Alternate-Earth Productions: My Original Multiverse

I was a creative soul from a very early age, making up stories and drawing comics as far back as I can remember. None of these creative endeavors were ever very good, mind you; I was still a child, I didn’t really build up my skills until much later than I probably should have, and many of my early ideas were just ripping off the things I was inspired by. I basically incorporated my own versions of everything I saw in one way or another. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I finally made a dedicated point to start being more original with my ideas, actually develop the walking power sets I called characters, and actually build the world cohesively.

And yet, despite this attempt to overhaul my creative approach, I couldn’t quite let go of the things I had created before, and I kept wanting to build on that foundation. Thus, I created a grand vision of a multiple-world setting that would manage to canonize nearly everything I had created up to that point. Every story I wrote, every comic I drew, every character idea, every game concept, every setting concept, with extremely few exceptions, was either retroactively incorporated, or would from then on be based in, this grand Multiverse idea.

This covers pretty much every concept I conceived of from the ages of 5 to 18. Considering I was covering a large swathe of genres across multiple projects, I ended up going with the Multiverse approach because logically, not every story could actually have been set on the same planet, much less the same time period. However, once I started being dedicated to the Multiverse concept around age 12, I found ways to tie these different settings together. This all culminated in a grand storyline called the Multiversal War, in which a powerful villain attempted to become God of the Multiverse, and almost every story written while I was 18 was incorporated into that plotline.

Afterwards, I finally made a hard break from the setting, and from then on, most of my projects have been largely self-contained, or the number of things incorporated into a given world have been deliberately limited. In more recent years, I’ve toyed with multiversal concepts again, but even these have been new sets of realities, and none have been as outright prolific as this Old Multiverse.

Once I got most everything hammered out, I named my body of creative work Alternate-Earth Productions. Unfortunately, I cannot say that anything from the Old Multiverse is really worth reading, due just to my youth and inexperience and, I must reluctantly admit, being really slow to actually try improving on my art and writing until way later than I really should have been.

The comic books I drew as a kid were all completely terrible, usually all but plotless exhibition fights between my characters. I started writing in Junior High, and I basically quit drawing, despite finally starting to improve and actually put storylines into the comics. Naturally, my writing around the time was pretty terrible, barely fit to qualify as Saturday morning cartoon filler. I wouldn’t say I even got truly readable until senior year of High School, but even then, anything I wrote pre-College is pretty cringe to look back at now.

Nonetheless, this massive setting, particularly the superhero side of it, informed much of my creative direction for years to come, even after I officially set it aside. Whether that informing was for the better or for the worse, I still couldn’t say. But I’ve referenced the “Old Multiverse” a few times on this blog, and for lack of any other writing getting done at this time, I may as well post something.

So here we go. An Alternate-Earth Productions Retrospective. Buckle in.

COSMOLOGICAL ORIGINS

The larger cosmology was retro-fitted in near the end of the AEP’s life cycle. Truth be told, there’s not a whole lot to really explain with most of the worlds individually. There were way to many failed projects or half-finished projects on all of them to go through them all, and, really, only the Power Universe superhero world and the Krazy Komix cartoon world got the real traction here.

DESTINY

Destiny is the Creator God of the AEP Multiverse. Ostensibly, he is also the incarnation of my own creative impulses, and is thus the Creator God of every single reality I’ve ever made. He’s not really a character, as such; like Marvel’s One Above All, or DC’s The Presence, he’s only really relevant as a personified plot device of sorts, only showing up when all of reality is threatened, and his power needs to be invoked to save it, or cosmic villains attempt to claim it. The name "Destiny" implies that he is the force that sets my worlds and characters on the paths their stories take.

Thusly, he is only relevant to the aforementioned Multiversal War, which is technically the only time he actually appears as a distinct entity. Usually, he’s so far above everything he never gets involved. He just creates things and lets them play out.

Destiny has not actually factored into any future projects, and thus, really, he’s also only relevant to the AEP.

THE ORIGINAL UNIVERSE

This was actually retconned in very late to the concept, but the Original Universe was the “one reality” from which the Multiverse splintered off. Destiny created this world as a mash-up of all his ideas into one reality, somehow co-existing. Fantasy realms, living cartoons, superheroes, and sci-fi/fantasy/horror genre strangeness all just co-existed on an Earthlike planet that still mostly resembled the modern day. I don’t know how this was supposed to work, but I guess each cluster had its own section of the planet to exist in.

