Post by redsycorax on Jan 7, 2023 2:32:58 GMT
On Earth-390, much has changed in terms of the usual heroic retinue that characterises much of the Multiverse. Superman died from green kryptonite poisoning after Lex Luthor arranged a meteorite bombardment of Earth, while Batman and Catwoman's marriage chased away his vestigial demons and ended his career. Supergirl took over her dead cousin's responsibilities, while Dick Grayson patrolled Gotham in Bruce Wayne's stead, as Nightwing. Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance's daughter Olive fights crime as Queen Arrow, while Kyle Rayner took over as Green Lantern when Hal Jordan retired to marry Carol Ferris at long last. J'Onn J'Onnz is still offworld and is President of New Mars, so presumably will remain there. Wonder Woman retired to Paradise Island following the death of Superman and Steve Trevor, the latter from old age. Following Hippolyta's death in combat against her old enemy Herakles, Diana is now Amazon Queen.
As well as the above developments in metahumanity, this world diverges from the datum in other ways. On Earth-390, dissociative identity disorder is far more commonplace than on many other Earths, apart from similarly situated Earth-49. Unfortunately, however, that has meant that there have been some sharp legislative responses to the abundance of metahuman abilities amongst many multiple-personality aggregate individuals. While only South Africa maintained anti-witchcraft laws on more unitary-dominated Earths, on Earth-390, such legislation is still in force throughout North America, Africa and Asia. Due to the Bowers Vs Morrigan US Supreme Court decision in 1986, multiple personality individuals are still classified as 'witches' in the Southern United States and are still imprisoned as such there.
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MIAMI:
"Absolutely not! I refuse to endorse this legislation, Tom. You know the Florida Supreme Court won't endorse it and I will veto it given your lack of a supermajority in the House of Delegates."
"Be reasonable, Governor Danvers. This isn't the seventeenth century and besides, the federal Supreme Court bench has upheld the legality of anti-sorcery laws."
"I am being reasonable, Tom. Multiplicity was decriminalised in this state in 1967 and that's the way it'll stay for as long as I occupy this position."
"Despite the 'clear and present danger' that multiple paranormality poses to normal single-personality Americans?"
"Tom, you know as well as I do that the junk pseudoscience in the Alliance Defending Singlehood report you've just cited isn't endorsed by mainstream medical and scientific professional associations. I will not be party to a moral panic based on superstition and fear. This meeting is over, Congressperson. Please leave this office."
As Governor Linda Danvers leant back in her chair and sighed to herself, her phone buzzed:
"Hi, Barbara. How's the seat of power today?"
"As foggy as ever, Linda. And I wish I could report progress on the Singleton Protection Amendment. Unfortunately, the Alliance Party dominates the Senate and while President Clinton is onside, as is the Progressive-dominated House of Representatives, so there's little hope of poleaxeing it in the Senate Judiciary Committee. I'm sorry. I wish I had better news."
"How did things turn out like this, Barbara? Things seemed much more innocent when we were Batgirl and Supergirl."
"I long for those days sometimes, too. Although Bruce, Hal, Oliver and Dinah all deserve their retirement, it has to be said."
"Have you had a chance to talk to Dick lately?"
"He's too busy in Gotham at the moment. Damn. That's the committee line calling. Later, amiga."
METROPOLIS:
Daily Planet editor Lois Lane stood, looking over the city below her, a lump in her throat. She always felt this way, even though it was a decade now since the kryptonite meteorite bombardment that had taken the life of her beloved Superman. It still hurt, more than she was able to say. And the other changes hadn't brought peace and resolution either. It wasn't just Superman, Kal-El, Clark, the man that she had loved. Six months later, Jimmy Olsen had given his life in a shoot out between the Prankster and Toyman, just a month after he'd finally married her sister Lucy. Still, despite that tragedy, at least Lucy had the consolation of pregnancy. Claire was a blessing to both woman at this most difficult time of their year. Lana Lang had long since married Vartox and lived with him on Sfar, one of Alpha Centauri's three populated planets.
She hadn't wanted this job, but when Perry White had passed away from his sudden heart attack, she was the obvious choice. And it wasn't as if Superman's death had left the world defenceless. There was Nightwing, the new Green Lantern, Queen Arrow and now Superwoman, as Kara called herself these days. But the old Justice League had been gone for over twenty years now. It was difficult to pinpoint when the disintegration had started. Was it Hawkman and Hawkwoman's return to Thanagar? Superman's death? Aquaman's maritime enviromental militancy as Atlantis turned against the depredations of the 'surface world?' But could this world survive against a major alien incursion or Omega-class supervillain onslaught? She hoped so. For all her enduring grief at the absence Superman's loss had left in her life, Lois Lane still had faith in the essential goodness of the world around her. And despite the Bronze Age that had succeeded the times of gold and silver metahumanity, there were still ample figures to protect this world.
