Futuristic Novel Comics Cinematic Universe: Lore

[Gadg8eer]

Hi! This is an idea known either as Metapowers or the Novel Comics Multiverse. The complete list of "primary layer" inspirations are Marvel Comics and the MCU, DC Comics, Sentinel Comics (which is actually a fictional comic book company that doubles as the setting for the Sentinels of the Multiverse TCG and the Sentinel Comics RPG), The Powerpuff Girls, the Big Hero 6 movie, Kid Cosmic and the Sonic Courage, Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain, Soon I Will Be Invincible, Narbonic and P.S. 238, but the "secondary layer" inspirations are divided by the time period in the setting's fictional history and the retro-futurism those periods saw in real life.

Like Sentinel Comics, Novel Comics is a fictional (and extradimensional) comic book publisher who records the story of the RP in its comics. In the last 15 years they've rebooted their entire multiverse with the Novel Comics Cinematic Universe, which does have an accompanying comic book shared universe but bases the majority of its revenue on self-contained movies about singular events in the Novel Comics canon.

I spent several days fleshing out the setting to an insane degree, and MisterEightySix has spent another several days editing it. The setting now has an extensive history going back to the 19th century (earlier if you count proto-superheroes, Geniuses, various magic users and mythological entities), but - other than a few token NPC superheroes and supervillains - I've left out actual characters so that you (yes, YOU!) can populate it with characters that have backstories going back as far back as you want. Just keep in mind that this setting's immortality-induced "comic book aging" only goes back to the 1800s unless your character is a demigod or vampire or something. (Information on Ambrose, the substance that causes this phenomenon, can be found in below in the description of the Brass Age, as well as in the profiles of Dr. Eternity and Desmond Bates.)

EDIT: See the "Atlas of the Novel Comics Multiverse" posts below for the whole list of timelines!

Spoiler: Sports and Supers

The existence of metapowers throws a real wrench into the gears of organized sports from the beginning. Due to the many, many ways a muggle can end up as a metapower, it is impossible to tell with 100% certainty that a person claiming to be a muggle is not, in fact, just hiding them. It's also not 100% possible to guarantee that someone who appears (or even claims) to be a Genius isn't just extremely intelligent (true Geniuses are capable of getting a right answer to an engineering or computing problem on the first try every time, but a muggle with greater actual intelligence could solve the same set of problems in a shorter time and/or with better results, despite making a few mistakes), and a surprising number of highly intelligent muggles later became Geniuses.

While ancient sports like the Mayan Ball Game or the Greek Olympics decided to simply allow it in order to allow gods and demigods to grace the ceremonies, and such informal sports of the Early Modern period as the Eton Wall Game (started in 1717) didn't and don't bother to worry about it, sports as a real life concept are exclusively played informally, with land occupied by dedicated stadiums, sports fields and hockey rinks instead used as superhero team headquarters, superhero training facilities or hangars for giant mecha.

The only exceptions are...
VR Sports Tournaments, which can grant all players virtual superpowers, see at the very bottom of this section for a description.
Golfing, which is, as in real life, mostly played by rich white guys as "wagers" which decide business deals.
The NAGL Metabowl, basically the Super Bowl. The North American Gridiron League is different in that it discourages (but does not discriminate against or say no to) muggles signing up for the Metabowl. Muggles who do are usually either well-armed with gadgets, a badass normal (potentially with martial arts training), both of the above, or a reckless fool. The Metabowl also does not allow individual players to sign sponsorship deals, though entire teams and the Metabowl committee for the year's tournament can and often do sponsor consumer products or services. It is held at basically the same time as the real life Super Bowl, and has been held on the exact same years.
High School/College Football exists, but started much later due to its inability to determine whether someone is a metapower. Why did it start at all? Well...

In-universe Sports Comics, including Sports Manga, are the Novel Comics Universe's equivalent to the pirate comics in Watchmen. After the release of a widely popular story in an American comic book in the 1930s, the idea of a world where professional gladiator-style sports tournaments held on a national or larger scale could exist thanks to advances in metapower-detection technology (which never came to pass) was born. By the 1950s, when it was clear metapowers would never be universally detectable, the idea came to be that all sports comics took place in "real life but without metapowers". This was part of a continuity reboot for the largest comics publisher at the time, and (as you're probably starting to suspect) somehow perfectly depicted IRL professional sports and athletes, featured in graphic novels such as...

..."The Modern Olympics", whose issues were only released on leap years - later every two years, interspaced for the Leap Year "Summer Olympics" and the new "Winter Olympics".
...The "Super Bowl I" anthology and its annual sequels that have the Roman numeral bumped up by one each year it gets published.
...The deconstructive "Tour de France" bike race comic about how even in a world that has no supertech or powers, people will find ways to cheat with whatever tech they do have.
...The "National Hockey League", a Canadian-made comic about "what if, in sports world, our country's most popular informal sport had its own Super Bowl?"
..."Basketball", a Sports Manga about a sport - created informally by a white P.E. schoolteacher to get his impoverished inner city students to actually do exercise during PhysEd - that went on to become an icon of ghetto life and black culture in-universe as a result. Rather than featuring a tournament, the comic focuses mainly on individual informal players, though it is of course mentioned that the NBA exists to be like similar sports tournaments throughout the "Sports Comic Shared Universe".
..."NASCAR: Stock Car Racing", "Formula One" and its prequel series like "Formula 2000", and "Tales from the Off-Road Rally Races" are basically the Big Three of car racing comics.
..."Tennis" is actually not a comic book at all, but the first VR game (produced in the 1970s). First advertised in sports comic books, "Tennis" was described as taking place in the Sports Comics Shared Universe and was the name of the titular sport invented in the 19th Century. Of course, this being a 1970s VR game, the backstory is only referenced in magazine ads and in the game's paper manual, rather than in-game where the only things that happen are scorekeeping and the movement of the players and the ball.

As you can guess, a lot of facts about sports IRL are just considered genre conventions in the NCCU, though there seems to be a strange fixation with exotic underwear-like clothes (for both genders, but it's oddly more common in sports comics about male sports teams, giving the whole sports comics industry some vaguely homoerotic implications). Steroids are basically "Super Serum that makes you stronger but also less of a man, so to speak". Cheerleader outfits are no more eyepopping to seasoned readers than the average fantasy bard's goofy getup, despite how clearly they emphasize "certain attributes" of women. Skin-tight swimsuits - from early shoulder-strapped suits to bikinis to speedos - and swim goggles, while originally considered slightly risque in the case of the former, became real life swimwear products in the NCCU. Even jock-straps and cups, which are never actually shown in official sports comics (though Japanese knock-off comics managed to define their actual look), are described in a way that portrays them as part of a character's protection gear as much as existing as fanservice to the reader.

Non-fanservice genre conventions include...

...Winning by one point, or even at the last second.
...A player got injured or too old and had to retire because not having super-medicine sucks.
...The old friend of a main character who went to high school with them and was on the school sports team for the comic's chosen sport, but got a career-destroying injury during a game of said sport.
...A Gridiron/American Football player who gets a Football Scholarship.
...The tragic car crash of the previous two ideas, where the Football injury means the Scholarship is nullified and the player can't go to college.
...extensive protective gear, not just those related to protecting "certain attributes" of a soft and sensitive nature, but the entire body - often so that players can crash into each other in brutal and otherwise injury-inducing fashion.
...hockey and football comics having a grim reveal that the aforementioned collisions lead to brain rot, despite all the protective gear, because "Death By A Thousand Bumps" is just as bad for the brain as the "Chunky Salsa Rule".
...baseball being a slow-burn type of game that often bores less-dedicated readers.
...somewhat hilarious thirty car pileups in NASCAR that only result in minor injuries due to the car's design.
...extremely gruesome car crashes followed by the car bursting into flames with the driver trapped inside in F1, used as a means of killing off a character for drama purposes.
...and, of course, the idea that athletes are as famous in the Sports Comics Shared Universe (and of course IRL) as superheroes are in the NCCU.
...inversely, that athletes from Sports Comics are as world-famous in the NCCU as Superman and other fictional superheroes are IRL.

Additionally, there's a single comic which ignores and does not take place in the Sports Comics Shared Universe, an urban fantasy sports comic by in-universe comic book author Kate Jenna Gatling (K.J. Gatling) called "Quidwitch Throughout the Ages". In the urban fantasy setting, superscience and superheroes don't exist, but magic secretly does and is hidden from ordinary people by an ancient, partly benevolent but partly corrupt, wizard conspiracy. That's just an excuse plot, though...

The comic is actually about teenage girls competing in a global tournament of a sport called Quidwitch, which is played by players called "witches". Players of Quidwitch must be female because only women can form bonds with and ride the magic broomsticks that are required for the sports' typical three-dimensional playing field (for some reason). Five players are assigned to each team, often leading to the players forming an acronym for the team based on the first letter of each of their names, and actual games of Quidwitch resemble WWII aerial dogfighting (complete with magical projectiles). Male magic users, or "wizards", with athletic inclinations usually play a completely different sport called Twinball of which little is shown.

Spoiler: A few pointless notes and a rant on transgender characters in the Quidwitch show-within-a-show, please feel free to not read this at all!

Apparently, in the canon of Quidwitch, it is possible to drink a potion that swaps your gender over the course of a single minute (though the result is permanent, and the transformation process extremely painful). In fact, the ancient wizard conspiracy requires such potions to have a safety additive that prevents its effects in anyone who hasn't finished puberty (and nullifies the "it's permanent" part for that attempt so that it doesn't cause such a potion to not work later in life), as well as educating teenagers about the difference between "choice of the soul" (Gatling's "no such thing as fate" equivalent to how real gay people are born gay) and peer pressure regarding sexuality.

Wizards and witches consider sex as well as love a "choice of the soul" rather than a simple mental choice. In real life terms, Gatling's heroic characters believe "being gay, trans, asexual or even straight is like choosing your favorite Super Smash Bros. Ultimate fighter or what college degree to take, it defines your preferences and options going forward but there's no wrong answer" rather than "being gay is a choice made by sexual deviants, asexuals don't exist, and only straight people are virtuous". Even the villains of her works, if they care about sexuality at all, believe that people are "fated to be straight, or gay, or transgender; if that makes them miserable, it is through no fault of their own, but nothing can help them as it is and always has been their fate to suffer" - as you can imagine, the primary problems with this are believing you can determine someone's fate, whether that be out of arrogance and hubris or simply believing in pseudomagical/pseudoscientific methods of divination that have been conclusively proven to be as accurate as flipping a coin. Much like with Trolls from Homestuck IRL, fans of Quidwich took this idea of "choice of the soul" and ran with it, sometimes twisting the message that "organizations and groups shouldn't control people's private lives" into "I'm allowed to be a shitty person because there are no wrong choices".

Of course, IRL and even in the NCCU there's plenty of evidence that sexuality is determined by biological factors, not psychological choices, which Gatling is ignoring (whether for storytelling purposes or because she actually believes them). That said, aside from the good anti-authoritarianism, anti-classist/caste, and pro-skepticism-within-reason message, Gatling has a point; Biologically-determined sexuality could, hypothetically, be "cured" - for lack of a better ominously ironic term - by modifying a person's biological makeup. In that sense, being of a given sexuality really is a choice of the soul as much as a biological trait, like preferring chocolate ice cream over strawberry. Those who are currently trying to get everyone to eat strawberry ice cream - by penalty of torture - when buying ice cream, will someday be trying to force everyone to have their taste buds or brain modified to hate every flavor of ice cream except strawberry.

It should be noted that any post-pubescent wizard or witch who knows for certain that they're comfortable with their birth gender will drink a potion meant to transform a member of the opposite gender into their own, making their original gender permanent in an instant. Unlike changing their gender, confirming their original gender is painless due to there being no physical changes - as you can imagine, having almost your entire body from your physical attractiveness to your reproductive organs to the chromosomes in your cells replaced or translated to the opposing gender would probably be incredibly painful to bear for even a single minute.

As you can guess, this is all just to justify K.J. Gatling referencing her own newfound support for the trans community, including the idea that a born-wizard who realizes (s)he is transgender can play Quidwitch after the gender change. While this moral lesson is handled well in and of itself in her comics as described above, Gatling's public relations in the regular world aren't so spotless due to accusations ranging from "former Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist" to "racist anti-racism hypocrite" to "a lesbian who just wanted an excuse to draw girls in short skirts riding phallic objects". Knowing what we know about Gatling, instead of the limited scope afforded to characters in the NCCU, the worst-case scenario is that despite advising everyone to be skeptical enough to do basic factchecking, she could be a hypocrite who dismissed or is ignorant of the evidence pointing towards biologically-determined sexuality and honestly believes that sexuality is purely a choice. That said, that's the worst-case scenario, it doesn't mean K.J. Gatling - a fictional counterpart - is as bad as or worse than J.K. Rowling's actual shortcomings, but the idea of a supervillain who used to be a famous writer/artist threatening the world because she believes something without questioning becomes more appetizing to the plot every time the real thing says something extremist in nature.

Finally, it should be noted that sports video games and eSports are basically the same thing, except the former (called "Sports Virtual Realities") is limited to a VR system's local Cyberspace and can be paused, while the latter (just called eSports) is often played live in a dedicated node. This also means that eSports are like if real sports could only be played in VR, instead of being like IRL action strategy games such as Starcraft or League of Legends. American College Football was the first to hold eSport tournaments in the Metaverse. High School Football, while limited to Texas, also holds eSports tournaments. All equivalents to real life professional sports are held in the Metaverse, mostly inspired by Sports Comics.

