Felicia McCready [Sidhe] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
notsoheavenly) wrote2033-11-21 08:11 pm
notsoheavenly) wrote2033-11-21 08:11 pm
Entry tags:
[OOC] Superdemic World Information
Year: 2015
Default Location: United States
Set Up:
The year is 2015. This Earth is one many may recognize as our own, for it is very similar to the world we know today, from the historic events, the wars, popular culture references, discrepancies in poverty versus the wealthy, and even the advancements of technology (that the public are allowed to know about). It is not completely identical, but you wouldn’t notice some of the bigger changes at first glance. Sexual exploration and discovery is not as restricted or as obsessed over by the media, discrimination over race and sexual orientation is also not as prominent in first world countries like the United States as they are in our own world today. There is a strong push for cooperation and acceptance that the government encourages regularly and has been for the last fifty odd years (the civil rights movements and sexual revolution were even more successful), although it wasn’t until the Supers came out of the woodwork that this growing tolerance and acceptance was put to the test.
There had been the random superhuman before. A circus performer in the 1880s with the power to spit balls of fire just by opening his mouth. A Native medicine woman in 1758 who had been burned for witchcraft after she healed a man who had fallen from a roof just by placing her hands on him. An athlete banned from the Olympics in 1952 when the judges measured his reflexes and agility at ten times that of his competitors after he beat the record on the high jump by over double the set height. There were records dating back centuries, millennia. From the Americas to the plains of Africa and the mountains of Europe and even to the Far East. But they were rare anomalies, flukes, unexplained genetics that brought out extraordinary abilities no one could explain.
That is only what the public was led to believe. There had been more. Always more. Never too many, never enough that the governments of the world would feel too endangered--incapable of fighting them if they had to. But always more. And if there were more they were aware of, there were even more still unaccounted for.
That is, until twenty-some years ago. Suddenly more and more of these "superhumans" were being seen by the public. Most were young adults and teenagers, but several into their 40s and 50s. It was shocking, terrifying, a warning. The more governments tried to hide them the more of them that were discovered. Within five years it was undeniable. Once a big news station had gotten a story they wouldn't let go, everyone had been told of the pandemic of humans with unnatural looks and superhuman abilities. The news circles had long since taken the idea and run with it, but as often is the case with news articles most often found in papers such as the Enquirer, it wasn't taken seriously without proof. But now that the "Superdemic" was out in the open, it could never be hidden again. Governments had to cover their bases, manage the information as they could.
The United States took the stance that Superhumans were nothing more than "humans with above average skills and abilities that are no different from anyone else unless [they] chose to unfairly set them apart." There was great support from the liberals and not as much from the conservatives. But what most did not know what that the public stance was just that: for the public. The government wasn't going to leave the country open to the potential threat of even one Renegade Superhuman who chose to go on a rampage on American soil.
And so the government's own Department of Enhanced Logistics and Technological Advancements (D.E.L.T.A.) was created. To the public it was a research organization dedicated to learning as much as they could about superhuman abilities and physiology to better help these "Supers" in controlling their abilities and living peaceful, non-dangerous lives within American society. But they also employ superhumans on covert teams to track, hunt down, and monitor potentially dangerous Supers that have could pose a threat to peace or have already done so (as part of the Superhuman Supervision Subdivision).
It is estimated now since the “Superdemic” with more and more Supers declaring themselves that there are over 2 million Superhumans worldwide, with a majority of them under the age of 50. They are still a small number in comparison to the rest of the population (almost 3% of the world population as a whole, with the US demographic being only 1% of the country’s full population), but it’s not unusual for the average American to have a Super neighbor or for their children to go to school with young Supers or the children of Supers.
The nonprofit, private Medical and Research Knowledge on Super Abilities Organization, shortened by many to M.A.R.K.O., was created by Jackson Young, one of the wealthiest men in the country. It is proposed as an "impartial" medical organization meant to assist Supers rather than being forced to register themselves with the government. A confidentiality agreement has been mandated and anyone who goes to MARKO for assistance will never be revealed to the government. Truthfully it was an organization designed to research ways to nullify, contain, and if necessary eliminate any Superhuman threat by using Supers themselves to progress their research. The true intentions of Young's goals for MARKO has never been discovered, but popular opinion is currently in favor of MARKO and Young's public stance that superhumans are suffering from a genetic defect that should be researched and to prevent from occuring in future generations.
