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Post by DocQuantum on Sept 16, 2020 23:56:51 GMT
Very cool! Earth-3’s history is indeed a tangled web. I’m not sure how to make sense of everything we know as revealed in the comics.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Sept 17, 2020 1:04:17 GMT
Very cool! Earth-3’s history is indeed a tangled web. I’m not sure how to make sense of everything we know as revealed in the comics. I have an idea how to resolve the biggest issue, that is, how Columbus discovered Europe. I'm not sure if I should give it away and ask for people's opinions, or keep it secret until I write the story.
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Post by DocQuantum on Sept 18, 2020 21:07:40 GMT
My impression that Chronos only got his hands on a time machine in 1985 (probably through theft, unless he has some previously unrevealed technical genius) came from this panel of World's Finest Comics #320 (which admittedly uses the word "created" so it's a possibility that Chronos did so):
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Post by DocQuantum on Sept 18, 2020 21:12:27 GMT
By the Atom #28, Chronos had already created a device that could freeze time, so it must have been very early on. Possibly. More likely is that he stole that device, or at least built the device based on information gained from actual scientists. He never claims to be its inventor in that story. This is the only panel that comes close to explaining how he got the device, and it could be read either way:
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Post by johnreiter902 on Sept 19, 2020 0:11:00 GMT
It's possible that, in World's Finest Comics #320, Chronos either meant 1) that it was the first actual time machine he had created, not including devices to freeze time, or 2) that it was the first time machine to be able to change history.
On the other hand, I agree that his comment in Atom #28 suggests that he stole his time-travel technology originally, and did not invent it.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Oct 11, 2020 18:36:51 GMT
Chapter 2 “Reroute the Time Sphere to the prehistory Dr. Clinton. Do it at once, or you know the consequence.” Everything in David rebelled against obeying Palmer’s order, but he didn’t dare endanger Joan’s life. As he reset the controls, Microbe continued to gloat. “I should thank you for neutralizing my henchmen, Clock Queen. Now I won’t have to split the loot.” “I will take this machine back to the days before human life evolved, and collect a fortune in precious jewels before they were ever mined. This will be the first of many such journeys. And you, Dr. Clinton, will serve as my chauffer through time, or Clock Queen will lose her life.” For a time, the vibration inside the Time Sphere grew more intense. This was a much longer journey through time then before – that is, if time has any meaning when using a time machine, he thought – but at last they came to a “stop,” still where Ivy Town would someday exist, but in the pre-historic era. Despite their terrible situation, David found himself gawking in wonder when they existed the machine. There was no doubt about it, the time sphere had worked! They were resting in the bottom of a valley, surrounded by towering examples of megaflora which hadn’t gown outside of the Amazon jungle in millennia. Through the gaps in the dense foliage, David could glimpse the distant mountains that he had hiked in high school. Some of them were now trailing smoke, volcanos which were long dormant in his era had yet to cool down in this time. Nor was there a lack of megafauna either. Seconds after they disembarked, and small swarm of short, running reptile rushed past, no doubt startled from their hiding places in the tall grass by the sphere’s sudden appearance. Microbe spared these prehistoric wonders only a glance, enough to determine they were in the right time period, before gleefully preparing for his treasure hunt. Before departing, however, he tied both of his enemies securely to a nearby tree. “Just in case,” he said, “you get any ideas about trying to strand me here.” After Microbe was safely gone, Clock Queen started testing the ropes. “Well, this is a fine mess,” she muttered. “But don’t worry Dr. Clinton, I’ll find a way to get us out. . . “ “Joan,” David interrupted. “Why didn’t you tell me?” There was a long, pregnant silence. For a moment, David almost feared she would deny the truth. Then, she spoke, “I suppose I could say it was to protect you. Microbe and the other crooks I’ve fought would love to use you to make me stop busting up their operations in Ivy Town. But that would be a lie, because I know you’d take my secret to the grave.” “The truth is, I wasn’t sure how you’d react. Superheroes are still a new thing, even if more and more have been appearing in the last five years.” Quietly, she added. “I was afraid you’d want me to stop, and I feel that I need to do this.” David Clinton sighed deeply. “I’ll be honest, I don’t know what to think. I can’t say I’m exactly happy with you running around risking your life.” He offered a small chuckle, to lighten the mood. “Especially in that crazy costume.” Joan laughed with him. “But I know how passionately you feel that the law must be defended. That was one of the reasons I fell in love with you. I guess this really shouldn’t surprise me so much. If fighting crime in black and white striped pants is what you need to do, then I’ll support you in it.” “Honestly, though, trick clocks? What kind of an idea is that for a weapon?” “Oh, you’d be surprised.” Joan extend he leg up to within reach of David’s hands. “see if you can reach the wristwatch strapped to my ankle. It has a built-in buzz-saw, triggered by the time-resetting dial.”
