Post by redsycorax on Nov 27, 2022 22:46:33 GMT
While every scenario is possible in an infinite multiverse, some are more ominous and reverberant than others. For example, in Earth-808's universe, two rogue planets were sighted entering Earth's solar system in the 1950s. In some alternate realities, there were no metahumans on such an Earth. However, in this one, there were... but not whom one might expect...
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KRYPTON:
As a surface tremor shook Kryptonopolis, Jor-El looked away from his long distance tachyon telescope. He had just witnessed the discovery of the doom that awaited Earth in its distant solar system and shook his head sadly. It was a shame. He would have liked to have sent Kal-El there when Krypton met its own fate, but the fateful appearance of those two rogue planets, Bellus, an ice giant, and Zyra, a terrestroid, and their lethal trajectory, meant that ironically, Earth would perish before Krypton exploded into radioactive fragments. Rao preserve them, he silently prayed, before reorienting his LDTT away from the besieged blue-green world to other, more promising habitable solar systems. In his birth-matrix, the infant Kal-El billed and cooed, unaware of the profound change that his father's discovery would mean for his future destiny.
Several months later, when Krypton flew asunder, a small refugee starship powered away from its immolation, toward a distant pinpoint of light. However, in Universe 808, it was headed toward another yellow sun than Sol- Delta Pavonis, which harboured a telltale jovian class gas giant of its own at a suitable distance from its yellow primary not to have interfered in terrestroid planet formation and which had thus yielded Minos, a terrestroid with two large captured asteroid planetary satellites and some evidence of civilisation. It had its own fledgeling interplanetary space programme and would make an excellent home for Kal-El when he arrived there. For this Earth would not exist for long enough to have an adopted son whom they would one day call Superman.
GOTHAM CITY:
And yet, other parallels had occurred. Twenty years ago, in Gotham City on the Eastern US seaboard, the criminal Joe Chill shot and killed Thomas and Martha Wayne, orphaning their young son Bruce and setting in motion the inexorable series of events that would lead ultimately to a batwinged figure swinging through the skyline of the besieged great metropolitan city. But on this Earth, he had arrived too late for Dick Grayson, who had perished with John and Mary Grayson after Boss Zucco's henchman sabotaged their trapeze to lethal effect. Without the steadying influence of the deceased young man who would never be Robin on this Earth, Batman grew steadily darker and more ruthless as time went on. He never relented and while the Gotham City Police Department applauded his actions, official policy was that he was a vigilante. However, given that that vigilante had saved the lives of numerous GCPD police officers on numerous occasions, his apprehension was not a priority. On the day that the existence of Bellus and Zyra and their probable trajectory was announced, however, Batman found himself staring up into the skies above, wondering to what effect his sacrifices and prowess might ultimately have, faced with an apparently random, meaningless cosmos that would snuff out most life on Earth when Bellus shattered it only two years from now.
WASHINGTON DC:
Her name was Princess Diana of Themiscyra and she had journeyed from her paradisiacal island home to bring justice and peace to Patriarch's World as a Wonder Woman. Her homeland's Amazonian scientists had long been aware of their planet's fate and possessed the ability to flee it long in advance. When Captain Steven Trevor had arrived on the isolated, concealed community, there was a moment of fierce debate between Princess Diana and her mother Queen Hippolyta over the imminent departure of the Amazon starship Hestia for resettlement on the twin habitable worlds of Athena and Aphrodite in the Epsilon Indi planetary system. Resultantly, when the starship cleared the terrain of Themiscyra and climbed into the evening sky, she wished her mother and sisters Hera's blessing. She did not stop watching until the vessel activated stardrive and left Earth's solar system forever. Then she turned, wondering how she could save as many people from the imminent apocalypse that threatened to devour the rest of this world's population in its grim maw.
While those are known quantities, the other members of this ensemble cast may surprise some of our readers...
CENTRAL CITY:
"Captain Zero, I assume?" At Batman's inquiry, a hooded figure slowly materialised before him:
"What do you want, Bruce?"
