“They came for the villains first and we didn't do anything. We weren't villains. Then, they came for the vigilantes. We didn't say anything because we still had sanctioned heroes. They then came for the sanctioned heroes, and when they came for us, there was no one left to protect us.”
Thread Staff: TBA
Thread Staff: TBA
B A C K G R O U N D
The age of heroes and villains is over. The year is 2024, and in this world, being born with powers is more of a curse than a blessing. The all-seeing eyes of the United Nations Superior Commission watches known power users, called Superiors, like a hawk. National governments experiment on Superiors at times, and at other times, they recruit them into secretive black budget military programs. The public, which has suffered at the hands of Superiors who used their abilities for evil, is apathetic at best and hostile at worst when it comes to the plight of the Superior community. There's no safe haven for those who find themselves born with powers. The Commission's reach is worldwide, and costumed heroes and villains are a thing of the past.
All of these factors led to a truce. A pact between good and evil, between heroes and villains. The terms? They're quite simple. Train the next generation of heroes and villains, and don't kill each other in the process. With the rest of the world standing against Superiors, infighting could spell the doom of both sides of the conflict. A new organization, Specter, was created out of resources pooled from the wealthier heroes and villains. Specter's only goal is to equip the next generation and to destroy the Commission by any means necessary. There's no ideological drive, no hero versus villain clashing. Because right now, the latter could be deadly.
That training takes place at Hadley Academy, named after one of the legendary Superior figures of the past. The island, located northeast of Malaysia, was completely destroyed by the Japanese during World War Two, leaving it abandoned... Making it the perfect place to dump a number of young adults, where they can figure out their powers without the interference of the Commission. The Academy isn't state of the art, but it is home to a number of the most experienced heroes and villains out there, and more important, it provides secrecy. The secrecy that's required to build up a revolution.
What will you do? Will you become a hero to protect the innocent? Will you aim for power and riches as a villain? Will you take the fight to the Commission, and end the oppression against Superiors? Or will you fold under pressure and leave the Academy in hopes of returning to your normal life? Well, that's up to you.
T H E A C A D E M Y
In this RP, you'll play as a student at Hadley Academy. However, this isn't your normal academy, because all students are Superiors, or humans with superhuman powers. Your goal is to train to fight the Commission and reverse the oppression of your kind. To do this, all of you will be split into two groups, heroes and villains. Heroes generally use their powers to help others, villains are generally out for their own interests. There's room for different types of personalities in both groups, but everyone will be put into one of the two and dorms will be divided by group.
Part of your time will be spent on Hadley Island, an abandoned place with a dark past and zero permanent citizens. Here, you'll go through some training and have time to yourselves. At certain points, there will be chances to use your training in the field, and fight back against the Commission, as well as other trips and chances to use your powers. Half of the staff are known as heroes, the other half are known as villains. You will be trained by both at different times, which should help you remember the golden rule.
That infighting is the quickest way to the demise of this academy.
L O R E
Scientists don't know where Superiors are from, or even what they are exactly. Some call them a different species. Others call them humans with various changes. Regardless of what they actually are, Superiors appeared on Earth relatively recently. The first appearances date back to the 1960s. Further appearances grew in the coming decades, and different places reacted differently. Some attempted to immediately experiment on them, other countries did nothing and didn't believe that reports of people with powers were legitimate, and others silently watched these people while examining how they fit into society.
In many third world countries, Superiors were understood less and faced dangers from the local populations. Many communities accused Superiors of using dark magical arts, and over the ten years between the 1970s and 1980s, there were many attacks in such countries, and even in some first world countries such as the United States. Mob violence became a common thing for anyone who showed their powers publicly in much of the world, and so while Superiors became more accepted in the west, they often lived in secrecy in the east and Africa. Because of their small numbers, however, there were not specific laws created for these people at this point in time.
1982 saw the first major controversy involving Superiors. As a way to prevent the violence against their kind, a group of Superiors from rural Ireland formed the organization known as Superiors United Against Human Terror. SUAHT represented the militant part of the Superior community, donning black masks and green military fatigues as part of their official uniform. They began as a local group operating out of the British Isles and striking at anyone who was accused of discriminating or acting against Superiors, but they gained infamy from the press and soon spread to other western countries.
