"Wait, what's happening?!" The woman with the steel whip retreated a step, her eyes wide as she looked up at the sky. A roar echoed outside the star port.
"This is a star port floating in outer space! How can it be raining??!!!"
The subordinates following the woman were somewhat panicked. They retreated several steps, looking confusedly at the strange signs in the sky. However, the lowly ones dressed not in armor but in cloth garments looked somewhat blankly at their hands; when rain fell on their skin, it didn't slip off the surface but disappeared.
The woman hesitated for a moment, a flash of confusion in her eyes. The veins in her hand holding the whip bulged. In an extremely low voice that no one else could hear, she said, "How is this possible? Has the Apocalypse Star's force field been broken?! This absolutely cannot be, no one has ever done it. It's not good, I must figure out a solution."
She gritted her teeth, her expression gradually turning fierce. Her muscular arm filled out the tight suit in an instant. With a loud scream, she violently swung the steel whip, and currents danced across the entire hall.
"Attack, kill them!" the woman shrieked. "We can't just let them invade the Apocalypse Star!"
She had completely forgotten her previous contemptuous attitude. Because she knew more than the other low-ranking soldiers here, she understood what the changes that had just occurred truly meant.
The Apocalypse Star itself is a huge force field.
This is the truth only known to the high-ranking officials of Apocalypse Star. This planet can maintain such a strange state under the physical rules of the cosmos, entirely because the Apocalypse Star is both a planet and a star system, both a physical celestial body and an aggregate of energy.
This force field not only maintains the existence of the Apocalypse Star, but also plays the most crucial role: any creature living in this force field will be influenced by the force field to serve Darkseid, eventually becoming a fanatical follower of Darkseid, willing to sacrifice everything for him, including their own lives.
This is why Darkseid's fleet kidnaps prisoners around the cosmos and drops them on the vast surface. After a period of time, they would become natural loyal soldiers and laborers, demanding no rewards and only willing to die for Darkseid.
The Apocalypse Star does not need to develop potentially rebellious or uncontrollable robotic and clone tactics. Instead, the naturally intelligent beings influenced by the Apocalypse Star force field are the most loyal. It only takes dropping them on the surface of the planet for a while to turn them to your side. There's no cheaper way to create cannon fodder.
However, now, it seems that there is another darker force field gradually eroding the Apocalypse Star's force field covering the star port. It is perhaps inaccurate to say an erosion, more like a takeover or substitution. The familiar force field in the star port has completely disappeared, replaced by a chilling wind and rain, a night sky, and the silence of seriousness and the laughing of terror.
"Lady Rashina, something seems wrong..." A trembling voice came from behind the woman; she turned to look, finding a guard collapsed on the ground, staring at the space above the star port with a horrified expression.
That area had a transparent dome covering it, and the woman known as Rashina turned to look, her forcefully composed expression crumbling completely at the sight of the thick clouds and the sporadically visible moon behind them above her head.
"What on earth is happening?!!" Rashina shouted in despair: "This is a space station. Where did the atmosphere come from? What is that glowing yellow unidentified celestial body?!!"
Constantine, who was twirling a wine glass, also showed a puzzled expression. He watched the inexplicable changes in the weather on the screen and asked in confusion, "So what exactly is going on? Who did you send to cast an illusion? But if it's just a scene appearing, why are these people panicking?"
"This indicates that what they're seeing isn't a mere image." Shiller held the upper rim of the wine glass alertly and laid it flat on the wooden armrest. He crossed his legs, put his crossed fingers in front of him, and showed a smile without elaborating.
This brings us to a derivative rule of the Batman and Joker aggregation law, namely the Gotham Identity Equation.
Which came first, Batman and Joker or Gotham?
This is a question worth considering. Some people think that Joker was born from the darkness of Gotham, it's the dark social situation in Gotham that gave him his bad day and made Joker appear.
If we follow this line of thought, then the order of appearance should be Batman first, Gotham second, and Joker third. To highlight the dark attributes of Batman, Gotham is always influenced by a kind of primal darkness, which in turn creates the Joker.
The problem with this line of thinking is that it deconstructs the fate theory of Batman and Joker, arguing that Joker is an indirect product and just a supporting role in Batman's dark story. It regards Joker as an equal to Gotham, or even born out of Gotham, ranking slightly below Gotham.
However, this is against the aggregation law of Batman and Joker. Batman and Joker are always equal in the DC Universe, always directly related. There is no cause and effect between them, but mutual accomplishment and dependence.
So, it seems that the existence of Gotham is not necessary between Batman and Joker. But what Gotham represents is not merely a city on the East Coast of America, it symbolizes the stage for Batman in the never-ending dark tale. The elements that construct this stage are as complex as the factors that create the characters of Batman and Joker.
As it is well known, the elements constituting the Joker can be Batman's gaze, a chemical pool, a terrible day, a smile, the circus, and so on. Therefore, the first element constituting Gotham is naturally Batman, and the second element is Batman's arch-enemies.