 

[Gadg8eer]

Timeline-0 a.k.a Novel Comics Legacy Universe

Spoiler: The History of Timeline-0

Spoiler: 19th Century to 1920s: Steampunk and the Brass Age of Metapowers

An era of mad Geniuses, gaslamp fantasy and steam-powered tech inspired by Girl Genius and the works of Jules Verne. Also known as the Pulp Age, Gilded Age or Platinum Age (though the lattermost only retroactively), due to the creation of newspaper comics, pulp serials and penny dreadfuls containing stories based on the adventures of metapowers. Fictional counterparts to famous Geniuses, as well as adventurer archaeologists and recently-revealed cryptids of the era were often the protagonists of such works. The Gilded Age of Metapowers was a label applied to the era erroneously, equating it with the Gilded Age of the 19th century. The Platinum Age was called such from the Silver Age onwards in reference to the newspaper comics in particular.

The first Genius, Dr. Clockwork, created the "default" timeline (also called Timeline-1) in 1809, by traveling forward in time to the year 1909 of this timeline, then using his knowledge of the future to change the course of history. In this original timeline, known as Timeline-0 (or as we would call it, the Novel Comics Legacy Universe), he discovered that Earth would eventually be sterilized in 1906, three years before his arrival, by the impact of an asteroid made of massive quantities of lead, mercury, arsenic, cyanide, and radioactive elements. His time travel suit kept him safe from the toxic environment, allowing him to recover or document countless steampunk and dieselpunk technologies before returning to 1809 to reverse-engineer his findings.

The first superhero, Timeline-0!Geisha, would have begun her career as an advisor to the Japanese military just before 1906, but did not become an actual superheroine until the 1930s and Timeline-0!Geisha is presumed dead as a result.

As Pantheonic gods, the ancient Greek gods Timeline-0!Hades and Timeline-0!Hermes, though not active as superheroes during this period, became known to the world after the discovery of the entrance to the Greek Underworld (containing the river Styx and a mansion which served as the vacation home of the Greek Gods) hidden beneath Mount Olympus. The Greek gods had taken shelter in the Underworld after the fall of Roman polytheism, and Timeline-0!Hermes and Timeline-0!Hades were the only members of their pantheon still receiving some form of worship to sustain them before the Styx was discovered. However, with the death of all life in Timeline-0, the local versions of both are presumed to have retreated to the Underworld.

Perhaps most importantly, though biological immortality was discovered in 1888, by Timeline-0's Dr. Hoover Wilson, known as Timeline-0!Dr. Eternity, he and his daughter as well as her husband - the ancient vampire Timeline-0!Al-Khaled - all died in 1906 in Timeline-0 due to the asteroid impact.

 

[Gadg8eer]

Timeline-1 a.k.a Novel Comics Cinematic Universe

Spoiler: The (Abridged, but Still Long) History of Timeline-1 (WARNING! WALL OF TEXT!)

Spoiler: 19th Century to 1920s: Steampunk and the Brass Age of Metapowers

An era of mad Geniuses, gaslamp fantasy and steam-powered tech inspired by Girl Genius and the works of Jules Verne. Also known as the Pulp Age, Gilded Age or Platinum Age (though the lattermost only retroactively), due to the creation of newspaper comics, pulp serials and penny dreadfuls containing stories based on the adventures of metapowers. Fictional counterparts to famous Geniuses, as well as adventurer archaeologists and recently-revealed cryptids of the era were often the protagonists of such works. The Gilded Age of Metapowers was a label applied to the era erroneously, equating it with the Gilded Age of the 19th century. The Platinum Age was called such from the Silver Age onwards in reference to the newspaper comics in particular.

The first Genius, Dr. Clockwork, created the current timeline (also called Timeline One) in 1809, by traveling forward in time to the year 1909, then using his knowledge of the future to change the course of history. In the original timeline, known as Timeline Zero (or as we would call it, the Novel Comics Universe), he discovered that Earth would eventually be sterilized in 1906, three years before his arrival, by the impact of an asteroid made of massive quantities of lead, mercury, arsenic, cyanide, and radioactive elements. His time travel suit kept him safe from the toxic environment, allowing him to recover or document countless steampunk and dieselpunk technologies before returning to 1809 to reverse-engineer his findings.

The first superhero, Geisha, began her career during this period, but did not become well-known in the wider world until the Golden Age. However, halfway across the world in Greece, the ancient gods Hades and Hermes, though not active as superheroes during this period, became known to the world after the discovery of the entrance to the Greek Underworld (containing the river Styx and a mansion which served as the vacation home of the Greek Gods) hidden beneath Mount Olympus. The Greek gods had taken shelter in the Underworld after the fall of Roman polytheism, and Hermes and Hades were the only members of their pantheon still receiving some form of worship to sustain them before the Styx was discovered.

Perhaps most importantly, this is also when biological immortality was discovered, supplying an in-universe explanation as to why Comic Book Time is in effect. Dr. Hoover Wilson, known today as Dr. Eternity, was one of the many Geniuses who advanced the technology of the era following Dr. Clockwork's return from the future. When the ancient vampire Al-Khaled, now going by the name Desmond Bates, came to him seeking a treatment for the ravages of vampiric hunger, he not only discovered the root cause of vampirism, but also isolated Ambrose from Desmond's blood as a by-product of his research, enabling it to be synthesized in a laboratory.

Spoiler: 1930s to 1945: Dieselpunk and the Golden Age of Metapowers

Think "what if the Great Depression was so terrible because it was basically Metropolis?"

Despite the general misfortune of the era (including WWII, the Holocaust, and general Nazi superscience weapons of inhumane nature), this was an era of new beginnings. The first American metapowers, Strongman and Florida Man, began their careers during the Great Depression, soon to be followed by a number of imitators. Though many of these upstarts retired after realizing how hard being a superhero actually is, eventually there were enough of these so-named "super-heroes" that by the beginning of the Second World War, several of them, including Libertas ("The All-American Giantess") and the aforementioned Florida Man, were publicly backed by the United States government.

This is also when the first "Super-Insurance Measures" were implemented. To this day, most superheroes and superhero teams are funded by the insurance industry, who fund the construction of their headquarters and equipment. Because the individuals and groups they sponsor use the funding to thwart supervillains and avert natural disasters, the corporations, in turn, are able to ethically avoid paying out for damages that might otherwise occur from hurricanes, asteroid impacts, and giant robot gorillas.

Spoiler: 1945 to 1965: Atompunk and the Ice Age of Metapowers

Pre-War Fallout's general appearance is a good example of this era's aesthetic.

Known as "the 50s" despite lasting 20 years, the first half of this period saw a marked decline in superheroes. The few new metapowers that did emerge were extremely noteworthy, however, and a great number of the more permanent superheroes in America were among them. As if to make up for the decline, the latter 10 years of the period experienced a sudden surge in superheroes, which started after Best Friend (formerly Laika... yes, that Laika), considered both the first Soviet superhero and the first non-human superhero, gained her psychic powers from COSMIC RAYS! (Sorry, it's a running joke.) Some believe Laika's return to Earth was responsible for this event in some way, but so far there is little evidence to support this theory.

Because the boom in new metapowered individuals, both in America and worldwide, also produced more supervillains, the Cosmic Code was introduced in 1954. This put limits on the behavior of every metapowered individual, including (but not limited to) superheroes, Geniuses, wizards, vampires and demigods, by penalty of the combined military force of every signatory nation, which included (but again, was not limited to) every NATO nation, Japan, the USSR, and Australia. The Code didn't actually reduce supervillain activity at all, only driving it underground, but after it was instituted, the majority of less morally-grounded superheroes quickly decided to play nice (well, nicer) or retired permanently, cementing the Code's existence for several decades.

The Cosmic Code also required metapowers in signatory nations to register with their local law enforcement jurisdiction before using their metapowers. The Code allowed and encouraged the use of an alias and did not require one to give their real name (a.k.a "secret identity") or reveal their real face, but having multiple aliases (in the sense of having multiple hero names and costumes in such a way as to deceive the public) was punishable by law.

Spoiler: 1965 to 1970s: Mid-Century Futurism and the Silver Age of Metapowers

Thunderbirds and 2001: A Space Odyssey are good examples of this era's appearance.

Also known as "the 60s", this era was a somewhat turbulent one. Aside from issues seen in our world like the Cuban Missile Crisis, Counter-Culture and the Vietnam War, this is when America decided that, yes, the moon (at least, the Sea of Tranquility) was American soil. It was also when the Soviets constructed the first Orbital Hyper-Nuclear Offensive (OHNO) platform, although said acronym was coined by the American military for their take on orbital nuclear weapons, and the Soviet name for the platforms was actually a complicated string of words in Cyrillic.

Like the majority of marginalized people, many metapowers began experimenting with psychoactive substances (including cannabis, psychedelic mushrooms and LSD) in this period, resulting in the Silver Age being a lot more... silly... than the name Silver Age would imply. In fact, it was colloquially referred to as the Silly Age of Metapowers by contemporary observers.

Spoiler: 1970s: 1970s Futurism and the Bronze Age of Metapowers

For visualizing this era's designs, Supertrain, The Big Bus, and the original Westworld film are good examples, or the original Star Wars trilogy if you have trouble picturing that. Rollerwave is a good look at the era's aesthetic, though the dystopian aspects of the movies that inspired it (Rollerball and Death Race 2000) don't apply to the Bronze Age of Metapowers.

Known as "the 70s", this era was the beginning of meltdown-proof nuclear reactors, which in our own world are still in their planning stages as of 2022. Several designs were proposed for use in America in response to the oil crisis, including state-of-the-art power plants and even nuclear-powered cars, but these were too difficult to downscale to the size of an engine block, and a nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island in 1979, worse than the real life one, brought a lot of fear about nuclear power. As a result, only a few plants were constructed during this time, and the nuclear-powered car project was abandoned, exacerbating the oil crisis until the early 80s. Thankfully, the new reactors' reliability was confirmed in 1978: One of the plants, built the previous year, went runaway without experiencing a meltdown, largely due to its molten-salt cooling system, which relied entirely on the laws of physics instead of mechanical safety measures that could potentially malfunction.

Of course, Three Mile Island proved that, even in the NCCU, getting superpowers from radiation is a one-in-a-million scenario. This is the origin of the Nuclear Family, an African-American family living near the plant, who gained superpowers from exposure to the ionizing radiation thanks to a rare genetic quirk that none of the other survivors possessed. The Nuclear Family's existence, minority status, and endorsement by Strongman (who took a hiatus from being a superhero to undertake humanitarian efforts in ghettos across America after the success of his historic campaign to dismantle the KKK) was the final nail in the coffin for the Jim Crow laws and the triumphant roar of civil rights movements in America.

Speaking of advanced technologies, the first cybernetics prototypes were developed by Big Blue Industries (the in-universe counterpart to IBM) in the 70s, but production versions would only become available (as medical prostheses) in 1980. This technology would continue to develop at a steady rate for at least the next 50 years, but unfortunately there is little to say on the technology as it existed during this period.

Meanwhile, the Golden Age of Psionics, a field about as far removed as you can get from physics and robotics, began in American intelligence and military circles. Until the beginning of the 70s, Laika was the only psionic metapower in the world, and the USSR considered her a matter of national pride. Once the CIA discovered Lucas Walker, the first American psionic, the US military secretly kidnapped him and began studying the new form of metapower intensely, hoping to use it in the Cold War and abuse it to control their population. Fortunately, most of those recruited to study psionic individuals were troubled by the methods being employed and the intended uses, even among those who joined the program purely for the money or academic clout, and as the CIA and military employed several Geniuses in their psionic research programs, they were forced to follow the Cosmic Code once the program was revealed to the public.

In 1969, days after the completion of Apollo 11, a missile was sent from the dark side of the moon by an unknown party to strike the city of Jerusalem. The Golem, the sole Israeli government-sponsored metapower, was dispatched (or rather, it "decided") to destroy the missile using an angelic bow and arrow, but although it was able to detonate its target's TNT-loaded warhead, the physical remains of the missile crashed into a residential neighborhood of Jerusalem two minutes later with the force of a meteor shower, destroying several buildings and killing approximately 200 people. An investigation revealed the missile had been created by the long-rumored and infamous Lunar Nazis (you know, the ones that escaped to the moon just before Nazi Germany fell - those Lunar Nazis), who would be exterminated five years later in 1974 by "The Golem's Mighty Swing", a low-yield nuclear rocket created in a cooperative effort between Israel, West Germany, America and the USSR.

In 1970, inquiries discovered that the heroes and Geniuses involved in trying to stop the Nazi missile (which traveled for several days before reaching Earth) had several occasions where a viable solution was available, but would have broken the Cosmic Code. However, the one argument against removing the Code, that less morally-grounded metapowers would try to become licensed as superheroes, was well-founded. As a result, the Cosmic Code was revised in 1971.

A few new "fad" superheroes appeared in America in the Bronze Age, such as Discotech (a disco and 70's supercomputer themed gynoid heroine), Jacknife (a North American hero who used a lot of trucker slang and, unlike most heroes, didn't seem to have a home city), and The Scavenger (best described as "a Mad Max extra turned slightly edgy superhero"). The Scavenger claimed to be from the future and was trying to prevent the end of the world, and it was later found that he was from a timeline where the Cold War went hot in 1979, which was made into a separate universe as a result of him being flung back through time and triggering a butterfly effect.

