Avenger Assembled

Lelak A million years ago, the Progenitors (or the Masters, as they called themselves) built a galactic empire spanning almost all of what is now Lor, Grue, and Khanate space. Using their vast power, the Progenitors seeded themselves across space using wormholes, planting "dragon's teeth" of cuckoo-like offspring on planet after planet, offspring that would one day rise up and transform their homeworld into part of the Masters' kingdom. They saw themselves as protectors and patrons of the Lowly races of the cosmos - but their noblesse oblige came at a cruel price. Worlds that rose up were brutally crushed by the vast physical powers of the Progenitors themselves, then cut off from the wormhole network to deny them the benefits of Galactic civilization. Finally, an alliance of star systems and races now largely forgotten in their own turn rose up against the forces of the Masters and overthrew them via their own vast engines of destruction. Progenitor worlds are these days burnt-out shells or bombed-out ruins, orbiting a mysterious chain of dead stars and supernova remnants scattered through the Galaxy. Until the Communion came, and visitors to Kesteven 79 awoke the last remaining Progenitor - Lelak, once a clan leader, now the last survivor of a dead world. Lelak fled his planet ahead of the "Isopteran" forces that followed the Praetorians there, watching as the planet was torn apart by the master wormhole opened by the Communion. Watching his planet burn, knowing all he had known, all he had loved, was gone, Lelak vowed revenge - and more. The Isopterans had been annoying parasites in Lelak's time, termites gnawing away at the foundation of the gateway network. The fallen state of the Galaxy had allowed the Isopterans to grow - he would build, from himself, a new galaxy ruled by those who had always ruled it best. He traveled the Galaxy during the Incursion, tracking down the surviving worlds populated by Master colonists, and finding in those people the ones carrying remnants of Master DNA. Using certain machines, he took those people for his own, amplifying the Master DNA to give them powers and abilities far beyond those of their species while at the same time suppressing the bothersome memories and empathy that might have kept them from their true destiny. Now, from his fortress in orbit of the super-giant NML Cygni, he sends his Children out into the Galaxy to find the lost remnants of the Masters, mighty artifacts that will let them turn back the clock of history and reclaim the galaxy as theirs. It's only a matter of time. Lelak's Children Lelak's Children are like him, fast, strong, and invulnerable, with a fanatical devotion to the cause. They can be found in wretched hives of scum and villainy, hiring middlemen or working themselves to track down lost artifacts to rebuild the power of the Masters. They can be found infiltrating museums and other archeological sites, eager to 'liberate' what is 'theirs' from the Lowlies that dominate space these days. They can be found in almost any species, and are nearly undetectable as such until they use their powers and their skin flushes a familiar shade of dark grey. Lelak With the power of the Bronze Age Superman and the soul of a messianic conqueror, heroes are advised to bring powerful friends, and lots of them, if they choose to fight Lelak. He will choose to do non-lethal damage in the first round or two; he is actually something of a humanist for his people and dislikes carnage. If he is actually injured in a fight, however, or if his Children are killed - all bets are off.

Dìqiú (tentative designation: Dìqiú-Tech-I-1) What made things different? Was it the universities, backed by Daoist temples and protected by custom from Imperial retaliation? Was it the long, successful wars of conquest that forced entrepreneurs to turn to mechanical engineering to replace laborers drafted to the front? Was it the imperial decree for regularized astrological tables that made scholars turn their telescopes to the Heavens? The craze for mechanical toys and clocks that drove increasingly precise manufacturing? A citizen of Dìqiú, standing in the capital of Kaifeng around the year 1200 of the Christian calendar, watching the first airplanes take flight, might not have known the answer - but he could certainly have known that he, a citizen of Song Dynasty China, was a citizen of the largest and most powerful empire in the world, the center of the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions. The gradual spread of Chinese authority, first into the north, then the south, then the west, then finally the east, need not be told here. By 1500 of the Christian calendar, China did nothing so small as _rule_ the world - from client states in Datsin (where Chinese language, culture, and civilization had become a watchword for civilization) to beautiful Měiguó in the east, China was the center of civilization. The Song Dynasty weathered everything - the industrial and scientific revolutions, the space race and first contact with the Farsiders, the building of the Dataweb, the first orbital colonies, and even the first superhumans. With their fantastic powers and elaborate disguises, Earth's superbeings were drafted into what became the Imperial Guard, a global peacekeeping organization that enforced the Emperor's will and kept his, or her, children safe on Earth and even in the depths of space. By the middle of the 1600s (in a calendar only Datsin churchmen still used), they were preparing their first stardrive when the Grue came. In our timeline, the Grue military vessel that passed by Terra in 1644 simply shrugged and continued - one more planet of savage Lor-form humanoids, the galaxy is full of them! This time, confronted with a planet with powerful superhuman defenders and technology that would bring them into the Lor Republic soon, the Grue reacted with force - during an Imperial coronation, an event that required the nobles and grandees from across the world to attend, they dropped teraton-level fusion weapons on Kaifeng and the surrounding cities. Billions died, including the bulk of the Imperial Guard and the entire royal family, and the Grue descended on the planet to loot it of its resources. The arrow of history was seemingly broken - six hundred years of continuous progress snuffed out by heartless aliens from the stars, the skies going dark with the ashes of what had once been the centers of civilization. With their leaders dead and heroes defeated, the population of Dìqiú was briefly left leaderless and broken. Leadership came from an unexpected source - Zheng Chenggong, commander of the Imperial Guard Academy in a remote, sleepy part of