Post by redsycorax on Jun 16, 2023 4:54:30 GMT
Earth-718 was an accursed desolation, hanging empty and irradiated in its solar system. It had experienced the fiery immolation of all life upon it when US President Lex Luthor, whose brain was melded with the soulless machiavellean Coluan AI Brainiac, decided to leave his world and because he had tired of even the pretence of humanity. Accordingly, he had summoned Brainiac's former saucer after venturing out on the lifeless, intensely radioactive boneyard that now covered the whole of his world. And that might have been the end of it, except the Presence saved the consciousness of his ex-wife Lana Lang and transformed her into her universe's iteration of the Spectre.
It is now several years after World War Omega obliterated all life on Earth-718.
++
PERVADA-718:
Pervada was a planet that orbited a binary pair of white subgiants, somewhat hotter than our own sun, but compensated for it through being in its more distant habitable orbital zone. The Pervadans had a unitary planetary culture and their civilisation had endured for several thousand years. Its inhabitants bore some resemblance to ichthyoid reptiles, which had returned to the land and gradually evolved bipedalism, opposable thumbs on articulated hands, fire, architecture, religion and civilisations. Accordingly, they then mastered airborne flight, interplanetary travel to its satellites and neighbouring worlds within its planetary system and finally, across the void to its nearest interstellar neighbours. Therefore, it could track what had happened to numerous other worlds within its globular cluster, for its interstellar neighbourhood was ominously silent. From the remains of those cultures, the Pervadans learnt about the dread technotyrant Brainiac and its malevolent pursuit of instrumental knowledge, with no interest in preserving sapient life, but only exploiting or analysing it. Like some distant and merciless secular deity, Brainiac caused stellar eruptions to evaluate their consequences on the surrounding planetary systems, flung antimatter asteroids onto inhabited planets or planetary satellites and vivisected the beings that it found on the worlds that it laid waste to. Its hypotheses, methodologies and outcomes were drenched in blood and ichor. Earth had not been its first target, nor would it be its last. That it now wore a human body was a mere biographical detail, for nothing human remained within its mind.
And then, one dreadful night, as High Chancellor Arktys read to their heir Gynith, their personal assistant burst into the sleeping chamber:
"Your Excellency! The results have been computed and there is no longer any doubt."
"You will be silent in front of the heir. Now, walk alongside me and tell me of our scientists findings."
"Yes, Your Excellency. The observations have been made and their outcomes have been verified. They all match what we have found on the charnel worlds throughout the Origin Cluster where our planetary system and its neighbours are located. There is no more room for doubt. The Brainiac will soon be upon us in our turn."
Bleakly, High Chancellor Arktys thought of their hatchling and heir Gynith, sleeping the fatigue of the industrious and innocent. In a whisper, they asked:
"How long do we have, Antyop, before this doomsday falls upon us?"
As they looked at their retainer, Antyop looked down, delivering a death sentence on a world of peace and abundance, a civilisation at peace for millennia:
"We have no time. The Brainiac entered our planetary system this morning and crossed the orbit of the adjacent ice giant Dyspiter a mere two hours ago. As we speak, it is entering orbit around Pervada itself."
"Prostrate yourself before Ashtaia the Almighty, Antyop, and go to Her Embrace cleansed." Arktys said in little more than a whisper as, high above, Brainiac began to rain actinic missiles down on Pervada's beautiful, crystalline cities. And then, Brainiac became aware that he was no longer alone:
"Hello, Lex. It's been a long time."
Brainiac's mind evaluated what it saw in front of it. Although it had a humanoid outline, it emanated strange and eldritch energies. But the voice was all too familiar. Brainiac's intellect told him that it could not be her, that Lex Luthor's estranged First Lady and wife Lana Lang had perished in Metropolis when her corrupted husband began its cascade of murder and malevolence on the planet around it. She had been incinerated. This was some simulacra or metamorph impostor. It could not be her. But as the amalgam of Lex Luthor and Brainiac worried at the newfound intruder's troubling presence and biometric configuration, it became cognisant of the power it wielded:
"Lana?"
"You can call me the Spectre now, Lex. That's what I am, the ghost of the billions you slaughtered made a coherent entity and empowered to halt you in your murderous tracks. You do not get to lay waste to any other world. I will stop you. I will destroy you if necessary."
"You mistake me for someone else, Mrs Luthor, Spectre, whatever your title is. Lex Luthor is the shell that I inhabit, nothing more."
"That's not the point. Your obscene misdeeds have caught the attention of the Presence Itself. Whether you are Lex Luthor, Brainiac, or some abject fusion of both creatures, I do not care. Leave this planetary system."
"If you have the power to stop me, then use it."
"No. I am not an architect of grim and merciless revenge. Merely extinguishing your foul existence from this universe is not enough. I am your balance and nemesis, Lex. And with that..." The Spectre gestured and instantly, the rain of subatomic death missiles still en route to Pervada's planetary surgface vanished into oblivion. An instant later, the Luthor-Brainiac fusion found itself in a terrifying void:
"Intergalactic space. There isn't even a interstellar dust particle for billions of light years. And as you may notice, I've wiped your navigational systems."