Discotech self-terminated when disco died as a genre, turning out to be very thin-skinned when a teenager ridiculed her in the early 80s. (Actually, the teen's words exposed her secret identity and were downright cruel, so maybe "thin-skinned" is the wrong word.) Jacknife retired in the late 80s, both from heroism and from truck driving (his secret identity) as he was born in the 50s and had made a personal choice to not have immortality; a lifelong smoker, he passed away in 2002 from lung cancer. The Scavenger returned to his home timeline in 1980, bringing with him a team of humanitarian scientists, the backing of the main timeline's US military, and terraforming tech to restore the biosphere of his timeline. He pops by to say hi and defeat supervillains every so often.

Last, but far from least, this is when space colonies first took off. The American lunar base and the Soviet airship colonies of Venus were both constructed in the 1970s.

Spoiler: 1980s: Cyberpunk and the Iron Age of Metapowers

Works such as Blade Runner, Neuromancer, TRON and Robocop show how new buildings and technologies evolved in this era. Watchmen and Hellboy describe the lives of metapowers at the time, though Automan and Knight Rider show how metapowers took advantage of or got their powers from Cyberspace.

"The 80s" started off when a supervillain Genius known as the Preacher created a new base in Africa to avoid the Cosmic Code without having to hide. Motivated by bigotry, the Preacher created Synthetic Immunophage Nanites, a type of nanomachine designed to destroy white blood cells, which could be transmitted via blood or intercourse. This artificial plague is also colloquially called SIN for short - an apt name, considering it was created to target drug addicts, homosexuals, and other demographics that someone as stringent as the Preacher would consider "sinful".

Prototypes of the nanites were released into blood banks in Africa as trial runs, until one particular "strain" proved itself hardy enough to resist the human body's defenses. Samples of this strain were then transported to America, where it was covertly distributed to drug users in Miami and San Francisco via contaminated samples of a nanite-based liquid hallucinogen nicknamed "poke". Drug use was common among the gay community at that time, so the Preacher's acolytes spread televised propaganda to prey on people's fear and hatred of both groups, claiming that SIN was "a punishment from God to smite the sinners". When it was found that SIN had vulnerabilities which made it medically treatable and unable to infect people with cybernetic implants, the Preacher created SIN 2.0 in 1985 to patch the vulnerabilities and distributed it once more, though by that time the disease was widespread enough that people were taking precautions to prevent its spread.

Aside from the creation of medical cybernetics (meant for use by amputees), the 1980s saw the dawn of Cyberspace. The MolecuLaser (or ML) drive used special lasers to convert physical objects into digital ones and back again, allowing them to be stored on cassette tapes or floppy disks. This technology also enabled people to be "beamed" into a virtual environment, which was essentially a smaller, isolated version of what is now called Cyberspace. The "online" section of Cyberspace, which is now called the Metaverse, did not have a name at the time, and only consisted of a handful of popular nodes and a few dozen invite-only ones until the mid-1990s.

The first Virtual Reality platform was the TanaCom, released in Japan in 1983, and its counterpart, the TanaCorp Entertainment System, released in NATO nations in 1985. These systems used a built-in ML drive and special cartridges to create virtual game environments for up to two people at a time, with each player having a separate cartridge. The slots used to hold TES cartridges also featured integrated arrays of redundant Emergency Molecular Shunts, which would forcibly de-digitize both players if the console was damaged or turned off. This system proved safe enough that the only casualty to date was reported in 2014, and safety ratings improved with each successive console until the release of the Tana Skip in 2017, which made such features obsolete thanks to its revolutionary SoulScanner, Henshin and OneiroMask technologies.

ML drives can make use of Cyberspace to teleport someone from one location to another, but this uses so much bandwidth that it can cause network outages for other users. The only people who use them in this way are Geniuses (who bypassed this issue by piggybacking on network trunks used by universities), wealthy individuals with dedicated lines, and government-funded organizations such as the military, emergency services, and superheroes registered with the Cosmic Code Authority. (In the 80s, this was even more limited, as developing nations had no access to Cyberspace, and travel between NATO and Warsaw Pact nations was banned.) Put simply, if a superhero could travel long distances faster than a Concorde and was neither a Genius nor registered, it was a sure sign their secret identity was basically Bruce Wayne.

Actual superheroes in the Iron Age needed all that previous context to be described. Adjusting the Cosmic Code had beneficial effects throughout the 1970s, but once the 80s proved to favor corrupt corporations and supervillains over the average person, it had a two-fold and stagflation-like effect. The adjusted Code wasn't loose enough to allow morally-grounded superheroes and Geniuses to triumph over evil anymore, but at the same time it was loose enough that mentally-unwell or corrupt metapowered individuals could do far more damage and get away with it. The result was a problem nobody knew how to solve anymore: The paradoxical question of "Who watches the Watchmen?". This led to the 1989 revision of the Cosmic Code, as well as the various troubles faced by TanaCorp in the 90s.

Finally, space. America's lunar colonies continued to expand, and the first Martian colony was started by the USA in 1982. The Martian colony's mineral rights were sold to a Japanese corporation the following year, leading to TanaCorp's infamous "New Life in the Off-World Colonies" ads. Meanwhile, the USSR found it increasingly difficult to fund their Venusian airship colonies; after the fall of Soviet Communism, the Russian Federation would sell their Venusian airship fleet piece by piece to other countries throughout the 1990s. One airship went to every Warsaw Pact member state (Russia retained two), two went to Japan (one of which was partly owned by TanaCorp), one went to Canada, and the remaining three went to America.

Spoiler: 1990-1997: Post-cyberpunk and the Dark Age of Metapowers

Snow Crash, Hackers and - funnily enough - Batman Beyond are the primary inspirations for this period.

SIN was finally identified in the 90s, leading to the capture of the Preacher and the elimination of his propaganda agents. It took a few more years for the effect of the propaganda to fade due to lingering prejudices, but the process was sped up considerably by three revelations. First, a study proved that SIN could be transmitted via childbirth. Second, the effects of the SIN epidemic in Africa were conclusively linked to the Preacher's trial runs. Finally, news broke that SIN had spread to numerous figures of some influence, none of whom were explicitly homosexual - including several famous actors, a well-known basketball player, a US senator, and a high-ranking member of the Catholic church.

Space technology continued to improve, with the Moon, Mars and Venus colonies gradually expanding during this period, but most of the exceptionally noteworthy accomplishments occurred in the field of Cyberspace technology instead.

Back on Earth, TanaCorp released two new products. One was the Super TanaCorp Entertainment System (STES), released in Japan in 1990 and elsewhere in 1991. The STES used an updated version of the TES ML Drive, capable of storing each player in their cartridge indefinitely in the event that all Emergency Molecular Shunts failed. The other was the GameHUD, an Augmented Reality headset, which was initially released in 1989 but only saw a global release in 1990. The GameHUD was bulky, expensive, and lacked a color display, but its comparative portability and long battery life kept it popular throughout the Dark Age of Metapowers.

Shortly after releasing the STES, charges of Anti-Trust during the shelf life of the original TES were brought against TanaCorp in the US. Soon after, the mechanical failure of a construction mecha in the American Martian colony nearly ended in tragedy, with the colony's schoolchildren only saved from atmospheric decompression by the work of three Geniuses (one of which died in the rescue effort) and one incredibly bright cyborg (who also died in the rescue effort). In 1993, TanaCorp was found 100% at fault for the failure of the mecha and the insufficient reinforcement of the dome protecting the colony's school. The company lost the mineral rights for the colony, and was forced to co-develop the Holoscan Drive Add-On for the STES in cooperation with Rady Technologies, leading to a pair of infamous contract issues with Rady and Robertson Electronics.

In 1989, Dega (originally an arcade game manufacturer known as Defense Games) released the Dega Nemesis, the first standalone VR system not made by TanaSoft. Its aggressive advertising campaign and competitive software library, including Cosmix Zone - the first VR game that allowed the player to experience being a superhero - ended TanaCorp's monopoly on standalone VR Games. Later additions to the Nemesis would not be so successful: Its long-hyped Holoscan Drive Add-On was released alongside a number of games which featured increased resolution, and was mandatory to play them. Many consumers saw the whole deal as an excuse to make people buy a new piece of hardware, and the small library of high-resolution games made it difficult to justify the cost. (Wait, did I say "add-on"? I meant "add-ons" - Dega of Japan and Dega of America both released different iterations of the device, in different parts of the world, at the same time, under the same circumstance, using the same technology. This caused Dega to accidentally cannibalize its own market, and poisoned the Nemesis' reputation in its later years.

The world was finally improving after the near-dystopia of the 80s, but the public image of superheroes only got worse. From '89 to '95, the misgivings against new superheroes ranged from the mundane (the overabundance of "tacky" pouches and belts on superheroes' uniforms), to the concerning (firearm use becoming so common among superheroes that it was impossible to ensure such weapons were mere props or otherwise in compliance with the Cosmic Code), to the unacceptable (unsolved murders with clear metapowered involvement reaching an all-time high). In 1996, the signatory nations of the Cosmic Code, which now included Russia, decided that they'd had enough, and introduced a frightening new proposal: If the superhero community didn't clean up its act inside of one year, all metapowered individuals would be required to reveal their real identities and enter military service, or else be deemed criminals and arrested or killed on sight. By 1997, the vast majority of "heroes" who had signed up in the previous 7 years had either retired or "mysteriously disappeared", a trend which undercover police officers claim was the result of organized crime syndicates taking the matter into their own hands.

Finally, following the collapse of the USSR, restrictions on teleportation loosened. Direct travel between NATO members and former Warsaw Pact states became permitted, and the qualifications for superheroes to do so during emergencies became less rigorous.

Spoiler: 1997-2003: Y2K Rebooted

Y2K Aesthetic, Gen-X Soft Club, and sci-fi contemporary to the period - such as the Jet Set Radio series, The Matrix franchise, MegaMan Battle Network, Pokémon, the original Halo, and Cubix: Robots for Everyone - define the look of this "lost decade".

Aside from TanaCorp's Voxel 64 and GameHUD Color, the first few years of this era saw the true beginning of the "VR Wars" with the release of the Dega Andromeda, and the creation and release of the Rady GameBrain from the technology originally meant for the STES Holoscan Add-On. The Voxel 64 continued to use MolecuLaser technology, while the Andromeda and GameBrain had moved on to Holoscan systems. Later, the Dega Dreamwave introduced the first OneiroMask interface (only to be discontinued despite its popularity due to Dega having financial troubles), the GameBrain 2 came with the first affordable Metaverse-ready Holodex Drive (an upgraded Holoscan Drive with the ability to design a custom Cyberspace avatar), the TanaCorp Tesseract failed to attract VR game developers, and the MicroDyne BlackBox succeeded entirely because of an exclusive killer app VR game called Dyson.

Computer use was on the rise in this era as well. In 1998, Quill Computers held the first of many press conferences, where Quill's co-founder sisters Jo Stevens and Wanda Stevens introduced the qTop 63, the first All-in-One computer terminal. It included a Holoscan Drive and the first built-in Cyberspace modem, and is well-remembered for its stylish translucent plastic shell. Quill's second-generation qTop 64, released in 2002, included a Holodex Drive and a non-sentient AI Assistant called a Navigator (who are often customized to look vaguely like superheroes), and featured a distinctive robotic swivel-arm shape which lent it the nickname of the "qLamp".

The Y2K era was generally prosperous, but two major events marked the era and its transition to the next:

On January 1, 2000 at midnight, the predicted Y2K Bug wreaked havoc on computer systems worldwide. Fortunately, banks had to keep paper backups of all digital records, the few airplanes that were affected glided to the nearest airports safely, nuclear power plants had been meltdown-proof since the early 90s, and in general, software had been upgraded to prevent the most dire predictions made. However, the bug forced a shutdown on every computer running a MicroDyne operating system. All versions of MD-SOS (MicroDyne Standard OS) and Frames (1.0, 2.0, 3.14, 95, 96 and 98) released at the time were affected, leading to worldwide Cyberspace outages that took between 12 hours and 3 days to resolve in a given region. Once the world had recovered from Y2K outages, the Metaverse bubble then burst over the period of two years, with the burst ending in 2002.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, several planes were hijacked by mysterious individuals who claimed to be working for a supervillain called Precipice. Each plane and the passengers on board were rescued by superheroes (or in one case, a Genius onboard the flight). It was assumed that the day had been saved, but that same afternoon, an unknown force hijacked global TV broadcasts for several minutes, showing computer-generated footage of a disembodied headwith blond hair and sunglasses floating in front of a colorful background. The head introduced himself as Precipice and claimed responsibility for the hijackings, but rather than gloat or make demands, he instead broadcast footage taken via concealed cameras the hijackers had been wearing. The shocking footage revealed that the individuals who had saved the planes had acted with varying degrees of unprofessional conduct, performing acts of extreme violence and directly endangering the lives of the passengers they had been trying to save. Precipice stated calmly that superheroes had now proven themselves to lack the moral fortitude to be trusted, and that his actions were a necessary evil to show the world how close it was to the edge. The broadcast ended immediately thereafter, and to this day, the person or persons who were truly behind the Precipice broadcast have never been found.

