Darko
Connoisseur.
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2019
- Messages
- 23,157
- Likes received
- 329,225
Yeah, he was worried that Manheim would come immediately if he senses him.
-
An addendum to Rule 3 regarding fan-translated works of things such as Web Novels has been made. Please see here for details.
-
We've issued a clarification on our policy on AI-generated work.
-
Our mod selection process has completed. Please welcome our new moderators.
-
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.
-
The rules regarding NSFW links have been updated. See here for details.
With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)
- Thread starter Mr Zoat
- Start date
-
- Tags
- self insert young justice
Yeah, he was worried that Manheim would come immediately if he senses him.
moralrelativity
Recovering pendant.
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2016
- Messages
- 923
- Likes received
- 3,777
Oh yeah, that was it. Manheim will definitely sense the boom tube.
Mr Zoat
Dedicated ragequitter
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2016
- Messages
- 17,536
- Likes received
- 917,240
Thank you, corrected.
Thundersmight94
Not too sore, are you?
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2023
- Messages
- 275
- Likes received
- 3,666
I was just wondering, if Paul ever gained the Phantom Lantern Ring, would he be able to handle being connected directly to the entire emotional spectrum due to being enlightened and bonding to an embodiment before?
Coda
Versed in the lewd.
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2019
- Messages
- 1,084
- Likes received
- 4,233
shear
to include
breathe
smashes
At least in American English (I don't know if it's different in British), "ambience" would be more common here, as "ambiance" is usually used to refer to art or intentional design. That said, the two spellings are technically synonymous, so this isn't WRONG.
Vaermina
Well worn.
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2015
- Messages
- 6,857
- Likes received
- 197,851
Mannheim stole the power of an entire Pantheon and has had a day to pump himself up with faith from hundreds of millions of people.
Realistically he should probably be past the point where loosing the Anti-Life overly effects him.
Mr Zoat
Dedicated ragequitter
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2016
- Messages
- 17,536
- Likes received
- 917,240
RoninSword
Sky God
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2015
- Messages
- 1,553
- Likes received
- 3,748
I mean, he sent a message to Vykin to prepare. I sort of assumed that would mean Orion knows.
Do Or Die Time (part 13)
Mr Zoat
Dedicated ragequitter
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2016
- Messages
- 17,536
- Likes received
- 917,240
17th February 2013
20:36 GMT
Beams of.. whatever it is that Apokoliptian blasters fire lance out and unlike the sporadic fire we've been taking so far, every shot is on target. Malvolio's shield holds out slightly better than mine while Alan fires energy pulses and Ghia'ta fires crystal fragments. Seven dots of violet light sail towards various parts of the fortress-.
"Our hearts are empty of all but Him."
A figure with black robes covering their body waves their hands in a circular motion, and the violet dots wink out.
Ghia'ta gasps in horror.
I replace my shield as it starts to fail from concentrated blaster fire and form a new railgun. I-.
A Justifier teleports onto the railgun and shoves their glowing red hands through it before teleporting away. Fine, that was a distraction anyway. It just might have reduced fatalities a little.
Eddy pulse.
Whatever defensive field they've got in place shimmers into something approaching visibility. It's stronger here than what the robot had protecting it, though whether that's because of the larger fortifications, the increased concentration of Anti-Lifed people or reinforcement by the abilities of one of the Justifiers I don't know. It looks like… A giant plane of ice as my gravity distortions interact with something that is refusing to let them exist.
"The one true soul of the universe!"
I gasp as my construct shield just vanishes and the anti-air blasters flash through the intervening space and-. Alright, most miss because they were focusing on one point on my construct, but two actually hit me, one on my right arm and the other on my chest. My construct armour on both locations shatters, and a lucky shot from an infantry blaster hits the cuirass a moment later.
"Paul, fare you well?"
Reassemble reassemble reassemble!
"I'll live!" I mark the target. "Having trouble with their shield. That guy seems to be-."
"So I see. Then I shall exert myself."
His eyes glow, and two colossal construct hands appear around the fortification, smashing any nearby buildings to rubble. Not… A lot of people in them, and I see Alan diving down, rope and chain constructs grabbing rubble as he heads into the dust cloud and reaches for the people by hand-.
Alan!
I watch the blue blur dart around brick, concrete and metal tossed aside as a steady stream of the injured and insensible appear on the nearby street. And Alan's not telling Malvolio that he did wrong. He gets it, even if he doesn't like it.
Whatever's powering the defensive field is… Struggling with Malvolio's hands.
"The only inevitability-!"
"Do you think I cannot hear you, arrogant apostate? Does your broken soul quail at my certainty and conviction?"
