Post by redsycorax on Jun 17, 2024 1:40:52 GMT
Earth-784 is a world where democratic institutions didn't survive the twentieth century. In the 1930s, isolationists launched a coup after the assassination of Franklin Roosevelt, and power was consolidated in Washington. Canada was seized by its own communist insurgency, while Oswald Mosley took advantage of the execution of Sir Winston Churchill for treason and turned Great Britain into a fascist state. With no challengers, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan overrun much of the rest of the world, apart from the USSR, given that Hitler honored the Nazi-Soviet Pact here. By 1948, the last remnants of independent humanity in Australia and New Zealand fell to the darkness.
Metahumans exist on this world, but not in the form that you might expect. Meet the Freedom Syndicate... Dr. Anarchy, Penthesilea, Pulsation, Supermaiden, and Searchlight. Some of them have backgrounds that you might be familiar with- Supermaiden is a Kryptonian, Searchlight is the emissary of an interstellar police force, Pulsation is the fastest person alive, Penthesilea is an Amazon warrior princess and Dr. Anarchy is his world's greatest detective. But there, the similarity ends. For these are not this world's mightiest heroes, but its most courageous and powerful dissidents.
C-43, ANNO POPULI 63 /AD 1996:
SITE: MIDVALE
Claire Kent, Supermaiden, walked below the closed circuit television camera array that threaded every street in the American Liberty Commonwealth, risking a look upward at them and an x-ray vision scan of their innards for no more than an instant. It was just as well that this generation of CCTV scanners had no capacity for biometrics or broad wavelength scrutiny of its subjects, otherwise her visual abilities emanations and her Kryptonian molecular biology would be tagged at once and her secret identity would become common knowledge to the National Police that served the regime. Fortunately, though, the CCTV surveillance network was not perfect. There were holes in the electricity network and the supply of power to street lighting, and, ironically, the regime's own despotic eyes above them all, often fell afoul of unscheduled power cuts. And fortunately, there was always Dr Anarchy to provide a useful intrusion into the ALC EnergiCorp mainframe and enable her to assume her dissident heroic identity. In the skies above, an emblazoned scarlet A flickered briefly, and Midvale's street and domestic lights went out, just as the curfew warning klaxon went off. Happily, Claire's home was near and when 'normal' CCTV service resumed, it would be assumed that Claire Kent would have made it home so she would not be caught by the night time attention of local NatPol agents. She ducked into an alleyway and an accelerated bolt of red and yellow momentarily shot into the sky. Once again, luck was on her side, given the paucity of orbital surveillance satellites, largely due to regime paranoia and suspicion of scientists without 'practical need', which meant the discipline of astronautics was heavily censored and somewhat backward. A cobalt aura enshrouded her, and she could now see Penthesilea, Pulsation and Searchlight accompanying her:
"So what's up?"
"Trouble, Kala. It's the Argos Sanctuary Station. It's not returning Dr A's supply transaction requests. We think something may have gone wrong up there."
"And you want me to investigate, Penny?"
"Argos is the cornerpin of the resistance's refugee strategy. Without it, the people will lose hope. We mustn't allow that to happen."
"Just in case, is anyone accompanying me?"
Penthesilea nodded: "I will. Searchlight, you have spatial access parameters in your power belt. Pulsation, the rest is up to you. Don't worry, Searchlight's invisibility shield will only break down a week from now."
Rory Allen nodded. He sped away as the others soared aloft and into the silence of interplanetary space. It was hard not to wince at the horror they could witness from orbit- the craters and diseased, arid land of successive nuclear strikes on the peripheries of the three peakpowers and the visible flooding that unmitigated greenhouse gases had wrought on the faltering planet. But Chancellor Quayle and his counterparts cared nothing for what 'the people' actually thought, beyond empty rhetoric, spin and propaganda. And so Mexico City, Damascus, Kuala Lumpur and Sapporo had been left to their fate. Deforestation and desert growth were also obvious. Vast areas of red tide covered the Indian and Atlantic Oceans.
The Moon bristled with installations from each of the three powers, but pragmatism had led to co-operation despite ostensible political differences. For that matter, the Moon had been settled long enough for lunar separatist resentment to start growing against the "Earthbound," as they were collectively called. One day, there would be rebellion and civil war between Earth and its restless satellite, but that was probably decades in the future.
