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    Green Power Ring

    Object » Green Power Ring appears in 3238 issues.

    The power ring of a Green Lantern is the source of power and a badge of authority for almost every member of the Green Lantern Corps. It is fueled by willpower.

    Are these rings now "magic"?

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    Methos

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    #1  Edited By Methos

    This has been bugging me for a while now; how are all of these rings being made and how do they work? I don't mean the explanation that "they draw on (name your own) emotion" I mean how do they actually function? Green Lantern rings are exceptionally advanced technology; basically manufactured weapons. Although they may have "supernatural" powers, the idea is that they are mechanical in nature capable of drawing on a hard to access power source.

    During the SCW we saw the Sinners constructing a CPB and manufacturing rings to harness fear, but every other "Corps" so far seems to have just pulled these batteries and rings out of their arse.

    1. Ganthet just sort of made his ring and battery out of magic dwarf power
    2. Atrocitus spilled some blood and "ta-da" here's a bunch of red rings
    3. the Sapphires seemed to create their whole operation by "feeling" love.

    Are some of the rings magic based, while others are technological, or is this just Geoff "Mr Retcon" Johns smoking the wacky stuff again and releasing another retcon of how all rings work and erasing over 30 years of Green Lantern continuity?

    I always read them as advanced alien technology. Kind of like movie Kryptonian crystal technology, or something very close to it. It is obviously some mineral that has the capability of holding enormous amounts of information and energy, and is activated and controlled by touch or mental command. There's just no metal and circuitry anywhere in it. Now crystal computers are not a new concept in scifi/fantasy, they appear everywhere and GL rings can just be another example.

    Sinestro Corps rings I'm not too sure about because several times before Sin Corp war we saw the assembly line of rings and batteries with random Qwardians holding things like soldering irons doing something assembly-ish.

    But in opposite, The Red rings are seem to be definately magic. Just their power source is another part of the emotional spectrum instead of just random magic energy. But the rings themselves are formed by magic, and I'm sure the anger energy is captured and stored by it as well.

    There is a great line in GLC, after the SCW, when it was reported that Volk and his team had destroyed the foundries on Qward. It was a small detail but showed how the Corps (in this case the Sinnestro Corps) depended on technology, production, security, etc..., to keep their Corps alive. More recently, we saw how important it was for Sinestro to have hidden a backup CPB.

    By continuing to portray the rings as unparalleled technology that can only be constructed by scientifically advanced beings (rather then produced by ambiguously tapping into a cosmic force) you make the rings seem rarer, more prized and special weapons. You loose that a bit if you take away the sci-fi elements to Green Lantern and make accessing this emotional spectrum more of a spiritual ability.

    Think about it this way; a Jedi can access the Force to do all types of cool Jedi things, but he still has to build a lightsaber. If he could just created one out of the Force, doesn't that make it less special and unique? I “feel” hate so, bang, there’s my hate ring. I think it’s much more interesting if you still have to create some tangible way of harnessing this power.

    My "concern" (for lack of a better word) is that having the rings created by advanced technology adds an important element to them. They can be destroyed, the CPB can be taken off line, rings can malfunction or be hacked into, Alpha Lanterns can be reprogrammed, Oa can be overrun, etc.... it adds a bit of vulnerability to an army/police force that relies on equipment and strategic locations (Oa, Mogo, Sector Houses) in order to function. But if the rings are portrayed as more magical then technological, then you loose some of those sci-fi elements and move more into a mystical world.

    I'd say they are just Highly advanced tech, but tech none-the-less. As has been mentioned and used as storylines in the past, they can be hacked, destroyed, reprogrammed, used as communication, used as a weapon, etc.

    The more I think about this, and the more I think back, it's definitely tech. I'm not sure where I would see the magic element to it.

    1. The rings have the best built-in rechargable battery. Hook it to a lantern or location for a few seconds and it's recharged. (wish my mobile phone would do that)
    2. It's got a built-in cellphone for communication between GL's.
    3. And a awesome interactive solid light holo-projector.

    I guess if someone were to say they were magical, then GL would not be placed with some of the major superheroes, but placed in the category of mystical people such as Dr. Fate, Alan Scott, Zatanna and those others.

    Anyway, to me it seems a bit out of continuity, and yet again i have to enforce that this is just another strike of Geoff "Mr Retcon" Johns who in issue 17 actually introduced a retcon that erased over 20 years of GL continuity... this time, he seems to be going the whole hog and taking Green Lantern back to the roots of Alan Scott and stating that ALL the power rings are magical....

    I'll admit that I'm guilty of being a continuity freak, but Geoff "Mr Retcon" Johns is really starting to piss me off with his current "Retcon per issue" theme of storytelling...

    M


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    Midnightist

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    #2  Edited By Midnightist

    Well maybe the methods by which each ring is made makes a different view point as to where they come from. Often times in Dr. Who he would reveal somthing that people saw as mystical was explained via science and actually alien. But for one thing anything that happens can really be explained either by science or magic. In a recent Mighty Avengers Pym said magic is just something he hasn't explained with science yet. Or maybe the Guardians have just had some much better time to design and build there rings that the magic itself has become more of a "science" than just a simple spell casting.

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    AtPhantom

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    #3  Edited By AtPhantom

    No matter what Geoff thinks, I consider the rings still to be a technological master piece.

    In final crisis 6, Brainiac 5 states that the Miracle Machine was built by the controllers, who derived it from the Guardians' will-powered technology. That seems pretty definitive as for green power rings. As for the rest, I'm also a bit dumbfounded about how they came into existence...

    In Sinestro's case, his plans were supported by the Anti-Monitor, who could have also given him the means to build or actually built his power battery.
    As For Atrocitus, he has also shown to have some understanding of emotional tech, considering how easilly he created the siphoning thing in GL origins....

    But I agree that with all the batteries lose in the universe, the prize factor of the rings is lost. Another observation, is that for all this time the Guardians have been considered the most technologically advanced species in DC, but since SCW and Final crisis, they have been overtaken by the New Gods and the Monitors...

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    Bob-A-Ferret

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    #4  Edited By Bob-A-Ferret

    I agree that the Rings are defiantly TECH. No question about it.  As for them being magic I don't see that I grant you that at first glance they seem to be being conjured up out of nothing.

    1. Ganthet just sort of made his ring and battery out of magic dwarf power.
    • But whose to say that his hand waving is not working on a nano-tech level? Nano tech is not new to the scifi mentality and it has been displayed a million different ways and controlled even more. I think it is possible that the Gaurdians have had time to perfect this tech and control it with their minds and simple hand gestures. I note that the Gaurdian Scar seems to be weeping tears of Nanos into the black book and information is transfering to the pages am I wrong.  The gaurdians have always seemed like gnomish wizards to me but when pressed they always seem to turn out to be like the wizard in the wizard of oz scientists who can be brought to show their science and great intellect. But they perfer everyone think they where magic.
    1. Atrocitus spilled some blood and "ta-da" here's a bunch of red rings
    • Again maybe he has done much like Fatality and taken rings from GL's but used his own blood to Change there programming and even using his own hate and blood to make them multiply in some weird form of enceinte period. Like giving a re- birth to the GL rings.
    1. the Sapphires seemed to create their whole operation by "feeling" love.
    • Yes but they seem to crystallize and corrupt or turn everything into their love power Fatality is again my example. Using their crystals to reprogram her Yellow ring and her into a star sapphire. In a seemingly  caterpillar to butterfly process.
    All these things could be explained scientifically .  And remember how long it has taken to explain the GL Rings right now he maybe focusing on the story and not the science. The science can be explained later.

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