Episode 145: Unreal
Takes place 29-31 March 2013.
While the world adjusts to the reality that the Justice League has accidentally taken over the world, Paul and several of his allies try to venture to Themyscira through Erebos.
- Achievements in Ignorance: Most members of the Justice League don't realize that, as a result of fighting off the Anti-Life Equation, they've effectively taken over the world. Paul is the one that draws attention to this fact when he says it point blank during an impromptu interview.
- All Crimes Are Equal: Stargate!Paul is unimpressed by the goa'uld Am-heh, who brutally executes anyone who offends him in the slightest. Even servants quailing under his gaze, instead of keeping their composure, is enough for him to burn out their nervous systems with his kara kesh.The city-. Or rather, the town where he maintains his palace was liberally decorated with impaled and crucified corpses and the people moved like automatons when in public, afraid to look aside in case that was taken as cause for offence.
- Alternate Universe:
- A new version of Paul is introduced, who arrived in the Stargate-verse on a planet previously ruled by the Goa'uld Mammon — and thanks to the ring making his eyes glow, the locals mistake him for Mammon. He decides to roll with it and uplift their civilisation rather than argue.
- Pull is shown helping Sliptream choose a human sized body she can use and Shockwave in his endeavor to find a human willing to become his Headmaster.
- Armor-Piercing Response: When Mammon!Paul remarks that things would have been easier if the US military hadn't killed Ra, Major Carter points out that Ra was about to send a naquada-enhanced nuclear warhead to Earth. Paul retorts that it was them who brought the nuke he was going to use, to which Sam has no answer.
- Bait-and-Switch: At first, it looked like Melinoë summoned the Joker to the Dream in order to assist against Akhlys. However, after he was repelled, Paul learns that it was actually Scarecrow disguised as the Joker.
- Becoming the Mask: Stargate!Paul is on reasonably friendly terms with Earth once they come in contact, and treats his people with Enlightened Self-Interest rather than brutality, but he increasingly identifies with the Goa'uld he's pretending to be, rather than humanity. Assimilating Am-heh and thus gaining all his millennia of memories doesn't help...Compared to us… Them, humans are a bit slow.
- Boring, but Practical: Bastet's underlords, especially war-hawks like Mahes, are not enthusiastic about "Mammon's" proposal to mostly stay out of the fighting between Apophis and Heru'ur while building up their fleets. Once the numbers have been crunched and it's clear that the strategy will work, however, Mahes reluctantly accepts it.Mahes: I like war.
Paul: You'll get a war. You just have to wait two years instead of jumping right in.
Mahes: I will live with my disappointment. Enjoyable as conflict is, it is better to win. - Continuity Nod: Alan tells Paul that the League thinks he needs to take a break to avoid the burn out he experienced last time.
- Dramatic Irony: The SGC is pleased to have trade with Mammon, but Colonel O'Neill in particular is suspicious of him because the goa'uld take human hosts in what's essentially slavery. None of them realise that Paul is genuinely human and the snake they can see is actually his Construct-Lantern slave. Bonus irony points because he criticises Teal'c for planning to enslave goa'uld queens to supply infants for the free Jaffa.
- Enlightened Self-Interest: Mammon!Paul uses the records he "acquired" from the SGC to pull stunts like saving the team trapped on P3W-451 from their slow-motion death by black hole, and selling them back to the SGC in exchange for various plants that his own planet doesn't have.Mammon: I am currently Stargate Command's leading supplier of naquada and I'm here to… Ah, let's be generous and say 'rescue' you.
- A God Am I: Mammon!Paul is easy-going about how the SG teams treat him, but he has accepted being called a god by his people.Paul: You aren't obliged to call me that, but... Look. We're flying over a city that worships me in a bubble I created as an act of will. I've never claimed to be all-powerful but I suggest to you that I'm a better fit for the term 'god' than anything you've previously encountered.
- God Guise: Paul figures out that Mammon was posing as a god, "doing a Wizard of Oz," and the people have now mistaken Paul for him, but he assumes that a village of pre-industrial farmers won't be able to properly understand the true nature of a Lantern. So he steps into the role and accepts their worship, with the intention of turning it to a good cause.
- Godzilla Threshold: Paul's first plan to purge Akhlys of the Anti-Life is to bring her into the Dream while in Blue Lantern's presence due to remembering how Dream of the Endless fought the Anti-Life with Hope.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Green Arrow refuses to go see Dr. Quinzel about how he feels about the Justice League technically taking over the world because she's "a busty blond", which could worry Black Canary about his promise to stay faithful to her.
- Hypocrite: Mammon!Paul is rather unimpressed with how Teal'c rebelled against Apophis for perceived treachery, but in the process betrayed and backstabbed his own compatriots, or how he has rejected being a favoured servant to the Goa'uld but now plans to enslave Goa'uld infants to serve the Jaffa and kill the infants once they outlive their usefulness. Paul highlights the issue by offering to turn Teal'c into a regular human, with no dependence on an implanted symbiote — and thus no moral debt to the Goa'uld — but also no enhanced strength or long life, which scares Teal'c into taking a step back.Paul: So I was right. You want the benefits but don't want to pay the costs. How contemptible.
- Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: After Paula asks Paul what the Justice League plans to do to stop Darkseid from attacking Earth again, he has to explain why that's not possible."H-chih. We don't." I shrug. "Try to look boring so he doesn't do it again? Apokolips is so far out of our league that it's decidedly not funny. Right now, we're focusing on restoring Earth's civilisation. Mannheim defeated everyone who fought him directly. Picking a fight with the full version is not on the agenda."
- Only in It for the Money: Mammon!Paul presents himself to Earth as a god of trade, loyal to Bastet but willing to do business with them at the right price. In some cases that price may be more than they can afford, but he has no principled objection to selling them naquada, starships, sarcophagi, or maps of goa'uld territories.O'Neill: Can you get us a used Ha'tak with one careful owner?
Paul: Hah. You couldn't afford it.
Hammond: Perhaps. But it would be helpful to my superiors to know what the price would be if we could. - Painless Death for a Price: The security system in Mammon's treasury demands that intruders surrender to the guards, not to survive, but for their deaths to be swift.
- Prematurely Grey-Haired: Cat Grant reveals that she's gotten a few grey hairs and a few new wrinkles as a result of all the stress from the Anti-Life Equation.
- Repressive, but Efficient: The goa'uld Bastet isn't nice, but Paul considers her to be "a pretty decent autocrat". She's committed to having an actual judicial system for her people, with more flogging and capital punishments than modern Westerners might be comfortable with, but moderately fair and with properly trained Jaffa actually investigating crimes.
- Shockingly Expensive Bill: Mammon!Paul assures General Hammond that Earth can't afford to buy a used Ha'tak from him, but Hammond still wants to know what the price would be. The first part of it is 200000 tons of gold, which is more than humans have ever mined from Earth, and it continues on from there.O'Neill: Yeah, we... can't afford that.
- Shout-Out: Stargate!Paul internally thanks Jim DiGriz for the knowledge that people from an industrialised society — and especially one that has detonated nuclear weapons — can be detected by the slightly elevated amount of radioactivity in their bodies.
- Take Over the World: Mister Atom wants to rule the world, but only joined the Justice League in hopes of gaining more understanding to help him along the path to that goal. When Paul highlights the fact that world governments have mostly collapsed and the League is doing whatever they want to help rebuild, with the majority of people willingly taking direction from them — meaning that they effectively rule the world already — Mister Atom is stunned.Mister Atom: Have I..? Taken over the world by accident? Was it always this simple?