REMEMBRANCE DAY:
And then came the most painful day. Not only for her, Lucy and Kara, but also for the families and widowers and widows of those who had been otherwise lost during the years. As Lois, Lucy and Superwoman laid their wreath at Superman's memorial statue, they weren't the only ones. Jean Loring Palmer came forward, laying her memorial corsage at the plinth of her slain husband, Ray Palmer )(the Atom), who had been killed by a subatomic particle abreaction when he successfully prevented a vacuum state shift that would have destroyed their universe- but at the tragic cost of his own life. Wally West's statue was attended by his parents and widow, Linda Park West- Wally had sacrificed himself to prevent the same universal catastrophe as Ray had. There was more private grief for Oliver and Dinah, though, given the circumstances of Roy Harper's death. Both of them thought it unfair that Oliver's ward's demise somehow undid everything else he'd accomplished as Speedy and it had led to their estrangement from the rest of the metahuman community. Jimmy Olsen. Bat-Girl I. Changeling. Snapper Carr. The list went on, inexorably. So many losses, so many broken hearts.
At the reception afterwards, Selina and Bruce hugged Lois:
"Holding up well?"
"As well as can be expected, Bruce. It was good seeing Kathy Kane there. And the fact that she and Dick are talking about Bette at last."
"Incidentally, we appreciated that article on Barbara's legacy in the Planet too, honey. It's a shame that she left the heroic life behind when she got elected to Congress, but at least Kathy and Dick are still out there. Jenny's growing fast, isn't she?"
"It seems so long ago now, Selina. But every time I look at Clark's statue, it still flares up. What's happened to all of us, to this world?"
"Too many good people have fallen. Even if there have been positive events like Lex Luthor's execution, the enlargement and relocation of Kandor, the Joker's cancer and death, the fall of the 100 and Intergang, and J'Onn J'Onnz' presidency of New Mars, there are shadows amidst the spotlights." Bruce mused.
"'All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey/I went for a walk/on a Winter's day..."
Lucy Lane Olsen sang to herself and Jenny, given that was her late husband's favourite song. How empty it felt without him.
FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE:
Later that evening, Superwoman returned to her Fortress. Even after all these years, it still felt odd to her, as if she'd turn a corner and there would be Kal, smiling as he came to greet her. But no, those days were gone forever. The area of the Fortress that had been dedicated to his friends and family were shuttered now, apart from those related to Jor-El and Lara, Kara's uncle and aunt, and the El dynasty, given they were her ancestors too. Then the screen began to opalesce and she looked up from her reverie. There. in the mainsight, was Kay Challis, Crazy Jane, formerly of the Doom Patrol, but now leader of Kaleidoscope, a multiple personality rights organisation, as well as Meta-Household, the organisation of multiple-personality metahumans:
"Kay? What can I do for you?"
"Kara. I wish this was under more pleasant circumstances. You've always been supportive of multiplicity inclusion and you know I'm not a perseparatist. It's just... I've had some disturbing news from a household with a precog alter, verified by several others in the same persona configuration. It seems an anti-multiple supervillain is trying to change history to insure the Martian Invasion of the fifties never happened. I feel conflicted about this. It wasn't the founding trauma that led to my development of multiplicity, but it probably was the originating event that led to the explosion of the multiple personality community as we know it today."
"But changing history never works. Even if it were possible, Kay, the consequences of temporal abreaction would shatter causality and destroy this universe."
"I know you can't go back there, given that you were growing up on Argo City in the same timeframe. However, if you could send someone back there, I'd appreciate it. And for obvious reasons, the perseparatists would excommunicate me if word of this warning ever got out."
"Appreciate the heads up, Kay. I'll see what I can do."
Superwoman sighed as she entered her personal living space. Kuiper, her second supercat, padded toward her and nuzzled her:
"Hello, boy. Sorry I haven't been around lately. Thanks for the save with those near-planet earthgrazers when I was busy with those tsunami rescues in Indonesia."
"Prrt?"
"I know, Kay was good to call me like that, wasn't she? But she's right, I can't go back there myself. Nor can Dick, for the same reason. Which leaves Olive and Kyle. Fortunately, their power set would work ideally in this case. Ah. The supercomputer just delivered a packet of information about the anti-multiple supervillain at the centre of this development. Oh, blazes. Her. It figures."
Kuiper hissed: "You're an excellent judge of character, Kuip. Nastalthia Luthor. Oh, that figures. Ever since inheriting Uncle Lex's corporate fortune, she's made no secret of her backing for wannabe dictators. So she thinks she can get away with this, huh? Dream on, lady."
