Recap / With This Ring Episode 46

Episode 46: Family Day

Takes place 21-26 April 2011.

Short version

Paul protects the Sivana family at their annual gathering on Venus, and reveals his findings about Diana and Donna's origins to the Amazons.

Longer version

Paul visits Erebos and obtains permission from Hades to test blood samples from several divinities for their arcane similarities. While there, he learns that Cronus has been meddling with stealing power from the gods through sympathetic magic with part of Cottus' body.

Back on the surface, while waiting for Atlantis to come up with the results, he meets Beautia Sivana, who invites him to her family's annual gathering in their Venus habitat, pretending to be her boyfriend so that she gets less comments on her lack of social life. He also learns that she's involved in preparing to mass-produce Baroness von Gunther's purple healing ray.

On Venus, Paul receives a friendly welcome, apart from the younger two children stealing everything from his subspace pocket. However, the gathering is then attacked by a Sheeda Huntsman from the far future, whom Paul is unable to defeat, only stall. The Sivana children are eventually able to build a gun that can destroy it, after which their father returns from the future and announces his intent to fight the impending Sheeda invasion and Harrowing.

The next day, Paul visits Themyscira and reveals what he has learned about Diana's (and Donna's) origin: Diana was created and empowered by the goddesses as per the official story, but Cronus spied on the process and hijacked the ritual to create Donna (from a piece of Cottus) and have her similarly empowered. The revelation brings about a reconciliation between Queen Hippolyta and the Circle.

Apollo then appears, to fill in the gaps in Paul's information, recounting how he sent the Circle a vision of Cottus in the expectation that they would go and talk to Cottus, and how Cronus' aim was to have Donna become his servant, but the cultists looking after her were killed in an accident. After questioning how Apollo allowed the misunderstanding to continue for so long, Paul discreetly summons Eris, who punches Apollo out cold, and she and Paul dump him in a pigsty.

The Renegade talks to Sunset Shimmer in the aftermath of their Darfur assault, discussing the morality and ethics of their choice to kill some of the leaders. It is later revealed that without Paul's intervention in that timeline, the Huntsman killed most of the Sivana family, with only Thaddeus Senior and Magnificus surviving by virtue of not being present.

The title likely refers to both the Sivana family gathering and the explanation of Diana and Donna being basically sisters.

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• Casual Danger Dialog: The Sivanas are fully capable of chatting, bickering, and outright feuding, while building a first-of-its-kind exotic weapon.
  Thaddeus: He won't have done that, Magni.
  Magnificus: Thaddeus, I'm trying to work here.
  Thaddeus: Well, you're being too slow! I fight giant monsters all the time! And some of them I didn't even create!
  Beautia: Boys! We're trying to fight a gravity monster here! Focus!

  Mister Atom: BEAUTIA SIVANA. CHECKING LOGS.
  Magnificus: Wait, what?
  Paul: Magnificus?
  Magnificus: He's got super moderator access to the system! I don't have that!
  Thaddeus/Georgia: I do. / I do!
  Magnificus: Oh, that's… Splendid.

  Paul: Look, shouldn't you be focusing on building.. whatever you're building?
  Georgia: I can work and talk at the same time. What do you want for one of those power rings?
• Delaying Action: Paul isn't able to meaningfully injure the attacking Sheeda Huntsman, but their fight stalls it long enough for the Sivana children to devise a gun that can.
• Deus ex Machina: After Paul reveals what he knows, and doesn't know, about Diana's creation, Apollo appears in a cloud of light to fill in the gaps. Although that doesn't fix everything.
• Didn't Think This Through: Georgia Sivana remotely activates a "Mister Atom Mark Two" robot in order to use its optical sensors to watch Paul fighting the Huntsman. However, the robot isn't just a camera.
  Beautia: Ah, guys? Do you remember what Dad programmed as the Mark Two's behavioral baselines?
  Mister Atom: I, MISTER ATOM, AM MEANT TO BE THE EARTH'S RULER!
  Beautia: Never mind.
• Dysfunctional Family: The Sivana family are all omnidisciplinary geniuses except their mother (who is still quite an intelligent woman and has picked up a lot). This has made for...interesting times.
  • Magnificus' pet crocodiles.
    Venus: That was.. really more.. your father letting him help clean out his test subjects. They weren't supposed to be pets.
    Beautia: Father ended up feeding them a mutagen and turning them into giant rampaging monsters. Poor little Herkimer. He was such a sweetheart when he was a hatchling.
  • From the age of six, Beautia had to help periodically check the environmental controls in her father's bases.
    Paul: Deliberately malfunctioning environmental systems?
    Beautia: Dad.. sometimes.. liked to set us little.. practical tests. Oh, don't worry, even if it breaks down completely we'd still have hours of breathable air left. And Venus' gravity is approximately ninety percent of Earth's, so even without the artificial gravity we probably wouldn't notice the difference.
  • The children compete with each other by comparing the number of doctorates they hold — bearing in mind that the oldest of them is eighteen.
    Beautia: One. Are we really going to-?
    Magnificus: My second thesis is nearly ready for submission.
    Thaddeus: Two.
    Georgia: Three.
    Thaddeus: Soft subjects.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: Georgia Sivana once became envious of her sister Beautia over Beautia's boyfriend — so she transferred the boyfriend's mind into a possum.
  Paul: She-. She what?
  Beautia: And then she wouldn't tell us where the switch was to turn them back…
  Paul: But… A Possum? There's no way its neural structures are complex enough to contain a Human mind. Was… He alright?
  Beautia: Her machine didn't literally swap minds. It just rearranged the connections between mind and body. Justin's brain was still in his body, but it was getting sensory input from the Possum's body. And the same with the Possum.
  Paul: I don't think that's technically easier. Ah, also: are there any Possums on Venus, because it sounds like that's something I need to worry about now.
• I've Come Too Far: Doctor Sivana would have been thrilled to have Paul's help twenty years ago when he wanted to improve the world, but now he's a supervillain and not planning to change that.
• Just Shoot Him: Sunset Shimmer, working for Grayven, helps the police resolve a tense hostage situation - by giving them a gun that lets them see and shoot through walls.
• Take Me to Your Leader: A Sheeda Huntsman arrives in the Sivanas' Venus facility and demands to be taken to Thaddeus Sivana. In his defence, being from the distant future he probably didn't realise how Cliched it was.
• Tap on the Head: After Apollo delivers an informative but cowardly spiel, Eris punches him in the jaw and knocks him out. Fairly well justified, since they're both gods; it's reasonable that she could hit hard enough to do it, without hurting her hand, and that he would suffer no lasting ill effects.
• Vigilante Man: Grayven gives Batman a talking to about law vs justice.
• Wait, What?: Magnificus Sivana gets several.
  • When Mister Atom turns out to have higher access to the base computers than Magnificus does.
  • When Beautia mentions that Captain Marvel is ten years old.

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