The public attitude is varied, yet overall it could be called wary, although not outright hateful or condemning. Due to the government’s repeated steps to keep the public appraised of their efforts to monitor and ensure Supers do not bring a threat to the average person, the public in the United States are more watchful than fearful. They accept that Supers exist and that for right now they are one with the populace, but popular opinion supports them being registered with DELTA and the research done by MARKO that is claimed to be working towards a “cure.” There are groups that take a more radical stance, both in favor of and against mutants, but the general public tends to fall more in the middle. When Supers first started to be exposed, the public opinion was a lot more negative than it is now, but the past twenty years have been spent trying to curb the negative opinions while also encouraging the general public to “report” anyone they think may be an unregistered Super.
The public opinions and treatment of Supers around the world is not the same as it is in the United States (although some claim Canada is more openly accepting).
Department of Enhanced Logistics and Technological Advancements:
To the people of the United States, D.E.L.T.A. looks like a simple department meant to help learn as much as they can about Superhumans and creating ways to successfully integrate them into society. Not everyone approves of this, but the United States' official position that Supers are still citizens of the nation, too, has not changed. The existence of DELTA publically has led to the less outright hate and attacks on Supers in the country, but the people are not aware that D.E.L.T.A. also deals with most Superhuman threats that occur by training and deploying teams of Supers to contain other Superhumans and return them to the DELTA for containment.
DELTA has regional offices across the country with one primary office in each state, and a public HQ in New York City, but the actual base is closer to the Canadian border. They also have twenty-four Squads (codenamed by the Greek Alphabet) with various functions they can deploy as needed. 9 of those Squads are offensive, combat-trained Squads to contain Superhuman threats that are deployed not only in the States, but also on "request" to other parts of the world. 7 of those Squads are composed for research and analysis. 5 of them are designed for Superhuman location and extraction. The Theta Squad is the "public" squad, purposefully designed as the "Face of DELTA" for the public to ease their concerns and reservations about Supers co-existing with humans in society. The last 2 are currently so classified that only those at the top of D.E.L.T.A. know what they do (or who the members of each Squad are).
Because of excess funding and the abilities of the Supers working for DELTA, the organization has some of the most advanced technology on the planet, including Transjets that fly at up to Mach 8 speed while being completely silent, communicators smaller than the average blue tooth with range across almost the entire planet and up to 40 feet underground.
Registering with D.E.L.T.A is voluntary for any Super, save those who have been arrested for posing a threat to the public. If you have enlisted with DELTA you are officially working for a government organization and thus will be put under the stricter rules for government secrecy and safety. Anyone under the legal age of 18 will be required to undergo intense training if necessary and continue to attend courses to obtain a high school diploma equivalent education at the minimum. If these underage operatives remain in their regional areas instead of the primary HQ they will be sent to DELTA-approved schools. Those whose powers may pose a stronger threat without proper training are more likely to be kept to the primary Headquarters and receive schooling there.
Underage operatives also have stricter rules for what squads they are allowed to be on (none are allowed to be officially designated to one of the offensive/combat squads, but they can be on one of the surveillance and extraction squads that receive combat training), and for how much of their time can be spent on missions. Unless they have graduated school earlier (as some do), they are only allowed to spend up to 30 hours a week between training, missions, and other related activities during the school year. This is the basic standard, but it may change depending on the Youth Operative's state of residency. No one under the age of 15 is allowed to be sworn in as an official Agent, but they may be trained and receive permission to shadow squads until they reach that age.
D.E.L.T.A. abides by federal statues, which prevents Youth Operatives from owning or carrying any concealed firearm. There is a bit of a loophole in that some of the weaponry that D.E.L.T.A. uses has no official ranking or designation due to the classified status and thus it is technically not illegal for underage Agents to carry and/or use them. Often Youth Operatives are given weapons that allow for disarming and restraining but should not cause lasting damage to the target (such as tasers).
In the 90s there was a push back against allowing anyone under the age of 18 to be sworn in as an official Agent for D.E.L.T.A., arguing that it was indoctrinating children into the government without them having the legal capability to consent. In order to show more transparency and reassure the public that these minors were not being mistreated or brainwashed into working for D.E.L.T.A. a stipulation was instated in which Youth Operatives can enlist as Agents officially if their legal guardian also signs an affidavit swearing that the underage person had the maturity and comprehension to legally make that decision on their own.
