Alternate Crosstime Organizations

[sir_pudding]

I realized that I set up the premise for the factions in "All Along the Watchtowers" but I didn't actually list them. Oops.

Order of the Golden Mystery - Seeks to undermine consensus reality and increase mysticism and magic. They want worlds where mystical power origins are most common, powers can be deadly and unpredictable, causality is weak, death is a transformative experience, people are mostly unaware of superpowers, and weird science isn't well distinguished from weird magic. Tries to make reality so plastic that continuity of events is irrelevant, unfortunately this often triggers a Crisis before it gets to that point. Believed to have been completely wiped out by The Scourge. Corresponds to the Golden Age.

The Ascendant - Seeks to create superhumans who survive their worldlines, and utopian futurism on existing worldlines, activity pursues Crises in the belief they can steer the resolution into improved realities. Their ultimate goal is apotheosis. They try to make science origins the most common, powers are safe, death is a revolving door, causality is fluid, people generally like and trust superheroes, superscience is generally accepted as real science, and magic is rationalized. They try to balance continuity against their idea of progress, in order to trigger a Crisis under ideal conditions according to a complex theoretical model. Corresponds to the Silver Age.

The Scourge - Seeks vengeance for the destruction of their original realities, the elimination of all other factions, and to a lesser extent the elimination of metahuman abilities. They want conditions that make mundane origins common, powers are extremely deadly and defensive powers are less effective, death is permanent, causality is strong, people generally distrust and fear superhumans, weird science and magic are often indistinguishable from pseudoscience and harder superscience has hyper-realistic (even cynical) limitations and consequences. They are willing to use a scorched earth strategy and would rather see a world be destroyed in a failed Crisis rather than allowing it to shift to the enemy. Corresponds to the Iron Age.

Legendary Aeon - Seeks to stabilize continuity in order to prevent and reduce Crises. They are unconcerned with origin sources, but try to keep the relative population of metahumans low by making origins in general less common; powers have consequences but are controllable, resurrection is possible but not without costs, causality is adaptive, people generally treat superhumans as individuals but have realistic concerns about the effects of powers, magic and superscience are generally accepted but regulated by institutions. They try to guide a Crisis into the most stable possible result that preserves as much of the previous reality as possible. Corresponds to the Bronze Age.