Aberrations

Aberrations, also known as temporal aberrations or historical aberrations, are massive alterations of the existing timeline. They are generally prompted by the efforts of time criminals, disrupting the flow of time with anachronistic weaponry, superpowers/bionic abilities and other factors that could change the course of events, which slowly cements and affects a timeline's future. According to Andrew Davenport, it would take some time for the consequences of an aberration to ripple throughout time; those safe inside a temporal zone would remain unaffected by the changes.

Unusually large aberrations would also generate time quakes, emitting shockwaves in the temporal zone. An aberration could happen due to a time pirate selling futuristic weaponry to denizens of the past, or a "time criminal" willfully disrupting the timeline for one reason or another. With help from Berry Jr and Douglas, Sander later built a device to track these aberrations, locating time quakes throughout history.

A person, creature, or an object located at the wrong time period would be called an anachronism threatening the flow of time. People caught up in an anachronism were known to suffer from temporal linguistic dysplasia, causing them to fluently speak the language native to their new location in time and space, even if they couldn't have known it prior to experiencing time travel.

Sander Storm was able to calculate a pattern for aberrations caused by the temporal disruption of the Legion of Doom's attempt to rewrite reality with the Spear of Destiny; aberrations not part of this pattern are currently attributed to Mallus, such as the resurrection of Victor Krane in the nineteenth century.

Overview
A historical aberration would not immediately substitute the reality of the future, allowing the protectors of timeline some leeway and additional attempts in preventing the aberration's effects. The aberrations were prompted by rogue time travelers, such as a time pirate or a "time nemesis", as the Waverider's crew unknowingly described Jonas Scott. Some of the denizens of the future would notice the effects of an aberration, recognizing that the reality is not as it's supposed to be.

History
After the fall of the Time Masters, Andrew Davenport's team, calling themselves the BSSSD, decided to take it upon themselves to protect the timeline from devastation, locating temporal aberrations through Gideon and going on missions to ensure the events pass more or less as they originally did, minimizing the aberrations' effects on the timeline. The BSSSD tackled on a number of such aberrations, one of which was the appearance of blaster-wielding assassins in 17th century France, seeking to kill the royal family.

After the French aberration case, Andrew and Gideon calculated a 96% likelihood of another aberration in Bhopal, 1912. However, before they could attend to it, the Waverider was shaken by a time quake, originating from a cataclysmic aberration in New York City, 1942. The aberration would have long-going consequences, such as an atomic bomb drop on New York, a prolonged World War II until the year 1947, with many more casualties, and historical sources telling of such a war appearing all the way to the future of 2016, while the denizens of 2016 would still recount historical events as they were originally learned, with some of them, like Sander Storm noticing that something wrong is happening with reality itself.

The 1942 aberration, while going according to Adolf Hitler's plan, was fueled by the efforts of the near-immortal Victor Krane and, on some level, his time-traveling bionic partner Jonas Scott. Krane would provide the Nazi regime with uranium, while their plans also required the abduction of Albert Einstein and Mileva Maric, the only people capable of creating the atomic bomb by 1942. After their two time-travel attempts, the BSSSD both forced Krane into wasting his nuclear missile on the Waverider, instead of the original target, New York City, and prompted Albert Einstein to reveal his ex-wife's role in scientific research to the public, making the United States government to provide security from the Germans to both Einsteins, safeguarding them. Realizing the plan's failure, Krane and Scott double-crossed the Nazis, as Jonas slaughtered the U-boat's crew before greeting his partner. On their side, the BSSSD mused on the possibility of a rogue time traveler, a "time nemesis", helping Krane and the Nazis blow up New York City for their own amusement.

Although the aberration's effects were prevented in New York City, it continued in 1942 due to Jonas Scott's biomolecular enhancer ending up in the hands of Baron Krieger. With the enhancer allowing Krieger to transform into a bionic superhuman form, the lives of the Justice Society of America members were in grave danger, forcing the BSSSD to return back to 1942 from the Temporal zone and stop Krieger. Their mission was successful, with the biomolecular enhancer ending in Berry Jr's hands, but Scott ended up taking the Askaran Amulet and killing off Rex Tyler, partially erasing his timeline.