eastern Měiguó. Zheng rallied his students and through them the local population, leading first retaliation against the human collaborators who served the Grue, then against the Grue themselves when they came from the Moon to find out why the mineral shipments had stopped. It was a long war, one in which the aliens used scorched planet tactics even as they looted the planet of resources, deliberately letting humans starve in droves in order to get what they wanted. By the time the Last War was over, the Grue were gone - having disgustedly abandoned the planet that had proved far too difficult to hold. Zheng Chenggong might have become an Emperor in his own right, but his death at the young age of 37 meant the students of the Academy (now grown warriors and soldiers) lacked leadership. There was conflict and disunity, and for decades the world lay in ruins. Then the New Order began. Calling itself Dìqiú, after planet Earth itself, the new ideology (arising from Zheng City, where the old Academy had once stood) set aside much of what had once been - Emperors, nobles, gods and magic, all these were dismissed as ideologies that had held back the people of Dìqiú for too long. Dìqiú was a society of one people, one language, one culture, one history, one that would unite and save the disordered planet in the name of superpowers and science. Pure meritocrats, they rejected the prejudices of the old world, albeit retaining a strong attachment to Chinese, the language of civilization. Over a long century, they gradually unified the planet, defeating warlords and Grue remnants, uniting the planet behind the Council of Seven in Zheng City. Their population is low (about a billion) and their world is still recovering from the horrors of war - but they have superhumans and high technology, and they were on the path to recovering until about twenty years ago (the current year is 1776 in the Christian calendar, though hardly anybody uses that calendar anymore) when dimensional travel was discovered by a laboratory in Zheng City. The rest of the multiverse was not what they expected; full of disordered societies and disordered peoples, bizarre planets full of hundreds! of nations, dominated by alien ideologies like 'democracy' where superhumans work not for the good of the people but as strange independent agents. How could these people protect themselves from the alien galaxy, or the broader threats present in the multiverse. The Council of Seven knew what to do - Dìqiú had saved one planet. It was time to save all of them. Ideology Like many political ideologies, the philosophy behind Dìqiú is too long to explain here. In practice, what it means is a society of total equality - anyone who can read Chinese and can pass the exams given throughout one's educational period can enter any profession they like. (Those who fail all exams are generally given low-level work like mining out bombed out cities for resources) Salaries, equipment, and material possessions are rewards given by the state, doled out to those who by merit have earned it. Dìqiú takes this much more seriously than many similar societies on Earth-Prime; corruption is rare and discrimination based on gender, race, or culture is vigorously punished, often with the public flogging that is the sentence for many minor crimes. However, this is not to say Dìqiú is a free society by the standards of Earth-Prime. To make a long story short, Dìqiú ideology believes that ideas, rather than class, culture, or race matter - a state should thus control ideas, thoughts, and beliefs to ensure the happiness and productivity of all citizens. Earth-Prime's democracies feel more like a bizarre anarchy that will no doubt explode at any moment to citizens of Dìqiú; while the collectivist societies feel like a collection of religious fanatics. (They view personal dictatorships with extreme contempt, arguing that monarchies and presidential dictatorships are simply "bandit chieftains") Technology Dìqiú agents have access to what we might call early 22nd century technology, but it's kept tightly controlled by the Council of Seven - as well as the limited resources available to them. Their mundane agents will have technology (hacking programs, IR slavers, and the like) that will make them a threat even to super-scientists on Earth-Prime, and one of their technopaths would give a team of super-scientists the fight of their lives. Many Dìqiú agents are superpowered - and indeed with their elaborate costumes, masks, and 'combat names' (they are kept anonymous to the general public in order to show that even the mightiest serve the state, a holdover from Imperial times) , they _almost_ look like Earth-Prime superheroes when they go into battle. They generally do not kill, but will grimly accept necessity if they are forced to in battle. They will do everything within their power to avoid capture, being sure that capture will mean interrogation and being transformed into a pawn of alien dimensions. Dìqiú agents may be of any race or gender, but they speak Chinese as a first language and have difficulty with other tongues. So What To Do With These People? Dìqiú's goal for a world like Earth-Prime would be to bring them unity - one government, one language, one culture, and one organization for superhumans. (For sentimental reasons, they would like it if that language, government, and culture were Chinese, but they can live without it). They might achieve this through a variety of ways - puppet agents in national governments to encourage superhuman registration, propaganda campaigns about world peace and unity, language education with subliminal brainwashing, arms and supplies sent to secret agents to bring about conquest of remote parts of the world, and the like. They aren't interested in conquest - they see themselves as liberators and would do their best to avoid a high body count on Earth-Prime. (They certainly don't want retaliation here!) They have no truck with aliens, seeing them as likely Grue agents (there does not seem to be a Lor Republic on Dìqiú, or at least it has never contacted their planet) and are fearful of both magic and psionic powers (Dìqiú agents may have both, particularly the latter, but they are tightly controlled by their handlers back in Zheng City). They have little regard for what we might think of as personal freedoms, and tend to dismiss much of Earth-Prime's belief systems as an excuse for license. Their natural ally on Earth-Prime would be Dr. Sin, though both sides would plan to betray the other - Sin to get access to Dìqiú's technology and unique gene pool, Dìqiú agents because they think of Sin as a bizarre, no doubt treacherous throwback to ancient times.

