Post by redsycorax on Sept 8, 2018 0:53:27 GMT
Eight billion years ago, around a red dwarf sun, a superearth terrestroid planet later named Krypton by its inhabitants emerged from churning interstellar dust and debris. Rich in elemental bounty, its gold volcano and jewelled mountains were wonders of the Milky Way Galaxy where it resided. Over time, it evolved humanoid life, which formed nations and fought wars against one another, until a planetary government ruled by a technocracy took executive power. And then, one day, a scientist, Jor-El, discovered that their world was apparently doomed due to accumulated uranium concentration at its very core. On many alternate Kryptons, that sealed that planet's fate.
There was always something oddly structured about the particular alternate universe in which Earth-27 and Krypton-27 were both situated. For example, the long dead Empire of the Peoples of Wo had created nova inducers but their civilisation and species had been extinct for millions of years. However, they detected Sol and its retinue of planets and their corrupted circuits changed course to shoot them into the star. Once inserted, miniature white holes began to emerge, spewing out heavy elements and interstellar debris, artificially ageing the star before its time. Their stealth capabilities meant that they provided deceptive readings for any spectrographic analysis of that star from Earth, until one day in the thirties when astrophysicist Samuel Lane took a look at one set.
They were anomalous, so he repeated them after resetting his spectography analyser. He swallowed hard. There could be no doubt. Billions of years before it was supposed to do so, during its main sequence phase, the Sun would explode into a nova, obliterating all nine of its known planets. It was fortunate, then, that Lane was a prodigious physicist and had access to experimental propulsion and construction materials as the United States prepared for a second global war which would never take place on this world.
One dark day, he rechecked his data. The Sun was roiling and the time of its detonation had accelerated to imminent. But only the untested prototype was ready. Taking his wife Ella in his arms, he kissed his infant daughter Lois goodbye as the prototype vehicle rode its post-Einsteinian powerbeam out of the solar system at translight speeds. As it cleared Pluto's orbit, the sun exploded. Eight minutes later, the shockwave blew Earth apart.
Originally, three distinct iterations of the planet Krypton had avoided the destruction of their world and civilisation that had occurred elsewhere in the multiverse. During the process of Infinite Crisis and the re-emergence of the multiverse, Krypton-27 was born as an amalgam of those three prior alternate realities. On one of them, Jor-El had designed damper rods that prevented the dangerous escalation of accumulated fissile materials at Krypton's core. His son, Kal-El of Kryptonopolis, later became the Green Lantern of Sector 7813 when a dying Tomar-Re landed on Krypton after a battle with the Green Lantern Corps nemesis Sinestro.
On another, Jor-El had simply been wrong. Kal-El's rocket was en route by this time, until intercepted. With Jor-El and Lara onhand, Kal-El grew to adolescence and adulthood. En route his parents had another son, Zal-El. However, tragically, his parents and brother were killed in an aircar accident when his brother was only seven revolutions of Krypton around Rao. Kal-El laterly became the friend and confidante of Professor Xan-Du, who fought crime as Futuro with technological assistance and pharmacological enhancement.
On the third, the infant Lois Lane landed on Krypton near the suburb of Kryptonville, where Jor-El and Lara had relocated as a result of his succesful prevention of the stressors and consequent loss of life and infrastructure that had resulted from the upsurge in vulcanism and seismic activity. On a long distance tachyonic satellite relay, they witnessed the tragedy of Earth's demise from the nova. Jor-El was puzzled to witness a tiny speck escaping seconds before the superheated firestorm of volatilised plasma erupted across Earth, wiping out its life, civilisations and the once-dominant species in the blink of an eye or pulse of neuron and synapse. At least it had happened too quickly for anyone to have experienced pain from their abrupt incineration, he reasoned. He had no way of knowing that the events of that tragic day would directly affect his world and particularly, his own family.
Wiped out during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, the events of the Infinite Crisis undid that forced fusion and yet consolidated those three surviving Kryptons into one coherent timeline and history. Thus, Lois Lane landed on Krypton, her molecular biology altered by her powerbeam transit, to become Supermaid, while Xan-Du became Futuro while Sinestro mortally wounded Tomar-Re and Kal-El became Green Lantern. But other events still occurred as their respective timelines had originally unfolded, while others were significantly modified.
As time went on, Supermaid (known as Kandi Khan in her Kryptonian civilian identity) grew to adolescence and lost her zookeeper adoptive parents in a Virus X outbreak in the Scarlet Jungle and moved to Kryptonopolis to train as a doctor. She met Jor-El and discovered her vulnerability to orange isomorphic radioactive fragments of her perished homeworld, Earthite. Curious as to why the Sol nova hadn't vaporised Earth completely, Jor-El told her that the nova had caused intensive gravitational and spaciotemporal stresses beforehand and Earth had disintegrated into fragments shortly before the plasma storm from the nova hit it, leading to accelerated departure of Earthite debris into interstellar space, and some further dissemination through wormholes. Kal-El fell for Supermaid, although he had a romantic rival in Len-Dor, a fellow Kryptonville resident. But Len-Dor moved off to Kandor for astronaut training as Krypton resumed its space programme. Then, one day, Tomar-Re fell from the carmine skies above Krypton, dying, and bequeathed his power ring to the ideal local candidate- Kal-El of Krypton.
It was then that Krypton entered the period of its history called the 'Time of Troubles.' While Kal-El was away, patrolling elsewhere in Sector 7813, Jor-El was examining the ancient ruins of Xan in the Scarlet Jungle. At that point, the Scarlet Jungle had one of its periodic Virus X outbreaks, but this one was a virulent new strain, which would kill seven hundred thousand Kryptonians. As the anti-space backlash caused by Jax-Ur's ill-advised missile test destruction of Wegthor diminished, Krypton's space programme and interstellar trade began to affect its society and economy. A thriving mercantile starport opened up in the Wegthor ring, looking outward from Krypton, and the influx of new interstellar import goods caused unemployment and a surge in Erkol hell-blossom and deathsalt narcotics. Given their technological prowess, Vathlo Island ended its long period of autonomy from Krypton's planetary federation and joined as a full member, and its immigrants significantly prospered in Krypton's new economy. Embittered by these social and economic changes, criminality and social tensions began to rise, and the sinister Old Krypton arose on the one hand. At the same time, there was a reaction against the Phantom Zone's long-term incarceration of major criminals.
