Episode 113: Medidiction
Takes place 26-27 August 2012.
Short version
Paul takes a hand-picked group of Lanterns to Karax, the centre of green light worship, to train and tutor them toward reaching enlightenment. While there, they encounter a Yellow Lantern planted by Sinestro, who appears to be recruiting.
Longer version
After overseeing the duel between Thaddeus Sivana Jr and Daciya of Qward, Paul goes to the planet Karax, which worships the green light, to study whether or not he can teach his Enlightenment Superpowers to other Lanterns. He and the Lanterns he brings with him (Onik, Dul, and Xor) are met by the local Green Lantern, Graf Toren, who invites them to stay at the monastery where he studied Lanternism. The abbot is hospitable and helpful, and shows great interest in Paul's lessons about self-knowledge, as well as his encounters with Yellow Lanterns (Alan Scott -14 and Lord Protector Paul).
Lantern Xor makes progress toward the level of self-understanding that brought Paul to enlightenment, while Lantern Dul struggles with her Thanagarian pride getting in the way. However, the monastery then comes under attack by a Spider Guilder with a yellow ring, and Lantern Onik is kidnapped.
Paul launches a retaliatory strike against the Guild, teleporting to their nearest world and systematically destroying it until the Yellow Lantern confronts him. He then rallies Lantern Onik, who overcomes his fears of the Spiders, breaks free, and assimilates his attacker. The ring rejects the Spider for her failure and warps back to the monastery, returning to the abbot; he admits to receiving it from Sinestro, who persuaded him that the Karaxians, for all their focus on willpower, are still paralysed by their fear of the Spiders.
The abbot claims to have given the ring to the Spider Guilder in order to test whether the Orange Lanterns would be similarly paralysed, and is impressed by how well they responded. However, he himself despairs over his inability to overcome fear, until Paul helps him to latch onto his desire to be free of fear. Detecting the upwelling of avarice, the ring plays a message from Sinestro, expressing surprise at his achievement, and disappears. The abbot willingly submits to arrest for aiding an enemy, and Paul takes his Lanterns for some practical training against the Spider Guild.
In the Renegade timeline, the Renegade takes inventory of what resources are available to him in Vega currently that could be used against Grayven. The only thing of note is the complete destabilization of the government in Emana, meaning they are useless in the short to medium term.
He, Artemis, and Kanto then go to a planet that was recently visited by Grayven, and find that its entire population has vanished. The only clue they can find is a spiritual presence that Artemis determines to be similar to Wonder Woman.
- Break the Haughty: A fairly mild version for Lantern Dul. Thanagarians are a proud people, and pride is actually quite compatible with the orange light, but if she wants to become a really effective Lantern, Dul needs to recognise the darker parts of her own nature and the desires that she keeps tucked away. She falls behind in many of Paul's exercises, such as turning off one's ring without feeling a different emotion, because her singlemindedness gets in the way.Paul: It's not the injury, it's the loss of status and the violation of your self-concept. You are a Thanagarian before you are a soldier. Even before you are Paran Dul. And certainly before you're an Orange Lantern.
Dul: I…Understand. You're right. - Casual Danger Dialog: Lantern Xor is able to speak with Paul while in the middle of a sparring match.
- Colony Drop: Paul does this to one of the Spider Guild's planets in retaliation for Onik's kidnapping.
- Culture Clash: Lanterns Xor and Dul feel an immediate mutual dislike for one another due to their differing cultures. (Paul later indicates that it's partly because Xor used to have the kind of unthinking obedience that Dul has, and now, having recognised how corrupt his superiors actually were, he detests the thought.)
- Curb-Stomp Battle: After working through his fears, Lantern Onik makes quick work of the Yellow Lantern.
- Demand Overload: In-universe. Paul sets up a social media page in the internet equivalent of Karax. Unfortunately, so many people want to view the social page of the new kind of Lantern that the page crashes multiple times.