This did placate the public, but is an easy stipulation to get around in the fact that many Youth Operatives can be deemed wards of the state through various actions (such as if they are orphans, a known runaway, have a criminal record, have abilities deemed too dangerous to be left under the supervision of non-Super parents, or if the parent signs away guardianship to the state). There is still an underlying criticism of D.E.L.T.A. for this, but the government takes steps to keep this out of the media because of the sensitive nature of the topic.
Medical and Research Knowledge on Super Abilities Organization and Jackson Young
Jackson Young
Jackson Young has no powers, but is a veritable genuis in the fields of physics, chemistry, and technical engineering. He built an aeronautics company (AeroYoung International) from the ground up, going against the wishes of his father, Former Secretary of Defense, General Marvin Young, who wanted him to go into the military. Despite his friendly, charismatic, and disarming demeanor, he is a shrewd and often ruthless business man. In 18 years since he first began AeroYoung, he has managed to create it into multibillion dollar conglomorate that has a hand in dozens of different forms of technical, medical, and defense engineering. If has something to do with technology, there is likely an AeroYoung subsidiary involved in it or as the leading competitor.
His current "public" stance on superhumans is that they are people afflicted with an often unfortunate genetic deformity that causes them problems in their everyday lives and puts them at an unwilling risk to their friends, family, and communities. He founded M.A.R.K.O for the purpose of "finding a cure" for this condition and does not hide the fact that his organization does indeed employ superhumans to assist in finding this cure.
In truth, Young hates superhumans and sees them as the coming wave of a species sent to wipe normal humans out. He refuses to allow this to happen. To him, humans must remain the top of the food chain, and to ensure this, they must weed out all species and potential threats to human sovereignty of the world. Young's search for a "cure" is actually using superhumans and what great minds he can hire to find a means in which to remove the superhuman gene altogether or supress it so that superhumans will no longer be born. To do this, M.A.R.K.O. publically accepted volunteers, but also secretly abducts superhumans from around the world to be experimented on at regional locations.
M.A.R.K.O.
The public opinion of MARKO is better than it's government-run counterpart. To the point that superhumans who do not want their powers or connect with the public "mission" see MARKO as a viable option. They will volunteer for testing or to work in helping to find this "cure." They are the front for the public. The clean image of superhumans working to help superhumans and to protect the public by finding a cure for the Superdemic. There is an entire department just for MARKO's Superhuman/Human Relations PR.
MARKO basically has 3 faces. The public one, the semi-public one, and the completely hidden one. The organization is divided into little factions and each of them has a determinate level of privacy. Depending on how far into the organization you are (or how much of the organization you need to see) you’ll be given one level of security clearance or another. People who are deep enough into the organization know better than to try to snoop around to know more than what they should, because the punishments for breaking the organizations’ trust are usually… intense.
Most people lose their job and get blacklisted. Some are unluckily enough to see something so incriminating that it isn’t worth it to keep them alive anymore- though most people working for MARKO think that’s an exaggeration, some kind of urban legend. It isn’t.
Most people only see the public face of MARKO. They have incredibly good PR teams, the best ones money, favors and a little bit of intimidation can buy. Because of that the world has a pretty good view of them and honestly truly think they are trying to do good and help the poor Supers.
MARKO has different public sections: there’s scientific wings all over the city where different teams try different approach to find a cure for the genetic illness that gives the Superhumans their powers and makes their lives hell. Supers can and do offer themselves voluntarily to be tested on, and MARKO will pay generously for their efforts after they sign a non-disclosure agreement. They have certain ‘meeting spots’ where Supers can join diverse support groups to learn how to live with their powers. They have facilities where Supers can live, adapted every time they get a new Super so their rooms are adequately fitted to their powers. In some cases the family of the Super is the one that requests their services because they can’t handle living around them anymore and MARKO happily obliges. Obviously all of this raises some red flags and not everyone is happy with this organization or trusts them. Some of the scientific facilities have been attacked sometimes, and there have been some manifestations in front of them claiming that they don’t need any kind of cure. But overall the views on this part of MARKO are pretty positive.
