Speed Force

* True Form
* Physical Form

The **Speed Force** is an extra-dimensional source of dark matter energy that provides a particular variation of meta-humans known as 'speedsters' with their powers. It is also an elemental part of the universe. As a result of events of the Anti-Monitor Crisis, the Speed Force suffered from a critical energy imbalance from the Spectres, eventually resulting in its death, leaving all speedsters with limited speed and powers; it was temporarily replaced with the Artificial Speed Force before it being disabled. Barry Morningstar and Team Flash later discovered that the natural Speed Force's energy still existed within Iris West-Morningstar and the team was able to use that energy to restore the original Speed Force. However, when they restored it, Team Flash also unknowingly created three new forces as well.

## Overview

"*When the first subatomic particle sprang forth from the Big Bang to form reality as you know it, we were there. When the last proton decays, stops vibrating, and plunges the universe into heat death, we'll be there too.*"
—A manifestation of the Speed Force (as Joe West) describes itself to Barry Morningstar
The Speed Force is comprised of positive tachyons particles that are infused with dark matter, allowing speedsters access to their main ability of super speed as well as their derived abilities such as time travel and dimensional breaching.
The Speed Force itself is a vaguely explored concept and appears to exhibit forms of consciousness and intelligence; able to manifest itself to communicate with a speedster, using the visage of a person they know. Fallen speedsters may find themselves trapped within the Speed Force itself as a kind of purgatory.
The Speed Force also has enforcers called Time Wraiths to catch and punish those who abuse time travel in order to prevent any further disruption of the timeline. Particularly dangerous time travelers or aberrations are hunted down by the Black Flash; he himself was the victim of a time wraith or two.
During the Anti-Monitor Crisis, it was revealed that the Speed Force exists even without the positive matter multiverse. However, traveling in it is very unstable and without the Spectres powers, any non-speedster brought into it could have been spat out into the antimatter void.
The Speed Force cannot handle certain extra-dimensional energies, like the Spectre's powers; interference of such energies will ultimately deteriorate the Speed Force, eventually "killing" it. However, since the Speed Force is an elemental part of the universe, it can never truly disappear and can be restored if its energy exists somewhere.
## History

### Original multiverse

#### Early history

"*Danny, what you're seeing is the Speed Force: your past, your present, your future all at once. So you need to focus on where you want to go. So think about that night. Think about your mother.*"
—Eobard Thawne directing Sam Thawne/Danny West
The Speed Force itself, once speaking as Joe West, claims to have existed since the beginning of time, and will exist until at least the end of the known universe. Whether this is physically true or just a metaphysical aspect of reality is unknown.
While being imprisoned in the Speed Force, the legend of the time remnant of Barry Allen from 2020/2021 known as Savitar was spread throughout the multiverse and across time, with the lie of his power being the first speedster to ever be granted power from the Speed Force, eventually becoming the fastest out of all of them who desired to challenge other powerful speedsters who threatened Savitar's power to battle before taking over their Earths.
In an alternate future between 2180 and 2190, Eobard Thawne spent years unlocking the secrets of the Speed Force, partly because of his obsession with the Flash and his desire to be the Flash himself. Recreating the reaction that gave the Flash his speed resulted in Thawne becoming a meta-human speedster and gaining super speed and the power of time travel through a Speed Force connection. Upon discovering he'd never become a hero like his idol, Thawne became the Reverse-Flash and created his own Speed Force which made him immune to timeline changes, as well as able to avoid detection by other speedsters.
#### Helping The Flash

After traveling back to the year 2000, Eobard Thawne lost his connection to the Speed Force due to copious amounts of time travel. Because of this, Thawne intended to regain usage of the Speed Force through a plan, killing Harrison Wells and his soon-to-be wife Tess Morgan in order to masquerade as Wells. Fourteen years later, Barry Allen and Sam Allen gained a connection to the Speed Force by the particle accelerator explosion from S.T.A.R. Labs created by "Harrison Wells", thereby creating "The Flash" and the key of gaining more knowledge about the Speed Force.

