The Gamma Corps is a body of law enforcement officers that patrol the Milky Way galaxy to preserve civilization and galactic culture. The Corps is comprised of three levels: the First Council, the Corps Council and then the patrol members of the Corps itself, the Centurions. The Centurions are a million-year tradition in the galaxy; before them, the Council employed the Myrmidons, energy constructs born from the Well of Stars itself. They proved to be too inflexible, particularly in dealing with planet-bound races.

The Centurions are powered by tapping the quantum singularity that lies at the center of the galaxy. The laws of physics break down at the lip of its event horizon, allowing near-instantaneous transmission of energy to any Corps member regardless of the position in time or space. It also connects them to the hypermind of the Corps. It has been a Corps tradition that whenever possible a dying Corps member joins with the singularity, allowing himself to join his mind to the hypermind.

Booster stations for the Singularity are situated throughout the Galaxy, these also serving as Centurion-run facilities for healing, training and recruitment. The Sol System, being of especial importance because of its unique position among the higher and lower dimensions, has the only Centurion station on the outer rim: the ‘moon’ Io is in fact an artificial mobile world-base. It also serves as a transport nexus for star travel.

Corps Prime is situated on a ring-shaped artificial world surrounding the Singularity. Corps Prime is the largest construct in the Galaxy, created by the First, the council of races that were the first beings to become sentient after the Big Bang. They have since evolved into post-physical forms.

The Supremacy first appeared as an offshoot of the eugenics movements in the 1930’s, when a cabal of scientists began to realize that certain metahuman traits could be passed through inheritance or that selective breeding could lead to a much higher chance of metahuman activation. Scientists before WW2 were just barely scratching the surface of understanding metahuman traits and many still did not believe such things even existed, so funding for their research was very tight. To ensure a ready supply of cash for their research, in 1935 the scientists brought together and trained one of the first supervillain groups in the world: Satan’s Seven.

It is perhaps an axiom that the more radical elements in any organization eventually wind up controlling that organization because of their untiring efforts at getting their own way. So it was with the informal cabal; by 1941 it was controlled by Lord Vulcan, once the leader of Satan’s Seven. His gifts included superhuman intelligence and an intuitive grasp of technological artifacts that far surpassed his time period. He began to believe his gifts placed him above his fellow man and he gradually moved the focus of his fellow scientists from research to experimentation.

Lord Vulcan believes that metahumans represent a superior track of evolution and continually tries to ‘improve the breed’, creating machines and serums that can unlock the metahuman potential he thinks resides in everyone. He has made several improvements to himself and his minions and it’s not uncommon for him to experiment upon normal humans and metahumans alike as he tries to grant himself ever more powerful abilities.

Since the 1980’s, he has backed several organizations with the stated goal of taking over the world and setting up a metahuman ruling class to police the common herd of humanity, which will be used as breeding stock or raw materials, depending on their genetic fitness. Several more radical groups have spun off of these organizations, usually devoted to some form of high-tech terrorism or using the ‘Supremacy’ ideology as a front to pull in people for indoctrination into their own ideals. Sometimes Lord Vulcan destroys these spin-offs himself, other times he may reveal their plans or locations to ATLAS or local superhero groups, depending on his mood and how far he feels the group has deviated from his message.

From the birth of warfare, it has been the dream of the state to create the superior soldier, a cut above what talent or training can provide to a man. Numerous programs were tried in many parts of the world down through the ages but the first true ‘super soldier’ formula was created in 1885. The results were hushed up and buried, and this set the tone for similar experimentation over the next hundred years. Quickly it was learned that superior aggression or resistance to the idea of killing was not desirable a trait to re-create for soldiers that also had to come home after the war. There were numerous horror stories from that period and the roots of many later supervillain experiments lay in the period from 1890-1900.

There were patriotic ‘super soldiers’ before this time of course. The ghost of Revolutionary War Ranger Thomas Wainwright possesses his descendents, turning them into Old Glory. The half-alien Johnny Reb almost turned the tide of the Civil War in favor of the confederates before his Northern counterpart Ironclad killed him at Antietam.

The Great Influenza Pandemic was the first successful biological weapon test, Fu Manchu’s response to Germany foiling his plans for the conquest of China. The first truly successful super soldier formula was created in 1918 as a mistake while looking for an influenza cure; it created five physically superior specimens that did not go mad.