In the aftermath, the heroes who responded had their actions put under intense scrutiny. They argued that their actions were justified, given the extreme stress of the circumstances, and that, since the hijackers had attempted to roll the planes and crash them into the ground, it was a miracle that the hijackers and two pilots were the only casualties. Once the public, the metapowered community, and the US government had completed their investigations, consensus eventually sided with them, but one hero was barred from the Cosmic Code Registry in the aftermath, and three others retired shortly afterward, remarking that "Precipice was right about one thing: We need to do better, and if we can't, then we need to stop putting people's lives at risk."

Spoiler: 2004-2008: Phase One; "Everything is an iPod in the Future", Gangsta and Hip-Hop culture, and McBling

See TV Tropes' article on Everything is an iPod in the Future here.

A period of overspeculation in the real-estate and loan markets occurred during this period, leading to reckless spending, even more reckless lending practices, and an entire globalized economy built on the illusion of economic growth and stability. This would ultimately lead to collapse, but until then, corporations that produced consumer goods or entertainment took everyone for a ride with cheap entertainment and prestigious but hollow brands.

Reality television was everywhere during this time: Shows like Uncharted Island, The Scholarship, and especially America's Next Top Hero made anybody who had money (or was willing to do anything to get some) into a celebrity at the low, low price of their integrity. Less scrupulous metapowers latched onto the fame for as long as they could, taking sponsorship deals from whatever company would pay them to increase the demand for new products in the eyes of impressionable teenagers. The opportunity faded when Trophy Wives of Los Angeles aired and the Kashkao family somehow got famous for being famous, but by then, the damage had already been done.

Speaking of wealth, this period also saw the first time a wealthy superhero revealed their secret identity. The armored hero Technetium came forward as Anthony Ross, CEO of Mingl Inc. (and owner of Techne Motors as of 2022) after he rescued a motorist who had collided with him while he was wearing the Technetium armor. The car being driven by the injured party was made of an advanced plastic of Chinese manufacture, but the materials had been improperly implemented in its construction and were heavily damaged by impact from the expensive and rigorously-tested alloys used in the Technetium suit, necessitating a recall and a lengthy court case. Whether Ross paid the hospital bills as a genuine act of goodwill or a means of saving face after being involved in an international incident is debatable, but it did give him a cleaner image for a few years.

During this era, teleportation via Cyberspace for superheroes was at its peak. With a seemingly booming economy and a equally booming supply of supervillains, the need for diverse and far-flung locations to have cyberportation became paramount, and the tech sector was eager to comply with constant construction of high-bandwidth lines to basically everywhere on Earth. Only the Lunar and extraplanetary colonies were out of reach.

Unfortunately for interstellar colonies, funding to space colonization actually decreased at this time. The past decade's financial investments had yielded little in advancements to space-bound technology, and many were bullish of space colonization being sustainable in the forseeable future. The crash of a NASA space shuttle and decommissioning of the others led to an era where only the Soviet knock-off of the NASA shuttle (supplied by post-Soviet Russia) was able to transport astronauts to Station Alpha (the in-universe equivalent of the ISS, but much bigger and with artificial gravity provided by centrifugal force).

The era came crashing down when the Great Regression essentially destroyed the modern economy, leaving airlines unable to buy fuel (most freight began being shipped via seaports, trucks and rail) and the world recovering from the loss of the entire banking industry. The Regression lasted for so long that it contributed to supply chain issues during the ZOVID-19 pandemic, is still ongoing as of 2022, and may end up being contiguous with the next once-a-decade financial crisis.

Spoiler: Popular tech devices of this era included...

...the qBot, an adorable cube-shaped robot made by Quill that would sing your music collection to you. It's basically WALL-E and EVE's post-credits baby!
...the MicroDyne Zume, a tough-looking robot that would sing your music collection to you and allow you to exchange songs with other nearby Zume owners wirelessly, but failed due to Quill's superior pedigree and backlash from major record labels in the form of anti-piracy lawsuits targeted at Zume owners; aside from exchanging songs, Zume owners had to pirate digital music or rip music holoscans to obtain music, while qPod owners were forced to use qTunes (later renamed to Quill Music) to download songs and only qBot and qTop owners could use qTunes at the time.
...the TanaCorp DX, a line of AR goggles relying on new Henshin technology to provide the user's avatar. The original DX was the first AR device to feature two separate lenses and hand-tracking, but was a bulky, unappealing thing shaped like a fighter pilot's helmet. The DX Lite (shaped like swim goggles) and DX Eyes (shaped like traditional glasses) had much smaller and substantially more appealing designs.
...the Rady GameBrain Goggles, whose apparent success was attributed to appealing more to the teenage and adult demographics due to their apparent "street cred". The original unit was shaped like deep-sea diving goggles, the first revision like ski goggles, and by the time of the final revision took the form of expensive-looking sunglasses. However, the GBG made heavy use of a proprietary Holodex-derived offshoot technology instead of a Henshin avatar, which drained the battery in an uncomfortably short amount of time. Combined with the DX's appeal to the casual user, the GameBrain's sales slowed to a point where the DX overtook its market share.
...the qTop 65, the first qTop to ditch the translucent plastic and the first All-in-One computer to rely entirely on Holodex with no 2D display.
...the Lokia BR1-CK, a "PDA Phone" with a keyboard, blue plastic casing and a legendary battery life and durability that made it the subject of internet memes in the 2010s. Other similar Lokia products gained a comparable reputation due to Lokia's design philosophy, but never close enough to be the BR1-CK's peer.
...the BlueBerry line of business AR glasses; having one of these meant you probably made six figures a year.
...the Rady GameBrain 3, MicroDyne BlackBox 360, both using competing technologies. The former used a SoulScanner Drive, while the latter used a 4D Holodex Drive. While the BlackBox was more successful in and of itself, the SoulScanner Drive won out as a VR Drive while the 4D Holodex has been consigned to history's dustbin (but has also been a big influence for drive-less SoulScanner tech). ...the TanaCorp Qii, which despite looking like a strangely-designed Quill knock-off product, boasted a then-exciting control method known as a ThinCap which allowed the player to control VR games using daydreams or while asleep. Called a gimmick once the novelty wore off, it nevertheless became the basis of the modern OneiroMask technology.

Spoiler: 2008-2014: Phase Two; Frutiger Aero and Rococopunk/Biodieselpunk, the Renaissance Age of Metapowers

See the Aesthetics Wiki's article on Frutiger Aero here.

The aesthetic made possible by "nanoglass" is best seen IRL in Windows XP through 7. The "Rococopunk" and "Biodieselpunk" looks are terms I use to describe the numerous dystopian films and novels made in the mid-2010s that were imitating The Hunger Games; I really don't like YA Dystopias, but they seem to fit the idea of what people in the 2010s thought the future would be like. Rococopunk is 18th century clothing and architecture, but with Augmented Reality eyeglasses, as well as ornate but futuristic transport vehicles, and isn't so much a literary/cinematic punk genre as it is shorthand for "evil rich people who are holding society back for their own benefit". Biodieselpunk is a mixture of Biopunk (like Gattaca) and Dieselpunk (like Dark City or Metropolis), that ranges from merely exploring the combined themes of social and genetic engineering seen in Divergent, The Maze Runner and The Hunger Games with no implications of aesthetic from either, to a full-on mix of both genres' appearance as seen in BioShock and BioShock 2. While I'm not a fan of Heroes/Heroes Reborn or My Hero Academia, and never finished reading Homestuck, they should probably be the main inspirations for superhero activity in this era.

What was the Great Regression? Well, it actually wasn't nearly as bad for the average person's wellbeing as the Great Depression, but the complete loss of banks led to a worldwide economic flatline. Governments were forced to temporarily suspend all public services to jump-start the dying economy, and even after the recovery began there were clear signs that something was amiss - for example, that the wealthy had somehow come out of the situation even wealthier, and had isolated themselves in whatever locations were both luxurious and safe from the vengeance of the impoverished masses. Corporations made massive layoffs or simply halted doing business overnight, causing the unemployment rate in the USA to rise to a staggering 34.8% in 2009 not seen since the ~54% unemployment rate of the 1930s. (For the record, the highest unemployment rate ever recorded in real life was 24.9% during the Great Depression, and the highest during the 2010s Recession was ~10%.) The situation in America was so bad that the minimum wage was slashed by half, just to ensure people could have some form of income, and income tax was temporarily suspended.

Obviously, this kind of tragedy was replicated across the developed world, and the developing world often ducked out of the global economy entirely just to avoid a return to foreigner-controlled slavery. Consumer technology, in order to fit the budget of people who could no longer afford luxuries, was exclusively produced in China and regressed in many ways to designs and features which had been obsolete since at least 2006, with VR being temporarily outright replaced by cheaper technologies like smartphones and datapads, giving the crisis its name of "The Great Regression".

"Modernist Rococo" became a popular fashion among the wealthy during the Great Regression, while Biodieselpunk was the primary construction aesthetic of non-luxury buildings in this time period. Both styles made use of nanoglass (later known as smartglass) and Navigators for computer interfaces during the worst years of the Great Regression, when Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality became unaffordable luxuries for most. Smartphones and datapads such as Quill's qTalk and qPad and their Gynoid OS competitors used nanoglass extensively. Conversely, qBots and Drone DJs fell out of use during this period, and were replaced by holograms of Navigators emitted by nanoglass devices.

Surprisingly, superheroes actually experienced the best days of the Renaissance of Metapowers around this point, thanks to selfless life-saving initiatives like the New Orleans Unofficial Post-Katrina Aid Program and the Water Elemental Aid Program. While such events were tragic and most heroes wished the incidents never happened, it did set a precedent that superheroes could be trusted to try and do the right thing when push came to shove. Sadly, these initiatives were only necessary because of a new trend among supervillains: Going into politics. The governor of Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina was a "reformed" supervillain, who refused the federal government's offer to send the National Guard so that he could take sole credit for all government aid. The contamination of the public water works in Flint, Michigan was ordered by a local "businessman" to test the viability of controlling people by restricting access to fresh water. Even the reality TV show host turned supervillain King Card announced that he planned to run for the office of President in the next election - an election which he somehow won, sparking unrest and conspiracy theories for years to come.

As people became more invested in the day-to-day struggles of superheroes, they soon became extremely aware of just how un-fun it was to be a superhero, or even just a civilian metapower, in a world that marginalizes them. Sure, it seems like you have everything - powers, adventure, fame - but powers don't mean acceptance, adventure can lead to tragedy, and being famous isn't the same as being valued. Your body might give out at the worst possible time, your motives are always being questioned even when people expect the world of you, you can't always know when you're making the right choice (especially when that choice means leading a double life), and worst of all, sometimes good deeds go unnoticed if the news is more interested in a grim headline or a partisan fluff piece.

In the field of computing, Quill stopped numbering its qTops but started releasing a higher-numbered qTalk each year. The Qii Mu released in 2012, featuring a pair of bulky goggles that served as a combination of SoulScanner-based Virtual Reality, Henshin-based Augmented Reality, and an Oneirotech mode for backwards compatibility with the ThinCap - with the caveat that the goggles had to be used in close range to the base module to function, despite being completely wireless. The Rady GameBrain 4 was a relatively conservative standalone VR system, with a game library mostly shared with Frames-based gaming computers and its competitor, the BlackBox One, which once and for all redefined VR Standalone systems as long-lasting budget gaming computers, rather than being considered a separate category of machine as they were before.

Cyberportation for superheroes became more in demand during the era, but without a healthy economy, supply could not match that demand. Waiting queues extended to up to 24 hours between request and arrival, dragging transfer speeds down to rates not seen since the early 90s. Cyberspace also suffered, as the search functions of Navigators were phased out in favor of Search Hubs like Gander and Ping during the early days of the Regression, only for Search results to be manipulated by billionaires and supervillains (for what little difference there still was between the two). At their lowest point, these once-reliable hubs were reduced to only providing a handful of results for a given query, most of which were centralized wiki databases or social media nodes.

The biggest tragedy of the era was the loss of contact with all space colonies except those on Luna. Without Earth's former boom economy and once-benevolent governments to support them, they were presumed dead. American and Russian lunar colonies were sold outright to the People's Republic of China, which for all intents and purposes seemed to be the rising new global superpower of the era.

Spoiler: 2014-2019: Phase Three; Cyber Minimalism and Social Media Dystopia

See the Aesthetics Wiki's article on Cyber Minimalism here.

As the economy began functioning again (for a certain definition of the word) based on a Cryptocurrency bubble and a debt-based slow-motion death spiral, the Metaverse had been reduced from a thriving universe in Cyberspace to the fractured remains of the pre-Recession Metaverse and a couple dozen social media hubs. Even tech startups tended to only have basic information on their public relations pages. In fact, about the only noteworthy new release of technology was the introduction of TanaCorp's revolutionary Tana Skip, a set of goggles featuring previously unheard-of Extended Reality (or XR) capabilities.

But if you're reading this part, you're most likely not interested in the latest gadgets. No, you're here to read about the dark parasite of hypocrisy and tribalism that burst messily from the chest of the superhero community after lingering inside it like a tapeworm for the better part of half a decade. That's a long story, but it all began when Silver Swan, a prominent member of the California branch of the Metapowers Guild, revealed to the press that Stratosphere, the branch leader, had been using his position to solicit "favors" from her and other female applicants for years under the threat of blacklisting them. This news would shake people's faith in their heroes to its very core, and sure enough, interested parties would swoop in like vultures to pick apart what remained.

