While I like International Super Teams, I also love Green Ronin's Freedom
City setting for their Mutants and Masterminds superhero rpg. Whereas IST was built on the idea "What if
Supers existed in the real world, and their actions had real consequences?", Freedom City was built on the idea "What if Supers existed, but
we lived in their world?" It's really a quaint little love-affair
with classic comics book stories, with a lot of homages to everything from Superman to Neil Gaiman.
Now, the book mostly focuses on Freedom City, USA, and it's respective superhero population, and mostly glosses over the rest of the world's events,
except for generic "the world, as we know it" notes. But I feel the setting could be, at least in certain ways, compatible with IST. The basic
timeline of world events are compatible, and the Freedom City history and characters could be added rather neatly into the ISTverse with only minor issues.
For exemple, Freedom City includes a brief "Moore Act" of zero tolerance on costumed heroes from 1984 to 1992, forcing even it's prime hero
Centurion to stop operating within the city. This times rather nicely with the foundation of the International Super Teams. Therefore, one could say
Centurion joined with IST, giving it greater credibility and acceptance amongst the American public. Then came the 1992 Terminus Invasion, which mobilized the
largest alliance of heroes ever seen, including virtually every available IST, many of which suffered substantial losses, including Centurion's sacrifice.
Two years later, the Freedom League is re-established in the city, and becomes America's premier superhero team, with only IST getting more worldwide
respectibility.
Meanwhile, IST has the full support of UNISON, the United Nations International Superhuman Oversight Network, a organization of super-agents that has more or
less replaced the old Peacekeeper corps. The various branches of UNISON deal with everything from natural disaster relief, to investigating supernormal
threats, to fighting terrorist agencies using mundane methods. In short, everything that falls between the cracks of IST is UNISON's to mop up.
In the USA, however, such functions are handled by AEGIS, the American Elite Government Intervention Service. It is a paramilitary organisation equipped with
ultra-tech equipment to deal with superhuman crime and violence. As it employs neither nukes nor super-powered operatives, it has remained relatively
untouched by the UN 1982 edicts, and are hailed as America's first line of defense against super-threats. And since the election of Republican Candidate
Buchanan to the White House, AEGIS has seen it's budget increased substantially, even with the percieved downfall of the SHADOW terrorist organization.
The former Soviet Block, Israel, Red China and Great Britain all have similar national agencies.
Meanwhile, while SHADOW is staying in the shadows, rebuilding it's forces and planning new schemes, a radical terrorist cartel known as Overthrow has
arisen to take it's place in the limelight. Under the leadership of Dominic Ashe, a European left-wing terrorist of the 1980s, Overthrow is an umbrella
group that has absorbed smaller left-wing terror organizations and formed them into a single group that has, since the 1990s, responsible for hundreds of acts
of violence: assassinations, kidnappings and bombings alike, and has virtually replaced Islamic terror groups as a world-class threat. Suspicions regarding
Overthrow's backing ranges from Red China to the South American dictatorships to ramnants of SHADOW.
...That's all I've got so far. What do you guys think?
City setting for their Mutants and Masterminds superhero rpg. Whereas IST was built on the idea "What if
Supers existed in the real world, and their actions had real consequences?", Freedom City was built on the idea "What if Supers existed, but
we lived in their world?" It's really a quaint little love-affair
with classic comics book stories, with a lot of homages to everything from Superman to Neil Gaiman.
Now, the book mostly focuses on Freedom City, USA, and it's respective superhero population, and mostly glosses over the rest of the world's events,
except for generic "the world, as we know it" notes. But I feel the setting could be, at least in certain ways, compatible with IST. The basic
timeline of world events are compatible, and the Freedom City history and characters could be added rather neatly into the ISTverse with only minor issues.
For exemple, Freedom City includes a brief "Moore Act" of zero tolerance on costumed heroes from 1984 to 1992, forcing even it's prime hero
Centurion to stop operating within the city. This times rather nicely with the foundation of the International Super Teams. Therefore, one could say
Centurion joined with IST, giving it greater credibility and acceptance amongst the American public. Then came the 1992 Terminus Invasion, which mobilized the
largest alliance of heroes ever seen, including virtually every available IST, many of which suffered substantial losses, including Centurion's sacrifice.
Two years later, the Freedom League is re-established in the city, and becomes America's premier superhero team, with only IST getting more worldwide
respectibility.
Meanwhile, IST has the full support of UNISON, the United Nations International Superhuman Oversight Network, a organization of super-agents that has more or
less replaced the old Peacekeeper corps. The various branches of UNISON deal with everything from natural disaster relief, to investigating supernormal
threats, to fighting terrorist agencies using mundane methods. In short, everything that falls between the cracks of IST is UNISON's to mop up.
In the USA, however, such functions are handled by AEGIS, the American Elite Government Intervention Service. It is a paramilitary organisation equipped with
ultra-tech equipment to deal with superhuman crime and violence. As it employs neither nukes nor super-powered operatives, it has remained relatively
untouched by the UN 1982 edicts, and are hailed as America's first line of defense against super-threats. And since the election of Republican Candidate
Buchanan to the White House, AEGIS has seen it's budget increased substantially, even with the percieved downfall of the SHADOW terrorist organization.
The former Soviet Block, Israel, Red China and Great Britain all have similar national agencies.
Meanwhile, while SHADOW is staying in the shadows, rebuilding it's forces and planning new schemes, a radical terrorist cartel known as Overthrow has
arisen to take it's place in the limelight. Under the leadership of Dominic Ashe, a European left-wing terrorist of the 1980s, Overthrow is an umbrella
group that has absorbed smaller left-wing terror organizations and formed them into a single group that has, since the 1990s, responsible for hundreds of acts
of violence: assassinations, kidnappings and bombings alike, and has virtually replaced Islamic terror groups as a world-class threat. Suspicions regarding
Overthrow's backing ranges from Red China to the South American dictatorships to ramnants of SHADOW.
...That's all I've got so far. What do you guys think?
