knew- but the last time anyone saw him the equipment he was carrying was wrecked and he was plunging deep into the Mirror Universe. 'Missing, presumed planning to return when you least expect it'. Might be worth spending the time to try and get him out, but Mr McCulloch made it pretty clear that he thinks his predecessor went more than a little crazy in his efforts to understand the Mirror Universe and he himself has stuck to the practical aspect.

    Practical as far as villainy is concerned. Not practical in the sense of making money, which would involve him offering legitimate services, or…

    I wonder how it interacts with fibre optics-?

    Oh dear, is that Mr Queen's 'street' accent? The mookbots probably won't react immediately -not all members of a gang know each other well- but that isn't going to last. Especially-.

    Ah. He's removing the arrowheads and using the delay fuses to turn them into mines, clever. Probably got that idea from Red Arrow. The hostages… Are bad actors, and a couple of them are really hamming it up, and one has realised that the people holding them are robots and is trying to talk to the person controlling them about an operating licence. That can be part of my follow up. And… I should mention it to Sivana Senior. I don't think that he'll be… Excited or anything, but his tacit acknowledgement that things have changed might let me encourage Thaddeus Junior and Georgia over to the neutral side after the sheeda are dealt with.

    He steps around a corner, slips on a gas mask and triggers the mines. Mookbots look around, their sensors detect the aerosol and cause them to collapse. Too quickly to get off a warning, though the thump… No, the mookbots in other parts of the building who are in hearing range briefly look up but then return to their tasks. The hostages are also unconscious, but that was really unavoidable. Mr Queen nips back in and disarms and zip ties the mookbots. He checks one of the weapons and notes the 'THIS IS AN UZI' sticker with a degree of amusement. He takes the time to remove the battery units and throw them into one of the bins, so that if the mookbots 'wake up' then they won't immediately be able to activate their weapons.

    Having rendered the hostages unconscious he can't ask them for information, but he is able to call up a floor plan on his computer. Two exits, both guarded by people expecting an attack from the outside. This is -on the face of it- well within his abilities.

    I give him half an hour.
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • Handlewithcare said:
    Hm. Ollie is doing well so far, but the GM system is in danger of turning this too much into a game, imo.
    As any DnD player can tell you, seperating ingame and outgame knowledge and keeping yourself from meta-gaming is not at all simple
    Edit: Also, what does Iconoclast mean in this context?
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    Not surprising, despite the crap he gets for being kind of a second rate Batman with a fixation on Robin Hood the man isn't at all incompetent when it comes to being a "Super Hero".
     
    Mr Zoat said:
    Thank you, corrected.

    Doesn't work with anyone, including the police.
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    Also, Tzeentch already mentioned this, but Doctor Snart mentioned that Sam Scudder had been around recently:

    Mr Zoat said:
    "So. Anything you want to talk about, Doctor Snart?"

    He tries to disguise it, but I can tell he's smiling. "Sam sent me a cake. They nearly stuck me in solitary when they realised that the silver ball things were tiny mirrors. Bastard probably thought it was hilarious."
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    Mr Zoat said:
    I carefully didn't react when I receive a notification via my transceiver. Starting in Star City. Hm. I wonder if that's because they want to score an early 'kill' and think Mr Queen's a weak link..? The tech sector in Star City is reasonably well developed. A successful 'theft' there will give the villain team a reasonable number of 'tech points', and the place is comparatively lightly defended compared to a military installation. So that could be the sole reason. The Star City zeta tube is also a good distance away from it, so unless one of the League members with enhanced speed heads that way Mr Queen will be dealing with it on his own.
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    Ah, switching between League members in the field, and OL's DM-style oversight. This will be interesting.

    Batman stopped checking up on my recent activities after Mr Hol and Mr J'onzz agreed that it was blatant metagaming. Reluctantly agreed, but… Yes. The knowledge that something is going to happen today is more than meta enough. They're basically limited to looking at 'anomalous' reports, which does somewhat include me. I gave them a bye on that, because there are only so many 'available in the wild' ways to look for these things. I haven't told them what resources the villain started with because they wouldn't know that, and villains in reality can start with all sorts of infrastructure under their control. Possibly something I can refine for next time; some sort of trade off between potential data leaks and expansiveness?
    Click to expand...
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    Sign of a good DM: Thinking about to to let the the players enjoy the 'boring' parts of a quest.