Another aberration happened back in the 19th century, the times of the Civil War in the United States. A time pirate ended up crashing with TX-90 virus onboard his timeship, causing an outbreak of the disease that turned people into a state akin to that of "zombies" from classic horror movies. The outbreak threatened to affect the course of the Civil War, allowing the Confederates to lead the Union army into a trap, ultimately winning their independence from the United States. The BSSSD was fast enough to destroy the source of virus before it was too late, but the "zombified" Confederacy soldiers still ended up sacking Collins Plantation and attacking Ulysses S. Grant's forces of the United States Army, before being blown up by the efforts of Sander, ending the aberration's effects.[5]

Scott and Krane continued to be the source of aberrations, having H.I.V.E. members, including Krane himself, infiltrate the White House, and somehow causing infinitesimal ripples in time that affected Douglas' movements. Krane and Scott acquired another artifact from the Soviet Union's KGB, although the plan to blow up the White House, along with Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev was all for naught. The BSSSD's own involvement caused a massive panic, with the sightings of the "rocket man" (Bionicstorm) dominating the headlines of Channel 52. Heather ended up revealing Krane his ultimate fate from the timeline as she knew it, forcing him into a state of despair. Scott suggested to save Krane and alter his destiny, granting his partner a Time Sphere and time traveling together.

Nevertheless, Krane and Scott's machinations proved to be not the only cause of aberrations, when the BSSSD came to deal with another mishap on behalf of a time pirate, who was seeking the dwarf alloy source in 1874, only to get killed by Quentin Turnbull after revealing the location of dwarf alloy to him. Turnbull's obtaining of dwarf alloy would lead to an aberration resulting in the creation of "Turnbull Country" carved out of the USA's west coast by 1876. Assisting Jonah Hex, the BSSSD succeeded in apprehending Turnbull and preventing the aberration timeline, with Sander stopping the train loaded with explosives that could potentially cut off the United States Army from reaching the country's western territories.

While dealing with the crisis of Dominators in 2061, Tina Figgenbottom realized that, to her horror, the advice she has given to Douglas' younger self regarding his children and their significant others resulted in an aberration in human form: an appearance of Neville Figgenbottom, a son she never had, with memories of him and their life together painfully coming together to Tina's head. Although she contemplated going back in time to erase her "mistake", Tina changed her mind after words of advice from Cyrus  and Naldo, deciding to protect her son and keep his existence a secret from the rest of the BSSSD, save Douglas himself.

Tina and Douglas' secret came into light during the next aberration crisis caused by The Legion of Doom, this one concerning a murder of Eliot Ness in 1927 resulting in Al Capone's rise to the Mayor's Office of Chicago, introducing Oktoberfest. While correcting the aberration, Tina and Douglas have gotten memories of their whole lives with Neville, and revealed them to Heather. Although, initially the new leader of the BSSSD thought that Douglas and Tina should correct this "false" reality, later on, she agreed that, ultimately, happiness and family may be worth more than the sanctity of one version of history. Which, considering the BSSSD's killing of Tokugawa Iemitsu, should have been clear for them a long time ago.

Continuing their hunt for the Spear of Destiny, the Legion of Doom set up another aberration to get the BSSSD's attention while they would hunt for the missing pieces of the spear. Aside from killing Cal DeVito, who was supposed to create a new carburetor for shovelhead motorcycles, they also attacked the filming set of Andrew Davenport and George Lucas, causing the latter to decide to abandon his career as a director. The resulting anomaly robbed Berry Jr and  Naldo Jr of their powers and abilities, as the two never got interested in sciences without watching Lucas's films. The BSSSD managed to undo the second aberration, if not the first, but at the cost of Andrew being taken prisoner.

The Legion of Doom managed to "reprogram" Andrew, binding him to their will, and sending him on a successful mission to bait the BSSSD with an aberration while taking a piece of the Spear. The Aberration in particular being the assassination of George Washington by Andrew, and the arming of the soldiers of England with advanced modern weaponry to use against the Patriots. The BSSSD arrived in time prior to the assassination, which Andrew anticipated (despite already seemingly succeeding in killing Washington once) and ambushed them with his English troops, along with the leaders of the Patriots. While most of the BSSSD dealt with the crisis regarding the American Revolution, Andrew himself boarded the Waverider, almost killed Heather and forced Naldo Jr to give him the piece of the Spear of Destiny.

Another aberration was related with to the actions of heroes rather than villains: after the Justice Society of America's last mission, Stargirl was among the heroes time-scattered by Andrew Davenport to guard the pieces of the Spear, never allowing its reality-warping powers to be in one person's hands. Ending up in the year 507, she settled in the middling British kingdom of Camelot and decided to turn it into the Camelot reminiscent of Arthurian legends, taking on the role of Merlin the Wizard and using advanced sorcery and tech to guide the kingdom to a level of society, culture and technology more akin to the High/Late Medieval period than the Dark Ages it was supposed to be in after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Sander Storm noted that both the court of Camelot and his teammates ended up dressed more like something befitting a Renaissance party than the clothes of Medieval's Dark Ages.

