You pick the "Earths" for the Multiverse

[DrNewGod]

It simple. You can say than in earth two times moves faster than earth 0.

I've like that answer for a long time. Nobody at DC seems to have since Bates and Maggins.

[Vakanai]

If you could reset all the Earths, basically decide what Earth-2 is, which earth is the Main DCU one, etc, what would you change, or bring back?

I'd start up a new earth to be our "main", for a while.
But I'd bring every DC earth into the multiverse. Pre-Crisis multiverse, every single Elseworld, every Black Label, YA, Ink, Zoom, Kid's title, live action movie or show, every animated film or show, any videogames, and any other out of continuity story, they all exist in the multiverse, even the old new 52, as does other WB properties like Looney Tunes and Scooby Doo and Mortal Kombat. Why limit the multiverse? It all exists, open for good stories and fun match ups.

[superduperman]

Doomsday Clock #12 pretty much did what I wanted. Brought back the pre-Crisis Earths 1 & 2 and New 52 Earth. That's kind of all I really wanted. Whether or not they do anything with it is up for debate but it sounds like at least someone at DC is listening.

[Dataweaver]

I would restructure the Multiverse into three parts: the Central Multiverse, Limbo, and the Elseworlds.

The central Multiverse wouldn't be very big at all. It would have far less than 52 worlds in it, though it would not have a cap on how many world it can have in it. It would consist of the mess of verse and a handful of other worlds that are stable but dynamic. In meta terms, these are the world's where stories are in publication. So, for example, it would include the mainstream DC Universe oh, but also the Wild Storm universe. When and if Milestone gets up and running again, that would also be in the central Multiverse. The idea is to allow worlds that are not nearly variations on the theme of the DC Universe, but that are close enough to it that crossover is it possible.

There is a world at the core of Limbo that resembles a featureless landscape populated bye Heroes that are currently out of print. This would be Limbo as conceived by Grant Morrison. But it isn't the whole of Limbo. Far from it. In fact, the bulk of the worlds in Limbo are of the sort scene in Doomsday Clock #12. The worlds described there as Earth 2, Earth 1985, and Earth 52 all exist in Limbo, along with many others. In fact there are countless versions of even these worlds: the original Golden Age DCU can be found in Limbo, as well as the Earth of the All-Star Squadron, the home of the Justice Society Infinity, and the New 52's Earth 2. The pre-Crisis Earth 3 is somewhere in Limbo, as is the post-IC Earth 3 and the New 52's Earth 3. And so on. Not all of these Earths are equally easy to access; the older and more obscure a world in Limbo is, the harder it is to find.

The worlds of Limbo are stable but not dynamic: the flow of time slows down and eventually stops on them, in which case they can reasonably be referred to as “dead worlds”.

These “dead worlds” can be revived at least temporarily, usually by means of a visitation from someone from the Central Multiverse. Such a “jumpstart” may or may not persist; but while it does, it's pulled closer to the Central Multiverse and can potentially be pulled all the way back in.

The Elseworlds are dynamic but not stable. They emerge from Earth Prime (which is the core of the Elseworlds just as Morrison's Limbo is the core of the Multiversal Limbo and the Metaverse is the core of the Central Worlds) and migrate toward the Central Worlds as they seek the stability offered there. During the time of the Orrery of Worlds, they were locked in a zero-sum game: in order for an Elseworld to live, a world in the Orrery had to die — that is, it needed to be ejected from the Orrery. This lead to the Elseworlds growing more and more brutal as the pressure built up. During this time, the Elseworlds were known as the Dark Multiverse. In my revised Multiverse, that's no longer the case: the Elseworlds aren't being forced to replace central worlds or die anymore — though if they can't achieve a place in the Central Multiverse, they still tend to get lost to an unknown fate; it just takes longer.

Each of these three regions of the Multiverse serves a distinct purpose: the Central Worlds facilitate ongoing publications, such as the mainstream titles at DC; the Elseworlds exist for experimentation: they let you tell one-off stories without the constraints of continuity that the Central Worlds have to deal with, but also without any sort of guarantee that they'll ever be seen again. And Limbo exists to be able to revisit the past, learn from it, and build on it.

This whole structure has a timelike quality to it: Limbo is the “past” or “youth”, the Central Worlds are the “present” or “adulthood”, and the Elseworlds are possible “futures”, or the “elderly”. This doesn't line up with regular time, though: there are futuristic worlds in Limbo and worlds of Victoriana or even more ancient settings among the Elseworlds. But the lifespan of a world is that it's “born” in the Elseworlds, (hopefully) matures in the Central Worlds, and then retires to Limbo. This establishes a flow that's distinct from the flow of time: Hypertime.

Another difference is that most worlds aren't singular dimensions: the Metaverse consists of more than just the Earth and the other planets in space; it also includes the likes of Gemworld and the Antimatter Universe. Most other worlds in the Multiverse have a similar multidimensional structure; in particular, it's extremely common for a world in the Multiverse to be split into a matter dimension and an antimatter dimension — though in many cases, the two halves never learn of each other.

Anyway, that's the big picture. I'll come back later and address the specific question that this thread asked, using this as a framework.