As the dual planet system fell back into the solar glare, a red dot impinged on their senses. Soon, it grew into a cratered planet above them and then, their worst fears were realised. As they entered what should have been Argos Sanctuary's orbit, they saw a pile of debris and ruins along its trajectory. Supermaiden motioned to Penthesilea and Searchlight:
"Okay. This may sound inappropriate, but I can't see any bodies in orbit. And there's something else. We should be able to see Phobos and Deimos now. They're not here. Something clearly doesn't want any close scrutiny of the Martian surface."
Searchlight whistled: "Found them. They're in hyperbolic trajectories toward the asteroid belt, where they probably came from in the first place, far beyond the Martian gravity well."
"What could have done this? Any ideas?" Penthesilea said, as Searchlight tried to locate the Argos Station personnel.
"Nothing. I can't detect any human residue either. That's some cause for small mercy. Whatever did this was ethical enough to safeguard other sentient life forms."
"Penny, it couldn't be alien, could it?"
"Mars has never been inhabited, Kala. And apart from you and Searchlight, there seems to be a cordon sanitaire around our solar system. I suspect that interstellar authorities don't want the current dictatorships earthside getting their hands on extraterrestrial tech, so they refrain from entering our orbital vicinity."
Searchlight nodded: "Yeah, exactly. The Searchlight Inspectorate routinely terminates any non-terran alien malevolents precisely because of that contingency. It classifies Earth and similar malignant planetary social orders elsewhere in the galaxy as Class Z, not to be approached due to technological acceleration risk."
"I know. My parents, Jora and Lar-El, were only able to send me to Earth because of the planetary omnicide threat to Krypton. And it was me and no-one else, even if we weren't so blindly xenophobic that we would have accepted alien evacuation in time. As it was, Dad and Mom were acting against Science Council orders, a capital offence."
"If this was the Inspectorate, I would have been advance notified."
"I hate to say this, but what if a malignant entity abducted the Argos encampment with the intent of enslavement?"
"That's a good point, Penny, but the Inspectorate insures that any interstellar empire that carries out enslavement of other sentients is subjected to immediate interdiction."
"I wish they were as diligent when it came to pre-starflight civilisations." Supermaiden sighed.
"Yeah, but what right would it, or ourselves or other metas have, to overthrow Earth's regimes wholesale without the risk of a new planetary dictatorship in its stead?"
"In return for which, we tacitly tolerate torture, extrajudicial execution, detention camps, saturation bombing and nuclear bombardment of 'rebellious' governments. " Supermaiden observed.
"We do our part. But ethically, we have limits. We can't save everyone, Kala."
THEMISCYRA: EARLIER:
"You wanted to see me, Aunt Hippolyta?"
"I'm afraid I have some bad news, Penthesilea. This planet cannot sustain this level of exploitation and ecological damage. Already there are massive floods, polar ice cap collapses, prolonged doubt, crop failures and famines and plague vector instability. Within twenty years, it will be uninhabitable. We will be impervious to this, but we cannot risk our civilization fighting Patriarch's World to a standstill and then sharing its fate."
"Is this inevitable, Aunt?"
"They are dictatorships. Their regimes are unaccountable and mercenary. They imprison and torture dissidents, they are perennially at war with one another, even if they are careful to use conventional weapons. However, I will leave you to guess what would happen if a sufficiently disinhibited leader gained power and tipped over the traces."
PRESENT DAY: MARS ORBIT:
"Wait a minute..."
"Alan?"
"No, this can't be possible. The Argos Sanctuary Station has been taken by one of my own Searchlight Inspectorate!"
"Abruptly cutting off transit out here from further objectors to our world's regimes?!" Supermaiden exclaimed.
"And the Inspectors didn't notify me as they usually do when I'm faced with an incoming threat profile."
That is correct, Alan Jordan. We apologise, but the circumstances of this intervention warranted it.
"What do you mean, Inspectors?"
Princess Penthesilea of Themiscyra knows. We apologise for pre-empting her acknowledgement of this dire news to you, but...
"No. No, my Aunt, Queen Hippolyta, told me that it wouldn't happen for another twenty years. Why is this necessary now? What about the lives of others in resistance to the regime? We stand for freedom. Even despite our current situation, freedom can be sought and achieved and must be fought for."