"We live for Mannheim! We die for Mannheim!"
Armour's back, shield's back, though most of the anti-air guns are firing frantically at Malvolio's giant hands.
Let's see how deep the fortifications go.
"No, you will live to do penance for your sins against the Earth and against the One True God."
"I have seen the face of the true god! The master of the universe and all it contains! We are the shadows his light casts upon the cave wall, existing in a Hell without exit or end!"
A flash of red-.
I send an orange ray at the teleporter immediately, my borer construct busy tunnelling beneath the Washington streets. It hits them in the chest and they teleport away immediately.
Malvolio's huge hands press closer, the palms being distorted by the exotic defence field-.
"Batman to Orange Lantern. Objective complete. Rendezvous at the former Alliance headquarters."
We're going too slowly!
"Underst-."
Ah, it doesn't go all the way down.
"Understood."
Crumbler.
A large chunk of the ground underneath the fortress ceases to exist. The solid bunkers and walls are far tougher than human technology could make, but they're resting on basically normal concrete. There's a slight unexpected resistance… Probably from the exotic shield, but that's either too busy trying to prevent the whole place being flattened between Malvolio's hands or too far away. Crumble more-.
The entire base shudders, ground cracking and Justifiers tumbling!
"By His hand all are laid low! In His eyes are all insignificant!"
Ghia'ta drops down, encasing the people Alan has recovered in violet crystal before ferrying them up to the containment cells.
Crumble more.
The concrete starts to flat out break, chunks falling into the pit I just created. The barrier holding off Malvolio's hands doesn't quite collapse, but his hands begin moving inwards once more, crushing the fortifications that remain on the surface. Alan hovers just behind the right hand, using construct lassos to grab Justifiers and hold them up for Ghia'ta to crystallise.
My own much smaller construct hand darts into the collapsing base and grabs the Anti-Life priest and hoiks him into the air. Push back the hood and cut off-.
He's not wearing a Justifier helmet.
Vincent Edge glares at me, his eyes… Glowing black. How is he-?
"Anti-Life justifies my actions!"
Oh.
My constructs shut down as for a horrible moment I feel the callous judgement of a being that perceives every way I've failed and expected nothing else.
What I did to Batman-.
"Paul!"
Uh? Ah, what-what? Armourflight!
A blue glow wraps around me as I come back to my senses. Didn't quite hit the ground-.
Alan looks at me, concerned. "What happened?"
Where did-?
"Vincent Edge. He's become some sort of living Anti-Life broadcaster. Be careful if you run into him."
I look at-. The pile of rubble that used to be the Justifier barracks. There are still Jusifiers in the hole and in some of the buried bunkers, but…
I rise into the air under my own power.
"We need to meet up with Batman immediately."
20:36 GMT
Beams of.. whatever it is that Apokoliptian blasters fire lance out and unlike the sporadic fire we've been taking so far, every shot is on target. Malvolio's shield holds out slightly better than mine while Alan fires energy pulses and Ghia'ta fires crystal fragments. Seven dots of violet light sail towards various parts of the fortress-.
"Our hearts are empty of all but Him."
A figure with black robes covering their body waves their hands in a circular motion, and the violet dots wink out.
Ghia'ta gasps in horror.
I replace my shield as it starts to fail from concentrated blaster fire and form a new railgun. I-.
A Justifier teleports onto the railgun and shoves their glowing red hands through it before teleporting away. Fine, that was a distraction anyway. It just might have reduced fatalities a little.
Eddy pulse.
Whatever defensive field they've got in place shimmers into something approaching visibility. It's stronger here than what the robot had protecting it, though whether that's because of the larger fortifications, the increased concentration of Anti-Lifed people or reinforcement by the abilities of one of the Justifiers I don't know. It looks like… A giant plane of ice as my gravity distortions interact with something that is refusing to let them exist.
"The one true soul of the universe!"
I gasp as my construct shield just vanishes and the anti-air blasters flash through the intervening space and-. Alright, most miss because they were focusing on one point on my construct, but two actually hit me, one on my right arm and the other on my chest. My construct armour on both locations shatters, and a lucky shot from an infantry blaster hits the cuirass a moment later.
"Paul, fare you well?"
Reassemble reassemble reassemble!
"I'll live!" I mark the target. "Having trouble with their shield. That guy seems to be-."
"So I see. Then I shall exert myself."
His eyes glow, and two colossal construct hands appear around the fortification, smashing any nearby buildings to rubble. Not… A lot of people in them, and I see Alan diving down, rope and chain constructs grabbing rubble as he heads into the dust cloud and reaches for the people by hand-.
