AEGIS
The United States government established the American Elite Government Intervention Service, or AEGIS, in 1962. The agency oversees federal law-enforcement involving superhumans and threats to national security like SHADOW, the agency’s archenemy. AEGIS has been active in Freedom City since its inception, as a great many superpowered threats have appeared in the city over the years.
Since AEGIS is a federal agency, the Moore Act restricting costumed vigilantism in Freedom City did not overly affect it, though AEGIS did sometimes find itself in the unenviable position of having to enforce the law against superheroes who chose to break it. On the other hand, superhumans working for AEGIS at the time were not subject to the Moore Act, since they were sanctioned federal agents and not vigilantes. This created some friction between AEGIS and any rogue supers at the time, although the agency has since tried to heal such rifts.
The official AEGIS headquarters in Freedom City is a suite of offices on the 23rd floor of the Federal Building downtown. In truth, the agency’s main Freedom City headquarters is a hidden complex beneath the Federal Building’s foundations, where the real work gets done.
AEGIS is headquartered in Washington, along with most other federal agencies. AEGIS’ mandate is to deal with “unusual threats” to the nation and its citizens, which usually includes super-powered criminals and terrorist organizations, such as SHADOW, with access to unusual technology or resources.
Structure
AEGIS is a division of the Department of the Treasury (like the Secret Service), though it effectively has complete autonomy. Officially based out of the Treasury Building in Washington DC, AEGIS’ real center of operations is the Sword Building in Baltimore, Maryland, in a large, fortified sub-basement.
Currently, there are over 8,500 personnel serving in the organization, including 6,200 field agents. Agents are drawn from law enforcement, military Special Forces, and the intelligence communities. AEGIS’ American Shield program provides an exception to the rule: every year, forty of the finest high school students in the nation compete at a grueling boot camp for the attention of AEGIS recruiters. Those who succeed in meeting AEGIS’ physical and mental standards receive AEGIS scholarships at top American universities in exchange for an eventual career as a “Contraterror Cowboy.”
Occasionally, a recruit is so impressive they join the agency straight out of high school; these agents are often quite rough around the edges, but with a little experience and mentoring, they can become some of AEGIS’ finest. AEGIS does not have its own academy, but maintains formal associations in several American universities and military academies. Unfortunately, some of the best and brightest members of these student associations have been targeted recently (by SHADOW, of course; Overshadow refers to these attacks as “an ounce of prevention”) forcing AEGIS to rethink the program. Being AEGIS cadets in every sense, some association members are banding together to fight the threat and prove they are worthy of the Shield of Freedom.
Some grade schools have the “Junior AEGIS” program, which trains children in civic responsibility. This program focuses on raising money to help young victims of superhuman violence, children who have lost their homes during extradimensional invasions, and other tragedies.
The AEGIS agency is divided into three divisions: Agent division (the military/defense arm), the Command division (the intelligence and local administrative arm), and the Directorate (the overseeing bureaucracy for the whole organization). Higher ranked members of a division can give orders to lower ranked members of the same division. Agent division members cannot give orders to anyone in other divisions; higher or equal ranked members of the Directorate may give orders to members of the Command division, and higher or equal ranked members of the Command Division may give orders to the Agent division. Most AEGIS player characters will belong to the Agent Division.
The Senior Director is the leader for the whole organization; the current Senior Director is Harry Powers. A Special Director is the organization’s official liaison to Congress and the National Security Council.
AEGIS also has a Technologies Section to conduct research into new vehicles and weapons like the Super-MAX armor, as well as a Special Projects Section, which is the agency’s euphemism for supernatural investigations. The Technologies Section, headed by Dr. Doris Volk, is based out of Concord, NH, though much of their work has been subcontracted to ASTRO Labs. The Special Projects Section, headed by Damantha DeMaurier, also has ties to Freedom City, as ten years ago AEGIS quietly bought the old Gerber House on Lantern Hill to use as a base of operations; the manor lies on a nexus of mystic power, and AEGIS serves as a guardian of the forces that could be unleashed if it fell into the wrong hands.