1953:
At the midpoint of the twentieth century, no-one would have believed that humanity was under observation from the timeless worlds of space. No-one even considered the possibility of life on other planets. But minds immeasurably superior to ours coveted this world with envious eyes and slowly but surely they drew their plans against our species, determined to usurp our planet. And then, on August 1953, it happened. Southeast of Riverside County and the small city of Corona, opposite the Cleveland National Forest and Santa Ana mountains, in the quiet resort town of Linda Rosa, a giant canister fell to Earth. It would soon prove hostile and murderous, killing at first individuals who approached it and then members of the US Army and Air Force sent to defend the state from its incursion as reports surfaced of analogous depredations and attacks on cities. It had taken only a week for most major global cities to fall. Superman had been seriously injured by a kryptonite powered heat ray from a particular Martian battle tripod after he had taken Lois, Lana, Perry, Jimmy and Lucy to safety in his Arctic Fortress. In the melee, many of the valiant earlier generation of superheroes within the Justice Society and All-Star Squadron had given their lives to delay the onslaught- Black Canary, Green Lantern I (Alan Scott), Flash I (Jay Garrick), Dr Mid-Nite, Mr Terrific, Sandman, Starman, Wildcat, Atom I (Al Pratt), Liberty Belle, Johnny Quick, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, the Shining Knight, Robotman I (Neil Crane), Firebrand (Danette O'Reilly), Tarantula, the Crimson Avenger...the list went on, stretching into eternity, as the world's remaining heroes and villains put aside their hostilities and fought together for human survival. Batman, Robin and Batwoman organised resistance in the ruined streets of Gotham, as did Green Arrow and Speedy in Star City, Lex Luthor in Metropolis, and Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor in Washington. After a fortnight of massacre and near apocalyptic conditions, the invaders finally fell when Batman discovered their achilles heel- given the somewhat depleted Martian biosphere, the Martian invaders were vulnerable to Terran micro-organisms and that was what had killed them.
But the damage had been done. Apart from Superman, who was viewed as a legitimate refugee from a long since destroyed planet and who had repaid any conceivable debt to his adopted world for embracing him, and later Supergirl, xenophobia reigned. National and state legislatures passed anti-alien legislation that banned alien presence within their geographical boundaries and most US states banned human/alien relationships and cross-species sapient intermarriage- except in Illinois, where Lois Lane passionately condemned the attack on the right to follow one's heart on such matters and stared down the attacks on her relationship with Superman. On this world, J'Onn J'Onnz was never known to be a Green Martian, despite travelling to Earth to combat the invasion in this universe, and the fact that the invading Martians belonged to the adversarial White Martian species, his Green Martian species mortal enemies. Instead, Superman contrived an ersatz 'origin' story for their colleague, portraying him as native from another star system, whose sun had gone nova.
And then, in the wake of the midcentury invasion, the world changed. There was a new generation of superheroes, empowered as science advanced as a consequence of wartime research breakthroughs. The second Atom and Flash were beneficiaries of that measure and Hal Jordan found Abin Sur's crashed spaceship in the desert, unwilling to let xenophobia poison his altruism and moral compass, while the second Hawkman and Hawkgirl found it expedient to conceal their actual Thanagarian origins. A Justice League formed in tribute to the fallen heroes of the first generation and stayed together until the seventies. After two decades, a titan fell, as Superman perished trying to defend his adopted world from a murderous onslaught of planet-killer sized kryptonite meteorites. When it was discovered that Lex Luthor had planned the bombardment through enhancing the scale of effect of 'magno-kryptonite' isotopes, public revulsion ensured his death sentence and execution. However, it became apparent that he had done so at arm's length from his corporate operations at "LexCorp", and his niece Nastalthia Luthor inherited the company, playing the public relations game to the hilt and deflecting attention about her true objectives.
As time went on, another consequence of the midcentury invasion had surfaced, as the trauma of near-death for an entire generation of young children had led to the proliferation of multiple personalities and dissociative identity disorder diagnoses. Another consequence of the abortive Martian invasion was legacy mutagenic radiation from their advanced technology, leading to the appearance of metahumans amongst the new multiple community's ranks. Nastalthia Luthor watched and schemed, covertly funding anti-multiple pressure group infratructure, communication and political mobilisation. She had some initial success in the eighties under President John Anderson, who was beset by a right-wing shift within his Alliance Party which fuelled truculence over the president's choice of US Supreme Court candidates. Accordingly, the Morrigan decision was handed down in 1986. Anderson was infuriated and threatened to leave his party over their refusal to certify his nominations, but the consequence was Congressional resurgence for his erstwhile Progressive Party opponents. Accordingly, his second term was full of bipartisan rapprochement and in 'liberal' Progressive US states, mutiple rights advocacy made substantial advances, even if Anderson was excoriated as an AINO from his estranged Alliance colleagues. Although rightist Alliance activists breathed a sigh of relief when Anderson had served his second term, their disunited party meant that Michael Dukakis became Progressive president in 1988. His assassination, and the unpopularity of his Vice President Lloyd Bentsen's tenure led to an Alliance victory in 1992. Pat Buchanan was acceptable to the Alliance Party's hard right, but not to mainstream Americans, given the Progressive recapture of the Senate and House of Representatives in 1994 and entanglement in the Iranian War, which would rage in the Middle East for a decade as a consequence of his ineptitude. Roland Reimers, the Progressive candidate, was a default choice in 1996 for the Progressives, however, and once more only served a single term before his retirement and the election of Hillary Clinton as the first (Progressive) female US President in 2000.