New Freedom There's a reason why you don't hear much about the only country on Earth-Prime run by and for superhumans: it's not a very nice, or very hospitable, place to live. Back in 1938, Kreigsmarine Captain Alfred Ritscher commanded the Third German Antarctic Expedition, officially aiming to build a whaling station (and possible naval base) for the Third Reich in Antarctica. (Ritscher's genuine target was of course the extra-terrestrial city discovered by the ill-fated Lake Expedition of 1931). Despite the high adventure and terrifying ordeals faced by the Nazi explorers in the interior of the islands, the German sailors and soldiers posted to the secret Kriegsmarine base in New Swabia actually considered it something a punishment detail, given the length of time between resupply missions and the harsh conditions of the Antarctic coast. In 1943, American superheroes interrupted an attempt to transport a shoggoth by U-Boat, and the subsequent damage caused by the creature rendered the base uninhabited. Until 1946, when an American superhero arrived. Othello (born Paul Leroy) was a New Jersey native by birth, a Freedom City son whose mutant abilities had manifested in 1940 during his time on the Freedom City Watchmen, Freedom's Negro League baseball team that later merged with the Flags. With strength, speed, leaping, and invulnerability akin to the early Centurion's, Othello was a smart man, a former political science major at Freedom City College who recognized that his strongly left-wing political leanings would be held against him in the conservative climate after the war. He worried in particular that his superhuman abilities would make him a target by government scientists, who he felt had targeted him for particularly dangerous missions during the war so as to eliminate him as a political actor. Visiting New Swabia in secret, Othello used his speed and strength to rebuild the shattered and melted fortifications, give decent Christian burial to all the dead Nazis, and make the former German settlement fit for human habitation again. He used his connections in the OSS to cover his work, recruiting several disaffected Allied supers and inviting them to join him in his plans to build a homestead in the last frontier on Earth. By 1950, when word of their activities finally reached a distracted United States, Othello had recruited a half-dozen former American, British, and French super-agents and their families to his cause. President Truman dispatched the Patriot to deal with his old comrade, and two days before the outbreak of the Korean War, Simmons met Othello at the Schirmacher Oasis for a conversation that had unfortunately not been recorded by historians. The Patriot left Antarctica with a recommendation to his superiors that they leave the (technically-illegal) base alone, going to his own destiny alongside the Atomic Brigade later. Time passed, and the colony's population slowly grew. Several Chinese super-agents opted to resettle in Antarctica after choosing to remain in UN hands after the Korean War, while Othello made the controversial decision to accept the immigration of selected Ubersoldaten (only those who had either served their time or had not committed formal war crimes) and their families to the colony he had dubbed New Freedom. The coastal settlement was theoretically under American and UN auspices, but in practice it was something new, a colony of superhumans and the normals they loved, an independent republic under the auspices of the now-greying Othello and his family. With the weather-manipulating Hosato making the region hospitable and the teleporting Mathson providing transportation and formidable scientific expertise, the cold ice of one small corner of Antarctica gradually became habitable in shirtsleeves even by the smallest mundane child. Othello proved his desire for independence when he repelled an 'incident' carried out secretly by Soviet super-agents in 1957, and again in 1961 when he defeated an uprising against his leadership organized by agents of Dr. Sin. It was a social experiment, a colony of several hundred hardy souls whose primary goal was freedom: in New Freedom, superhumans could live without fear of discrimination (that they faced in many Third World countries), fear of conscription (that they faced in the Warsaw Pact and various dictatorships) or simply an inability to fit in with the conservative social consensus of the West. Every man and woman was equal, powered or otherwise, and everyone was valued by the community. And all of it, at least in theory, under the auspices of the American government and the United Nations. It all came to a crashing halt in 1968, when AEGIS arrived to arrest the Drifter. Peter Hopper, given powers by a secret government experiment some years earlier, had abandoned his post in South Vietnam, fleeing to Antarctica to escape desertion charges and bringing with him shocking evidence of corruption in the highest corridors of power in Washington, centered around the Golden Triangle of opium trade in Southeast Asia. When AEGIS agents