Lara Lor-Van was affected by this nativism, although she would have denied it. Given her family's association with Supermaid, she did not regard herself as a xenophobe. However, she did resent her son Kal-El's long-term absences from his native world, and estrangement grew between mother and son over his Green Lantern responsibilities. In Kandor, a terrorist bomb ended the life of Kara and Alura In-Ze Zor-El, further fracturing the already divided House of El. It wasn't all hardship and pain, though- Supermaid prevented the incursion of the alien renegade AI Brainiac, causing his own Phantom Zone imprisonment, and her discovery that there were other survivors of her homeworld- the bottled city of London, henceforth to reside in her orbital fortress.
As Xan-Du discovered his metahumanity formula and became Futuro, so a couple of Kandorian entrepreneurs, Kal-El's cousin Van-Zee and his research assistant, rehabilitated former Phantom Zone denizen Ak-Var, decided to combat Kandor's crime rate and became Nightwing and Flamebird, the city's "dynamic duo," as they were named in the popular media.
Despite its growing internal tensions, life on Krypton settled down as Supermaid, Futuro, Green Lantern, Nightwing and Flamebird formed the Adjudication Network of Krypton. Then, one day, Len-Dor was conducting a patrol through the debris field of Earth's distant former solar system. Abruptly, the vessel ceased contact. With a heart full of fear, Supermaid accelerated toward her homeworld's interstellar graveyard, accompanied by Green Lantern- unaware that their lives were about to change forever.
As they sped past the polychromatic hues of the Sol Nebula and the broken remains of its outer planets, Supermaid looked wistful: "Apparently, that one...I think it was called Saturn or something like that...had rings, like Haron, the ice giant in Krypton's planetary system. Only Haron is much smaller, more like the former size of the two former ice giant husks we passed when we entered this solar system."
Kal-El asked: "Any feelings of queaziness or weakness?"
"None whatsoever. Remember, my molecular biology was permanently altered by the powerbeam that sent me to Krypton and made me metahuman. That was independent of any of the gravitational or electromagnetic qualities of the Sol system, before or after it went nova."
"Uh, Kandi...the transuit?"
"It's fine, Kal. The allotropic silver molecules inside it are filtering out any Earthite that we're encountering en route. The dosage meter says that it's minimal at this distance, anyway. The debris will be greater insystem...or should I say, what's left of it."
"To think, this could have been Krypton. From what we were told by those Terrans from elsewhere in the multiverse, this is the condition of countless alternate Kryptons, more or less."
"Not as long as I live or breathe, Kal. I may have been powerless to prevent the tragedy that happened here and destroyed the homeworld I never really knew, but...what?"
"There it is- Sol. Or what's left of it. A neutron star. No, that can't be right. That would only be the case if it were a red giant."
"According to theories of interstellar development, exactly. Except that went wrong in the case of Sol, Earth and the planetary system that once existed here. Any anomalous readings?"
Kal shook his head in disbelief: "Yes. Yes, there are. Ancient galactic imperial technology from a long-dead realm on the other side of the Milky Way. The Empire of the Peoples of Wo. But that was all located and neutralised millennia ago, according to the information that the Guardians of Oa have provided me with in the power ring's database."
"You're saying this was deliberate?! That my world was destroyed intentionally, through deliberate malice and genocide?!"
"That's not all. Remember what happened when my father Jor-El was recovered from the Scarlet Jungle?"
"Those cerebral lesions, you mean?"
"What if Krypton's survival in our universe was the product of deliberate intervention as well?"
Supermaid frowned:
"That doesn't make sense. Why would any sane sentient higher life form obliterate one world but save another? That implies insanity, or dissension and civil war if it's a species that was responsible for this."
Abruptly, there was a squawk from their telepathic plugs:
"Xan?"
"We've just received word from Oa. There has been a massive influx of metahuman Kryptonians attacking G class stellar worlds. Dressed in old Kryptonian fashions three decades old. And some of them are dopplegangers for natives of our own world, Kal."
"Alternate Krypton?"
"Come on, let's get out of here. And see what the hell's wrong with our sector of the multiverse.'
Krypton-218.
Like many other Kryptons within the multiverse apart from Krypton 27, this world was obliterated by the explosion of cumulative volatile radioactive heavy elements at its core. However, unlike others, events took a sudden turn only two years before that world's fiery immolation. One evening, astrophysicist Jax-Ur was on the way home from his work at the Kryptonopolis Observatory when his aircar developed a sudden mechanical fault. At an intersection, its locking mechanism malfunctioned, its antigrav drive ceased and Jax-Ur fell to the ground, dying in a matter of instants.
Because of this unexpected end, there was no reckless missile launch and no inadvertant destruction of Wegthor, Krypton's largest, most distant satellite. Resultantly, the Science Council elections did not bring the advent of anti-space, xenophobic conservative elements, and when Jor-El warned them about the imminent destruction of their homeworld, they conducted geological analyses of their own- and discovered the truth of his claims. Because Wegthor hadn't been destroyed in this timeline and hadn't contributed to accelerated planetary core instability, Krypton had several months of grace as an intensive starship assembly programme got underway. When the planet finally erupted into radioactive ruin, it was virtually uninhabited as its former inhabitants accelerated away.
