And Now You Know: Askani Myths
By Renchamp 2 Comments
I've been retooling a lot of the Askani timeline stuff and I've noticed a big misconception: Askani, as a character, is highly misunderstood. The character never, I repeat, never appears in the Askani timeline. Never. Her sisterhood? Yes. Her? No, not unless it is in the briefest of flashbacks.
Askani is a name given to two different women at two very different times. The first Askani is charged with coming to the past so as to protect baby Cable at a critical juncture in history. Askani is not a true being. She is energy with a body, if that makes any sense. (It doesn't to me, but that's how they explain it.) Sad story, Askani fails. Baby Nathan is infected by a techno-organic virus and he must be taken to the future where technology can save him. This Askani dies. Her body was given up for the mission. The mission is over, so is her life.
The second Askani is also sent back in time as a being of energy (again, somehow in a body), but she is to protect Cyclops and Jean Grey from Stryfe, whose mind has been inside Cable and has been awakened by Mr. Sinister. She also fails because Cable's son Tyler gets in the way. He keeps her trapped so that she can't warn anybody about Cable's new condition. Tyler's plan: Stryfe (in Cable's body) is surely going to want to find Tyler and Tyler will be able to kill both Stryfe and Cable at the same time. Stryfe shoots Askani, but before she goes the way of dispersed energy, she is able to probe Stryfe's mind and get him to let go of Cable. She dies, too.
Yes, crazy stories (but all very good reads). Just let it be known that Askani is not some person that happens to represent everything that the clan does. She existed as two separate women who both failed in their prime directives, yet were also incredibly influential in the grand scheme of things.
Post script: Some have ventured that Jenskot was an Askani because she also traveled to the past to perform a certain task. This is false, however, when you compare her visit with the two legitimate Askani women. Jenskot was actually sent. She had her body. The others were energy forms. Also, she wasn't trying to prevent something in the past to influence the future, she was trying to prevent something in the future to influence the future.