"Lee, it's time we put aside our differences and joined together, or this world is doomed."
"What can I do? I'm able to turn invisible, but I don't have your fighting prowess or the Amazon's strength."
"But you do have scientific expertise."
"So did that police scientist, Barry Allen, "Escape Velocity." And look what good his superspeed did him. The chemical exposure that caused his abilities also proved toxic, turning him into a serial killer. He was a friend, Bruce. It still hurts to think about him. All right. Who else do you have in mind for this Salvation Society of yours?"
LAKOTA CITY:
"Human Meteor?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Mr O'Dowd, we have need of your extraordinary strength, speed and flight capabilities."
"Didn't they tell you, broad? I resigned. I failed to save the woman I loved and I realised I'm not cut out for this save the world stuff."
"Daniel, with the world threatened by those two rogue planets, humanity needs a Salvation Society to enable as many people as possible to flee beforehand."
"Go tell it to the Bronson Project. Although they're not interested in us everyday joes and janes, are they, lady? Only a self-serving, selfish elite, leaving the rest of us to die."
"Daniel, would it surprise you to learn that I actually agree with you? And you're right- it is profoundly immoral to save only a tiny handful of individuals while leaving the vast majority to perish when Bellus hits Earth eight months from now. And incidentally, don't call me 'broad'. I'm Wonder Woman."
"Yeah, I've heard of you. Oh, all right. So what's your plan?"
HUB CITY:
"Elizabeth Bates?"
The veiled and masked woman whirled:
"Bruce Wayne? Is it you under that outfit?"
The caped detective raised an eyebrow: "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You're a formidable reporter. How long have you known?"
"For the last five years, since you started operating. Don't worry, I can keep a secret, as long as you keep mine."
"We need the Veiled Avenger, particularly her ability for espionage on the other side of the Iron Curtain."
"What makes you think the Soviets will be able to get any of their people to safety, Bruce? They're not exactly dab hands at science."
"Because, Elizabeth, I can't do this alone."
"Is this the Batman I hear talking? The consummate rugged, two fisted individualist?"
"Come off it, Elizabeth. We learnt the same things under the same sensei before starting our careers. You work alone too."
"It's all right, Bruce. You don't need to convince me. I'll come along quietly. So, what else?"
"Wonder Woman and I are putting together a group of masked adventurers to help save as much of humanity as we can. A "Salvation Society", if you will."
"Count me in. The Amazon, eh?"
MOSCOW:
At which point, affairs took a drastic and unexpected turn in Moscow. In other alternate universes, Josef Stalin would have passed away in 1953. However, here, Laurenty Beria took a good look at Stalin's invective fueled rant about capitalist machinations, decided that the survival of the Soviet Union could not be placed in the hands of this man any longer and slipped a fast-acting toxin into his Premier's vodka. Then he had Malenkov arrested and assumed control of the USSR himself, offering the startled President Truman co-operation in saving all humanity from the doom that otherwise awaited them.
WASHINGTON:
In Washington DC, Batman and the Veiled Avenger broke down the door of a startled Senator Joseph MacCarthy:
"Mind explaining this, Senator?" As the Veiled Avenger screened a microfilm reel disclosing his KGB sleeper allegiances, the sweating corpulent alcoholic figure cowered:
"It's not what it looks like..."
"Really? Because it looks like you used to work for Uncle Joe rather than Uncle Sam. And you were going to sow dissension and paranoia to disunite Americans who happen to care about a just and decent world. We'll release this to the media unless you resign, Senator. Is that clear?"
"Damn you. Hoover assured me that I'd be-" He blanched, realising that he'd suddenly and inadvertantly exposed deep collusion. Shakily, he sat down as the two crimefighters left his private domicile.
Wonder Woman turned up at the Federal Bureau of Investigation offices shortly afterward:
"Director Hoover? We need to talk."
"I've just been told that Senator MacCarthy has resigned. What is the meaning of this, Wonder Woman?"
