The Power of Ten Book Four: Dynamo

“Thank you for meeting with us. I understand that a non-finite force like you does not materialize often, and your remit is universal and trans-temporal in scope. I believe you are an existence that exceeds the life cycle of a universe, are you not?” Briggs asked the star-filled Entity opposite him and Sama.

“I am, Master Briggs. Yet the deeds of you and Lady Sama have earned their own recognition. I am certain you know that the non-Finite have taken note of you after your treatment of the Celestials on your homeworld. Although most do not know what you are in possession of, they have noted your power and capabilities. Why would you call on me?” the avatar of the Enigma Force inquired of them.

“By all the accounts we have been able to attain, the Enigma Force and the Uni-Power that you back adhere to a higher calling, yet without explicitly laying down an ethos or rules. It could be said that you seek to guide the intelligent races to a brighter day, to lift them up and inspire them, and help them stand against the darkness of Oblivion. Is this also not true?” Sama spoke up in turn, facing the powerful being who, if some of the tales were true, was instrumental in the creation of the first Universe, bringing light out of the darkness of the void, and had thwarted Oblivion on many occasions.

“If I act with less selfishness than some of my cosmic peers, that is only in the eyes of the beholder,” the Enigma Force replied easily. “Is this of import to you?”

“You are a force that chooses heroes. We’ve verified a lot of this through consultations with Eon. If possible, we’d like to work with you,” Briggs replied firmly.

“’Work with me’,” the Enigma Force repeated, showing some amusement at the cheekiness of the idea. “How would you like to do so, Master Briggs?”

“You are monstrously successful at identifying heroic spirits. We would like to form a partnership with you, the Nova Force, and the Ultra Force and Corps we are putting together, expanding the remit of the Corps beyond our Pentad of races to something that could truly grow to be intergalactic in scope,” Sama stated. “As you know, the Ultra Corps is based on energy build-up and conservation of foundation. Instead of directly empowering our Corpsmen, the energy of the Force is only used to form the foundation, and then it is built up with external powers to higher and higher levels.

“This enables the Nova Force to expand far beyond its ability to personally supply energy to those who form its Corps, and to interact through its Mentor programs and even with day-to-day activities of the Xandarans,” Briggs took over. “You are a force at least a few orders of magnitude above the Nova Force, while we are seeking to expand the Ultra Corps in numbers and tenor. We know you support no more than one Uni-Power per galactic cluster, but that still means uncounted millions throughout the universe. Our Ultra Corps will require far less outlay per individual, present a final potential that is the equal of Captain Universe, and yet requires the same judgement of worth of individuals that the Uni-Power requires.”

“We want to work with a Cosmic Entity to field a force of people of similar high virtue and power, to keep the Ultra Corps true on its course of bringing hope and inspiration to others, and yet being willing to fight for something worth the fighting for,” Sama finished up. “There are very few such entities in existence, most such having esoteric interests, extraordinary arrogance, or simply interested in their own survival, in the end. You are not one of those, and have never been.

“I would even hazard to say that you might well be a true servant of Heaven, come into this multiverse in disguise to serve a greater purpose.”

There was a moment of keen regard from the Enigma Force. “Those are dangerous words to say within this realm, Lady Sama. The forces that rule and create the universe and multiverse like to think of themselves as Above All, and do not like outsiders involved in their games. They tolerate Law and Chaos because they think they can use them in their endless cycle with a measure of Neutrality, binding them together to make their Great Works throughout eons of creation and destruction.”

“If Dynamo came before you and spoke the Words of Creation, would you give her the same warning?” Briggs smiled grimly.

“So, she does know the Words...” The Enigma Force paused, almost sighing. “I thought I had heard the echo of them, but of course I cannot see her directly. Which of the Words does she wield?”

“Truth, Hope, and Valor.” Sama’s words barely hinted at the edge of them, yet there was no way for the Enigma Force not to recognize that she had indeed heard them before.

