FearItself
There is nothing to fear
"Humanity has always been relatively good at dealing with change. The rest of the world? Not so much." -Dr. Alpha, Chernobyl Meta Facility, August 1, 1979.
It all started in 1915, a year after the world was engulfed in the flames of World War I. Fighting had just started in Europe and the rest of the world had just begun to mass produce weapons of war. It was during this time that a massive dimensional rift opened above Canada, letting out a 22 kilometer long spacecraft. It immediately let out two dozen half kilometer ships that would've terraformed the world into something unrecognizable.
The key word being ‘would have’, for within that same year America, Canada, and Mexico made plans to stop this threat. They gathered some experimental explosives, a large plastic basket, a helium balloon, and a few oxygen tanks. The soldiers then took the balloon up into the ship a few dozen miles above the earth. After a gruesome fight, fifteen soldiers fought their way through the alien vessel, giving blood for every foot they gained. They made it into the vessel's engine room and detonated the bombs, causing a chain reaction that would cause the transdimensional vessel to erupt. The heroes never made it off of that ship; however, their memory persists, inspiring heroes to this day.
The destruction of the alien vessel caused unforeseen after-effects, however. The chemical fuel the extraterrestrials were using was vaporized by the blast and spread throughout the atmosphere. It was breathed in by millions of humans and wildlife as the jet stream scattered it around the densely populated northern hemisphere. ---This fuel essentially attracted all ambient radiation to itself. As it was, the vessel also unleashed massive amounts of Gamma radiation.---
The end result was 90% of all who were exposed to the chemical died from symptoms akin to radiation sickness in a few days. The remaining 10% found themselves immunized to radiation altogether, in addition to becoming highly resistant to disease. However, it was their DNA that was most severely changed; a fact that wouldn't become apparent until 6 years later in 1921, when every child born from the 10% had been born with strange mutations that granted them what was effectively superpowers.
The newly born powered humans, called Metas, Mutants, and Empowered by many, were closely monitored. At first, the Metas seemed to be rather low powered. As the individuals aged, however, their power would grow with them. This turned the 10% into celebrities and caused the rate of children born to them to drastically spike.
This finally came to a head in 1939 when World War II kicked off in this world. Rather than bringing advanced tanks and planes with bigger guns and bullets, technology and military had shifted to focus on Empowereds. As a result, more than 20 million metahumans were fighting in the war on both sides. This in turn made World War II a hellish conflict that, even to this day still haunts the nightmares of survivors and left their children hearing the horror stories of the mad scientists and their monsterized experiments.
Nonetheless the Allied forces still emerged victorious due a successful assassination of Hitler and his commanders, which destabilized the Nazi regime. Japan held out only slightly longer, for rather than atomic bombs, America brought the world's first atomic engine to the world, loading it into a large battleship. Japan fell to a joint invasion from both Russia and America. The second great war ended and the creation of the United Nations rose in order to prevent such a conflict from occurring again. Shortly afterwards the nation of Israel formed, with their people having a massive amount of powered humans. Ultimately, this led to 40 years of tenuous peace.
Sadly, this peace wouldn’t last forever. Behind the scenes of this uneasy peace were acts of sabotage and subterfuge between Russia and the United States. Russia had seen America as a threat ever since their joint invasion of Japan, and America in turn was unnerved by Russia’s own interests during that same invasion. Eventually, such subtle acts were to give way to more brazen acts, and the Cold War would become hot.
Amidst this great war, Karl Marx’s ideologies finally found a foothold; not in Russia, but in China. China had been watching from afar as metahumans devastated the world, one war after another. Karl’s ideologies helped ostracize the metahumans already in China- after all, the presence of people who seemed clearly more powerful than a standard human went against the grain of the concept of Communism. Eventually, this fear of Empowereds and the horror at the war between the two democracies eventually caused China’s turn to Communism. And with China’s conversion, so did that influence spread to other countries, countries such as Korea and Vietnam. And thus, the Korean and Vietnam Wars happened in 1981-1983.
The Vietnam War went much the same way as this timeline, but for not nearly as long. Rather than many decades of US military spending, the United States built up the nation of South Vietnam and left. History repeated itself in Korea, as support for the wars never faltered, and thus America was able to prevent Communism from converting South Vietnam. A large aid to this effort was the advent of nuclear powered robotic armor suits by the United States.
Meanwhile, back in the west, Russia launched a full scale invasion on both Europe and America. However, Russia had underestimated many factors in the United States’ favor. One such example was that America had developed the fusion battery, which resulted in the development of energy weapons. They shared this technology with Europe and together they secured many victories against Russia. And then came the influx of Metahuman immigrants from China in 1981, fleeing from persecution in China. As such, the American war machine had vastly more Empowereds than before. And then came the twin disasters caused by the hands of Metahumans.
As it turns out, each consecutive generation after the first to gain powers was progressively becoming more powerful, and only one metahuman was needed to put an end to the One Day War of Israel in 1985. The overwhelming might he displayed caused the surrounding nations to be less inclined to continue aggression, which in turn caused the area to stabilize as peace was made and technology shared, and Russia’s influence in the Middle East was effectively ended, as well as many of its resources.