By this point in Thawne's plan, fifteen years have passed, during which time Thawne was able to use a tachyon prototype to access the Speed Force, absorbing some of it and allowing him to run at high speeds, and vibrate his body and voice. Sometime later, needing to remove The Trickster's kinetic bomb from the Flash's wrist without it exploding, Thawne motivated the Flash to become one with his speed, thus becoming one with the Speed Force, allowing him to better hone his ability to vibrate and phase through a tanker, leaving the bomb on the other side.

When trying to travel back in time to prevent the murder of his mother, Nora Allen, Danny West was able to physically see the Speed Force after passing Mach 2, viewing events from his past, present and future all at once. To travel where he wanted to go, Danny had to think about a specific time and place, of Sam's memories, before transporting into his childhood home and into his bedroom, just as his brother's and his younger selves was walking down the stairs to see his mother trapped in the tornado of light, that was actually Reverse-Flash and his brother's future self as the Flash fighting over the younger Barry's fate at super speed.

In 2013, on Earth-26, a serial killer named Hunter Zolomon gained a connection with the Speed Force because of the particle accelerator explosion from S.T.A.R. Labs created by Harrison Wells. However, after becoming a speed demon name "Zoom", Hunter was proven unworthy due to abusing the Speed Force for his own benefit, such as killing others. The speedster also time traveled recklessly throughout the timeline, forcing the Speed Force to clean up his mess. Hunter later developed a drug to make him go faster, thus further abusing his speed to terrorize more Earths throughout the multiverse. One day, while on Earth-27, Hunter found out that the drug was killing him and he attempted to manipulate the Speed Force. Because of all of his selfish actions until now, the Speed Force responded by constantly sending Time Wraiths after Hunter, since he has been proven too much of a threat to the timeline to remain alive. However, these efforts were to no avail since the unworthy speedster went into hiding, occasionally pretending to be "Jay Garrick" (as a time remnant) on Earths 25 and 26.

A few months later, Barry traveled back in time to where his former teacher, Eobard Thawne, was alive since he was desperate to run faster to beat Zoom. Because of such an invalid reason, the Speed Force sent a Time Wraith after the rookie speedster. However, this Wraith failed to do its mission, as it was obliterated by outside help from Barry's friends.

When Barry tried to regain his powers through a second particle accelerator explosion, instead of him simply regaining his powers, the will of the Speed Force pulled Barry into itself. It was inside of the Speed Force that Barry discovered that the Speed Force had a personality and could be spoken to, firstly as Joe West. Before the Speed Force allowed Barry to regain his powers, he had to prove himself worthy of retrieving his powers again. In order for Barry to regain his powers, the Speed Force gave him a trial, to catch a dark speeding shadow. The shadow at every stop led Barry to places of great personal importance where the Speed Force manifested itself as an important person in his life to speak to him, such as Iris, and then Barry's "father". During the trial, Cisco created a breach to the Speed Force dimension and a vortex of energy appeared to Barry. The Speed Force told Barry that if he did not complete the trial before leaving, he would be returning to Earth without his powers. By accepting tragedy and moving on instead of letting it define him, the Speed Force allowed him to become a speedster again with the shadow appearing before Barry so that he could catch it. The shadow was revealed to be a manifestation of Barry as the Flash before Barry transformed into the figure. Barry then left the Speed Force with the help of (the real) Iris calling out to him through the vortex after hugging the Speed Force's manifestation of his mother. After defeating Girder, Barry visited Jesse Wells in her coma where he touched her hand and a spark of energy woke her from the coma.

During this time as well, Sam Allen before the Multiverse form Earth-Prime 2, he was joined with the Legends also and he created a time remnant to stay behind in his place at the Vanishing Point, as Leonard Snart was gonna stay, and his remnant stayed there and waiting for the Oculus to be destroyed.