"Given that humanity itself faces extinction if we do not unify our resources for the common global good, this is no time to be playing facile anti-communist political games, Mr Hoover. You will cease any such operations now, Director. Otherwise I will disclose the true nature of the relationship between you and Clyde Tolson."
"No! I'll be ruined, I-"
"Understand I am an Amazon and I do not stigmatise you for your choice of relationship or intimate partner. However, your own venality has doomed you. Step down and cease your fearmongering now. The United States cannot afford it and nor can humanity."
And with those obstacles removed, President Truman gratefully accepted Premier Beria's offer. As Bellus and Zyra grew relentlessly in the night skies and then became visible during daytime, the Salvation Society assisted in humanitarian operations across global borders, enabling the construction of a vast fleet of spaceships that would ferry the vast majority of humanity across space to a new planetary home. And thus, as thunder and lightning, earthquakes and tidal waves convulsed the globe on that dark day humanity lost its first home, an armada of vessels arose from the embattled and doomed planet's surface, away from the threatened doomsday that had once heralded the extinction of the species. And then, as Bellus drew closer, it shattered the Moon into incandescent fragments and the Earth's surface became molten and superheated, its crust and mantle distended by the gravitational stress from the ice giant. From space, safe and impervious to the final drama hundreds of thousands of miles below them, humanity watched as the Earth shattered and erupted into oblivion, to tears and cries of horror and revulsion at the grim spectacle. Mercifully, however, only a few hundred thousand religious fanatics and political extremists had failed to heed the warning and had resultantly perished. Finally, though, the information came through that they had long awaited and hoped for. The cataclysm had resulted in the cessation of gravitational adhesion between Bellus and Zyra and the pristine new terrestroid planet now assumed a congruent orbit to that of the now vanished Earth and its lost Moon. With no residual micro-organisms on its surface, Zyra was free to become humanity's second planetary home, and it did. Their job done, the Salvation Society disbanded, and some of its members married and raised families on their new world. As the decades and centuries passed, though, the feat of humanity, compassion, mercy and perseverance that had saved an entire species would never be extinguished.
THE END [4.25 PM, 7 December, 2022]
+++
KRYPTON:
As a surface tremor shook Kryptonopolis, Jor-El looked away from his long distance tachyon telescope. He had just witnessed the discovery of the doom that awaited Earth in its distant solar system and shook his head sadly. It was a shame. He would have liked to have sent Kal-El there when Krypton met its own fate, but the fateful appearance of those two rogue planets, Bellus, an ice giant, and Zyra, a terrestroid, and their lethal trajectory, meant that ironically, Earth would perish before Krypton exploded into radioactive fragments. Rao preserve them, he silently prayed, before reorienting his LDTT away from the besieged blue-green world to other, more promising habitable solar systems. In his birth-matrix, the infant Kal-El billed and cooed, unaware of the profound change that his father's discovery would mean for his future destiny.
Several months later, when Krypton flew asunder, a small refugee starship powered away from its immolation, toward a distant pinpoint of light. However, in Universe 808, it was headed toward another yellow sun than Sol- Delta Pavonis, which harboured a telltale jovian class gas giant of its own at a suitable distance from its yellow primary not to have interfered in terrestroid planet formation and which had thus yielded Minos, a terrestroid with two large captured asteroid planetary satellites and some evidence of civilisation. It had its own fledgeling interplanetary space programme and would make an excellent home for Kal-El when he arrived there. For this Earth would not exist for long enough to have an adopted son whom they would one day call Superman.
