Post by redsycorax on Feb 17, 2023 0:45:51 GMT
On Earth-500, Atlantis is not a continent that sank eleven thousand years ago and whose inhabitants have adapted to life in the oceans. Instead, it is a dedicated community for a new offshoot of the human species, homo aquaticus, which only emerged during the twentieth century. However, there is a history of distrust between baseline humans and their new oceanic relatives, despite the membership of Aquaman in the Justice Alliance.
++
ATLANTIS:
"So this is what you call home?" Three-Face said, as she, Ultra Violet, Superman and Green Lantern swam into the compact settlement atop the seamount. They also noticed them were not alone:
"Saps out! Saps out!"
Superman raised an eyebrow: "I take it those are representatives of your Separatist Party, Aata?"
Aquaman sighed: "Afraid so, Kal. I apologise for the reception, but it's a fact of life in Atlantis unfortunately. The key political dichotomy here is between the Interdependency Party, which advocates co-existence between baseline humans and homo aquaticus, and which I preside over as Atlantean President and our friends over there, the Separatist Party. They want homo aquaticus to take a zero tolerance line when it comes to maritime pollution, what's left of the international whaling industry, and any attempt to expand seabed mining. They're the official Opposition and unfortunately, they represent a large slice of public opinion."
Ultra Violet nodded: "I can see why, Aata. Whaling is barbaric anyway and seabed mining would seriously damage the submarine environment. Unfortunately, hardcore elements surfaceside don't help matters. And with the arrival of homo aquaticus, it certainly isn't a mare nullius situation. Not that it ever was before your branch of humanity evolved either."
"There's no call for derogatory language like "Saps' to describe baseline humans anyway. Ah, there she is. Justice Alliance, I'd like you to meet Lyra Maritymis, my wife."
"Yes, I am a 'mermaid', as I believe your legend has it."
"Yes, I remember your briefing before we came down here, Aata. There are two distinct subspecies of homo aquaticus, aren't there? Your own, homo aquaticus comparabilis, has lower limbs akin to ours, while Lyra is a representative of homo aquaticus syrenisimilis, which are analogous to legendary merwomen and mermen."
"Glad to see you remembered it, Kal. Lyra is also my vice-president and runs things while I'm away on Alliance business."
"And your ability to survive on surface is greater than hers?"
"Yes, although syrenisimilii can negotiate more intensive surface depths and can live in freshwater environments, so we balance each other out."
"So, why did you call us here, Aata? I take it this isn't a diplomatic mission only."
"It isn't. I'm afraid that there is now an Atlantean faction that goes even further than the Separatist Party. They may be noisy anti-surfacedweller populist bigots, but at least they stay within the law. The Sovereigntists don't."
Three-Face nodded: "I agree with Violet, though, Aata. Homo aquaticus has good reason to mistrust baseliners. Particularly when it comes to those nations that deny the existence of your human species and yet engage in abusive espionage and submarine warfare weaponisation. It's not as if surfacedwellers don't actively discriminate against you either."
"Yet, very few of you are hardline surfacedweller supremacists either, Evelyn."
"Apart from the Libertarian Party, that is. Let's not deny that there is an analogous problem surfaceside. That crowd would junk environmental safeguards, abolish antidiscrimination protections and use force to secure 'strategic oceanic resources.' And since the United States adopted proportional representation for our elections in the seventies, they're the largest party on the right." Ultra Violet noted.
"Precisely, but they're not in government and only control a handful of US states anyway. In any case, the Sovereigntists are inclined toward 'justifiable retaliation' against what they judge to be 'surfacedweller supremacist' abuse of the oceanic environment and denial of homo aquaticus' "legal territorial and ecological interests."
"Ah. By justifiable, I take it you mean they advocate armed resistance?"
"That's one word for it, Jose. Another would be outright terrorism."
JAA SEABASE:
"Thoughts, everyone?" Superman asked.
"This whole situation is unexpectedly dark. I thought this world was supposed to be immune to things like that?" Three Face asked
"Sadly not. This world isn't a utopian rose garden, and even if that metaphor had some validity, roses have thorns."
"Atlantis seems to be on the brink of a civil war between political factions. How could we have missed this? I think we owe you an apology, Aata." Ultra Violet contributed.
"It wouldn't be the first fledgling community to fall victim to its own internal tensions, scapegoating and schisms." Green Lantern pointed out.
