The main setting for this game is going to be a pretty standard copy of Earth with the classic superhero twists.


Pre-World War Era
Superheroes have existed throughout history and were likely the truth behind many popular myths and legends. Beowulf fighting Grendel could easily be explained as superpowered fight. The Egyptian gods were very powerful superheroes or aliens or something, same with the Greek Gods etc. While these myths and legends echoed through the ages the supernatural very uncommon and not reliably documented.

World War Era
Superheroes (and villains) started coming into the spotlight during the turn of the century. Many heroes and villains of this time were otherwise ordinary people performing extraordinary deeds but every major war power ended up producing at least a couple of truly supernatural fighters for their cause. Bulletproof or capable of partially lifting up a tank, these early supers were not extraordinarily powered by modern standards but their abilities were definitely classified as supernatural. Allied and Axis heroes flew through the skies and battled it out in bunkers and their stories captured the whole world.

The Golden Age
The Golden Age of superheroes (~1950s-1970s) saw a dramatic rise in both frequency and ability in superpowers. Whereas Allies and Axis were able to field at most a dozen superpowered individuals in total, now every major city had at least one or two heroes and twice as many super powered villains. Powers began to escalate into clearly supernatural territory. Throwing fireballs or tossing cars or building armies of crude but effective robots became the standards. The public celebrated heroes and they quickly rose to fame and fortune as premier celebrities.

The Dark Age
The Dark Age of superheroes (~1980s-~2000s) saw the superheroes across the world driven into the shadows or in hiding. As power levels continued to escalate collateral damage became too much to bear as titanic fights between heroes and villains wrecked the globe. With more and more powered individuals appearing there was a backlash and many governments (including the United States) started imposing laws and sanctions against superheroes culminating with a Superpowered Individual Registration & Examination department. SIRE was supposed to create a pipeline for supers to learn to control their abilities but it ended up being corrupted and turning into a witch hunt. Black Ops government agencies started kidnapping supers for experimentation or weaponization and many cities banned vigilantism entirely forcing many superheroes into retirement and opening the door for organized crime and villainous organizations to run rampant.

The Return
The Return (~2010s-~2020s) saw the end of the Dark Ages across the globe. While some vigilantes were able to make the case the truth is heroes were saved by the mundane civilians. Reporters and advocates were able to get anti-hero laws pulled and corrupt politicians and lobbyists pushing anti-hero agendas were discovered to have strong criminal ties. The world welcomed back heroes and governments quickly put funds into place to turn SIRE into what it was supposed to be, a program to help train supernaturals into controlling their abilities. By this point superpowered individuals were getting fairly common with estimates of nearly 1% of the world's population displaying supernatural abilities in one form or another and some truly powerful individuals started awakening. The ancient Greek and Egyptian gods resurfaced and while there was great optimism that these powers could be used to help humanity there was growing concern about why super powers were becoming so powerful and so common. Unfortunately humanity got its answer.

The Omnikron Harvest
In 2020 a being of galactic power, Omnikron, made his presence known. It turns out that he was the cause behind almost all of the supernatural on Earth. Omnikron was a reality manipulator that would grow power on a planet and then harvest it as sustaining energy. Omnikron decimated the established superhero teams that tried to stop him and began draining the life force out of everyone on the planet. Superheroes and villains around the globe were forced to join forces and wage all out war against Omnikron but Omnikron was protected by some kind of impervious forcefield. The Egyptian and Greek Gods revealed themselves as actually being survivors of past Omnikron invasions, each one the most powerful survivor of their species protected by Anubis and brought to the next planet in Omnikron's path. Anubis himself directed them to sacrifice themselves in one titanic burst of energy that cracked Omnikron's shield and allowing Earth's heroes and villains to actually hurt Omnikron. After a titanic battle across the globe Omnikron was defeated, exploded into raw energy at the expense of killing or crippling almost everyone in the fight. Even those who survived found themselves stripped of their powers and their bodies broken and mangled but the Earth had been saved!

The Current Period
It is now one year after the Omnikron Harvest and superheroes and villains are starting to show up once again. Their power levels aren't the same ridiculousness that happened prior to the Harvest and the frequency of powers has dropped dramatically but with Omnikron's destruction the future is uncertain and heroes are needed to fill the void that was left by the great sacrifice of those that came before.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:14, Sun 16 May 2021.