However valiant you are, however, the process is too far advanced now and it is accelerating, Princess Penthesilea. Your aunt's calculations were conservative, if anything.
"I am not willing to abandon other resistants, however long we have before the end of this world!" Supermaiden exclaimed.
Kala Lar-El, you are of noble spirit and strong capability. Rory Allen will accompany you within the five years of existence left to your world and bring the remaining future's surviving dissidents back to this period. Alan Jordan, Princess Penthesilea- perhaps you could construct a starship to ferry them away from this doomed world and its solar system?
"Rory, did you get that?"
Yeah, Kala, I did. Time's a-wasting people. Let's get these folks to safety.
EPILOGUE: D-84, ANNO POPULI 68: "DOOMSDAY"
And so, by the time the nuclear missiles flew above the desolate famine-scarred lands with their failed crops, prodigal weather, collapsed ozone layer and rampant plague, only the regimes and their most fanatical loyalists were still present to suffer the consequences. Light years away, orbiting the G main sequence star Delta Pavonis, the terrestroid planet Soror lay within that star's habitable zone, surrounded by a space station, satellite array and with burgeoning human settlements on its surface. As Supermaid looked up pensively at Earth's distant solar system and the doomed planet's ultimate fate, Kala bit her lip and looked away:
"Kala, there was nothing you could have done."
"That was the second world I've lost, Rory."
"I know and I'm sorry. However, this time, you made a difference. Enough good people got away from the insanity there in time. And even if you're the mightiest woman on this world, even you didn't have the strength to avert vast unstoppable human institutions and their suicide wish. That wasn't what happened on Krypton. To some extent, we did it to ourselves, despite your valor and best efforts."
"And yet, I couldn't save them all and that'll haunt me forever."
"I know, but don't torture yourself. Eighteen million humans are alive together and they'll never know the tyranny that the regimes perpetrated. It's enough."
""Well, apart from the one hundred thousand women on Gynaikos. I hope Penthesilea's happy over there."
" What counts is that humanity and freedom survived. And we serve them openly as the defenders of freedom and guardians of justice we are."
"And help make sure that this second chance never turns into the incandescent radioactive charnel house thirty light years away."
"We'll be there to help them and make sure it doesn't. Come on. Time for our nightly Sororan patrol."
And thus, the world's fastest man alive and a woman of hardened steel began their nocturnal duties. Nothing lasts for ever, whether for good, for ill, or an amalgam of both
THE END [2.05 PM, JUNE 27, 2024]
Metahumans exist on this world, but not in the form that you might expect. Meet the Freedom Syndicate... Dr. Anarchy, Penthesilea, Pulsation, Supermaiden, and Searchlight. Some of them have backgrounds that you might be familiar with- Supermaiden is a Kryptonian, Searchlight is the emissary of an interstellar police force, Pulsation is the fastest person alive, Penthesilea is an Amazon warrior princess and Dr. Anarchy is his world's greatest detective. But there, the similarity ends. For these are not this world's mightiest heroes, but its most courageous and powerful dissidents.
C-43, ANNO POPULI 63 /AD 1996:
SITE: MIDVALE
Claire Kent, Supermaiden, walked below the closed circuit television camera array that threaded every street in the American Liberty Commonwealth, risking a look upward at them and an x-ray vision scan of their innards for no more than an instant. It was just as well that this generation of CCTV scanners had no capacity for biometrics or broad wavelength scrutiny of its subjects, otherwise her visual abilities emanations and her Kryptonian molecular biology would be tagged at once and her secret identity would become common knowledge to the National Police that served the regime. Fortunately, though, the CCTV surveillance network was not perfect. There were holes in the electricity network and the supply of power to street lighting, and, ironically, the regime's own despotic eyes above them all, often fell afoul of unscheduled power cuts. And fortunately, there was always Dr Anarchy to provide a useful intrusion into the ALC EnergiCorp mainframe and enable her to assume her dissident heroic identity. In the skies above, an emblazoned scarlet A flickered briefly, and Midvale's street and domestic lights went out, just as the curfew warning klaxon went off. Happily, Claire's home was near and when 'normal' CCTV service resumed, it would be assumed that Claire Kent would have made it home so she would not be caught by the night time attention of local NatPol agents. She ducked into an alleyway and an accelerated bolt of red and yellow momentarily shot into the sky. Once again, luck was on her side, given the paucity of orbital surveillance satellites, largely due to regime paranoia and suspicion of scientists without 'practical need', which meant the discipline of astronautics was heavily censored and somewhat backward. A cobalt aura enshrouded her, and she could now see Penthesilea, Pulsation and Searchlight accompanying her:
"So what's up?"