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Post by dans on Oct 11, 2020 19:07:14 GMT
tying them to a tree in an era with unknown monsters roaming the landscape is not necessarily a reliable way of making sure they are available when he gets back from searching for treasure. He could easily find two corpses instead. But hey, super villains don't think the same way readers do! very easy reading.
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Post by lawrenceliberty on Oct 11, 2020 21:16:03 GMT
Nice use of Clock Queen! I like seeing these characters developed in new ways.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Oct 12, 2020 1:26:43 GMT
tying them to a tree in an era with unknown monsters roaming the landscape is not necessarily a reliable way of making sure they are available when he gets back from searching for treasure. He could easily find two corpses instead. But hey, super villains don't think the same way readers do! very easy reading. Thank you. Microbe is both callus and an egomaniac. Worrying about others, as well as second-guessing himself, are not natural to him.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Dec 18, 2020 20:24:17 GMT
Chapter 3 Once they were both free, Clinton raced to the Time Sphere. It wasn’t that he was seriously considering leaving Microbe stranded in the prehistory. Even that villain deserved a fair trial, and being eaten by a Velociraptor or a T Rex was a fate David wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. Besides which, there was the issue of inadvertently changing history. He had no confidence that Palmer would make any effort to avoid radically altering the timeline if he was left trapped in the past. Once he examined the Time Sphere, however, just to make sure they could escape when necessary, he found a nasty surprise. “Blast it!” He stormed back out. “What’s wrong?” Joan asked. “That rat Palmer’s taken the main oscillator. He probably shrank it down small enough to fit in a pocket of his costume.” David stared off into the jungle and shook his head in resignation. “We’ll have to go after it. There’s no way I can make a replacement in this time period, and the Time Sphere will never work without it.” “Then let’s go.” Joan checked her weapons. “I’m better armed, so I’ll take point.” “But which way do we go? I admit the Microbe is probably within a few miles. But in this treacherous terrain we could waste hours if we start in the wrong direction.” Suddenly, a blood-chilling scream came from somewhere off to the left. “Off-hand, I think we should try that way.” Even as she spoke, both Joan and David were running into the brush. * * * On the cliffs above Ivy Town, a man in a dark blue uniform reminiscent of both a lab coat and military outfit watched the entire tableau below him. Despite the distance, the massive electronic binoculars he carried let him not only see, but also hear everything. Sighing, he let the binoculars drop. It was a good thing he had decided to monitor the events of his unsuspecting protégé’s first experiment in time travel. His exploration of the future had indicated that David Clinton’s development of the first time machine (or rather, considering his own work, the first publicly recognized time machine) would have world changing consequences for culture and science for the next millennium. History didn’t record anything going wrong on that first, unplanned voyage to the prehistory, aside from the hijacking of the time sphere by the Microbe. Microbe was brough back a prisoner, and Clinton went on to explore time for another 20 years. However, the missing oscillator was worrying, is Clinton couldn’t recover it, interference might be necessary. * * * The underbrush was as dense as any African jungle. It took much longer than David or Joan would have liked to reach the source of the screaming. Microbe was in the grip of something that looked like a nightmarish cross between a T Rex and a Velociraptor. It had him in its claws, and he was trying to fight it off by hurling uncut diamonds from a sack. It was working – the creature seemed to have very sensitive eyes – but it wouldn’t let him go, and he was running out of diamonds. “Help me! Save me! I don’t want to die!” “Shrink yourself!” Clinton called out. “I’ve tried you fool! Its claws damaged my belt.” “Cover your ears!” Clock Queen produced her alarm clock weapon and activated it again. At the sound of the high-pitched shriek, the dinosaur dropped Palmer and raced off into the brush. Microbe dropped to the earth. While the villain was still stunned, David raced over and quickly bound his hands, ripping off his damaged belt for good measure. “Where’s the oscillator Palmer? If you ever want to get home, we need it now.” Still in shock, the villain fumbled at his side, where his costume was badly ripped. “I. . I put it in my pocket, for safe keeping.” He began to collect himself. “I had just gotten back from the caves near down. I shrunk myself small enough to gather uncut diamond from the crevasses. I had just crawled out when that. . . that THING came out of nowhere and scooped me up in