Unfortunately, they chose to resettle on Earth, and old errors reasserted themselves. Soon, the new Kryptonian immigrants became colonialists, displacing the indigenous inhabitants, but not without polarising the Kryptonian population. Jor-El defected to the Terran resistance, led a successful rebellion and his Kryptonian counterparts fled the planet. At the very end, he faced the sinister Mistress of New Kandor, Lara Lor-Van and their 'son.' Kal-El. He had no option- Jor-El killed him. Embittered, Lara fled Earth. And then the refugee inhabitants of Krypton-218 discovered the multiverse and in particular, Krypton-27.
En route to the portal from which Krypton-218's invaders had penetrated their universe, Supermaid and Kal-El/Green Lantern ran into a hideous reminder of what was going wrong with their world. "Len? Len-Dor?!!"
She accelerated ahead of Kal-El, toward the ruined hull and interior of the Kryptonian exploratory vessel and inside it, hoping that she wouldn't find what she did. But fate was not on her side: "Kal! Kal, his helmet's smashed!"
As he formed a protective sphere around them, Supermaid's microscopic vision scanned the Kryptonian astronaut for signs of life. But all to no avail. She blinked back a tear: "Who did this, Kal? Any traces?"
"Rao. Kandi, they're Kryptonians. Kryptonians did this. But not from this universe."
"Then who?! When we met those Terrans and alternate-universe Kara, their Kryptons were mostly benign advanced civilisations but they had only one or two survivors, apart from Brainiac-led incursions where either Kandor, Kryptonopolis, Jerat or Argo City were abducted and miniaturised. But this can't be them."
Kal-El nodded:
"The power ring tells me that they're from elsewhere in the multiverse. They came from a lower probability alternate universe than ours, one where the Science Council believed Jor-El and mass evacuated Krypton in time. But this Krypton was a conservative technocracy, and isolationist. It colonised Earth, pushing its native inhabitants aside. Jor-El led a resistance movement and had to kill my alternate universe counterpart, a pawn of ...no, that can't be right. Lara?! My mother's alternate self is responsible for this?!"
Supermaid nodded:
"Kal, what if...our own Krypton's Lara played a role in all this? I hate to say it, but..."
"There's no need, Kandi. She's a former astronaut herself. She has the background in astrophysics to have found a way to contact this aberrant Krypton's inhabitants. She must have contacted them, got them to come here and lay waste to G star civilisations, leaving the basis for a Kryptonian interstellar empire. Even if it means killing dissident Kryptonians who disagree with her murderous, fanatical worldview of Kryptonian supremacy and domination."
"We have to stop this somehow, Kal. Your mother's gone insane."
Parsecs distant from Krypton, Lara Lor-Van 218 looked across the interstellar void as her Kryptonian servitors awaited her signal. As she nodded, they began throwing meteoroids across the gulf toward the embattled planet.
Futuro soared above his homeworld, vaporising some of the incoming meteors with his flash-vision, but there seemed to be too many. Then, with relief, he saw Supermaid and Green Lantern returning to join him:
"Kal-El, Kandi. Watch out. There are Earthite meteors amongst the bombardment."
"I know. However, our alternate Kryptonian counterparts evidently aren't all that familiar with the history of our particular universe." Supermaid said as green lightning shot from her hands toward a large meteor, pulverising it:
"How-?"
"Purple Earthite, the rare variety that permanently affects me with unknown consequences. This time, it's turned out to be additional superpowers."
Kal-El frowned: "I see mother exalting at an Old Krypton rally down there. It's time to put an end to this romance of hers with extremism once and for all..."
Abruptly, Kal-El's power ring pulsed: "Kyle? We're kind of busy right now."
"Kal, this is urgent. You've heard about the Gentry, a group of predatory metasapients who have been attacking several alternate Earths in the multiverse?"
"Are you saying that one of them is behind Krypton-27's current problems- what with internal tension over the Phantom Zone, reactionary religious movements, anti-Vathlo racism and economic displacement caused by the advent of access to interstellar travel? Trying to exploit it?"
"That's just it, Kal. It fits the pattern, but none of the Gentry metasapients- Mr Broken, Demogorgunn, Dame Merciless, Hellmachine or Intellectron- have been seen in your universe. However, our Guardians have detected something similar in your universe. Transferring the energy trace parameters now..."
New Genesis.
Infuriated, Spindrift of the New Gods angrily pushed Lightray and Orion aside as she made straight for Highfather:
"Isn't it enough that you deliberately sacrificed Earth-2 for nothing more than concession to our weakness, Highfather, allowing Darkseid to destroy them, and then let the Anti-Monitor devastate Earth-3?! After what happened to Earth-15 during the Infinite Crisis, we should have drawn a line in the sand. Thanks to you, we've allowed the two most predatory beings in the multiverse to obliterate billions of innocents."
He held up a placatory hand: "Spindrift, I know that you had an emanation of your own on Earth-15. Dorothy Spinner of the Doom Patrol, wasn't it?"
"Don't patronise me! I've just been in touch with Oa-46. They've found traces of more Gentry, in deep cover, on Krypton-27. If you won't act, then I will."
"And provoke Darkseid and the Anti-Monitor?"
"What's happened to you, Highfather? You used to lead actively against the threat of Apokolips and Darkseid? What have you become?"
Lightray joined them: "Spindrift, who are these Gentry of whom you speak?"
"They once tried to attack me in my emanation as Dorothy Spinner while I was still incarnate. Their names are..."
Supermaid looked up from the hieroglyphic ancient Kryptonese tablet from Erkol that testified to their world's manipulation: "It refers to one of your distant ancestors, Kal- Erok the Conqueror, founder of Erkol. At one point, he confronted three metasapient beings that met the Gentry profile- Daam-Al, a declaratory patriarch; Dalyn Qum-Haan, a matriarchal order provider; and Rob-At, their flying offspring and servitor. Sounds like the myths of Oedipus on Earth."