Then there’s the semipublic face. This is the part that isn’t readily disposed to the public but some determined reporter or a spy working for them at a low level can eventually get to. MARKO actually uses this to trim who in their organization can be trusted and who will end up getting fired. Testing on animals, lousy contracts… all things they expect to find. Jackson Young was smart enough to realize that once an inquisitive person finds something he was supposedly not meant to see they get so full of themselves they stop looking for more. Most people don’t even think twice before going to the authorities or the media. And so the best way to protect secrets they actually care to keep that way is to let go of some basic ones every now and then. MARKO has been involved in some cases that have made the news, and people’s trust took a heavy hit, but their PR teams are good enough to have them eating from their hands in a couple months, after they assure them they have made the necessary changes to see something like this doesn’t happen again. Rinse and repeat because people have a very hard time believing an organization can be squeaky clean but implicitly trusts one that admits to their mistakes and shortcomings every now and then. There’s a little team in the organization whose mission is specifically to make sure there’s enough corruption, embezzlement or scandals of some kind to go around.
Not all superhumans sign on with MARKO for these two sides. For those who know the true purpose behind the organization, they can join it just for the hell of it, or for the money, or because they has a desire for the knowledge that MARKO gives the access to. Not everyone is doing it for pure reasons and those who do as not given nearly as much clearance or indepth knowledge of what is going on behind the scenes. It is unlikely that most Superhumans involved know of Young's desire to rid the world of all superhumans. Only those who truly believe in that cause would be privy to it. There is a hidden subsidiary of MARKO know as Metronome. Secret Operative teams called "Black Masks" are trained by this team and they are sent out with to do the dirty work that they do not want getting back to MARKO, and especially not back to Jackson Young himself. They kidnap unregistered Supers to use for experimentation and genetic profiling.
Which is how, last but not least the private side of MARKO comes in. This is where most of MARKO’s funding goes, if only to assure they will be private about it. MARKO’s actual mission is to get rid of the Supers, once and for all. Sure, ‘curing’ them and turning them into normal humans would be nice but that’s a far off dream. A pretty lie to tell the population so they can live among disgusting, scarily powerful Supers without falling into hysteria. They aren’t any closer to finding a cure or an explanation for their powers than they were when this all began. So they have to get rid of them in some other way.
And so, they kill them.
Obviously it’s not as simple as that. There’s no mass extermination, they won’t kill every super on sight. But it’s their main goal in mind, even if they are aware it’s still just a dream. MARKO actually has some Supers working for them, they aren’t stupid enough to not use an asset when it offers itself so freely. Some Supers have a lot of self-loathing inside of them: they consider powers ruined their life, that Supers are ruining everything humanity should stand for. (Others are simply bored).
There are different squads in different teams, and each team has their own jobs and missions. A few of the squads, heavily trained, are basically assassins ready to strike at important, influential Supers whose deaths would tumble down any movement that regards Supers in a positive light. They have a lot of DELTA blood on their hands, and some of those murders were even made to look like accidental deaths or even suicides. These are the most private squads, and no one knows much about them- not even the higher ups. They are basically their own section: the organization points their fingers and the squads make the death happen, no questions asked.
There’s also scientific teams, much like the ones MARKO proudly shows to the public. But they aren’t looking for a cure: they are looking for weaknesses. Ways to kill them, to get rid of them. A lot of Supers have been tortured and killed on the tables of their laboratories, and a lot more will. This is the most grey area of the private sections, since some of the scientists simply take samples or make tests without really knowing why. Some teams are simply told to create prisons to hold the supers, bunkers where the normal population can hide, create weapons based on a Super’s powers… nothing would make them suspect they are aiding with the extermination of an entire race. Again, they don’t ask many questions: it’s simply better that way.
And then there are the retrieval teams. So much experimentation requires a lot of Supers, and the volunteering ones only get so far. This is where most of the Supers work, since their abilities make it easier for them to retrieve other Supers. These squads also work pretty freely, they can pretty much get free reign as long as the Super they need gets brought to the organization (pretty) unharmed. They usually get placed in teams on 5 with a leader, but each member of the squad can complete the mission on their own once it’s given to them and most choose to go that way. The members of these squads are the ones that get the most free time, since they aren’t required 24/7 but aren’t at such high risk as the ones in the killing squad.
(Funnily enough there’s a bit of competition between the retrieval teams and the killing squad…)
Superhuman Rankings:
Default Location: United States
Set Up:
The year is 2015. This Earth is one many may recognize as our own, for it is very similar to the world we know today, from the historic events, the wars, popular culture references, discrepancies in poverty versus the wealthy, and even the advancements of technology (that the public are allowed to know about). It is not completely identical, but you wouldn’t notice some of the bigger changes at first glance. Sexual exploration and discovery is not as restricted or as obsessed over by the media, discrimination over race and sexual orientation is also not as prominent in first world countries like the United States as they are in our own world today. There is a strong push for cooperation and acceptance that the government encourages regularly and has been for the last fifty odd years (the civil rights movements and sexual revolution were even more successful), although it wasn’t until the Supers came out of the woodwork that this growing tolerance and acceptance was put to the test.
