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

Reader mode
Mr Zoat said:
I think I've forgotten how not to.

Anyone on the surface can -in theory- learn any style of magic they want. It would take a great deal of application, but they could do it. The modern Atlantean tradition grew out of a pre-existing tradition, and a small number of Atlantean books have made their way to the surface over the centuries. There isn't any general prohibition against Atlantean magic users teaching surface dwellers, but since they wouldn't have the background knowledge or constant exposure it wouldn't be easy for them to learn.

This as well.
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Stsword said:
According to word of Greg for YJ, genetic talent is a factor in learning magic, but no one is prohibited from learning it, it's just a matter of some people being naturally better at it.

In the comics, it's similar, but rather than talent per se it's about energy. Magic requires energy. The genetically blessed like homo magi, changelings, demigods, nephilim, cambions, etc, etc, etc, they've got mopeds instead of bicycles.

So anyone can learn magic in the comics but it's far less convenient. I remember one sorceress giving Zatanna a little speech about it. Something like "You're one of the magi, aren't you? You have no idea of the deals I've had to make. The sacrifices made. No selling your soul for you, you just wiggle your fingers and go bippity boppity boo and magic comes to your call like an eager puppy!"

Zoat has simplified things and focused on it being a skill, talent or some people having a natural energy reserve is downplayed in importance.

Energy reserves are still a thing though, as evidenced by Circe getting a magic bump from Hecate possession and then replacing that with New God status or the Lords enjoying the benefit of a personal all you can eat buffet from the realms of Order or Chaos.
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awesome. ty. one more thing, accrding to constantine magic always has a price. now i can understand that price being time or effort, but from the context in his comics it seems like the price is something deeply personal or painful....almost in all instances it seems. how common is the latter? in comics, yj etc...
 
transhumansage said:
awesome. ty. one more thing, accrding to constantine magic always has a price. now i can understand that price being time or effort, but from the context in his comics it seems like the price is something deeply personal or painful....almost in all instances it seems. how common is the latter? in comics, yj etc...
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Pre-flashpoint, I'd say that's probably just Constantine's cynicism.

Post flashpoint it's objectively true. Because the Lords of Order stole the supernatural energy of Hecate and then artificially imposed rules on it. I'm not a total grognard, I think there are decent ideas presented after flashpoint by DC comics. I can't say I think that's one of them though.
 
Chojin Patriarch said:
What sort of evolutionary advantage could an ability like that provide, I wonder? Easy butchering of prey, to remove the inedible parts?
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With all the powerful individuals, entities, mystic forces, and whatnot throughout the DC universe, what we think of as "natural" evolution is barely a thing. It's why I can sorta live with there being so many humanoid species.
I just hate it when stories without that excuse throw in so much crap that nature would never produce.
 
Darko said:
And especially away from men he hasn't had the chance to intimidate.

Even though his daughter probably couldn't give a crap about his opinions and has good reasons for disliking him.
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Imagine a cliché scene with a father/rebellious-teen-daughter and him forbidding her to use power rings and stuff.
 
Not going to lie. If soulless OL, who did/does have the heart of the Opidian as a substitute, somehow sucked up this God of tech stuff into his void....I would be very amused.
 
Handlewithcare said:
So everyone there is okay with ripping someone apart while they feel everything? Uhm, why?
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Some of them don't like him all that much, and some of them don't care all that much about him.

They also need to do a thorough examination and this is probably the most thorough one they can do.
 
Mr Zoat said:
John nods. "We checked, and we think we'd have about half an hour before our rings were deactivated. Short range nuclear miss'les only take minutes to reach their targets. Even Salaak can't revoke our status that fast."
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Found an error in the story only. There shouldn't be an apostrophe there.
 
Mr Zoat said:
Negetiations

2nd August 2012
09:00 GMT

"No, no, I like it."

I look up at the anatomy arena, as physicians, magicians, medically and theologically orientated Lanterns and a surprising number of Controllers look back.

"Very nineteenth century. And since that was when my country was at the peak of its relative power, I'm taking that as a good sign."

Hinon shakes her head.

"Please limit yourself to pertinent comments. Stand there."

Rather than nod or point, she merely looks at a point just a little back from the centre of the examination space. I shrug and stride over to my appointed place before turning back to her. I widen my stance and spread my arms a little.

"Like this?"

"Acceptable." She glances up at the audience for a moment before holding out her right hand and calling a small tool to her.

"Not a bad showing. How do you feel about the turnout?"

"If I recall correctly, don't your species wrap screens about crashed ground vehicles, in order to prevent others jamming your highways by ghoulishly staring at them?"

"No. Sometimes we just let people watch. We learn best from worked examples, and it's hard to get a better example than an actual wreck with actual mangled bodies in it."