From that point, US, English and German scientists worked to recreate that accident, also branching out into other areas of research. For the technology of the time, chemistry was the way to go. In 1942, the US had another success using the mostly-untested radiation approach: The Silver Eagle. Britain created Tommy Atkins and Yeoman using their more traditional chemical approach, though Yeoman eventually went mad and Tommy had to take the serum every week or see his powers fade. Germany went a different route with their Necromen project, though their major success in the field came from duplicating the US Silver Eagle project and producing Iron Cross and Masterman.

The Silver Eagle and Starboy (created through a transfusion of Silver Eagle’s blood, though that method never worked on another person, ever) were immediately put into action in Europe while at home the Army got down to work on the Minuteman project. Tired of potions and treatments that only worked on single individuals, the Minuteman project sought a mechanical solution. The concept of the exoskeleton was not a new one, but recent materials advances finally made it possible.

The Silver Eagle was murdered by Iron Cross in 1944. In 1955 Starboy renamed himself Patriot and was assigned another partner: Eagle. Eagle was literally the first of a new breed. In 1955 Atlantean scientists working in collaboration with the US Government improved our understanding of DNA to the point that we could begin genetic experimentation. Eagle was the first of Batch One, a group of 36 physical supermen created by a fusion of human and Atlantean science. Eagle was the only one who was later able to resist the mental conditioning placed in the clones by Zuras, the Atlantean Illuminated One (head scientist), in his first attempt to conquer Earth. After that, the US Government abandoned most of its Atlantean ties, though many private corporations continue to make use of that research.

The US went through several other programs: The Minuteman projects were resurrected in the 70’s. The 80’s saw them use cybernetics. In the 90’s they dabbled in nanotech. By the 2000’s, they are firmly back in the genetic experimentation route.

The Bay Area in 2008 has a population of 31.3 million people, making it the largest population center in the United States. There are four main urban centers: San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and Redwood City. Each is a large modern skyscraper-studded city with populations in the millions.

San Francisco is a haven for free-thinkers, artists and authors. It boasts the largest metahuman population on Earth, an estimated 25,000 people with an expressed metahuman ability of Delta-class or above. It has the largest Asian population in the US (27% of residents). One man in five above the age of 15 is gay. It has the only phone book in the US with the profession ‘Wizard’ listed. Due to the physical nature of the peninsula, San Francisco has the densest population of any city in the US.

Oakland is an urban hellhole of crime and corruption. It’s been voted ‘Most Corrupt Police Force in the US’ every year since 1968 and boasts the highest violent crime rate in the US. Oakland has suffered crippling economic downturns and is a sea of urban poor. Save for the showcase waterfront mall area, the average income of an Oakland resident is $10,000 per year with a 35% unemplyment rate. Massive decaying housing project towers serve as gang headquarters in the war for the streets. Ironically, just south of Oakland’s borders in Freemont is an economic boomtown in terms of jobs and living standards due to the massive automotive plants and subsidiary industries.

Redwood City is all glitz and glamour. This is where the displaced film industry settled and all major studios maintain a significant presence here. The huge marina areas host both cargo container ships and million-dollar yachts. The finest hotels and entertainment venues are here, though San Francisco still has the best restaurants. The theater and ballet companies that have settled here are why the northern part of the area is called ‘Little Broadway’.

San Jose is a gleaming ‘city of the future’ that boasts one of the highest standards of living in the US. Every major and minor technical company has some level of representation here. It has the first automated guidance roadway system in the US, which came online in 2001 and serves the inner city area, with extensions out to the primary shopping districts, airport, and Disneyland.

Fortress, aka, Nicholas Fort, was a member of the Silver Seven until he betrayed and murdered his teammates in order to fuel Douglas Pierce’s political ambitions and his own lust for power - as Pierce moved into political circles, Fort took over more and more of the overtly criminal organizations Pierce had set up to destroy of muzzle his rivals.

Fortress joined the Silver Seven in 1983 at the age of 20 and quickly became one of it’s most popular members. Appealing and photogenic, the young hero was often the ‘face’ of the team to the media and the press. Poised, cool under pressure, and with a glib tongue, Fortress kept the Silver Seven in the limelight for years. His skill on the battlefield was also impressive. Fort was born a mutant and at 14 his powers began to manifest. He gained a mild degree of super-strength but his greatest power was his invulnerability: he is the highest-rated non-cosmic entity in that category. He is on record as having lived through a direct fusion explosion, being thrown through the heart of a star, and having shrugged off N-Pulse’s disintegration beams.

When news broke of Fortress’s betrayal, many denied it even though he confessed to the crime; such was his popularity with the people of Oakland. Even when his dealings with Pierce were later revealed in full, many claimed it was a smear campaign against him.