Kal-El raised an eyebrow: "Well, odd you should say that, Kandi. There was an Oed-Yp in ancient Erkol, son of Lae-Us, who was abandoned by his father after a prophecy from the High Priestess of Dalyn that order would be transgressed and punishment would come to Erkol as a result of his family's transgression. Lae-Us tore the baby Oed-Yp from Jycaesa, his wife and abandoned it, but the baby was found and raised by others. Grown to adulthood, he encountered and slaughtered Lae-Us and then fell in love with Jycaesa, ruling Erkol together. As a result, Dalyn's prophecy and curse came true. She took great pleasure in fomenting the plague that destroyed the oldest civilisation on Krypton and in disclosing the accidental incest that Jycaesa and Oed-Yp had cultivated. Oed-Yp killed himself and Jycaesa became a nun of Mithen thereafter."
"It's more than that, Kal. It's a template. Jor-El is dead. Lara is now an embittered lone matriarch on our Krypton and became deliberately estranged from her husband to pursue her own fanatical xenophobic ideology on Earth-218. Kal-El of Krypton-218 died fighting his father. In other words, Dalyn is probably the architect of your family tragedies on both Krypton-27 and Earth-218. She wants our Krypton destroyed."
<Supermaid, Green Lantern? This is Nightwing, from the Kandor Armoury. It's your mother, Kal. She's turned demagogue at the hands of the Swords of Rao, turning the more manipulable sectors of the planetary population against the Science Council, insisting this is an alien invasion and that our "brothers and sisters" from Krypton-218 are here to save us from predatory aliens. They're rioting. And that's not all. There's a city-sized Earthite fragment headed straight for Kryptonopolis.>
Supermaid looked at the distant speck: "That's it, then. I always thought it'd be something like this."
"Kandi, don't. Even if you do sacrifice yourself, this won't end."
"Kal, what would Jor-El have said? I can't place my single life above my responsibilities to your world. Even if it means certain death. Goodbye, old friend. Look after your beautiful planet for me-"
But at that point, a ball of light and energy accelerated past them both: "Futuro?"
"Xan-Du, no! Don't do it! You don't have my degree of invulnerability, that meteor will incinerate you when it goes."
"Kandi, this has to be done, you said it yourself. And I won't let the last daughter of Earth perish at the hands of a murderous xenophobic Kryptonian. Sorry, Kal."
Kal-El shook his head:
"I can't deflect it, it's too large. But I can make sure Lara-218 and my mother are brought to justice for their crimes." With that, Kal-El/Green Lantern accelerated toward the distant armada, outside Rao's heliopause and beyond the ringed ice giant Halon, the outermost planet in Krypton's planetary system. In their own universe, there was no Green Lantern Corps and so the alternate Kryptonians were no match for Kal-El as he battered his way through particle beam strafing and mass driver rock bombardment, until he tore through the flagship of the armada.
In Kandor, Lara-27 screamed as her double was apprehended. Supermaid was busy disarming and pacifying the crowd. Fortunately, even despite the xenophobia of Old Krypton, few could bring themselves to attack the embodiment of their world's virtues and strengths. Then Lara's brow furrowed and something old and inhuman looked out from her eyes:
"Do not defy me, Terran."
"Ah, the Gentry speaks. Wasn't it enough you corrupted one Lara Lor-Van, you had to infect another virtuous if misguided elderly woman because you only saw her capacity for exploitation and manipulation? Her loneliness? Her bitterness at her husband's death? Like yours, given that I don't see Daam-Al anywhere around you?"
"You should be dead, alien. You should be flying toward that fragment of your perished homeworld."
"Because of you, monster, a good man is going to die up there. And I hate you for that. Leave her alone. Leave the House of El alone. They do not deserve this torment, any of it."
High above them, there was an eye-aching explosion as the Earthite fragment was pulverised at Futuro's hands. He sacrificed his life to save his homeworld, as Kal-El landed with the seething, murderous alternate Lara Lor-Van of Krypton-218. Supermaid brushed away a tear:
"You've both tried to overthrow Krypton's democratically elected Science Council. Given that your mother was manipulated due to grief and bewilderment at a changing world, her penalty is going to be less than that of her counterpart. However, Krypton is a signatory to the Galactic Federation's Charter of Sentients Rights. That said, Kal, she was instrumental in planning Len-Dor's murder. She'll be in the Phantom Zone for two centuries."
"I won't beg." Lara 27 said as Supermaid triggered the Phantom Zone projector and Kal-El's mother faded into the oblivion of the penal dimension alongside Krypton's other leading criminals. Kal-El turned to his mother's analogue:
"As for you, Lara 218, you are sentenced to one thousand years in the Zone. You are responsible for crimes against other sentient species on Earth-218 and attempted genocide, arbitary execution, illegal detention, overthrow of elected governments and violation of another world's sovereignty, as well as numerous acts of piracy since then. Was it worth it? Is that going to bring my alternate self back?"
Lara laughed in his face: "Weakling alien-lover. You're a disgrace to the House of El. My Kal-El was twice the man you are. He died defending Krypton's right to exist as a superior species and our right to rule over an inferior world's primitives."
Full of loathing, Kal-El said levelly: "Do it, Kandi, before I lose control and pulverise this genocidal piece of ordure."
And with that, it was over. In time, Krypton-27 passed the bottleneck in its history. It adapted to life amidst the galaxy's other inhabited worlds. The Swords of Rao fell apart as their role in Lara's coup d'etat was exposed. The anti-Zone movement was vitiated by the example of Kal-El submitting his own mother to its punishment as an example of Kryptonian impartiality and justice. But Krypton's champions had paid a heavy price. Supermaid had lost Len-Dor, the astronaut that she had once loved, her childhood friend. Kal-El had lost his mother to her own xenophobic fear and insanity and the manipulativeness of a metasapient godling. Krypton had lost Xan-Du, one of that world's greatest heroes and scientific prodigies. It was probably inevitable, however, that as on so many other worlds of the Multiverse, one night, Kal-El, Green Lantern of Sector 5417 and Kandi Kann, Lois Lane of Earth and Supermaid of Krypton, confessed their love for each other and consummated their relationship. The best of two worlds would live on in the lives and progeny of its greatest children.