Gotham is a stage set up for the never-ending struggle between Batman and his arch-enemies. Therefore, wherever the struggle plays out is the stage, and naturally that place is Gotham. This is the identity equation of Gotham.
Of course, since Gotham is defined this way, it can be inferred that the biggest factors affecting the existence of Gotham are Batman and his enemies. Among these enemies, although it includes the Joker, in the constant equation of Gotham, the one that impacts the existence of Gotham the most is still Batman.
That is to say, this bears a certain resemblance to the Batman-Joker integration law; whatever kind of existence Batman is, Gotham will change according to his different states.
For example, a Batman, like the Primary Universe Batman, seems completely incapable of saving Gotham. That's because the darkness in their hearts has never changed, so the root source of Gotham's darkness will not disappear, and the dark nature of this city will persist for a long time.
In some comics, Batman stops being Batman and instead becomes Bruce Wayne, using business methods to save the city, successfully rescuing this City of Darkness and restoring true order to Gotham.
Some people say that those Evil Batmans are foolish for not thinking about using capital means to save the city. But in reality, this is just the influence of the foundation of the universe. When Batman is stuck in a mire and can't save himself, Gotham can't be saved either. When he throws away all the darkness of the past, Gotham will naturally see light again.
Having witnessed Bruce's transformation firsthand, Shiller naturally determined this point: when Batman is saved, Gotham is saved; when Batman sees the light, Gotham can see the light again.
This man who is called the protagonist in the story is territorially bound to his stage setting. Anyone who wants to bypass Batman to save Gotham is just daydreaming.
But just for this phenomenon, Shiller believes there is potential for further exploration.
Firstly, if the darker Batman is, the darker Gotham is, then if Batman has some other characteristics, will Gotham change because of this, just like the binding intensity between Batman and the Joker?
But when Shiller's student Bruce became an angel, Shiller did not notice much change in Gotham. He believed this might be because Bruce took over the position of Gabriel instead of truly becoming an archangel. Gabriel's position originally existed, and Bruce just replaced him, so it didn't have a significant impact.
In Shiller's grand plan to catch Evil Batman, there was a small experimental goal, which was to see whether an uncorrupted, inherent Batman who obtained some extraordinary powers would change the Gotham he was in.
As it is well-known, Batman must not know magic, otherwise, the universe will be destroyed. So this Batman who embodies other powers can't stay in his original universe. Otherwise, apart from destroying the universe, the results of the experiment would be unobservable.
After Shiller's universe Bruce brought in Little Bruce, Shiller was unsure whether this entity that was yet to become Batman could be considered Batman, and whether the experiment would be successful, but since he was already here, he might as well give it a try.
After successfully enticing Nyarlathotep to take an interest in Little Bruce and lending him power, Shiller placed Little Bruce in a dark space. To his surprise, Little Bruce's ambition was greater than he expected. If he wasn't going all out, he'd rather take it all.
Upon learning that Little Bruce is very likely to have combined the powers of Nyarlathotep and Barbados, Shiller believed it was time to test whether his conjecture was correct. Thus, when Helen and Harley sought help from the Necronomicon, he issued a plan that was highly detailed in both theory and execution.
In the Necronomicon, Shiller gave a detailed introduction to the Batman-Joker Aggregation Law and several formulas in this law for Harley and Helen, including the conditions of Joker's establishment, and the phenomenon of Batman and Joker's power binding.
That's why these two girls were so shocked when they saw this plan. Reason being, no one in this world understands Batman better than Shiller.
Of course, Shiller predicted that Helen would eventually take on the role of the Joker. After all, she had already guessed the true identity of the Necronomicon. Helen knew that everyone who participated in Shiller's plan might be pushed along and suffer hardships, but the more they gave, the greater the rewards. Sensing the potential gains here, she eventually agreed to it.
And according to the Batman-Joker Aggregation Law, Doomsday, who became the Joker, is definitely stronger than Batman, so Little Bruce quickly discovered that the two forces in his body, which were originally at odds with each other, combined at a speed he didn't even have time to react to, and underwent some fascinating chemical reactions.
The dark multiverse energy representing Barbados and the codex energy representing the Outer God Nyarlathotep merged and interacted. When power and knowledge unite, Batman's strength rapidly escalates to the level of Doomsday Joker in his younger years.
Similarly, Gotham, which is deeply influenced by Batman, also changed. That is, Gotham, which is now as strong as Little Bruce, who is about equivalent to Doomsday Helen, and Doomsday itself is a completely supermodel existence.
Also due to the changes in Little Bruce being inseparable from mysticism and magic code, the stage he comes with, Gotham, also has similar attributes, implying darkness, madness, and a dizzying mystery.
Little Bruce looked up, what he saw from the rain, the dark clouds, and the moon intermittently hidden behind the clouds was not just Gotham, but also a small seaside town in Massachusetts, which was forever cloaked in thick clouds and damp cold.