Meanwhile, Nastalthia Luthor watched her opportunist political agenda falter and then reverse momentum as the liberalised political establishment first insured that the Supreme Court composition was such that it handed down Garroway Vs Texas and struck down prohibitions against xenophile marriages. Fearful that her lucrative if covert anti-multiple revenue stream might be uncovered, industrial espionage located the remains of a crashed Legion of Super Heroes time bubble near Smallville and covert analysis of its contents led to her discovery of time travel. Luthor realised that she had found the ideal avenue for retaliation against her metahuman and political enemies, given what she now envisaged. She would travel back to '53 and sabotage the Martian invasion. It would save millions of American and global lives- and in doing so, the obstacle to her ascendancy in the present would be butterflyed away, given the gratitude and acclaim of an entire world. In her recklessness, the phrase 'law of unintended consequences' did not occur to her.
AUGUST 1953:
Nastalthia Luthor crept forward, until she witnessed a red pinpoint of light. She frowned, then nodded as Queen Arrow and Green Lantern came out into the light:
"Ms. Luthor. Back away, now, and return to the twenty first century. This has to go ahead as historically specified."
"Or what? You and the Archer are supposed to be 'heroes,' Green Lantern. So what are you going to do if I don't? In the next fortnight, millions of people will die, including innocent children. Are you really willing to prevent me dealing with that now so that contingency never takes place? In which case, you'll become morally responsible for mass murder."
"The only reason you're doing this is because of your glory hounding. You don't really care about those innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. They're just incidental to your main objective."
"I repeat, are you both willing to stop me from intervening and wiping out the Martian bridgehead now, so that innocent lives can be saved?"
"How can you be sure that you won't make things worse?"
"How could they be any worse, Queen Arrow? One quarter of the worlds population- that's 670 million people out of a current world population of 2.7 billion... will die during this invasion. To be precise, some of them will die horribly, given the anthropophagous dietary tastes of Martians. Children will be orphaned. Some will commit suicide due to their trauma."
"That's what you're really after, isn't it? You want to butterfly the multiple community out of existence."
"Oh, I see. What you're really saying is that you're willing to let that mass slaughter happen because of some abstract ideological agenda."
"So what happens as an unintended consequence? What if the Martians become immune to terrestrial micro-organisms as a result of what you intend to do? It's too dangerous."
"The direct consequence will be that this Martian invasion ends here and lives will be saved as a result."
"In exchange for what? So that a future Martian invasion is warned about the risk of Terran microbial organisms to their physiology so that they are immune during that invasion and become unstoppable?"
"In any case, this whole discussion is academic, you see I...where is it?! Where's my flask?!"
"Sorry, Nasty. It has to end here." Slade Wilson came into the light.
"Wilson! What the hell do you think you're doing?!"
"Y'see, these people here want to stop you from rewriting history so you Luthors end up even better off than you are in the current scheme of things."
"You can't know that, Wilson. Get out of my way."
"You assume that I'm the Slade Wilson from your timeline, Nasty. Well, I'm not. I'm from the one that resulted because you did 'succeed' in 'saving the world'. Except that they're right, it is worse. The Martians launched a reconnaissance probe when they lost contact with their preliminary invasion force and discovered what had happened to them. Unaware of a hostile Martian civilisation, the Earth was powerless when the Martians launched their second strike in the late seventies, just after Vikings III and IV landed on Mars in June 1978. All of humanity perished. I found out that you were at the core of this fool's crusade and that your attack on the Martian bridgehead gave them forewarning. Who are you to judge who lives and who dies? Because you will end up slaughtering 4.3 billion people twenty five years from now. I watched them kill my children. So either back off or pay the consequences."
"Are you going to let him do that?" But when she turned to face Queen Arrow and Green Lantern, they had vanished into the dark. She spun around and faced Deathstroke, who held her initial flask of bacteriological war toxin at his side. He shook his head:
"That's the difference. Those two are fundamentally decent people. If it hadn't been for your moral blackmail, they might have restrained you, but the cognitive dissonance from the implications of their decision would have been immense. So, I hacked into their time travel infrastructure and triggered their failsafe and they're back uptime. Because it has to end here. Because I know what has to be done here and what needs to be accomplished so that you can't do this. Don't make me do this, Nasty. No matter what you've heard about me, I don't relish killing an unarmed civilian, even one as corrupt and scheming as you are."