At some point, however, Destiny suffered some kind of cosmic stroke, and this shattered reality, creating the cluster of worlds that became the AEP Multiverse. This also created the cosmic entity I AM, who was a fragment of Destiny's consciousness still intact, but basically rendered ineffectual, unable to directly influence the new reality.

The Original Universe was seen in a short, unfinished story series that featured a team of characters from across the AEP Multiverse. I AM had gathered this group and sent them back to the original reality to undo some kind of crisis, and while they couldn’t prevent the destruction of their Original Universe, their actions would at least stabilize the timelines after the separation.

Incorporated into this were some ideas I had of “previous universes” that had been a part of the lore of the Power Universe, particularly a couple of alien species whose remnants somehow survived the cosmic fracturing. After this Fracturing Event, though, the Universe was split into the following realities:

MULTIPLE PLANES

While these are not the main settings of any stories, these realities sometimes factor into the adventures of the many characters from the other core worlds. They also inform the structure of the Multiverse broadly, and each realm is ruled by a deity of cosmic significance, doing their best to maintain reality in Destiny’s absence.

HEAVEN and HELL – The AEP Multiverse didn’t actually factor that much mythology into it, but did have a version of Heaven and Hell. Both of which are what you would expect from popular fiction. Heaven is an open sky realm of endless day, with solid cloudscapes upon which grand cities are built. Occupied by angels and keepers of the souls of the good mortals. I never really defined a God figure as a ruler, but an order of Archangels effectively ruled this reality, led by some Godly figure.

Hell was an endless crimson cave with lakes of fire, populated by demons. Hell was ruled by several Archdemons, and unlike Heaven, there was a definite being in charge, the great demon Hellfire. The interesting thing about Heaven and Hell, however, was that all the other realities shared them; it was actually possible to cross between dimensions by using Hell or Heaven as a gateway. Doing so was highly dangerous, obviously, and so it was only used by the desperate.

THE BLUE DIMENSION – An endless blue void that occasionally flashes with silver or navy lightning. This is implied to be the essence of Destiny in his “comatose” state, and its only real inhabitant is I AM. It’s effectively a sort of limbo realm, in the truest sense.

DREAM WORLD – Ruled over by the enigmatic Dreammaster, this is where all minds partially phase into when they sleep and dream. It is effectively the source of imaginative thought, a vast universal subconscious, and influences sapient minds in largely subtle ways. It is home to Dream Demons, who feast upon the imaginations and fears of dreamers and, Dream Spirits, who feast upon the imaginations and joys of dreamers.

The Dream World is a dangerous realm of constantly shifting reality; every mind has its own “dream bubble” it exists in which is comparatively stable and safe, but if they are pulled out of this bubble and into the greater Dream Realm, they can quickly lose themselves their minds dissolve into the chaos of the Realm. Usually, the dreamer will just awaken in a state of shock that gradually fades, but it is possible for a person to become locked in a comatose sleep, lost forever.

Those with the power of lucid dreaming can control their personal bubble of pseudo-reality. Some can leave their bubble and survive the chaotic outer realm of dreams for a while, and even enter the dream bubbles of others.

The Dream Realm technically extends beyond even the AEP multiverse, and touches upon the minds of several other realities of mine. It also technically touches the realities of several other authors I’ve done co-writing projects with, but that’s all part of a bigger concept than the AEP was meant to cover, and is effectively an extended canon that the AEP is not beholden to.

The Dream World, which seen in its “raw” form, largely appears as world of constantly shifting pastel colors that fold and twist and flow around in ways the human eye has trouble following. The World is filled with vast clouds of iridescent bubbles that fade in and out, symbolizing the minds of sapients as they drift in and out of the dream state.

UNWRITTEN – The Unwritten is the part of the Dream World that has been subsumed by, for lack of a better term, “anti-thought.” Lazor, the God of Disinspiration, rules this realm as the Dreammaster’s dark twin. This realm is fraught with entities called the Driven, the manifestations of characters and concepts that their creators forgot about, or put away without resolving their story. The Driven attempt to enter the minds of their creators and kill them in revenge for being abandoned.

