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sinkingtime · 9 days

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Rewriting the DCU, part whichever

See also: previous entries, in no particular order.

Mostly, today is about Saturn Girl, who doesn't quite work with how I've set up the metaphysics for this setting. I believe I've found a workaround.

It involves giving her considerably more backstory than any other character yet, which is also considerably more useless than anyone else's. I love it!

But before that, a bunch of additions and corrections, because that, too, is par for the course.

...about Dr. Pamela Isley

She's definitely the Static spin-off, but first I need to make a few changes to that one.

She will indeed be a scientist, not a protestor. Part of the team that was developing the crowd control gas that caused the plot of the movie. She's not the lead, but her contribution is significant, and perhaps unfairly overlooked.

She's also Francis Stone's ex-girlfriend, currently on cold but cordial terms. She may instead start as his current girlfriend, the relationship deteriorating as part of his negative character arc, while Virgil and Daisy's advance as he grows as a hero. That's only if there's enough screentime to showcase the parallel arcs, of course.

Either way, Isley always calls Stone "Officer" and he calls her "Doctor", which will serve to obscure her actual identity. Her real name may show up on-screen on some document or something, but probably the after-credits is enough.

She is also the one to say he "always had trouble controlling that hot streak" or something like that, which is where he gets the idea for his superhero (supervillain) name.

Since she's from Gotham, we can say he used to visit her there or they visited her family together or something, which should be enough to justify his eventually running that way (for the loose thread in Jokerz), which in turn means this movie is free to be in its own city. I prefer to give one to each hero, generally speaking.

The after-credits isn't her being inspired to do good, as I had first suggested, since she doesn't have any powers. Instead, she's at her appartment, depressed about the project failing miserably. It was actually suppressed and all documentation and samples destroyed, but I am not sure if we would have gotten to see that.

The appartment is full of plants, naturally, including some rare specimens that are considerably more expensive than anything else she owns. Maybe we had seen that place already, or she kept a few at the lab or something.

She reaches into her clothes or hair or something, to pull a small vial containing what may be the last existing sample of the gas. Cut to black.

As for her actual movie, we start with that info about the program failing and getting swept under the rug. Very important if that particular fact wasn't explicitly established back in Static, but honestly it probably needs to be repeated here either way.

We also see that she didn't randomly gas herself, as that after-credits scene was deliberately trying to imply. Rather, she continued her research as best as she could, in secret, in her appartment. She mixed in a variety of plant extracts, some other chemicals, etc, until she reached something she was content dosing herself with.

It will be an injection, to make it extra clear that this is completely deliberate.

Her skin becomes green, and actually photosynthetic. If she does end up wearing the bikini uniform, it will be specifically so she can take in more sunlight. She should make a comment about that to someone.

Though I also enjoy the idea of her wearing a lab coat through the entire movie.

She's stronger and faster and generally more athletic than before. Not necessarily to a superhuman degree, but more than her appearance would suggest.

She gets conscious control of her bio-chemistry, which lets her intentionally synthesize various substances. Not "anything", but several different things; we will still show her working at her lab to actually create most things she needs, with her power providing materials that would be expensive, difficult and/or illegal to acquire.

Also she either only emits the various stuff through her hands, or she can intentionally control what parts of her skin will do so at any given time, because otherwise she'd be constantly ruining her clothes. It's okay if she does that once, early on; and if we want that kind of fanservice I'd certainly rather that than an enemy cutting them, but later she needs to be able to wield acid in melee without trouble.

Early on she's simply enjoying the many perks of her new condition, both in a simple hedonistic sense and out of scientific curiousity. She does soon get roped into a random fight and immediately sides with the innocent party, to show us that she's a basically decent person, but she's not particularly motivated by heroism.

She should visit that family that hopefully got established earlier. They will reject her and cast her out, but she doesn't take it personally and, while hurt, is hopeful she can mend things with them, later. Maybe a single member reaches out to her, in secret from the rest.

Other people in the community can have more mixed reactions. I kinda want a mostly negative reception, but not enough so that it'd be jarring when she doesn't mind it. Ultimately she was never a sociable person, the little acceptance she gets here and there is still nice, but not something she would seek or care about.

She should fight the Jokerz at some point, to remind us about Harley's existence. She doesn't get to show up, though. Alexis ("Punchline") isn't with them anymore, either.

Also want to make clear she used to be a vegetarian, but isn't anymore. Maybe some fake horror hunger scene, but actually she's overreacting and it's just a burger or something.

After enough prancing about that we start getting comfortable with her, she's randomly attacked by a plant monster. She's able to kill it, in part by grappling it while sweating some acid or poison.

Afterwards she drags it to her appartment for study. She's very interested in what makes it move, but unfortunately there's nothing for her to find. It's just a bunch of different plants, roughly mashed together in a vaguely doglike shape. All tests she can think of show nothing of interest.

After some consideration, she decides to destroy it, just in case. She quickly brews a small bottle of something, grabs all the remains of the monster, and goes out to a poorer part of the city, where a bunch of homeless guys are gathered around a fire in one of those metal barrels.

She tosses the plants in there, pours about half of her bottle in, and the flames burn brighter and taller. All the while she's mumbling that she can explain, but everybody is busy looking the other way. These guys know better than to get involved with a weirdo like her.

She ends up staring at the remainder of her fuel, unsure what to do, and is about to just tell them they can keep it when another monster appears. Her immediate instinct is to jump in and protect the people, but it quickly becomes clear that it's only interested in her. She runs away, and after a small chase ends up pouring the remainder of her fuel on it, then lighting it with a still-burning cigarrete that happens to be on the ground.

Over the next few days, she keeps trying to resume her normal life, or what it had been after she changed herself, but the attacks keep happening. We also see her growing obsession with them; her appartment now features a huge map of Gotham, where she marks each event, hoping to figure out where they come from. There's no pattern she (or we) can discern.

Over time she'll get less worried about some sort of Trojan Plant and start actually holding and studying samples. She cannot find anything special about them, but keeps filling papers and whiteboards and whatnot. She may even harvest some of them for materials, though they're all species found within Gotham.

She also starts preparing tools and weaponry. I picture mostly thrown bombs, but it'd be funny if she gets a dart gun and then the first time wastes most of her ammo because she's a terrible shot. Could also get a nice human interaction scene out of her trying to go to a range to practice.

Could also devote a bit of screentime to her practicing parkour or similar, as every good (non-flying) super should.

Eventually she manages to escape from one creature, doubles back to observe it and hopefully follow it back to its base, but instead once it has no further idea how to find her it immediately falls over, de-animating and losing cohesion, apparently "dead". She approaches it cautiously, but it's just normal plants.

Cut to her angrily erasing one of her whiteboards full of equations and diagrams. Instead she writes "MAGIC????" and then starts pacing frantically, pulling at her hair and rambling.

We should see that some news and/or newspapers start almost picking up on the monsters. Nobody but Ivy has actually been attacked, so there are reports about the rumours of plant monsters, but most believe it's some sort of hoax or publicity stunt or something like that. The only source to report them as actual events also claims they have been seen to obey her.

Monsters start coming in groups, as well as bigger ones. At some point she kills one with blunt force trauma (I'm picturing some sort of construction site shenanigans) and it also falls over and dies like a living creature before falling apart like usual. This also leaves her professionally offended, complaining about how they don't even have organs or any anatomy or anything.

As the groups get bigger she spots a humanoid shape hanging back, apparently being their leader. That's Swamp Thing, there's no way for her to know that but I see no benefit in hiding it. Once she defeats some creatures he charges at her, and he is superhumanly strong, to her surprise. She's barely able to hold him back, by liberal use of secreted chemicals.

As he retreats he says something to the effect that he won't be destroyed so easily, which leaves her surprised since none of the others could talk, naturally. I actually think it's better if they don't make any noise at all, thematically, but for scene design they probably need to growl or something. She yells at him to wait, but he retreats, yelling back something defiant.

Something that, as she thinks about it later, gives her the impression that he thinks she's the aggressor in this circumstance. Naturally her immediate reaction should be annoyance, but we need her to consider it seriously so either something about the way he said it makes her think it's legit, or it's just her curiousity getting the better of her. Either way, she spends the next few encounters trying to get him to stop and talk to her.