Assets
AEGIS TITLES AND RANKS
In AEGIS, there is a distinction between agency rank designations, division designations, and actual titled positions. For example, all active members below managerial rank regardless of division or position are generically referred to as “agents,” similar to the way ATF, FBI, and CIA personnel are referred to by that title. However, technically, only the combat arms division (Agent Division) personnel of AEGIS are officially called “Agent” (perhaps adding Junior, Special, or Senior, depending on actual rank). Command Division personnel are either Analysts or Administrators, depending on whether they are information gatherers (the former) or information managers (the latter). Analysts are also broken down by whether they act primarily as investigators (“Security Analyst”) or planning and subject matter specialists (“Defense Analysts”). Directorate personnel are either Aides, the most common, or Senior Aides, who are generally section managers.STANDARD ISSUE EQUIPMENT AND WEAPONS
AEGIS has a number of high-tech pieces of equipment commonly used by agents. The signature weapon of the Agent Division is the Phased Blaster, which fires a packet of highly charged particles that have significant stopping power; the carbine can be set to higher frequencies that interfere with a human nervous system or act as a focused EMP, and the heavy weapon has the ability to turn the air around the beam into a short-distance, intensely hot plasma beam.- Full-Dress Uniform: Armorweave Jumpsuit
- Combat-Dress Uniform: Combat Armor
- Collapsible Baton:
- Plainclothes Sidearm: Glock-19 light pistol
- Standard Sidearm: Tz-90 Phased Blaster Pistol
- Light Assault Weapon: Tz-120 Phased Blaster Carbine
- Heavy Assault Weapon: Tz-400 Man-Portable Phased Blaster Cannon
VEHICLES
AEGIS uses a number of different vehicles, many of which are variations on the vehicles presented in Chapter 7 of the Hero’s Handbook. AEGIS operates a small fleet of unmarked sedans (as Police Cruiser, but add Protection 1 and Impervious 6) and utility vans (as Armored Car) for the majority of mundane operational needs. Other, more specialized vehicles include:- Combat Motorcycle: A heavy-set motorcycle with solid reinforced tires, an armored fuel tank, and armored plates set at the front. Twin machine guns poke through ports on either side of the front armor.
- Superhuman Containment Truck: Used for prisoner transport to the base holding cells or to meet prison transports bound for distant facilities.
- Combat Speedboats: An armored speedboat with computerized remote machine gun pods on the bow.
- Collapsing Helicopter: A gunship that can completely collapse and fold in its props and tail.
- Flying APC: The ART’s transport of choice, a Flying APC closely resembles a normal APC but where the ground version has wheel bases, this model instead has gravitic propulsion units.
- Flying Motorcycle: A single-man vehicle (that actually more closely resembles a large jet-ski than a motorcycle) sometimes also called a gravcycle. Flies rather than rolls but has the same enhancements as the Combat Motorcycle (previously).
- VSTOL Folding Fighter Jet: Similarly to the Collapsing Helicopter, this VSTOL has collapsing wings and tail assembly for easier storage in limited space; the VSTOL capabilities also mean it can use the airpad/heliport at the Dome.
History
The history of AEGIS is the history of struggle in the 20th and early 21st centuries. The organization has faced challenges from the moment of its inception, and not always from America’s enemies. Still, AEGIS has always overcome any obstacles in its path when it comes to keeping the nation safe.