To this end, the Dreammaster has elevated some lucid dreamers into Dream Warriors, sapients who have mastered the reality warping power of the Dream World, and protect sleeping minds from both Driven and Dream Demons. These Dream Warriors come from any world in any reality; I briefly wrote a series called the Dream Wars, which featured a cast of characters each implied to come from a different world in the AEP Multiverse.

Whereas the Dream World is a chaotic roil of imagination, the Unwritten is a bleak plane of blackness under a dim sky with only a permanently eclipsed sun visible overhead from anywhere in the realm. The border between the Unwritten and the Dream Realm is a surprisingly mundane grassy plane, lightly forested with simple structures, almost like a place simulating the Waking world, before it dissolves into the chaos of dreams beyond.

SPACE WORLD – Ruled by the entity Temprus, twin to Tempra. He is responsible for giving ordered structure to the Multiverse, and for fundamental laws like gravity to exist. Temprus chafes at his position, and has at least once come into conflict with his fellow cosmic guardians as to how to properly structure reality. However, the risk of mutually assured destruction has prevented him from fully going through with his ambitions, and so he continues his duties, somewhat reluctantly.

The realm is a solid black void with an endless sea of stars that are actually points of pure white light noting the placement of powerful gravity wells, mirroring the placement of stars and planets in the various worlds.

TIME WORLD – Ruled by the cosmic entity Timeframe, this reality defines all temporal structure to the cosmos. Time Travelers pass through here on their journeys. It’s worth noting that the AEP does not feature alternate timelines of its worlds. All time travel events are part of the normal flow of events, making changing reality via time travel impossible. This is largely due to Timeframe’s interference, but even he is not always able to stop alterations: the one way to cause timeline changes is to bring influences from alternate realities. Timeframe will usually manage to section off these twists in the timeline into their own pocket universes that fade out of existence once the disrupted events are complete.

The realm is a void of endless, bold, rainbow colors, lines of color largely traveling straight, only to bend and twist in impossible angles.

SPIRIT WORLD – Ruled by Tempra, twin to Temprus. This is effectively the realm of life energy, from which souls originate, and maintains hospitable conditions for life-supporting planets. The realm is a void of grey mist, dotted with softly glowing orbs of light that drift about like will-o-wisps.

Tempra, like her twin, disagrees with how things are run after a certain point, but she is invested in the current system enough that she did not want to risk destroying it in open conflict. Ultimately, she convinced Temprus to back down from his crazy ambitions, but she still resents Timeframe and Dreammaster for standing against them.

OTHER REALITIES

These usually exist as temporary timeline alterations and pocket dimensions with little impact on the overall cosmology. There are countless reality fragments existing amongst the major universes and planes of the AEP Multiverse. If any come up, they’ll be addressed elsewhere.

This technically also qualifies for other dimensions that might have crossed over with the AEP Multiverse at some point, but these are usually “de-canonized” by Timeframe severing and isolating the connecting incidents to prevent alterations to the AEP overall.

THE CORE WORLDS

These are the realities that all my stories were based in, barring the rare planar shenanigans. They are all infinite universes largely just like ours; realities of space, planets, and stars as we know them. All of these realities have an Earth, even if its not called that), that is reflective of an aspect of the Earth of the Original Universe.

NEXUS UNIVERSE - This was essentially my most mundane reality, although that's just relatively speaking. This world still had lots of supernatual activity occuring, but a lot of it was either much more hidden, or much more low-key. Think X-Files or Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the Men in Black type stuff. This world had the most alien races in it, although Earth was largely unaware of their existence. This was also the home of the Earth-born heroes of the Larreth Universe (see below). A scant few superheroes existed here, as did a phenomenon of super powered, sapient animals, but for the most part, they were largely street-level characters.

LARRETH UNIVERSE - This was my sword and sorcery world.  I had created several fantasy epics, many of which involved a hero coming from Earth (the Nexus Universe Earth), and becoming a champion. Not a lot to really say, a lot of it was typical "normal kid ends up in a magical realm and saves the day" or "group of chosen heroes saves the world". Larreth itself was basically Earth, if magic had been part of the world since ancient times. Monsters and talking animals and sorcerers and mystically enhanced warriors were just a part of life in this world.