I'm not entirely clear what she would do to prove her sincerity, short of the obvious third party that they team up against, but I'm specifically trying to avoid that cliché. It's kinda important that he be the genuine antagonist, right until the end.

I'm thinking as he attacks she takes a personal risk to prevent damage to innocent bystanders, probably a burning building except she's the one that has been using fire so preferably not? Dunno, something.

That said, if we do need the common enemy to unite them, I'd say internal politicking at the Parliament of Trees, the bad guy having engineered this whole incident. Presumably that introduces the Floronic Man, though I think I'd prefer to dig for someone more obscure.

Anyways, what we learn is that Swamp Thing is the (formerly human) champion of the Green, more or less protectors of nature. In the comics it's specifically plants, and there's other Parliaments, but this version can probably be all consolidated as nature in general, since we're unlikely to ever use the others.

They detected her making herself a half-plant and thought that was an attempt to usurp him as champion, or possibly the Parliament at large, that was why they were attacking. There exist protocols nature mages can use to operate without incurring their ire, but since she doesn't know anything about magic and doesn't actually have any she was unable to invoke them.

Possibly we can even establish she received notice, before the attacks happened, in a way she wouldn't have recognized as such; assuming we can think of a good idea for what form that would take. As of yet I have not.

Naturally, after they've talked, he brings her to do the proper ritual/paperwork so that she can continue to operate without future issue. Possibly physically brings her into the extra-dimensional forest that is the Parliament, but even if she's not quite that trusted we should see it at some point, since it will be important that the set design be reminiscent of the one for the Rock of Eternity, from Shazam. I would have to check the set for that, but hopefully there is some manner of interesting layout that lets us clearly show that it's the same, but trees.

Also, it's probably better if the trees don't literally talk, but if Swamp Thing is ever shown speaking to them, it would become important that they answer him. Probably better if he never has a chance to do it, but the point is that the movie must not allow a possible interpretation in which he is insane or making it up or something.

Anyways, they're all friends now, the end.

After credits, Swamp Thing and Shazam are hanging out together at a bar that also conforms to the same architectural design that we now know signifies extra-dimensional magical places of power. It's probably more of a restaurant, especially since Billy is a kid, but its name is "Oblivion Bar" either way.

Shazam has been checking in on other important magical groups that protect Earth, since he's now not only the Champion but also the Wizard. This is good worldbuilding to introduce, since it readily excuses why such a powerful character isn't doing much; he has, behind the scenes. I suppose that also means if I ever want a widespread magic crisis, the inciting incident can be that he has died, been tricked or otherwise failed.

He mentions that there hasn't been a Champion of the Green for a few decades. 40ish years, the previous one took a side in a human war, and that eventually led to the Parliament being bombed, so it withdrew from human affairs. Not sure I want to commit to which specific war, though if we do Billy would know the exact year that happened, and the fact that the previous Wizard had no further contact with them after.

Sometimes it's part of his powers to have knowledge of the goings on of magic, specifically on a "wider picture" sort of way, so if we want to establish that this is the ideal time to do so. Otherwise, he may just have notes and documents that the previous Wizard kept, which he's been going thru now that he's also assumed that responsibility.

Swamp Thing tells him that he was chosen after Zod's attack. Not really in response to him, there was no possible way the bureaucracy was going to respond that fast, but that was the event that convinced the Parliament that they can't not have a Champion at the ready.

Ideally something about their conversation should hint that he's thinking about Ivy to be the next one, if something should happen to him while she's still around; but while that's probably important to justify the scene being in this movie, really what I care about is the reason why they didn't defend against the kryptonians. I wouldn't be comfortable introducing this faction to the setting without an excuse for that.

...meanwhile, in Earth 2

Swamp Thing probably doesn't exist, given that Zod didn't attack. Jor-El and Lex did end up building and using the World Engines, briefly, but that's not necessarily the part that riled up the Parliament of Trees; and they're specifically trying to use it to restore Earth's atmosphere to a previous version of its own, which could conceivably be something the Green would approve of.

Plus I already established that the atlantean ruling caste was mobilized to war by that, where they had not been by Zod, so it feels right to have the Parliament be conversely less offended.

That doesn't necessarily mean the character doesn't exist, or even that he's not a vegetable biomass monster, since whatever version of what made him like that is separate; just that he's not Champion of the Green, and probably there still isn't such a Champion.

That said, I will definitely take this chance to establish there definitely isn't an Ivy, or Static, Hot-Streak, any of them; the entire experiment with the gas didn't happen, because LexCorp won out the contract with the lab that was doing it, rather than the Dakota City Police Department.

Possibly they still did that experiment, but testing was better controlled, so we get one super whose origin is that. More likely, though, they just worked on different stuff. Either way, Dr. Isley is happy with her career as a civillian science researcher for the Society, and has no powers.

And I thought there would be mention of those characters that I'd need to retcon out, but in checking back it seems I never added any. That's convenient. Thanks, past me!

...about tamaranian currency

From the scene when Earth 2 Komand'r threatens with denying the kryptonain survivors aid, in order to pressure Koriand'r into taking the throne. I have decided she says "not a single lace", that being their small coin name.

This on the grounds that the larger one is "gown", both in reference to the several real-world countries that use (or have used) "crown" as the name for their money. I doubt any have used a physical part of a crown to name the smaller divison, but whatever.

Naturally there is no possible way this could come up in-story. This did nothing to keep me from thinking about it a lot. Therefore, here it is for you to read.

...about Victor Stone

Earth 2 again, as part of the montage for Power Girl's introduction to the world I said she would save him. But on second thought, that doesn't quite work.

She arrived 2 years before Superman's death, and therefore 3 and a half before Bruce showed Diana that video with the cube and his dad. This makes him a little too old in the franchise proper. I'm aiming for about a year between the accident and Cyborg's joining the League.

More specifically, I'm thinking he was almost finished with high school, and definitely pre-approved for a college scholarship, on account of his sports, when the accident happened. So when we actually meet him, he's just college age, 18 or 19, though actually a drop-out.

Well, legally dead, to be precise.

In Earth 2 Power Girl still saves him and prevents him from further mattering, it just cannot happen so early in her career. She'll have to do it later.

And I'd like to replace that with someone else, to highlight that some character exists or doesn't exist that wouldn't in other timelines, due to no real superheroes having been active back then. I'm thinking maybe Alan Scott. The Watchmen/DC crossover establishes that he died or almost died in a train crash, depending on Manhattan's meddling. She could save that train instead, then he becomes a super after.

I don't exactly love it, not having a convenient train crash established in previous movies, but just the fact that she's helping with that and we know there didn't used to be superheroes active at that time may be enough?

...about the cube

I have decided it's not related to the end of the world, but rather to time/dimensional travel. It is some sort of crystallized time-space anomaly, created as a side effect of the martian teleportation experiment, which had been orbiting Earth since and which S.T.A.R. Labs randomly found embedded in one of their space probes.

In Earth 0, Cyborg had it originally so the Legion got it from him; I don't want them having his rotting corpse or anything, but it definitiely should be modified in some way. Maybe it has molded itself as part of his chestpiece, though it still would have the weird sort of "breathing" protrusions that the cube form had.

More importantly, they have some wiring in the back, among the Science Props, that should ultimately recur in some way in most or all dimensional technology. I think it could be modelled roughly on the pattern of the wires behind young Victor Stone, in the BvS scene, like that's what his dad was trying to do.

I'm also thinking the first two times we see that room it's not visible, covered in tubing and metal, but further in the future, after it's fallen in disrepair and Booster Gold fixes it up, that's when the cube (or whatever its new shape) is exposed for us to finally see.

Prometheus would also have a similar setup in his interdimensional spaceship, but the materials would be different. Where the Legion has highly utilitarian, bare metal pipes, his are highly ornamented, more reminiscent of a church organ or greek columns or something. His cube is in clear view, and didn't pass through a human's chest before he got it.

He also needs to have a few other dimensional-capable ships, with cubes collected from other universes. These ships are the true bottleneck of his invasion; they have captured and killed versions of Cyborg, but so far cannot extract an useful cube from him. All the ones they have so far are from universes where he wasn't created, which mostly means versions of the Amazons Attack timeline.

