97th Cosmos

The **97th Cosmos**, or **Earth-HG66**, was a Prime-adjacent universe where Earth was invaded by the Wellsians in the late 19th century.

## Naming

“97th Cosmos” was the name used by the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids' Department of Documentation for this universe. (PROSE: *The Resurrection of the Wellsians*, *The Wellsians*) The Drove of the Database-Compiling Dromedaries were also familiar with this universe but designated it as “Earth-HG66”. (PROSE: *The Resurrection of the Wellsians*)

## History

In the Victorian era, the 97th Cosmos was home to a man who invented a time machine. After his initial trip, his friends refused to believe him, prompting him to leave again. However, he fell through a dimensional warp in the Time Vortex, exiting the 97th Cosmos and crash-landing at the door of the Interdimensional Tavern in 2019, where he met Bibliophile-962. (PROSE: *The Interdimensional Tavern*)

Its version of Mars was inhabited by a species of Martians who referred to it as “Wellsia”, hence being known as Wellsians. At some point, the Wellsians invaded the Earth, but were all but wiped out by an epidemic of the common cold, which was deadly to them and which they had contracted from trying to feed on humans' blood. A single ship's worth of Wellsians fled to Venus, where they crashed. (VIDEO: *The Wellsians*)

The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids' Morningstar 1 base was located on the 97th Cosmos's version of the planet Venus, (PROSE: *The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids*) under the leadership of Governor-105. (COMIC: *All That Sparkles Is Not Concrete*) It was built “nearly a century” after the 1897 invasion, with the Council of Frogs agreeing to turn a blind eye to the project on the grounds that the planet was uninhabited and the Cupids had promised to keep out of the local Earth; (PROSE: *The Resurrection of the Wellsians*) the planet was, indeed, believed to be “barren” by the inhabitants of the base, who felt extremely isolated from the rest of reality (COMIC: *All That Sparkles Is Not Concrete*) until they discovered surviving Wellsians. Even before then, the Cupids had a Cupid Fact File about the invasion in their Archive. (VIDEO: *The Wellsians*)

Over time, Governor-105 grew overconfident and tyrannical, beginning to send unauthorised missions to the 97th Cosmos's Earth and ignoring requests for reports from the Cupid Parliament. Having unearthed the Tripod by accident while trying to dig up a new pool, Mandragora-257, who had been banished to Morningstar after one of his experiments went wrong in the Homeworld, engaged in a “Great Experiment” to revive the intact, but hibernating Wellsians he had extracted from the wreckage. He promised the Governor that the resurrected aliens, who would be able to rebuild their Heat Rays, would allow him to rebel against the Crew once and for all, conquer the Earth, and use it as a launching point for an all-out campaign across the Multiverse.

However, the Wellsians were playing the Cupids for their own ends. After finding that the Governor had locked the three Fog Ships kept on retainer in the base, they sent a psychic distress call to the Cupid Homeworld to lure a new vehicle: the Department of Problem-Solving's Ship. The Problem-Solvers uncovered Mandragora's plans, but were unable to stop things from violently coming to a head, with one Wellsian killing Governor-105 point-blank and the other. Because Mandragora was carrying an explosive chemical on his person at the time, this caused an explosion which destroyed the base, killing that Wellsian and one other, as well as discorporating Mandragora. The other Cupids were unharmed, but soon discovered that the five remaining Wellsians had long since taken advantage of the distraction to make their escape. (PROSE: *The Resurrection of the Wellsians*)

## Behind the scenes

The 97th Cosmos as depicted in *The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids* is populated with versions of elements from the science-fiction works of H. G. Wells.