Alan!
I watch the blue blur dart around brick, concrete and metal tossed aside as a steady stream of the injured and insensible appear on the nearby street. And Alan's not telling Malvolio that he did wrong. He gets it, even if he doesn't like it.
Whatever's powering the defensive field is… Struggling with Malvolio's hands.
"The only inevitability-!"
"Do you think I cannot hear you, arrogant apostate? Does your broken soul quail at my certainty and conviction?"
"We live for Mannheim! We die for Mannheim!"
Armour's back, shield's back, though most of the anti-air guns are firing frantically at Malvolio's giant hands.
Let's see how deep the fortifications go.
"No, you will live to do penance for your sins against the Earth and against the One True God."
"I have seen the face of the true god! The master of the universe and all it contains! We are the shadows his light casts upon the cave wall, existing in a Hell without exit or end!"
A flash of red-.
I send an orange ray at the teleporter immediately, my borer construct busy tunnelling beneath the Washington streets. It hits them in the chest and they teleport away immediately.
Malvolio's huge hands press closer, the palms being distorted by the exotic defence field-.
"Batman to Orange Lantern. Objective complete. Rendezvous at the former Alliance headquarters."
We're going too slowly!
"Underst-."
Ah, it doesn't go all the way down.
"Understood."
Crumbler.
A large chunk of the ground underneath the fortress ceases to exist. The solid bunkers and walls are far tougher than human technology could make, but they're resting on basically normal concrete. There's a slight unexpected resistance… Probably from the exotic shield, but that's either too busy trying to prevent the whole place being flattened between Malvolio's hands or too far away. Crumble more-.
The entire base shudders, ground cracking and Justifiers tumbling!
"By His hand all are laid low! In His eyes are all insignificant!"
Ghia'ta drops down, encasing the people Alan has recovered in violet crystal before ferrying them up to the containment cells.
Crumble more.
The concrete starts to flat out break, chunks falling into the pit I just created. The barrier holding off Malvolio's hands doesn't quite collapse, but his hands begin moving inwards once more, crushing the fortifications that remain on the surface. Alan hovers just behind the right hand, using construct lassos to grab Justifiers and hold them up for Ghia'ta to crystallise.
My own much smaller construct hand darts into the collapsing base and grabs the Anti-Life priest and hoiks him into the air. Push back the hood and cut off-.
He's not wearing a Justifier helmet.
Vincent Edge glares at me, his eyes… Glowing black. How is he-?
"Anti-Life justifies my actions!"
Oh.
My constructs shut down as for a horrible moment I feel the callous judgement of a being that perceives every way I've failed and expected nothing else.
What I did to Batman-.
"Paul!"
Uh? Ah, what-what? Armourflight!
A blue glow wraps around me as I come back to my senses. Didn't quite hit the ground-.
Alan looks at me, concerned. "What happened?"
Where did-?
"Vincent Edge. He's become some sort of living Anti-Life broadcaster. Be careful if you run into him."
I look at-. The pile of rubble that used to be the Justifier barracks. There are still Jusifiers in the hole and in some of the buried bunkers, but…
I rise into the air under my own power.
"We need to meet up with Batman immediately."
Last edited:
Ngamer11
Experienced.
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2019
- Messages
- 3,681
- Likes received
- 22,805
I think that should say 'it is'.
I wasn't expecting to see Vincent Edge again. If he's here, does that mean we'll also see Dark Druid again?
Chojin Patriarch
Veteran Lurker
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2019
- Messages
- 2,675
- Likes received
- 39,773
And that's just not true, as we saw yesterday. Sadly, the Anti-Life is like a smothering blanket, weighed down by their uncertainties and dark thoughts. And frustratingly, the Lanterns just don't have the right tools to pull it away or tear it apart... Yet.
Huh. Not Dark Druid, is it? I rather suspect he'd be a little more recognisable.
Oh, rude, pal. Though OL should probably be thankful the guy only aced his construct rather than trying to nobble him.
And the human understanding of Physics is curling up in the corner with a bottle of alcohol, moaning 'But that's not how that works...'
Damn, now that was a lot more effective against the Spectrum. Congratulations, buddy, you just made yourself OL's number one target.
...Once he pulls himself together. Possibly literally.
...You've been taking it easy so far, Malvolio? This gonna be good.
Just because they're enemies doesn't mean their lives aren't important, after all.
Which is better than any of OL's attacks managed, at least.
Oh, boy. A battle of the big hams.
He's good as a distraction, if nothing else.
Gonna pull the rug out from under them literally, OL?