As he moves towards canon, those get rarer and rarer, because of course the hyper-geometry of the multiverse roughly corresponds with differences and similarities between timelines. That doesn't really make sense, but it sounds like it would, so there we go.

That does probably mean he's specifically after Earth 2, out of the ones we care about. I don't think he should be able to detect it from multiple universes away, beyond the basic fact that time travel dimensions are easily detectable; but certainly if and when the army comes into contact with these worlds, that one will be of special interest, should they learn about that.

Meanwhile, in Earth 3, Booster figuring out dimensional travel will have involved studying Cyborg. He won't take him apart or otherwise remove the cube from him, but did take some readings and whatnot. And the same type of circuitry pattern is now on Skeets, though it doesn't need to be visible from the outside. Maybe we can see it on some sketches as he was working on it.

And I feel the need to stress that this doesn't mean he's individually superior to all of Prometheus' scientists put together. He is good, but he also has a thousand years head-start on them, and specifically comes from a civilization that already did strides on this particular problem.

The traitor from Lanterns didn't have a cube or cube-analog, the machinery was specifically creating its own distortions in time-space in this universe, but the systems on the outside should still have some variation on the same pattern, there's just not a central Important Object that they all connect to.

Also the tubings shouldn't have an obvious material theming, because I wouldn't want that to be a clue as to the traitor's identity. So again just raw industrial metal, I guess? Or some sort of pure energy nonsense that implies the systems were carved out of spacetime itself or something.

If Orange Irons did recur as a dimensional traveller, his suit also features the same dimensional circuitry as all others, but he also doesn't have a cube, and probably didn't even figure out that Cyborg was useful. His system is derived from the info they collected on the traitor Lantern's systems, and is powered by his magic like everything else he carries.

On the other hand, if he was the traitor, then nevermind.

And then I need to actually introduce Saturn Girl before I can talk about her implementation of this technology. But there's more, first.

...about the end of the world

I have decided that that is instead related to KORD Industries. Mostly I was never completely satisfied by pulling yet another millionaire industrialist scientist out of nowhere for Booster Gold's supporting cast, but I had to do it anyways. Because even if I wasn't going to ship them together, I'd still want them to be friends.

Also, why would I not ship them, if given the chance?

Anyways, it's not exactly that they are responsible for it. Even in Earth 0, the company failed on its own at approximately the time when Irons took down AmerTek. Ted Kord just wasn't that good of a CEO and/or scientist. But something they left behind would later be picked up by some other group(s) and developed and ultimately leads to the explosion of the planet in the 27th or 28th century, plus maybe to some of the social and/or technological hardships that humanity had been suffering from in the centuries prior.

So when both Supergirl and Power Girl team up with their respective rich dudes it's because they need the help guaranteeing that all relevant documentation is found and destroyed. We don't see Ted himself, but the building they're raiding is a (former, for Supergirl) KORD Industries lab or storage facility, so there would be the logo on the wall and on boxes or stuff.

And since it turns out Power Girl arrived when the company was apparently fine (because I want it to be on the brink by Booster's time, so that he both needs to and can save it), that means Earth 2's Luthor engaged in some underhanded business moves to help her. Definitely helps with the characterization I'm aiming at for him.

Naturally, it doesn't actually matter what KORD Industries was doing that would inevitably lead to the end of the world, but I'm thinking some version of OMAC, since I already gave this company the "Brother Eye" branding.

Comet, the Superhorse

The movie's probably not called that, but he's the kid whose planet was destroyed and that Supergirl is helping avenge. Well, a heavily modified version of him.

The comics version is from Earth, but this one will be an alien from a planet who randomly happened to have horse-looking people. That is stupid, but not any more than any of the already established planets full of randomly human-looking people, which makes it ok.

Or they may be weird-coloured horses instead. I prefer the pure white one as in canon, but either works.

He has telepathy, all his people did. But since Supergirl can magically speak all languages we should still get at least a few scenes of her doing horse noises to talk to him.

He also has superspeed, but that's not a normal thing. He was a young superhero in his society, which is also how he was the one survivor/escapee, and why he feels he can go fight the villains but not without support. He already failed once.

This also means "Comet" was his superhero name, not the real one. You know, as translated from horse noises. The real one could probably be one of his human aliases from the comics, appropriately modified of course; or he can refuse to say it. His civilian identity died with his people, all that's left is the vengeance, etc etc. That may work.

He will not have any of the various other powers he's sometimes had.

Also I feel compelled to acknowledge that he was one of her love interests. I'm honestly not against that in principle, it would be hilarious, but in this case I say no because I insist on making this one a kid. He's about twelve, or the alien horse equivalent, making this more of a mentorship relationship.

The opening attack would involve an older hero dying, whom Comet was the sidekick of. Or he may have been on a team with other young heroes instead. More or less depends on how many other horse superhero concepts we can come up with, I guess.

As for the actual plot, she's not going to actually counsel him against vengeance. She's not a pacifist, in fact she was a soldier and is currently empowered by the magical essence of wrath, so she absolutely understands and agrees. She will ultimately kill the boss, plus possibly some other bad guys along the way.

She will, however, counsel him against being reckless. Probably he almost gets himself killed at least once. She'd be the one trying to make sure he has some plans for a life after his vengeance is complete, which would admittedly be easier if the bad guys are slavers and so they can look forward to the people they will rescue.

It's for this reason I'm now more inclined to say they were not, and Comet is in fact the last of his people. You know, for extra drama. Not 100% sure either way, still.

She could also be concerned about him getting lost to his anger in the sense that anger must be righteous, in accordance with my version of the Red Lanterns' ethos. I'm not sure I want him to actually have an issue with that, though. I think I prefer not, if possible, but it may be necessary to pad out his character arc.

Finally, the bad guys will now be specified to be the minor, inconsequential villains from Red Daughter of Krypton. I don't remember their exact names, they were Worldbreakers or Worldkillers or something silly like that. Whatever, they're just space pirates; the only thing that matters is the finale, which I want to steal.

Their leader turns out to be not the apparent leader, but the power armour he's wearing. The living dude inside is being mind-controlled and mostly worthless. After Supergirl kills him, it jumps her to try to take over her body instead.

For my version it barely succeeds, but cannot take hold of her magic as it hoped to; the ring doesn't respond to her under mind-control. I don't necessarily want to say it's impossible to steal a Lantern's magic, but it should be very difficult. I guess we can just say this guy could never do it because it doesn't wear any clothes, being that it is clothes. I always had wanted to establish that is also a requirement, in the sense that if a culture didn't have a concept of clothing then those people would never be able to become Lanterns, no matter how otherwise eligible they may have been.

Related, now we can say the tamaranian Lanterns aren't merely refusing to wear their rings normally. If one of them put it around her finger, the magic wouldn't work, because for their people that is "carrying", not "wearing".

Anyways, Comet arrives to see her wearing the enemies armour, she shows him the former leader's corpse and tells him she will be taking over the organization, he should join her, etcetera. He's able to reach the real her mentally, help her fight it off, etcetera.

That does mean the climax of the movie is her tearing apart the clothes she's wearing, so we have to be extra careful to make sure that it be tasteful. But then, all the important circuits were probably in the helmet, right? It's probably ok.

...about an unnamed planet

The world where Earth 1 Koriand'r brought Supergirl in case she freaked out is the same one she gave to the kryptonians in Earth 2. It's barren and featureless, but there still should be some sort of establishing shot on each to show the repetition.

I don't think there's a reference to be made out of that, but I do want to say it legally belongs to her personally, independently of any titles she may or may not have. It was a gift from her parents at some previous time.

In other timelines, generally Komand'r makes sure nobody breaches her sister's ownership, as part of a general show of respect that is very transparently an attempt to lure her back in order to yield the throne to her. In timelines where Koriand'r never returns I'm going to say it's kept for her for all her sister's life, then afterwards someone strip mines it or something. It really wasn't a good choice for habitation.

In the timeline of Blue Komand'r, if she was the traitor, it's where her scientists mustered to research and ultimately set up the plot of Lanterns. If she was not, it will be where they will do so, afterwards, to receive the intel she got and plan their (hopefully less villainous) response.