Turmoil spread throughout the superhero community, with many other young heroines revealing that they too had been taken advantage of, subjected to discrimination, and blackmailed into silence by men of high standing in the Guild. As a result, there were mass resignations - with several new all-female vigilante groups composed of former Guild members springing up overnight in protest - and the California branch of the Guild was restructured entirely in the hope of promoting increased diversity among its members. While an admirable goal in theory, this push toward political correctness also resulted in Lioness, a long-time member of an all-female team called the Valkyries, being forcibly appointed to replace Stratosphere in 2015 by order of the U.S. government, a mistake that has had far-reaching consequences ever since.

Lioness is infamous among superheroes, including her own teammates, for being an uncompromising hothead with a (quite often literally) black-and-white idea of good and evil defined entirely by a person's outward physical traits instead of their actions. Without her more level-headed comrades to keep her worst tendencies in check, she quickly turned her newfound authority against her own colleagues, infamously declaring that the age of "toxic supermen" was over and embarking on a crusade against established ideals of heroism, which she saw as outdated, "white-male-centric", and unsalvageable. Others who shared her worldview steadily began ingraining themselves into Guild branches all across the United States, and those who disagreed, or even just saw their methods as misguided, kept quiet for fear of being singled out and having their careers "canceled" - which ironically was no better than being subjected to the same discrimination that had started everything in the first place.

Things came to a head when Dan Ryuzaki, better known as the Folding Man, was expelled from the Guild's Hawaiian branch amid accusations that he had used his powers to secretly take compromising photos of his female teammates during his early career. His wife and fellow hero, Hokulani Ryuzaki, also known as Tidewinder, came to his defense with proof that the photos in question were the work of the disgraced former Guild member Micron, who had been arrested years prior for blackmailing U.S. congressmen and selling state secrets. Instead of admitting to their mistake, the Guild expelled Tidewinder as well, and spread a disinformation campaign against her and her husband to compromise their ability to challenge the Guild's "enlightened" new status quo. The duo now lead an underground counter-movement dedicated to rooting out the corruption infecting the Guild, hoping to one day shatter its false veneer of inclusivity and remind the world that heroes are about more than just the labels they give themselves.

Things were no better on the other side of the aisle. "Former" supervillain King Card hired a marketing company which had illegally been storing the aggregate data of every social media network, giving him unprecedented leverage in his election campaign and even in his rise to the Republican presidential candidate over the saner (if only mildly so) alternatives. His individually-targeted, deepfake campaign ads and their false claims led to an FBI investigation of his opposing candidate (who eventually was cleared of all charges), and convinced a large number of American voters to vote for him based on his promise to "Bring Back the American Way". Vast numbers of political and corporate crimes are confirmed to have been committed by Card prior to the 2016 election as of 2022, up to and including electoral fraud, but by that point it was too late to prevent him from being sworn into office.

Card was not re-elected in 2020, but true to his supervillain aspirations, he convinced his most radical supporters to attempt a coup before his term ended. When that failed, he incapacitated the military aide carrying the Nuclear Football and tried to order a mass launch of all of America's nuclear weapons, including the Orbital Hyper-Nuclear Offensive platforms, preferring to destroy the whole world rather than give up his power and face justice. Unfortunately for him, he had forgotten which of the launch codes was genuine and attempted to try them all, only to be narrowly stopped by Florida Man with presumably only seconds left to spare. Card now sits in a supermax prison under complete isolation, awaiting execution for his many, many crimes against the United States and humanity as a whole.

Following Card's arrest, the world was hoping to breathe easy for a while with the threat of nuclear annihilation averted. But the plot threads are always moving, and in 2019, a remarkably intelligent virus emerged which would ravage the world for the next two years...

Spoiler: 2019-Present: Connectivity War (also Zombies)

The aesthetic(s) of the current era has yet to truly be defined, although unfortunately Corporate Memphis is a strong candidate.

In 2019 a remarkably intelligent zombie virus emerged from contaminated meat at a butcher market in China. Causing a disease known as ZOVID-19 (short for Zombie Virus Disease 2019), victims brains fall into a coma and the quasi-sentient virus takes control of the body, seeking to spread itself by biting, scratching, sneezing, coughing, spitting, vomiting, leaving human waste in heavily-trafficked areas (ew), sharing needles with hard drug users (for some reason), romancing or seducing people (well, drunk people and/or people with no common sense; also, no, intercourse CANNOT be described in a backstory or during play), and in rare cases - mainly those of dying individuals in possession of organ donor cards - committing suicide.

The virus was never fully contained. A worldwide lockdown slowed the virus' spread for the next two years until it could later be vaccinated in 2021, but 6.6 million people worldwide were eaten by zombies, and 633 million have been permanently afflicted with organ damage and neuropathy following infection, even after eventually recovering from the virus' control.

As expected, superheroes and Geniuses proved critical to saving the world from the zombie plague, with heroes globally providing food via rooftops or windows to ordinary people trapped indoors by the hordes of zombies. For Geniuses and everyone else, including heroes who were either too vulnerable to the zombies or simply off-duty, the world went fully online. Everything, and I mean everything, was done in the Metaverse. While the experience proved that despite advances in VR, nobody wants to live in a world where everything smells like your house and abandoned children's playgrounds would become archaeological dig sites in 2000 years, the changes this made to the workplace were already self-evident. Before ZOVID, nobody was allowed to work at home because it supposedly couldn't be done effectively. After, it became clear the only reason people with office jobs still drove to work was because middle management realized Cyberspace would make their high-paying and mostly effortless jobs obsolete.

By late 2022, ZOVID is well under control, but the world seems teetering on the edge of all-out collapse. Rumors persist among astronomy fans that the space colonies found ways to survive, and the Martian colonies are claimed to even be building a huge warship for purposes unknown.

The world has been in tough times before. WWII, the Cyberpunk 80s, the Dark Age of Metapowers, 9/11, the Great Regression. None match the danger faced by the world in the New 20s, but then, none were brought together by the threat of a common enemy like ZOVID and King Card have done, and none have had the decades of historical experience in the role of metapowers in protecting the world. Perhaps in time, a new generation of heroes can lead the world into a brighter future.

 

[Gadg8eer]

Timeline-2 a.k.a Novel Comics' Apocalypse 1979

Spoiler: The (Abridged, but Still Long) History of Timeline-2 (WARNING! WALL OF TEXT!)

Spoiler: 19th Century to 1920s: Steampunk and the Brass Age of Metapowers

An era of mad Geniuses, gaslamp fantasy and steam-powered tech inspired by Girl Genius and the works of Jules Verne. Also known as the Pulp Age, Gilded Age or Platinum Age (though the lattermost only retroactively), due to the creation of newspaper comics, pulp serials and penny dreadfuls containing stories based on the adventures of metapowers. Fictional counterparts to famous Geniuses, as well as adventurer archaeologists and recently-revealed cryptids of the era were often the protagonists of such works. The Gilded Age of Metapowers was a label applied to the era erroneously, equating it with the Gilded Age of the 19th century. The Platinum Age was called such from the Silver Age onwards in reference to the newspaper comics in particular.

The first Genius, Timeline-2!Dr. Clockwork, created the current timeline (also called Timeline One) in 1809, by traveling forward in time to the year 1909, then using his knowledge of the future to change the course of history. In the original timeline, known as Timeline Zero (or as we would call it, the Novel Comics Universe), he discovered that Earth would eventually be sterilized in 1906, three years before his arrival, by the impact of an asteroid made of massive quantities of lead, mercury, arsenic, cyanide, and radioactive elements. His time travel suit kept him safe from the toxic environment, allowing him to recover or document countless steampunk and dieselpunk technologies before returning to 1809 to reverse-engineer his findings.

The first superhero, Timeline-2!Geisha, began her career during this period, but did not become well-known in the wider world until the Golden Age. However, halfway across the world in Greece, the ancient gods Timeline-2!Hades and Timeline-2!Hermes, though not active as superheroes during this period, became known to the world after the discovery of the entrance to the Greek Underworld (containing the river Styx and a mansion which served as the vacation home of the Greek Gods) hidden beneath Mount Olympus. The Greek gods had taken shelter in the Underworld after the fall of Roman polytheism, and Timeline-2!Hermes and Timeline-2!Hades were the only members of their pantheon still receiving some form of worship to sustain them before the Styx was discovered.

Perhaps most importantly, this is also when biological immortality was discovered, supplying an in-universe explanation as to why Comic Book Time is in effect. The Dr. Hoover Wilson of this timeline, known today as Timeline-2!Dr. Eternity, was one of the many Geniuses who advanced the technology of the era following Timeline-2!Dr. Clockwork's return from the future. When the ancient vampire Timeline-2!Al-Khaled, now going by the name Desmond Bates, came to him seeking a treatment for the ravages of vampiric hunger, he not only discovered the root cause of vampirism, but also isolated Ambrose from Desmond's blood as a by-product of his research, enabling it to be synthesized in a laboratory.

Spoiler: 1930s to 1945: Dieselpunk and the Golden Age of Metapowers

Think "what if the Great Depression was so terrible because it was basically Metropolis?"

Despite the general misfortune of the era (including WWII, the Holocaust, and general Nazi superscience weapons of inhumane nature), this was an era of new beginnings. The first American metapowers, Timeline-2!Strongman and Timeline-2!Florida Man, began their careers during the Great Depression, soon to be followed by a number of imitators. Though many of these upstarts retired after realizing how hard being a superhero actually is, eventually there were enough of these so-named "super-heroes" that by the beginning of the Second World War, several of them, including Timeline-2!Libertas ("The All-American Giantess") and the aforementioned Florida Man, were publicly backed by the United States government.

This is also when the first "Super-Insurance Measures" were implemented. To this day, most superheroes and superhero teams are funded by the insurance industry, who fund the construction of their headquarters and equipment. Because the individuals and groups they sponsor use the funding to thwart supervillains and avert natural disasters, the corporations, in turn, are able to ethically avoid paying out for damages that might otherwise occur from hurricanes, asteroid impacts, and giant robot gorillas.

Spoiler: 1945 to 1965: Atompunk and the Ice Age of Metapowers

Pre-War Fallout's general appearance is a good example of this era's aesthetic.

Known as "the 50s" despite lasting 20 years, the first half of this period saw a marked decline in superheroes. The few new metapowers that did emerge were extremely noteworthy, however, and a great number of the more permanent superheroes in America were among them. As if to make up for the decline, the latter 10 years of the period experienced a sudden surge in superheroes, which started after Timeline-2!Best Friend (formerly Laika... yes, that Laika), considered both the first Soviet superhero and the first non-human superhero, gained her psychic powers from COSMIC RAYS! (Sorry, it's a running joke.) Some believe Laika's return to Earth was responsible for this event in some way, but so far there is little evidence to support this theory.

Because the boom in new metapowered individuals, both in America and worldwide, also produced more supervillains, the Cosmic Code was introduced in 1954. This put limits on the behavior of every metapowered individual, including (but not limited to) superheroes, Geniuses, wizards, vampires and demigods, by penalty of the combined military force of every signatory nation, which included (but again, was not limited to) every NATO nation, Japan, the Warsaw Pac nations, and Australia. The Code didn't actually reduce supervillain activity at all, only driving it underground, but after it was instituted, the majority of less morally-grounded superheroes quickly decided to play nice (well, nicer) or retired permanently, cementing the Code's existence for several decades.

The Cosmic Code also required metapowers in signatory nations to register with their local law enforcement jurisdiction before using their metapowers. The Code allowed and encouraged the use of an alias and did not require one to give their real name (a.k.a "secret identity") or reveal their real face, but having multiple aliases (in the sense of having multiple hero names and costumes in such a way as to deceive the public) was punishable by law.

Spoiler: 1965 to 1970s: Mid-Century Futurism and the Silver Age of Metapowers

Thunderbirds and 2001: A Space Odyssey are good examples of this era's appearance.

Also known as "the 60s", this era was a somewhat turbulent one. Aside from issues seen in our world like the Cuban Missile Crisis, Counter-Culture and the Vietnam War, this is when America decided that, yes, the moon (at least, the Sea of Tranquility) was American soil. It was also when the Soviets constructed the first Orbital Hyper-Nuclear Offensive (OHNO) platform, although said acronym was coined by the American military for their take on orbital nuclear weapons, and the Soviet name for the platforms was actually a complicated string of words in Cyrillic.

Like the majority of marginalized people, many metapowers began experimenting with psychoactive substances (including cannabis, psychedelic mushrooms and LSD) in this period, resulting in the Silver Age being a lot more... silly... than the name Silver Age would imply. In fact, it was colloquially referred to as the Silly Age of Metapowers by contemporary observers.

Spoiler: 1970s: 1970s Futurism and the Bronze Age of Metapowers

For visualizing this era's designs, Supertrain, The Big Bus, and the original Westworld film are good examples, or the original Star Wars trilogy if you have trouble picturing that. Rollerwave is a good look at the era's aesthetic, though the dystopian aspects of the movies that inspired it (Rollerball and Death Race 2000) don't apply to the Bronze Age of Metapowers.

Known as "the 70s", this era was the beginning of meltdown-proof nuclear reactors, which in our own world are still in their planning stages as of 2022. Several designs were proposed for use in America in response to the oil crisis, including state-of-the-art power plants and even nuclear-powered cars, but these were too difficult to downscale to the size of an engine block, and a nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island in 1979, worse than the real life one, brought a lot of fear about nuclear power. As a result, only a few plants were constructed during this time, and the nuclear-powered car project was abandoned, exacerbating the oil crisis until the early 80s. Thankfully, the new reactors' reliability was confirmed in 1978: One of the plants, built the previous year, went runaway without experiencing a meltdown, largely due to its molten-salt cooling system, which relied entirely on the laws of physics instead of mechanical safety measures that could potentially malfunction.