Furthermore, the Russian’s own meddling helped bring about their downfall. The Russians, desperate to match the American’s Empowered output, made a drug known as Bomba, and spread it through it’s metahuman population as a power amplifier- with insanity being a side effect. This eventually led to the sudden violent destruction of Chernobyl at the hands of a emotionally distressed metahuman, further crippling Russia’s war capacity. Eventually, Russia could not endure these losses and developments made by the enemy, and lost the war.
This wound up being more beneficial to Russians, however, as their nation was not brought down via economic collapse. This meant that they had some resources left to rebuild with, which in turn prevented instability in the regions that Russia conquered in the war. Instead, Russia developed a democratic government and became one of the greatest allies of the UN.
As the 90s went by, peace was finally achieved throughout the world. Sadly with this peace a new problem arose as metahumans around the world were no longer distracted by wars and global conflicts. This, paired with the massive boom in population of metahumans throughout the years and the sale of Bomba throughout the black market,, caused the problem of powered crime to skyrocket. This, in addition to the One Day War and the Chernobyl disaster, caused the public opinion of them to shift drastically.
This, in turn, led to many nations deporting the metahuman population they were once so proud of. There were two exceptions to this trend, however. Japan, and surprisingly enough, China. They converted their military branches from the average human into being solely comprised of metahumans.
The US had a different and more unique idea however. They created a new sector of the economy and government called the Super Branch. A government branch dedicated to training Metahumans in usage of their powers to aid police and military operations, and simultaneously training them in public relations to help ease the public image of them. This all started in the year 2000 and thus the organization was dubbed the Millennium. It was so successful that in 2004 The EU did the same, creating their own organization called the Magistrate.
For sixteen years they have sponsored superheroes, causing them to become the latest public infatuation. They have become as well loved and well respected as actors, athletes, and musicians are in Hollywood.
However the number of metahuman criminals and even regular criminals inspired by metahumans has still continued to skyrocket. Recently this has become an even bigger problem as the year 2019 was punctuated by a massive attack on both the Millennial and Magistrate HQ resulting in the deaths of hundreds of heroes and the revelation of a new criminal organization calling itself Rancor. Their plan seems to have backfired as the attack has inspired the single largest rush of new recruits into the hero organizations in recorded history. Yet some people think this was all according to their design, thinking what this organization really wants is war. Can the new heroes deal with this new threat or will they fall creating a new era ruled by Rancor? Only time will tell.
It all started in 1915, a year after the world was engulfed in the flames of World War I. Fighting had just started in Europe and the rest of the world had just begun to mass produce weapons of war. It was during this time that a massive dimensional rift opened above Canada, letting out a 22 kilometer long spacecraft. It immediately let out two dozen half kilometer ships that would've terraformed the world into something unrecognizable.
The key word being ‘would have’, for within that same year America, Canada, and Mexico made plans to stop this threat. They gathered some experimental explosives, a large plastic basket, a helium balloon, and a few oxygen tanks. The soldiers then took the balloon up into the ship a few dozen miles above the earth. After a gruesome fight, fifteen soldiers fought their way through the alien vessel, giving blood for every foot they gained. They made it into the vessel's engine room and detonated the bombs, causing a chain reaction that would cause the transdimensional vessel to erupt. The heroes never made it off of that ship; however, their memory persists, inspiring heroes to this day.
The destruction of the alien vessel caused unforeseen after-effects, however. The chemical fuel the extraterrestrials were using was vaporized by the blast and spread throughout the atmosphere. It was breathed in by millions of humans and wildlife as the jet stream scattered it around the densely populated northern hemisphere. ---This fuel essentially attracted all ambient radiation to itself. As it was, the vessel also unleashed massive amounts of Gamma radiation.---
The end result was 90% of all who were exposed to the chemical died from symptoms akin to radiation sickness in a few days. The remaining 10% found themselves immunized to radiation altogether, in addition to becoming highly resistant to disease. However, it was their DNA that was most severely changed; a fact that wouldn't become apparent until 6 years later in 1921, when every child born from the 10% had been born with strange mutations that granted them what was effectively superpowers.
The newly born powered humans, called Metas, Mutants, and Empowered by many, were closely monitored. At first, the Metas seemed to be rather low powered. As the individuals aged, however, their power would grow with them. This turned the 10% into celebrities and caused the rate of children born to them to drastically spike.
This finally came to a head in 1939 when World War II kicked off in this world. Rather than bringing advanced tanks and planes with bigger guns and bullets, technology and military had shifted to focus on Empowereds. As a result, more than 20 million metahumans were fighting in the war on both sides. This in turn made World War II a hellish conflict that, even to this day still haunts the nightmares of survivors and left their children hearing the horror stories of the mad scientists and their monsterized experiments.