Challenger of the Unknown

First off, the name of the movie is now in singular. It refers to the ship, not the people aboard; they may colloquially get called "Challengers" by someone, but they should really protest. Or at least the most pedantic among them. I have also been mentally calling the larger organization they spun off from "Challenger University", but it needs to specifically be Not That. No idea what though.

More importantly, I have decided it is them who are the modern descendants of the martians. In part because I never did get any other ideas for that world's movie, but mostly because that culture is already established as coincidentally having names that sound almost like english names. I guess Tamaran also does that, but only for words ending in -ander. The Bottled City was already a stretch. Anyways!

The crew of the Challenger are K'yll, M'att, L'esst, W'altt and C'rinn. C'rinn is specifically the one that knows about magic; this version of her doesn't need to have a power source or actual powers, but another alternate appearing in Lanterns probably should, since that event was supposed to draw in important, powerful people.

Inventing a power source for her will be left to a later date, if ever, but it has led me to realize that martians cannot ever become Lanterns, because they don't wear clothes. By which I mean, those guys will be shown as "wearing" a standard superhero suit based on the comics, I think the version with an off-center yellow band, based on covers I've been looking at. But that's not clothes, they're just shapeshifting into it.

In this version those are the colours and logo of their parent scientific organization. Scientists in Lanterns also should be generally "wearing" that, at least the random science extras local to Earth 1 and most alternates of the main five, though I guess it's also useful to have one or two versions who don't fly that flag. And the Challenger itself should be painted those colours, or at least prominently display their logo.

Supergirl is going to recognize them, in that she met a martian briefly. It's not impossible they think she met a current one, or even that it all happened so long enough ago that they don't even know their society used to exist in a different planet; but since they have telepathy it makes most sense that they realize what she means.

That would mean they would both be interested in where each other's world is, for scientific reasons and for the purpose of offering J'onn a ride there, respectively. That's honestly a better reason for her to go to Earth than a sudden renewed case of missing her brother. I like it.

As for the timing of J'onn's teleportation accident, I still don't have a clear idea but I see three possibilities.

At minimum, it needs to be several centuries back, to avoid humanity having knowledge of their cities. Would be kinda funny if it was literally moments before Galileo pointed his telescope there, but in honesty I would feel obligated to give it a few centuries more to protect against some earlier culture having had observations that were maybe forgotten or supressed. Unless we were doing a "the mayans knew!" plot, but I wouldn't want to.

Except, I think I would be okay with the atlanteans knowing. That they had observations of the cities on Mars, but never made contact or anything. Then one day they saw them disappear without warning, leaving nothing behind, and that's what made them panic and go into hiding.

In that case that would need to be old enough for them to have forgotten, since we already saw that they believe the sinking of their cities to have been an accident. So, several millenia ago, in this version. Did Aquaman had a specific date for when the sinking happened? I doubt it. Easy enough to say they are mistaken, if necessary.

And my last idea, which was actually my first idea but is probably stupid, is that the meteor that destroyed the dinosaurs passed close to Mars, back when J'onn was a child. He wouldn't remember much, but there were doomsayers and cults and general chaos that he'd have vague memories about.

The Challenger of the Unknown has another cube installed into it, a result of when they teleported the cities. Naturally this is an unintended and unexpected effect, teleportation technology is not supposed to do that; the cube could be smaller, because this was a later, more perfected attempt, or bigger, because it was a much larger project. For now I'm going to say those cancel out and they are about the same, until and unless an idea comes that builds up on either of the other possibilities.

We're also going to say no other version of teleportation or dimensional travel we've seen yet does that. There can exist other cubes, somewhere in the galaxy, but they'd have to be extremely rare. In particular, if Prometheus learned about it he'd try to replicate that version of the experiment, we can't let him have that, except maybe right before his ultimate defeat.

The Challenger of the Unknown's dimensional circuits are in the same general pattern as all the others, but with the weird semi-organic materials that martians in DC sometimes have had. Supergirl may or may not recognize it as the same thing that her people used to send her back, she's probably not a good enough scientist to do so on sight but if they explain she probably should remember something. Importantly, she doesn't know that Cyborg currently has their cube in his chest.

Also important to establish that other versions of New Mars (not actually called that) don't have their own version of the Challenger. These guys are specifically from the timeline where they figured that out, that's the specific difference. The local version has the cube, probably their study of it was what first brought the organization to fame, but they never found the way to breach dimensions with it. Probably it's used as a power source, or even just left in storage after they exhausted what they could learn from it.

...about the future of humanity

I never really thought about it before, but the Most Probably Future would have to be the same as Earth 0, but without sending people to the past, no? It's either that or Prometheus, since that's the only difference so far that doesn't depend on time travel.

Well, there's also Orange Irons. But I don't think he changes anything relevant. Lanterns aren't any more long-lived than normal, mostly because even with all my nerfs they still have too many powers already, so without any info about what was going to happen he wouldn't be able to change it. Nobody was expecting that.

I guess we're establishing that the crew of the Challenger will have motivation to go check out that star system, may as well say that in their specific timeline they saved humanity. J'onn also exists and is in hiding among the Watchtower's civillian employees, they would logically make contact with him. Supergirl told them enough that they can send him on that mission, we already know she's open about future stuff, and of course they'd be curious.

But in general, unless a named character interceded during those few years or the entire history was changed long before, most timelines end with the planet exploding, the last few survivors hiding out in the moon for a few more centuries and then dying to a stray piece of planet.

I guess the main difference is that the three time travellers don't get to go away, and also the two official ones don't get superpowers. But they, too, wouldn't change anything important. The resources they invested in creating those superpowers are allegedly vast and may have made a difference, but I don't think I want to establish that; thematically, that moves the Legion's attempt from "noble" to "foolish".

So in the end, we keep this implication as canon. A little bleaker than I originally wanted, but honestly that's probably good. Makes certain the time travellers are important, and their resulting timelines are special.

...about other Comets

Because now that I have a multiverse, everything needs alternate universe versions, right? Right!

Since Supergirl is specifically the one difference that defines the Earth 1 timeline, obviously their movie is actually an unique and strange version of this storyline. In most timelines Comet would have found some other great warrior to help him, generally succesfully. I'm thinking that should usually be Lobo.

In Earths 0 and 3, since Koriand'r never abandoned Earth, he eventually gave up and left. Comet's call for help was probably the next job he took after deciding the princess thing wasn't going to work out, if the timing supports this. We know he waited about a (human) week in Earth 1 between the League launching their space detection systems and Koriand'r shutting down hers before deciding it was probably not a trap, or at least worth the risk. So he's patient.

But of course if the timing doesn't work out, he can just have had another job in between. I guess that would depend on where exactly Earth 1 Comet originally heard about each of them, since he would logically have been on the same trajectory until he meets the part where the timelines differ.

Their adventure together is more or less the same as with Supergirl, actually. The two of them are oddly similar in their attitudes towards violence, he's more of a jerk about it but not actually any less responsible, when it comes to that. That would be a funny parallel to have.

I'm also going to say the finale is basically the same, except he cannot fully fight off the suit, even with Comet's help. He has just enough control to stick his head inside some machinery, they're inside the Worldmunchers' flagship at the time so the power core or whatever, and he tells the kid to activate it and kill them both.

He probably starts giving him some inspiring final speech, but can't and instead laughs at himself for even trying.

Mostly I'm now thinking that every appearance of a version of Lobo should end with him dying by decapitation.

Meanwhile in timelines where it wasn't him, Comet should find another great warrior to recruit, or at least attempt to. If the Apokolips movie happened, at least one version of Orion should be on this list. Other than that, no idea.

In Earth 2 Koriand'r left and settled things with the Star Sapphires before Lobo could even take the job, so he may or may not have been free to help horse world. And in Green Lobo's timeline, this movie is probably starting at approximately the same time as the second half of Lanterns or thereabouts, so he's already gone to Earth 1.

I think either or both of those could be a time when Comet learns about Lobo, decides that's who he needs to recruit, but cannot find him. Then he'd eventually give up, go at it alone and get himself killed. Because we do need at least a couple failures.

