• The site has now migrated to Xenforo 2. If you see any issues with the forum operation, please post them in the feedback thread.
  • Due to issues with external spam filters, QQ is currently unable to send any mail to Microsoft E-mail addresses. This includes any account at live.com, hotmail.com or msn.com. Signing up to the forum with one of these addresses will result in your verification E-mail never arriving. For best results, please use a different E-mail provider for your QQ address.
  • For prospective new members, a word of warning: don't use common names like Dennis, Simon, or Kenny if you decide to create an account. Spammers have used them all before you and gotten those names flagged in the anti-spam databases. Your account registration will be rejected because of it.
  • Since it has happened MULTIPLE times now, I want to be very clear about this. You do not get to abandon an account and create a new one. You do not get to pass an account to someone else and create a new one. If you do so anyway, you will be banned for creating sockpuppets.
  • Due to the actions of particularly persistent spammers and trolls, we will be banning disposable email addresses from today onward.
  • The rules regarding NSFW links have been updated. See here for details.

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

I doubt they could even afford the name-brand these days. :rolleyes: Probably used some crappy knock-off like Flava-Aid. Gives the mind-control drugs an extra Zing!, you know?
Trivia time! The actual event at Jonestown that inspired the "drank the Kool-Aid" meme didn't use actual Kool-Aid, it used Flava-Aid. Grape flavored, if memory serves, though I'd have to look that up again.

(Yes, I spend entirely too much time reading about disasters and such, because it lets me forget about my own depression for a while on the grounds that, hell, it could always be worse, I could have been in that...)

[Briefly meditates upon Rule 8]

Perhaps. I do not believe that the Fallout background goes into the armaments of countries outside of the China/America conflict. However, the Trident system that the UK bought in 1980 was US made, and... There's no obvious source for a replacement.
For the record, the UK is (or at least was) entirely capable of producing its own nuclear weapons. The US did not allow UK access to its nuclear programs at all after the end of World War Two until the UK tested its first indigenous atomic bomb in 1952. All told, the UK conducted 21 fully independent nuclear weapons tests, and another 24 joint US-UK tests, including five indigenous H-bomb tests in 1957-58; following those H-bomb tests, the US accepted that the UK had essentially caught up with US capabilities and offered full access to US nuclear weapons technology, which the Macmillan government took full advantage of to reduce the cost of the British nuclear arsenal by simply adopting US weapons instead of designing their own.

While the Polaris and Trident systems were entirely US-made, there wasn't any component of them that couldn't be made in the UK, which had successfully produced and fired fission bombs, fusion bombs, and rockets capable of putting payloads into low Earth orbit (look up the "Black Arrow" program) entirely indigenously. Those are the three components of a missile-based nuclear deterrent, so if the UK decided it wanted to maintain a truly independent deterrent force, it certainly could develop one again--if you've developed the technology once, then it's not nearly as hard to develop it again.
 
Last edited:
Regnancy (part 20)
2nd November 2012
04:25 GMT +3


"…obviously not going to work, but at least it will be over."

Zagreus and I walk towards Themyscira City and away from the forest. Since Demeter is obviously not a neutral chaperone, they ended up agreeing on Gaea. Which also put her in the perfect position to witness Hades swear an oath to her that he would release Persephone from all obligations if it didn't work.

Persephone seemed marginally happier after that.

"No faith in your father's attractiveness?"

"Mother clearly saw him as a threat for a reason. It was unfair, but affairs of the heart aren't obliged to be fair. They have nothing in common and no political reason to be together."

"How about you?"

He glances at me, frowning. "Me? I'm not five years old. I can cope perfectly well with my parents separating."

"No, I mean, from the sounds of it you have a modern view of marriage."

"I am modern. For virtually all purposes I'm a modern… A human with a few magical abilities."

"An unageing human with a few magical abilities. I've seen agelessness impair people's ability to learn new things."

"Fortunate for me. And whether I prefer the modern version of marriage depends on what you mean. Marriage should be a publically stated commitment, not something you abandon when it becomes inconvenient or when the initial.. shine comes off the relationship. A marriage entered into by two people because they share life-goals can be a perfectly good marriage."

"But..?"

"There's no 'but' to it. Father let his emotions cloud his reason. He should have known that just driving up in his chariot and picking Mother up wasn't the right thing to do. It was Zeus, for Gaea's sake! There's a gap between 'sticking to your promises' and 'living a total fantasy'! If anything, I should-."

He stops, staring at me.

"No."

"What?"

"No." he shakes his head. "You aren't that cunning."

"If you could give me a little more..?"