    The Sivanas' GM devices are recording everything that happens, but only feeding back to the villain sides the things that they 'actually' report back. The mookbots will have to manually radio sightings of Green Arrow -or whoever else turns up- back to base in order for the villains to 'know' that he's responding rather than local police.

    Local police very much can involve themselves, as I felt that that incentivises League members to improve their relationships with other law enforcement groups. There has to be some reward for not being a complete iconoclast. Mr Queen's relationship with the police was… Pretty neutral before he joined the League. He'd been around for long enough that he had a working relationship with some officers, but there wasn't anything official in place. Even now, his relationship isn't as good as Batman's is with the Gotham police.
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    Sounds like something he needs to work on. A note on the after-action report, perhaps.

    I look through the hull in the direction of Mr Queen. I know him well enough that I can… Sort of home in on h-.

    Really? He's worried that I'm singling him out? I might need to talk to him about that.
    Click to expand...
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    Bit of a persecution complex, eh?

    With none of the Green Lanterns around I should be able to scan the area without giving the game away. But perhaps…

    I raise my right hand to my forehead and

    relocate

    to the Watchtower's garden before taking a closer look.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Some privacy for a deep delve, eh?

    Mr Queen appears to have taken it slowly, well done him. He's carefully picked his way around the outer sentries, and… No, the villain side has only used basic mookbots for this. A 'local gang', they aren't particularly good at what they do, but they can't really leak much information either. Though… Yes, one nasty surprised to go with the low power plasma weapons standing in for conventional firearms. Mr Queen only has basic armour and there isn't all that much bullet-resistant cover around. If he starts taking hits he'll be eliminated quickly, which is a problem for him because he's wearing green in a city during the day.
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    Maybe if it were a dark green. Not the best urban camouflage. I mean, Batman at least sticks to dark greys and blues.
    Correction: 'nasty surprise to'

    He takes an arrow out of his quiver for each sentry… He hasn't checked whether they're robots or not, but that would be fairly hard for him to do. The gas rounds he's using won't work but they will 'work', as they would work on the people these mookbots are pretending to be. There's an explanation of that written on a note attached to their chests, just in case he gets curious about that.

    He checks their positions carefully. He doesn't have the sort of drones or deployable monitoring devices I know Batman would use in a situation like this, but with his heavier 'primary' equipment load and lack of an arrow car it probably wouldn't be practical for him to include that sort of stuff. He's carefully checking wind speed and direction…
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    The Arrowcar's probably in mothballs. He's past the point of copying Batman by now, surely?

    He looses, some shots fired upwards in an arc and others fired directly. He's moving the moment the last has left his bow, heading for a third story balcony on the building which the mookbots are 'ransacking'. He stops to check that the sentry there is out and starts briefly when he sees the mookbot's face-.

    And promptly backpedals because he's seen that the flesh is synthetic and that means it couldn't possibly have been knocked out by the gas. Ring, trigger 'accurate' description on Mr Queen's GM device.
    Click to expand...
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    Ah, the equivalent of passing a note between DM and player...

    Compliance.

    It's not a lot, just a massage saying that the mookbot is supposed to look like a living human mook and as far as he can tell is behaving like one. He might end up believing that that's supposed to be a trick, but there's not really that much I can do about that.

    He checks its neck. What's he-?

    "Can I feel a pulse?"
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    And he sent a note back! Ha!

    The GM system is adaptable enough to handle basic enquiries. The result is a bit like a text-based adventure game for the blind, but it'll be able to describe the mookbot's condition without much difficulty. I wonder if he'll have trouble separating in-game knowledge with out-of-game knowledge? No, he.. appears to be accepting it and taking the mookbot's hoodie in order to give himself a degree of camouflage. He chuckles for a moment as he spots the written explanation, then dons the hoodie and hides and zip ties the recumbent mookbot. Then he moves on, checking for a camera and then applying a small electromagnetic disruptor to the key card reader in order to gain access to the building.
    Click to expand...
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    Slick, but flawed. A Hoodie is only going to go so far to hide his gear, and I suspect he's a bit older than the typical gangsta.

