Better than Space Force?
In 2019, much to the delight of late-night talk show hosts everywhere, then-president Donald Trump (perhaps he was president–after all, he did keep telling us that the 2016 election would be rigged, so is that how he won? Did he win?) … anyway, DT and our Congress in their eminent wisdom and with a laser focus on doing productive, useful things for the country, created the US Space Force by means of the National Defense Authorization Act.
So…the Space Force?
The USSF (pronounced “ooosuph” I believe) is led by a four-star general dubbed Chief of Space Operations. Its mission? “The USSF is a military service that organizes, trains, and equips space forces in order to protect U.S. and allied interests in space and to provide space capabilities to the joint force.” I’m not sure any of that’s being done yet because without warp drives, gravity generators, and inertia damping devices, how could it? Oh, sorry, I left out the transporters.
In its description of the symbolism in the Space Force flag (see image below), USSF tells that “the Elliptical Orbit [around the globe] signifies defense and protection from all adversaries and threats emanating from the Space Domain.” I’m not sure I feel reassured. Is it just me, or does the USSF “Delta” look very much like a paper airplane? If it is, that makes the Space Force motto Semper Supra (Always Above) seem like a bit of an overstatement. None of my paper airplanes stayed aloft for more than 3.2917834856 seconds, a 1962 record that still stands today.
If you believe the USFF mission statement, the Space Force is keeping us safe from attacks from outer space by the Russians, the Chinese, the Lichtensteinans (what, you didn’t know they had space flight?), Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the Martians (you know they’re coming!), the Klingons, the Kree, Jeff Bezos (Amazon Vacuum Prime Day, anyone?), and Elon Musk (or at least the falling, flaming reentry debris from the Tesla he shot into space because, you know, he could). I suspect the Space Force has a hidden mandate, too, especially considering who created it, a mandate that the Netflix series of the same name is not shy about putting out there: “achieving total space dominance.”
So, what worries me is that, while Space Force purportedly has our Solar System and Universe covered, what of all those other universes where hordes of parallabitants [inhabitants of parallel worlds] are just waiting a la predawn Black Friday for a time-space rift to crack open and unleash them on our Earth because our grass is greener (at least at the moment..in some places..at certain times of the year). We should be afraid. DT warned us after all. These worlds won’t be sending their best. They’ll be ETs (extraterrestrials) with lots of problems. They’ll be bringing drugs, bringing crime, they’ll be rapists (if the parts are compatible).
Fortunately, we don’t have to rely on the Space Force to protect us from a multiuniversarian onslaught. For that, we have the TVA. No, I’m not talking about the Tennessee Valley Authority because they, obviously, only care about the Tennessee Valley. I’m talking about the Time Variance Authority.
So…the Time Variance Authority?
Okay, now it’s time for some backstory. (Is it just me, or is this blog getting lengthedious [tiresome due to excessive duration]?) Never mind. Forging on. As you may or may not know, we live on Earth-616, also called prime Earth, in the Marvel Comics multiverse. Given the danger of being overrun by ETs from other universes (I know, I know; some of them probably are “good people” but still), the powers that be created the chronosessive [overly concerned with time] TVA for our protection. The TVA, according to our unimpeachable source, “claims responsibility for monitoring the multiverse and can prune timelines if they are deemed too dangerous.” In the Marvel world, new universes are created every time a character makes a major decision, so you might imagine how much pruning the TVA has to do. We don’t care about that. We (okay, me) just care about them keeping Earth-616 safe and whole.
But here’s the glitch. The TVA’s agents have less than awe-inspiring names like Mr. Alternity, Mr. Orobourous, Mr. Paradox, Mr. Tesseract, and, my favorite, Mobius M. Mobius. MMM’s claim to fame is that he, along with agents Justice Might, Justice Truth, and Justice Liberty (what happened to Justice the American Way?), captured the Fantastic Four when they went rogue inside the Null-Time Zone………..
Um… My Apologies
I’ve just fallen AOT into the dreaded profundo lepus foramen, better known as the bottomless rabbit hole. And there’s no bottomless rabbit hole more bottomless than the one created by the fevered brains running Marvel Comics.
Remember that cure for writer’s block that went something like “just sit down and start typing”? Scratch that one.
(Images: Space Force flag — US Space Force, Public Domain; Rabbit Hole — posted by Jem — UK blogger — Developer — Entrepeneur (jemjabella.co.uk).)
