Earth-253

Type: Alternate Earth

Environment: Earth-like

Usual means of access: Vibrational attunement

Dominant Life Form: Similar to Universe-616

Significant Inhabitants: Protectorate (Citydweller, Nightfighter, Professor X, Technocrat, Thor, White Bird, Nicola Zeitgeist)

Significant Locations: Australia, Manhattan, Nairobi, Osaka, Reykjavik, Washington DC

First Appearance: X-Man#71(January, 2001)

History:
(X-Man#71 (fb) - BTS) - Earth-253 is an alternate Earth in which the Protectorate was the major union of superhumans. They were based at in a sub-space headquarters, the Foldcastle.

(X-Man#71 (fb) - BTS) - The Protectorate stopped alien invasions.

(X-Man#71 (fb) - BTS) - The Protectorate ended hunger.

(X-Man#71 (fb) - BTS) - The Protectorate rebuilt time.

(X-Man#71 (fb) - BTS) - Three members of the Protectorate -- Professor X (Nate Xavier), Thor, and Zeitgeist -- undertook a mission to alternate Earths.

(X-Man#71 (fb) - BTS) - Qabiri arrived on Earth-253, intending to destroy it. Though only Professor X and Zeitgeist were the direct threats because they could travel interdimensionally, Qabiri realized that once one of them could do something, that others would want to do it as well.

(X-Man#72 (fb)) - Qabiri appeared above Manhattan. Fatally beautiful, he was thought to be an angel by many. He hovered there for a minute, covered in flames, then released his flames and Manhattan burned; soon Manhattan was destroyed and its people dead.
    Having been in the Foldcastle, Earth-253's still-present members of the Protectorate (Citydweller, Nightfighter, Technocrat, White Bird) then arrived and found Qabiri waiting for them. He told them to give him the "world-walkers" but acknowledged that they all had to die anyway. He blasted and injured Nightfighter and White Bird, but Technocrat shielded himself and Citydweller. Professor X, Thor, and Zeitgeist then returned from their mission, and Zeitgeist demanded that Qabiri leave their world alone. Qabiri flew up into the atmosphere, and Zeitgeist sent Thor and Professor X after him while Technocrat took Nightfighter and White Bird back to the Foldcastle to heal them. Technocrat named him Burning Tiger for his striped face and for the way he set the cities aflame.

(X-Man#72 (fb) - BTS) - Moscow and the White House began arming their missiles, but Qabiri swiftly leveled Washington DC, Reykjavik, Osaka, Nairobi, and apparently all of the major cities. 

(X-Man#71) - Earth-253's Professor X and Thor confronted Qabiri. Ignoring Professor X and Qabiri's advice to the contrary, Thor flew into Qabiri at full speed and was destroyed by the energies swirling around him. Qabiri identified Professor X as the cause of his assaults and one of the ones he was looking for. Professor X formed a dreamball to short out Qabiri's psyche but as the fearless Qabiri allowed him to get close enough, Professor X released Technocrat from the dreamball. Having analyzed Qabiri's force field as pure energy, Technocrat released scorpion-like techno-toys she had concocted to devour that energy. Qabiri destroyed the dreamball, blowing off Technocrat's legs and Professor X's right hand in the process, and then began crushing the techno-toys that swarmed over him. Zeitgeist unleashed an energy blast at Qabiri who then blasted her in return, neutralizing her powers. As Zeitgeist fell, she was caught by Nate Grey-295 (active as a hero on Earth-616) who had been given a vision of Qabiri's threat by Sister Perpetua-616, an apparent counterpart to Zeitgeist.
    Qabiri was furious at the arrival of another "world-walker" and prepared to end this Earth. Nate brought Zeitgeist to Citydweller and the crippled Technocrat (plus Sister Perpetua), and they found that Professor X had died from shock and blood loss. The heroes of Earth-253 had no reason to trust him, but Nate told them they needed to tell him what he needed to know or they would all die.

(X-Man#72) - After telling Nate of Qabiri's assault on Manhattan, Citydweller perished, and as Technocrat finished the story, Citydweller crumbled into pieces. As Nate went to confront Qabiri, a healed Nightfighter reported that they had the rest of Australia was wiped out, but that he had found perhaps 100 Aborigines and were shunting them back to the Foldcastle. From Idaho, White Bird reported that she was being fired upon by survivalists she had found in Idaho, and was losing interest in saving them.
    Nate confronted Qabiri and warned him against fighting him, but Qabiri blasted him, to no effect. Reading Qabiri's mind, Nate told him he was mad, but Qabiri read Nate's mind in return, then told that every world beneath the Brilliant City was broken and must be destroyed. Nate and Qabiri battled, and after an explosive struggle, Nate was defeated, and he fell to the Earth. Figuring it was Qabiri, Zeitgeist had Technocrat transport them to the projected site of impact  in South Central Nebraska to make sure he was dead, after which Technocrat's badly damaged form exploded. Zeitgeist rushed down the crater to slay Qabiri but was shocked to find that it was Nate. Meanwhile, Qabiri unleashed his power on the Earth, destroying Nightfighter and White Bird as he blew the planet into rubble.

(X-Man#73) - Zeitgeist and Sister Perpetua's powers interfaced, enabling them to escape Earth-253 with Nate Grey, arriving in a downspiral world, a "broken," improperly formed world with an acid sea and exploding acid air. Nate's power protected them from the planet long enough for them to encounter Hassan, champion and explorer from the Emirate, who was also an apparent counterpart to Zeitgeist and Perpetua.
    Nate then brought the three women to Earth-616 on the Himalayas, away from civilization so that they wouldn't risk anyone else while confronting Qabiri. Nate then noted the connections between the three women and determined that they were not alternate dimensional counterparts of each other but rather fragments of the same woman, and he merged them back to their true form.

Comments: Created by Steven Grant and Ariel Olivetti.

    Apparently it never occurred to Qabiri that there might be other planets in the universe? And that there might be dimensional travelers elsewhere?

    Multiple people have pointed out to me that the Protectorate was blatantly based on Wildstorm's Authority series (I guess I'm the only one who doesn't read the Authority):

• Citydweller - Jack Hawksmoor
• Nightfighter - Midnighter
• Professor X - the Doctor
• Technocrat - the Engineer
• Thor - Apollo
• White Bird - Swift
• Zeitgeist - Jenny Sparks
  Thanks to Hans Holms, Per Degaton, Ronald Byrd, and Stuart Vandal
• In Comics Value Annual 1999, edited by Alex G. Malloy, Warren Ellis described Midnight as the Shadow with homages to John Woo.
• Thor is an homage to Apollo of Stormwatch, who is in turn an homage to Superman (who derives his power from the yellow sun). Thor is often seen as the MVL equivalent of Thor (well, aside from Hyperion <and Gladiator> of course) since unlike most MVL series characters re-introduced in the early 1960's, Thor wears a cape, as Superman does, and Thor is in a higher strength class than most.--Per Degaton

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
No known connection to:

The Protectorate has no connection to:

• Protectorate - four large robots built by Fabian Stankowicz from remnants of Sentinels used by Onslaught, patterned after Captain America + Ant-Man + Iron Man + Thor, initially designed to replace the Avengers lost in Onslaught, began to attack everything they saw as a mutant when Fabian attempted to cyberlink with their CPU, disabled when Edwin Jarvis helped Fabian break free from the Sentinel CPU’s control—Avengers Annual 1999
• PROTECTORATE COUNCIL GUARD of Earth-4935 (Earth-Cable/Askani) -
      --X-Force II#2
• other "Protect" characters