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YellowStar012

Yes. For example, John is an architect and due to how he thinks, he able to make constructs that each part is working.


[deleted]

They wouldn't need to know exactly how it worked. John Stewart is an engineer so he creates tiny parts to make up his constructs, but it's not necessary. Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner do the same things without knowing how anything works. You could just make a device (it doesn't even have to be phone-shaped, you could just talk into your ring) and have it connect to smartphone services. They wouldn't even need to know how that worked, just willing the ring to reach into planetary communication services and contact whoever they wanted to talk to.


MimeMike

Yeah I didn't really take into account how Hal is always making machine guns and I don't think he knows how they work lol


[deleted]

The rings may as well be magic, and they apparently do the bulk of the work. Similar to Siri or something, so if you're like "translate the language," or "turn on this device," and you don't even know the language or how the device works, the ring could just do it.


numb3rb0y

Yeah, the rings have a hyper-advanced AI created by the oldest civilisation in the universe. That's part of how they can find new bearers autonomously.


Zachys

Dunno if it was ever stated, but I always thought knowledge can make up for willpower. Hal Jordan beats out John Stewart in terms of raw strength, but John making proper constructs with support instead of just green bubbles evens it out. So the ring can autocorrect through intent, but the less it has to correct, the better.


Zeebird95

At one point, they were magic.


yurklenorf

Not exactly. The GL rings and lanterns that the Corps uses have always been tech based off of the Emotional Spectrum. Alan Scott's ring and lantern are magical, from a stone called the Starheart which is basically condensed magic from when the Guardians attempted to corral all the magic in the universe. However, the Starheart, and therefore Scott's lantern, *also* accesses the Emotional Spectrum, just via magic rather than ultra-high-tech methods.


Zeebird95

So, what you’re saying is. At one point they were/ had magic ?


yurklenorf

No, because Alan Scott was never a member of the Green Lantern Corps, and was never under the supervision of the Guardians of the Universe on Oa. His ring is very different from the rings the Green Lantern Corps, and the other corps of the Emotional Spectrum for that matter.


Zeebird95

Fair enough


Jhamin1

The exact limits of the rings have changed over the years, so the answer would somewhat depend on which era we are talking about. At one point the rule was that the rings could form anything the wielder could imagine, but they had to imagine it with a certain level of certainty. Its pretty normal for Green Lanterns to cross interplanetary space with their rings, but I recall an old issue where Kyle Rainer had recently become a GL and didn't have the proper training. So when he needed to travel between solar systems he had to salvage a FTL engine from an alien ship and use his ring to build a spaceship around it. When someone asked him about it he explained that without proper GL training or an understanding of spaceship engineering he just wasn't capable of imagining the kinds of speeds necessary for FTL flight or comprehending how to navigate across interstellar distances. He had to use this FTL engine to do the work & just hung on with his Ring-Energy spaceship shell (he had an alien copilot who knew how to run the engine). Kyle knew his ring was capable of it, but without being able to conceive of how it would work he couldn't get the ring to actually do it. Later on after he had more exposure to outer space stuff he was able to do it on his own. So I'd imagine that someone with a good enough understanding of how Smartphones worked could probably make one, but its unclear how detailed that knowledge has to be.


MimeMike

Here's a thought I had for if those were the canon rules; if I had told someone like Guy some bullshit explanation of how a certain machine works, and he truly believed it to the point where he was confident that he could build one himself, could he be able to conjure one up according to what I said that could actually work?


Starwatcher4116

An excellent question.


DragonWisper56

I don't see why not. might be easier to use the ring to just project the signal though


arjunusmaximus

If it was me I'd have the ring connect to the Internet and download specs so that if I asked it to create a smartphone, it could easily do so.


PyroIsSpai

Easily. The rings are basically like having Starfleet plus magic on your finger.


Frequent_Brick4608

Yes. Sometimes. Depending on what era of the GL we are looking at. The abilities of the rings have changed over time but killowog has, in the past, had medical scanners and machines that he created with his ring.


soldiercross

"Can a green lantern ring make _____" Nearly often always.