Cosmic Forces Collide!
I saw man in tights lift an M-1 Abrams on a city street without being driven into the ground like a tent stake. I watched as a cyborg cat-girl used magic spells to stop a bank robber hurling explosive marbles and monomolecular jacks.Above, a flying dog with laser eyes repelled Martians in flying saucers. And that, doctor, is why I spend so much time at the Speckled Zebra.— Dr. Holly Dauda, BREACH dendriphysicist
Introduction
The discovery of the world quickly christened Kirby-1 (with the permission of his heirs) thrilled most BREACH agents, even as it terrified their superiors and many others. A world of comic book superheroes! None precisely identical in name to any copyrighted entities (though the existence of worlds like
Wells-1 made such things possible, if not likely), but many very similar in archetype and nature. Every conceivable (and many inconceivable) type of hero and villain walked (and swam, and flew, and teleported...) upon this world. Stealthy vigilantes of the night and nigh-invinciple demigods stood side by side. Magic more powerful than anything discovered on any other world was wielded by cloaked or tenchcoated sorcerers. Telepaths who could control a full stadium... and telekinetics who could lift it(!) were allies or enemies of those who wielded unique technology which didn't merely defy Baseline science, but defied it in wholly inconsistent ways.
The world has become a primary target of amateur and criminal breachers. The worst fear - that some villain's death ray or power armor would work on Baseline - has not been borne out. Nor has anyone returned wielding radiation-induced mole powers. But BREACH is also charged with protecting idiots from themselves, and while the death toll of super-powered battles is far lower than is statistically possible, it is not zero, and while the locals have learned how to duck and cover, the visitors just gawp and try to take pictures. "LTD" ("Let Them Die") is a common refrain to reports of illegal breachers heading over. Unfortunately, that's not technically permitted.
Pocket Multiverse
Kirby was the first alternate found that had its own subset of parallel worlds to itself, reachable via multiple means, none of which resembled Breach technology. A few discovered thus far include:
- Ybrik
Called "Anti-Earth" or "Earth-Omega" by the locals, BREACH termed it 'Ybrik' after 'Lee' was turned down for legal reasons. It is a world of moral inversion, where the heroes of Kirby have fought villainous versions of themselves. Due to the Revisions (see below), these are sometimes the same individuals with differing moral, and sometimes analagous figures with different pasts and identities, but similar powers and traits.
- Gibson
While Kirby's history (such as it is) records an age of low- or no- powered adventurers through the 20s and 30s, and there are still plenty of masked vigilantes relying on martial prowess and guts today, on Gibson, the 'pulp era' never ended. Oh, it's 2022 in local time, and there's cell phones and flat screens, but the aesthetics remain vaguely out of date, a blend of Art Deco, 50s streamlining, and 60s "mod". There are also no "super" heroes as Kirby understands them; no one can lift tanks (but a few can, barely, manage a horse) or fly under their own power (there's jet packs and gliders, though). About a quarter of the "masked adventurers" have some limited special power, such as being able to mold their features like wax, or being able to see in the dark, or similar abilities that are undeniably not simply skill and training, but are also not on the scale of firing fire bolts from your hands. Visitors from Kirby, who call this 'Earth Beta', sometimes encounter versions of themselves, lacking powers or with much weaker versions of them. On Kirby, the 'Flying Flame' transforms into a being of fire to fly under his own power and launch plasma bolts; on Gibson, he has a jet pack that leaves a blazing trail and wields a miniaturized flamethrower pistol.
Revisions
Also called 'Echoes' these are alternate timelines of Kirby, but they're not alternates in the usual way Breach science understands them. It seems that, periodically, the history of Kirby is 'rewritten' from the ground up. Things change or remain the same at random. In the current 'reality', Green Guardian, wielder of the Verdant Flame, is an Asian-American who accessed an extradimensional energy pool and took the name of a long-gone hero from the 1940s, who used a sword and shield imbued with 'emeraldium', a rare mineral he discovered in an abandoned mine. In an 'echo' discovered by Breach agents, the Green Guardian of the present-day was the third in a line of beings, dating back to the 1940s, given power by a 'lost tribe' of Indigenous Americans, despite all being of European ancestry.
It's impossible to determine how many of these echoes exist. They were discovered when an attempt was made to open a Breach portal to Gibson, rather than relying on the 'Universal Unicycle' that the 'Knights of Justice' maintain for such transits. Mathematics indicate the 'revisions' occur about every 10 years, relatively speaking, though since they rewrite history entirely, it's hard to say. They are sometimes 'remembered' as cataclysmic events whose resolution often kills several prominent figures, but these events are written into their own revised timelines.
Impossible Parallels
So, everywhere else, if Julius Ceaser sleeps in one day in 60 BC, the 21st century's geopolitics end up controlled by Mongols with a moon base, or something. Here, there's guys inventing ray guns in 1940, multiple extraterrestrial visits in the history book, there's two different underwater civilizations represented at the UN, some guy named 'Brick Braxton' built a rocketship to Mars in the 1950s... and Joe Biden is President, cell phones have the same specs, national borders are about 95% the same (only difference is room for all those postage-stamp countries they've got), and the same guy who drives the Number 10 bus in SF on Baseline drives it here. He's even got the same tattoo! And that, doctor is why I spend so much time at the Speckled Zebra.— Dr. Adachi Koin, BREACH dendrihistorian
Despite all this, Kirby is instantly recognizeable to any 21st century visitor. There's a few different buildings in the major cities, there are mega-corporations no one on Baseline has heard of, there are 'postage stamp' nations on most continents, there are a few new major cities (Seacoast City on the east coast, Lake City near the Great Lakes, San Gorge in California) in the US that have been squeezed into the landscape, but otherwise... history is normal, as if none of these additions or changes mattered. Neil Armstrong's moon walk captivated the world, and no one was dissuaded if it was pointed out the Patriot Patrol destroyed Germany's "Mondbasis Eins" in 1943. Somehow, "that didn't count". The various anti-gravity devices of countless villains and heroes haven't changed transportation for the common man.