There had been the random superhuman before. A circus performer in the 1880s with the power to spit balls of fire just by opening his mouth. A Native medicine woman in 1758 who had been burned for witchcraft after she healed a man who had fallen from a roof just by placing her hands on him. An athlete banned from the Olympics in 1952 when the judges measured his reflexes and agility at ten times that of his competitors after he beat the record on the high jump by over double the set height. There were records dating back centuries, millennia. From the Americas to the plains of Africa and the mountains of Europe and even to the Far East. But they were rare anomalies, flukes, unexplained genetics that brought out extraordinary abilities no one could explain.
That is only what the public was led to believe. There had been more. Always more. Never too many, never enough that the governments of the world would feel too endangered--incapable of fighting them if they had to. But always more. And if there were more they were aware of, there were even more still unaccounted for.
That is, until twenty-some years ago. Suddenly more and more of these "superhumans" were being seen by the public. Most were young adults and teenagers, but several into their 40s and 50s. It was shocking, terrifying, a warning. The more governments tried to hide them the more of them that were discovered. Within five years it was undeniable. Once a big news station had gotten a story they wouldn't let go, everyone had been told of the pandemic of humans with unnatural looks and superhuman abilities. The news circles had long since taken the idea and run with it, but as often is the case with news articles most often found in papers such as the Enquirer, it wasn't taken seriously without proof. But now that the "Superdemic" was out in the open, it could never be hidden again. Governments had to cover their bases, manage the information as they could.
The United States took the stance that Superhumans were nothing more than "humans with above average skills and abilities that are no different from anyone else unless [they] chose to unfairly set them apart." There was great support from the liberals and not as much from the conservatives. But what most did not know what that the public stance was just that: for the public. The government wasn't going to leave the country open to the potential threat of even one Renegade Superhuman who chose to go on a rampage on American soil.
And so the government's own Department of Enhanced Logistics and Technological Advancements (D.E.L.T.A.) was created. To the public it was a research organization dedicated to learning as much as they could about superhuman abilities and physiology to better help these "Supers" in controlling their abilities and living peaceful, non-dangerous lives within American society. But they also employ superhumans on covert teams to track, hunt down, and monitor potentially dangerous Supers that have could pose a threat to peace or have already done so (as part of the Superhuman Supervision Subdivision).
It is estimated now since the “Superdemic” with more and more Supers declaring themselves that there are over 2 million Superhumans worldwide, with a majority of them under the age of 50. They are still a small number in comparison to the rest of the population (almost 3% of the world population as a whole, with the US demographic being only 1% of the country’s full population), but it’s not unusual for the average American to have a Super neighbor or for their children to go to school with young Supers or the children of Supers.
The nonprofit, private Medical and Research Knowledge on Super Abilities Organization, shortened by many to M.A.R.K.O., was created by Jackson Young, one of the wealthiest men in the country. It is proposed as an "impartial" medical organization meant to assist Supers rather than being forced to register themselves with the government. A confidentiality agreement has been mandated and anyone who goes to MARKO for assistance will never be revealed to the government. Truthfully it was an organization designed to research ways to nullify, contain, and if necessary eliminate any Superhuman threat by using Supers themselves to progress their research. The true intentions of Young's goals for MARKO has never been discovered, but popular opinion is currently in favor of MARKO and Young's public stance that superhumans are suffering from a genetic defect that should be researched and to prevent from occuring in future generations.
The public attitude is varied, yet overall it could be called wary, although not outright hateful or condemning. Due to the government’s repeated steps to keep the public appraised of their efforts to monitor and ensure Supers do not bring a threat to the average person, the public in the United States are more watchful than fearful. They accept that Supers exist and that for right now they are one with the populace, but popular opinion supports them being registered with DELTA and the research done by MARKO that is claimed to be working towards a “cure.” There are groups that take a more radical stance, both in favor of and against mutants, but the general public tends to fall more in the middle. When Supers first started to be exposed, the public opinion was a lot more negative than it is now, but the past twenty years have been spent trying to curb the negative opinions while also encouraging the general public to “report” anyone they think may be an unregistered Super.