In timelines where Princess Koriand'r did become a Violet Lantern but didn't go to Earth, such as Prometheus', I'm going to say she originally moved to horse world. It was her second-to-last vision, so in this case the last one. I feel compelled to point out here that this doesn't mean they're the best and second-best; she just literally goes to the most recent place she saw, once she's ready to leave.

Since hyperadvanced tamaranian make-up isn't quite good enough to let her pretend to be a horse, she's openly an alien in this world. She ends up doing heroics and joining their super hero team, not the young heroes Comet was with (if applicable) but the main one; though she would still know him.

Her superhero name is "Star Sapphire" again. By which of course I mean the alien horse language translation thereof; she also can speak all languages, can't let that opportunity go to waste. Her costume will just be her regular suit, since she doesn't have an identity to hide in this world, and with the ring in her necklace because she also didn't swap it out nor does she have any reason to hide it.

I'm also going to say this was an uncontacted world, she's their first alien. And she'll be the only one, since the planetary detection beacons she deployed are enough to send the Worldkickers away. That does mean they had been horse world's First Contact, in other timelines, which is good for more bonus drama. But also it does make perfect sense that they'd prey on solitary, vulnerable planets, rather than for example one apparently belonging to, or otherwise being of special interest for, the largest empire on the galaxy.

In Blue Komand'r's timeline, horse planet was one of the worlds she took her mother for tourism. They also made peaceful contact with the superhero teams, but did not establish oficial diplomatic relations, so the world was still targeted. Afterwards Comet sought them specifically, the princess was unavailable (also being in Earth 1 at the time) but Queen Luand'r was outraged, and it was the full might of the tamaranian armies that hunted down the Worldscrappers and killed every single one of them.

If she was not the traitor, she comes back to Comet now living in Castle Tamaran, along with any other rescued survivors if applicable, and news of what happened.

Finally, I feel we do need a version where he became a Lantern.

Actually, I first started thinking he would be exempt on grounds of space horses being a nudist culture, but then I thought if they're going to have superhero teams and all the tropes, they need costumes. They need at least masks, but ideally more general clothing defined in their culture.

This detour is what eventually led me to add martians above. I actually had to rewrite a lot of paragraphs to add them.

So, in one timeline he'd become a Green. His Test kept him from contacting Lobo, until he decided to just go at it alone then. At that point he was given the magic, let's say it resides in his old superhero costume, no ring for him.

Sadly, I already established that Worldstomper One can defeat and take over Lanterns, so it does. Without a fellow telepath to help him fight it off, he spends the rest of his life trapped as the apparent pirate leader. The magic remains in his costume, but the armour never manages to access it, and eventually it flies away when he dies at the hands of the next one.

...about The Authority

They are a team from a competing company (Image, I think) that eventually got bought out and unified with DC. Therefore, I want them for the main generals of Prometheus' army. Each gets one of the dimensional ships they have.

The ships themselves should also be visually inspired by the Carrier from Authority comics, though they won't be nearly as large nor absurdly overpowered. They can still be called Carriers.

Jenny Sparks will have to be referred to as "the spirit of the century", without specifying which century, but other than that she works out fine, I think. The empire probably has their own calendar anyways.

Since earlier I made Hawkman be a regular human with a magic flying belt, we can just have Swift hold that same item. May as well be ancient egyptian, then. He used to be a common grave-robber until he found that thing, made it work, and upgraded himself to general robber. Add some of that info to Task Force X.

In this timeline, the belt was found by Diana. This also helps establish that she always had an interest in archaeology, despite all the differences, which is nice. As for Swift herself, she's a trusted friend, may be an amazon but doesn't necessarily have to be.

Apollo gives me pause, given my existing alternate Superman with a greek mythology name. Almost tempted to switch things and combine them. Ultimately no, because he has a canon romantic relationship, and I really want to keep the God-Imperator married to the job.

Plus I don't think I'd want to make the one gay Superman also be evil Superman. That's kinda going to happen anyways, since he's an evil minion, but it still feels different. I guess if earlier movies had already shown us that this Superman swings both ways, I'd probably be trying to find an excuse for Diana to name her infant child Apollo and merge the characters. But since that didn't happen they will have to both exist.

Also since our Superman isn't powered by sunlight, bringing in a character who is seems poetic, probably.

I don't really have anything to say about Midnighter, sorry.

When I was first considering giving generals to Prometheus I thought there should be one that doesn't have a ship yet, but has been promised the next one after they capture the next cube; who therefore is the one the heroes mostly interact with, since that's the one that has something to prove. This will be Hawksmoor. If any Carrier actually has a city on it, it should be his.

The Engineer is one of the most notable scientists in the empire; while she operates at basically the same level of hierarchy as the others, she's not technically a general and her ship and crew are considered non-combatants. She was also the one that actually figured out the interdimensional travel capabilities.

Since she worked on the cube, her appearance should be less of a naked metal doll and more similar to Cyborg. She doesn't contain the cube, but she did modify her body in a similar way to what happened to him, only considerably more intentional.

The Doctor is their Champion of the Green. That's part of the reason why I wanted to extend the Parliament's authority to be over all of nature, to blend them with this guy's backstory. Since the point of divergence is at the end of World War 1, he doesn't have the empty spot right before him, but rather his canon antecesor from Authority comics. Others in his past can also come from that line, until we get to Diana's arrival, from then on back it's Swamp Thing ancestors.

He's also not a plant monster; his magic is more nature-focused than in the comics, but his character design should abide to the canon one as much as possible.

In their universe, the Parliament of Trees itself recognizes the God-Imperator's authority, and their Champion was appointed, in part, with his duties for the Empire in mind. As they travel through the multiverse, he also conquers other Parliaments in their name; if we need to show off the Empire being a problem that the heroes definitely need to deal with, part of that can be Earths that suffer strange ecological issues as a result of that.

If any of them is to turn sides and become a good guy, my personal favourite is Jenny, but probably one of Apollo or Midnighter would be best. For the drama.

...about Saturn Girl

Finally! I'm not sure how much I should get into the canon one. Her entire story is deeply connected with the Legion of Superheroes, being both a founding member and usually the leader, but they will not exist in this version.

What's important is she's a powerful telepath, from a civilization of nothing but telepaths, a charismatic and inspirational leader, and there seemed to have once been a running gag of her trying to do a noble self-sacrifice only for someone else to steal the opportunity from her at the last moment.

Also at least once she couldn't speak, except by telepathy. I'll definitely bring that in, she's mute and deaf. Maybe doesn't have ears, digitally removed from the actress, unless that would look too weird?

And at least once she also had some technopathy, or I think maybe in the future they had computers meant to interface with telepaths? Point is what I'm about to do with that isn't completely unwarranted. Technically.

We start at an alternate version of Prometheus' timeline, where the difference is that they didn't figure out dimensional travel. Or I guess that is more normal and the one that did is the special one? Anyways, without that outlet for his ambitions, his empire did eventually go to war against Tamaran. Ultimately he and princess Koriand'r killed each other in battle, then queen Komand'r ran away, but for real this time.

Without a clear line of succession for either empire, both fragment into civil war, generals and other power holders grabbing what they can while still technically at war with the other, also crumbling, empire.

Approximately one thousand years later, the solar system isn't the center of anything, and only a few fools even tell any stories about the past glory. Earth itself is lifeless and barren, but specifically not broken. Some sort of radioactive accident a few centuries before.

I think I want that to specifically be kryptonite. That's sometimes (usually?) been established to also be bad for life in general, in the long term, even if non-kryptonians don't have the ridiculously accelerated allergic reaction.

But then, these people have the kryptonian spaceships and the corpses of Zod's people; while we could say Prometheus forbade experimenting with those, it logically would have happened at some point after his death. So it's not unreasonable for their descendants to have at least some kryptonian dna, alongside the human, atlantean(s) and amazon, plus whatever alien types they picked up over the centuries.

The kryptonite irradiation would have been an act of war by someone against someone. Probably retaliation against the Doctor or his successor(s), they'd definitely try to hold on to that specific planet. Failing that, weapons testing or something. Though I guess the best answer is that it was too long ago, nobody knows for sure.