My Name Is Jack, and I’m A Patriot…
For many servicemen, World War II was a crucible, which they entered as immature boys, and emerged from as the living standard of courage. One of the men who spent the longest time in the crucible was Jack Simmons, America’s Icon of Liberty, the Patriot. He fought numerous battles in the war, against Nazi troops and Nazi supervillains like Nacht-Krieger, Totenkopf, and the infamous Wilhelm Kantor. After the war, Simmons wanted to pursue Kantor into his South American bolt hole to finish the job—he remembered how Nacht-Krieger had massacred the Allies of Freedom to cover Kantor’s escape—but the army refused to believe the slippery Kantor was worth the effort. Jack was loaned out to the OSS, where he worked as a secret agent for several years. He still did the superhero gig on the side, though Freedom City was quiet in the post-War years. In 1950, Simmons signed up for the bloody stalemate of Korea. He hoped for a quick victory; however, the Patriot found the fighting even more bitter and intense than it had been in the Second World War. He recruited a new team of superhumans and trained them as a fighting force in the spirit of the superheroes of the Second World War. Christened the Atomic Brigade (because Simmons hoped they would be an alternative to the use of nuclear weapons), the team is one of the great forgotten superhero groups of history. After several initial successes, four team members were killed in a futile defense of the Chosin Reservoir in December of 1950. Despite Simmons’ best efforts, the team was never reformed to full strength. Korea turned into a quagmire in which superheroes made little difference. After the cease-fire, the Patriot returned to the United States, where he was recruited into the CIA. Unfortunately, other events would overtake Jack’s life. While he had been fighting communists in Asia, a different type of enemy threatened America. It was the time of the HUAC hearings, and superheroes were not impervious to the committee’s scrutiny. One of the people called to the hearings was the Silver Soldier, a former member of the Atomic Brigade with decidedly leftist leanings. When the Soldier left the hearings and snapped at the press that he was “running away to become a supervillain, since this country doesn’t appreciate its heroes anymore,” the committee ordered him hunted down. Jack tried to intercept his volatile comrade before tragedy occurred, but a confrontation with the press triggered an ugly incident. The Silver Soldier’s gun started a fire, resulting in the destruction of several public buildings. Despite Jack’s call for leniency, HUAC and local law enforcement came down hard on him. He was unmasked as playwright Todd Montgomery and sentenced to ten years hard labor. The revelation that members of “the Patriot’s team” were “destructive Communists” intensified the pressure on superheroes. There were even calls to investigate the Patriot himself and root out the presence of “elite communists” in the armed forces. It led to the Scarlet Spectre’s impending testimony about the members of the Liberty League. The public disbanding of the Liberty League took attention away from Jack’s role in the proceedings, but the Patriot was left with a decidedly bitter taste in his mouth. When it came to superhumans, the system didn’t handle them very well. America needed a security force that specialized in dealing with superhumans, but one that could be kept at arm’s length from what Jack called “enemies blatant and pernicious.” Simmons envisioned an umbrella organization that would draw in the best talent from the military and security organizations, which would work with established, respectable superheroes to defend the country. Employing the same strategic skills he’d used to fight the Nazis, Simmons put together a plan to build a new, better system of superhuman law enforcement. He started using his army connections to cherry pick the best from each branch of the service (and from security agencies), looking for those who displayed the qualities of initiative and competence. “A soldier with brains and a little swagger beats an obedient drone every time,” Simmons said. Little did he know how ironic those words would prove to be. By 1958, Simmons’ project began to bear fruit. He had received permission from the Eisenhower administration to put together a task force of forty agents to serve as a special mission force. Many people laughed at the idea; the brass said Simmons had scoured every brig to recruit each service’s most insubordinate soldiers. Simmons was choosing men (and more than a few women) who were not afraid to speak their minds and were willing to stand up to bad command decisions. Once his team was assembled, two years of intense training followed. On June 24, 1960, Simmons’ task force was placed (for reasons that only made sense to bureaucrats) under the authority of the IRS, designated as the “American Elite Government Intervention Service,” and given office space in the Treasury building. Simmons’ critics mocked the name, and predicted his “washout brigade” wouldn’t last six months.Launch-point