He's not the messiah! He's just a very naughty boy!
Heh. I can just hear the audible cracking noise. Even though nothing there should be capable of making one.
Sheesh. Batman really speedrunning this shit, huh? Joy of multiplayer missions with veteran players...
A fatal mistake, I suspect. Because one of the best ways of breaking a siege in medieval times...
...Gives us the term 'Undermining'.
Talk about bringing the house down!
More live captives. Good work with the 'Just this once, nobody dies!' achievement so far.
And coincidentally reinforcing Malvolio's Constructs via Blue Light, no doubt.
...A willing convert? Or is his rig implanted?
Well, that's painfully ironic. He just wanted to help people, now look at him...
Whoops. No no-selling a metaphorical Anti-Life uppercut to the nuts that up close and personal...
Yeah, that's a fresh wound that's going to be a problem, I bet.
Good catch, Alan.
Not quite the usual sort of 'blacking out', methinks.
They'll keep. As long as they can't come at you later.
...The sooner this is finished, the better.
What a mess, eh? Goes to show just what a Lantern can do when they stop sandbagging, doesn't it? And yet the situation remains all the more threatening thanks to the reveal of Vincent Edge's... Condition. No doubt he managed to slip away when OL went dark, ready to leap out at just the wrong moment to fuck things up like a living Chekhov's Gun. Or worse, linger afterwards to keep stirring up trouble...
Duke Long
Glomerulus
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2022
- Messages
- 780
- Likes received
- 2,765
Ardy
I trust you know where the happy button is?
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2017
- Messages
- 891
- Likes received
- 4,324
I like the completely Green-OP Malvolio shrugging it off.
Mr Zoat
Dedicated ragequitter
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2016
- Messages
- 17,536
- Likes received
- 917,240
Thank you, corrected.
If I remember correctly he's under 'special detainment' in the Tower of Fate, so almost certainly not.
Thank you, corrected.
Malvolio is at peace with everything he's ever done. The SI isn't.
xSieg
Making the rounds.
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2015
- Messages
- 47
- Likes received
- 210
Goes to show that at extreme marinating levels, even the stable Green is pretty dangerous. If Malvolio was an utilitarian human absolutist like Paul, he'd probably be a horrible tyrant losing only to Darkseid in the most dangerous asshole to the universe at large competition
thebishop8
Umm, ackchyually...
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2019
- Messages
- 414
- Likes received
- 2,540
How come John Quinn didn't free him and infect him with the Anti-Life like he did with the other prisoners? He apparently gave Onomatopoeia to Mannheim and kept some of the other to serve himself, but Dark Druid and Anton Arcane have both been missing in action in that regard.
I would have thought that Dark Druid would have had some affinity with the Anti-Life given his use of black light, but I suppose you could also argue the opposite, considering that Darkseid wants to enslave the universe, not kill it.
Lord Ernest
At the End...
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2019
- Messages
- 1,606
- Likes received
- 19,238
Was Anton Arcane also captured by Nabu? I can't remember how that episode ended. I recall he was some disgusting maggot Kaiju and Swamp Thing battled him, but I thought he got sent back to hell?
Coda
Versed in the lewd.
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2019
- Messages
- 1,084
- Likes received
- 4,233
Either "lights cast" or "light casts".
Mr Zoat
Dedicated ragequitter
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2016
- Messages
- 17,536
- Likes received
- 917,240
Thank you, corrected.
Gateway (part 11)
Mr Zoat
Dedicated ragequitter
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2016
- Messages
- 17,536
- Likes received
- 917,240
Early Autumn, IC 687
Coarsely milled flour.
"…our ambassador, Prince Diabo, to address this assembly."
Honestly.
No 'my son'. Emperor Molt is avoiding looking like he's offering too much support. With the speed at which information spreads in Sanderan society, exactly what happened at Alnus Hill isn't well known, but they couldn't exactly miss the unusually placid dragon standing outside of the senate building. And some news has gotten back, enough to create a plethora of fascinatingly disconcerting rumours.
A few eyes dip to my ring as Prince Diabo walks out onto the speaker's position in front of the stands. It's interesting how far 'gods want me to do this' gets you in Sanderan society. Emperor Molt would rather have hashed this out in private or under his complete control, but he has a better awareness of the strategic situation than anyone else and he knows perfectly well that Diabo and I have handed him a lifeline. There's even a very small amount of pride in the fact that one of his children is doing something intelligently, rather than pretending to be a knight or invading an entire country at the cost of the lives of thousands of legionaries because he wanted to rape their queen.
