ASH: Work in progress - Altiversal Guide

Dave Van Domelen dvandom at haven.eyrie.org
Tue Jul 3 07:57:15 PDT 2007


    //||  //^^\\  ||   ||   .|.   COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED PRESENTS
   // ||  \\      ||   ||  --X---------------------------------------------
  //======================= '|`          ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES
 //   ||      \\  ||   ||                   ALTIVERSAL GUIDE
//    ||  \\__//  ||   ||          Copyright 2007 by Dave Van Domelen
___________________________________________________________________________

     Last Updated: July 3, 2007 - WORK IN PROGRESS

     One of the conceits of the ASH setting when I started writing about it
on RACC was that there weren't going to be the sort of willy-nilly crossovers
that had gummed up some of the other serious settings there.  To that end,
one of the elements I brought in was the Barrier, which would keep the ASH
characters in, and others out.  The closest I came to a crossover originally
was LNH202X, which was more of a meta-crossover sort of thing.  Hence, there
wasn't really a big need for a catalog of alternate realities, since you
couldn't go to them.
     Still, because I mined a lot of older material for ASH, and mined the
same material in earlier writings, there's a sort of defacto collection of
alternate continuities.  Plus, of course, the Barrier did get weakened before
ASH even made it to double digits.
     This file is intended to keep track of the (relatively) small number of
other realities attached in some way to ASH.  They're split into three
groups: Parallel ASH, Pocket Realities, and Distinct Universes.
     Parallel ASH worlds are ones that share common elements, but aren't
quite the same.  Either they diverge at some distinct point, or simply raid
the same source material from my real life past.
     Pocket Realities are essentially budded off from the main ASH universe
somehow.  They tend to be small in extent, and most were still accessible
after the Barrier went up.
     Distinct Universes are just that.  They could be considered parallels
that diverged so long ago that it's not worth comparing similarities beyond
"it has humans or something close".
     The names of any reality given here will often be just personal
bookkeeping, not what the natives call it...if they call it anything at all.
And there isn't an in-story organization like the Monitors or Merlyn's crew
keeping track of and naming stuff.  Yet, anyway.


PARALLEL ASH

     ASH-Champions - The original from which I mined material for all the
others.  Based on a Champions campaign that ran from early 1989 through early
1992, split across several GMs, and incorporating all sorts of trademarks
owned by other people (including, but not limited to: official Hero products,
Torg the RPG, Bubblegum Crisis, Dreadstar, Pern, Blake's 7, Castle Ravenloft,
Paranoia, The Prisoner, Power Rangers, and Vampire: the Masquerade).
     ASH Mainline - This is where most of the stories are set.  Don't really
need to go into much detail.  There has never been direct contact between ASH
Mainline and the Legion of Net.Heroes, who are purely fictional here.
     Alliance of Super-Heroes - Diverged from ASH Mainline in 1976, see the
Second Heroic Age Sourcebook for more.
     Cassandra's World - Possibly just a simulation (and therefore more of a
Pocket Reality), this timeline diverges with the precog Cassandra not being
murdered by the Template Killer prior to Academy #0.  Glimpsed in LNH 2024
#1-2. 
     Constellation's World - Very close to ASH Mainline in many ways.  A big
difference is that there's been actual interaction with the real Legion of
Net.Heroes Looniverse (both by Constellation and by the Raiders of that
world).  Smaller differences include things like Powerhouse being named
Powerhaus, and his daughter falling in with They Might Be Villains rather
than ASH.
     Unzipped ASH - Alternate timeline where George "Channel" Sylvester
accidentally destroyed reality in ASH #15.


POCKET REALITIES

     The Closet - A bolthole for a group of Svartalfen seen in ASH #3.
     Dimension Z - A shrinking pocket reality colonized by Jotuns, see Second
Age Sourcebook for more.
     Dreamtime - Only mentioned in passing, parts of Australia were merged
with it in the late 1990s and it did not go away even after the Barrier was
erected. 
     Hyperspace - A smaller, hotter reality underlying the regular one.
Entering it allows travel at higher effective speeds.  
     The Net - Netwalker actually generates short-lived pocket realities with
his power, that are sympathetically attuned to the computer network of ASH
Mainline. 
     The Nine Worlds - Asgard, Vanaheim, Jotunheim, Alfheim, Svartalfheim,
Niflheim, Muspelheim.  Asgardian pocket realities carved out by the
Purebloods known as Aesir for themselves and their fallen enemies
(i.e. Jotuns started as a group of Purebloods who fared poorly in the
godwars).  Sealed off from ASH Mainline by the Barrier, as were all the other
godly pocket realities not named here.


DISTINCT UNIVERSES

     WarStar's World - A radically different divergent Earth in which
Partbloods rule an interstellar empire in the present day.  There have been
only two representatives of this world in ASH Mainline: WarStar and his
daughter TerraStar.  Blocked by the Barrier.
     Legion of Net.Heroes Looniverse - A silly, parodic reality that bleeds
over onto everything around it in a chaotic manner.  The closest contact it
has had with ASH Mainline is in the form of a "Real Life -1" sort of
relationship, in which people in ASH Mainline wrote for their own version of
the LNH.  There has been direct contact between the Looniverse and the
divergent Constellation's World, however.

============================================================================

Author's Notes:

     Making this up as I go along, but I figured I'd post it now and see if
any of my more, ah, renal-attentive readers spotted anything I left out.



More information about the racc mailing list