GOTHAM CITY:
And yet, other parallels had occurred. Twenty years ago, in Gotham City on the Eastern US seaboard, the criminal Joe Chill shot and killed Thomas and Martha Wayne, orphaning their young son Bruce and setting in motion the inexorable series of events that would lead ultimately to a batwinged figure swinging through the skyline of the besieged great metropolitan city. But on this Earth, he had arrived too late for Dick Grayson, who had perished with John and Mary Grayson after Boss Zucco's henchman sabotaged their trapeze to lethal effect. Without the steadying influence of the deceased young man who would never be Robin on this Earth, Batman grew steadily darker and more ruthless as time went on. He never relented and while the Gotham City Police Department applauded his actions, official policy was that he was a vigilante. However, given that that vigilante had saved the lives of numerous GCPD police officers on numerous occasions, his apprehension was not a priority. On the day that the existence of Bellus and Zyra and their probable trajectory was announced, however, Batman found himself staring up into the skies above, wondering to what effect his sacrifices and prowess might ultimately have, faced with an apparently random, meaningless cosmos that would snuff out most life on Earth when Bellus shattered it only two years from now.
WASHINGTON DC:
Her name was Princess Diana of Themiscyra and she had journeyed from her paradisiacal island home to bring justice and peace to Patriarch's World as a Wonder Woman. Her homeland's Amazonian scientists had long been aware of their planet's fate and possessed the ability to flee it long in advance. When Captain Steven Trevor had arrived on the isolated, concealed community, there was a moment of fierce debate between Princess Diana and her mother Queen Hippolyta over the imminent departure of the Amazon starship Hestia for resettlement on the twin habitable worlds of Athena and Aphrodite in the Epsilon Indi planetary system. Resultantly, when the starship cleared the terrain of Themiscyra and climbed into the evening sky, she wished her mother and sisters Hera's blessing. She did not stop watching until the vessel activated stardrive and left Earth's solar system forever. Then she turned, wondering how she could save as many people from the imminent apocalypse that threatened to devour the rest of this world's population in its grim maw.
While those are known quantities, the other members of this ensemble cast may surprise some of our readers...
CENTRAL CITY:
"Captain Zero, I assume?" At Batman's inquiry, a hooded figure slowly materialised before him:
"What do you want, Bruce?"
"Lee, it's time we put aside our differences and joined together, or this world is doomed."
"What can I do? I'm able to turn invisible, but I don't have your fighting prowess or the Amazon's strength."
"But you do have scientific expertise."
"So did that police scientist, Barry Allen, "Escape Velocity." And look what good his superspeed did him. The chemical exposure that caused his abilities also proved toxic, turning him into a serial killer. He was a friend, Bruce. It still hurts to think about him. All right. Who else do you have in mind for this Salvation Society of yours?"
LAKOTA CITY:
"Human Meteor?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Mr O'Dowd, we have need of your extraordinary strength, speed and flight capabilities."
"Didn't they tell you, broad? I resigned. I failed to save the woman I loved and I realised I'm not cut out for this save the world stuff."
"Daniel, with the world threatened by those two rogue planets, humanity needs a Salvation Society to enable as many people as possible to flee beforehand."
"Go tell it to the Bronson Project. Although they're not interested in us everyday joes and janes, are they, lady? Only a self-serving, selfish elite, leaving the rest of us to die."
"Daniel, would it surprise you to learn that I actually agree with you? And you're right- it is profoundly immoral to save only a tiny handful of individuals while leaving the vast majority to perish when Bellus hits Earth eight months from now. And incidentally, don't call me 'broad'. I'm Wonder Woman."
"Yeah, I've heard of you. Oh, all right. So what's your plan?"
HUB CITY:
"Elizabeth Bates?"
The veiled and masked woman whirled:
"Bruce Wayne? Is it you under that outfit?"
The caped detective raised an eyebrow: "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You're a formidable reporter. How long have you known?"
"For the last five years, since you started operating. Don't worry, I can keep a secret, as long as you keep mine."
"We need the Veiled Avenger, particularly her ability for espionage on the other side of the Iron Curtain."
"What makes you think the Soviets will be able to get any of their people to safety, Bruce? They're not exactly dab hands at science."
"Because, Elizabeth, I can't do this alone."
"Is this the Batman I hear talking? The consummate rugged, two fisted individualist?"