Diabo is bearing up reasonably well. At his age I'd have hated this sort of public speaking, but as a Sanderan aristocrat it's just something that he had to learn how to do. And we did enough rehearsals. He doesn't really have the height to look imperious -particularly when the floor of the chamber is lower than the seats- but the faint orange glow probably makes up for it.
"Emperor Molt Sol Augustus, honourable senators of the Sanderan Empire, I stand before you to report on my embassy to the country of Japan. I have met with their government, I have seen their cities and their armies and taken their measure. I was also able to speak with our own legate and the leaders of the armies of our vassals who are laying siege to Alnus Hill, as well as the surviving officers amongst those who took part in our attack on Japan and are now their prisoners."
That gets a little interest from some parties. It's a fairly normal thing for Sanderanian nobles to spend time in the legions before moving on to politics. And not necessarily as officers; some formations are considered suitably armigerous for the sons of noble households, especially the ones which have to provide their own equipment. The right to attack through the gate got more than a little interest amongst the socially avaricious.
"In brief, I will lay before you a treaty for an equitable peace between our peoples. We will lose no land and they will take none of our people as slaves. Their customs do not even allow them to ransom the captives they have taken; those will be returned once the treaty is signed."
An elderly senator near the front snorts. "Just tell us what they want, boy. What must we give the barbarians to make them go away?"
"Senator Giusto. Before I explain that, there are certain things that you must understand first. The legions of our empire are mighty; there is no people that we have yet encountered who can match them with equal number on an open field. But at times in our history, our legions have met with defeat, or with victories that have left them so bloodied that they may as well have been defeated. Sometimes it has been weight of numbers that has won barbarians the day. At others, a brilliant strategy and prepared ground would allow them to achieve victory. And shamefully, at times it was corruption or cowardice amongst our own officers or soldiers that made them poor fighters."
"I have studied the Imperial soldiers and officers at Alnus in detail and I have found no such weakness amongst them, and heard no reports of such failings amongst those legions we sent through the gate. Not even amongst the auxiliaries. I saw with my own eyes the size of the force which the Japanese sent to our lands. It was not particularly large; smaller, certainly, than the armies of the Empire which now lay siege to the Hill. Nor was their strategy particularly brilliant: they simply formed a line and began using their long-ranged weapons on our forces on our side of the gate."
"Our forces were killed to a man, and the Japanese did not suffer a single loss."
Some surprise, some concern, more than a few dismissals of what must be propaganda. But I'm pleased to see that the majority remain cautiously neutral.
"We are used to having an advantage in weapons. When our Empire was first founded, we fought with steel weapons against barbarians armed with weapons of stone or copper or at worst bronze. Even when we encountered walled cities, their weapons were made of poor iron and only their rulers could afford armour worthy of the name. They must have felt like they were fighting the chosen people of Emroy! But it was perhaps foolish of us to assume that there were no people in any world who were more advanced than us, just as we are more advanced than the barbarians."
"While I was in their lands, I studied their histories. They made no secret of what they consider old news. Three hundred years ago they fought much as we do. Now, they fight differently."
He holds out his right hand and generates an assault rifle construct.
"They use these. They are made with high quality steel, as good as anything that our smiths could make. The mass at the back can be used as a club and they sometimes attach a knife to the tube at the front, but for the most part it works like a crossbow. Rather than using a taut string, it uses an alchemical powder, and rather than using an arrow it uses a small bullet that even the barbarians would consider too small for a slingshot. The mechanisms here-" He points to the middle of the rifle. "-allow it to fire something like seven hundred times in a single minute."
He makes a point of looking around the room, making eye contact with various members of the muttering crowd.
"And each shot would hit hard enough to kill an armoured man."
He dismisses the construct.
"That is not merely a boast. I witnessed it myself, both when I arrived at the Hill and they loosed upon me, and later when they carried out a demonstration of their weapons. They were happy to show me, to try to intimidate me. And, just as we have scorpions and ballistae which are larger and more powerful than our bows, so they too have larger and more powerful versions of their weapons. There are places on Alnus Hill where they struck our centuries where it is not possible to tell that the thing they struck was once a man, much less who they were. And these are not weapons inherited from their ancestors or granted them by their gods." He slows his delivery. "These are weapons which their forges can make continuously."
"Consider, then, the likely outcome of a legion marching towards even a skirmish line of men armed with such weapons. It would mean their deaths, with not even a single arrow being loosed upon the Japanese."