"Perhaps not, but the question that occurs to me is whether this situation is intrinsic to Atlantis or whether it's being puppeted from offshore?" Superman interjected.
"And what if it is? Can you blame the Sovereigntists and Separatists? Remember what happened when homo aquaticus' existence was first disclosed? Pogroms, burning at the stake, deliberate and lethal dehydration, hate crimes and the Libertarian Party's macheavellean manipulation of populist sentiment against them." Ultra Violet replied.
"That implies that my people are paragons of virtue, Violet. Nope. The Sovergntists and Separatists are just as prone to irrational bigotry and hatred of difference than the basest surfacedweller bigot. And as far as I'm concerned, they have to be held accountable for their actions and stopped if either faction step over the line."
"As Hermes or Diana would say, Scylla, meet Charbydis." Green Lantern concluded.
"We do need to tread carefully-" Superman left the last sentence unfinished as the Justice Alliance's Watchdog satellite chain identified a near-space threat.
"Blazes. An earthgrazer asteroid. Hey, wait a minute. There's none identified in that time frame on the International Astronomical Union database on near-earth trajectories or aphelion orbits." Superman pondered as Green Lantern ignited an exploratory power beam.
"Dios! Right on it, Kalel!" Jose said, tracing the asteroid back to its origin- and its point of impact.
"Atlantis Colony." Superman said pensively, reaching the same conclusion.
"We need to deal with this right now. Ultra Violet, your metamorph abilities will be important here. A Daxamite would be useful just about now." The metamorph nodded and a shimmer ran over her body as she transformed herself into a Kryptonian class metahuman. Three-Face donned a spacesuit.
"I'm coming with you three. I think we've all realised that this is deliberate. But even given this world's mass driver tech, it'd take billions in hard currency to manufacture one of the size needed to propell that behemoth toward the Earth. And that would have registered in the Alliance forensic and surveillance databases, given the amount of investment that would have been necessary."
"Which seems to substantiate your suspicions about someone associated with the Libertarian Party being involved."
"It's hard to believe anyone would coldly and deliberately go that far. If they'd succeeded, hundreds of thousands of Atlanteans would have been wiped out- not to mention the collateral damage to coastal communities in Europe, Africa and the Americas from tsunamis and seismic impact events." Aquaman noted as the others left.
NEAR-EARTH SPACE:
Green Lantern and Superman were startled as the Daxamite bodied Ultra Violet accelerated ahead of them: "Sorry, guys. I've just spotted a trap ahead of us and it involves both of you."
She turned on her heat vision and incinerated several hundred myccorhizal spores targeted on Green Lantern, while simultaneously intercepting a deadly Q-Energy radiation vortex that would have killed even the Man of Steel and mangling it beyond recognition:
"There's our mass driver. And this only deepens the mystery. For that to be operational would require a prodigal investment and deep space technologies that are currently beyond those of earthside humanity, given the advanced carbon filament compounds used in its design." Superman observed as his telescopic vision focused on the device.
"I'm getting chroniton emission readings, Kal, Violet. That means it's been temporally displaced."
"Time travel?! But who would want to trigger an earthside disaster of that magnitude?"
As soon as Superman said it, he realised: "The Khu'unds. Which only leaves us the question why?"
"Prelude to a full-scale planetary invasion?" Green Lantern's power ring scanned the solar system's vicinity and temporal approaches.
"Are you detecting anything cloaked, because I'm not, Jose. Which leaves us free to get that rock out of the way before it reaches ocean zero."
As the three Justice Alliance members swept downward to divert the asteroid's course, Superman took the vanguard and strained against the asteroid trajectory. Although it was an effort, even for someone with his degree of superstrength, he diverted it toward interstellar space and a wormhole. Then there was a blinding flash of heat and light as the billions of tonnes of carbon, silicon and rare earth elements disintegrated abruptly. Green Lantern shielded himself but Ultra Violet gasped:
"That was deliberately rigged to go up if it hit Atlantis. All right, Kal. You've been to the future, when the Khu'unds are a major interstellar empire. Why would they suddenly take an interest in Earth, given its lack of interstellar strategic significance and active meta population? None of this makes sense."