- Duel to the Death: Averted. Paul and Kalmin adjudicate a duel between Thaddeus Sivana Jr and Daciya of Qward. Thaddeus wins, but Paul hopes that both learned something from the experience. Kalmin asserts that if it were a duel on Qward, Daciya would be dead.
- The Gloves Come Off: Paul responds to Lantern Onik's kidnapping by teleporting to the nearest Spider Guild world and opening fire (by grabbing a ship and throwing it out of orbit into a populated area on the planet below), then delivering an ultimatum.Paul: This is the Illustres of the Orange Lantern Corps. I believe that the Guild has one of my Lanterns. And one of its own Lanterns. Until they are brought before me I will keep killing until every one of you disgusting insults to sentience on this miserable rock are dead, and then I will move on to the next world. I am not interested in your surrender. Get me what I want or die.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The Spider Guild regularly preys upon other species, making them essentially The Dreaded on Karax. Upon encountering the Spider Guilder Yellow Lantern who kidnapped Lantern Onik, Paul cuts off his own limbs and feeds them to her just to prove that he does not fear anything she can do.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Dul tries to claim, after being asked if she was afraid of her wings ever being cut off, that she fears nothing. Before she even finishes her sentence, Paul moves to cut her wings off, filling her with so much fear that her ring shorts out.
- Person of Mass Destruction: By the time the Yellow Lantern comes to confront him, Paul has burned the planet of Chughraghahh.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Lantern Xor's explanation for why Lantern Dul using her desire to serve the Thanagarian Empire to fuel her constructs is incorrect has shades of this. Luckily, Paul interrupts him before a fight can break out."Altruism does not work, even if the desire is genuine. When I fight, I do so to affirm my nature. My desires. I am an honourable warrior. I will harm none who have not wronged me. I will leave no slight unavenged. I will repay my debts. I will speak no untruth. This is who I am. This is the proper code of the universe, and I will teach it to others in whatever way I must."
He regards her with… Disappointment.
"The Illustres helped me when no other would, so has earned my fealty. My nation is the Alignment, and they took me as a child and turned me into a mindlessly loyal living weapon. And when I understood that, I tore them down. You say you are loyal to a place, a time, as if their nature makes no difference. As if you would serve a liar as willingly as an honest person, merely for the… Fancy hat upon their head. Your devotion is empty of meaning, it-." - Rousing Speech: Paul gives one to Lantern Onik in order to motivate the monk into freeing himself and taking down the Yellow Lantern."I wasn't asking you. Lantern Onik? Many of the first batch of recruits were selected to see if people with those characteristics could make good Lanterns. You have an orange power ring and an opportunity to strike back against your ancestral enemy. If you do not take that opportunity then you will die. Do you want to strike them down? Do you want to continue this campaign? Do you want to continue your discovery of the spectrum? I cannot decide these things for you. The key to your freedom is on your finger and-"
Orange light bubbles under the yellow restraints as Lantern Onik begins to struggle against his bonds.
"-it's for you to use."
The spider woman gives him her full attention as her collar breaks, swiftly followed by the manacles.
"Take her power for your own." - Self-Mutilation Demonstration: Paul cuts off one of his arms and one of his legs and feeds it to the Yellow Lantern Spider Guilder before restoring himself as a demonstration of how little he fears her and that he sees her as a non-threat.
- Shout-Out: Paul quotes The Kurgan while talking to Lantern Toren.Paul: A monastery is the last place I expected to hear 'It's better to burn out than fade away.'
- Success Through Insanity: Paul mutilating himself to both intimidate the Yellow Lantern Spider Guilder and demonstrate to Onik that he has nothing to fear from his captor is not something most sane people would do.
- Teleport Interdiction: Paul lets Lantern Onik take on the Spider Guilder mostly by himself, but does stop her from warping away. Other FTL methods might have been possible if she had more time, but Onik doesn't give it to her.
