Post by redsycorax on Feb 21, 2022 1:44:38 GMT
Earth-500 is a kinder, gentler alternate Earth in many ways. The Justice Alliance- Atom, Aquaman, Batman, Robin II, Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Hawkboy, Hawkgirl, Martian Manhunter, Captain Thunder, Lightning Girl, Superman, Superwoman, Ultra Violet and Wonder Woman- are the Earth's mightiest heroes. Although that doesn't mean that they don't face off against formidable threats every now and then...
++
NEPTUNE ORBIT:
Neptune silently coursed through deep interplanetary space with its retinue of satellites, amongst which the largest and most prominent was Triton, named for the son of the Roman sea god. Once, billions of years ago, Triton had been a planet itself, until a close approach to an eccentrically orbiting larger gas giant had caused Neptune to capture it and causing the eviction of its former companion satellite Pluto into an independent orbit. As the twentieth century ensued, Voyager Two navigated its way there and took photographs of the long otherwise undisturbed system. And then, once more, the sleep of ages resumed, undisturbed.
Earth-500's space programme was somewhat more advanced than many other alternate Earths, due to its peaceful and pluralistic nature. In its solar system, humans made it to Mars in 1980 and to Jupiter's inhabitable oceanic moon Europa in 1998, where they found the first examples of alien life elsewhere in the solar system. In 2010, it was the turn of Titan, within the Saturnian system, to be visited. And in 2022, humans finally made it outward to the solar system's most distant gas giant and its largest satellite.
"This is Discovery III to Houston. Over."
"Discovery, we read you. The images we're getting are awesome."
"Launching satellite landing module and robot rover now."
"Affirmative, Discovery. ... Wait a minute. We just got sideswiped by a major solar outplume. My god. Discovery, it's a big one and it's headed your way. Seek immediate shelter on Triton's far side! Repeat..."
(Bear in mind that Neptune and its satellites are over two billion miles from the Sun and you will realise that this conversation did not occur in real time, but is a condensation of reciprocal messages that took several hours to complete, given that light and visual and radio communication takes just over four hours to reach it. Which meant that by the time that Discovery III received the message to abort its planned SLM landing and seek urgent shelter against the oncoming caprice of astrophysics, it would be far too late to save its crew.
Unless...)
JUSTICE ALLIANCE SEABASE:
"Uh oh. This isn't looking good. We've had a distress call from NASA. The Discovery III spacecraft is endangered by a solar outplume and the message won't get there for another four hours, by which time the plume will hit them. Okay, time to organise an away team. Diana, Tanaka, Jose, Isabella... we can handle what's happening here as a result of the electromagnetic disruption caused by the outplume near-miss. The four of you are needed out there. Rai? What is it?" Superman asked
The dimunitive scientist cleared his throat: "Something's badly wrong here, folks. That solar outplume was unscheduled and unpredicted, which is anomalous. It does not coincide with peak solar activity. The solar surface doesn't have even so much as a sunspot on it at the moment. I think we're looking at a deliberately malicious event here."
Superwoman nodded: "But what can we do about that, Rai? We don't have near-solar excursion craft and Kal, Jose and I are the only ones who can go that inward. And he's needed urgently elsewhere. The lives of those astronauts onboard Discovery need to be our priority at the moment."
"I'm not disagreeing with you, Kara, but we need to be onguard. Jose, when you overtake it, perhaps scan the composition of the outplume? At least it'll have diluted its strength seriously en route to Neptune."
"Good thing that we've got Tanaka with us, then. At least he's a scientist."
"Uh, guys? Mind if I tag along on this one?"
"No problem, Rai. Get suited up and we'll be off shortly."
INTERPLANETARY SPACE:
As the Justice Alliance away team accelerated toward the distant gas giant and its largest satellite, Jose whistled:
"Is that the plume? It's enormous! It must be thousands of miles in length at least."
Crouching on his shoulder, the Atom nodded: "I was afraid of this. We can be grateful that it didn't hit the Earth/Moon system and that Mars, Europa and Titan are off its trajectory. Unfortunately, Neptune and Triton won't be so fortunate."