Once SUAHT had a large membership, they spread east, clashing with the villages and towns that were home to anti-Superior violence. SUAHT was declared a terrorist organization by most governments of the world, but after a decade of Superiors being put down, many of them were ready to strike back. The group continued to grow in numbers until it was present in most countries, via a system of independently operating cells. They peaked during the 1989 Battle of Shanghai, when members of the East Asia SUAHT branch created a tsunami from the East China Sea and struck Shanghai, destroying much of the city with the unnaturally tall waves and killing tens of thousands of people.
The attack halted the city's growth as a major commercial center, and brought worldwide infamy to SUAHT. It also resulted in many countries drafting restrictive laws against Superiors. Laws that banned the use of powers, or limited them to a smaller group of government sanctioned heroes. Superpowered criminals, even the ones who weren't tied with terrorist groups, were cracked down on as well as SUAHT. This happened especially in developed countries with extensive intelligence agencies, as they used these agencies to gather databases of Superiors to monitor them.
In 1991, the top nations in the world met with United Nations officials to decide what should be done about the Superior population. When the Beijing Conference was over, they had reached a solution. The UN would form the United Nations Superior Commission, an organization responsible for laying out some rules. As a result of these new rules, using powers publicly quickly became illegal in the vast majority of the world's countries, with exceptions for those who physically cannot disable their powers.
In past years, vigilantes had done combat with criminals, creating popular heroes and villains that were larger than life figures. These people were now forced to abandon their activities, or go underground. For those that fought back, there were harsh punishments from the Commission's Task Force, which was made up of forces volunteered from UN member nations. Faced with a dangerous enemy, the Commission became brutal in their tactics, and by 2000, Superiors all around the world were forced to live in secrecy and avoid mentioning their powers. Popular teams of vigilantes, such as the Order of Saints, were forced to disband, their members either retiring or continuing as newly declared criminals.
A new wave of hysteria hit the world in 2009, when on the 20th anniversary of the Battle of Shanghai, the broken and beaten remnants of East Asian SUAHT went out with a bang by releasing a cryptic message reading "So long and goodnight," before staging a suicide attack on the Three Gorges Dam and destroying it with magic based attacks. The attackers were killed in the resulting flood, but also caused roughly 15 million deaths and displaced 450 million people living in the path of the floods. It was the largest terror attack of human history, and it caused public opinion of all Superiors, even perfectly law abiding ones, to drop significantly.
The economic effects of the Three Gorges Dam incident resulted in the 2008 recession getting far worse, and as a result, the United States elected Republican candidate Matthew Bell as the President in 2012. His campaign slogan, "We will not be moved," was both a reference to the United States as a superpower, and humans against Superiors. His first term saw the United States get much tougher on all Superiors, and other nations followed suit after seeing the USA take the lead. Fast forward to 2024, however, and resistance is growing worldwide against the restrictive policies of the Commission.
Specter, a secretive organization of Superiors both good and evil, was founded in 2023 to create a peace between all Superiors, one that would last long enough to overthrow the Commission. But with many Superiors growing up under the Commission's restrictions, they found it necessary to train the younger generation first. After all, by now, the young adults of the world are far removed from the days of the Order of Saints and SUAHT. Specter traveled to East Asia and set up a base on an abandoned Malaysian island that had been wiped out by the Japanese long ago. It was renamed Hadley Island, after fallen Saints leader Ross Hadley. Soon after, an academy was established with the purpose of finding the most promising young Superiors, and training both the good and bad to fight back.
R U L E S
Standard rules on NS apply. There are some RP specific rules to be aware of however. Firstly, mythological beings such as ghosts, vampires, angels, demons, and others are not allowed. Non humans who are not rooted in mythology, such as aliens, may be allowed. It depends on the exact specifics so you should ask before applying with one. Magic as a power source, however, is permitted.
The next major rule has to do with how strong your characters are. There isn't a hard ceiling but you should generally be on the lower end of the overall power scale and not the higher part. Comic books and superhero movies are not a good example for how strong your characters should be, because the heroes in these are typically near the high end of the scale. For example, you would be rejected for applying at the power level of Magneto, Scarlet Witch, or Wolverine. It should go without saying, but there should be practical weaknesses for your character too. The stronger they are, the more weaknesses and drawbacks they're expected to have.
Time travel is the only banned power, because it messes with the mechanics of the RP. Mind control based powers aren't 100% banned but most likely will not be allowed, as they rely on godmodding to work properly. Lastly, you need prior approval to play staff characters.
Banned Players
Sky & anyone spying for Sky
A P P L I C A T I O N S