"For a moment, I remembered your claim that Eris didn't cause the Trojan War, she just brought the pettiness of everyone else to the surface. And it occurred to me that I could interpret what you've done here in a similar light."

"Oh-" I shake my head. "-no. I don't think like that."

"I realised. But when Father fails, you'll have been able to do what even Demeter couldn't do: ending their façade of a marriage."

"No problem with Macaria being made regent?"

"No. Out of the three of us, she's the one with a connection to the dead. And she wants to be part of this new pantheon that Hephaestaean is drawing together."

"Have you met your new God of War?"

"No, I've been too busy bracing myself for whatever explosion you would create. Did Kratos break a clinch long enough to accept?"

"No, you got Týr."

"Your suggestion?"

"I did suggest it as a half-joke to Diana a couple of years ago, but he volunteered without any direct contact with me."

"Convenient."

"Are you familiar with virtue ethics?"

"Of course I'm familiar with virtue ethics. I come from the society that invented the concept."

"Virtue guards against bad luck. Not completely, but to a significant degree. If you put flour in a sieve and shake, fine grains rain through while larger parts are broken up or trapped. Likewise, any system that can't survive a little chaos probably wasn't that good anyway."

"You think chaos is a virtue, guarding against bad systems?"

"The philosophers John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor argued against censorship on the grounds that even if an opinion was utterly vile, it was still worth having the opinion aired so that people could remind themselves that it was vile and practise the counter-arguments with a real example. My point is that it's always worth having someone test things, even if they're wrong. Because… If a man prodding a fence with his foot can knock it over then it probably wasn't going to withstand an actual storm. And if this many fences are falling over, they're probably overdue for a kicking."

"Have fun with that. We've finally got enough judges trained up that I can afford to go back to Africa, so it's not going to be my problem."

"You sure?"

"You tell me."

I take a look at his desire network and… Yes, he's pretty much done with this whole situation. That's a shame, but I understand where he's coming from. His role in the whole thing was supporting Hades and if his sister would rather do it…

"I see that you are. Thank you for helping out for as long as you have."

I hold out my right hand. He bows his head slightly with a smile as he takes it.

"I'll be happy to go back to hippos. You don't have anything… Else planned for our pantheon, do you?"

"Planned?"

He steps back into the woods, slowly fading from view.

"Nice safe hippos and lions…"

I shake my head, sight Menalippe and transition over to her.

"So."

She looks me over cautiously. "What news?"

"Hephaestaean has his pantheon more or less together, final negotiations pending. Macaria is temporarily taking over Erebos while her parents use the waters of the Lethe to either save or finally destroy their marriage. And I still don't know where John Constantine is."

She frowns. "Who?"

"He's a magician… You've never met, but he disappeared and I've been looking for him..?"

She nods. "And you are not an easy man to hide from. Please explain what you mean by 'use the waters of the Lethe'."

"Temporarily regress to the point where they first met and see if they can form a relationship without Zeus and Demeter sticking their oars in. Other than Hades maybe ending up single, it shouldn't affect anyone here."

"Thank the gods for small mercies."

I don't draw attention to her unfortunate phrasing.

"And I'll try to avoid upending Themysciran religious practice again for at least a decade. Thank you for your forbearance."

Now. Constantine.
 
Last edited:
He steps back into the woods, slowly fading from view.

"Nice safe hippos and lions

Yes, Zag. Yes.

. And I still don't know where John Constantine is."

She frowns. "Who?"

"He's a magician… You've never met

Lucky her.

"And I'll try to avoid upending Themysciran religious practice again for at least a decade. Thank you for your forbearance

You're not going to keep that promise.


Finally.
 
look_a_distraction_design_by_eecomics.jpg


What's that coming in from the left and the right? It's random nonesense that just NEEDS to be dealt with.

Constantine can wait until later...
 
Hm. This could be the last update of Regnancy. But that doesn't mean Constantine is actually up next. It could be time for some Grayven chapters after all, or an interlude. Perhaps "a day in the life of Jade?" We've got pots simmering with Thanagar plots, Paul's apprentices are going over their brain wrinkles with a magnifying glass, Mother of Mercy's dialogues continue, the Light have their dunce caps on… sounds like the perfect time to learn what the Reach has planned down the road. Or we could check in on that New God Paul de-Grundy-fied. OR a new Supergirl is going to show up!

Does everyone remember that Paul can eat magic? And he performed Avarice-magic on the egg-laying planet to save a bunch of eggs endangered by that Reach agent with a detonator? If this is a Constantine episode, then we might see some weird tricks soon enough.
 