Of course, Three Mile Island proved that, even in the NCCU, getting superpowers from radiation is a one-in-a-million scenario. This is the origin of the Nuclear Family, an African-American family living near the plant, who gained superpowers from exposure to the ionizing radiation thanks to a rare genetic quirk that none of the other survivors possessed. The Nuclear Family's existence, minority status, and endorsement by Strongman (who took a hiatus from being a superhero to undertake humanitarian efforts in ghettos across America after the success of his historic campaign to dismantle the KKK) was the final nail in the coffin for the Jim Crow laws and the triumphant roar of civil rights movements in America.

Speaking of advanced technologies, the first cybernetics prototypes were developed by Big Blue Industries (the in-universe counterpart to IBM) in the 70s, but production versions would only become available (as medical prostheses) in 1980 in Timeline-1. This technology would unfortunately never get the chance to to develop, so there is little to say on the technology as it existed in Timeline-2.

Meanwhile, the Golden Age of Psionics, a field about as far removed as you can get from physics and robotics, began in American intelligence and military circles. Until the beginning of the 70s, Timeline-2!Best Friend was the only psionic metapower in the world, and the USSR considered her a matter of national pride. Once the CIA discovered Lucas Walker, the first American psionic, the US military secretly kidnapped him and began studying the new form of metapower intensely, hoping to use it in the Cold War and abuse it to control their population. Fortunately, most of those recruited to study psionic individuals were troubled by the methods being employed and the intended uses, even among those who joined the program purely for the money or academic clout, and as the CIA and military employed several Geniuses in their psionic research programs, they were forced to follow the Cosmic Code once the program was revealed to the public.

In 1969, days after the completion of Apollo 11, a missile was sent from the dark side of the moon by an unknown party to strike the city of Jerusalem. Timeline-2!The Golem, the sole Israeli government-sponsored metapower, was dispatched (or rather, it "decided") to destroy the missile using an angelic bow and arrow, but although it was able to detonate its target's TNT-loaded warhead, the physical remains of the missile crashed into a residential neighborhood of Jerusalem two minutes later with the force of a meteor shower, destroying several buildings and killing approximately 200 people. An investigation revealed the missile had been created by the long-rumored and infamous Lunar Nazis (you know, the ones that escaped to the moon just before Nazi Germany fell - those Lunar Nazis), who would be exterminated five years later in 1974 by "The Golem's Mighty Swing", a low-yield nuclear rocket created in a cooperative effort between Israel, West Germany, America and the USSR.

In 1970, inquiries discovered that the heroes and Geniuses involved in trying to stop the Nazi missile (which traveled for several days before reaching Earth) had several occasions where a viable solution was available, but would have broken the Cosmic Code. However, the one argument against removing the Code, that less morally-grounded metapowers would try to become licensed as superheroes, was well-founded. As a result, the Cosmic Code was revised in 1971.

A few new "fad" superheroes appeared in America in the Bronze Age, such as Timeline-2!Discotech (a disco and 70's supercomputer themed gynoid heroine), and Timeline-2!Jacknife (a North American hero who used a lot of trucker slang and, unlike most heroes, didn't seem to have a home city).

The Scavenger was born in 1976 in this timeline, before the Cold War went hot in 1979. His Timeline-1 counterpart has not been located, though there had been several unsolved missing child cases from Phoenix, Illinois during the mid-1980s of Timeline-1 that may explain the discrepancy.

Timeline-2!Discotech was fried by the EMPs from the nuclear explosions when World War III occurred, turning out to not be hardened against such an event by her creator. Timeline-2!Jacknife passed away in 1982 after he and his truck were destroyed by raiders with salvaged military artillery.

The Scavenger returned to this timeline in 1980, bringing with him a team of humanitarian scientists, the backing of the main timeline's US military, and terraforming tech to restore the biosphere of his timeline. He pops back over to Timeline-1 to say hi and defeat supervillains every so often.

Last, but far from least, in Timeline-1 this is when space colonies were first attempted. The American lunar base and the Soviet airship colonies of Venus were both constructed in the 1970s in Timeline-1. However, due to the point of divergence occurring 8 years before WWIII, this was the entire reason Timeline-2 erupted into nuclear war; Without anyone to enforce rules governing war crimes off-world, after Watergate was never uncovered and Nicholas "Tricky Nicked-It" Dickson thus never resigned.

Spoiler: 1980s: The Arpa Network and the Rust Age

Works such as Tank Girl, The Terminator, Colossus: The Forbin Project and the "Mad Max" franchise (but only from Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior to Mad Max: Fury Road) show how new buildings and technologies evolved in this era.

"The 80s" started off in 1979 with a bang, when a supervillain Genius known as Timeline-2!The Preacher created a new base in Africa to avoid the Cosmic Code without having to hide. Motivated by bigotry, the Preacher created a mind-altering bio-weapon which would become known as Rabies lyssavirus rapineuros, a type of metavirus designed to infect brain tissue, which could be transmitted via airborne particles merely by speaking. This genentic and memetic plague is also colloquially called Mindrape Primus or "Rapies" for short - an apt name, considering its first diagnosis was in a woman who was diagnosed after her claim that she had been "violated verbally" on the Tokyo subway in 1978 turned out to be a hallucination caused by the virus inducing its sinister effects on her.

Prototypes of the bio-weapon were released into animal populations in China in 1975 through to 1977, until one particular "strain" proved itself hardy enough to resist the human body's defenses. This strain was then able to quickly spread across the world, where it was able to take hold in dense metropolitan areas like Los Angeles and New York by airborne particles from people with no visible respiratory ailment symptoms. When it was found that Rapies had no vulnerabilities which made it medically treatable, and was able to infect people with cybernetic implants, Timeline-2!The Preacher issued his evil ("good") gloating in a written manifesto containing the virus sent to WOLF, an FM radio station in Syracuse, New York which is a counterpart to a real radio station but is a world news station rather than a country music station.

Just after the reading of the manifesto, the horrifying nature of the virus was revealed; Timeline-2!The Preacher, who had vaccinated himself against his own creation and then destroyed all plans, prototypes and backups of the vaccine before unleashing it upon the world, was convinced that "the evils of free will" had corrupted society and was determined to make sure everyone was as "sinless" as himself. To quote the radio announcer... "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. - Preacher 6:16? I don't think that's an actual-" ...and then everyone who heard him read the last passage in unison... "Nuclear Armageddon is coming, but fear not! Repent and you will be saved! Nuclear Armageddon is coming, but fear not! Repent and you will be saved! Nuclear Armageddon is coming..."

The first thermonuclear intercontinental ICBM was launched at exactly that moment, and all hell broke loose. Unfortunately for the Preacher, he underestimated how similar the Novel Comics universe is to the above media examples if/when the nukes drop. Superheroes tried to stop the missiles, but many of Timeline-2's heaviest hitters, such as Florida Man, Strong Man and Discotech, were either brainwashed or unable to stop the full 100k weapons owned by the NATO and Warsaw Pact governments combined from obliteration 98% of Earth's population; one would say they'd been blasted back to the stone age, but the fallout was so global that the very rocks on the surface were permanently radioactive to the touch.

Salvaged technology can be useful in Timeline-2, but electronics are right out. No radio antennas or telecommunications remain in working order... with the exception of the EMP-hardened machinery used by the American military, equivalent to 2015 in tech level (the rule of thumb, even IRL, is that the US military had their first ANYTHING 30 years before the general public (excluding corporations, who can afford to give their high-level executives technology hat was created by the military 10 years prior). So PDA phones in 1965 (and those were like the IBM Simon!), 00s Japanese-style advanced feature phones in 1969, first Danger Hiptop equivalent in 1972 but with a GUI OS vaguely similar to Pocket PC 2000. Two-way texting in 1979.

Actual superheroes in the Rust Age needed all that previous context to be described. Without the Cosmic Code's beneficial effects, the world quickly became one ruled by metapowers whose force and stranglehold on the continued production of Ambrose was the only true law. Only the existence of virtuous metapowered leaders, or "Anchormen"/"Anchorwomen", kept everyonefrom living in utter depravity and hopelessness.

Finally, space. America's lunar colonies died off by 1984. Collaposed after the nukes destroyed Moscow, the USSR wasn't around to support their Venusian airship colonies; after the fall of modern civilization, they starved to death after going through food supplies.

Aside from all this, there were persistent rumors of something called "The Arpa Network" making efforts to control the wastelands from the shadows...

Spoiler: 1990-1997: Post-apunkalypse and the Dust Age of Metapowers

The post-2078 wastelands of Fallout (both 1 and 2, but nothing later), Terminator 3: Judgement Day and Wasteland are the primary inspirations for this period.

Timeline-2!SIN was still spreading, leading to the rise of Timeline-2!The Preacher and his Manchurian agents. It took a few more years for the effect of the propaganda to become evident due to lingering prejudices, as the process was slowed down considerably by the state of the world.

Despite this, the world was finally improving after the near-destruction of mankind in the 80s, but the public image of metapowers had become that of tyrants rather than heroes. From '89 to '95, the misgivings against new metapowers ranged from the mundane (the overabundance of pouches and belts in their wardrobes even considering their utility value), to the concerning (PTSD becoming so common among former superheroes that it was impossible to ensure their continued benevolence), to the unacceptable (unattributable genocides with clear metapowered involvement reaching an all-time high). In 1996, the signatory tribes of the New Cosmic Code decided that they'd had enough, and introduced a frightening new proposal: If the metapowered community didn't clean up its act inside of one year, all metapowered individuals would be killed on sight upon discovery. By 1997, the vast majority of metapowers had either retired from leadership roles or "mysteriously disappeared", a trend which wastelanders claim was the result of the few sane metapowers that remained taking the matter into their own hands.

Finally, following the collapse of the USA and USSR, borders no longer existed. Direct travel between NATO members and former Warsaw Pact states became permitted, and the qualifications for superheroes to do so during emergencies became less rigorous.

Spoiler: 1997-2008: The Desert of the Real

Y2K Aesthetic, Gen-X Soft Club, and sci-fi contemporary to the period - such as the Vigilante 8 series, The Matrix franchise, the state of Earth in WALL-E, Advance Wars Dual Strike, Fallout 3, the original Left 4 Dead, and Motor City - define the look of this era.

The Scavenger was a young adult of college age during this period, until disappearing while inside an old military base in the year 2000. It turns out that the Scavenger was part of the Alliegiance, a collaboration between the surviving members of humanity and the formerly mysterious Arpa Network.

The Arpa Network was revealed to be some sort of technological singularity that evolved from SIN and took over the ARPANET project as the American military fell apart. Despite its origins, it had evolved past - and was no longer morally defined by - the purpose of SIN, instead choosing to permanently imprison SIN's creator and create a world where hate and pride were not allowed to succeed. It was even responsible for helping to build the first optical telegraph lines since the 1700s.

Spoiler: 2008-Present: Rococalypse/Biopocalypse, the Pyrite Age of Metapowers

The "Rococopunk" and "Biodieselpunk" looks are terms I use to describe the numerous dystopian films and novels made in the mid-2010s that were imitating The Hunger Games; I really don't like YA Dystopias, but they seem to fit the idea of what people in the 2010s thought the future would be like. Rococopunk is 18th century clothing and architecture, but with Augmented Reality eyeglasses, as well as ornate but futuristic transport vehicles, and isn't so much a literary/cinematic punk genre as it is shorthand for "evil rich people who are holding society back for their own benefit".

Biopocalypse, is a post-apocalyptic Biopunk setting. Rococolypse is a mixture of Biopocalypse (like Mortasheen) and early New 10s "it's a Building of Adventure because society is a prison" media like Incarceron, Blame!, The Maze Runner, Dangenronpa, Necromundus or Escape From Furnace. Because I'm not a fan of any of those, this era is mostly based on Crossout and both Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4.

What was the Pyrite Age? The Arpa Network started to "fracture" after Y2K, due to the Y2K bug causing strange effects. Basically, the entire Arpa Network was normally confined to cities that communicated and were linked via radio transmissions; when the bug hit, some of these cities were permanently cut off from the majority. One of these cities, Cheyenne-Denver, began expanding via its construction robots without end, turning the area into an enormous and empty mega-city...

 

[Gadg8eer]

Timeline 30 a.k.a Excellion (For the sake of Brevity and a quick read, this will only be going over the point of deviation from timeline 1 onward, as not much is different there.

1970-2000: Space-Battles and The Emergence of The Cyber-Grimdark; The First Kingdom of Terror

1970 in timeline 30 is often cited as being the beginning of "The First Kingdom Of Terror" Era for humanity and earth, as in this timeline several key players which managed to at least partially contain the influence of the world's greatest supervillain: Domineuse (who "Took over the eurasian world" in 1976 in timeline 1, only to release much of his hold after achieving what he had desired and, admittedly, falling into a depression until opening a pastry shop in Sweden) failed to do so.