The public opinions and treatment of Supers around the world is not the same as it is in the United States (although some claim Canada is more openly accepting).
Department of Enhanced Logistics and Technological Advancements:
To the people of the United States, D.E.L.T.A. looks like a simple department meant to help learn as much as they can about Superhumans and creating ways to successfully integrate them into society. Not everyone approves of this, but the United States' official position that Supers are still citizens of the nation, too, has not changed. The existence of DELTA publically has led to the less outright hate and attacks on Supers in the country, but the people are not aware that D.E.L.T.A. also deals with most Superhuman threats that occur by training and deploying teams of Supers to contain other Superhumans and return them to the DELTA for containment.
DELTA has regional offices across the country with one primary office in each state, and a public HQ in New York City, but the actual base is closer to the Canadian border. They also have twenty-four Squads (codenamed by the Greek Alphabet) with various functions they can deploy as needed. 9 of those Squads are offensive, combat-trained Squads to contain Superhuman threats that are deployed not only in the States, but also on "request" to other parts of the world. 7 of those Squads are composed for research and analysis. 5 of them are designed for Superhuman location and extraction. The Theta Squad is the "public" squad, purposefully designed as the "Face of DELTA" for the public to ease their concerns and reservations about Supers co-existing with humans in society. The last 2 are currently so classified that only those at the top of D.E.L.T.A. know what they do (or who the members of each Squad are).
Because of excess funding and the abilities of the Supers working for DELTA, the organization has some of the most advanced technology on the planet, including Transjets that fly at up to Mach 8 speed while being completely silent, communicators smaller than the average blue tooth with range across almost the entire planet and up to 40 feet underground.
Registering with D.E.L.T.A is voluntary for any Super, save those who have been arrested for posing a threat to the public. If you have enlisted with DELTA you are officially working for a government organization and thus will be put under the stricter rules for government secrecy and safety. Anyone under the legal age of 18 will be required to undergo intense training if necessary and continue to attend courses to obtain a high school diploma equivalent education at the minimum. If these underage operatives remain in their regional areas instead of the primary HQ they will be sent to DELTA-approved schools. Those whose powers may pose a stronger threat without proper training are more likely to be kept to the primary Headquarters and receive schooling there.
Underage operatives also have stricter rules for what squads they are allowed to be on (none are allowed to be officially designated to one of the offensive/combat squads, but they can be on one of the surveillance and extraction squads that receive combat training), and for how much of their time can be spent on missions. Unless they have graduated school earlier (as some do), they are only allowed to spend up to 30 hours a week between training, missions, and other related activities during the school year. This is the basic standard, but it may change depending on the Youth Operative's state of residency. No one under the age of 15 is allowed to be sworn in as an official Agent, but they may be trained and receive permission to shadow squads until they reach that age.
D.E.L.T.A. abides by federal statues, which prevents Youth Operatives from owning or carrying any concealed firearm. There is a bit of a loophole in that some of the weaponry that D.E.L.T.A. uses has no official ranking or designation due to the classified status and thus it is technically not illegal for underage Agents to carry and/or use them. Often Youth Operatives are given weapons that allow for disarming and restraining but should not cause lasting damage to the target (such as tasers).
In the 90s there was a push back against allowing anyone under the age of 18 to be sworn in as an official Agent for D.E.L.T.A., arguing that it was indoctrinating children into the government without them having the legal capability to consent. In order to show more transparency and reassure the public that these minors were not being mistreated or brainwashed into working for D.E.L.T.A. a stipulation was instated in which Youth Operatives can enlist as Agents officially if their legal guardian also signs an affidavit swearing that the underage person had the maturity and comprehension to legally make that decision on their own.
This did placate the public, but is an easy stipulation to get around in the fact that many Youth Operatives can be deemed wards of the state through various actions (such as if they are orphans, a known runaway, have a criminal record, have abilities deemed too dangerous to be left under the supervision of non-Super parents, or if the parent signs away guardianship to the state). There is still an underlying criticism of D.E.L.T.A. for this, but the government takes steps to keep this out of the media because of the sensitive nature of the topic.