THE END
There was always something oddly structured about the particular alternate universe in which Earth-27 and Krypton-27 were both situated. For example, the long dead Empire of the Peoples of Wo had created nova inducers but their civilisation and species had been extinct for millions of years. However, they detected Sol and its retinue of planets and their corrupted circuits changed course to shoot them into the star. Once inserted, miniature white holes began to emerge, spewing out heavy elements and interstellar debris, artificially ageing the star before its time. Their stealth capabilities meant that they provided deceptive readings for any spectrographic analysis of that star from Earth, until one day in the thirties when astrophysicist Samuel Lane took a look at one set.
They were anomalous, so he repeated them after resetting his spectography analyser. He swallowed hard. There could be no doubt. Billions of years before it was supposed to do so, during its main sequence phase, the Sun would explode into a nova, obliterating all nine of its known planets. It was fortunate, then, that Lane was a prodigious physicist and had access to experimental propulsion and construction materials as the United States prepared for a second global war which would never take place on this world.
One dark day, he rechecked his data. The Sun was roiling and the time of its detonation had accelerated to imminent. But only the untested prototype was ready. Taking his wife Ella in his arms, he kissed his infant daughter Lois goodbye as the prototype vehicle rode its post-Einsteinian powerbeam out of the solar system at translight speeds. As it cleared Pluto's orbit, the sun exploded. Eight minutes later, the shockwave blew Earth apart.
Originally, three distinct iterations of the planet Krypton had avoided the destruction of their world and civilisation that had occurred elsewhere in the multiverse. During the process of Infinite Crisis and the re-emergence of the multiverse, Krypton-27 was born as an amalgam of those three prior alternate realities. On one of them, Jor-El had designed damper rods that prevented the dangerous escalation of accumulated fissile materials at Krypton's core. His son, Kal-El of Kryptonopolis, later became the Green Lantern of Sector 7813 when a dying Tomar-Re landed on Krypton after a battle with the Green Lantern Corps nemesis Sinestro.
On another, Jor-El had simply been wrong. Kal-El's rocket was en route by this time, until intercepted. With Jor-El and Lara onhand, Kal-El grew to adolescence and adulthood. En route his parents had another son, Zal-El. However, tragically, his parents and brother were killed in an aircar accident when his brother was only seven revolutions of Krypton around Rao. Kal-El laterly became the friend and confidante of Professor Xan-Du, who fought crime as Futuro with technological assistance and pharmacological enhancement.
On the third, the infant Lois Lane landed on Krypton near the suburb of Kryptonville, where Jor-El and Lara had relocated as a result of his succesful prevention of the stressors and consequent loss of life and infrastructure that had resulted from the upsurge in vulcanism and seismic activity. On a long distance tachyonic satellite relay, they witnessed the tragedy of Earth's demise from the nova. Jor-El was puzzled to witness a tiny speck escaping seconds before the superheated firestorm of volatilised plasma erupted across Earth, wiping out its life, civilisations and the once-dominant species in the blink of an eye or pulse of neuron and synapse. At least it had happened too quickly for anyone to have experienced pain from their abrupt incineration, he reasoned. He had no way of knowing that the events of that tragic day would directly affect his world and particularly, his own family.
Wiped out during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, the events of the Infinite Crisis undid that forced fusion and yet consolidated those three surviving Kryptons into one coherent timeline and history. Thus, Lois Lane landed on Krypton, her molecular biology altered by her powerbeam transit, to become Supermaid, while Xan-Du became Futuro while Sinestro mortally wounded Tomar-Re and Kal-El became Green Lantern. But other events still occurred as their respective timelines had originally unfolded, while others were significantly modified.
As time went on, Supermaid (known as Kandi Khan in her Kryptonian civilian identity) grew to adolescence and lost her zookeeper adoptive parents in a Virus X outbreak in the Scarlet Jungle and moved to Kryptonopolis to train as a doctor. She met Jor-El and discovered her vulnerability to orange isomorphic radioactive fragments of her perished homeworld, Earthite. Curious as to why the Sol nova hadn't vaporised Earth completely, Jor-El told her that the nova had caused intensive gravitational and spaciotemporal stresses beforehand and Earth had disintegrated into fragments shortly before the plasma storm from the nova hit it, leading to accelerated departure of Earthite debris into interstellar space, and some further dissemination through wormholes. Kal-El fell for Supermaid, although he had a romantic rival in Len-Dor, a fellow Kryptonville resident. But Len-Dor moved off to Kandor for astronaut training as Krypton resumed its space programme. Then, one day, Tomar-Re fell from the carmine skies above Krypton, dying, and bequeathed his power ring to the ideal local candidate- Kal-El of Krypton.
It was then that Krypton entered the period of its history called the 'Time of Troubles.' While Kal-El was away, patrolling elsewhere in Sector 7813, Jor-El was examining the ancient ruins of Xan in the Scarlet Jungle. At that point, the Scarlet Jungle had one of its periodic Virus X outbreaks, but this one was a virulent new strain, which would kill seven hundred thousand Kryptonians. As the anti-space backlash caused by Jax-Ur's ill-advised missile test destruction of Wegthor diminished, Krypton's space programme and interstellar trade began to affect its society and economy. A thriving mercantile starport opened up in the Wegthor ring, looking outward from Krypton, and the influx of new interstellar import goods caused unemployment and a surge in Erkol hell-blossom and deathsalt narcotics. Given their technological prowess, Vathlo Island ended its long period of autonomy from Krypton's planetary federation and joined as a full member, and its immigrants significantly prospered in Krypton's new economy. Embittered by these social and economic changes, criminality and social tensions began to rise, and the sinister Old Krypton arose on the one hand. At the same time, there was a reaction against the Phantom Zone's long-term incarceration of major criminals.