"I'm sure that you're every bit as fascinating as a mangled piece of wreckage."

"High praise. But really. I know that you're ancient, but I'm reasonably well informed on Guardian history and I don't think you've had this sort of following amongst the younger races ever. The Controllers separated before they started up the Halla. Isn't this a novel experience for you?"

"I have personally created more species than are represented here. And many of them I created intentionally."

"Nothing?"

"As much as anything else."

"You want to swap places after this, see if I can fix that? It can't be a pleasant way to live."

"The day I trust an infant like you to 'fix' my psyche is the day I let you. It will not be swift in coming."

I smile. "Are you doing this? I didn't think you were a magician."

"Do you just not pay attention when I say how old I am? I don't habitually use magic because taking advantage of the etheric ripples created by beings younger and weaker than me is wasteful."

"So-?"

The three Lanterns who will be serving as her assistants enter. Lantern Natu I recognise at once. I raise my right hand in greeting, but she remains almost aggressively impassive. I've rather been avoiding her since she caved to common sense and picked up the ring I left with her, but I suppose the chance to study me was more than she could pass up.

The other two I don't immediately recognise, though I do recognise Lantern… Nax's? Species. Vagabond Dominator knock-offs, the Naidroth Collective are a minor but persistent nuisance across this galaxy, unnecessarily vivisecting people for data they could just as easily get by asking for a data file at a local hospital. I've firmly categorised them as 'Stupid Evil', though by Dungeons and Dragons definitions I suppose that they'd be 'Unwise Evil'. And the other fellow is…

Lantern Hieronymous the Under-Achiever. That's… That's actually the name on his file.

"I did recruit a number of wizards whose surnames aren't 'under-achiever'."

"No need to worry about that, Lord Illustres!" He's smiling too much for someone that far gone into the orange light. "My problem was always one of motivation!" I can see the sigils in his eyes. I'm… Genuinely surprised that he's functional. "And with the orange light driving me on, there's no stopping me!"

Oh. It… Looks like actually being able to do something useful is such a novel experience for him that even in what should be full megalomaniacal mode he's actually fairly placid.

"Okay, so where do you want to start?"

Lantern Natu nods. "Please remove your ring and your clothes."

"As you wish."

My robes vanish into subspace, followed by my underwear. My ring I float over to Controller Hinon. She looks at it for a moment, then sends it over to her equipment rack with a wave of her left hand.

"Okay, so what's ne-?"

My point of view jumps forward, and a humanoid-. That's the back of my head. There's also a non-trivial amount of pain, but that's far more manageable. Empathic vision is still working…

"This is strange."

Lantern Nax blinks at me.

"Are you not in pain?"

"A bit. What's happening?"

"I have physically separated your different body tissues so that we may more easily study them."

"Um. How?"

"My parents called it psychic vivisection. I'm not exactly sure how it works. I have never done it to anyone who didn't immediately start screaming in agony."

"It hurts, but I wouldn't say that it's scream-worthy. Then again, I suspect that I'm not an entirely physical intelligence any more."

I try moving, but my perspective doesn't change. I can however see my arm moving in front of me. So I assume that I'm floating off the ground, and… My tissues have been separated?

"We shall study how that works in detail. Lantern Natu?"

"The subject is an adult humanoid male of the human species, thirty one years of age. Currently occupying his third body after the first was destroyed by magic-using Source-worshippers-"

"And sword-using."

"-and the second was destroyed in a qwa-matter explosion."

I look up-. And wave up at Lantern Gozzi.

"The subject has used his ring to turn each body into a facsimile of his original, which he considered to be 'ideal'. Here, we will compare the structures of his body to his original and study the effect of intense orange light exposure on neurological structures. Please hold any questions until the end."

Oh joy.
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not gonna lie I wish this was longer looks like it would be a fascinating read
 
Pinklestia said:
I don't think the problems are with his body but more with his soul and mind; and mind being defined as the Os and software instead of hardware.
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They're examining his body to see how it has changed since he's remade it several times, as well as studying how his neurology has been affected by the orange light.

The wizard is there to examine his soul and Hinon may also do that.
 
Joelseph14 said:
Damn imagine being so passive that the full power of avarice gives you baseline motivation
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pretty sure thats me.

Stsword said:
Pre-flashpoint, I'd say that's probably just Constantine's cynicism.

Post flashpoint it's objectively true. Because the Lords of Order stole the supernatural energy of Hecate and then artificially imposed rules on it. I'm not a total grognard, I think there are decent ideas presented after flashpoint by DC comics. I can't say I think that's one of them though.
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its been way past flashpoint, so does it still hold true, because there was a pretty serious reboot recently....
 