"In my free time I considered more exotic methods which could be used to defeat them. Disease, perhaps. Poison. An aerial assault at night, where our melee fighters could negate their advantage at range. And at each time I found that their knowledge of natural philosophy was not limited to weapons. They have medicines that cure most diseases. Medicines that cure most poisons. Machines to see flying creatures and machines they can wear over their eyes to let them see in the pitch black. No. As much as it burns my pride to admit it, we are to them as those early barbarians were to our ancestors."
"But in every threat, there is an opportunity. The gate will not stay open forever, and they do not have the power to maintain it. They know this now, they know that even if they could conquer us, they would eventually be cut off from their homeland with no way to maintain their equipment. We could simply pull back our armies and let them remain huddled around the portal until their fear of being left here caused them to pull back, but…"
"The sons of the barbarians we conquered became auxiliaries. Their grandchildren became citizens, using the same tools that conquered their forebears. They learned what we knew and became better for it. They ascended to a higher level of civilisation by adopting our methods.
He recreates the gun construct.
"I would not mind seeing our legions armed with these. And while there may be civilisations on this side of the gate who are equal to what we have now… There are none who equal this."
He looks around the room, making eye contact with the more receptive members of the audience.
"They will take no land and they will take none of our people as slaves. They will return prisoners once a treaty is signed. And in return they want three things: a chest of gold as a symbolic reparation for the injuries caused by our attack, a return of the citizens we took as slaves, and the right to purchase grain for as long as the gate remains open. For all their industry, it seems that their land is a poor one for farming." He shrugs. "The barbarians our ancestors conquered traded their lives for the advancement of their descendants. We need only trade our excess grain for improvements to medicine, steel-forging and alchemy. I hope you will agree that it is a bargain."
Coarsely milled flour.
"…our ambassador, Prince Diabo, to address this assembly."
Honestly.
No 'my son'. Emperor Molt is avoiding looking like he's offering too much support. With the speed at which information spreads in Sanderan society, exactly what happened at Alnus Hill isn't well known, but they couldn't exactly miss the unusually placid dragon standing outside of the senate building. And some news has gotten back, enough to create a plethora of fascinatingly disconcerting rumours.
A few eyes dip to my ring as Prince Diabo walks out onto the speaker's position in front of the stands. It's interesting how far 'gods want me to do this' gets you in Sanderan society. Emperor Molt would rather have hashed this out in private or under his complete control, but he has a better awareness of the strategic situation than anyone else and he knows perfectly well that Diabo and I have handed him a lifeline. There's even a very small amount of pride in the fact that one of his children is doing something intelligently, rather than pretending to be a knight or invading an entire country at the cost of the lives of thousands of legionaries because he wanted to rape their queen.
Diabo is bearing up reasonably well. At his age I'd have hated this sort of public speaking, but as a Sanderan aristocrat it's just something that he had to learn how to do. And we did enough rehearsals. He doesn't really have the height to look imperious -particularly when the floor of the chamber is lower than the seats- but the faint orange glow probably makes up for it.
"Emperor Molt Sol Augustus, honourable senators of the Sanderan Empire, I stand before you to report on my embassy to the country of Japan. I have met with their government, I have seen their cities and their armies and taken their measure. I was also able to speak with our own legate and the leaders of the armies of our vassals who are laying siege to Alnus Hill, as well as the surviving officers amongst those who took part in our attack on Japan and are now their prisoners."
That gets a little interest from some parties. It's a fairly normal thing for Sanderanian nobles to spend time in the legions before moving on to politics. And not necessarily as officers; some formations are considered suitably armigerous for the sons of noble households, especially the ones which have to provide their own equipment. The right to attack through the gate got more than a little interest amongst the socially avaricious.
"In brief, I will lay before you a treaty for an equitable peace between our peoples. We will lose no land and they will take none of our people as slaves. Their customs do not even allow them to ransom the captives they have taken; those will be returned once the treaty is signed."
An elderly senator near the front snorts. "Just tell us what they want, boy. What must we give the barbarians to make them go away?"
"Senator Giusto. Before I explain that, there are certain things that you must understand first. The legions of our empire are mighty; there is no people that we have yet encountered who can match them with equal number on an open field. But at times in our history, our legions have met with defeat, or with victories that have left them so bloodied that they may as well have been defeated. Sometimes it has been weight of numbers that has won barbarians the day. At others, a brilliant strategy and prepared ground would allow them to achieve victory. And shamefully, at times it was corruption or cowardice amongst our own officers or soldiers that made them poor fighters."
"I have studied the Imperial soldiers and officers at Alnus in detail and I have found no such weakness amongst them, and heard no reports of such failings amongst those legions we sent through the gate. Not even amongst the auxiliaries. I saw with my own eyes the size of the force which the Japanese sent to our lands. It was not particularly large; smaller, certainly, than the armies of the Empire which now lay siege to the Hill. Nor was their strategy particularly brilliant: they simply formed a line and began using their long-ranged weapons on our forces on our side of the gate."