Nicholas Fort is beleived to currently reside on the private island of Ikros in the Agean Sea, home of the Fort family and heart of their shipping empire, sheltered by his family despite demands by ATLAS that he be turned over to them for criminal prosecution. The Greek government’s strained relations with ATLAS at present probably contributes a great deal to the lack of official national cooperation. Fort is currently wanted in the US and Canada for 147 counts of criminal conspiracy and violation of various RICO statutes, and wanted for questioning in at least 6 murders (his four teammates in 1988, Monica Sales in 2000 and Oakland city official Howard Parks in 2003).

20 years without an embedded superhero group have seen crime rise and become entrenched in the area. Going counter-clockwise around the Bay Area: San Francisco is mainly split between the Chinese and the Russians. The Tongs and Organizatsiya groups have roughly equal footing, each sharing about 40% of the ‘underworld’ economy: the rest is taken up by the top three supervillian groups.

As you move south towards Redwood City, Latin gangs take over the less dense urban areas and suburbs. Redwood City itself, and Hollywood, are solidly in control of the Russian Mafia but their influence ends when the main urbanization runs out. The entire south bay is given over to a mosaic of Latin gangs, and the debased Santaria cults (San Jose itself is a very low crime zone as far as gangs go. It’s underworld is controlled by The Machinist).

Going back up towards Oakland, the black gangs take over; tense turf wars break out every few weeks between black and latino gangs, each seeking a part of the shrinking pie. Oakland proper is ruled by a cabal of black gangs, topped by the Black Iron Diciples and the Caliphate.

The northern cities and Sacremento are given over to specifically the Mexican Mafia ( as oppossed to the Nuestra Familia that surrounds Redwood City and parts south), though the Russians are making serious inroads on their traditional sources.

The traditional La Cosa Nostra Mafia is not seen very much on the West Coast, though they have some strong interests in Hollywood. The only successful traditional Mafia family is the Cotroni Family who originally came down from Toronto. They have made a place for themselves in the cocaine market and seem comfortable running that business despite the Mexicans.

The most powerful known metahuman on the planet is probably Natasha Dementieva, known as Mother Russia. She has the normal paragon suite of abilities: flight, super-strength, invulnerability, speed and endurance. She says she gets her power from ‘the Russian people’, but she doesn’t display the normal characteristics of other metas who have similar power sources.

Dementieva first appeared May 1, 1954, and was introduced as the protector of the Soviet Union in the wake of Stalin’s death. She clashed with many American and European superheroes during the Cold War era, though there are scattered reports of her forming friendships of respect with some. Originally she worked exclusively for the Soviet government, but around 1982 she began to operate independently. Though she has not apparently aged a day since her appearance, her level of activity has decreased in recent years to an almost random level; she has not offered an explanation for this. She can usually be seen at the scene of major natural disasters or working with ATLAS heroes dealing with nation-wide emergencies.

Some of the early mystery men of the 20’s and 30’s occasionally had assistants that were younger than they but none were consistent or noted. It took the unusual action of putting a minor into combat to bring the term ’sidekick’ into the American vocabulary.

Squire, the assistant to The Silver Knight, was the first teenager to put on a costume and fight crime, beating out the first appearance of Kid Superior by two full years. In one interview the hero now known as Sentinel said that he regarded Squire’s appearance as an inspiration to him to use his gifts for the betterment of mankind.

William L. Shirer’s monumental work Godlike, his 1965 follow-up to The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich which details the entrance of true metahumans onto the world stage, contains a lengthy interview with the Silver Knight and Squire done soon after the end of the war. Later in the book he examines the proliferation of young assistants to the metas of the time without the bias and cruel animosity seen in 1954’s Seduction of the Innocent (an FBI-sponsored propaganda peice aimed at swaying popular opinion against the prominent metas of the time, especially The Astronaut and Starboy, and The Eagle and Wing).

Metahuman historian Ron Goulart explored the popularity of the sidekick in his 1967 book Boy Wondering, which devoted a good quarter of the book to Squire’s exploits in WW2, his later popularity on the American pop scene, his rise as one of the first ‘teen idols’, and his gradual withdrawal from the superhero community as he aged.

TV and movie portrayals of Squire have been surprisingly sparse given his popularity in the 1950s. The movie serial ‘Silver Knight vs The Robot Menace’ featured John Duncan as Squire; productions values were terribly cheap though even it was not as bad as Christopher Atkin’s portrayal in 1980’s ‘War Hero’, widely regarded as the role that ended the young actor’s career. Much better was Kevin Zeger’s portrayal in 1999’s ‘The Greatest Generation’.