"Trouble, Kala. It's the Argos Sanctuary Station. It's not returning Dr A's supply transaction requests. We think something may have gone wrong up there."
"And you want me to investigate, Penny?"
"Argos is the cornerpin of the resistance's refugee strategy. Without it, the people will lose hope. We mustn't allow that to happen."
"Just in case, is anyone accompanying me?"
Penthesilea nodded: "I will. Searchlight, you have spatial access parameters in your power belt. Pulsation, the rest is up to you. Don't worry, Searchlight's invisibility shield will only break down a week from now."
Rory Allen nodded. He sped away as the others soared aloft and into the silence of interplanetary space. It was hard not to wince at the horror they could witness from orbit- the craters and diseased, arid land of successive nuclear strikes on the peripheries of the three peakpowers and the visible flooding that unmitigated greenhouse gases had wrought on the faltering planet. But Chancellor Quayle and his counterparts cared nothing for what 'the people' actually thought, beyond empty rhetoric, spin and propaganda. And so Mexico City, Damascus, Kuala Lumpur and Sapporo had been left to their fate. Deforestation and desert growth were also obvious. Vast areas of red tide covered the Indian and Atlantic Oceans.
The Moon bristled with installations from each of the three powers, but pragmatism had led to co-operation despite ostensible political differences. For that matter, the Moon had been settled long enough for lunar separatist resentment to start growing against the "Earthbound," as they were collectively called. One day, there would be rebellion and civil war between Earth and its restless satellite, but that was probably decades in the future.
As the dual planet system fell back into the solar glare, a red dot impinged on their senses. Soon, it grew into a cratered planet above them and then, their worst fears were realised. As they entered what should have been Argos Sanctuary's orbit, they saw a pile of debris and ruins along its trajectory. Supermaiden motioned to Penthesilea and Searchlight:
"Okay. This may sound inappropriate, but I can't see any bodies in orbit. And there's something else. We should be able to see Phobos and Deimos now. They're not here. Something clearly doesn't want any close scrutiny of the Martian surface."
Searchlight whistled: "Found them. They're in hyperbolic trajectories toward the asteroid belt, where they probably came from in the first place, far beyond the Martian gravity well."
"What could have done this? Any ideas?" Penthesilea said, as Searchlight tried to locate the Argos Station personnel.
"Nothing. I can't detect any human residue either. That's some cause for small mercy. Whatever did this was ethical enough to safeguard other sentient life forms."
"Penny, it couldn't be alien, could it?"
"Mars has never been inhabited, Kala. And apart from you and Searchlight, there seems to be a cordon sanitaire around our solar system. I suspect that interstellar authorities don't want the current dictatorships earthside getting their hands on extraterrestrial tech, so they refrain from entering our orbital vicinity."
Searchlight nodded: "Yeah, exactly. The Searchlight Inspectorate routinely terminates any non-terran alien malevolents precisely because of that contingency. It classifies Earth and similar malignant planetary social orders elsewhere in the galaxy as Class Z, not to be approached due to technological acceleration risk."
"I know. My parents, Jora and Lar-El, were only able to send me to Earth because of the planetary omnicide threat to Krypton. And it was me and no-one else, even if we weren't so blindly xenophobic that we would have accepted alien evacuation in time. As it was, Dad and Mom were acting against Science Council orders, a capital offence."
"If this was the Inspectorate, I would have been advance notified."
"I hate to say this, but what if a malignant entity abducted the Argos encampment with the intent of enslavement?"
"That's a good point, Penny, but the Inspectorate insures that any interstellar empire that carries out enslavement of other sentients is subjected to immediate interdiction."
"I wish they were as diligent when it came to pre-starflight civilisations." Supermaiden sighed.
"Yeah, but what right would it, or ourselves or other metas have, to overthrow Earth's regimes wholesale without the risk of a new planetary dictatorship in its stead?"
"In return for which, we tacitly tolerate torture, extrajudicial execution, detention camps, saturation bombing and nuclear bombardment of 'rebellious' governments. " Supermaiden observed.