"You do realise that I have a twelfth level intelligence?"
"So use it. And incidentally, I've shifted you in time as well. I would say farewell, but this will only delay you."
And with that, the Spectre turned to depart and faded from Luthor/Brainiac's bridge. The part of the compound entity that was still Lex Luthor wanted to scream his defiance at his newfound nemesis, but Brainiac's icy resolution took over. He knelt over the bridge's circuitry and examined what had been done to it. The entity recognised that it would take several years to synthesise replacement componentry for his vessel and its liquidated sensor array from his design and manufacture facilities elsewhere in the saucer. That would be an inconvenience, although the Spectre could have destroyed his ability to create replacement componentry. Why hadn't she done so? Why hadn't she simply erased him from existence as he had tried to do to her when he was still Lex Luthor alone? And then the compound entity deduced that she was toying with him. It meant that she was able to do so, but would exist from this point onward, to frustrate his every intent and strategy. That thought caused the entity a moment of unease, then its Brainiac settings took over as he prepared the long and arduous process of resurrecting his damaged vessel, no matter how long it would take.
EPILOGUE:
Fifty years later, the task was complete, but the entity had a new problem once its sensors had been repaired. There was literally nothing out there. No interstellar dust, no extragalactic planetoids, planetary systems or rogue planets, no light from adjacent galaxies or local groups, not even residual radiation traces that would enable him to provide navigational correction. It deduced that therefore, it must be in deepest space, within one of the intergalactic voids. One thought from its Luthor memories occurred to it- if this lack of intergalactic matter was the case, then this might well be the KBC supervoid, which meant that the Local Group of galaxies that contained the Milky Way Galaxy and Andromeda must logically be in some direction. Even so, it would take hundreds of millions of years to make its way to the vicinity of its galaxy of origin.
And, unfortunately, given her discarnate nature, the Spectre would still be there, awaiting its return, and would have accumulated aeons more combat and strategic experience. He did not relish the thought of renewing their acquaintance. However, that had to wait- it needed to calculate whether its hypothesis about its current location in the KBC supervoid was correct, and if so. where the best location for its return to the Milky Way lay. Grimly, it set to work on its chosen task.
Several hundred million light years away, the Spectre smiled to herself. The Pervadan Commonwealth now provided an interstellar medical hub that served hundreds of thousands of sapient species across the Milky Way, in numerous specialised artificial environments that simulated their native biospheres. Sparing the victims of the compound entity's cruelty and sadistic experimentation had benefited untold trillions of sentients, in addition to saving the Pervadans themselves from genocide. It might have been her first success against the Brainiac/Luthor compound entity, but it would not be the last. Whatever else it might envisage, she swore to be present to stop it in its tracks.
THE END [1.10 PM, JUNE 17, 2023]
It is now several years after World War Omega obliterated all life on Earth-718.
++
PERVADA-718:
Pervada was a planet that orbited a binary pair of white subgiants, somewhat hotter than our own sun, but compensated for it through being in its more distant habitable orbital zone. The Pervadans had a unitary planetary culture and their civilisation had endured for several thousand years. Its inhabitants bore some resemblance to ichthyoid reptiles, which had returned to the land and gradually evolved bipedalism, opposable thumbs on articulated hands, fire, architecture, religion and civilisations. Accordingly, they then mastered airborne flight, interplanetary travel to its satellites and neighbouring worlds within its planetary system and finally, across the void to its nearest interstellar neighbours. Therefore, it could track what had happened to numerous other worlds within its globular cluster, for its interstellar neighbourhood was ominously silent. From the remains of those cultures, the Pervadans learnt about the dread technotyrant Brainiac and its malevolent pursuit of instrumental knowledge, with no interest in preserving sapient life, but only exploiting or analysing it. Like some distant and merciless secular deity, Brainiac caused stellar eruptions to evaluate their consequences on the surrounding planetary systems, flung antimatter asteroids onto inhabited planets or planetary satellites and vivisected the beings that it found on the worlds that it laid waste to. Its hypotheses, methodologies and outcomes were drenched in blood and ichor. Earth had not been its first target, nor would it be its last. That it now wore a human body was a mere biographical detail, for nothing human remained within its mind.
And then, one dreadful night, as High Chancellor Arktys read to their heir Gynith, their personal assistant burst into the sleeping chamber:
"Your Excellency! The results have been computed and there is no longer any doubt."
"You will be silent in front of the heir. Now, walk alongside me and tell me of our scientists findings."
"Yes, Your Excellency. The observations have been made and their outcomes have been verified. They all match what we have found on the charnel worlds throughout the Origin Cluster where our planetary system and its neighbours are located. There is no more room for doubt. The Brainiac will soon be upon us in our turn."
Bleakly, High Chancellor Arktys thought of their hatchling and heir Gynith, sleeping the fatigue of the industrious and innocent. In a whisper, they asked:
"How long do we have, Antyop, before this doomsday falls upon us?"