"Our forces were killed to a man, and the Japanese did not suffer a single loss."
Some surprise, some concern, more than a few dismissals of what must be propaganda. But I'm pleased to see that the majority remain cautiously neutral.
"We are used to having an advantage in weapons. When our Empire was first founded, we fought with steel weapons against barbarians armed with weapons of stone or copper or at worst bronze. Even when we encountered walled cities, their weapons were made of poor iron and only their rulers could afford armour worthy of the name. They must have felt like they were fighting the chosen people of Emroy! But it was perhaps foolish of us to assume that there were no people in any world who were more advanced than us, just as we are more advanced than the barbarians."
"While I was in their lands, I studied their histories. They made no secret of what they consider old news. Three hundred years ago they fought much as we do. Now, they fight differently."
He holds out his right hand and generates an assault rifle construct.
"They use these. They are made with high quality steel, as good as anything that our smiths could make. The mass at the back can be used as a club and they sometimes attach a knife to the tube at the front, but for the most part it works like a crossbow. Rather than using a taut string, it uses an alchemical powder, and rather than using an arrow it uses a small bullet that even the barbarians would consider too small for a slingshot. The mechanisms here-" He points to the middle of the rifle. "-allow it to fire something like seven hundred times in a single minute."
He makes a point of looking around the room, making eye contact with various members of the muttering crowd.
"And each shot would hit hard enough to kill an armoured man."
He dismisses the construct.
"That is not merely a boast. I witnessed it myself, both when I arrived at the Hill and they loosed upon me, and later when they carried out a demonstration of their weapons. They were happy to show me, to try to intimidate me. And, just as we have scorpions and ballistae which are larger and more powerful than our bows, so they too have larger and more powerful versions of their weapons. There are places on Alnus Hill where they struck our centuries where it is not possible to tell that the thing they struck was once a man, much less who they were. And these are not weapons inherited from their ancestors or granted them by their gods." He slows his delivery. "These are weapons which their forges can make continuously."
"Consider, then, the likely outcome of a legion marching towards even a skirmish line of men armed with such weapons. It would mean their deaths, with not even a single arrow being loosed upon the Japanese."
"In my free time I considered more exotic methods which could be used to defeat them. Disease, perhaps. Poison. An aerial assault at night, where our melee fighters could negate their advantage at range. And at each time I found that their knowledge of natural philosophy was not limited to weapons. They have medicines that cure most diseases. Medicines that cure most poisons. Machines to see flying creatures and machines they can wear over their eyes to let them see in the pitch black. No. As much as it burns my pride to admit it, we are to them as those early barbarians were to our ancestors."
"But in every threat, there is an opportunity. The gate will not stay open forever, and they do not have the power to maintain it. They know this now, they know that even if they could conquer us, they would eventually be cut off from their homeland with no way to maintain their equipment. We could simply pull back our armies and let them remain huddled around the portal until their fear of being left here caused them to pull back, but…"
"The sons of the barbarians we conquered became auxiliaries. Their grandchildren became citizens, using the same tools that conquered their forebears. They learned what we knew and became better for it. They ascended to a higher level of civilisation by adopting our methods.
He recreates the gun construct.
"I would not mind seeing our legions armed with these. And while there may be civilisations on this side of the gate who are equal to what we have now… There are none who equal this."
He looks around the room, making eye contact with the more receptive members of the audience.
"They will take no land and they will take none of our people as slaves. They will return prisoners once a treaty is signed. And in return they want three things: a chest of gold as a symbolic reparation for the injuries caused by our attack, a return of the citizens we took as slaves, and the right to purchase grain for as long as the gate remains open. For all their industry, it seems that their land is a poor one for farming." He shrugs. "The barbarians our ancestors conquered traded their lives for the advancement of their descendants. We need only trade our excess grain for improvements to medicine, steel-forging and alchemy. I hope you will agree that it is a bargain."
Last edited:
Oglymogly
I trust you know where the happy button is?
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2017
- Messages
- 854
- Likes received
- 7,859
Nice to see a resolution to this storyline! I was a bit surprised when he said he wanted guns that they were on offer, but going by his last statement I believe he's getting the theory behind their functioning, which makes a lot more sense.
Chojin Patriarch
Veteran Lurker
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2019
- Messages
- 2,675
- Likes received
- 39,773
Ah, Future OL, and the world of Gate. I trust things have been proceeding swimmingly over there. Especially with much of the plot of the original canon utterly overturned by OL's interference via prince Diabo.