“Long has it been since I have heard the Words,” the Enigma Force sighed. “She is in no danger. The Weavers have taken claim on her for some purpose, and this enshrouds all that she has wrought. Whatever remit of Heaven is upon her is caught up in the webs they are spinning, and likely it will prove as vast in scope as the Underweb itself, if they would waylay and manipulate such a powerful servant of Heaven as herself like this.

“You naturally know I have agreed to work with Galactus as a final arbiter on the purpose of His great fleet.”

“Galactus, by our estimations, is engaged in a terrible duty which forces Him to act with great cruelty at times. Yet, it seems, when it does not deter His purpose, He can act with surprising empathy and understanding. In the end, He is a great defender of life and of this universe itself. Empowering Him to act towards that role without such mercilessness is a great kindness to the universe and to a spirit of remarkable dedication to His task,” Sama replied coolly. “Take away the overwhelming need to search to appease His hunger, and the fact He can never NOT be hunting the Seeds, and Galactus is surprisingly amenable to some forms of behavior.”

“The change in conduct since He has come in contact with Terra has been noted, and is surprising on many levels. It is an opportunity few have ever bothered to pursue, let alone seize. Empathy and compassion for the Devourer of Worlds is a rare thing to see.”

“Pragmatic understanding probably, too,” Sama noted dryly.

“Also true,” the Enigma Force agreed. “What exactly are you requesting of me?”

“We have already brought the Death God Tchernoborg in on this, and can bring him here promptly if you wish. Let me spin for you a vision of what we would like to accomplish, and see if it is amenable for you. With your greater experience, I am certain you will have advice on how to go about this...” Briggs replied, and the discussion became somewhat more technical and metaphysical in nature...

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The Crimson Tower of Khan rose over D’bari. The purple-skinned, white-haired master of the Tower, and precious little else at this moment, looked over the works below with a sigh.

The native people, a race of bipeds evolved from plant life, had long since been vacated, save for those that wanted to help with the fighting to come and the preparation for it. They were good, steady laborers, if not excessively physical, working in the support teams and freeing up more able folk for the heavier work and training.

He had conquered many worlds, across more dimensions than he had fingers. However, those worlds were not of advanced races. He chose his targets to be no later than the early nuclear era, without advanced space travel, or earlier. Such folk could appreciate the technology he brought to them, raising their standing of living and bringing them out into the stars, but were usually not so far from their more primitive counterparts that they could not appreciate the joys of conquest and repeating the process over and over.

Running his empire from one Tower was no different than running it from another. His people were highly trained, progressive, and he was not a petty tyrant. For all that he conquered them, they could not argue that he also lifted them up, quenched their petty planetary rivalries, and governed them well and fairly.

And then a Kang had messed with him, one conqueror aiming to shut down another.

A time-traveler and a planes-hopper were two sides of the same coin, albeit the one went up and down timelines, and a planes-walker went across them. He already had the brilliant minds of several worlds working on a system to render his timeline inviolate, and had been surprised to find his ‘gracious hosts’ had more than a little expertise in that area.

He had tried to go home. There were several dozen methods for crossing the planes available to him, and he had tried them all, at first surreptitiously, and then openly once there was no result.

Not he, nor any of the men he brought to this dimension, could leave. Indeed, any he had brought in from elsewhere in his Empire could not leave, either, and so he had left the vast majority of his armies in their homes and bases in other alternities.

He could still make rulings, still move forces back and forth between other towers, and he could send resources and production here, as needed... mostly food from the homeworlds of his soldiers, as raw goods of war weren’t much of a problem.

Ninety-five percent of them had to die before the rest could leave. It was an expensive lesson to him, and yet... the losses of the Shi’ar forces were expected to reach nearly one hundred percent, so he could not say he was being unduly penalized.

D’Bari here was going to be the Anvil of the Shi’ar assault, the nut that had to be cracked that would influence the entire attack on the Shi’ar Galaxy. Not the Shi’ar Throneworld, not the homeworlds of the various prominent other races beneath the Shi’ar, but here, on this insignificant little world of peace-loving plantforms with heads like carrots.