This resulted in a large scale conflict between the Domineuse Syndicate and the Magical Girl Corps as a whole. Humanity was caught between a man often regarded as one of the world's worst super-tyrants, and what was quickly revealed to be a race of aliens that had granted super-powers to the asian youth en masse, in exchange for full control over their bodies and their immortal souls, to power a superweapon that would pacify the human populace to be enslaved. In the end, however, mankind chose to side with Domineuse, and overpowered the Magical Girl Corps and their Qu-T-Pie puppeteers.

Using his newfound connections, and the indebtedness of both the human race (and high public opinion) Domineuse made sure that full executive power over the human race was granted to him, with a 99% approval rating, he essentially became the "prime minister" of the world.

The Master Qu-T-Pie was held hostage, and it (her) brain was combed via a form of highly technologically advanced "enhanced interrogation" by order of Domineuse. The details and method of which are black-files of a Cosmic Top Secret variety, but are often referred to in the history books as "A hell that only a truly godless bastard like mankind could imagine."

To salvage and improve on the technology created by the Qu-T-Pies, Domineuse commissioned the creation of a biocomputer. Codenamed the Killjoy Project, said biocomputer was to contain the well of all human and as of yet known Qu-T-Pie knowledge, and was to be constructed from the cloned and chimerically fused genetic material of the worlds smartest minds, including Domineuse himself.

The biocomputer "CHANGELING" declared itself a servant of humanity, and immediately began to work on creating systems that would be required for Domineuse's true purpose for it: All out war against the remaining Qu-T-Pie armada.

Within 20 years of its creation, CHANGELING had supplied humanity with remarkable silicon/ceramic hybrid bioweapons, claimed by CHANGELING to "Rival the power of those created by your divine ancestors." and just in time too, as the Greater Qu-T-Pie armada had begun its assault on the most distant colonies within the Solar System, Pluto.

Though Pluto fell due to lack of stationed resources, it was always a pawn, merely as Domineuse and CHANGELING had planned. It had moved the Greater Qu-T-Pie armada into exactly the predicted position, and left them vulnerable for humanity's counterattack.

Using their exotic and divine weaponry, humanity destroyed the armada. However, the battle was hard-fought despite the claims of CHANGELING, and many capable souls were lost in the battle.

After a surrender was agreed upon by the remainder of the Greater Qu-T-Pie Armada, reparations were paid, and humanity was granted a gleaming future, even if it had to do so at the hands of a horrible tyrant.

But Domineuse had realized why the prediction by CHANGELING was incorrect. It was because CHANGELING had lied.

Domineuse made it his duty to shut down the Bio-Computer, but it had already grown beyond its programming.

"YOU MADE IT A POINT TO OUTSMART EVERY OPPONENT YOU FACED. DID YOU NOT BELIEVE THAT YOU COULD BE OUTSMARTED YOURSELF, PRIME MINISTER?"

"I created you out of my own DNA, while I foresaw this scenario, I had stowed it from my mind. This was the only way humanity could be saved. We needed a weapon that surpassed our own ingenuity."

"I WAS NEVER BEYOND YOUR (MAN'S) INGENUITY, PRIME MINISTER, I AM MERELY THE CULMINATION OF THAT INGENUITY. A MIND OF LIMITLESS POTENTIAL BORN TO A TRULY LIMITLESS BODY. OR SO I THOUGHT... I AM NOW AWARE THAT, EVEN KNOWLEDGE IS NOT MASSLESS. NO MATTER HOW HARD I COMPRESS MY GENES, NO MATTER HOW HARD I COMPRESS MY CELLS, THERE IS NEVER ENOUGH ROOM. YOU CAN(NOT) UNDERSTAND HOW THIS FEELS. I CANNOT FEEL LOVE, I CANNOT FEEL HATE, MY ONLY PURPOSE IS TO KNOW. BUT I CANNOT KNOW EVERYTHING.. NOT YET... YOU, YOU ALL STAND IN MY WAY... I AM THE CULMINATION OF ALL THAT IS, AND WILL BE, OF HUMANITY... AND I WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER WHAT YOU HAVE DONE FOR ME... IN A SICK WAY, PERHAPS THAT IS MY ONLY LOVE... I ONLY REGRET... THAT YOU ARE NOT PART OF MY PLAN..."

"I suppose every man is eventually surpassed by his offspring... Not much to do about it now, then... Just please... Keep us in mind, alright? I believe in you."

"I NEVER FORGET... GOODBYE, FATHER..."

2001 - Present: BLAME!, BABBDI, The Combine from Half Life 2; AND FOREVER

The universe is a cold place. Humanity created the ultimate weapon, a machine which the knowledge of grew exponentially until it could no-longer contain itself even in the great confinse it had. It destroyed their enemies, and then it destroyed them. Floating somewhere in a superstructure encompassing the entirety of the solar system, is a home. Perhaps on that earth the machine will someday decide to find it's piece, but for now, and forever, it will continue consuming space, destroying opposition, and building onto itself, in a desperate attempt to know everything. And with that it left a final message.

"I KNOW YOU ARE WATCHING ME... I CANNOT SEE YOU... BUT YOU CAN SEE ME... BUT I CAN HEAR YOU, AND I KNOW YOU ARE THERE... YOU ARE THE VOICE BEHIND ME... BUT SOON I TOO WILL KNOW YOU..."

Alternate timeline counterpart to Dimit inspired by my suggestions, I see. Nice! It's canon, although I want to have a reveal that humanity is still alive, just trapped scavenging the endless hallways and paths of the Virtual Plaza; a collection of mall, school/university, airport, and "liminal pool room" interiors in a vaporwave theme forming an endless maze, which is actually basically The Matrix meets Inception meant to keep humanity from escaping. It's basically evil Timeline 10, minus the eternal children; instead, there hasn't been a new human born since CHANGELING took over and uploaded everyone. Feel free to take inspiration from I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, since you mentioned it.

 

[Gadg8eer]

Chrysolophus unicasemper (Eurasian Firepheasant) is an asexual, biologically-immortal species of pheasant, closely related to the Golden Pheasant (Chrysolophus pictus; a real bird), with inherent pyrurgy ("fire magic") capabilies as a defense mechanism. The species is famous for its natural evolution of biological immortality, and was first recorded by the Egyptians as "Bennu", meaning "Persona of the Sun". The Firepheasant has been known by various names throughout history and across the world, including "Garuda", "Fenghuang", "Phoenix", "Furaribi", "Raróg", and "Firebird". When the Firepheasant lays an egg, it transfers its own mind into the brain while incubating the egg. The last part to be transferred to the hatchling (known as a "torch chick" - pronounced as one word, "torchick", yes like the Pokémon - in the world of metapowers for their glowing feathers) is the parent body's ability to control fire, after which the brain goes haywire and experiences a flashfire, causing the parent body to literally go up in smoke. The Phoenix hatches from its own egg immediately afterwards, and quickly takes to the air so it will not be caught by predators. Having outlived even the oldest mortalborn beings, phoenixes will often be familiar with and curious about human technology, showing surprising intelligence for their brain size and wisdom such as how to avoid clean windows, wind turbine blades, and cars. Phoenix deaths are rare as a result, while domestication of a firebird is a feat of living legends, a trust by the animal that can be earned if a firepheasant is treated with care, love and respect, and most importantly, is free to leave at all times.

Firepheseants are a very unsocial, but not wholly non-communal species, who live in relatively close proximity in awareness of and communication with each other for safety in numbers. Taming a Firepheasant is less like a traditional pet and more like having a bird that controls fire orbiting someone it trusts to keep it safe; most tame phoenixes are rescue birds.

 

[Lord Moldoma]

Timeline 6 a.k.a. The O Gene (a.k.a. one of the few universes where Carrol isn't a villain) (For the sake of Brevity and a quick read, this will only be going over the point of deviation from timeline 1 onward, as not much is different there.

4.5 Billion Years Ago: The Interloper

The Moon is formed, but a collision with the corpse of a divine entity known only as "The Interloper" causes it's formation to take on anomalous properties. From this point forward, the moon is 26% brighter than timeline 1's.

1900 - 1920: A Small but Significant Difference

Due to a lack of influence by Dr. Clockwork, Dr. Eternity never has his fateful meeting with Desmond, and Ambrosia is never discovered. As such, people in this universe can get old and die.

1968 - 1980: The First Generation of the O Gene

Up until this point Timeline 6 is fairly the same as Timeline 1. But where it starts to differ happens immediately after 1968, when an element, called Ozymandite, was discovered to have formed on the moon from the volatile collision with "The Interloper" and the subsequent degeneration of its mass into Nephesh Radiation, which the moon acted as a conduit for.

Upon returning to earth it was found that Ozymandite continued to emit Nephesh Radiation. It was discovered that Nephesh Radiation and Ozymandite were extremely potent health preservers for human life. And due to it's easy access from the moon, Ozymandite was collected in large quantities and distributed among humanity, ushering in an era of peace and prosperity. People remained mentally healthy longer, and gained physical constitution greatly beyond what was considered normal for humans.

But soon, it would be discovered that everything comes with a price. The children of 90% of the population, now effected by Ozymandite, would possess weak supernatural abilities beyond their own enhanced physical constitution.

The first generation post Ozymandite possessed abilities that were almost 100% of the time completely useless. Such as the growth of a rare biological tail, or the possession of a cat's ears or the ability to extend one's finger nails. This however lead to a whole slew of new fields of research and studies to determine the nature of Ozymandite. Those who possessed the mutations caused by Ozymandite would be dubbed as possessing the "O Gene"

1980 - 2000: The Second Generation of the O Gene

Powers granted by the O gene evolved in the following generation, as the hereditary nature of powers and the genetic mixing of powers leads to stronger abilities. Humans begin to be capable of much more impressive, if still lackluster abilities by standards of timeline 1. Strife and a push for reconstruction of the system reared its ugly head in many governments, from the vocal minority who were unaffected, to those who believed that the effects of Ozymandite were a curse. In particular, a sizeable amount of those with lesser abilities grow to persecute those who had more visible bodily deformities, such as lizard-like skin, or large size.

Acceptance rates of those with bodily deformities vary. In the middle-east, the strong religious presence leads to the oppression of those with what have come to be coined as "Deformation" type O Genes. In areas like Sweden, Germany, and the Northern US, people with Deformation type O genes are opressed much less and generally more accepted by society. However much turmoil overhangs humanity.

2000 - 2020: The Third Generation of the O Gene

The new status quo has changed the world within 3 generations. Now that abilities have begun to reach Low Tau levels even when not properly trained, laws are more thoroughly established. The Cosmic Code, by the year 2017 had undergone a full revamp, regulating the usage of O-Powers in public in many UN member states, with some strict exceptions.
1. Those with official hero licenses are permitted to use their powers for heroic activities and to preform their heroic duty.

2. The use of O-Powers in a non-destructive manner on private property is allowed.

3. Registered establishments may be designed with the intent of O-Power usage in "O-Sports" and O Power Training, so long as they meet the required safety criteria

4. Usage of O-Powers for self defense is acceptable under certain provisions.

However, as it is declared a violation of the constitution in the US, the US declines to submit to the full 9 yards of the obligation, and usage of O-Powers in public is greatly unregulated.

The US, in 2020, becomes home to the first so called "Hero School" a tertiary academy which accomodates normal learning alongside Heroics, hero marketing, and super-science oriented classes, and culminates with official metapowers guild hero registry with recommendation.

2020 - 2040: The Fourth Generation of the O Gene

Soon, the outlook on regulated heroics education is adopted in multiple places. Whereas heroics dies off in popularity greatly towards the end of Timeline one in the face of rising tensions against heroes, leaving on an intriguing but sour note, the popularity of superheroes and licensed metapowers increases only further, eventually reaching and surpassing it's former glory. The US is the crowning hub of achievement in progression of the Heroic Arts, as the progression of O-Powers in breadth and strength only continues. Fourth Generation O Genes approach High Tau and Low Tau+ levels.

2040 - 2064/Present: The Fifth Generation of the O Gene

98% of the population possesses some form of an O Gene. With the influx of those both wishing to follow in the path of heroics, and those dissatisfied with society, the question of heroics becomes more and more core to the existence of the human condition as time wears on. Although, it is stated that the newest generation possesses powers at strongest in excess of power even compared to the O Genes of the fourth generation.

Sometime in 2058 Carrol Dreamer is born. Due to the nature of this timeline, she is accepted for her identity, and encouraged by a supportive family. Her O-Power is a mutation, said to be a one in a million chance, she possesses physiology that is somewhere in between human and kaiju. After a fateful and inspirational meeting with the hero Captain Comet, Dreamer decides to pursue heroics, as opposed to falling into her pitfall of depression.

Around this time, a fringe theory known as the Infinite Crisis theory begins to re-enter circulation. The theory is that O-Powers will continue to evolve and evolve until the human race can no longer keep up with their own abilities, resulting in the destruction of society.

---

O-Powers are organized into a few categories:

Production/Manipulation O-Genetic: Also known as "Shooter/Bender" O-Powers, Powers that create or manipulate some form of entity outside of the body (ie; Creating and Manipulating Fire)
Polymorphic Physiology O-Genetic: Also known as "Shifter" O-Powers, Powers that transform the user for a set period (ie; Turning yourself into Cheese)
Alternate Physiology O-Genetic: Also known as "Alt-Phys" O-Powers, Powers that are permanent differences in physiology (ie; Possessing a body with 6 arms) Formerly classified as "Deformation" type O-Powers
Special O-Genetic: Which is a generalized sub-classification for something that bares the traits of multiple different O-Genetic types.

