Chapter 5: State of the Union

After the events of the Apocalypse War, S.H.I.E.L.D. underwent some extreme makeovers, and this included several shifts within the Avengers and the Ultimates for the purposes of our game. I'm going to detail as much as I can recollect for you now, so that you'll have a good sense of where things are at before the game actually begins (after all, since technically you've all been living in this universe before being recruited, you would have known at least some of this from the news).

First and foremost, as I mentioned before, the Ultimates quit S.H.I.E.L.D. and went independent. Now financed by Stark Industries, Captain America and his team of heroes have taken to serving whoever needs them, not just the American government. This no doubt might place them at odds with S.H.I.E.L.D. in the future, but so far they have caused no serious trouble. Just keep in mind that we won't be able to call Thor for help just because we're feeling overwhelmed.

On the other hand, when the Ultimates resigned that left an open spot, which the Avengers, being the group that did actually save the world, were immediately thrust into. So now the Avengers are S.H.I.E.L.D.'s premier superhuman fighting force, which means we have a lot more responsibility and a lot less leeway. When this promotion occurred, most of the team was still intact, and it included:

-Zex, master ninja and Captain of the team
-Focus, psychic extraordinaire and deputy leader
-Rock, the "muscle" of the group
-Waffleman, still as crazy as ever
-Ruby Teer, whose curse-related abilities had now been permanently replaced by Seth DeSavre's powers over light manipulation, including the ability to turn into light herself

The group looked promising, until something unexpected arrived on their doorstep and changed everything: Seth DeSavre showed up alive, though some might argue not in a good way.

Seth had indeed died in Ruby's arms, and in the afterlife he met Death of the Endless and her older brother, Destiny (yes, fans of the Sandman mythos can take comfort that Neil Gaiman's brainchild is a part of our universe). Though Death tried to be reassuring, Destiny told Seth that it was not yet his time, that he still had a part to play in the fate of his world, and so he was sent back to the land of the living. But even though his soul returned, his body was in no shape to revive itself...or was it?

Unbeknownst even to Seth himself, when Apocalypse "enhanced" him he actually saturated the young mutant's body with more cells than he had ever used before on a single organism. No one knows why Apocalypse did this. It could have been a random experiment, or perhaps a carefully orchestrated back-up plan should his other goals not be met. Whatever the case, this extreme "dosage" of the X-gene/Apocalypse cells completely remutated Seth's body, integrating itself with his own DNA to the point where the two were practically indistinguishable from each other. The overall effect this had, then, was that Seth had become all but an exact copy of Apocalypse. His skin was gray, his lips blue, his body fully malleable into any shape he could imagine, and his own brain now evolved to the point where it could display some rudimentary psychic abilities. Of course, as if dying and coming back to life wasn't traumatic enough, having an entirely new body and power set to adapt to pushed Seth to the breaking point. He was put through many rigorous medical and psychiatric evaluations as S.H.I.E.L.D. tried to figure out just what the hell had happened and how he could possibly move on.

Seth's changes not only affected his status as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, but on the feelings of his teammates as well. After all, he now looked like nothing less than a youthful version of their most hated enemy. Ruby in particular took it very hard. She still loved Seth deeply, but trying to hold onto that love while he bore the face of her worst nightmare proved almost unbearable. She tried to hide this anguish from Seth, but now that he could read the thoughts of others it all proved for naught. Seth broke off their relationship, and the loss of the woman he literally died for just made him all the moodier.

Then came the introduction of the West Coast Initiative. Rather than keep the majority of their forces grouped solely in New York (after the Triskelion was rebuilt, of course), the heads of S.H.I.E.L.D. decided it might be a good idea to "spread the wealth" a bit. The decision was made to split the Avengers into two groups: one to remain in New York, the other to move to a new location just outside of Los Angeles. The LA group would remain active but have their headquarters hidden, if only to avoid some wacked-out supervillain destroying yet another valuable S.H.I.E.L.D. base.

Rather than force apart the group, Nick Fury decided to take volunteers to move out. With Focus leaving the team to work as a "behind-the-scenes" type agent and Zex flat out leaving S.H.I.E.L.D., the group was already a bit tight on resources. Ruby chose to remain in New York, while Rock, Waffleman, and Seth (now calling himself "Ragnarok", in ironic reflection of his new form) decided to head to the West Coast. Ruby was soon joined by many newcomers hired by S.H.I.E.L.D., though she tries to remain in touch with her old teammates. Legari, Rock's girlfriend, also chose to remain behind, since she had her heart set on a college in the area and could not give up her future for what might just be a temporary fling. However, those two also stay in touch.

And so, that is where we're at now. Your characters will be coming into the game just before the West Coast Avengers (their official name) are introduced to the public, and in some form or another you will all be asked to join (I suppose you could refuse, but then your reason for participating in each mission will prove difficult to justify; besides, it's a sweet gig!).

Oh, and again, it has been two years since the Apocalypse War, so tensions over that horrendous ordeal are still a bit high. Mutants have been getting a bad rap for awhile, of course, but they never grew so close to all-out domination as they did with their "father". Keep that in mind if you wish to play a mutant.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. At this point I'm not sure what more I can add until we actually start the game, though if we get around to making your characters I'll add them to the sidebar on this page. Maybe we can do that on the Geekend...

Excelsior!