Of particular interest to us is Saturn's moon, Titan, home of most telepaths in our solar system, and exclusively telepaths (minus the occasional visitor). At some point they all moved there, either on their own or forced by the rest of their societies; historians disagree on that.

Nowadays people who are randomly born with telepathic powers don't need to go to Titan, but they are welcome there. Whether and how much their home expects and/or pressures them to do so varies per location. It would be a rare occurrence anyways.

Titanians are a single people but don't have a species; each of them is cloned from their various parents, once again thanks to technology mostly derived from the kryptonian remains, and the only genetic engineering they allow on that is to guarantee the child will be telepathic, any further thinkering is verboten.

That does mean the world would be full of weird and interesting body types, which in turn makes it extra-sad that the one character we get out of it is a normal human-looking woman. Oh well.

I'm also going to go ahead and say titanian culture believes romance should be a 3-person affair, in the same way that it's 2-person for us. Allegedly for reasons of genetic viability, given the re-mixing of random species, though mostly it's what's encouraged by popular media, well-meaning parents, probably some of their ancient religions, etc.

And normally I would dedicate a few paragraphs for how that may have affected their language, but in this case I'd rather say they don't have one. Their telepathy can transmit pure meaning, they don't need any syntax or grammar or whatever.

So our protagonist, Imra Ardeen, was the daughter of an important wealthy philanthropist, plus two others whose identities don't particularly matter. All three of them die in a spaceship accident, likely an assassination though it's never confirmed, when she's about half a year old, which is to say 15 or 16 in Earth time.

I also feel compelled to add that titanian society cannot possibly have minimum ages for things, because just about everyone is a weird and original genetic abomination of their own, and on the other hand it's not unreasonable to say their telepathy allows them to just check people and know whether they have achieved maturity. But Imra's psychology is basically human, so it doesn't come up.

She inherits her mother's wealth and takes command of her charitable organization(s), to some opposition on account of her youth but utlimately whoever is in charge of deciding this does decide in her favour. She ends up being extremely enthusiastic about charity, and basically spends all her personal finances on helping as many people as she can, becoming both extremely popular and pretty much poor.

Volunteer members of her organization end up supporting her alongside it, maybe some of them also spending irresponsible amounts of their own resources, though Imra always encourages them to not put themselves at risk and dismisses everyone who tries to tell her to take her own advice. Some people start referring to her group as a cult, mostly disparagingly.

They also start drawing some attention from powerful people and groups who maybe don't approve of all her "helping everyone" agenda, along some sympathetic people who want to advice her to temper herself. She refuses outright, if there's anyone who needs her they will receive her aid. That's what attracts the attention of the Indigo Light.

Her telepathy is augmented to reach everyone in the solar system. Every single person in every planet, moon, station and whatnot. We will also say the magic protects her from going insane by overload. People on Titan obviously understand even if they can't really know how she's doing it, but at least many know her and most know of her. But for most of the rest of the system, it's their first time experiencing telepathy of any kind.

She will never again shake off the accusations of leading a religion and/or being some sort of divine being. (until she ditches this universe, that is) That's also when they start calling her "the girl from Saturn", which is ultimately where she'll derive her superhero name from.

Naturally the idea was for her to get a first-hand look at the magnitude of the responsibility she was trying to claim, so that she would check herself and ask for help. But instead she tells everyone to come to her, promising that everyone in need would be saved by her, personally, thereby spectacularly failing her Test. The magic goes away, cutting her off mid-sentence. (well, the telepathic equivalent)

The government of Titan panics about that display, also maybe receiving threats against Imra and her cult from other governments and/or criminal organizations, so they ultimately settle on forbidding their activities, disbanding the organization and exiling her. She is gifted an extremely advanced ring spaceship, partly as a concession to the fact that this is tremendously unfair to her, and partly in hopes that she will use it to go very very far away.

That's basically a version of the Legion Flight Rings from the comics, except it cannot have their logo because they don't exist in this universe, and also it cannot time travel (yet, kinda). It does provide her excellent life support, free flight both in atmosphere and deep space, and travel fast enough to cross interstellar space on her own. The technology is mostly derived from the science done to the cube, dating back all the way to the Promethean Empire, which will matter later and so should be mentioned among the data she gets with it.

It's also going to be important that the ring is one person only, because she's going to want to use it to move other people. Because I need her to be skilled in its internal mechanics later, so this is the excuse for why she studied it obsessively and learned hyperadvanced engineering and so on.

She does not leave for other stars, of course, but rather joins with various like-minded people from various local worlds who want to help her help people. Some of them do in fact worship her for real, though not all; her trying to discourage it mostly just gets her praise for her humility and whatnot.

Also I should obviously populate this list of followers with characters from the actual Legion of Superheroes. At least the other two founders, Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad, both of whom were romantically entangled with her at different points in time but in this version they won't because she would only begin to consider it if it could be all three, which she can tell it can't.

They're also from random fictional planets, but for this version we will change that to somewhere within this solar system. Since their powers are magnetism and electricity, respectively, probably two moons of Jupiter. But since they're the first two Imra meets after starting her exile, maybe instead one or two other moons of Saturn. Doesn't really matter, I suppose.

They meet more like-minded people, as usual some being versions of comics characters, a few being originals, maybe a traditional villain. The group doesn't call itself "Legion", that name will not occur in relation to this character at all and arguably I should stop bringing it up. They don't actually call themselves anything; outsiders refer to them as "The Cult of Saturn", Imra always complains about that but at least a few members are genuinely joining for religious reasons.

The group goes on to become more of a Scooby Doo type thing, exposing injustice and whatnot, now that they don't have the vast resources for more traditional charity that they used to. Imra is very good at that, because it turns out telepathy is kind of overpowered unless you live somewhere that literally everyone has it.

This is also when she starts wearing her superhero suit, the red and white jumpsuit with the stylized image of Saturn on her chest, because while she will continue to insist she's not a religious figure and shouldn't be worshipped as such, she's also not going to let all that free brand awareness go to waste. And it does amuse her a bit, personally, the implication that she speaks for the planet when the whole issue was that she very much does not.

She should also acknowledge the fact that that's not actually an image of her homeworld, she lived on a moon and nobody really lives in the gas giant, but that would be much less visually recognizable, so.

After a few more adventures they do end up finally getting hunted down by some of those corrupt governments and/or crime syndicates. Most of them die, preferably all but it's ok if one or two escape or betray the group or something. Also important that at least a couple specifically die by sacrificing themselves to save her from sacrificing herself to save the rest, against her protests.

That's what finally gets her to internalize the lesson the Light wanted her to, that it's ok for her to also take care of herself, though for the record it's much too late. The magic isn't coming back.

She ends up hiding out in Earth, her ring's life support lets her do so, and since the helpful pamphlet she got and/or her original research thereof mentions the ancient labs here, she goes to check them out, mostly for lack of anything better to do.

The old lab is on Themyscira, because that's where Prometheus put it to take advantage of the hiding magic, and nobody afterwards saw any reason to move it. The magic faded away long ago, Imra doesn't even find out about that. She finds the cube still connected to a machine, the last thing they were going to do or had just failed to do, before the place was abandoned for whatever reason. Presumably the radiation, but not necessarily, or at least she can't know for sure.

Sidebar: because this is a timeline that will have time travel, it's also one that can't have dimensional travel, even in the past. The physics are subtly different in ways that mean it wasn't really the old imperial scientists' fault. But mostly what matters is I am now tempted to say it was something they did, and which the Legion people on Earth 0 (or their predecesors) also had done, while attempting to figure out what they could do with that thing.

This would have split off their timeline into a (mostly) unreachable state, sort of a higher-dimensional black hole-like trap, which would also be why both settings feature no further interference from the rest of the galaxy. The entire rest of the universe doesn't exist for them, except for whatever debris need to be postulated for them to not realize this is the case.

I'm ultimately deciding against making this canon, because I don't really think that's a question that needs answering. It's a big galaxy, small backwater planets get ignored all the time, sometimes the people in them go extinct. It happens. But if ever I come up with something else to derive from this fun fact, then it would become canon.