Lara Lor-Van was affected by this nativism, although she would have denied it. Given her family's association with Supermaid, she did not regard herself as a xenophobe. However, she did resent her son Kal-El's long-term absences from his native world, and estrangement grew between mother and son over his Green Lantern responsibilities. In Kandor, a terrorist bomb ended the life of Kara and Alura In-Ze Zor-El, further fracturing the already divided House of El. It wasn't all hardship and pain, though- Supermaid prevented the incursion of the alien renegade AI Brainiac, causing his own Phantom Zone imprisonment, and her discovery that there were other survivors of her homeworld- the bottled city of London, henceforth to reside in her orbital fortress.
As Xan-Du discovered his metahumanity formula and became Futuro, so a couple of Kandorian entrepreneurs, Kal-El's cousin Van-Zee and his research assistant, rehabilitated former Phantom Zone denizen Ak-Var, decided to combat Kandor's crime rate and became Nightwing and Flamebird, the city's "dynamic duo," as they were named in the popular media.
Despite its growing internal tensions, life on Krypton settled down as Supermaid, Futuro, Green Lantern, Nightwing and Flamebird formed the Adjudication Network of Krypton. Then, one day, Len-Dor was conducting a patrol through the debris field of Earth's distant former solar system. Abruptly, the vessel ceased contact. With a heart full of fear, Supermaid accelerated toward her homeworld's interstellar graveyard, accompanied by Green Lantern- unaware that their lives were about to change forever.
As they sped past the polychromatic hues of the Sol Nebula and the broken remains of its outer planets, Supermaid looked wistful: "Apparently, that one...I think it was called Saturn or something like that...had rings, like Haron, the ice giant in Krypton's planetary system. Only Haron is much smaller, more like the former size of the two former ice giant husks we passed when we entered this solar system."
Kal-El asked: "Any feelings of queaziness or weakness?"
"None whatsoever. Remember, my molecular biology was permanently altered by the powerbeam that sent me to Krypton and made me metahuman. That was independent of any of the gravitational or electromagnetic qualities of the Sol system, before or after it went nova."
"Uh, Kandi...the transuit?"
"It's fine, Kal. The allotropic silver molecules inside it are filtering out any Earthite that we're encountering en route. The dosage meter says that it's minimal at this distance, anyway. The debris will be greater insystem...or should I say, what's left of it."
"To think, this could have been Krypton. From what we were told by those Terrans from elsewhere in the multiverse, this is the condition of countless alternate Kryptons, more or less."
"Not as long as I live or breathe, Kal. I may have been powerless to prevent the tragedy that happened here and destroyed the homeworld I never really knew, but...what?"
"There it is- Sol. Or what's left of it. A neutron star. No, that can't be right. That would only be the case if it were a red giant."
"According to theories of interstellar development, exactly. Except that went wrong in the case of Sol, Earth and the planetary system that once existed here. Any anomalous readings?"
Kal shook his head in disbelief: "Yes. Yes, there are. Ancient galactic imperial technology from a long-dead realm on the other side of the Milky Way. The Empire of the Peoples of Wo. But that was all located and neutralised millennia ago, according to the information that the Guardians of Oa have provided me with in the power ring's database."
"You're saying this was deliberate?! That my world was destroyed intentionally, through deliberate malice and genocide?!"
"That's not all. Remember what happened when my father Jor-El was recovered from the Scarlet Jungle?"
"Those cerebral lesions, you mean?"
"What if Krypton's survival in our universe was the product of deliberate intervention as well?"
Supermaid frowned:
"That doesn't make sense. Why would any sane sentient higher life form obliterate one world but save another? That implies insanity, or dissension and civil war if it's a species that was responsible for this."
Abruptly, there was a squawk from their telepathic plugs:
"Xan?"
"We've just received word from Oa. There has been a massive influx of metahuman Kryptonians attacking G class stellar worlds. Dressed in old Kryptonian fashions three decades old. And some of them are dopplegangers for natives of our own world, Kal."
"Alternate Krypton?"
"Come on, let's get out of here. And see what the hell's wrong with our sector of the multiverse.'
Krypton-218.
Like many other Kryptons within the multiverse apart from Krypton 27, this world was obliterated by the explosion of cumulative volatile radioactive heavy elements at its core. However, unlike others, events took a sudden turn only two years before that world's fiery immolation. One evening, astrophysicist Jax-Ur was on the way home from his work at the Kryptonopolis Observatory when his aircar developed a sudden mechanical fault. At an intersection, its locking mechanism malfunctioned, its antigrav drive ceased and Jax-Ur fell to the ground, dying in a matter of instants.
Because of this unexpected end, there was no reckless missile launch and no inadvertant destruction of Wegthor, Krypton's largest, most distant satellite. Resultantly, the Science Council elections did not bring the advent of anti-space, xenophobic conservative elements, and when Jor-El warned them about the imminent destruction of their homeworld, they conducted geological analyses of their own- and discovered the truth of his claims. Because Wegthor hadn't been destroyed in this timeline and hadn't contributed to accelerated planetary core instability, Krypton had several months of grace as an intensive starship assembly programme got underway. When the planet finally erupted into radioactive ruin, it was virtually uninhabited as its former inhabitants accelerated away.
Unfortunately, they chose to resettle on Earth, and old errors reasserted themselves. Soon, the new Kryptonian immigrants became colonialists, displacing the indigenous inhabitants, but not without polarising the Kryptonian population. Jor-El defected to the Terran resistance, led a successful rebellion and his Kryptonian counterparts fled the planet. At the very end, he faced the sinister Mistress of New Kandor, Lara Lor-Van and their 'son.' Kal-El. He had no option- Jor-El killed him. Embittered, Lara fled Earth. And then the refugee inhabitants of Krypton-218 discovered the multiverse and in particular, Krypton-27.