But she did, leaping toward him and a percussive shot rang out into the night. Nastalthia Luthor fell, lifeless, to the ground. As she died and as his timeline was aborted, still clutching the bacteriological toxin flask as he faded from existence, Slade Wilson smiled to himself. Ironically, this was a somewhat morally ambiguous ending. In a sense, he had saved the world by insuring a worse one never came in to e xist ence
THE END [3.57 PM, JANUARY 11, 2023]
As well as the above developments in metahumanity, this world diverges from the datum in other ways. On Earth-390, dissociative identity disorder is far more commonplace than on many other Earths, apart from similarly situated Earth-49. Unfortunately, however, that has meant that there have been some sharp legislative responses to the abundance of metahuman abilities amongst many multiple-personality aggregate individuals. While only South Africa maintained anti-witchcraft laws on more unitary-dominated Earths, on Earth-390, such legislation is still in force throughout North America, Africa and Asia. Due to the Bowers Vs Morrigan US Supreme Court decision in 1986, multiple personality individuals are still classified as 'witches' in the Southern United States and are still imprisoned as such there.
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MIAMI:
"Absolutely not! I refuse to endorse this legislation, Tom. You know the Florida Supreme Court won't endorse it and I will veto it given your lack of a supermajority in the House of Delegates."
"Be reasonable, Governor Danvers. This isn't the seventeenth century and besides, the federal Supreme Court bench has upheld the legality of anti-sorcery laws."
"I am being reasonable, Tom. Multiplicity was decriminalised in this state in 1967 and that's the way it'll stay for as long as I occupy this position."
"Despite the 'clear and present danger' that multiple paranormality poses to normal single-personality Americans?"
"Tom, you know as well as I do that the junk pseudoscience in the Alliance Defending Singlehood report you've just cited isn't endorsed by mainstream medical and scientific professional associations. I will not be party to a moral panic based on superstition and fear. This meeting is over, Congressperson. Please leave this office."
As Governor Linda Danvers leant back in her chair and sighed to herself, her phone buzzed:
"Hi, Barbara. How's the seat of power today?"
"As foggy as ever, Linda. And I wish I could report progress on the Singleton Protection Amendment. Unfortunately, the Alliance Party dominates the Senate and while President Clinton is onside, as is the Progressive-dominated House of Representatives, so there's little hope of poleaxeing it in the Senate Judiciary Committee. I'm sorry. I wish I had better news."
"How did things turn out like this, Barbara? Things seemed much more innocent when we were Batgirl and Supergirl."
"I long for those days sometimes, too. Although Bruce, Hal, Oliver and Dinah all deserve their retirement, it has to be said."
"Have you had a chance to talk to Dick lately?"
"He's too busy in Gotham at the moment. Damn. That's the committee line calling. Later, amiga."
METROPOLIS:
Daily Planet editor Lois Lane stood, looking over the city below her, a lump in her throat. She always felt this way, even though it was a decade now since the kryptonite meteorite bombardment that had taken the life of her beloved Superman. It still hurt, more than she was able to say. And the other changes hadn't brought peace and resolution either. It wasn't just Superman, Kal-El, Clark, the man that she had loved. Six months later, Jimmy Olsen had given his life in a shoot out between the Prankster and Toyman, just a month after he'd finally married her sister Lucy. Still, despite that tragedy, at least Lucy had the consolation of pregnancy. Claire was a blessing to both woman at this most difficult time of their year. Lana Lang had long since married Vartox and lived with him on Sfar, one of Alpha Centauri's three populated planets.
She hadn't wanted this job, but when Perry White had passed away from his sudden heart attack, she was the obvious choice. And it wasn't as if Superman's death had left the world defenceless. There was Nightwing, the new Green Lantern, Queen Arrow and now Superwoman, as Kara called herself these days. But the old Justice League had been gone for over twenty years now. It was difficult to pinpoint when the disintegration had started. Was it Hawkman and Hawkwoman's return to Thanagar? Superman's death? Aquaman's maritime enviromental militancy as Atlantis turned against the depredations of the 'surface world?' But could this world survive against a major alien incursion or Omega-class supervillain onslaught? She hoped so. For all her enduring grief at the absence Superman's loss had left in her life, Lois Lane still had faith in the essential goodness of the world around her. And despite the Bronze Age that had succeeded the times of gold and silver metahumanity, there were still ample figures to protect this world.