The Speed Force later sent two Time Wraiths after Barry when he created a time remnant during his fight with Hunter. Upon arriving, however, they discovered Hunter and realizing that Barry used the time remnant to clue them into Hunter's location, the Wraiths spared Barry and attacked Hunter instead. Badly beaten and weakened from the race, Hunter could only scream in terror as the Time Wraiths surrounded him and began forcibly transforming him into a demonic-looking skeletal being, changing the lightning-bolt emblem of his costume red as well as its outline and the earpieces as well as turning the emblem circle white and turning his speed lightning red. The Time Wraiths then reopened their portal and dragged the decaying form of Zoom into the Speed Force. This made him lose his remaining sanity, his humanity, his free will and decayed his body to an undead state similar to that of the Wraiths. Months later it was revealed that he was transformed into the worst and most powerful version of time specters, known as "Black Flash".

Later, Barry Allen and Jay Garrick attempted to trap Savitar in the Speed Force forever by throwing the Philosopher's Stone into the Speed Force via a wormhole that Barry and Jay had created. However, Barry was accidentally thrown five months into the future, where he sees a possible future where Iris West is murdered by Savitar, explaining that either Savitar was freed after being thrown in the Speed Force, or that the Philosopher's Stone would reappear in the future. This later became known as the Speed Force Prison, where one with a connection to the Speed Force must remain.

It was later revealed that the Speed Force was where the future Barry had managed to trap Savitar. Team Flash unintentionally gave him the Philosopher's Stone, except a small piece that had broken off of the whole stone, which Savitar needed to free himself from the Speed Force. Hoping to use it to get rid of her powers, Caitlin kept this piece for herself. She later confessed this to the rest of the team, and when Wally West threw the last bit of the Stone into the Speed Force, he was dragged into the prison, freeing Savitar.

When rescuing Wally, Barry entered the Speed Force and the Speed Force shows up in the form of people from his past, such as Ronnie Raymond, Eddie Thawne, and Leonard Snart, while lecturing Barry specifically for his creation of Flashpoint and messing with the timeline. With help from Jay, Barry found Wally, who was trapped in his own personal hell: witnessing his mother's death, over and over in an endless loop. Savitar faced his own personal hell when he was in the Speed Force, and Jay also faced this after Barry and Wally left, as the Speed Force needed an occupant in place of Wally and Jay took that place.

In the final battle with Savitar, Savitar created a portal to the Speed Force and was using an inter-dimensional splicer to splice himself throughout every moment of time as part of his endgame and contingency plan in order to escape the paradox that would soon erase him since he failed to kill Iris West. In an attempt to stop him, the Speed Force dispatched Hunter to erase him from existence. However, Killer Frost, who was beside Savitar the whole time, defeated Hunter with a cold blast. When Savitar used the splicer, however, Jay was finally freed and assisted Team Flash in defeating the former. This, however, had very destructive consequences as the Speed Force had become unstable due to the vacancy of the Speed Force Prison, which in effect caused a Speed Force Storm which devastated Central City. Realizing that the only way to stop the storm was to go into the Speed Force Prison, Barry voluntarily went with the Speed Force for his past crimes of creating Flashpoint and his use of time travel. However, taking the form of his mother, the Speed Force promised Barry he wouldn't experience the hell that Savitar, Wally, and Jay had.

In 2018, when Barry and Nora West-Allen traveled throughout the Speed Force in order to build a weapon against Cicada, the Speed Force sent a Time Wraith on two occasions: one due to the many possible aberrations that could occur because of future Barry and Nora's presence in 2017 and the other to take care of a time-traveling Zoom in order to prevent changes to his involvement in the timeline.