New Babylon
The town of Babylon, New York was a decent sized city in the middle of Long Island. With a population of a couple hundred thousand it was just another suburb of New York until the Harvest happened. While Omnikron was fought all over the globe (he was a superdimensional entity that existed in multiple parts of the globe simultaneously) his final destruction happened in the Atlantic Ocean a few miles off of Babylon's coast. While the town suffered major damage from the fight being the closest thing to "Ground Zero" as there was on solid land thrust it into the spotlight. In the past year it has grown to a city of nearly a million people from a combination of government agencies (SIRE relocated its HQ to study the Omnikron battlefield), refugees from a heavily damaged New York City and an inspirational mayor.

It is a city experiencing a meteoric rise and the sound of construction is occurring nonstop as people keeping moving into the rebuilt and now dubbed New Babylon. However its fame does not come without a price and it has become a focal point for the new wave of supervillains lurking in the shadow. Many of them are drawn by the siren call of Omnikron's destruction, hoping that there is some piece of the nearly omnipotent galactic threat left behind that can be turned into a tool for world domination.

SIRE
SIRE has spent a decade trying to rebuild itself from a government agency that hunted and persecuted supernaturals into an agency that provides help and support to convert supernaturals into superheroes. Originally it was a branch of the FBI, it was moved to its own agency in 1986 and now operates with close ties to the Departments of Justice, Education, and Homeland Security. On occasion SIRE also works alongside Border Patrol to handle extranational or extraterrestrial immigration.

SIRE has three main branches:

- Research & Identification (Ident): A research division it looks at gathering and storing information about supers and hopefully identifying "gifted" individuals before they accidentally blow up a bus stop. Ident is often portrayed as half scientific nerds and half surveillance spies snooping around high schools, comic book stores, and banks looking for emerging heroes and villains.

- Education & Training (Boot Camp): Once a super is discovered by Ident, Boot Camp steps in and moves them to a secure facility where they can receive basic safety training about their powers. Despite having the smallest staff, Boot Camp is notorious for its insane operating budget to create and maintain training facilities that can handle people shooting hot magma from their hands or calling down lightning storms.

- Restraint & Detention (Deepfreeze): Deepfreeze is responsible for handling supers that break the law and cannot be contained in typical prisons. The details behind Deepfreeze facilities are classified as Top Secret (SCI). Despite this there have already been two known breakouts of supervillains however even the escapees have been unable to provide any insight as to what goes on.


SIRE was headquartered in Washington DC but after the Harvest it was relocated to New Babylon so it could properly secure the battlefields against Omnikron.


SIRE Threat Levels
SIRE created a classification identifying the potential threat level of a supervillain. This is not a measurement of an individual's specific superpowers but an understanding of how much damage they could do to the United States. The SIRE system is based off of the internationally recognized Tomohiro Scale translated into the US military phenetic alphabet.

• Mike - A regular threat that could be handled by law enforcement. It is technically on the list but SIRE has never dispatched a hero to handle a Mike, instead many heroes handle these mundane or low-powered criminals on their own. Because of this, unpowered criminals fom purse snatchers to mafia hitmen are referred to as "Mikes" and calling another super a "Mike" is a big insult. AKA Mouse-tier threat.
  
• Whiskey - A threat beyond law enforcement. This is typically the lowest grade threat that would warrant SIRE and/or superhero response. Any SIRE certified superhero is expected to be able to handle a Whiskey threat all by themselves although in practice some Whiskey threats are more or less dangerous than others. Because of the name, some heroes have taken to calling city patrols as "bar hopping" as they're looking for Whiskey. AKA Wolf-tier threat.
  
• Tango - A threat to a large group of people but not necessarily an entire geographic region. A Tango threat might be tackled by a single hero but SIRE recommends having backup and support before engaging with a Tango. AKA Tiger-tier threat.
  
• Sierra - A threat to a single city. A super hero team or one or two top notch heroes should be able to handle it. AKA Shark-tier threat.
  
• Oscar - A threat to multiple cities or entire geographic regions. This might cross country borders but might still be able to be handled by a single top notch super team. AKA Oni-tier threat.
  
• Delta - A threat to the entire globe. Delta level threat response would typically involve multiple nations coordinating together. AKA Dragon-tier threat.
  
• Gamma - A threat to all life in the universe. The one and only Gamma threat recorded was Omnikron.AKA God-tier threat.

This message was last edited by the GM at 04:20, Sun 16 May 2021.