As they looked at their retainer, Antyop looked down, delivering a death sentence on a world of peace and abundance, a civilisation at peace for millennia:
"We have no time. The Brainiac entered our planetary system this morning and crossed the orbit of the adjacent ice giant Dyspiter a mere two hours ago. As we speak, it is entering orbit around Pervada itself."
"Prostrate yourself before Ashtaia the Almighty, Antyop, and go to Her Embrace cleansed." Arktys said in little more than a whisper as, high above, Brainiac began to rain actinic missiles down on Pervada's beautiful, crystalline cities. And then, Brainiac became aware that he was no longer alone:
"Hello, Lex. It's been a long time."
Brainiac's mind evaluated what it saw in front of it. Although it had a humanoid outline, it emanated strange and eldritch energies. But the voice was all too familiar. Brainiac's intellect told him that it could not be her, that Lex Luthor's estranged First Lady and wife Lana Lang had perished in Metropolis when her corrupted husband began its cascade of murder and malevolence on the planet around it. She had been incinerated. This was some simulacra or metamorph impostor. It could not be her. But as the amalgam of Lex Luthor and Brainiac worried at the newfound intruder's troubling presence and biometric configuration, it became cognisant of the power it wielded:
"Lana?"
"You can call me the Spectre now, Lex. That's what I am, the ghost of the billions you slaughtered made a coherent entity and empowered to halt you in your murderous tracks. You do not get to lay waste to any other world. I will stop you. I will destroy you if necessary."
"You mistake me for someone else, Mrs Luthor, Spectre, whatever your title is. Lex Luthor is the shell that I inhabit, nothing more."
"That's not the point. Your obscene misdeeds have caught the attention of the Presence Itself. Whether you are Lex Luthor, Brainiac, or some abject fusion of both creatures, I do not care. Leave this planetary system."
"If you have the power to stop me, then use it."
"No. I am not an architect of grim and merciless revenge. Merely extinguishing your foul existence from this universe is not enough. I am your balance and nemesis, Lex. And with that..." The Spectre gestured and instantly, the rain of subatomic death missiles still en route to Pervada's planetary surgface vanished into oblivion. An instant later, the Luthor-Brainiac fusion found itself in a terrifying void:
"Intergalactic space. There isn't even a interstellar dust particle for billions of light years. And as you may notice, I've wiped your navigational systems."
"You do realise that I have a twelfth level intelligence?"
"So use it. And incidentally, I've shifted you in time as well. I would say farewell, but this will only delay you."
And with that, the Spectre turned to depart and faded from Luthor/Brainiac's bridge. The part of the compound entity that was still Lex Luthor wanted to scream his defiance at his newfound nemesis, but Brainiac's icy resolution took over. He knelt over the bridge's circuitry and examined what had been done to it. The entity recognised that it would take several years to synthesise replacement componentry for his vessel and its liquidated sensor array from his design and manufacture facilities elsewhere in the saucer. That would be an inconvenience, although the Spectre could have destroyed his ability to create replacement componentry. Why hadn't she done so? Why hadn't she simply erased him from existence as he had tried to do to her when he was still Lex Luthor alone? And then the compound entity deduced that she was toying with him. It meant that she was able to do so, but would exist from this point onward, to frustrate his every intent and strategy. That thought caused the entity a moment of unease, then its Brainiac settings took over as he prepared the long and arduous process of resurrecting his damaged vessel, no matter how long it would take.
EPILOGUE:
Fifty years later, the task was complete, but the entity had a new problem once its sensors had been repaired. There was literally nothing out there. No interstellar dust, no extragalactic planetoids, planetary systems or rogue planets, no light from adjacent galaxies or local groups, not even residual radiation traces that would enable him to provide navigational correction. It deduced that therefore, it must be in deepest space, within one of the intergalactic voids. One thought from its Luthor memories occurred to it- if this lack of intergalactic matter was the case, then this might well be the KBC supervoid, which meant that the Local Group of galaxies that contained the Milky Way Galaxy and Andromeda must logically be in some direction. Even so, it would take hundreds of millions of years to make its way to the vicinity of its galaxy of origin.
And, unfortunately, given her discarnate nature, the Spectre would still be there, awaiting its return, and would have accumulated aeons more combat and strategic experience. He did not relish the thought of renewing their acquaintance. However, that had to wait- it needed to calculate whether its hypothesis about its current location in the KBC supervoid was correct, and if so. where the best location for its return to the Milky Way lay. Grimly, it set to work on its chosen task.
Several hundred million light years away, the Spectre smiled to herself. The Pervadan Commonwealth now provided an interstellar medical hub that served hundreds of thousands of sapient species across the Milky Way, in numerous specialised artificial environments that simulated their native biospheres. Sparing the victims of the compound entity's cruelty and sadistic experimentation had benefited untold trillions of sentients, in addition to saving the Pervadans themselves from genocide. It might have been her first success against the Brainiac/Luthor compound entity, but it would not be the last. Whatever else it might envisage, she swore to be present to stop it in its tracks.
THE END [1.10 PM, JUNE 17, 2023]