"In the Thirtieth Century, Earth is one of the core worlds of the United Planets, a major democratic interstellar federation. Unfortunately, my allies in the Legion of Meta-Sapients introduced a psionic barrier so that Kara and I wouldn't learn anything that might cause temporal pollution. The Khu'unds have been trying to attack the UP for decades."
"But if the attack backfired, it would have caused major enmity between ourselves and their empire, so what was the point?"
"Evelyn? You've found something?" Superman asked as a holographic image of Three Face centred on Green Lantern's power ring.
"During my days on Earth-Three, Eva was a fairly skilled hacker. Fortunately, she's kept that skill set and she managed to get into the Libertarian Party donor database. There are some quite patently fabricated transactions whose provenance falls apart on closer scrutiny. There's some triangulation going on, everyone. The Khu'unds may have designed and constructed this, but they did so with a quite intricate fake money trail from the Libertarian Party and its donors. And apparently too, covert donations to the First Bank of the Challenger Trench. Aata wasn't surprised to learn that there's also a substantial money route leaving to Sovereigntist and Separatist shell accounts. Atlantis has been notified and arrests are being organised. Which leaves us to deal with the Libertarians surfaceside."
WASHINGTON DC:
But as the trio neared the Libertarian Party's skyscraper, intent on apprehending its core personnel, Superman spotted something that alarmed him:
"Behind me, both of you!"
"They're insane! If that went up, the collapse could wipe out half the city." Green Lantern focused his attention on the detonator and his brow furrowed:
"Kal, your cape is elastic, isn't it? Wrap it around the building and stifle the explosion." As Superman complied, and hurriedly enshrouded the building, there was a muffled ignition from inwards.
"They would have been willing to wipe out thousands of their own operatives?" Green Lantern asked.
"The building was empty. They've gone to ground and we'll need a major international logistical operation to uncover them."
"So this isn't over?" Ultra Violet asked.
Superman nodded: "This isn't going to end quickly, I'm afraid. We're going to need to protect Atlantis from the remnants of the party."
Aquaman raised an eyebrow: "And Lyra and I will need some heavy intel work done to inform ourselves about the scope of Sovereigntist and Separatist subversion back home. Afraid I'm going to have to be a part timer from this point on, folks."
"And I'm going to need to talk to the LMS about this, so Kara and I will need to spend some days uptime for further background detail about the Khu'unds. Our lives just got seriously more complicated..."
THE END [2.52 PM, JANUARY 21, 2023]
++
ATLANTIS:
"So this is what you call home?" Three-Face said, as she, Ultra Violet, Superman and Green Lantern swam into the compact settlement atop the seamount. They also noticed them were not alone:
"Saps out! Saps out!"
Superman raised an eyebrow: "I take it those are representatives of your Separatist Party, Aata?"
Aquaman sighed: "Afraid so, Kal. I apologise for the reception, but it's a fact of life in Atlantis unfortunately. The key political dichotomy here is between the Interdependency Party, which advocates co-existence between baseline humans and homo aquaticus, and which I preside over as Atlantean President and our friends over there, the Separatist Party. They want homo aquaticus to take a zero tolerance line when it comes to maritime pollution, what's left of the international whaling industry, and any attempt to expand seabed mining. They're the official Opposition and unfortunately, they represent a large slice of public opinion."
Ultra Violet nodded: "I can see why, Aata. Whaling is barbaric anyway and seabed mining would seriously damage the submarine environment. Unfortunately, hardcore elements surfaceside don't help matters. And with the arrival of homo aquaticus, it certainly isn't a mare nullius situation. Not that it ever was before your branch of humanity evolved either."
"There's no call for derogatory language like "Saps' to describe baseline humans anyway. Ah, there she is. Justice Alliance, I'd like you to meet Lyra Maritymis, my wife."
"Yes, I am a 'mermaid', as I believe your legend has it."
"Yes, I remember your briefing before we came down here, Aata. There are two distinct subspecies of homo aquaticus, aren't there? Your own, homo aquaticus comparabilis, has lower limbs akin to ours, while Lyra is a representative of homo aquaticus syrenisimilis, which are analogous to legendary merwomen and mermen."
"Glad to see you remembered it, Kal. Lyra is also my vice-president and runs things while I'm away on Alliance business."
"And your ability to survive on surface is greater than hers?"
"Yes, although syrenisimilii can negotiate more intensive surface depths and can live in freshwater environments, so we balance each other out."