Shit!
What?!
He's refocusing! What else we got!
Citizenry? Reach incursion? Black Lanterns? Another Lord of Chaos like the Child? He doesn't have the sword anymore! Mister Mind from the future in his final form? Oh! Let's nail Central City with a Zombie Plague! We'll get Flash if we hit everybody then it's just a jog from there on out!
 
2nd November 2012
04:25 GMT +3


"…obviously not going to work, but at least it will be over."

Zagreus and I walk towards Themyscira City and away from the forest. Since Demeter is obviously not a neutral chaperone, they ended up agreeing on Gaea. Which also put her in the perfect position to witness Hades swear an oath to her that he would release Persephone from all obligations if it didn't work.
He's just a natural pessimist, isn't he? Though, if Demeter is going to be whispering in Persephone's ear the whole time, then the experiment is hardly fair, is it? I'm hoping she's at least been suggested to step back and let things play out without interference. Even if Gaea herself had to lay down the law with her grand-daughter.

Persephone seemed marginally happier after that.

"No faith in your father's attractiveness?"
Honestly, I'd be more worried about other Olympians poking their noses in and tainting the couple's opinions. If only by accident, in some cases.

"Mother clearly saw him as a threat for a reason. It was unfair, but affairs of the heart aren't obliged to be fair. They have nothing in common and no political reason to be together."

"How about you?"
At least this time, perhaps they'll get a chance to actually interact properly.

He glances at me, frowning. "Me? I'm not five years old. I can cope perfectly well with my parents separating."

"No, I mean, from the sounds of it you have a modern view of marriage."
Well, he does have a job in the modern world as a hunting safari guide, amongst other things. Not a stretch to figure he'd be well acquainted with modern cultural things, more than some of his fellows.

"I am modern. For virtually all purposes I'm a modern… A human with a few magical abilities."

"An unageing human with a few magical abilities. I've seen agelessness impair peoples' ability to learn new things."
Paging Vandal Savage... :D Probably a case of change blindness, in a cultural sense. It's probably a case of 'Does knowing this thing make my life easier and more comfortable? I suppose I'll try it...'

"Fortunate for me. And whether I prefer the modern version of marriage depends on what you mean. Marriage should be a publically stated commitment, not something you abandon when it becomes inconvenient or when the initial.. shine comes off the relationship. A marriage entered into by two people because they share life-goals can be a perfectly good marriage."

"But..?"
Sadly, the concept of 'Til Death do us Part' has been depreciated these days, with people already suffering from an abundance of short-term entertainments and a shortening of attention spans.

"There's no 'but' to it. Father let his emotions cloud his reason. He should have known that just driving up in his chariot and picking Mother up wasn't the right thing to do. It was Zeus, for Gaea's sake! There's a gap between 'sticking to your promises' and 'living a total fantasy'! If anything, I should-."

He stops, staring at me.
Unfortunately, he took it for granted that Zeus would give the task all due diligence. Guess that's what happens when you rely on Old Sparky.

"No."

"What?"

"No." he shakes his head. "You aren't that cunning."
...To be fair, no, he's not cunning... Unless he really wants to be.

"If you could give me a little more..?"

"For a moment, I remembered your claim that Eris didn't cause the Trojan War, she just brought the pettiness of everyone else to the surface. And it occurred to me that I could interpret what you've done here in a similar light."
Well, in that case, all she did was toss the senior goddesses an apple with an easily misunderstood label. She had to know what sort of arguments that might spark. :p Which is probably why she did it, the incorrigible shit-stirrer.

"Oh-" I shake my head. "-no. I don't think like that."

"I realised. But when Father fails, you'll have been able to do what even Demeter couldn't do: ending their façade of a marriage."
...Let's not go attributing low cunning to something that could easily have been a happy accident.

"No problem with Macaria being made regent?"

"No. Out of the three of us, she's the one with a connection to the dead. And she wants to be part of this new pantheon that Hephaestaean is drawing together."
And that answers the question of who's in charge while Hades and Persephone are taking this little vacation from themselves.

"Have you met your new God of War?"

"No, I've been too busy bracing myself for whatever explosion you would create. Did Kratos break a clinch long enough to accept?"
It's an admirable idea, but sometimes, the big boom comes from the last direction you'd be expecting it.

"No, you got Týr."

"Your suggestion?"
;) ...Not in any official sense, no...

"I did suggest it as a half-joke to Diana a couple of years ago, but he volunteered without any direct contact with me."

"Convenient."
What, you think he was watching Earth and just happened to hear his name spoken in the same breath as the Olympians, and went 'Huh, that's actually damned clever.'

"Are you familiar with virtue ethics?"