Speculation is rife, but it's just that - speculation. Hypothesis about 'increased temporal inertia' and attempts to define this mathematically have been, thus far, fruitless.
A History of Heroes
Breach chooses to accept the current version of Kirby history, as the locals see it, as the 'true' history.
The Sorcerous Age
Sometime before the Ice Age, the island continents of Mu, Lemuria, and Atlantis all existed. It was a time of powerful (and common) magic, the leading practitioner of which was Atlantis. Mu had advanced a kind of alchemical biotechnology to breed all types of monsters (many of whom still survive in obscure parts of the world), while Lemuria wielded magically-powered technologies of various kinds. The rest of the world held more traditional TL 0-3 civilizations, often improbably resembling those which would arise in those regions 10 millennia later. Also, there were still dinosaurs.
Between the Wars
While there were a handful of powered beings and unpowered vigilantes in the Old West and fighting in The Great War, they numbered in the low dozens over a span of six decades. It was in the 1920s and 1930s that Kirby historians claim the 'age of heroes' began. While most remained skilled humans or those with a minor gimmick or power (the type still dominant on Gibson), there were a lot more of them; every major American city had 10 or 15, each with their own family of supporters and foes. This was also the age of the discovery of 'lost worlds', from the 'Timeless Land' of both dinosaurs and sabre-tooth tigers in a 500 mile long cavern buried beneath arctic ice, to a Roman colony in a Tibetan valley.
World War 2
This was when powered heroes took over. Even though many courageous folks put on colorful outfits and took down Nazi spies and sabateurs with just a good right hook, the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific demanded more, and the world birthed them. Heroes flew by force of will, transformed themselves to ice, put their brains in robot bodies, and ran at the speed of sound. Some began careers that would last decades; others fought one or two crimes and then retired or perhaps died.
Post-War
The late 40s and most of the 50s saw many heroes retire, while a few simply continued their careers. The Cold War required subtler warriors. Both the US and the USSR fielded teams of "super agents", who rarely met in open battle but would face each other entirely off-the-record in secret lairs and hidden bases. The Korean Conflict, unlike WW2, lacked the clear-cut moral certainty that bred heroes. A psychologist grew rich claiming everything wrong with 'kids these days' came from them imitating 'costumed crusaders', leading to injuries, juvenile delinquency, teen pregnancy, and probably the heartbreak of psoriasis. Congress conducted endless "investigations" to gain publicity. McCarthy called many of the greatest heroes of the 40s, particularly those who dealt with injustices on the home front and corrupt politicians and policemen, "communist subversives". Some pundits speculated the age of the "super hero" was over.
They were wrong, as pundits tend to be.
The Second Heroic Age
They were wrong.
The 60s
The 1960s saw an explosion of new heroes and villains, many far more powerful than their predecessors. Cities that never had a 'local hero' gained them; cities with a handful found themseves with dozens. This was also the era when Earth's other civilizations, such as the Neo-Atlantians, came to full public knowledge and legal recognition.
The First Great Revision
Breach dendrihistorians and analysts postulate this is "when" the first major Revision happened; the histories of the older heroes seems to have changed sharply from their prior pasts. From what little can be gleaned, the 'original' history -- or perhaps just the oldest 'echo' thus far discovered -- has the pre-WW2 and WW2 era as more violent than the history post-revision, and women and minorities played smaller, or less acknowledged, roles. (Debate rages on if this reflects a change in the actual history, or a change in how it was recorded, or both. With only occasional glimpses of echoes, it is all speculative.)
The 70s
The 70s continued the trends of the 60s, but with a sharper, darker, edge. By this point, many of the heroes and villains of the First Heroic Age, those who remained active or came out of retirement in the early 60s, were simply growing old. (The assorted immortals, robots, and so on notwithstanding.) Their attitudes were also old, leading to generational strife between the new wave of heroes and their predecessors. Many heroes spawned 'heirs', either literally their children, or people who took on their name and mantle, with or without the blessings of the original.
The 80s and 90s
The 80s saw an increase in the trends of the 70s. The fourth generation was coming of age, with a flood of younger heroes emerging. The rest of the world saw increases in their own superhuman populations as well. More and more, laws and regulations began to acknowledge the reality of super-powers, something dendrihistorians said
should have happened decades earlier, but which just seems to have 'not have'. (See the commentary of Dr. Koin, above.)
The 90s were an amplification of the 80s. Despite the existence of multiple self-aware AIs for over 50 years, on Kirby, as on Baseline, it was not until the mid-90s that computers really entered everyday life, and this led to an explosion of technologically-themed beings.
The Revision Wave
Breach dendristorians have determined multiple Revisions during the 80s and 90s on Kirby, 'as if the world couldn't decide what it wanted to be'. Perhaps the most startling to those who were familiar with the current 'real' history, it looked as if Gladiator, the most powerful extant hero, whose first public appearance was in the late 80s, had been continuously active, and even more powerful, since the late 1930s! However, there's at least four other Revisions all 'triggered' in this era, each wiping the past of the others.
The Modern Era
After the millennium, Kirby's culture reverted somewhat. The regulatory and legal framework for metapowers remained and for most of the newest generation, was just 'how things work'. The scientists of Kirby have begun more formal and detailed classifications of powers, creating models of how they work and categories of metahuman. Much of this research has been copied and brought back to Baseline, though its applicability to worlds other than Kirby, even those with their own kinds of super-beings, remains limited.
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