History of Earth-20

Looniverse-20 has a many-storied history even before the Spoon of Destiny Saga. Gaze into the far past: see, Earth-20 swirled together in the cosmic mists as planets usually do, and then...

(See also LNH20 Timeline, History of the Looniverse.)

Around 9600 BC

• Kumari Kandam and @lantis engage in an enormously destructive war, which only ends when the @lanteans unleash the International Solstice Pudding, devastating both friend and foe. While Kumari Kandam is destroyed, the remnants of @lantis escape total destruction by rising into the sky.

1878

• David E. Hughes notices that sparks can be heard in a telephone receiver when experimenting with his carbon microphone. On the opposite side of the world, twenty seconds later, a bright flash lights the sky.

Late 19th Century

• Reports of costumed men and women performing extraordinary feats pop up all over the world. A loose organization forms, known as the Network of Remarkables.

1892

• The last adventure of the Network of Remarkables. After, they are forgotten.

1912

• January 1st: The children of Voidmaster summon the Player's Handbook and become the Shadow Skimmers.

1938

• A faction of the Martian navy attempts to launch an attack on Earth, but this is averted by the efforts of Santa Claus and his allies.

1942

• Three days after the Atanasoff-Berry Computer boots up, Lass Lady appears, with Golden Age Very-Disturbed-Scary-Creature Man and Doc Nostalgia showing up shortly thereafter.
• In the midst of a pitched naval battle, @lantis appears, disabling both sides, delivering a stranded plane back to its carrier, and making an official declaration of neutrality in World War II.

1943

• The mysterious Nightingale begins operations as an anonymous voice on the radio, organizing the heroic community.
• The Society of Wireless Heroes comes together in England.
• Professor Spectacular invents one of the first effective antidepressants, and ends up putting the patent in the public domain.

1950

• Lass Lady disappears.

Early 1950s

• The first great wave of costumed heroism slowly fizzles out, but some heroes continue operating, and new ones appear every so often.

1958

• The US government begins using powered agents, both for military and intelligence/counter-espionage purposes, but always individually and answering to the normal military or intelligence hierarchies.

1959

• The first proper computer network is demonstrated. Inspired by the concept, the premier heroes of the US East Coast, West Coast, Great Britain, France, and Japan band together for mutual support, creating The Network.

1962

• The Network investigates stories about a town that seems to occasionally pop up in various places in the US. They find the town, and its resident hero, Devastator, locked in a ages-spanning battle with the tyrant ApocaLISP. The residents call it only The Village.
  • The Network gives the town an infrastructure that would allows it to be a nearly-normal part of the world, including a wireless connection to the telephone system that would later be the inspiration for cell phones. They decide to stay and make the place their primary base of operations. The town renames itself Net.town in their honor.
• The Cuban Missile Crisis ends when The Network reveals that Fidel Castro is a robot. They're given credit for averting nuclear war, the Soviet Union is allowed to save face by claiming a trick, and the Cold War takes a slightly different and significantly weirder path.
• These events together kick off a wave of renaming, as "net.names" become a fad in the US and across the world.

1963

• Four members of the Network decide to retire from public-eye heroing, instead focusing on their work as explorers of the extraordinary. They join with an unrelated group of four explorers. In the team's very first adventure, an unrelated bystander gains powers and joins the group, which will become known as the Net.astic Nine.

1964

• The Network is so popular that by this time, powered individuals are generally known as net.heroes and net.villains, or net.men in general.

1967

• Captain Nemo is brought forward in time by The Network and establishes the neighborhood of New Bundelkhand in Net.town.

1968

• Net.town is "promoted", renaming itself to Net.city, since the Network's presence and its slightly-above-average technology has caused it to grow like crazy.

1969

• Conservative, pro-war Americans clamor for an "all-American" hero team, which is answered with Y.O.N.D.E.R., or Young Organized Net.hero Defense and Emergency Response. Publicly associated with but officially independent from the military, it is in fact a completely government-organized project. The members of the group are split evenly between those recruited by the military, those who are actually in the pay of intelligence agencies and/or special interests, and those who think the public facade is the truth.

1970s

• "Net.man" is slowly replaced by "net.human" as the word for humans and near-humans with special abilities.
• Y.O.N.D.E.R.'s popularity rivals The Network's in the US; despite power struggles, they manage to maintain a generally excellent heroing record.

1972

• Kid Enthusiastic is born.

1979

• Demand for net.hero teams is low. Many pro-active independent net.heroes keep the need down. The Network is still going, but most founding members (except for a few immortals) are dead or retired.

1980

• Net.city celebrates its one hundred thousandth resident by renaming the city to Net.ropolis.

Sometime in the 80s

• The Mail Carrier War against the Puppy Empire tries to happen, but is thankfully cut short.

1982

• The final battle with Net.cron. Kid Enthusiastic's father dies, and he becomes immortal. Emme is merged with the Sword of Deletion. Other members of the Network die, including Silver Age Very-Disturbed-Scary-Creature Man. Other consequences ensue.

1985

• The Network finally disbands, on the same meeting that Kid Enthusiastic had gone to planning to apply to join the team.

1989

• With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, very few still care for Y.O.N.D.E.R. The team is dissolved, with much of its infrastructure repurposed into P.A.N.I.C..

1991

• Having slowly normalized relations with the rest of the world over the past decades, @lantis joins the United Nations.
• July 31st: Catastrophe disappears mysteriously.

1992

• Net.humans, mostly those that choose not to use their powers as heroes or villains, begin dying mysteriously around the world, but most noticeably in Net.ropolis. A disparate group of net.heroes, as well as a couple of until-then-villains, join together to investigate, and decide to remain a group, as the Saviors of the Net.

1999

• The Killfile goes up, and the Saviors of the Net are trapped, dreaming, in Ava.LAN.
• Net.ropolis is renamed to Netropolis.

2007

• The Killfile falls.
• The LNH comes together, as seen in Tales of the LNH v20.

2012

• The Lycopersicons invade, but are beaten off by the LNH.
• Catastrophe reappears.
• Nerf Girl joins the team, and the Spoon of Destiny Saga begins.