Although usually resembling a medieval fantasy setting, this world was also sometimes refered to as the “Monster World”, for in the ancient past, it was a planet controlled entirely by monsters. The Earthly heroes of the Nexus Universe all came from the same general time period on Nexus Earth, but the different characters would all end up in radically different time periods on Larreth. Thus, if these characters ever met back in their home reality and told the tales of their adventures, they might not recognize they were all talking about the same world.

KRAZY KOMIX UNIVERSE - This was the world of all my cartoon and comic strip characters, as well as my early video game concept characters. When I was a kid, I did lots of comics and comic strips featuring silly characters, parody superheroes, goofy aliens, and groups of talking animal friends. Lots of wacky hi-jinx and adventures would abound. Mostly, it was a mundane world seen through the filter of a cartoony universe. Your average citizen was pretty normal, and the vast majority of the population were regular humans, but you would also just have random anthropomorphic animals and the occasional space alien and silly robot just going about their day, and no one would think it was odd.

POWER UNIVERSE – This was by far the most extensive of all the settings, with the most comics and stories made for it. A superhero universe featuring dozens of teams, hundreds of heroes and villains. Aliens, mutants, elite champions, demons, angels, mad scientists, living robots, psychics, magicians, you name it, it was all there. Like DC and Marvel, the Power Universe was a large grab bag of superhero archetypes with multiple origins for powers, and an extensive timeline stretching into the ancient past and into the far future, with possible futures and crossovers with other dimensions included.

For the most part, though, it was set in the modern Earth of the 1980s up through the early 2000s, where despite the sheer number of supernatural and hyper-technological shenanigans going on, including no less than three planet-wide invasions, the world was still mundane in the broad scale enough tom be recognizable as “the world outside your window.” However, the Power Universe was also a generally positive superhero world, with the police and military working well with the heroes, and most villains agreeing to drop their selfish ambitions to help defend the planet when said invasions occurred.

At the very least, advanced robotics and medical technology was becoming more common place towards the end of the modern era, allowing the near future to advance much more rapidly. Likewise, magic would eventually become more commonplace, not easy for most people to learn, but eventually, it wasn’t unusual to find a which. Likewise, mutants were somewhat feared initially due to the dubious circumstances of their creation, but would fairly quickly become accepted among the populace.

DARK UNIVERSE - Modeled mostly as a dark reflection of the Power Universe, this was basically a "Mirror Dimension" where numerous major characters from all of the other four main worlds (Larreth, Krazy Komix, Nexus, and Power) had “opposite” doppelgangers.  Heroes in the other four universes were villains in this universe, and vice versa.  Ironically, because it mixed elements of the other four, this world actually most closely resembled the Original Universe, albeit a twisted shadow of it’s version of Earth.

The Dark Universe was actually just a pocket universe, containing only a single solar system, that of Sol itself. However, several alien worlds also existed here. The Dark Universe is implied to be an artificial creation, a sort of failed prototype to see if the Original Universe could be reformed.

The Dark Universe mostly crossed over with the Power Universe and occasionally the Krazy Komix Universe, however, it is also the home reality of the Conspirer, a powerful being who started the Mutliversal War and grew to nearly become the new God of the Multiverse, the new Destiny.

THE CONCLUSION

The Multiversal War brought every world and character into conflict against the forces of the Conspirer. However, even with the help of cosmically significant characters and the Universal Guardians trying to stop him, the Conspirer effectively succeeded. He was able to restore Destiny just long enough to absorb the Creator God’s power. He was ready to remake reality in his image, but to do so would require assuming the mantel of Destiny in full.

However, when he saw what that would mean, he realized the truth: that the entire AEP Multiverse, that even Destiny himself, was just the collected figments of the imagination of a teen boy on a completely mundane Earth. To become the “God” of all known realities, he would be merely super-imposing his personality onto some random kid, with no actual powers or influence over anything in his own world.

The Conspirer surrendered the power back to Destiny. The Creator God saw how the Multiverse had evolved in his absence, and decided it was preferable to his original plan of cramming all his ideas onto one planet in a small universe. He decided to leave the Multiverse as it was, and allowed the Conspirer to retain some power as one of his Universal Guardians.