"We do our part. But ethically, we have limits. We can't save everyone, Kala."
THEMISCYRA: EARLIER:
"You wanted to see me, Aunt Hippolyta?"
"I'm afraid I have some bad news, Penthesilea. This planet cannot sustain this level of exploitation and ecological damage. Already there are massive floods, polar ice cap collapses, prolonged doubt, crop failures and famines and plague vector instability. Within twenty years, it will be uninhabitable. We will be impervious to this, but we cannot risk our civilization fighting Patriarch's World to a standstill and then sharing its fate."
"Is this inevitable, Aunt?"
"They are dictatorships. Their regimes are unaccountable and mercenary. They imprison and torture dissidents, they are perennially at war with one another, even if they are careful to use conventional weapons. However, I will leave you to guess what would happen if a sufficiently disinhibited leader gained power and tipped over the traces."
PRESENT DAY: MARS ORBIT:
"Wait a minute..."
"Alan?"
"No, this can't be possible. The Argos Sanctuary Station has been taken by one of my own Searchlight Inspectorate!"
"Abruptly cutting off transit out here from further objectors to our world's regimes?!" Supermaiden exclaimed.
"And the Inspectors didn't notify me as they usually do when I'm faced with an incoming threat profile."
That is correct, Alan Jordan. We apologise, but the circumstances of this intervention warranted it.
"What do you mean, Inspectors?"
Princess Penthesilea of Themiscyra knows. We apologise for pre-empting her acknowledgement of this dire news to you, but...
"No. No, my Aunt, Queen Hippolyta, told me that it wouldn't happen for another twenty years. Why is this necessary now? What about the lives of others in resistance to the regime? We stand for freedom. Even despite our current situation, freedom can be sought and achieved and must be fought for."
However valiant you are, however, the process is too far advanced now and it is accelerating, Princess Penthesilea. Your aunt's calculations were conservative, if anything.
"I am not willing to abandon other resistants, however long we have before the end of this world!" Supermaiden exclaimed.
Kala Lar-El, you are of noble spirit and strong capability. Rory Allen will accompany you within the five years of existence left to your world and bring the remaining future's surviving dissidents back to this period. Alan Jordan, Princess Penthesilea- perhaps you could construct a starship to ferry them away from this doomed world and its solar system?
"Rory, did you get that?"
Yeah, Kala, I did. Time's a-wasting people. Let's get these folks to safety.
EPILOGUE: D-84, ANNO POPULI 68: "DOOMSDAY"
And so, by the time the nuclear missiles flew above the desolate famine-scarred lands with their failed crops, prodigal weather, collapsed ozone layer and rampant plague, only the regimes and their most fanatical loyalists were still present to suffer the consequences. Light years away, orbiting the G main sequence star Delta Pavonis, the terrestroid planet Soror lay within that star's habitable zone, surrounded by a space station, satellite array and with burgeoning human settlements on its surface. As Supermaid looked up pensively at Earth's distant solar system and the doomed planet's ultimate fate, Kala bit her lip and looked away:
"Kala, there was nothing you could have done."
"That was the second world I've lost, Rory."
"I know and I'm sorry. However, this time, you made a difference. Enough good people got away from the insanity there in time. And even if you're the mightiest woman on this world, even you didn't have the strength to avert vast unstoppable human institutions and their suicide wish. That wasn't what happened on Krypton. To some extent, we did it to ourselves, despite your valor and best efforts."
"And yet, I couldn't save them all and that'll haunt me forever."
"I know, but don't torture yourself. Eighteen million humans are alive together and they'll never know the tyranny that the regimes perpetrated. It's enough."
""Well, apart from the one hundred thousand women on Gynaikos. I hope Penthesilea's happy over there."
" What counts is that humanity and freedom survived. And we serve them openly as the defenders of freedom and guardians of justice we are."
"And help make sure that this second chance never turns into the incandescent radioactive charnel house thirty light years away."
"We'll be there to help them and make sure it doesn't. Come on. Time for our nightly Sororan patrol."
And thus, the world's fastest man alive and a woman of hardened steel began their nocturnal duties. Nothing lasts for ever, whether for good, for ill, or an amalgam of both
THE END [2.05 PM, JUNE 27, 2024]