It wasn’t a Warworld, although the shields that wrapped it now could probably defy one. No, this was a place that was meant to challenge and tempt the enemy, call to them to commit ground forces, taunt their love of war... and then slaughter them.

The walls, the killing grounds, the point defenses, the artillery, the traps, the mazes of trenches and tunnels, the layers of offense and defense that had to be peeled back to advance, all of which would take ruinous costs by ground assault forces to breach...

Trying to land on a world like this and take it by force was insanity. This kind of world you reduced from orbit, or simply passed it by.

But his Crimson Tower was here, a hundred miles high, stabbing up into space itself, challenging them, taunting them. If they passed this world by, they may as well abandon the entire system, because the weaponry here would be threatening any who passed into its arc of fire.

No, they would take the world because, even modified and terrascaped as it was, it was a wonderfully inhabitable world, ideal for a broad range of races and species. They would come for it, in their ships and their landers, desperate for worlds of their own, and they would seek to take it in their millions and billions.

And they were going to die. He could see the battles playing out now: the super-soldiers with their terrifying tactical and strategic ability designing the defenses and the simulations; the gods that always remained aloof and distant on the worlds he had conquered were now ready to exert themselves as beings of legend should; superbeings with impossible powers and strength were readying themselves for a level of personal combat that would challenge even them; and weapons and defenses from advanced civilizations were ready to be deployed, holding nothing back.

To take the planet, the Negative Zoners would have to advance over all those defenses, against some of the grimmest defenders they could imagine, and then, at the end, they would have to take his tower.

The tower, where a Goddess of Storms waited to fill a world and the space around with a tempest they could not imagine, whose will and readiness to fight radiated out across the world like a brooding hurricane, building its wrath and power until it was time to explode.

When she let loose, he had little doubt the whole of the Annihilation Wave was going to hear of it.

His captors were neither rude nor foolish. They gave him all the command capacity over his own troops that he cared to take, and they listened to all his advice, strategic and tactical.

He even handled diplomatic and military coordination matters with the Shi’ar forces, as he had dealings with them in several alternities.

Serve well, live, and he and his surviving men could go home. Behind, they were going to leave over two million of his troops, and who knew how many alien dead from the Negative Zone.

He had never fought a war like this. Only a fool would seek to... or the mad and desperate. Yet he could not deny that he was looking forward to the test it presented, and wondering if he would make it to the final battle and be able to return home.

And if he could... would he be able to conquer again in the future?

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The Enigma Force is the one cosmic entity that has multiple appearances throughout the age of Marvel Comics and is always a powerful, uplifting force. Captain Universe is always bestowed as an act of heroism, and the inscrutable motivations of the Enigma Force always seem to foster hope, free will, and valorous behavior, up to and including the freedom of the symbiotes from their creator, the dark god Knull.

This, to me, signifies that the Enigma Force is the representation of Good in the Marvel Universe, albeit it is given no ranking in the Hierarchy. Being called Enigmatic for its motivations, when it truly wants merely to create a better world, sounds exactly right for the power of Good. The reasoning of Good people is often understood in exactly the wrong way by those of other Alignments, who only have a selfish paradigm to work on.

Note that Sama is wearing a Klyntar (‘Venom’, actually), and the Enigma Force can doubtless see it, and they would totally recognize one another as the EF is the one who liberated them from Knull!

The One Above (and Below) All runs on an opposed neutral basis of utterly pure goodness and utterly malevolent evil, making it a Neutral entity that requires an orderly universe primarily built on rules and laws to run correctly (and Thanos even exploited this weakness to depose it, once). It is the sponsor of both cosmic power and gamma power, which are opposed in type and energy. It would be akin to Ao of the Forgotten Realms, an abstract thing of opposites, as opposed to standing for anything concrete.