Behind the scenes, however, Simmons had made several moves that would prove critical to AEGIS’ success. First, he tapped his CIA and FBI contacts to recruit good law enforcement personnel to supplement his soldiers. Whenever possible, AEGIS would have the best intelligence available before they acted. Second, he used his friendships in the superhero community to make contact with the latest generation of superheroes, proposing covert partnerships. Now, Jack promised, someone in government circles would fight for superhero rights in the event of another HUAC witch-hunt. Centurion agreed enthusiastically and, following his lead, many heroes agreed to collaborate. This included a new Freedom City superhero named the Scarab who would prove an invaluable asset. The acid test came in 1961, when SHADOW launched the first Operation Inundation, an ambitious scheme to seize simultaneous control of every major institution in the western world. The Scarab’s psychic talents warned him of imminent danger, but no one in government listened to his warnings except Jack Simmons. Simmons mobilized AEGIS forces to protect key American installations when zero hour struck. More importantly, he contacted friends in the armed services across the world, and put his reputation on the line to get their forces placed on high alert. SHADOW’s attack was even more intense than the Scarab feared, but in the end, it was AEGIS that saved the day. AEGIS investigators tracked SHADOW to the Virginia estate of Dr. Jonathan Darke, where the man believed to be SHADOW’s Supreme Commander was killed in the ensuing firefight. The world celebrated, and critics’ voices were muted. The “Contraterror Cowboys” (as AEGIS had been derisively called) had won the day. AEGIS was lauded, but not respected in all quarters. To further silence their critics, Simmons insisted AEGIS take on the toughest cases that could be found (many involving supervillains or the paranormal). For decades, AEGIS fought a plethora of organizations with bizarre motifs: the Counter-Clock Culture, Apocalypse Today!, the Secret Society of Firebrands, the Green Liberation Front (a secret society of green-skinned mutants who felt their pigmentation made them a superior “race”), and Invisible, Inc. They opposed superhuman criminals like the serial killer Gemini, the catastrophic Exploding Man, and the mysterious Mr. Infamy. They worked alongside heroes like Centurion, the Scarab, the Freedom League, and the Atom Family. By 1970, AEGIS had expanded to over a thousand personnel, including a young Georgetown graduate named Harry Powers, whose investigative skills, combined with his daring, quickly made him one of the agency’s most valuable assets. AEGIS also established ties with Canada and the United Kingdom through the RCMP and Scotland Yard to coordinate their efforts with the British Commonwealth and safeguard America’s allies. Their adventures made headlines all over the world, and a few agents, like AEGIS spokesman Luke Bonham, achieved celebrity status. In 1983, Harry Powers’ Gemini investigation was adapted into the film Gemini and Scorpio, and The AEGIS Files ran on television for nearly a decade. Many called it the agency’s golden age. Jack Simmons called the media spotlight “an enormous pain in the neck,” and focused on his duties. SHADOW was always a constant menace during those years. Led by a mysterious figure named Overshadow, the terrorist organization constantly reared its head with one labyrinthine scheme after another. From building weather control machines to summoning elite zombie armies from military graveyards, SHADOW constantly prodded the defenses of the western world. They seemed like just another bizarre menace, but Simmons thought he detected a more malevolent, even familiar, hand behind their actions. While Wilhelm Kantor was presumed to have gone insane and died in the 1950s, Simmons could almost feel his old foe’s presence. In 1979, Overshadow launched a second Operation Inundation, this time using a clone army. Fortunately, AEGIS was ready for them, and they cleaned up the clone army after the Scarab managed to turn the clones against each other. Unfortunately, they were unable to track down Overshadow, nor were they prepared for his counterattack—the assault by the Scions of Sobek on Freedom City.Divided We Fall