Anyways, Imra finds enough in that place to succesfully augment her ring for time travel. She's not going to actually modify it, but rather constructs a spherical shell to stand in, based on the time spheres from the Legion of Superheroes comics, though of course with the same dimensional circuitry embeded in it. She inserts her ring on a special receptacle, to serve as the power source, and then it teleports her away.

The sphere only transports her and doesn't come with, more or less for the same reason that ring couldn't take any other passengers through space. And furthermore, the sphere is wrecked by her leaving, collapsing as if by immense gravity, though nothing else in the vicinity is affected, only the parts that were actually part of the machinery. This way she still can't bring anyone with her across dimensions, nor really smuggle anything that doesn't fit within her clothes (within the invisible forcefield that provides her life support, to be exact).

More importantly, she needs to build a new sphere each time she wants to travel, even if she's going back and forth between two known dimensions, though in that case I suppose the remnants of the previous attempt may give her a head-start. But that's still complication enough to fulfill my instinct that it shouldn't be trival and immediate.

Lastly, each trip drains her ring's power source. It'll still recharge automatically, but it takes a while, which she didn't know about the first time.

Second timeline is about 11 centuries before. The first thing that happens is that she panics about her life support having shut down, plus maybe falls down on account of the (ruins of the) building she was standing on not having existed yet. The atmosphere is mostly fine, for the record, since logically something like this was the target they had in mind when they terraformed Titan. Maybe she's a little uncomfortable, but not in any danger.

She specifically arrived a couple days after Steve Trevor's death at the beach, and as she senses people and approaches them she finds them gathered at their town's central plaza, where Diana is recruiting amazons for her crusade. Hippolyta is sort of arguing against that, trying to get her daughter to not go, though we can see she's mostly given up already on that. By which I guess I mean that Imra knows that Hippolyta believes her attempts at dissuading Diana are in vain.

Imra walks in and everyone goes on guard, though again her telepathic communication is strange enough to shock them and give her time to explain. She's overheard enough to understand who they are, specifically who Diana is, and tells them about their near future/her ancient history. She wouldn't remember everything, but she should know enough (presumably as an extension of her research into the ring, or maybe one of her cultists could have been a history nerd) to tell them that she can't succeed.

All the amazons that were ready to sign up for the mission are dissapointed, Hippolyta is sad but oddly relieved, and Diana screams "Liar!" and stabs her with her sword.

Obviously Imra sees it coming, but her first instinct is to fly away, and the ring isn't ready yet. She has just a moment to look at it, surprised, as she's impaled through the chest and falls to the ground. All the others stare at them, confused, as Diana visibly struggles to retain her anger and fight off the coming guilt.

Then Ares tells them the stranger wasn't lying. Everybody turns towards him, he's standing behind Hippolyta so several of them draw their weapons. Diana also reaches to her back but her sword is still stuck in Imra. He and the Queen stare at each other for a moment, then she announces that they are being visited by the God of Truth.

She does not say his name. I have decided only she and Diana knew about that, Zeus mentioned it offhand but then quickly changed subject, so she never knew Ares' goals, only that he used to be Truth and became War. She never told any of the amazons save her daughter, and all they know is he didn't wanna talk about it.

(i've also decided Zeus used to shapeshift into Hippolyta, per her request, but that's beside the point)

With everyone relaxing, as their Queen evidently vouches for him, he goes on to admit he can't see quite that far away, in neither time nor space; he's much too diminished for either. But still, he knows she's sincere, and that she's not confused. Her words are True. This much, at least, is still within his powers. Possibly Imra delivers a bit more exposition now.

Also, everyone can feel Imra's pain. She doesn't want to do that, is doing her best to keep it contained, but she's both suffering significantly, possibly the worst she ever has, and is getting progressively weaker as she bleeds out, so it's hard for her to do. Everybody occasionally flinches or doubles down as her control slips, then she notices and focuses again.

Anyways, Ares finishes explaining his original plan, how all the other gods are gone and he's about to go too. One of the amazons, a random unnamed one, should ask about the visions they've been getting since the soldiers crashed at their beach. He admits they're from him, and the soldiers too, but he never expected them to succeed. There can be no success, as the visitor says.

All he wanted was for his niece, Diana, to learn this truth and give up on this world and go to the new one with him. The two of them are the only ones left that can. He extends his hand towards her, but she refuses.

Instead she points towards Imra, asking him if she'll recover. He looks at her for a moment and says that no, it's taking her a notably long time to die, but that is a lethal wound. She nods sadly, she suspected as much. Diana demands he heal her then. She tries to claim that it's all his fault anyways, but can't bring herself to say it. Instead she asks him to do it as a favour to her, which is why he came here anyways, right?

He shrugs sadly, says that he's never been a healer, but he'll help. He probably grabs Imra's shoulder or taps her with his cane or something, and she turns to stone. Before anyone can complain about that, he tells them all they have to do to release her is remove the sword from her chest. But then she'll resume bleeding and dying and so on, so don't do it until there's someone at hand who can help with that.

He also says that, normally, something like this would be like sleeping without dreaming, "but you are special, aren't you?". He says that bit telepathically, gods can do that, it's fine. She answers that this is extremely weird, none of her senses works, she can't feel her own body at all, all she has is her telepathy.

He gets up again, solemnly announces that that will be her blessing and also her curse, "as per long-forgotten tradition", and with one last sad look at Diana, he disappears forever.

So this version of Diana will not leave the island, which means Sidebar: if Doctor Poison exists, something probably needs to be different. I don't have anything in mind, and in fact the future needs to be superficially the same for things to work out here, but the fact stands that her bombing would have been succesful if not for that meddling demigoddess.

Add this to the list of reasons why she should be removed from Wonder Woman, I guess. Currently my only reason to keep her around is so she can befriend God-Imperatrix Diana, in relevant timelines. Back to the plot!

Diana stays in Themyscira, getting to know and befriend and eventually will romance the petrified Imra. She also learns sorcery, eventually will be the main mage of this world's superhero team, but for now she's mostly just frustrated that the power of Zeus also isn't particularly good for healing. They'd need a child of Hermes or Apollo, but Ares assured them there are no such anywhere in the world, so she doesn't have much hope.

Obviously Imra knows future technology can do it without problem, but she never did study medicine and has no idea exactly when this sort of procedure was first available. Also the fact that she changed the past, which may or may not affect anything regarding that.

Over the decades they also build a nice house around her, since they don't think they can move the statue, which would also mean the plaza got moved. Some other buildings probably also got moved, or at least rotated around or something.

Also during this period she will make telepathic contact with J'onn at the center of the Earth. I feel it's important to point out neither of them is actually that good a telepath, normally; it's only while they are literally cut off from their bodies for decades and untold centuries, respectively, that they can focus intensely enough to reach such ridiculous distances.

They also become friends and he's her other love interest, which is why I had Titanians hold normalized throuples. The other two are weirded out by this, but ultimately both agree to give it a try, if and when the opportunity presents itself, for her sake. They've also never spoken to each other, except through her relaying messages.

Imra didn't know Mars had a native people, but she knows humanity was going to colonize it within about a century and a half of her arrival in this era, more or less, so she quite reasonably assumes the Empire met them and eradicated them. They should be able to show each other images of the planets in their respective times, to see that none of his buildings are there; but again, it's quite logical that they would have been intentionally destroyed.

Finally, she notices when Koriand'r's solar system security systems go online, which is why I wanted the mild technopathy. She can't properly interact with the energy fields that it has, but their presence is clear to her. Possibly she intentionally trained to detect this sort of thing, back in her Meddling Youth era. She doesn't realize it's alien and is mildly suprised that such a thing would be available so early, but admits her knowledge of ancient scientific history is cursory at best.

Half a year after, she does sense the shift in the fields' direction of information, being when Koriand'r moved from Brasil to the States. With that Imra is able to trace its direction, correctly assuming that's where the system's controller will be. Over the next couple years she's able to narrow it down to a rough position on the planet's surface, relative to Themyscira; they don't know what's there but if they had a map she'd basically be able to say "somewhere in Jump City".

Unless the soldiers had maps. Steve was supposedly being chased because he had stolen important documents, if I recall, and World War I was recent enough that I don't want to say the city didn't exist yet. Maybe it was "Jumper's Town" at the time, something like that. Or we can just say their maps were not detailed enough, since it wasn't a strategically important location.