Medical and Research Knowledge on Super Abilities Organization and Jackson Young
Jackson Young
Jackson Young has no powers, but is a veritable genuis in the fields of physics, chemistry, and technical engineering. He built an aeronautics company (AeroYoung International) from the ground up, going against the wishes of his father, Former Secretary of Defense, General Marvin Young, who wanted him to go into the military. Despite his friendly, charismatic, and disarming demeanor, he is a shrewd and often ruthless business man. In 18 years since he first began AeroYoung, he has managed to create it into multibillion dollar conglomorate that has a hand in dozens of different forms of technical, medical, and defense engineering. If has something to do with technology, there is likely an AeroYoung subsidiary involved in it or as the leading competitor.
His current "public" stance on superhumans is that they are people afflicted with an often unfortunate genetic deformity that causes them problems in their everyday lives and puts them at an unwilling risk to their friends, family, and communities. He founded M.A.R.K.O for the purpose of "finding a cure" for this condition and does not hide the fact that his organization does indeed employ superhumans to assist in finding this cure.
In truth, Young hates superhumans and sees them as the coming wave of a species sent to wipe normal humans out. He refuses to allow this to happen. To him, humans must remain the top of the food chain, and to ensure this, they must weed out all species and potential threats to human sovereignty of the world. Young's search for a "cure" is actually using superhumans and what great minds he can hire to find a means in which to remove the superhuman gene altogether or supress it so that superhumans will no longer be born. To do this, M.A.R.K.O. publically accepted volunteers, but also secretly abducts superhumans from around the world to be experimented on at regional locations.
M.A.R.K.O.
The public opinion of MARKO is better than it's government-run counterpart. To the point that superhumans who do not want their powers or connect with the public "mission" see MARKO as a viable option. They will volunteer for testing or to work in helping to find this "cure." They are the front for the public. The clean image of superhumans working to help superhumans and to protect the public by finding a cure for the Superdemic. There is an entire department just for MARKO's Superhuman/Human Relations PR.
MARKO basically has 3 faces. The public one, the semi-public one, and the completely hidden one. The organization is divided into little factions and each of them has a determinate level of privacy. Depending on how far into the organization you are (or how much of the organization you need to see) you’ll be given one level of security clearance or another. People who are deep enough into the organization know better than to try to snoop around to know more than what they should, because the punishments for breaking the organizations’ trust are usually… intense.
Most people lose their job and get blacklisted. Some are unluckily enough to see something so incriminating that it isn’t worth it to keep them alive anymore- though most people working for MARKO think that’s an exaggeration, some kind of urban legend. It isn’t.
Most people only see the public face of MARKO. They have incredibly good PR teams, the best ones money, favors and a little bit of intimidation can buy. Because of that the world has a pretty good view of them and honestly truly think they are trying to do good and help the poor Supers.
MARKO has different public sections: there’s scientific wings all over the city where different teams try different approach to find a cure for the genetic illness that gives the Superhumans their powers and makes their lives hell. Supers can and do offer themselves voluntarily to be tested on, and MARKO will pay generously for their efforts after they sign a non-disclosure agreement. They have certain ‘meeting spots’ where Supers can join diverse support groups to learn how to live with their powers. They have facilities where Supers can live, adapted every time they get a new Super so their rooms are adequately fitted to their powers. In some cases the family of the Super is the one that requests their services because they can’t handle living around them anymore and MARKO happily obliges. Obviously all of this raises some red flags and not everyone is happy with this organization or trusts them. Some of the scientific facilities have been attacked sometimes, and there have been some manifestations in front of them claiming that they don’t need any kind of cure. But overall the views on this part of MARKO are pretty positive.
Then there’s the semipublic face. This is the part that isn’t readily disposed to the public but some determined reporter or a spy working for them at a low level can eventually get to. MARKO actually uses this to trim who in their organization can be trusted and who will end up getting fired. Testing on animals, lousy contracts… all things they expect to find. Jackson Young was smart enough to realize that once an inquisitive person finds something he was supposedly not meant to see they get so full of themselves they stop looking for more. Most people don’t even think twice before going to the authorities or the media. And so the best way to protect secrets they actually care to keep that way is to let go of some basic ones every now and then. MARKO has been involved in some cases that have made the news, and people’s trust took a heavy hit, but their PR teams are good enough to have them eating from their hands in a couple months, after they assure them they have made the necessary changes to see something like this doesn’t happen again. Rinse and repeat because people have a very hard time believing an organization can be squeaky clean but implicitly trusts one that admits to their mistakes and shortcomings every now and then. There’s a little team in the organization whose mission is specifically to make sure there’s enough corruption, embezzlement or scandals of some kind to go around.