"So you think that this is deliberate?! But why choose Neptune? No-one knows whether it's even inhabited by micro-organisms. And your Overlords would have told us if there'd been some deep space alien incursion, Jose." Lightning Girl said through her suit radiotelepathy link.
"Possibly psychological," Tanaka replied, "imagine what would happen if the Discovery were lost with all hands. We haven't had a major space safety incident since Kal and Kara saved the crew of the Challenger space shuttle before its fuel line O tube blew, and that was over thirty years ago now. Since then, thankfully, all crewed deep space exploration has been mostly safe, apart from the physiological concerns caused by prolonged deep space travel."
"I don't suppose we can stop it before it reaches Neptune, Triton and Discovery?"
"We can certainly try. Isabella, Tanaka, take helical superspeed paths around the outplume and Jose, use your ring and try to flashfreeze it."
And so they did- Lightning Girl and the Flash accelerated around the prominence at a safe distance and as they did so, its fiery gaseous content started to condense. At the same time, Green Lantern trained his power beam on the length of the plume, concentrating on lowering its preternaturally hot temperature. Although the veins stood out on his head given the effort and sweat broke out on his forehead, Green Lantern's will power and indomitability stayed the course and gradually, the Atom's portable sensor array disclosed a welcome decline in the level of threat posed by the outplume. As that happened, something else became apparent.
There was a spacecraft, within the concealment offered by the outplume. As the Flash vibrated through its hull to investigate what might be within it, he was unexpectedly and forcibly repelled. The Atom tried next, only to be ambushed by a blue clad humanoid of his approximate size. Green Lantern assembled a force-screen to protect his fallen colleagues, but Lightning Girl was already heading toward the craft, along with J'Onn J'Onnz [Isabella, I am receiving powerful telepathic emanations from within the vessel...]
[Who are they, J'Onn? And why are they attacking us?]
As the rival superspeedster hurtled forward, J'Onn J'Onnz took the indirect route through him, while Lightning Girl took advantage of the momentary disorientation of their rival and knocked him out- hard enough to cause concussion but not shatter his spacesuit. Green Lantern provided a bubble to shield the fallen Flash and Atom, but then was almost hit by a thaumaturgic energy beam from within the vessel. He had had enough and set his power ring on stun, incapacitating the humanoids within it.
Later, J'Onn telepathically scanned their minds:
"Their names are the Champions of Valour. They are respectively Sorceror, Viridian Magus, Captain Scintilla and Bluebird. They're originally from Cholere, a world that was destroyed in a nuclear holocaust while they were away from it."
"Are they behind this, amiga?" Green Lantern asked.
"No, Jose, their presence here is purely incidental. It has nothing to do with the impending disaster out at Neptune. I...am afraid that although these beings were heroes on their homeworld, their experiences have driven all of them to madness. It would be prudent to keep them in suspended animation."
"But with the outplume diminished...?" Lightning Girl asked.
"It still poses a threat to Discovery III. Their rescue and retrieval has to be our primary mission."
"I can get us out there and we can deal with that first. However, afterward, we need to discuss this further." Green Lantern's ring flared and the members of the Justice Alliance away team were instantaneously sent through interplanetary space to the orbit of the outermost gas giant. Once there, J'Onn J'Onnz telepathically informed Discovery III's crew of their impending danger and Green Lantern and Lightning Girl assisted the craft out of the trajectory of the oncoming outplume. It passed through the Neptunian satellite system an hour later, causing some desublimation of frozen gases on the surfaces of Neptune and Triton alike, but no major radioactivity or contingent biohazards.
The question of the Champions of Valour and their disposition exercised the rest of the Justice Alliance back on Earth:
"The Survival Zone's out. Two of them are homo magii and could exit it with relative impunity." Superman noted.
"Then what about a world in the Microverse? The Atom knows a great deal about that." Wonder Woman queried.
"One of them is a variable size metahuman, so that might not be advisable either."
"But we can't just leave them like that!"
EPILOGUE:
Ultimately, though, a solution was found. Superman and Superwoman took the suspended animation caskets into the future, where a suitable therapeutic and recovery-oriented milieu was available on a future Earth, in a vast network of starfaring worlds where interstellar refugees had experienced comparable trauma and heartbreak to their own. And so, Sorceror, Viridian Magus, Captain Scintilla and Bluebird were revived to health and wholeness once more, and became valued guardians of a new future homeworld. Sometimes, legends can live again.
