Kar'a of House El was born to an esteemed line, but one long past it's golden hours. Where House El had once been noteworthy for it's Science and Administration Caste members, too many generations had past without anything of note from House El. Some said this was starting to change with brothers Jor-El and Zor-El; both were well known in their fields, though both struggled to overcome the dwindled fortunes of House El. Political connections had been lost to both brothers, making their climb to renewed respectability all the more impressive.

And ensured their story, and the story of every Kryptonian, would end in tragedy.

If House El had retained it's prominence, maybe Kryptonian decision makers would have listened to Jor-El. Had Zor-El been convinced by his brother sooner of the coming end of times, something could have been. Something, anything. But nothing was done, for no one listened. When the universe gave signs of ruin no Kryptonian could dispute, it was already far too late. Krypton was in it's last twilight.

Many young Kryptonians refused to accept it. Surely their futures were not gone already. Something could be done, anything? Some tried. Ero of House Rol, the most renowned mind of the Science Caste, became convinced of a universal doorway that could be constructed, and used to at least get some young Kryptonians off the surface. Individual craft, he argued, would never get enough Kryptonians off the surface to make a difference. Most would likely die in the long, A.I. directed, trip to whatever destination while the Kryptonian lay dormant in stasis.

Where the renowned dismissed the idea, Jor-El and Zor-El became obsessed with it. All they needed, the brothers argued, was to get Kal and Kar'a off the planet. Kal was so young, and the trip so inherently dangerous, that Jor-El's wife nearly talked him out of sending the infant. But Kar'a promised she could look after him, and protect her infant cousin. The mission was finalized, construction and training for Kar'a began. It was then that Kar'a said saw many of her friends for the last time, saying farewells before retreating to Jor-El's secluded citadel.

Kar'a still keeps a picture sent to her by a group of her friends, all of them together for the final end, mere hours before the dying began.

The best laid plans...as predicted, something went wrong with the plan of House El. Kar'a craft went off course, slipping through an unrecorded wormhole. The A.I. of her craft, Sanctuary, corrected the course, but the damage was done. Going off course would cost Kar'a twenty seven years, unknown to a frozen in stasis Kar'a. She would spend an unknown amount of time at the bottom of one of Sol-III's oceans, until a figure with alabaster skin and starlight for eyes came to her in dreams, and gently pushed her back to realm of the conscious.

It was Kar'a first contact with any Terran, and the figure's protective nature, to say nothing of what he did for her, would do much to open Kara's mind and heart to Terrans. After awaking just in time to save Sanctuary from major damage, Kar'a would spend days repairing Sanctuary to full functionality and working order. When Sanctuary raised above the waves of the south Pacific Ocean, and opened it's primary hatch, Kar'a breathed in this new planet's atmosphere in for the first time, and was hit with it's yellow sun for the first time.

By the time Kar'a fully processed what the rays of the yellow sun did to her physiology, Sanctuary had located Kal-El: he was dead, murdered. Guilt leveled Kar'a, the person who was supposed to protect Kal-El. In her grief she asked Sanctuary to tell her what Kal-El had become. Clark Kent, Smallville, the Daily Planet, Superman, the Justice League...it all flashed before her eyes.

The plan became her own covert assimilation into the population of Sol-III. Months of training and research on Sol-III followed, all of it in the utter isolation of Sanctuary and the Atlantic ocean. Eventually a plain was laid; Kar'a would adopt the alias of Kara Connors, Sanctuary would break into human computer networks and establish the details of the identity. Since money was needed, Sanctuary took it from the computerized bank accounts of several human corporations that Kar'a had discovered during research to be corrupt and more harmful to the planet and eco-systems of Sol-III than good.

The alias and funding in hand, Sanctuary edited the records of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston to make Kara Connors a first year student; one face among so very many. The school's strong record in Science and Technology appealed to the Kryptonian Science Caster. The idea was to provide Kara with an introduction into not just Terran technology and science, but an introduction into the society and culture of 'hew-mans' as well. During her stay at MIT, the Astrology department reported several break-ins. Nothing was ever taken, but their instruments and computers were always left pointing to the same sector of deep space. Despite searching for curiosity's sake, the MIT astrologists could never find anything in the sector of space. Only debris and light from an explosion of incredible magnitude...