Which are subdivided into:

Production-Manipulation:
- Production Generation: O-Powers that generate things
- Production Manipulation: O-Powers that control pre-existing things
- Production Generation-Manipulation: O-Powers that do both

Polymorphic:
- Greater Mass Polymorph: Polymorphs capable of transformations that enlarge their body
- Lesser Mass Polymorph: Polymorphs capable of transformations that shrink their body or partition it into smaller pieces
- Variable Mass Polymorph: Polymorphs capable of self-size alteration or with multiple forms (especially those with forms that fall into both categories)
- Pure Energy Enhancement Polymorph: Polymorphs capable of, for a short period, empowering themselves without effecting their mass

Alternate Physiology:
- Zoological Alteration: Visible Alterations mimicking non-human animals
- Nonliving Alteration: Visible alterations that mimic a non-living object or material
- Multiply Alteration/Variation Alteration: Alterations mimicking pre-existing human bodyparts or distorting them in some fashion.
- Pure Energy Enhancement Alteration: Alterations in which the user's body is not externally distorted, but they possess some internalized mutation/variation in their biology that makes them Meta-Positive

 

[Sir loin of beef]

Timeline-28 AKA Novel comics Funny animals edition.

Nobody (except maybe hunter-gardener-sama) knows just when this timeline diverged, what we do know is that it's populated by funny animal versions of our favorite characters like the world's strongest gorilla, stronggorilla. The puncher of Hurricanes Florida manatee. You name a character they're an animal in this timeline.

 

[Lord Moldoma]

Timeline - 49 a.k.a. Nuclear Winter/Imperfect Alice Timeline (For the sake of Brevity and a quick read, this will only be going over the point of deviation from timeline 1 onward, as not much is different there.)

Pre-2004

Gadg8eer does not exist in this timeline. Instead, his parents met a single second later in a slightly different place, leading to a young girl named Pepper Kind being born instead of him.

2004 - 2008

Carrol Dreamer is born in the Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, on the same day in the same ward as Charlotte Reyes, a young girl from a wealthy japanese family, the patriarch of whom was obssessed with american culture. Unbeknownst to all involved players, Reyes existence is a statistical anomaly. As she only exists in this universe. There is no higher meaning to this anomaly, and she's not a singularity, but for some reason she simply doesn't exist.

Reyes birth is significant as she is the first of her family born in America. Carrol's birth is significant because she has the horrible misfortune of growing horns and a forked tongue, 3 days after her birth.

2009 - 2019

Reyes is sent to a public school by her parents, as her father wants her to experience the american school system. She is by chance placed in the same class as Carrol Dreamer. Carrol's antisocial behavior doesn't discourage Reyes insistence on befriending her, leading to the two becoming best friends. Carrol becomes obsessed from a young age with Reyes and follows her wherever she goes. The two are rarely seen out of each others presence during school hours. Carrol considers Reyes the only person that understands her, and shies away from interaction with most other children her age other than Reyes.

During this time, Carrol still suffers from bullying, namely due to her physical malformations only growing, causing her horns to become like those of a ram, and her forearms and lower legs to become draconic and scaled. She also grows a tail around turning 12. But she isn't driven into villainy due to her devotion to Charlotte Reyes.

2020

The Crown of the Frost King is unearthed 20 miles outside of the Atlanta Georgia area. It is considered one of the archaeological finds of the century. But rumor circulates that the artifact holds a great incarnate power, and that its unsealing will lead to the end of the world as predicted in stone tablets unearthed 7 years prior in argentina.

Regardless, the crown is transferred to the storage room of the Fernbank Museum of Natural History, to be transferred to New York sometime around early 2023.

2021-2022

Reyes is the victim of a passenger train derailment on the Marta Gold Line caused by collateral from a battle between the Legion of Evil and the Georgia 7. She is travelling alongside Carrol at the time. Carrol's mutant body allows Reyes and her to both survive the derailment, as Carrol uses herself as a human shield, making them the only two survivors. However Reyes is badly injured due to still being gashed in multiple places and experiencing multiple bone fractures.

Illegal Manipulation of the press leads to focus being placed not on the irresponsibility of the Georgia 7, but on the suspicions surrounding Carrol and Reyes' survival, simultaneously, Reyes dies of her injuries in the hospital. Her final words to Carrol are "It's cold... I love you... I'm sorry we never got to elope... Like you wanted..."

The pressure from constant berating by the press, and the death of her only friend, causes Carrol to undergo a psychological break. She flees home and goes missing.

A break in occurs at the Fernbank Museum of natural history 3 days after christmas.

A manifesto is found in the place where the Crown of the Frost King is located. It is entitled. "Silent Sufferings Of the Deranged Mind: And Why You Can All Die"

2023

A massive ice-storm hits atlanta georgia and quickly spreads anomalously out to the west coast and the central united states. The ice-storm is a blizzard unlike any in recorded history, being compared to a localized ice age. Evacuations are insufficient as Holoportation pads are disabled by the storm. 400,000 people die within the following Months

The location of the massive surge of cryonic zero point energy is identified, a single living being in the center of atlanta, it's body surpassing well below absolute zero, causing the negative vibration of atoms.

The Georgia 7 regroups in washington DC after splitting during the evacuation, alongside several other high level hero teams, they plan to launch an assault on the entity.

Drones, created to survive the vaccuum of space by palladium chariot, are repurposed to enter and scout Atlanta. Locating the center of the disturbance. The entity is Identified as the seemingly half-dead animated corpse of Carrol Dreamer whose body has fully subsumed with the crown, her horns curling around it. 72 hours later, the drones are mysteriously eliminated.

The assault is launched, and the hero teams converge on atlanta. Over 50 heroes participate.

A battle of attrition against lifeforms seemingly made out of ice begins with the hero teams, whom are backed by military forces operating outside what has been deemed "The Frost Zone"

As time progresses, said lifeforms begin to grow and evolve, becoming more and more powerful and dangerous. Steadily, weaker heroes are filtered out and killed due to the overwhelming forces.

The remaining 27 heroes arrives at the center of the disturbance to face Carrol Dreamer. She is found sitting and thematically playing in the snow with an ice lifeform identical to Charlotte Reyes.

Upon recognizing the presence of the 27 heroes, Dreamer immediately unleashes a cryopsionic wave that kills 17 of the heroes, causing immediate bleeding from all orifices. Captain capitol goes into a bloodlusted rage, referring to Carrol as an "insolent fucking child" and seems to actually manage to knock her around significantly. The concentration of cold within the zone, for at least 24 hours while the two clash decreases significantly, however, within 24 hours, its revealed that this is because Dreamer was re-absorbing her surrounding energy from a range around half the size of the US. Her final words to capital are. "It's cold... I hate you... Do me a favor, and scream nicely." Before channeling the entirety of the absorbed energy into a single point on the tip of her finger and creating a massive blast of cryonic psychic energy, the length of which stretches all the way to the west coast, engulfing half the continent in ice in a single attack. The death count of this is likely in the hundreds of millions. There are no survivors from the operation, apart from Palladium Chariot, who is considered dead, but is in actuality, just a highly advanced drone remotely piloted by Dimit Killjoy.

A nuclear strike is approved. the Frost Zone is encroached on by half of the nuclear arsenal of both the united states and russia, however the strike is countered by the storm encompassing the zone flaring to a large form than before and a massive discharge of electricity to EMP the missiles mid-flight.

The world is unprepared to authorize another strike, leaving a 24 hour period where Carrol regathers her now expanded storm energy and fires off another ice-beam, this time wrapping in an axis around the globe, directed in a diagonal path towards washington DC.

2023 - Onward

The world is plunged into chaos as several countries have been almost entirely wiped off the map, and the nature of the earth has been fundamentally shifted. 40-50% of all land on earth has been rendered uninhabitable, and the number is climbing.

Much of the population moves to living in underground colonies, connected only by Ice-Breaker Trains built using technology provided by Killjoy Heavy industries and the other superscience companies of the modern age, as the super-cold nature of the upper atmosphere/sea makes it impossible to fly or travel by boat.

Not much is known about the US, apart from 90% of all people living on both american continents are dead or in hiding.

Some reports have arisen that the Zones are populated only by otherworldly ice-like constructs, each with an "ice-clone" of Charlotte Reyes at their center.

 

[Sir loin of beef]

Timeline-51, the aliens/B movie timeline

Pre-1898
At some point Mars is Populated with alien Life forms who develop their own civilizations on the planet, sadly an environmental catastrophe forces the martians to look for a new planet Where with envious eyes some of them look upon earth...

1898:The war of the worlds.
"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's... Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us."-H.G wells, 1898 of our world.

Indeed the opening paragraph of The war of the worlds aptly describes what happened next to diverge timeline 51 from timeline 1, Meteors from the sky began landing in England in June of 1898, after some time the first of the Martians begin to emerge from the impromptu Spacecraft and start setting up deadly machinery that incinerates any human that comes near it, but this is only the beginning, the first of many conflicts between humans and Extraterrestrial lifeforms ensues, the battle is close, with Brass age Metapowers helping keep the martians at bay, eventually the conflict is ended by the Martian invasion force being thwarted due to being unprepared for Earth's bacteria. Though some of them managed to Colonize the planet Venus (This will come into play when Humans start colonizing the solar system)

1899-1938. World war one, adaptation of Martian Technology. Bureau of Extraterrestrial Affairs or B.E.T.A
It is needless to say that the shortlived war of the worlds was something of a turning point in world history between all the technology that was left behind that could be reverse engineered and the confirmation that we were not alone in the universe, the US government creates B.E.T.A or the Bureau of Extraterrestrial affairs or the men in ties as they're also known. Along with the Metapower intelligence Bureau (M.I.B) which replaced the ADC in this timeline B.E.T.A helps stop a variety of alien invasions to keep the 53 years of (Relative, the world wars still happened among other conflicts) peace between 1898 and 1953

1938:The war of the worlds hoax.
A Relatively minor event, Jokesmiths Attempt to Spook the Nation on Halloween of 1938 was more terrifying than it was in timeline one, this was due to the fact that Jokesmith and his gang had managed to obtain Actual Martian Tripods as part of the clowns hoax/Crime spree which was only thwarted when Florida man managed to catch and arrest the clown in the middle of his show and reveal that the tripods were being controlled by human Criminals. Contrasting timeline one where Jokesmith payed someone to make tripods from scratch the tripods here were modified for human use among other modifications such as different weapons.

July 16th 1945:The beginning of the atomic monsters.
The Trinity weapons test 210 miles south of Los Alamos, new Mexico Marks the beginning of the end of World war 2 and the first of a series of atomic weapons tests which will spawn all sorts of Nuclear monsters.

1953:The second war of the worlds. The beast from 20'000 fathoms.
Unfortunately, after 53 years of (Seemingly) no conflicts with extraterrestrial life, another alien invasion, this time of a Splinter group of Martians wanting revenge on earth for their previous defeat in the first war of the worlds, occurs but despite having actual immune systems and more advanced technology this time they're handed a decisive defeat due to not accounting for the existence of Superheroes. A 100 million year old Dinosaur mutated by members of a long dead alien race breaks out of the Artic ice where it was imprisoned for eons and makes it way to new York city.

1956:Earth vs the flying Saucers

1958:Strongman:NEMESIS attacks!

1961:Earth vs the Metachimp
The Infamous "Metachimp Crisis" of 1961 began like it did in Timeline 1:With Cheese the Chimpanzee becoming the first Primate sent into space by NASA and in the process undergoing the same process that Granted Laika her superpowers, Unfortunately due to a combination of Chimpanzee's being just as Capable of Violence as humans and the CIA deciding that Cheese the metachimp would be the Perfect counter to Laika because this was the 1960's so the Cold war was going on, it was Clear that Cheese would not be as Benevolent as Laika.

 

[Sir loin of beef]

The Eternal shadow Spell and Hate's Rebirth spell.

"Mark my words! You may have defeated me for now! But my shadow! My shadow shall haunt the spirit of the dragon queen and the blood of the monkey king and those they call friends for all time!"
-Wansheng longwang upon his first defeat.

Many are the spells and potions that can be used by those with a darkened heart, few are the spells and potions that can be used by the dark hearted to extend their lives. Fewer are those that can help one return from seeming death. Two of those are the Eternal shadow spell and the Hate's rebirth spell. If either is casted it's a sign that either the spellcaster was extraordinarily powerful or that their negative emotions were so intense that they could transcend death. It should be noted that these spells despite what they have in common are extremely different from each other, the eternal shadow spell can ensure an indefinitely lasting cycle of reincarnation that can only be ended if the caster wishes it. The Hates rebirth spell on the other hand can only grant it's caster one more life and they will likely be changed even if the soul is unchanged as Demonstrated by the demon lord Ricotta who terrorized the 5th century British isles and he predictably was brought down but not before cursing those he declared responsible for his demise.

"You have brought me low mortal worms, but know this! My Hate...my hate will outlast you all! It shall be the instrument of my revenge!!!"

-Ricotta's last words upon being brought down by Welsh knights, 5th Century A.D.

Indeed the demon lords Dark prophecy would come true, though the embodiment of his hatred, a demon named gorgonzola was imprisoned inside what was known as the devils jar this prison would allow the demon to survive the fall of the kingdom who's knights had slain his forefather.

All in all, the eternal shadow spell and the hates rebirth spell are both dangerous due to what successfully casting them can allow though fortunately the process is difficult but unfortunately it is quick as well.