"So, why did you call us here, Aata? I take it this isn't a diplomatic mission only."
"It isn't. I'm afraid that there is now an Atlantean faction that goes even further than the Separatist Party. They may be noisy anti-surfacedweller populist bigots, but at least they stay within the law. The Sovereigntists don't."
Three-Face nodded: "I agree with Violet, though, Aata. Homo aquaticus has good reason to mistrust baseliners. Particularly when it comes to those nations that deny the existence of your human species and yet engage in abusive espionage and submarine warfare weaponisation. It's not as if surfacedwellers don't actively discriminate against you either."
"Yet, very few of you are hardline surfacedweller supremacists either, Evelyn."
"Apart from the Libertarian Party, that is. Let's not deny that there is an analogous problem surfaceside. That crowd would junk environmental safeguards, abolish antidiscrimination protections and use force to secure 'strategic oceanic resources.' And since the United States adopted proportional representation for our elections in the seventies, they're the largest party on the right." Ultra Violet noted.
"Precisely, but they're not in government and only control a handful of US states anyway. In any case, the Sovereigntists are inclined toward 'justifiable retaliation' against what they judge to be 'surfacedweller supremacist' abuse of the oceanic environment and denial of homo aquaticus' "legal territorial and ecological interests."
"Ah. By justifiable, I take it you mean they advocate armed resistance?"
"That's one word for it, Jose. Another would be outright terrorism."
JAA SEABASE:
"Thoughts, everyone?" Superman asked.
"This whole situation is unexpectedly dark. I thought this world was supposed to be immune to things like that?" Three Face asked
"Sadly not. This world isn't a utopian rose garden, and even if that metaphor had some validity, roses have thorns."
"Atlantis seems to be on the brink of a civil war between political factions. How could we have missed this? I think we owe you an apology, Aata." Ultra Violet contributed.
"It wouldn't be the first fledgling community to fall victim to its own internal tensions, scapegoating and schisms." Green Lantern pointed out.
"Perhaps not, but the question that occurs to me is whether this situation is intrinsic to Atlantis or whether it's being puppeted from offshore?" Superman interjected.
"And what if it is? Can you blame the Sovereigntists and Separatists? Remember what happened when homo aquaticus' existence was first disclosed? Pogroms, burning at the stake, deliberate and lethal dehydration, hate crimes and the Libertarian Party's macheavellean manipulation of populist sentiment against them." Ultra Violet replied.
"That implies that my people are paragons of virtue, Violet. Nope. The Sovergntists and Separatists are just as prone to irrational bigotry and hatred of difference than the basest surfacedweller bigot. And as far as I'm concerned, they have to be held accountable for their actions and stopped if either faction step over the line."
"As Hermes or Diana would say, Scylla, meet Charbydis." Green Lantern concluded.
"We do need to tread carefully-" Superman left the last sentence unfinished as the Justice Alliance's Watchdog satellite chain identified a near-space threat.
"Blazes. An earthgrazer asteroid. Hey, wait a minute. There's none identified in that time frame on the International Astronomical Union database on near-earth trajectories or aphelion orbits." Superman pondered as Green Lantern ignited an exploratory power beam.
"Dios! Right on it, Kalel!" Jose said, tracing the asteroid back to its origin- and its point of impact.
"Atlantis Colony." Superman said pensively, reaching the same conclusion.
"We need to deal with this right now. Ultra Violet, your metamorph abilities will be important here. A Daxamite would be useful just about now." The metamorph nodded and a shimmer ran over her body as she transformed herself into a Kryptonian class metahuman. Three-Face donned a spacesuit.
"I'm coming with you three. I think we've all realised that this is deliberate. But even given this world's mass driver tech, it'd take billions in hard currency to manufacture one of the size needed to propell that behemoth toward the Earth. And that would have registered in the Alliance forensic and surveillance databases, given the amount of investment that would have been necessary."
"Which seems to substantiate your suspicions about someone associated with the Libertarian Party being involved."
"It's hard to believe anyone would coldly and deliberately go that far. If they'd succeeded, hundreds of thousands of Atlanteans would have been wiped out- not to mention the collateral damage to coastal communities in Europe, Africa and the Americas from tsunamis and seismic impact events." Aquaman noted as the others left.