THE END
++
NEPTUNE ORBIT:
Neptune silently coursed through deep interplanetary space with its retinue of satellites, amongst which the largest and most prominent was Triton, named for the son of the Roman sea god. Once, billions of years ago, Triton had been a planet itself, until a close approach to an eccentrically orbiting larger gas giant had caused Neptune to capture it and causing the eviction of its former companion satellite Pluto into an independent orbit. As the twentieth century ensued, Voyager Two navigated its way there and took photographs of the long otherwise undisturbed system. And then, once more, the sleep of ages resumed, undisturbed.
Earth-500's space programme was somewhat more advanced than many other alternate Earths, due to its peaceful and pluralistic nature. In its solar system, humans made it to Mars in 1980 and to Jupiter's inhabitable oceanic moon Europa in 1998, where they found the first examples of alien life elsewhere in the solar system. In 2010, it was the turn of Titan, within the Saturnian system, to be visited. And in 2022, humans finally made it outward to the solar system's most distant gas giant and its largest satellite.
"This is Discovery III to Houston. Over."
"Discovery, we read you. The images we're getting are awesome."
"Launching satellite landing module and robot rover now."
"Affirmative, Discovery. ... Wait a minute. We just got sideswiped by a major solar outplume. My god. Discovery, it's a big one and it's headed your way. Seek immediate shelter on Triton's far side! Repeat..."
(Bear in mind that Neptune and its satellites are over two billion miles from the Sun and you will realise that this conversation did not occur in real time, but is a condensation of reciprocal messages that took several hours to complete, given that light and visual and radio communication takes just over four hours to reach it. Which meant that by the time that Discovery III received the message to abort its planned SLM landing and seek urgent shelter against the oncoming caprice of astrophysics, it would be far too late to save its crew.
Unless...)
JUSTICE ALLIANCE SEABASE:
"Uh oh. This isn't looking good. We've had a distress call from NASA. The Discovery III spacecraft is endangered by a solar outplume and the message won't get there for another four hours, by which time the plume will hit them. Okay, time to organise an away team. Diana, Tanaka, Jose, Isabella... we can handle what's happening here as a result of the electromagnetic disruption caused by the outplume near-miss. The four of you are needed out there. Rai? What is it?" Superman asked
The dimunitive scientist cleared his throat: "Something's badly wrong here, folks. That solar outplume was unscheduled and unpredicted, which is anomalous. It does not coincide with peak solar activity. The solar surface doesn't have even so much as a sunspot on it at the moment. I think we're looking at a deliberately malicious event here."
Superwoman nodded: "But what can we do about that, Rai? We don't have near-solar excursion craft and Kal, Jose and I are the only ones who can go that inward. And he's needed urgently elsewhere. The lives of those astronauts onboard Discovery need to be our priority at the moment."
"I'm not disagreeing with you, Kara, but we need to be onguard. Jose, when you overtake it, perhaps scan the composition of the outplume? At least it'll have diluted its strength seriously en route to Neptune."
"Good thing that we've got Tanaka with us, then. At least he's a scientist."
"Uh, guys? Mind if I tag along on this one?"
"No problem, Rai. Get suited up and we'll be off shortly."
INTERPLANETARY SPACE:
As the Justice Alliance away team accelerated toward the distant gas giant and its largest satellite, Jose whistled:
"Is that the plume? It's enormous! It must be thousands of miles in length at least."
Crouching on his shoulder, the Atom nodded: "I was afraid of this. We can be grateful that it didn't hit the Earth/Moon system and that Mars, Europa and Titan are off its trajectory. Unfortunately, Neptune and Triton won't be so fortunate."
"So you think that this is deliberate?! But why choose Neptune? No-one knows whether it's even inhabited by micro-organisms. And your Overlords would have told us if there'd been some deep space alien incursion, Jose." Lightning Girl said through her suit radiotelepathy link.