Not all superhumans sign on with MARKO for these two sides. For those who know the true purpose behind the organization, they can join it just for the hell of it, or for the money, or because they has a desire for the knowledge that MARKO gives the access to. Not everyone is doing it for pure reasons and those who do as not given nearly as much clearance or indepth knowledge of what is going on behind the scenes. It is unlikely that most Superhumans involved know of Young's desire to rid the world of all superhumans. Only those who truly believe in that cause would be privy to it. There is a hidden subsidiary of MARKO know as Metronome. Secret Operative teams called "Black Masks" are trained by this team and they are sent out with to do the dirty work that they do not want getting back to MARKO, and especially not back to Jackson Young himself. They kidnap unregistered Supers to use for experimentation and genetic profiling.
Which is how, last but not least the private side of MARKO comes in. This is where most of MARKO’s funding goes, if only to assure they will be private about it. MARKO’s actual mission is to get rid of the Supers, once and for all. Sure, ‘curing’ them and turning them into normal humans would be nice but that’s a far off dream. A pretty lie to tell the population so they can live among disgusting, scarily powerful Supers without falling into hysteria. They aren’t any closer to finding a cure or an explanation for their powers than they were when this all began. So they have to get rid of them in some other way.
And so, they kill them.
Obviously it’s not as simple as that. There’s no mass extermination, they won’t kill every super on sight. But it’s their main goal in mind, even if they are aware it’s still just a dream. MARKO actually has some Supers working for them, they aren’t stupid enough to not use an asset when it offers itself so freely. Some Supers have a lot of self-loathing inside of them: they consider powers ruined their life, that Supers are ruining everything humanity should stand for. (Others are simply bored).
There are different squads in different teams, and each team has their own jobs and missions. A few of the squads, heavily trained, are basically assassins ready to strike at important, influential Supers whose deaths would tumble down any movement that regards Supers in a positive light. They have a lot of DELTA blood on their hands, and some of those murders were even made to look like accidental deaths or even suicides. These are the most private squads, and no one knows much about them- not even the higher ups. They are basically their own section: the organization points their fingers and the squads make the death happen, no questions asked.
There’s also scientific teams, much like the ones MARKO proudly shows to the public. But they aren’t looking for a cure: they are looking for weaknesses. Ways to kill them, to get rid of them. A lot of Supers have been tortured and killed on the tables of their laboratories, and a lot more will. This is the most grey area of the private sections, since some of the scientists simply take samples or make tests without really knowing why. Some teams are simply told to create prisons to hold the supers, bunkers where the normal population can hide, create weapons based on a Super’s powers… nothing would make them suspect they are aiding with the extermination of an entire race. Again, they don’t ask many questions: it’s simply better that way.
And then there are the retrieval teams. So much experimentation requires a lot of Supers, and the volunteering ones only get so far. This is where most of the Supers work, since their abilities make it easier for them to retrieve other Supers. These squads also work pretty freely, they can pretty much get free reign as long as the Super they need gets brought to the organization (pretty) unharmed. They usually get placed in teams on 5 with a leader, but each member of the squad can complete the mission on their own once it’s given to them and most choose to go that way. The members of these squads are the ones that get the most free time, since they aren’t required 24/7 but aren’t at such high risk as the ones in the killing squad.
(Funnily enough there’s a bit of competition between the retrieval teams and the killing squad…)
Superhuman Rankings:
- Level E: Person who is the child or descendant of a superhuman, but has currently shown no abilities or mutations.
- Level D: Superhuman with physical mutatations or abilities that are primarily harmless and inconsequential to living with society; no destructive abilities (easy to hide). Example: Someone with enganced hearing or vision could be designated a Level D.
- Level C: Superhuman with physical mutations or enhanced abilities, but are not inherently threatening and are easy for the superhuman to control. Physical mutations are obvious enough to hinder living normally within society. Example: Someone with wings or the abilities similar to animals (such as having senses and reflexes similar to a cat).
- Level B: Superhuman with powerful abilities that pose a direct threat to others, are uncontrollable, or show the potential for developing multiple mutations/abilities. Examples: Telepaths, Super Strength, Empathy, Energy Manipulation, Super Speed, etc.
- Level A: Superhumans with powerful, threatening abilities that are perfectly under their own control (can be turned off and on at their will) and can be used it a variety of ways. Examples: Telekinesis, Pyrokinesis, Gravitational Manipulation, etc.