"Of course I'm familiar with virtue ethics. I come from the society that invented the concept."
And he's not exaggerating.

"Virtue guards against bad luck. Not completely, but to a significant degree. If you put flour in a sieve and shake, fine grains rain through while larger parts are broken up or trapped. Likewise, any system that can't survive a little chaos probably wasn't that good anyway."

"You think chaos is a virtue, guarding against bad systems?"
Sometimes, things need a shake-up, to prevent them from calcifying. Why do you think Eris is in such a good mood these last few days? :p

"The philosophers John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor argued against censorship on the grounds that even if an opinion was utterly vile, it was still worth having the opinion aired so that people could remind themselves that it was vile and practice the counter-arguments with a real example. My point is that it's always worth having someone test things, even if they're wrong. Because… If a man prodding a fence with his foot can knock it over then it probably wasn't going to withstand an actual storm. And if this many fences are falling over, they're probably overdue for a kicking."
And a calcified order, like the Olympians, was well overdue for such a kick in the delicates.

"Have fun with that. We've finally got enough judges trained up that I can afford to go back to Africa, so it's not going to be my problem."

"You sure?"
I mean, Africa is probably safer than anywhere in OL's vicinity at this point.

"You tell me."

I take a look at his desire network and… Yes, he's pretty much done with this whole situation. That's a shame, but I understand where he's coming from. His role in the whole thing was supporting Hades and if his sister would rather do it…
In other words, his field of fucks is barren... And now he's taking the opportunity to 'Nope' his way out?

"I see that you are. Thank you for helping out for as long as you have."

I hold out my right hand. He bows his head slightly with a smile as he takes it.
At least they're parting as friends.

"I'll be happy to go back to hippos. You don't have anything… Else planned for our pantheon, do you?"

"Planned?"
Bah, OL does his best work off the cuff.

He steps back into the woods, slowly fading from view.

"Nice safe hippos and lions…"
At least with them, he can see the trouble coming...

I shake my head, sight Menalippe and transition over to her.

"So."

She looks me over cautiously. "What news?"
Well, he hasn't killed, deposed or otherwise maimed any other gods... Today.

"Hephaestaean has his pantheon more or less together, final negotiations pending. Macaria is temporarily taking over Erebos while her parents use the waters of the Lethe to either save or finally destroy their marriage. And I still don't know where John Constantine is."

She frowns. "Who?"
At least he's remembered this time.

"He's a magician… You've never met, but he disappeared and I've been looking for him..?"

She nods. "And you are not an easy man to hide from. Please explain what you mean by 'use the waters of the Lethe'."
Yeah, anyone able to hide from him has to be very good at what they do.

"Temporarily regress to the point where they first met and see if they can form a relationship without Zeus and Demeter sticking their oars in. Other than Hades maybe ending up single, it should affect anyone here."

"Thank the gods for small mercies."
Oh, the gods are thanking each other that he's finally fucking off, don't you worry...

I don't draw attention to her unfortunate phrasing.

"And I'll try to avoid upending Themysciran religious practice again for at least a decade. Thank you for your forbearance."
I give it a week.

To quote Sarge from the Starcraft II teaser trailer: "Hell, it's about time!"

All right, then. The throne of Olympus is stable, nothing's blowing up (right now, anyway,) and there are no distractions left. Time to find Johnny-boy. ...Assuming the world doesn't start breaking in half or something, because sooner or later, whatever's been keeping OL busy will go too far. Hopefully word filters down to John before it does, and he comes find OL first...
 
Place your bets! Place your bets here, people!

What random bullshit will Constantine's defences cough up next?

Killer rabbits from the moon? Rabbit-sized moons?

Godzilla attacking Tokyo? Tokyo standing up and kicking Godzilla?

Plaaace your bets!
The Kobra faction that thinks he's the chosen one wants to join the Darkstars and/or OLC.
 
He's just a natural pessimist, isn't he?

Not really.

He's seen the train wreck of a marriage for thousands of years, so he most likely doesn't give it much hope.

It's not so much as being pessimistic as being very observant.

Sadly, the concept of 'Til Death do us Part' has been depreciated these days, with people already suffering from an abundance of short-term entertainments and a shortening of attention spans.

That's not so bad, since now people may not need to be stuck with people that can't make them happy and with who they can't get along.

Unfortunately, he took it for granted that Zeus would give the task all due diligence

That's what you get for thinking that Zeus will do his job.

What, you think he was watching Earth and just happened to hear his name spoken in the same breath as the Olympians, and went 'Huh, that's actually damned clever.'