REMEMBRANCE DAY:
And then came the most painful day. Not only for her, Lucy and Kara, but also for the families and widowers and widows of those who had been otherwise lost during the years. As Lois, Lucy and Superwoman laid their wreath at Superman's memorial statue, they weren't the only ones. Jean Loring Palmer came forward, laying her memorial corsage at the plinth of her slain husband, Ray Palmer )(the Atom), who had been killed by a subatomic particle abreaction when he successfully prevented a vacuum state shift that would have destroyed their universe- but at the tragic cost of his own life. Wally West's statue was attended by his parents and widow, Linda Park West- Wally had sacrificed himself to prevent the same universal catastrophe as Ray had. There was more private grief for Oliver and Dinah, though, given the circumstances of Roy Harper's death. Both of them thought it unfair that Oliver's ward's demise somehow undid everything else he'd accomplished as Speedy and it had led to their estrangement from the rest of the metahuman community. Jimmy Olsen. Bat-Girl I. Changeling. Snapper Carr. The list went on, inexorably. So many losses, so many broken hearts.
At the reception afterwards, Selina and Bruce hugged Lois:
"Holding up well?"
"As well as can be expected, Bruce. It was good seeing Kathy Kane there. And the fact that she and Dick are talking about Bette at last."
"Incidentally, we appreciated that article on Barbara's legacy in the Planet too, honey. It's a shame that she left the heroic life behind when she got elected to Congress, but at least Kathy and Dick are still out there. Jenny's growing fast, isn't she?"
"It seems so long ago now, Selina. But every time I look at Clark's statue, it still flares up. What's happened to all of us, to this world?"
"Too many good people have fallen. Even if there have been positive events like Lex Luthor's execution, the enlargement and relocation of Kandor, the Joker's cancer and death, the fall of the 100 and Intergang, and J'Onn J'Onnz' presidency of New Mars, there are shadows amidst the spotlights." Bruce mused.
"'All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey/I went for a walk/on a Winter's day..."
Lucy Lane Olsen sang to herself and Jenny, given that was her late husband's favourite song. How empty it felt without him.
FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE:
Later that evening, Superwoman returned to her Fortress. Even after all these years, it still felt odd to her, as if she'd turn a corner and there would be Kal, smiling as he came to greet her. But no, those days were gone forever. The area of the Fortress that had been dedicated to his friends and family were shuttered now, apart from those related to Jor-El and Lara, Kara's uncle and aunt, and the El dynasty, given they were her ancestors too. Then the screen began to opalesce and she looked up from her reverie. There. in the mainsight, was Kay Challis, Crazy Jane, formerly of the Doom Patrol, but now leader of Kaleidoscope, a multiple personality rights organisation, as well as Meta-Household, the organisation of multiple-personality metahumans:
"Kay? What can I do for you?"
"Kara. I wish this was under more pleasant circumstances. You've always been supportive of multiplicity inclusion and you know I'm not a perseparatist. It's just... I've had some disturbing news from a household with a precog alter, verified by several others in the same persona configuration. It seems an anti-multiple supervillain is trying to change history to insure the Martian Invasion of the fifties never happened. I feel conflicted about this. It wasn't the founding trauma that led to my development of multiplicity, but it probably was the originating event that led to the explosion of the multiple personality community as we know it today."
"But changing history never works. Even if it were possible, Kay, the consequences of temporal abreaction would shatter causality and destroy this universe."
"I know you can't go back there, given that you were growing up on Argo City in the same timeframe. However, if you could send someone back there, I'd appreciate it. And for obvious reasons, the perseparatists would excommunicate me if word of this warning ever got out."
"Appreciate the heads up, Kay. I'll see what I can do."
Superwoman sighed as she entered her personal living space. Kuiper, her second supercat, padded toward her and nuzzled her:
"Hello, boy. Sorry I haven't been around lately. Thanks for the save with those near-planet earthgrazers when I was busy with those tsunami rescues in Indonesia."
"Prrt?"
"I know, Kay was good to call me like that, wasn't she? But she's right, I can't go back there myself. Nor can Dick, for the same reason. Which leaves Olive and Kyle. Fortunately, their power set would work ideally in this case. Ah. The supercomputer just delivered a packet of information about the anti-multiple supervillain at the centre of this development. Oh, blazes. Her. It figures."
Kuiper hissed: "You're an excellent judge of character, Kuip. Nastalthia Luthor. Oh, that figures. Ever since inheriting Uncle Lex's corporate fortune, she's made no secret of her backing for wannabe dictators. So she thinks she can get away with this, huh? Dream on, lady."
