Multiversal Office

The Multiversal Office is a plane of pure bureaucracy, an inter-world structure that has a Universal Office in each of many different universes.

History

Twenty years before Wrath of the Administrator, a man who would become The Netromancer found a door into the Universal Office of the Looniverse and plotted to use it to control the world. The Net.Trenchcoat Brigade formed in response to this, and one of them found Xeroxes, an old god who, it was claimed, created the Office, and had him shut it down.

While exploring the Astral Plane, Constellation, Particle Man and Sig.Lad accidentally shifted into the Multiversal Office. They found that the Looniverse's Universal Office had been destroyed, and left – right before workers came to put a new Universal Office in its place.

Not long after, Acton Lord discovered the Office, and schemed to take its power for his own. Controlling it through proxies, he extended his corrupting tendrils across realities, and trapped the Secret Dvanders in a Pocket Bureaucracy. But when he went to finally face them, Sig.Lad slew him with the Sword of Sig and the power of Arthurian literature. The Sword was thrust into a monitor, its stabilizing powers keeping the Looniverse's office intact but dormant.

The ASH universe had had contact with the Multiversal Office before, but in 1998, a Barrier went up cutting that world off from outside influences. Decades later, the Barrier weakened, and in 2026, the links reopened. Members of the Academy of Super-Heroes investigated the situation; with no one actively trying to control the Office, it was a subtly dangerous environment, but seemed to have only a small effect outside of its own confines.

Attributes

The existence of a Universal Office seems to be mostly benign, though it can passively increase bureaucracy levels anywhere a link to it exists. However, the power of the Office may be used to plunge a world into a completely bureaucratized state, where massive stacks of paperwork are required for even the simplest tasks. As well, the Office itself can be a trap for the unwary; it creates a hunger for doing paperwork, and can drain the life force of those who seek to use its power, for good or for ill.

One of the ways the Office defends itself is with Pocket Bureaucracies, self-contained mini-universes where those who are sucked in are slotted into predetermined roles in an endless, self-sustaining office.

The Office seems to contain intelligent beings who are native to that world. Intelligent mannequins populated at least one Pocket Bureaucracy, and Deathstocker styled himself as "Defender of the Pocket Bureaucracy". ASH's Universal Office had a seemingly-autonomous "Human Resource", who was tasked with interacting with humans when proper procedure was insufficient.

Awards

In 2010, the Multiversal Office won RACCies:Favorite Villain/Antagonist.

Appearances

• Wrath of the Administrator
• Bad Forms
• ASH #107-109, 122-123
• RACCies Ceremony 2010
• Ultimate Mercenary #7
• Another LNH Title? Really? #4