LNH: Classic LNH Adventures #263: The Sound of Clashing Metal Part One

[Drew Nilium]

On 11/6/22 4:16 PM, Arthur Spitzer wrote:

<snip>
> And we've got The Sound of Clashing Metal by Dave Van Domelen and Mark
> Friedman (Part One).  A number of Acton Lord copies are running around
> causing chaos, but will we ever learn who the Real Acton Lord is -- and
> more importantly will we ever learn his true opinions on Snausages?!!

:D :D :D Ahhhhh, classic silly Dave stuff.

>       In the HQ of the LNH, P.C.Man clashed vehemently with MacLaughlin Man over
> just about everything from the Perot economic plan to snausages.

Oh no. X3

> Then P.C.Man
> glanced over to see Lurking Lass become the Lurking One!  [There were many name
> confusions arising at this time, such as the Politically Correct Man mistake
> and Tori's fits about Lurking Lass.  The author no longer recalls who this
> Lurking One was]

That was actually a reference to the original intro post of PC Person, where 
Lurking Girl was turned into The Lurking One.

> As
> far as he could tell, he was an uncorrupted copy, which was good, since he
> could set about trying to fix other inactive copies from his own matrix.

Acton Lord don't got time to worry about existential questions.

>       He stood and tapped the "A" on his chest, saying "Base R-4" as he did so.
> One orthogonal transform later, he was in the other base. [R-4 is the name for
> Euclidean spacetime, which is an orthogonal base]

One-percenter jokes are great.

>       "How did you do that?  I was never able to corrupt powers...I can just
> make variants of Acton's Law and fire powerbeams!"  said the puzzled Acton
> Lord.
>       "Ah...I see the problem.  You're a copy from between LNH #249 and #250 [a
> reference to the suspected issues of extraction for the 'clone' SW6 Legion of
> Super-Heroes at the time of this writing], and we didn't actually gain the
> power enhancement/corruption ability until the lettercol of Suicide Squid v23
> #14. [One of the last Suicide Squid 'crossovers' in the LNH]

Heeheehee meta nonsense |>

>       "Well, you can never trust artists to get continuity right.  But in any
> case, you could probably whup my ass so I'll go along for now and try to
> backstab you later on.  Okay?"
>       "Sounds like good solid plot material.  Especially since my plan requires
> that I be betrayed if the LNH is to beat me."
>       "Cool beans.

X3 X3 X3

>       "Ah, but you see, you just solved the problem yourself!  We are
> net.entities.  We are bound only by filing restrictions, and not by normal
> causality.  If you change a file from two days ago, you have changed the
> history of that day.  With a little intrusion program left behind by Netlurker,
> we can do just that."

I love the kind of coherent-yet-nonsense logic this uses.

>> "Whoa, who forgot to flush!" asked <name deleted here for security and plot
>> purposes> from the kitchenette.
>       [The LNHer in question was Sidewinder, who the author had decided to
> retcon into always having been the "Golden Age Acton Lord" until he was
> informed that Sidewinder was a WC.  GAAL as Sidewinder was responsible for the
> Death of Flatulence Lad and later was revealed in Crisis of Infinite Clones #1
> (part 4 of Electrocutioner's Song).  Sidewinder was re-retconned into having
> been captured during the time in question]

Eheheh. X>; So it goes.

>       Dave Van Domelen, yes the title of this is a pun on a Marvel Villain
> [specifically, the sound of clashing metal is "KANG!"]

I would never have gotten that if it hadn't been explicitly explained! <3

> Unfortunately, due to the number of
> systems on the net that recieved virus-like copies every day, it would be
> impossible to totally clean the net.

It sure is impossible now. X>

> he was
> adrift in MU* territory.  It was a cold and forbidding place, especially since
> so many MU*s were down right now.  It was like being on a normally busy
> commercial street at 4 in the morning when only the convenience stores and a
> few crappy bars were still open.

Good metaphor!

> Since he had had to start the process at his own
> image, the mutation was pretty severe there, and the duplicates would not even
> be recognizable as him.  In fact, scores of them may very well be joining the
> LNH under totally different names and powers {editor's note:  this is a kind of
> pseudo-scientific explanation for the proliferation of superpowered individuals
> arriving on the scene recently...they are mostly warped copies of Sig Lad, but
> have their own unique identities now.  They are not even aware of being clones,
> and may even have long involuted histories if the GIF reactivated at an earlier
> time index on the system}[Further, the current Sig.Lad is one of these warped
> GIFs, as the one focused on here meets his fate in Part Four].

I still need to reveal that a character is actually a Sig.Lad GIF.clone. One of 
these days. Also, Sig.Lad also has no time for existential angst

>       Dave Van Domelen, if you want to check NAIVE, bug Netlurker
> [NAIVE eventually lost its port, but was accessible via a mirror system on TIM.
> It later moved elsewhere after the NAIVE natives got sick of the TIM wizards]

Ahhhhh, online community drama.

Drew "never changes, but we learn to deal with it better" Nilium