En route to the portal from which Krypton-218's invaders had penetrated their universe, Supermaid and Kal-El/Green Lantern ran into a hideous reminder of what was going wrong with their world. "Len? Len-Dor?!!"
She accelerated ahead of Kal-El, toward the ruined hull and interior of the Kryptonian exploratory vessel and inside it, hoping that she wouldn't find what she did. But fate was not on her side: "Kal! Kal, his helmet's smashed!"
As he formed a protective sphere around them, Supermaid's microscopic vision scanned the Kryptonian astronaut for signs of life. But all to no avail. She blinked back a tear: "Who did this, Kal? Any traces?"
"Rao. Kandi, they're Kryptonians. Kryptonians did this. But not from this universe."
"Then who?! When we met those Terrans and alternate-universe Kara, their Kryptons were mostly benign advanced civilisations but they had only one or two survivors, apart from Brainiac-led incursions where either Kandor, Kryptonopolis, Jerat or Argo City were abducted and miniaturised. But this can't be them."
Kal-El nodded:
"The power ring tells me that they're from elsewhere in the multiverse. They came from a lower probability alternate universe than ours, one where the Science Council believed Jor-El and mass evacuated Krypton in time. But this Krypton was a conservative technocracy, and isolationist. It colonised Earth, pushing its native inhabitants aside. Jor-El led a resistance movement and had to kill my alternate universe counterpart, a pawn of ...no, that can't be right. Lara?! My mother's alternate self is responsible for this?!"
Supermaid nodded:
"Kal, what if...our own Krypton's Lara played a role in all this? I hate to say it, but..."
"There's no need, Kandi. She's a former astronaut herself. She has the background in astrophysics to have found a way to contact this aberrant Krypton's inhabitants. She must have contacted them, got them to come here and lay waste to G star civilisations, leaving the basis for a Kryptonian interstellar empire. Even if it means killing dissident Kryptonians who disagree with her murderous, fanatical worldview of Kryptonian supremacy and domination."
"We have to stop this somehow, Kal. Your mother's gone insane."
Parsecs distant from Krypton, Lara Lor-Van 218 looked across the interstellar void as her Kryptonian servitors awaited her signal. As she nodded, they began throwing meteoroids across the gulf toward the embattled planet.
Futuro soared above his homeworld, vaporising some of the incoming meteors with his flash-vision, but there seemed to be too many. Then, with relief, he saw Supermaid and Green Lantern returning to join him:
"Kal-El, Kandi. Watch out. There are Earthite meteors amongst the bombardment."
"I know. However, our alternate Kryptonian counterparts evidently aren't all that familiar with the history of our particular universe." Supermaid said as green lightning shot from her hands toward a large meteor, pulverising it:
"How-?"
"Purple Earthite, the rare variety that permanently affects me with unknown consequences. This time, it's turned out to be additional superpowers."
Kal-El frowned: "I see mother exalting at an Old Krypton rally down there. It's time to put an end to this romance of hers with extremism once and for all..."
Abruptly, Kal-El's power ring pulsed: "Kyle? We're kind of busy right now."
"Kal, this is urgent. You've heard about the Gentry, a group of predatory metasapients who have been attacking several alternate Earths in the multiverse?"
"Are you saying that one of them is behind Krypton-27's current problems- what with internal tension over the Phantom Zone, reactionary religious movements, anti-Vathlo racism and economic displacement caused by the advent of access to interstellar travel? Trying to exploit it?"
"That's just it, Kal. It fits the pattern, but none of the Gentry metasapients- Mr Broken, Demogorgunn, Dame Merciless, Hellmachine or Intellectron- have been seen in your universe. However, our Guardians have detected something similar in your universe. Transferring the energy trace parameters now..."
New Genesis.
Infuriated, Spindrift of the New Gods angrily pushed Lightray and Orion aside as she made straight for Highfather:
"Isn't it enough that you deliberately sacrificed Earth-2 for nothing more than concession to our weakness, Highfather, allowing Darkseid to destroy them, and then let the Anti-Monitor devastate Earth-3?! After what happened to Earth-15 during the Infinite Crisis, we should have drawn a line in the sand. Thanks to you, we've allowed the two most predatory beings in the multiverse to obliterate billions of innocents."
He held up a placatory hand: "Spindrift, I know that you had an emanation of your own on Earth-15. Dorothy Spinner of the Doom Patrol, wasn't it?"
"Don't patronise me! I've just been in touch with Oa-46. They've found traces of more Gentry, in deep cover, on Krypton-27. If you won't act, then I will."
"And provoke Darkseid and the Anti-Monitor?"
"What's happened to you, Highfather? You used to lead actively against the threat of Apokolips and Darkseid? What have you become?"
Lightray joined them: "Spindrift, who are these Gentry of whom you speak?"
"They once tried to attack me in my emanation as Dorothy Spinner while I was still incarnate. Their names are..."
Supermaid looked up from the hieroglyphic ancient Kryptonese tablet from Erkol that testified to their world's manipulation: "It refers to one of your distant ancestors, Kal- Erok the Conqueror, founder of Erkol. At one point, he confronted three metasapient beings that met the Gentry profile- Daam-Al, a declaratory patriarch; Dalyn Qum-Haan, a matriarchal order provider; and Rob-At, their flying offspring and servitor. Sounds like the myths of Oedipus on Earth."