#### Infected

In 2019, after Barry was infected by Ramsey Rosso when he saved Ralph Dibny, the Speed Force appeared to Barry as Nora Allen and explained that Ramsey's infection was gradually taking control of Barry, and because the infection was sentient, it allowed for Ramsey to be planted in Barry's mind. After warning Barry of Ramsey's true intent to bend him to his will, the Speed Force disappeared, leaving Barry to fight the infection. Later, after Ramsey informed Barry that there was a way to avoid his impending death in the Crisis if he followed him, the Speed Force reappeared and took Barry back to the manifestation of his childhood home. After Barry confided his feelings about his fate and desperation to survive, the Speed Force revealed that Ramsey was telling the truth, although that wasn't the path for Barry, prompting Barry to angrily accuse the Speed Force of wanting him to leave his family behind and being the main reason for his suffering in the first place.

After the Speed Force tried desperately in vain to explain that it was on Barry's side, Barry gave in to Ramsey's influence and phased through the Speed Force's manifestation of Nora, just before Ramsey appeared and attempted to fully take control of Barry, leading to a battle between both sides for Barry's mind. Just then, however, Team Flash managed to recover Barry from his hallucinations, although they soon realized that Barry wasn't acting like himself. Barry revealed his infected body and raced out of S.T.A.R. Labs to submit to Ramsey, indicating that Ramsey was able to best the Speed Force despite its power, and fully infect Barry. However, it was soon revealed that Barry willingly submitted to Ramsey so he could defeat him from inside.

### New multiverse

#### Anti-Montior Crisis

> : "*A few months ago, a substance entered the Speed Force... something that we'd never encountered before. We tried to contain it, but it contaminated us. It upset the balance of our energies."* *"The green and white lightning."* *"It is infernal power... beyond the laws of our nature."[...]"During Crisis, I made the Spectre give me his energy so I could enter the Speed Force again. I am responsible. I did this. I killed the Speed Force.*"
>
> : —Nora as the Speed Force and Barry Morningstar realize the truth of its impending death

During the Anti-Monitor Crisis, the Spectre hesitantly used his cosmic energy to give Barry a boost so that Barry could get into the Speed Force in order to take the Paragons to the dawn of time. However, his energy created an imbalance within the Speed Force causing its condition to deteriorate. After the Crisis, Barry and Sam began to suffer from occasional "hiccups" while they ran, but he didn't think much of these "hiccups" at first. When Wally West returned to Central City, they discovered the truth of the Speed Force being poisoned. However, they were too late to save it.

#### Death

After its death, the Speed Force became a desolate wasteland where an abandoned replica of the West house was the only material place. After the Speed Force was reborn and the other forces of nature were unleashed, Barry eventually traveled to this point in time with Iris West-Morningstar, Alexa Rivera, and Bashir Malik in an effort to hide them from the Speed Force.

#### Rebirth

Team Flash attempted to use the knowledge contained in Nora West-Allen's journal to create an artificial Speed Force, but was unsuccessful. After an encounter with a clone of Godspeed, Cisco Ramon realized that the missing element that they needed in order to create an artificial Speed Force was in Atlantis.

Later, after successfully creating the artificial Speed Force, Barry and Sam suddenly gained the power of speed thinking. Barry planned to his new-found power to get his friends out of the Mirrorverse while Cisco tried to figure out why Barry suddenly had this new power. Cisco eventually discovered that because Team Flash didn't use emotions to stabilize the artificial Speed Force, Barry began to lose his emotional response and to rely only on logic when making decisions. After this loss of emotions caused Barry to harm Iris when he retrieved her from the Mirrorverse, he damaged the artificial Speed Force machine and destroyed the artificial Speed Force in the process.

Later, Barry discovered that the Speed Force still existed within Iris when he felt a "spark" when he was with her. Barry and "Timeless" Harrison Wells then theorized that it was possible that the Speed Force never disappeared since it is an elemental part of the universe. Team Flash then repurposed the artificial Speed Force machine and used the energy within Iris to restore the Speed Force. However, when they restored the Speed Force, Team Flash also unknowingly created the Still Force, the Strength Force, and the Sage Force.