Probably ranging from 'a peaceful but tense standoff is in place' to 'Their armies must be pouring through the Gate looking to conquer us all... It's what we'd do!'.
...Sadly, I can picture that sort of thing happening. And wouldn't be surprised if it had happened in our own world's history.
Why not a giant construct of his head, for those in the back row to see clearly?
A brief, if understated, summary of the previous chapters in this line.
A pity said trained nobles to show some intelligence, instead of thinking with their 'honour'.
Honestly, old man, if you lot hadn't taken captives, they'd have already left. But no, 'exotic slaves' must be claimed.
Just like any army, really. They just had a better win ratio than anyone else.
Ah, peace through superior firepower...
Well, you can tell the smart ones from the honour-obsessed idiots, at least.
No doubt steel stolen from a god, or gifted to them by one ho got bored.
"This... Is my boomstick!" Well, not quite, but to their eyes, it's probably something like magic.
And that's a mid-range fire rate. There are guns that could shoot faster, but they're more prone to stoppages.
Well, not necessarily stone-cold dead - that's down to where they're hit - but any survivor would be on the ground feeling rather unhappy about matters.
Artillery, the true gift from the gods...
Or rather, the firebase.Especially if they're doing it out on an open field from an unpleasantly long distance.
A truth most of these men won't accept, but it's one they'll have to acknowledge.
Which is more or less what happened in canon, isn't it? Other than roving parties searching for kidnapped citizens...
Ah, I see. You're going to offer them the science of firearms.What they could produce at first would be crude compared to modern arms... More like the early arquebus or tanegashima...
...But even those will overwhelm anything less advanced.
Now, let's hope they're not going to be stick-in-the-muds about this.
"God created man... But it was Colt who made them equal!" Once the senators get an actual demonstration of the sheer power of the gun, I suspect they'll leap at the chance to get in on that action. Though I foresee it being a less-than-stabilising influence on the Empire in places. Still, Japan would probably consider that fair karmic payback for their actions... And hopefully OL arranges to get discreetly handed off to a Japanese soldier so he can cut ties with the other side and back to being flesh and blood.
crazygrox
Experienced.
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2016
- Messages
- 2,945
- Likes received
- 24,158
Resolution is an exaggeration.
From what I've read of discussion surrounding GATE, the local gods try to enforce medieval stasis, potentially by force, and will close interplanetary gates when they're certain the things remaining open isn't going to lead to more interesting wars or shaking up of the balance of power.
Then there's the fact that the next gate the local gods open leads to some sort of zerg-like insect hive parallel reality where the creatures from there can feasibly fight a modern military.
While this paul is potentially going to want to turn this action into the first move in an action against the local gods seeking to get a way home.
And I think there were also plot points about other countries trying to apply pressure to get access to the gate, often in irrational ways, no guarantee that they'll all listen to the claim that it'll close.
Duke Long
Glomerulus
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2022
- Messages
- 780
- Likes received
- 2,765
'has won'
'at times'
Extraneous 'which' in first sentence.
'long-ranged'? He might be describing the length of the weapons though.
Double negative. He's saying they believed everyone was more advanced than them, which I don't think is the intent.
BR549
This is filth! FILTH!!
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2017
- Messages
- 735
- Likes received
- 5,218
Artillery, the true gift from the gods...
As the old soldiers' saying goes:
Infantry is the queen of the battlefield.
Artillery is the king of the battlefield.
And we all know what the king does to the queen.
Mr Zoat
Dedicated ragequitter
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2016
- Messages
- 17,536
- Likes received
- 917,240
Japan would not sell the Sanderan Empire guns. Aside from anything else it wouldn't be politically acceptable.
Thank you, corrected.
Dur'id the Druid
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2019
- Messages
- 236
- Likes received
- 691
Very nice, I thought that plot line was on permanent hiatus! The prince really grew up. Hope his wisdom is heard.
Someguy Somewhere
The Critical Fumbler
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2019
- Messages
- 707
- Likes received
- 4,526
And John Browning Made Them Civil.
Khornelius
Overlord of the Underworld
- Joined
- May 28, 2020
- Messages
- 100
- Likes received
- 452
I remember when I first made that suggestion about the grain! It's a nice surprise to see it here. Thank you for yet another great chapter.
Sockmonkey
I trust you know where the happy button is?
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2016
- Messages
- 647
- Likes received
- 3,535
If OL does regain corporeal form on the Japanese side, does that get him his full array of abilities back? Because at that point he could potentially create his own gate and fight the gods via empowered proxies.