    He's handling it well so far, but these mookbots are acting on the most basic level. They're not really the challenge here.

    Alert.

    Other locations are coming under 'attack', in places with no Justice League presence. Mr McCulloch will be leading one or two, in the company of 'pro' mookbots. Unless the security systems in those places are very good at their jobs, those will result in a far higher level of successes while leaving a clear indication of who is carrying out the thefts and what they're trying to acquire. As well as giving more information about who could be behind it: anyone carrying out thefts like this is clearly unable to acquire what they want legally, either due to outstanding warrants or lack of funds. Technically it's the latter in this case and the boss wasn't ever actually charged with any crimes, though that's a very technical 'technically' and I suspect that I'm going to get a few glares over this.
    Click to expand...
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    He's got all this planned out, hasn't he? Well, beyond the minimum needed.

    Interestingly, the League don't officially know about Mr McCulloch. I don't remember what happened to Mr Scudder in the comics -if I ever even knew- but the last time anyone saw him the equipment he was carrying was wrecked and he was plunging deep into the Mirror Universe. 'Missing, presumed planning to return when you least expect it'. Might be worth spending the time to try and get him out, but Mr McCulloch made it pretty clear that he thinks his predecessor went more than a little crazy in his efforts to understand the Mirror Universe and he himself has stuck to the practical aspect.
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    Sensible, but risky. What with the predatory native lifeforms and all.

    Practical as far as villainy is concerned. Not practical in the sense of making money, which would involve him offering legitimate services, or…

    I wonder how it interacts with fibre optics-?
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    Likely not well...

    Oh dear, is that Mr Queen's 'street' accent? The mookbots probably won't react immediately -not all members of a gang know each other well- but that isn't going to last. Especially-.

    Ah. He's removing the arrowheads and using the delay fuses to turn them into mines, clever. Probably got that idea from Red Arrow. The hostages… Are bad actors, and a couple of them are really hamming it up, and one has realised that the people holding them are robots and is trying to talk to the person controlling them about an operating license. That can be part of my follow up. And… I should mention it to Sivana Senior. I don't think that he'll be… Excited or anything, but his tacit acknowledgement that things have changed might let me encourage Thaddeus Junior and Georgia over to the neutral side after the sheeda are dealt with.
    Click to expand...
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    Heh, it would likely work, if their father doesn't et upset over their legitimate financial success. He's still be proud, though.

    He steps around a corner, slips on a gas mask and triggers the mines. Mookbots look around, their sensors detect the aerosol and cause them to collapse. Too quickly to get off a warning, though the thump… No, the mookbots in other parts of the building who are in hearing range briefly look up but then return to their tasks. The hostages are also unconscious, but that was really unavoidable. Mr Queen nips back in and disarms and zip ties the mookbots. He checks one of the weapons and notes the 'THIS IS AN UZI' sticker with a degree of amusement. He takes the time to remove the battery units and throw them into one of the bins, so that if the mookbots 'wake up' then they won't immediately be able to activate their weapons.
    Click to expand...
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    Eminently sensible. Don't want them coming after him if they do wake up too soon.

    Having rendered the hostages unconscious he can't ask them for information, but he is able to call up a floor plan on his computer. Two exits, both guarded by people expecting an attack from the outside. This is -on the face of it- well within his abilities.

    I give him half an hour.
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    Heh, kind of says a lot about both OL's estimate of Ollie's skills, and the extent of said skills.

    Now, to see how well the other heroes are doing... Wonder how many of the other sites are getting attention...
     
    Projectile said:
    Heh, I had to double take at "slips on a gas mask and triggers the mines." Was terribly confused why a mask was on the ground; This isn't the time for pratfalls, Ollie, you have a job to do!

    Ohh, his face, that makes more sense.
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    I had to read this post like three times just to understand what you meant.

    'slips on a gas mask' like he's slipping on a banana peel. Huh.
     
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