Apokolips And Boom Tubes

Once upon a time, very far away — farther than the moon, farther than the farthest star you can find in the night sky — there was a planet called Apokolips.

It was not like Earth. It was not like any world you have ever seen. Its sky glowed a deep, smoky orange, lit not by a sun but by furnace fires that burned day and night, without ever once going out. The ground was black iron, worn smooth and dark by machines older than anyone could remember. And rising up from that iron ground, row after row, were towering factories, clanging and hammering, their smoke curling into a sky that never quite turned blue.

Right at the heart of this strange, fiery world, there churned something called the Fire Pits — a wide, glowing river of molten flame, hot enough to change anything that dared to walk through it. And long, long ago, someone did walk through it. A restless young god named Uxas, hungry for power, stepped into that river on purpose, wanting to prove he was strong enough to rule. The flames did not destroy him. They changed him. When he stepped out on the other side, his skin had turned to living stone, grey and cracked like granite, and his eyes glowed with a new and terrible light. From that day on, he was no longer Uxas. He was Darkseid.

High above the factories, on a mountain built of dark rock, there sits a throne. Not a throne of gold, and not a throne of silver — a throne of obsidian, black and gleaming and cold. That is where Darkseid sits, watching over his whole world: every tower, every furnace, every soldier below.

Apokolips runs on one simple idea, and that idea is order. Everyone marches. Everyone obeys. There is not much room, on a world like this, for curiosity or gentle things. Those belong somewhere else — somewhere very far away.

And if you traveled far, far across that great dark space between the stars, you would eventually find that somewhere else. It is called New Genesis, and it could not be more different from Apokolips. Instead of factories, New Genesis has golden towers. Instead of the Fire Pits, it has quiet gardens. It is ruled by a wise and gentle leader named Highfather Izaya, and its people value peace the way Apokolips values obedience. Apokolips and New Genesis are like two ends of a very old, very uneasy seesaw — one side built on fear, the other built on hope — and between them stretches nothing but starlight and silence.

Now, you might wonder — how does anyone travel such a very great distance? Not even the fastest starship could cross that much space quickly.

That is where Boom Tubes come in.

A Boom Tube is a swirling orange portal, and when one opens, it tears through the sky with a sound like distant thunder and a flash of brilliant light. Step through a Boom Tube, and in the time it takes to blink, you are somewhere else entirely — a quiet, faraway moon, a silent ocean world, or even the busy streets of a city on Earth called Metropolis. When Darkseid marches to war, Boom Tubes crack open again and again, and Parademons — his armored, winged soldiers — pour through by the hundreds, their wings catching the swirling light as they go.

One quiet hour — if a world like Apokolips can ever truly be quiet — Darkseid stood before his obsidian throne and slowly raised one heavy hand. A Boom Tube cracked open in the smoky air above him, glowing and swirling. Through its light, he studied a distant, unfamiliar world, turning gently far away in the dark — rivers he had never touched, forests he had never seen, cities that did not yet know his name.

Beside him, his advisor Desaad shuffled close and bowed low. "A scout has returned," he whispered, "through another Boom Tube, with word of a whole new galaxy we have not yet explored."

Darkseid said nothing for a long moment. His glowing eyes stayed fixed on the swirling portal, weighing this new world against a hundred others he still meant to conquer someday.

Then, slowly, he closed his fist.

The Boom Tube folded shut, its orange light fading away like a candle pinched out between two fingers. There would be time enough for that world later, Darkseid thought. There always was.

And so, high on his mountain of black iron, on his cold and gleaming throne, the tyrant of Apokolips simply sat back and watched, and waited, and planned his next move across the stars.

But far away, on a small, bright, blue planet spinning gently around a warm yellow sun, the Justice League was watching too — ready, together, to make sure that whatever Darkseid planned next, Earth would never stand alone.

And with that thought, safe and warm, it is time to close your eyes and drift off to sleep.