showed up in force, brushing past Othello's automatic offer of sanctuary for the wanted criminals, blows were struck, and then shots were fired. When all was said and done, the AEGIS carrier was down, the Drifter was dead (by 'suicide'), and Othello had made up his mind. Though Jack Simmons showed up to personally apologize and arrest the rogue agents in New Freedom's custody, Othello had seen enough. He personally ran to Washington to deliver New Freedom's Declaration of Independence. The world's first metahuman nation was born. Things were bad after that. New Freedom had gained their dream, but at the cost of trade embargoes by the West and East, both of whom saw the new nation as a threat to their imperial destiny. There were more attacks by the Eastern Bloc, and supervillains too saw New Freedom as an egg suddenly abandoned by its mother. War came to Antarctica, a quiet, vicious war waged in the snowy outskirts and fertile fields of the small country. The defenders of New Freedom learned to kill to defend themselves, and Othello reluctantly allowed his country to become part of the non-aligned block. The superhuman nature of the early settlers meant that New Freedom had, by a huge margin, the most superpowered population on Earth. Young men and women of Antarctica became mercenaries and superagents, renting themselves to South Africa and Israel, Taiwan and Pakistan, all the 'rogue nations' of the Cold War era looking for, but lacking, superpowered protectors. New Freedom began to take in more and more disreputable elements; Portuguese from Goa and white settlers from Rhodesia, along with wealthy superhumans who liked the nation's lack of extradition treaties, and the dream looked very close to dying. Othello died in 1983, the Presidency of New Freedom inherited by Jade Harper, a Eurasian chemically-powered agent who had been one of the most lethal warriors of Southeast Asia. Jade had come of age in a New Freedom constantly under attack from within and without, and had learned her tradecraft in some of the most vicious fighting of the Cold War. She did not have the loyalty to the United States that her predecessor had maintained in his heart of hearts, nor did she want to maintain the democratic traditions he had established. By the Terminus Invasion, New Freedom was nothing of the sort. New Freedom Today Leah Harper, of mixed Vietnamese, Israeli, and Irish heritage, inherited the Presidency of New Freedom from her mother in 2010 after one of Jade's many enemies finally caught up with her. Leah presides over a nation of some 10,000 souls, a uniquely multi-ethnic melting pot recently increased by migrants from Iraq, Hong Kong, and Albania. New Freedom is a harsh place, a tightly unified dictatorial republic presided over by the President and her appointed Council. Over two-thirds of the population is superhuman in one way or another (superpowers being the only guaranteed path to legal migration), and one of the primary job tracks (as well as a good way to keep the population down and get rid of young people With Ideas) is work as a foreign mercenary in Africa and Central Asia, or as a supercriminal in the United States. New Freedomites speak English with a faint, unique accent, and look to be of no particular race. The nation is not actually a United Nations member, but their population is large enough, and powerful enough, that no one has ever worked up the resources to do anything about their government. The Harpers have written several long, didactic books of political theory justifying their rule, the sort much beloved by poorly socialized high school students and undergraduates: New Freedom's government is strictly utilitarian, and is as likely to take in North Korean super-exiles as they are to rent the services of their own citizens to the Kim family as legbreakers and goons. It's true that superhumans can live like kings in New Freedom, insulated from many of the laws restricting their activities in more civilized nations...assuming they don't mind the dark grey clothing, the political indoctrination, the cramped living conditions, and the nationwide commitment to service, order, and peace. It's not a bad way to live, if you're well-connected and can get access to the resources of the outside world that work outside the country so often brings. Leah herself worked for various American mercenary companies in the 1990s and 2000s, and she has many connections still in Washington and Baghdad. (She hopes to be able to bring over former super-agents of the various Arab dictatorships facing overthrow at the time of this writing.) People who can't, or won't live the New Freedom way leave. The ones that have seen too much die, or change their names, all trying to avoid a hit squad made up of lethal, professional ex-black ops agents with connections all over the world. Like so many new nations, New Freedom has kept its independence, but lost its soul. It's a land that needs heroes. New Freedom Characters New Freedom is the home of the superhero Errant, the heroic scion of a legacy of metahuman telepathic enforcers.