Kal-El raised an eyebrow: "Well, odd you should say that, Kandi. There was an Oed-Yp in ancient Erkol, son of Lae-Us, who was abandoned by his father after a prophecy from the High Priestess of Dalyn that order would be transgressed and punishment would come to Erkol as a result of his family's transgression. Lae-Us tore the baby Oed-Yp from Jycaesa, his wife and abandoned it, but the baby was found and raised by others. Grown to adulthood, he encountered and slaughtered Lae-Us and then fell in love with Jycaesa, ruling Erkol together. As a result, Dalyn's prophecy and curse came true. She took great pleasure in fomenting the plague that destroyed the oldest civilisation on Krypton and in disclosing the accidental incest that Jycaesa and Oed-Yp had cultivated. Oed-Yp killed himself and Jycaesa became a nun of Mithen thereafter."
"It's more than that, Kal. It's a template. Jor-El is dead. Lara is now an embittered lone matriarch on our Krypton and became deliberately estranged from her husband to pursue her own fanatical xenophobic ideology on Earth-218. Kal-El of Krypton-218 died fighting his father. In other words, Dalyn is probably the architect of your family tragedies on both Krypton-27 and Earth-218. She wants our Krypton destroyed."
<Supermaid, Green Lantern? This is Nightwing, from the Kandor Armoury. It's your mother, Kal. She's turned demagogue at the hands of the Swords of Rao, turning the more manipulable sectors of the planetary population against the Science Council, insisting this is an alien invasion and that our "brothers and sisters" from Krypton-218 are here to save us from predatory aliens. They're rioting. And that's not all. There's a city-sized Earthite fragment headed straight for Kryptonopolis.>
Supermaid looked at the distant speck: "That's it, then. I always thought it'd be something like this."
"Kandi, don't. Even if you do sacrifice yourself, this won't end."
"Kal, what would Jor-El have said? I can't place my single life above my responsibilities to your world. Even if it means certain death. Goodbye, old friend. Look after your beautiful planet for me-"
But at that point, a ball of light and energy accelerated past them both: "Futuro?"
"Xan-Du, no! Don't do it! You don't have my degree of invulnerability, that meteor will incinerate you when it goes."
"Kandi, this has to be done, you said it yourself. And I won't let the last daughter of Earth perish at the hands of a murderous xenophobic Kryptonian. Sorry, Kal."
Kal-El shook his head:
"I can't deflect it, it's too large. But I can make sure Lara-218 and my mother are brought to justice for their crimes." With that, Kal-El/Green Lantern accelerated toward the distant armada, outside Rao's heliopause and beyond the ringed ice giant Halon, the outermost planet in Krypton's planetary system. In their own universe, there was no Green Lantern Corps and so the alternate Kryptonians were no match for Kal-El as he battered his way through particle beam strafing and mass driver rock bombardment, until he tore through the flagship of the armada.
In Kandor, Lara-27 screamed as her double was apprehended. Supermaid was busy disarming and pacifying the crowd. Fortunately, even despite the xenophobia of Old Krypton, few could bring themselves to attack the embodiment of their world's virtues and strengths. Then Lara's brow furrowed and something old and inhuman looked out from her eyes:
"Do not defy me, Terran."
"Ah, the Gentry speaks. Wasn't it enough you corrupted one Lara Lor-Van, you had to infect another virtuous if misguided elderly woman because you only saw her capacity for exploitation and manipulation? Her loneliness? Her bitterness at her husband's death? Like yours, given that I don't see Daam-Al anywhere around you?"
"You should be dead, alien. You should be flying toward that fragment of your perished homeworld."
"Because of you, monster, a good man is going to die up there. And I hate you for that. Leave her alone. Leave the House of El alone. They do not deserve this torment, any of it."
High above them, there was an eye-aching explosion as the Earthite fragment was pulverised at Futuro's hands. He sacrificed his life to save his homeworld, as Kal-El landed with the seething, murderous alternate Lara Lor-Van of Krypton-218. Supermaid brushed away a tear:
"You've both tried to overthrow Krypton's democratically elected Science Council. Given that your mother was manipulated due to grief and bewilderment at a changing world, her penalty is going to be less than that of her counterpart. However, Krypton is a signatory to the Galactic Federation's Charter of Sentients Rights. That said, Kal, she was instrumental in planning Len-Dor's murder. She'll be in the Phantom Zone for two centuries."
"I won't beg." Lara 27 said as Supermaid triggered the Phantom Zone projector and Kal-El's mother faded into the oblivion of the penal dimension alongside Krypton's other leading criminals. Kal-El turned to his mother's analogue:
"As for you, Lara 218, you are sentenced to one thousand years in the Zone. You are responsible for crimes against other sentient species on Earth-218 and attempted genocide, arbitary execution, illegal detention, overthrow of elected governments and violation of another world's sovereignty, as well as numerous acts of piracy since then. Was it worth it? Is that going to bring my alternate self back?"
Lara laughed in his face: "Weakling alien-lover. You're a disgrace to the House of El. My Kal-El was twice the man you are. He died defending Krypton's right to exist as a superior species and our right to rule over an inferior world's primitives."
Full of loathing, Kal-El said levelly: "Do it, Kandi, before I lose control and pulverise this genocidal piece of ordure."
And with that, it was over. In time, Krypton-27 passed the bottleneck in its history. It adapted to life amidst the galaxy's other inhabited worlds. The Swords of Rao fell apart as their role in Lara's coup d'etat was exposed. The anti-Zone movement was vitiated by the example of Kal-El submitting his own mother to its punishment as an example of Kryptonian impartiality and justice. But Krypton's champions had paid a heavy price. Supermaid had lost Len-Dor, the astronaut that she had once loved, her childhood friend. Kal-El had lost his mother to her own xenophobic fear and insanity and the manipulativeness of a metasapient godling. Krypton had lost Xan-Du, one of that world's greatest heroes and scientific prodigies. It was probably inevitable, however, that as on so many other worlds of the Multiverse, one night, Kal-El, Green Lantern of Sector 5417 and Kandi Kann, Lois Lane of Earth and Supermaid of Krypton, confessed their love for each other and consummated their relationship. The best of two worlds would live on in the lives and progeny of its greatest children.
THE END