--Anno Domini 2022--
Meta-Human is the politically and scientifically attributed term to those who have undergone some form of mutation, incantation, enchantment or posession that results in them gaining abilities previously identified as supernatural. And it is known fact that they have been around since the dawn of time, Hercules, Sun Wukong, Samson, Ameterasu, all of them in some form fell in to this classification. Though they remained hidden behind a masquarade for millenia. Near the mid 19th century, previous theories regarding superhumans, and mythological creatures started to lose their status as extreme fringe theory, and while still not accepted by the public nor the scientific community at large at this time they had their merits then and now.
These papers written by individuals seen as crackpots and drug abusers were uncovered in the midst of the First World War by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but not before the mighty empires of Europe collapsed under their own bulk. When the Second World War arrived, these fringe theories and scriptures were seriously considered by the Nazis, and in a few years, the Allies as well. With Operation Paperclip, the West became a hub of secret activity seeking to uncover all they could. The Cold War became the wellspring of activity pertaining to not only the study but the development of artificial meta-humans leading to a few small but potent programs dedicated to one upping the other side.
It wasn't until 2003 however that the public perception of the so called myths and rumors stopped being simple conspiracy theory and became accepted fact. On February 1st, during the re-entry manuever of STS-107, the space shuttle Columbia began falling apart as it plowed through the air above the southern United States. Under normal circumstances, it would be a death sentence, though an object seemingly launched from the ground and accelerating to match the shuttle speed intercepted the crew module, and safely brought it to the ground over eastern Texas.
The cause of the contrail that intercepted the shuttle saving 4 of the 7 people on board, was a 13 year old girl, who would later be identified to the public as Crimson Raven, the first member of the future League of Twelve.
From that point, it became clear to the world the abnormal could be considered normal, and other powerful meta-humans from across the world began banding together to act as overall guardians for the world. The world had no borders to the League, they responded to where they were needed when things got too bad for local government. From halting an ongoing terror attack on the Three Gorges Dam in 2009, they were also suspected to have a role in a North Korean coup in 2013 ultimately ending in proper prospects for re-unification,and were involved in stopping a number of smaller terror attacks in Europe in the mid to late 2010s.
In 2019 however, an event simply known as the San Andreas Incident resulted in the complete destruction of the San Fransisco Bay Area, and a major level of damage to the whole of California along the San Andreas fault line, with wider damages outside the state, and even the country being stopped by the second member of the League, Bridgman killing himself from the strain of controlling the better part of several tectonic plates with his geokinesis. The resulting event also killed 6 other members of the league, and left the remainder out of commission, in a few cases, for years.
In that time period, nations scrambled as meta-human crime skyrocketed in response to the world's guardians being now crippled or dead. The UN founded the Meta-Human Affairs Organisation with a few sub-agencies, and the US established their Department of Meta-human Affairs.
Following an attack on the US Capitol building in 2020, known as The March 16th Attack resulted in the deaths of several US law makers and the vice-president but was ultimately thwarted by a combination of US Marines and meta-human Metro Police. Inevitably, this attack lead to mandatory registries for meta-humans to be signed in to law later that year, and to be put in to force on January 1st 2022 with a grace period until the first of April of that year with a number of other nations following suit with their own registries.
In the intervening time, the UNMAO's investigative agency, the International Registry and Investigative Service has begun recruiting en masse from wherever available, as the League of Twelve begins looking to replace it's losses.