it’s jaws.” “I had no time to think, just react. I increased my density to maximum and punch and kicked until I got loose. I think I broke at least one of it’s teeth. Once I hit the ground, I enlarged myself to my full size and started running.” “But it caught you” David wasn’t surprised. Prehistoric hunters had to be tenacious, and that beast seemed made for running. “Yes, and it’s claws damaged my belt, so I couldn’t change size anymore.” “But the oscillator could be anywhere,” said Joan. “How will we ever find anything that small in all. . . “ She froze, right in the middle of a sentence. An eerie, unnatural silence descended on the entire jungle. David looked around. Even the leaves had stopped falling. It looked as though time was frozen, all except for him. “Dr. Clinton.” The voice was not loud, but sounded unnaturally loud in the silence. David spun round, and saw a man standing at the edge of the clearing where he was sure nobody had been a moment before. The man was wearing a double-breasted blue overcoat, cut almost like a lab coat. He had white gloves, boots, and a bandolier-style belt hung with a wide variety of strange devices. He wore a pair of large goggles, which partially concealed his face. Combined with his bright red hair, however, David recognized him. “Professor Dexton?” The man smiled slightly, but kindly. “You knew me as Professor Dexton in college. That was not my real name, nor was I born in 1950. My real name is Degaton. I was born in 1922, and I came to this era from 1947.” “You’re a time traveler too?” Clinton was shocked. He though he had created the first time machine. Degaton nodded. “But you will be credited as the first man to make time travel possible. I prefer to operate in anonymity. It suits me and my mission. It is for you to set the example and lead the way into the future.” He chuckled a little, as if at a private joke. “It was for that reason, among others, that I arranged to become your physics professor in college, to ensure you headed along the path that would bring that future into certainty.” He glanced down at an instrument readout in the wrist of his costume in concern. “I shouldn’t say any more, and we haven’t got the time anyway. I can only sustain this time stop for a few moments before we risk attracting attention. Which wouldn’t be good at this point. Here,” he reached into his pocked at pulled out an oscillator. “This will function in your Time Sphere. Now get going. You have a lot of adventures ahead of you.” In an instant, everything began moving again, and Dexton – or rather Degaton – disappeared as if he was never there. “. . . this jungle.” Clock Queen finished, then both she and Microbe stared at David. “Where did you get that?” He knew the real explanation would take much too long. “I found it on the ground. I guess it returned to normal size.” “Impossible,” Palmer snorted. “Unless. . . maybe the controls were tripped when that creature clawed off my belt.” “I say, lets count our blessing s and head home.” Joan stated, dragging the villain to his feet and frog-marching him to the Time-Sphere. Davide cast a futile backward glance, just before getting onboard himself. I hope I see the professor again, he though. He had the sense that he was only the spectator, on the edge of something spectacular. Two things he was sure of. First, as soon has they had a moment alone, he was going to convince Joan to let him design her some better weapons. There was no way he was going to allow his girlfriend to run around chasing criminals and mad-men with nothing but gimmicked clocks are weapons. That strange time-stopping effect the professor had produced had gotten him thinking of other ways he could employ his knowledge of temporal physics. And as for the second thing he was sure of, he would be making a lot more trips in the time sphere. As terrifying as this brief sojourn in the Jurassic era had been, it had also been fascinating, and exhilarating to see his theories proved right, and to set foot in a world lost to time. Yes, now that he knew the sphere worked, he would be visiting other times often, unraveling the mysteries of history. The possibilities were limitless
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Post by dans on Dec 18, 2020 23:57:47 GMT
Thanks for a great story, John!
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Post by johnreiter902 on Dec 19, 2020 14:08:06 GMT
I'm glad you liked it.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Dec 19, 2020 14:56:31 GMT
I'm going to include an epilogue. I can't wait to see this added to the 5 Earths Project website
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Post by dans on Dec 19, 2020 15:44:28 GMT
Probably include a little more insight about Professor Dexton, otherwise he looks like a deus ex machina...
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Post by johnreiter902 on Dec 19, 2020 17:23:16 GMT
I was going for mysterious, but I guess I made him too vague. I'll see if I can add anything to make him more clear. I will edit the last chapter later.
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