1953:
At the midpoint of the twentieth century, no-one would have believed that humanity was under observation from the timeless worlds of space. No-one even considered the possibility of life on other planets. But minds immeasurably superior to ours coveted this world with envious eyes and slowly but surely they drew their plans against our species, determined to usurp our planet. And then, on August 1953, it happened. Southeast of Riverside County and the small city of Corona, opposite the Cleveland National Forest and Santa Ana mountains, in the quiet resort town of Linda Rosa, a giant canister fell to Earth. It would soon prove hostile and murderous, killing at first individuals who approached it and then members of the US Army and Air Force sent to defend the state from its incursion as reports surfaced of analogous depredations and attacks on cities. It had taken only a week for most major global cities to fall. Superman had been seriously injured by a kryptonite powered heat ray from a particular Martian battle tripod after he had taken Lois, Lana, Perry, Jimmy and Lucy to safety in his Arctic Fortress. In the melee, many of the valiant earlier generation of superheroes within the Justice Society and All-Star Squadron had given their lives to delay the onslaught- Black Canary, Green Lantern I (Alan Scott), Flash I (Jay Garrick), Dr Mid-Nite, Mr Terrific, Sandman, Starman, Wildcat, Atom I (Al Pratt), Liberty Belle, Johnny Quick, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, the Shining Knight, Robotman I (Neil Crane), Firebrand (Danette O'Reilly), Tarantula, the Crimson Avenger...the list went on, stretching into eternity, as the world's remaining heroes and villains put aside their hostilities and fought together for human survival. Batman, Robin and Batwoman organised resistance in the ruined streets of Gotham, as did Green Arrow and Speedy in Star City, Lex Luthor in Metropolis, and Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor in Washington. After a fortnight of massacre and near apocalyptic conditions, the invaders finally fell when Batman discovered their achilles heel- given the somewhat depleted Martian biosphere, the Martian invaders were vulnerable to Terran micro-organisms and that was what had killed them.
But the damage had been done. Apart from Superman, who was viewed as a legitimate refugee from a long since destroyed planet and who had repaid any conceivable debt to his adopted world for embracing him, and later Supergirl, xenophobia reigned. National and state legislatures passed anti-alien legislation that banned alien presence within their geographical boundaries and most US states banned human/alien relationships and cross-species sapient intermarriage- except in Illinois, where Lois Lane passionately condemned the attack on the right to follow one's heart on such matters and stared down the attacks on her relationship with Superman. On this world, J'Onn J'Onnz was never known to be a Green Martian, despite travelling to Earth to combat the invasion in this universe, and the fact that the invading Martians belonged to the adversarial White Martian species, his Green Martian species mortal enemies. Instead, Superman contrived an ersatz 'origin' story for their colleague, portraying him as native from another star system, whose sun had gone nova.
And then, in the wake of the midcentury invasion, the world changed. There was a new generation of superheroes, empowered as science advanced as a consequence of wartime research breakthroughs. The second Atom and Flash were beneficiaries of that measure and Hal Jordan found Abin Sur's crashed spaceship in the desert, unwilling to let xenophobia poison his altruism and moral compass, while the second Hawkman and Hawkgirl found it expedient to conceal their actual Thanagarian origins. A Justice League formed in tribute to the fallen heroes of the first generation and stayed together until the seventies. After two decades, a titan fell, as Superman perished trying to defend his adopted world from a murderous onslaught of planet-killer sized kryptonite meteorites. When it was discovered that Lex Luthor had planned the bombardment through enhancing the scale of effect of 'magno-kryptonite' isotopes, public revulsion ensured his death sentence and execution. However, it became apparent that he had done so at arm's length from his corporate operations at "LexCorp", and his niece Nastalthia Luthor inherited the company, playing the public relations game to the hilt and deflecting attention about her true objectives.
As time went on, another consequence of the midcentury invasion had surfaced, as the trauma of near-death for an entire generation of young children had led to the proliferation of multiple personalities and dissociative identity disorder diagnoses. Another consequence of the abortive Martian invasion was legacy mutagenic radiation from their advanced technology, leading to the appearance of metahumans amongst the new multiple community's ranks. Nastalthia Luthor watched and schemed, covertly funding anti-multiple pressure group infratructure, communication and political mobilisation. She had some initial success in the eighties under President John Anderson, who was beset by a right-wing shift within his Alliance Party which fuelled truculence over the president's choice of US Supreme Court candidates. Accordingly, the Morrigan decision was handed down in 1986. Anderson was infuriated and threatened to leave his party over their refusal to certify his nominations, but the consequence was Congressional resurgence for his erstwhile Progressive Party opponents. Accordingly, his second term was full of bipartisan rapprochement and in 'liberal' Progressive US states, mutiple rights advocacy made substantial advances, even if Anderson was excoriated as an AINO from his estranged Alliance colleagues. Although rightist Alliance activists breathed a sigh of relief when Anderson had served his second term, their disunited party meant that Michael Dukakis became Progressive president in 1988. His assassination, and the unpopularity of his Vice President Lloyd Bentsen's tenure led to an Alliance victory in 1992. Pat Buchanan was acceptable to the Alliance Party's hard right, but not to mainstream Americans, given the Progressive recapture of the Senate and House of Representatives in 1994 and entanglement in the Iranian War, which would rage in the Middle East for a decade as a consequence of his ineptitude. Roland Reimers, the Progressive candidate, was a default choice in 1996 for the Progressives, however, and once more only served a single term before his retirement and the election of Hillary Clinton as the first (Progressive) female US President in 2000.