Later on the BSSSD noticed a time aberration during the Apollo 13 mission, assuming that the Dominators are involved. Indeed, the project was infiltrated by Jonas Scott, who disguised himself as one of the astronauts. As the BSSSD journeyed into space to intercept Apollo 13, the Waverider suffered massive internal damage and Berry Jr’s life was left in jeopardy when he is stranded on the moon together with Scott. Working with the villainous bionic human to save both of their lives, Berry Jr and Jonas managed to get to the Waverider and finish the Apollo 13 mission successfully thanks to the help of the "British representatives" Douglas and Cody hogging the attention at NASA.

The confrontation between the BSSSD and the Dominators during World War I, with related intertwining time aberrations, altered realities, aborted timelines etc. ended up with the destruction of the Spear of Destiny and the demise of Jonas Scott, along with all his time remnants and other versions of the Legends' themselves. The breaking of "fundamental rules of time travel" led to a massive time quake, resulting in a great aberration of New York, 2017. The city, along with the world itself and other time periods such as the Spanish Civil War became filled with anachronisms from different time periods, such as ancient dinosaurs.[15] [16] [17]

While the rest of the BSSSD haven't seen him for 15 minutes or so, Andrew Davenport has lived through five years of his personal timeline, assembling a corporation known as the Time Bureau to succeed the Time Masters. The organization focused on fixing the anachronisms caused by the BSSSD's breaking of time and tried to dissolve the team altogether. Noticing an anachronism of Julius Caesar in Aruba, the BSSSD took on themselves to capture him and take back to 49 BC, but not without him stealing Sander Storm's history book "Rise of Rome", allowing Caesar to correct his mistakes and achieve total victories. This resulted in an aberration timeline, with the never-falling Roman Empire creating a colony in place of the United States called Magna Hesperia. The Bureau tried to correct BSSSD's mistake, but fell into Caesar's trap. The two time travel teams had to work together to bring order back to the timeline.

Another aberration the BSSSD encountered was the premature death of Douglas Davenport in 1988, leading to his older version's disappearance from existence. After the BSSSD identified the threat and set a course to 1988, Douglas reappeared, seemingly coming back into existence merely due to the BSSSD's change of plans. The likely reason for that is that Douglas was exactly the one hero that was needed to save his younger self from being shot by NSA Agent Smith for harboring a time-displaced Dominator "Gumball". The Legends assisted Gumball and his mother in reuniting and returning to their own time period.

Following the war with the New Reich from Earth-X, the BSSSD faced a particularly significant anachronism when Chase Davenport of 2009 with a Beebo toy ended up 1000 A.D. American during the Viking visit to the continent. The Vikings praised the Beebo toy as their new god and stayed in American rather than returning to Greenland which led to the anachronism. The anachronism was so significant that Gideon reported it was a level 12 anachronism and the team required the help of Brandon Frangipani to fix the anachronism. After trying to restore to the timeline by destroying the Beebo toy, the BSSSD arrived to pose as Odin and a Valkyrie which created another threat to the timeline. Despite the odds, the BSSSD was able to drive the Kranes away and restore the timeline.

Trivia

 * Although the BSSSD didn't seem to notice, their own killing of Tokugawa Iemitsu ten years before his actual death in history would also radically alter the timeline, as the Tokugawa dynasty continued from Iemitsu's second son, who wasn't born yet in 1641. It's unknown why the team disregarded that, or how did they fix the aberration if they even tried to.
 * The general existence of Neville Figgenbottom is considered an aberration.
 * It is likely that the mechanics of bionic time-travelers that use super-speed make their changes to the timeline take precedence to the timeships' time travel, unless the person is specifically monitored, like Jonas Scott was by the BSSSD, or Andi Beck by the Dominators. This is shown in Jonas' murder of Rex Tyler, who managed to find out about certain plans of Jonas and was given the Waverider by Cody Martin in a previous version of Jonas' battles against the BSSSD; however, Jonas was able to abort all of these developments altogether and alter Rex Tyler's dialogue with the BSSSD by "erasing him from timeline", though actually killing Rex back in 1940s, before he could ever find out anything about Jonas' plans or assist the BSSSD.
 * For unknown reasons, the Time Masters were not made aware that Jonas Scott created a time aberration by killing Ham and Celia Mack before they could found S.T.A.R. Labs and create the particle accelerator.
 * Jonas Scott created another time aberration by killing Bex Mack and making Andi Mack become The Flash before she originally was intended to in the original timeline.