Joelseph14 said:
Damn imagine being so passive that the full power of avarice gives you baseline motivation
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The first time he made an actual effort, he conquered his home planet. While sitting on the throne with the magic book which let him do that, he looked at the next page and whined about it being hard. He read it anyway, commenting that that was literally the first time in his life he hadn't just given up when he found something difficult.
 
Mr Zoat said:
The first time he made an actual effort, he conquered his home planet. While sitting on the throne with the magic book which let him do that, he looked at the next page and whined about it being hard. He read it anyway, commenting that that was literally the first time in his life he hadn't just given up when he found something difficult.
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So he embodies the trope of Brilliant, but Lazy.
 
Sockmonkey said:
With all the powerful individuals, entities, mystic forces, and whatnot throughout the DC universe, what we think of as "natural" evolution is barely a thing. It's why I can sorta live with there being so many humanoid species.
I just hate it when stories without that excuse throw in so much crap that nature would never produce.
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Evolution happens through the morphogenetic field in DC.

The morphogenetic field is the combined elemental kingdoms.

So the Red is responsible for the evolution of all animal life, ditto the Green for plants, etc, etc.

So natural evolution, I'd say, is not a thing at all in DC. Evolution is magic.

Concepts such as parallel and convergent evolution aren't really applicable when every life form is magically connected to every other life form from the dawn of time to the heat death of the universe.

Instead it's self-plagiarism.

transhumansage said:
its been way past flashpoint, so does it still hold true, because there was a pretty serious reboot recently....
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Not that much of a reboot. The past is still the same, I understand, people just remember their different pasts.

So Nabu is still a lich who invented magic, I think, he's just a lich who invented magic who also remembers being made by God right after the birth of the universe too.

I might be wrong, I admit.
 
Stsword said:
Not that much of a reboot. The past is still the same, I understand, people just remember their different pasts.

So Nabu is still a lich who invented magic, I think, he's just a lich who invented magic who also remembers being made by God right after the birth of the universe too.
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I'm not that familiar with the recent comics.

So the events of post Flashpoint are still there, but people remember the pre Flashpoint universe?
 
Mr Zoat said:
The first time he made an actual effort, he conquered his home planet. While sitting on the throne with the magic book which let him do that, he looked at the next page and whined about it being hard. He read it anyway, commenting that that was literally the first time in his life he hadn't just given up when he found something difficult.
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How's he doing now, with his ring boosting his avarice?
 
"Do you just not pay attention when I say how old I am? I don't habitually use magic because taking advantage of the etheric ripples created by beings younger and weaker than me is wasteful."
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I have a genuine point of confusion whenever Hinon talks about her age. Didn't she put herself into hibernation shortly after the Manhunter rebellion, after she created the original orange ring? So she hasn't actually experienced... however long it was since then?

Or is it just that she's so old, even all that time is only a blip compared to how long she's been alive in total?
 
Steelplaza said:
I have a genuine point of confusion whenever Hinon talks about her age. Didn't she put herself into hibernation shortly after the Manhunter rebellion, after she created the original orange ring? So she hasn't actually experienced... however long it was since then?

Or is it just that she's so old, even all that time is only a blip compared to how long she's been alive in total?
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She was probably at least millions of years old before she went in a coma.
 
Darko said:
I'm not that familiar with the recent comics.

So the events of post Flashpoint are still there, but people remember the pre Flashpoint universe?
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Actually I believe they also remember their pre-crisis selves.

There also were some apparent continuity changes- The infinite multiverse is back, Darkseid got a power up enough to slaughter the Quintessence like bugs underneath his boot, Roy Harper is alive with no stated reason, Babs is Oracle again, but it seems like a soft reboot instead of a clean slate.

But it starts with the Quintessence offering Diana a place in the Quintessence for her sacrifice dealing with Mr Batman & Joker wank incarnate.
 
Stsword said:
Pre-flashpoint, I'd say that's probably just Constantine's cynicism.

Post flashpoint it's objectively true. Because the Lords of Order stole the supernatural energy of Hecate and then artificially imposed rules on it. I'm not a total grognard, I think there are decent ideas presented after flashpoint by DC comics. I can't say I think that's one of them though.
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Eh magic ALWAYS has a price but A) The caster doesn't need to be the one paying it and B) You always know what the price will be beforehand unless you were really stupid and didn't read the instructions.

For homo magi, like the Zatara family the price is simply speaking their spells bavkwards and using their own magic.

Now if you are not a homo magi that means you have to use an external source of power and that is never free.

Basically you pay for power.

The price varies, a whole lot.

Demons prey on the needy and the price always end your soul and the souls of others.

Elementals don't think like humans so what they want is not what humans want.

Rituals are the best if you are not in a hurry, as long as you meet the requirements anyone can cast them and you always know what you are paying.

Unfortunately to be a combat wizards Rituals will never ever be enough.
 
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