"Possibly psychological," Tanaka replied, "imagine what would happen if the Discovery were lost with all hands. We haven't had a major space safety incident since Kal and Kara saved the crew of the Challenger space shuttle before its fuel line O tube blew, and that was over thirty years ago now. Since then, thankfully, all crewed deep space exploration has been mostly safe, apart from the physiological concerns caused by prolonged deep space travel."
"I don't suppose we can stop it before it reaches Neptune, Triton and Discovery?"
"We can certainly try. Isabella, Tanaka, take helical superspeed paths around the outplume and Jose, use your ring and try to flashfreeze it."
And so they did- Lightning Girl and the Flash accelerated around the prominence at a safe distance and as they did so, its fiery gaseous content started to condense. At the same time, Green Lantern trained his power beam on the length of the plume, concentrating on lowering its preternaturally hot temperature. Although the veins stood out on his head given the effort and sweat broke out on his forehead, Green Lantern's will power and indomitability stayed the course and gradually, the Atom's portable sensor array disclosed a welcome decline in the level of threat posed by the outplume. As that happened, something else became apparent.
There was a spacecraft, within the concealment offered by the outplume. As the Flash vibrated through its hull to investigate what might be within it, he was unexpectedly and forcibly repelled. The Atom tried next, only to be ambushed by a blue clad humanoid of his approximate size. Green Lantern assembled a force-screen to protect his fallen colleagues, but Lightning Girl was already heading toward the craft, along with J'Onn J'Onnz [Isabella, I am receiving powerful telepathic emanations from within the vessel...]
[Who are they, J'Onn? And why are they attacking us?]
As the rival superspeedster hurtled forward, J'Onn J'Onnz took the indirect route through him, while Lightning Girl took advantage of the momentary disorientation of their rival and knocked him out- hard enough to cause concussion but not shatter his spacesuit. Green Lantern provided a bubble to shield the fallen Flash and Atom, but then was almost hit by a thaumaturgic energy beam from within the vessel. He had had enough and set his power ring on stun, incapacitating the humanoids within it.
Later, J'Onn telepathically scanned their minds:
"Their names are the Champions of Valour. They are respectively Sorceror, Viridian Magus, Captain Scintilla and Bluebird. They're originally from Cholere, a world that was destroyed in a nuclear holocaust while they were away from it."
"Are they behind this, amiga?" Green Lantern asked.
"No, Jose, their presence here is purely incidental. It has nothing to do with the impending disaster out at Neptune. I...am afraid that although these beings were heroes on their homeworld, their experiences have driven all of them to madness. It would be prudent to keep them in suspended animation."
"But with the outplume diminished...?" Lightning Girl asked.
"It still poses a threat to Discovery III. Their rescue and retrieval has to be our primary mission."
"I can get us out there and we can deal with that first. However, afterward, we need to discuss this further." Green Lantern's ring flared and the members of the Justice Alliance away team were instantaneously sent through interplanetary space to the orbit of the outermost gas giant. Once there, J'Onn J'Onnz telepathically informed Discovery III's crew of their impending danger and Green Lantern and Lightning Girl assisted the craft out of the trajectory of the oncoming outplume. It passed through the Neptunian satellite system an hour later, causing some desublimation of frozen gases on the surfaces of Neptune and Triton alike, but no major radioactivity or contingent biohazards.
The question of the Champions of Valour and their disposition exercised the rest of the Justice Alliance back on Earth:
"The Survival Zone's out. Two of them are homo magii and could exit it with relative impunity." Superman noted.
"Then what about a world in the Microverse? The Atom knows a great deal about that." Wonder Woman queried.
"One of them is a variable size metahuman, so that might not be advisable either."
"But we can't just leave them like that!"
EPILOGUE:
Ultimately, though, a solution was found. Superman and Superwoman took the suspended animation caskets into the future, where a suitable therapeutic and recovery-oriented milieu was available on a future Earth, in a vast network of starfaring worlds where interstellar refugees had experienced comparable trauma and heartbreak to their own. And so, Sorceror, Viridian Magus, Captain Scintilla and Bluebird were revived to health and wholeness once more, and became valued guardians of a new future homeworld. Sometimes, legends can live again.
THE END