Nonetheless the Allied forces still emerged victorious due a successful assassination of Hitler and his commanders, which destabilized the Nazi regime. Japan held out only slightly longer, for rather than atomic bombs, America brought the world's first atomic engine to the world, loading it into a large battleship. Japan fell to a joint invasion from both Russia and America. The second great war ended and the creation of the United Nations rose in order to prevent such a conflict from occurring again. Shortly afterwards the nation of Israel formed, with their people having a massive amount of powered humans. Ultimately, this led to 40 years of tenuous peace.
Sadly, this peace wouldn’t last forever. Behind the scenes of this uneasy peace were acts of sabotage and subterfuge between Russia and the United States. Russia had seen America as a threat ever since their joint invasion of Japan, and America in turn was unnerved by Russia’s own interests during that same invasion. Eventually, such subtle acts were to give way to more brazen acts, and the Cold War would become hot.
Amidst this great war, Karl Marx’s ideologies finally found a foothold; not in Russia, but in China. China had been watching from afar as metahumans devastated the world, one war after another. Karl’s ideologies helped ostracize the metahumans already in China- after all, the presence of people who seemed clearly more powerful than a standard human went against the grain of the concept of Communism. Eventually, this fear of Empowereds and the horror at the war between the two democracies eventually caused China’s turn to Communism. And with China’s conversion, so did that influence spread to other countries, countries such as Korea and Vietnam. And thus, the Korean and Vietnam Wars happened in 1981-1983.
The Vietnam War went much the same way as this timeline, but for not nearly as long. Rather than many decades of US military spending, the United States built up the nation of South Vietnam and left. History repeated itself in Korea, as support for the wars never faltered, and thus America was able to prevent Communism from converting South Vietnam. A large aid to this effort was the advent of nuclear powered robotic armor suits by the United States.
Meanwhile, back in the west, Russia launched a full scale invasion on both Europe and America. However, Russia had underestimated many factors in the United States’ favor. One such example was that America had developed the fusion battery, which resulted in the development of energy weapons. They shared this technology with Europe and together they secured many victories against Russia. And then came the influx of Metahuman immigrants from China in 1981, fleeing from persecution in China. As such, the American war machine had vastly more Empowereds than before. And then came the twin disasters caused by the hands of Metahumans.
As it turns out, each consecutive generation after the first to gain powers was progressively becoming more powerful, and only one metahuman was needed to put an end to the One Day War of Israel in 1985. The overwhelming might he displayed caused the surrounding nations to be less inclined to continue aggression, which in turn caused the area to stabilize as peace was made and technology shared, and Russia’s influence in the Middle East was effectively ended, as well as many of its resources.
Furthermore, the Russian’s own meddling helped bring about their downfall. The Russians, desperate to match the American’s Empowered output, made a drug known as Bomba, and spread it through it’s metahuman population as a power amplifier- with insanity being a side effect. This eventually led to the sudden violent destruction of Chernobyl at the hands of a emotionally distressed metahuman, further crippling Russia’s war capacity. Eventually, Russia could not endure these losses and developments made by the enemy, and lost the war.
This wound up being more beneficial to Russians, however, as their nation was not brought down via economic collapse. This meant that they had some resources left to rebuild with, which in turn prevented instability in the regions that Russia conquered in the war. Instead, Russia developed a democratic government and became one of the greatest allies of the UN.
As the 90s went by, peace was finally achieved throughout the world. Sadly with this peace a new problem arose as metahumans around the world were no longer distracted by wars and global conflicts. This, paired with the massive boom in population of metahumans throughout the years and the sale of Bomba throughout the black market,, caused the problem of powered crime to skyrocket. This, in addition to the One Day War and the Chernobyl disaster, caused the public opinion of them to shift drastically.
This, in turn, led to many nations deporting the metahuman population they were once so proud of. There were two exceptions to this trend, however. Japan, and surprisingly enough, China. They converted their military branches from the average human into being solely comprised of metahumans.
The US had a different and more unique idea however. They created a new sector of the economy and government called the Super Branch. A government branch dedicated to training Metahumans in usage of their powers to aid police and military operations, and simultaneously training them in public relations to help ease the public image of them. This all started in the year 2000 and thus the organization was dubbed the Millennium. It was so successful that in 2004 The EU did the same, creating their own organization called the Magistrate.
For sixteen years they have sponsored superheroes, causing them to become the latest public infatuation. They have become as well loved and well respected as actors, athletes, and musicians are in Hollywood.
However the number of metahuman criminals and even regular criminals inspired by metahumans has still continued to skyrocket. Recently this has become an even bigger problem as the year 2019 was punctuated by a massive attack on both the Millennial and Magistrate HQ resulting in the deaths of hundreds of heroes and the revelation of a new criminal organization calling itself Rancor. Their plan seems to have backfired as the attack has inspired the single largest rush of new recruits into the hero organizations in recorded history. Yet some people think this was all according to their design, thinking what this organization really wants is war. Can the new heroes deal with this new threat or will they fall creating a new era ruled by Rancor? Only time will tell.
