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The key MacGuffin for the second season of HBO Max’s Peacemaker is the Quantum Unfolding Chamber (QUC), which the title character describes in Season 1 as "a quantum unfolding storage area… that leads to a dimensional nodule outside of normal space.” More simply, it’s a big room with 100 doors in it – and it’s actually vitally important for understanding the overall plot of James Gunn’s DCU. We know what’s behind Door #1… So what about the other 99 doors?

Spoilers for Peacemaker season 2 past this point.

Before we even break down what might be hiding in those doors and how that all potentially connects to DC Comics, we need to get some terminology out of the way. In an interview with actor Rainn Wilson in Interview magazine, writer/director/DC Studios head honcho James Gunn explained why the QUC was so important.

“There’s this thing called the QUC—the Quantum Unfolding Chamber—which we saw in season one of Peacemaker and exists in Auggie Smith’s closet, which is a dimensional doorway,” Gunn says. “We find out it’s a dimensional doorway to 99 other dimensions—and by dimensions, I don’t mean alternate realities. I mean other dimensions, other realities. And that becomes a sort of crisis with Argus, who is in charge of looking over Metahuman affairs, because of what happened in Superman with Lex Luthor’s dimensional pathway tearing up and destroying a quarter of Metropolis. So that’s obviously on their radar.”

Peacemaker (John Cena) says it plainer in this week's Peacemaker season 2 episode 2,  'A Man Is Only as Good as His Bird,' while explaining the QUC to Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks): “It’s a dimensional portal that leads to 99 other universes.”

Why is all this important to clarify? For the layman viewer, it’s not, necessarily. But it does point to a different mythology than, say, the MCU. Without getting too in the weeds, in Marvel’s mythology, it’s helpful to think of dimensions as a stack, while the multiverse is a series of different stacks. So, for example, in the main MCU, there’s also a Dark Dimension, a Nightmare Dimension, etc.… But each version of the MCU also has its own Dark Dimension and Nightmare Dimension.

With the DCU, we don’t know how it will all fall out yet, but it seems that both Gunn and, by extension, Peacemaker are positing that – for the moment – there are 100 total dimensions, some that are similar to the main DCU, others that are very much their own thing.

Here’s what we know so far, now that the terminology (and mythology) are out of the way. There’s the main DCU, where Creature Commandos, Superman, and Peacemaker Season 2 take place, as well as (presumably) the upcoming Supergirl, Lanterns, Clayface, and more movies and TV shows to be announced. We also know that there’s a dimension that’s home to the kyphotic alien (Dorian Kingi), the weird alien dude who wandered out, incinerated a rat/cat thing, and refused to say good morning to Peacemaker in season 2, episode 1.

The main alternate dimension we’re following in Peacemaker, though, is what we’re calling the DC2, a dimension that at least so far seems very similar to the DCU, with the exception that Peacemaker is a beloved hero, and part of the team the Top Trio with his very-much alive father Auggie, aka The White Dragon (Robert Patrick), and brother Keith Smith, aka Captain Triumph (David Denman). There are other differences like hair metal bands having  slightly different names (Def Leopard instead of Def Leppard, for example), but anything else vastly different… Well, we’ll have to keep watching.

And there’s one other dimension we know about: the imp dimension. Dimensional imps were mentioned in Superman when Superman (David Corenswet) takes a break from searching for Krypto the Superdog to have a heart-to-heart conversation with Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan). While they’re talking, the Justice Gang is fighting a massive, glowing “dimensional imp” in the background. Then in the Peacemaker season 2 premiere, Auggie tells a story of Peacemaker as a kid sneaking into the imp dimension to steal giant peppermint sticks and getting chased back home to the DC2 by thirty or so imps.

To take a quick step back, in case you’re wondering: the QUC isn’t a dimension; it’s a pocket universe, basically a space between two universes, versus an entire dimension in and of itself. The concept of the pocket universe first appeared in 1986 in Legion of Super-Heroes #23, but it’s also appeared earlier in the DCU. Specifically, in Superman.

"I replicated the Big Bang with a LuthorCorp Megacollider, tearing a tiny hole in the two universal fabrics,” Lex Luthor, played by Nicholas Hoult in the movie, explained in the film. “I'm able to access it from multiple dimensional portals I set up around the globe."

In the movie, Lex has set up a prison, lab, and other facilities inside the pocket universe, though all of his portals lead back to the DCU – not 99 other dimensions like for the QUC. But one key piece of lore that is dropped in that otherwise throwaway speech? That Lex tore a hole in “the two universal fabrics.”

It’s something that goes unremarked on, but seems like it will become vitally important as the DCU continues: what is the second universe? Is it one we’ve seen on Peacemaker? Is it, in fact, the DC2?

The answer to the last question is 'maybe,' but it does set up a key piece of lore from DC Comics, that there are multiple versions of the DC Universe out there, including other dimensions. It’s possible that what Lex was referring to could be Earth 2, which has held different positions in the comics, but was first used to explain what happened to the original, Golden Age iterations of the characters. In the landmark crossover issue The Flash #123 from 1961, the Golden Age Flash met the Silver Age Flash, leading to decades of more and more convoluted crossovers until DC rebooted their entire comic book line to bring things under control with the 1980s crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths.

But there are far more possibilities for which second universe Lex could have been referring to, as well as what’s behind those other doors in the QUC. Some options include Earth 3, which is usually home to the Crime Syndicate of America, an evil version of the Justice League. There could also be Earth Four, which was the home of the heroes from Charlton Comics (including Peacemaker) before they were integrated with the main DC Universe. There’s also the Wildstorm Universe, home to The Authority, who have a movie in development (and usually include Superman baddie The Engineer in their ranks). Heck, one of them could be Earth-X, a version of the DC Universe where Nazis won World War II – though the popular theory is that is the DC2, since Auggie is very racist in the DCU, and that would explain why the Top Trio is so popular in DC2.

DC Comics has varied in its approach to the multiverse throughout the years, ranging from an infinite number of universes, to 52 total universes, to the current comics continuity situation, where there are two accessible – the main DC Universe, and a rebooted Absolute Universe. So this idea that there are 100 dimensions is right in line with the comics, where the only rules are: the rules keep changing.

So what’s behind Doors 2-100? We’ve discovered some of them, but we’ll likely find out a whole lot more, not just in Peacemaker Season 2, but in the rest of the DCU TV shows and movies. And with the introduction of this many universes, like the comics before it… Can a DCU Crisis be far behind?

Enjoy our guides to how to watch the recent DCEU, the Arrowverse, and James Gunn's upcoming DCU.