"Come off it, Elizabeth. We learnt the same things under the same sensei before starting our careers. You work alone too."
"It's all right, Bruce. You don't need to convince me. I'll come along quietly. So, what else?"
"Wonder Woman and I are putting together a group of masked adventurers to help save as much of humanity as we can. A "Salvation Society", if you will."
"Count me in. The Amazon, eh?"
MOSCOW:
At which point, affairs took a drastic and unexpected turn in Moscow. In other alternate universes, Josef Stalin would have passed away in 1953. However, here, Laurenty Beria took a good look at Stalin's invective fueled rant about capitalist machinations, decided that the survival of the Soviet Union could not be placed in the hands of this man any longer and slipped a fast-acting toxin into his Premier's vodka. Then he had Malenkov arrested and assumed control of the USSR himself, offering the startled President Truman co-operation in saving all humanity from the doom that otherwise awaited them.
WASHINGTON:
In Washington DC, Batman and the Veiled Avenger broke down the door of a startled Senator Joseph MacCarthy:
"Mind explaining this, Senator?" As the Veiled Avenger screened a microfilm reel disclosing his KGB sleeper allegiances, the sweating corpulent alcoholic figure cowered:
"It's not what it looks like..."
"Really? Because it looks like you used to work for Uncle Joe rather than Uncle Sam. And you were going to sow dissension and paranoia to disunite Americans who happen to care about a just and decent world. We'll release this to the media unless you resign, Senator. Is that clear?"
"Damn you. Hoover assured me that I'd be-" He blanched, realising that he'd suddenly and inadvertantly exposed deep collusion. Shakily, he sat down as the two crimefighters left his private domicile.
Wonder Woman turned up at the Federal Bureau of Investigation offices shortly afterward:
"Director Hoover? We need to talk."
"I've just been told that Senator MacCarthy has resigned. What is the meaning of this, Wonder Woman?"
"Given that humanity itself faces extinction if we do not unify our resources for the common global good, this is no time to be playing facile anti-communist political games, Mr Hoover. You will cease any such operations now, Director. Otherwise I will disclose the true nature of the relationship between you and Clyde Tolson."
"No! I'll be ruined, I-"
"Understand I am an Amazon and I do not stigmatise you for your choice of relationship or intimate partner. However, your own venality has doomed you. Step down and cease your fearmongering now. The United States cannot afford it and nor can humanity."
And with those obstacles removed, President Truman gratefully accepted Premier Beria's offer. As Bellus and Zyra grew relentlessly in the night skies and then became visible during daytime, the Salvation Society assisted in humanitarian operations across global borders, enabling the construction of a vast fleet of spaceships that would ferry the vast majority of humanity across space to a new planetary home. And thus, as thunder and lightning, earthquakes and tidal waves convulsed the globe on that dark day humanity lost its first home, an armada of vessels arose from the embattled and doomed planet's surface, away from the threatened doomsday that had once heralded the extinction of the species. And then, as Bellus drew closer, it shattered the Moon into incandescent fragments and the Earth's surface became molten and superheated, its crust and mantle distended by the gravitational stress from the ice giant. From space, safe and impervious to the final drama hundreds of thousands of miles below them, humanity watched as the Earth shattered and erupted into oblivion, to tears and cries of horror and revulsion at the grim spectacle. Mercifully, however, only a few hundred thousand religious fanatics and political extremists had failed to heed the warning and had resultantly perished. Finally, though, the information came through that they had long awaited and hoped for. The cataclysm had resulted in the cessation of gravitational adhesion between Bellus and Zyra and the pristine new terrestroid planet now assumed a congruent orbit to that of the now vanished Earth and its lost Moon. With no residual micro-organisms on its surface, Zyra was free to become humanity's second planetary home, and it did. Their job done, the Salvation Society disbanded, and some of its members married and raised families on their new world. As the decades and centuries passed, though, the feat of humanity, compassion, mercy and perseverance that had saved an entire species would never be extinguished.
THE END [4.25 PM, 7 December, 2022]