When Zod arrives and J'onn materializes in Metropolis, he takes a moment to learn what's going on from the minds of the people around, which I guess we're establishing he also did that in other timelines, but instead of pretending to be a local and hiding this one flies out, directly towards where they know the center of the world's detection system is. He floats above the city, since all he knows is that it's somewhere in here.

His telepathy is already decaying, thanks to the newly reinstated distractions of the flesh, so he already cannot reach Imra. But he still has enough focus to communicate with everyone in the city at once, to tell them they know about the planetary surveillance, and beg the help of whoever is in charge of that against the invading planet destroyers.

(meanwhile, Imra felt him being janked out and then lost contact, doesn't know any more. she's probably panicking and making the amazons panic with her.)

Koriand'r was at work, which is to say it's time to establish what her job on Earth is. By which I guess I mean I should have given this some thought a while ago. It would have been relevant for Earth 3, at minimum, but really any time Dick is shown to go see her would have been a good chance to have him pick her up from work.

She's a shop clerk at a small, independent business. Needs to be something love-adjacent, her Lantern instinct drew her attention there. My first idea is sex shop, specifically so she can make a point about the differences between sex, romance and love. There's no possible way that can fly, though, so it'll have to be flowers or chocolates.

We already knew, from Man of Steel, that people around the world were anxiously watching the news about Zod's attack, so everyone is staring at the store's little tv, and then when J'onn's plead hits they start sort of half-heartedly speculating about who it may be. "Star" starts playing along with the others, but she was already on the fence about interceding so she doesn't take much convincing.

(i think i only ever said that part in noncanonical asides that have since been removed, but that particular fact had always remained. in my mind at least)

She sighs, walks out from behind the counter and out of the store. Some friendly coworker who I'm strongly tempted to also further develop is about to ask her what's up when she starts shining and flies straight up.

Next we see the Batman V. Superman flashback, when Bruce Wayne saw Zod's ship fold into itself and disappear. This time, just a moment before, it is impacted by a violet light from out of nowhere, which displaces it by about twice its size, from this perspective. That also causes its beam of light to be shattered. Then the ship is wrapped by violet tentacles, which drag it away, beyond the horizon.

(i'm tempted to say we also see this from the perspective of the army/science guy/Lois as they are going to destroy the ship and just barely miss it, but having both would be too much, and i feel the ground-level is more interesting)

Next is the alien ship, broken and emiting smoke, having crashed on Themyscira's beach. (J'onn knows how to get in, Imra told him, Diana told her). The kryptonian soldiers are being marched in by Koriand'r and J'onn, still in their suits, hands over their heads. At the front is their medic/scientist, the one who was going to dissect Superman to get the stolen codices, and who they're going to force to treat Imra's wound. They briefly explain this to the amazons, and Diana pulls out the sword.

Everybody doubles down in Imra's pain. She's over three years out of practice containing it, which is to say about a century in Earth time. That should last a minute or so until she can push that under control enough for the doctor to operate.

Hippolyta and her girlfriend, same one as usual, loom over him as he works, trying to say something threatening should he try something against "our daughter". Daughter-in-law, basically, but I wanna say that amazons don't have marriage; love is not related to property, the Queen's lover isn't counted among her heirs even though their eventual daughter would be, stuff like that.

The kryptonian doctor just laughs at them, and says that if he even thought of anything the first thing anyone would notice would be the Lantern having already killed him, since there's a telepath. Imra replies "...two telepaths" and he says to stop distracting him.

Imra also reassures the Queen that he's going to do his best. He is fascinated by the prospect, and at this point he'd do it for pure professional pride, even if nobody was forcing him. He can't help but nod discreetly at that.

It works, and once everyone is clear that she will be fine, Koriand'r gathers the prisoners again into the ship, promises to come back soon, and flies away. She's going to take them to the same planet that she used in other timelines, but this time without telling anyone what happened. She's already sabotaged the ship so that it cannot travel through space, though the life support will still work, so they can live in it, or try to settle the planet, without bothering anyone.

Meanwhile, back on Metropolis, Zod and Superman also saw the ship getting taken away, and the former correctly guessed that that was a Lantern. He is again outraged that they let Krypton die without comment, but would defend Earth against it. Possibly he assumes this is some sort of official action, since the Star Sapphires specifically maintain the fiction that they are a central government.

What matters is that this changes his attitude, enough to change the fight so that they both kill each other. Just for fun, the killing blow is going to be a more accurate recreation of the Superman vs Doomsday fight, from the Death of Superman comics. I'm torn on whether Superman should take Doomsday's place in that part of the choreography. That would be fun, but I don't really have anything for it to mean.

After that, Imra, J'onn and Diana go to Jump City, to wait for Koriand'r's return and plan their future. She won't get involved with the Star Sapphires so it won't be that long, but still probably a couple days; despite her anger, she can't quite bring herself to leave the kryptonians without making sure they won't die. Possibly she'll keep checking in on them every now and then.

While they wait, the three make their presence known publically. J'onn is already a renowned hero and local legend, for his intervention. They form the Titans, with Imra as their leader. They're not teens, it's a reference to their homeworld.

They should get the T-shaped tower, if that can look good enough in live action. If it can't, I'm thinking a more regular building complex that looks like a T when seen from above.

Imra already has a suit and a superhero name, so J'onn just shapeshifts into a version of that, with Mars instead of Jupiter, and calls himself "Martian Manhunter". I've probably used the name to refer to other versions of the character, but I'm pretty sure never in-universe. I want to go ahead and establish now that this is the only version of him that answers to that.

Diana takes the name "Jupiter's Daughter", and they do make a suit for her in the same style, but she rarely wears it. She also won't have the armour bikini anymore, though, since she's a mage, not a warrior. Should usually be in a mix of a cultist's robes and greek-ish toga, I think.

Koriand'r becomes "Princess Venus", to fit in with the other's planetary motifs. Since two of the other three are literally from their respective planets, the general public will also assume she comes from actual Venus but probably isn't an actual princess; she should get a chuckle out of that.

Other supers that join up don't need to use that naming convention. They do receive an uniform in the style, but its use is not mandatory.

Koriand'r can trivially bring J'onn to Mars, so she does. Imra tags along, on her own flight ring. Having verified that no relic of his civilization remains, he now believes his accident was aeons ago. I'm not sure if this should mean that is right or I should make it be the most recent it can be, for drama. Still undecided on that one.

Zatanna either doesn't even try or is beaten immediately, thanks to the telepaths, not sure which. But probably it doesn't even get that far.

Prometheus attacks. It's actually perfectly logical, since this is a time-travel timeline that's so close to his, that it'd be the very first one they detected and invaded. Its very existence is probably part of the reason why that particular version of the Engineer was able to figure out dimensional travel in the first place.

Imra at this point still thinks there is only one history and that she changed the future by preventing Diana from leaving and meeting whoever was to be Prometheus' father (history doesn't say, at least as far as she knows). So now she thinks he's coming back to undo that change, presumably "before" it can affect him, in a Back to the Future 1 sort of way.

After the Titans and Earth's armies are both overwhelmed and the planet is added to the Empire, she runs away to construct another time sphere, to go back a couple years and use what she learned to prepare them for the upcoming future invasion. Naturally, she can't time travel anymore so she instead lands in some alternate universe where either Diana or Prometheus still rule, but don't have dimensional travel.

She'd keep trying to go back, jumping around multiple universes and eventually figuring out how that actually works. Possibly she recruits a scientist from some universe to help her with that. Meanwhile time has kept running, the empire has been slowly but steadily growing, so once she has a grasp of hyperdimensional geometry she'll move away from its center, hoping to meet someone that can help stop him, eventually making her way to our "normal" continuity.

Which serves to remind me that this is all backstory for the first time we meet her, and I don't actually have anything to do with this character. Fun!

#detective comics comics #fanfic #my writing #worldbuilding is its own reward #this MAY be everything actually?#i don't really have any vision for a post-Prometheus storyline #nor really any clear idea for how they would deal with him #presumably if i had the former it would help to define the later #still reserve the right to bring this back of course #should inspiration strike me again #we shall see i guess

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