NEAR-EARTH SPACE:
Green Lantern and Superman were startled as the Daxamite bodied Ultra Violet accelerated ahead of them: "Sorry, guys. I've just spotted a trap ahead of us and it involves both of you."
She turned on her heat vision and incinerated several hundred myccorhizal spores targeted on Green Lantern, while simultaneously intercepting a deadly Q-Energy radiation vortex that would have killed even the Man of Steel and mangling it beyond recognition:
"There's our mass driver. And this only deepens the mystery. For that to be operational would require a prodigal investment and deep space technologies that are currently beyond those of earthside humanity, given the advanced carbon filament compounds used in its design." Superman observed as his telescopic vision focused on the device.
"I'm getting chroniton emission readings, Kal, Violet. That means it's been temporally displaced."
"Time travel?! But who would want to trigger an earthside disaster of that magnitude?"
As soon as Superman said it, he realised: "The Khu'unds. Which only leaves us the question why?"
"Prelude to a full-scale planetary invasion?" Green Lantern's power ring scanned the solar system's vicinity and temporal approaches.
"Are you detecting anything cloaked, because I'm not, Jose. Which leaves us free to get that rock out of the way before it reaches ocean zero."
As the three Justice Alliance members swept downward to divert the asteroid's course, Superman took the vanguard and strained against the asteroid trajectory. Although it was an effort, even for someone with his degree of superstrength, he diverted it toward interstellar space and a wormhole. Then there was a blinding flash of heat and light as the billions of tonnes of carbon, silicon and rare earth elements disintegrated abruptly. Green Lantern shielded himself but Ultra Violet gasped:
"That was deliberately rigged to go up if it hit Atlantis. All right, Kal. You've been to the future, when the Khu'unds are a major interstellar empire. Why would they suddenly take an interest in Earth, given its lack of interstellar strategic significance and active meta population? None of this makes sense."
"In the Thirtieth Century, Earth is one of the core worlds of the United Planets, a major democratic interstellar federation. Unfortunately, my allies in the Legion of Meta-Sapients introduced a psionic barrier so that Kara and I wouldn't learn anything that might cause temporal pollution. The Khu'unds have been trying to attack the UP for decades."
"But if the attack backfired, it would have caused major enmity between ourselves and their empire, so what was the point?"
"Evelyn? You've found something?" Superman asked as a holographic image of Three Face centred on Green Lantern's power ring.
"During my days on Earth-Three, Eva was a fairly skilled hacker. Fortunately, she's kept that skill set and she managed to get into the Libertarian Party donor database. There are some quite patently fabricated transactions whose provenance falls apart on closer scrutiny. There's some triangulation going on, everyone. The Khu'unds may have designed and constructed this, but they did so with a quite intricate fake money trail from the Libertarian Party and its donors. And apparently too, covert donations to the First Bank of the Challenger Trench. Aata wasn't surprised to learn that there's also a substantial money route leaving to Sovereigntist and Separatist shell accounts. Atlantis has been notified and arrests are being organised. Which leaves us to deal with the Libertarians surfaceside."
WASHINGTON DC:
But as the trio neared the Libertarian Party's skyscraper, intent on apprehending its core personnel, Superman spotted something that alarmed him:
"Behind me, both of you!"
"They're insane! If that went up, the collapse could wipe out half the city." Green Lantern focused his attention on the detonator and his brow furrowed:
"Kal, your cape is elastic, isn't it? Wrap it around the building and stifle the explosion." As Superman complied, and hurriedly enshrouded the building, there was a muffled ignition from inwards.
"They would have been willing to wipe out thousands of their own operatives?" Green Lantern asked.
"The building was empty. They've gone to ground and we'll need a major international logistical operation to uncover them."
"So this isn't over?" Ultra Violet asked.
Superman nodded: "This isn't going to end quickly, I'm afraid. We're going to need to protect Atlantis from the remnants of the party."
Aquaman raised an eyebrow: "And Lyra and I will need some heavy intel work done to inform ourselves about the scope of Sovereigntist and Separatist subversion back home. Afraid I'm going to have to be a part timer from this point on, folks."
"And I'm going to need to talk to the LMS about this, so Kara and I will need to spend some days uptime for further background detail about the Khu'unds. Our lives just got seriously more complicated..."
THE END [2.52 PM, JANUARY 21, 2023]