Meanwhile, Nastalthia Luthor watched her opportunist political agenda falter and then reverse momentum as the liberalised political establishment first insured that the Supreme Court composition was such that it handed down Garroway Vs Texas and struck down prohibitions against xenophile marriages. Fearful that her lucrative if covert anti-multiple revenue stream might be uncovered, industrial espionage located the remains of a crashed Legion of Super Heroes time bubble near Smallville and covert analysis of its contents led to her discovery of time travel. Luthor realised that she had found the ideal avenue for retaliation against her metahuman and political enemies, given what she now envisaged. She would travel back to '53 and sabotage the Martian invasion. It would save millions of American and global lives- and in doing so, the obstacle to her ascendancy in the present would be butterflyed away, given the gratitude and acclaim of an entire world. In her recklessness, the phrase 'law of unintended consequences' did not occur to her.
AUGUST 1953:
Nastalthia Luthor crept forward, until she witnessed a red pinpoint of light. She frowned, then nodded as Queen Arrow and Green Lantern came out into the light:
"Ms. Luthor. Back away, now, and return to the twenty first century. This has to go ahead as historically specified."
"Or what? You and the Archer are supposed to be 'heroes,' Green Lantern. So what are you going to do if I don't? In the next fortnight, millions of people will die, including innocent children. Are you really willing to prevent me dealing with that now so that contingency never takes place? In which case, you'll become morally responsible for mass murder."
"The only reason you're doing this is because of your glory hounding. You don't really care about those innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. They're just incidental to your main objective."
"I repeat, are you both willing to stop me from intervening and wiping out the Martian bridgehead now, so that innocent lives can be saved?"
"How can you be sure that you won't make things worse?"
"How could they be any worse, Queen Arrow? One quarter of the worlds population- that's 670 million people out of a current world population of 2.7 billion... will die during this invasion. To be precise, some of them will die horribly, given the anthropophagous dietary tastes of Martians. Children will be orphaned. Some will commit suicide due to their trauma."
"That's what you're really after, isn't it? You want to butterfly the multiple community out of existence."
"Oh, I see. What you're really saying is that you're willing to let that mass slaughter happen because of some abstract ideological agenda."
"So what happens as an unintended consequence? What if the Martians become immune to terrestrial micro-organisms as a result of what you intend to do? It's too dangerous."
"The direct consequence will be that this Martian invasion ends here and lives will be saved as a result."
"In exchange for what? So that a future Martian invasion is warned about the risk of Terran microbial organisms to their physiology so that they are immune during that invasion and become unstoppable?"
"In any case, this whole discussion is academic, you see I...where is it?! Where's my flask?!"
"Sorry, Nasty. It has to end here." Slade Wilson came into the light.
"Wilson! What the hell do you think you're doing?!"
"Y'see, these people here want to stop you from rewriting history so you Luthors end up even better off than you are in the current scheme of things."
"You can't know that, Wilson. Get out of my way."
"You assume that I'm the Slade Wilson from your timeline, Nasty. Well, I'm not. I'm from the one that resulted because you did 'succeed' in 'saving the world'. Except that they're right, it is worse. The Martians launched a reconnaissance probe when they lost contact with their preliminary invasion force and discovered what had happened to them. Unaware of a hostile Martian civilisation, the Earth was powerless when the Martians launched their second strike in the late seventies, just after Vikings III and IV landed on Mars in June 1978. All of humanity perished. I found out that you were at the core of this fool's crusade and that your attack on the Martian bridgehead gave them forewarning. Who are you to judge who lives and who dies? Because you will end up slaughtering 4.3 billion people twenty five years from now. I watched them kill my children. So either back off or pay the consequences."
"Are you going to let him do that?" But when she turned to face Queen Arrow and Green Lantern, they had vanished into the dark. She spun around and faced Deathstroke, who held her initial flask of bacteriological war toxin at his side. He shook his head:
"That's the difference. Those two are fundamentally decent people. If it hadn't been for your moral blackmail, they might have restrained you, but the cognitive dissonance from the implications of their decision would have been immense. So, I hacked into their time travel infrastructure and triggered their failsafe and they're back uptime. Because it has to end here. Because I know what has to be done here and what needs to be accomplished so that you can't do this. Don't make me do this, Nasty. No matter what you've heard about me, I don't relish killing an unarmed civilian, even one as corrupt and scheming as you are."
But she did, leaping toward him and a percussive shot rang out into the night. Nastalthia Luthor fell, lifeless, to the ground. As she died and as his timeline was aborted, still clutching the bacteriological toxin flask as he faded from existence, Slade Wilson smiled to himself. Ironically, this was a somewhat morally ambiguous ending. In a sense, he had saved the world by insuring a worse one never came in to e xist ence
THE END [3.57 PM, JANUARY 11, 2023]
