Episode 117: Sungate, Part 2
Takes place 11-12 September 2012.
This is a continuation of the previous episode.
Short version
Paul fends off Sparta's attack and captures her, learning that she has been covering up connections to Apokolips; her followers are alarmed by her deception and stop their assault, restoring peace to Minosyss.
Longer version
Sparta's forces attack Minosyss with Apokoliptian technology, and Paul's efforts to fight them are hampered by the local environment inhibiting his access to the Honden. However, he is able to destroy or disable several attacking ships, including the flagship, crippling the assault. Questioning his prisoners reveals that they are unaware of any connection to Apokolips, and believe that Sparta invented their equipment herself.
Paul goes to confront Sparta, only to find that the Titans have already been defeated and that she's harnessing the power of their Seeds. Paul reveals to some of Sparta's followers that she's actually working for a third party, causing Sparta to attempt to knock out her followers and retaliate to keep that fact a secret. Paul is able to get her to retreat with half of the Seeds after demonstrating that he can hijack her connection to the Seeds and playing back the confession she made just moments prior.
Upon following her to the Sun Eater storage, he discovers that the New God supplying Sparta is Doctor Impossible, who needs all of the Titan Seeds in order to access the Sun Eaters. With only half of the Seeds, though, and with Paul holding off Sparta, he decides to cut his losses, and leaves. With help from the demigod Athyns, who can use the Seeds, Paul captures Sparta and deactivates the Sun Eater that Doctor Impossible woke up. He decides against intervening further in the aftermath, however, and simply makes his report to Hinon before taking a brief holiday.
We also get to see something that the Ancestor did to try and safeguard humanity.
- Alternate Universe: We see the the universe where the Ancestor is again. He has apparently travelled all over the Earth, leaving stories of his existence here and there. A Native American tribe is shown to have been charged with protecting a robot from a previous civilization from being discovered so that it doesn't attack humanity.
- An Arm and a Leg: Paul loses both of his legs when fighting a New God. Since he's on low power at the time, he actually delays healing them. Then he loses an arm, and with it, loses the connection to one of his rings, leaving him with no AI support...
- Call-Back: Paul pulls out the Apokoliptian equipment taken from Bialyan soldiers years ago in Mirage, to pierce the defences of Sparta's ships. Paul actually feels embarrassed to be using a weapon that he considers to be stupidly designed, but New God technology seems to be the only thing that's still working properly.
- Engineered Public Confession: Paul records Sparta admitting that she's being backed by an alien and plays the recording to some of her followers, who aren't happy to learn that their leader has been lying to them.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Sparta is drawing power from the Titan Seeds to empower herself. Paul takes advantage of this by drawing power from her into his soul, making them about even metaphysically.
- Major Injury Underreaction:
- When Paul reaches out to the Honden and attempts to examine the local environment to determine how Phoebe's seed is affecting it, his eyeballs explode. His response: "Clean that up and grow a new pair."
- Paul is similarly blasé when he loses his legs.Paul: I didn't really like walking anyway.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Doctor Impossible leaves after he determines that Sparta won't be able to give him the Sun Eaters.
- Stop Hitting Yourself: When Paul attempts to use his tattoos to absorb the energy of the enemy cruiser's New God tech, someone attempts to control Paul through this connection. All they accomplish is getting Paul to clumsily slap himself before Paul turns his attention to them and tries to consume them instead.
- Villain Ball: Doctor Impossible lampshades this when he tells Sparta that she should have given him the Titan Seeds right after she got them instead of showing them off to her followers.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: The Ascended that Paul captures assumed that Paul was a god or titan and would conquer the mortals while killing or subverting the other Ascended. She discovers that she's wrong when he directly states that he is neither a god nor a titan and proceeds to use one of the guns of the battleship that he damaged to damage it further, likely killing many of the crew onboard.Thiva: Why do you not complete the ritual?
Paul: An ongoing misunderstanding. I'm not a god or titan. I just look a bit like one. I have no idea what ritual you're referring to.
Thiva: Oh.
Paul: If it's important to you, you can talk me through it once this battle is over.
Thiva: No, that's-. No.