Hey, the guy's a god, so he honestly may have done that.

mean, Africa is probably safer than anywhere in OL's vicinity at this point

That's just sad.

At least they're parting as friends.

More like acquaintances.
 
I have a question about the weakness to green laser thing. Is that canon or is this something Zoat made up for the fic?
'Cause I can't find any reference to that on any wiki page at all.
 
I have a question about the weakness to green laser thing. Is that canon or is this something Zoat made up for the fic?
'Cause I can't find any reference to that on any wiki page at all.

It may be a thing, but you probably can't find it in the wiki because it may be either obscure or the wiki just isn't full and up to date.

Darko, you double posted. Can you delete the extra post?

Sorry, something weird happened with my phone.
 
There is a SMALL issue with this idea. As Heph stated a long while back, Hades as a younger god was a bit....harsher back in the day. His current mellow behavior has been from spending a very long time trying to be a better person, to become a husband that his wife could love.

The waters might just wipe away a few centuries of character development along the way, and we could end up with Original Flavour Hades, King of the Dead, rather then Diet Hades, Ruler of the Formerly Living. And upon seeing this brave new world, Hades might have some.....very different opinions on moving forwards.
 
Hah. Let me lawyer right back.
The ring is an Oan artifact you could argue that it's perfectly capable of blocking all lasers and interpreting all light refracting off the rings shields and relay the data to the Ring users visual cortex thru the rings AI. Basically a hard non see thru shield. And you could also have the ring project a false image on said hard shield again using the AI.

So the ring user would "see" and be "seen" but no light would pass thru the effectively solid barrier.

Granted it's a bit of stretch lol.

This is parallel to my pet peeve about Invisible girl not being able to see while blind. She can manipulate Visual light thru the power cosmic. Having her powers interpret light waves hitting her shield and send it to her as sight isn't that far a stretch either.
 
Hah. Let me lawyer right back.
The ring is an Oan artifact you could argue that it's perfectly capable of blocking all lasers and interpreting all light refracting off the rings shields and relay the data to the Ring users visual cortex thru the rings AI. Basically a hard non see thru shield. And you could also have the ring project a false image on said hard shield again using the AI.

So the ring user would "see" and be "seen" but no light would pass thru the effectively solid barrier.

Granted it's a bit of stretch lol.

That sure possible. I couldn't find any pictures where non-green color are visible through green shields. And there are pictures with opaque constructs. And yet, it's less likely to work that way. As I understand it, greens have to constantly visualize or a least perfectly understand how their constructs work, that being sole reason they mostly use boxing glove-complexity constructs, except for artists like Rayner. So, it's much easier to think of a shield as of a transparent thing than as of a complex camera-hologram-neural interface thing.

Another point against is there were no instances where solo Lantern fought with one-direction-transparent shield, despite it could give at least some advantage.

And yet, these rings are older than Earth. Surely someone noticed this weakness long before Paul. So why nothing was done to address the issue? First of all, rings are modified child toys/training tools. They are not perfect tool at all. Alan's ring AFAIK can be beaten with a baseball bat. Not sure if that's because there was no AI or some voodoo shark explanation, but that means modern rings are still work in progress. So maybe an update is coming sometimes in the future. But it's no likely.

Holoneurocam thing is at least viable for an Orange Lantern in theory. But they needs t actively want to pretend their shield is transparent and want to fake image to everyone outside. Not for everyone.

It's way easier to ask AI to make shield opaque on green/orange laser detection. Even green rings' AI could do that, I think. Maybe that's why it was not addressed after all.
 
Place your bets! Place your bets here, people!

What random bullshit will Constantine's defences cough up next?
I'm not sure, but I'm kind of halfway expecting that we're going to get a Grayven episode next, with maybe some Paragon interludes that would have made more sense in context, and/or that take place after he's found Constantine, talked to him, and gone back into space.
 
At this point I'd like to remind everyone that Gaia herself told OL he needed to go visit the new South American dryad plant goddess and help her understand something.

Which he has not done. He got there, said hello, and was then sidetracked by the divorce request.
Whatever looming issue Gaia thought needed addressing is still looming.
 
Hm, for the next distraction, my money's on some Darkseid shenanigans. Didn't someone say something about one of his schemes being to de-power Zeus? Well, that's happened. Maybe Paul will get hit with Anti-Life.

Oh, when Grayven got Anti-Lifed, he had all his emotions deadened except for Avarice and Fear (due to his power rings). But our boy Paul only really has a connection to Avarice, and much deeper so than Grayven. Take away everything else, and he's basically just the Ophidian.

I'm looking forward to the Cake Scene, Part II!
 
Last edited:

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top