When word reached AEGIS of the Scions’ attack, the Freedom City Operations Chief dispatched two squads of troopers to Pyramid Plaza. All twelve troopers died in the onslaught. They failed to prevent the deaths of the Scarab and Brainstorm, and when a television exposé revealed Freedom City Operations Chief Luke Bonham had withheld two-thirds of his available forces from the battle, the Freedom League went ballistic. Bonham defended his decision, saying it had taken less than thirty seconds for the possessed League to kill two fully equipped AEGIS squads, and throwing more agents into the situation would have been a suicide mission. Director Simmons backed Bonham’s decision (though many AEGIS agents privately disagreed). Simmons’ show of support caused a rift between the Freedom League and AEGIS, one that was soon to reverberate throughout the entire superhero community. The Scarab’s death was only the beginning of the dark times. Throughout the 1980s, anti-superhero organizations sprang up like brushfires, and a concerted effort was made to tarnish the reputation of many of the world’s superheroes. Politicians like Franklin Moore were elected in many of America’s major cities. Many cities, including Freedom City, enacted draconian anti-superhero laws, and the media played into fiery anti-supers rhetoric. AEGIS was exempt from the legislation, but was under intense pressure to hunt down anyone who violated the Moore Act. For Jack Simmons, the situation was almost more than he could bear. He had not forgotten his own superhero career, nor the superheroes he’d known who had lost their lives; nor had he forgotten the promise he’d made to protect superheroes from another witch hunt. Behind the scenes he worked to protect the best heroes, the ones who hadn’t succumbed to vigilantism, and to put pressure on people like Moore and mob bosses like August Roman, who were behind much of the trouble. Most of his lobbying was covert, and some young superheroes began referring to Simmons as a traitor, and AEGIS as “the enemy.” The brutal actions of many of these vigilantes, which forced AEGIS to take a stand against them, did nothing to help the situation. In 1990, the overstressed Director Simmons suffered a heart attack that forced him to retire from AEGIS. Harry Powers was appointed as his successor with Simmons’ blessing. As a final insult to his old enemy, Overshadow used the Tapestry of Fate to magically seize control of AEGIS HQ and command Simmons’ closest friends in AEGIS to hunt him down like a dog. Simmons, with the help of blind seamstress Roz King, took control of the Tapestry and, in a breathtaking hand-to-hand struggle, threw his archenemy from the gondola of Overshadow’s flying battle fortress. During the battle, Overshadow claimed to be Simmons’ old enemy, Wilhelm Kantor, but subsequent investigation concluded he was actually Kantor’s insane son Heinrich, following a protocol set for him by his dead father. If SHADOW continued to exist in the years following Heinrich Kantor’s demise, they didn’t show themselves openly. With their greatest enemy seemingly defeated for good, Jack Simmons finally retired in peace, leaving Harry Powers to continue his work. Powers’ biggest task was repairing the damage between the agency and the superhero community. Rapprochement between the two would soon come, though in a way nobody suspected (or wanted). It was called “the Terminus Invasion.” Alien troops swarmed through Freedom City. AEGIS quickly realized the scope of Omega’s incursion into our dimension. Director Powers unleashed the arsenal of high tech weapons he had been holding in reserve for the next major invasion, and an aging Luke Bonham led the first generation of MAX armor units against the invading force. Stung by years of accusations of cowardice, Bonham refused to retreat from the fight, and died facing Omega himself, just before Centurion arrived for the climactic battle. In this, Agent Bonham atoned for what small part he played in the death of the Scarab. Even in what followed, it did not go unnoticed. Centurion fought Omega and broke his power, driving him back to his dimension at the cost of his own life. The sacrifices of Bonham and Centurion helped bring the public (and many of the angry vigilante heroes who had railed at AEGIS) back to their senses. Powers (and Jack Simmons, who refused to be left out of action even when he was confined to a wheelchair) was determined to take advantage of the opportunity. At Centurion’s funeral, ten years of frustration boiled over, and Simmons delivered a blazing eulogy where he railed against “garbage like the Moore Act” and the people who had enacted it, whom he called “the worst examples of political corruption.” He called upon America to reject any politician who stood against the defenders of the public good, and declared that Freedom City should welcome the Freedom League back with open arms. He called for heroes to rally beside AEGIS, whom, he insisted, had always supported those who stood for the public good and had never stood against any hero of conscience. It was, arguably, the finest hour of a man who had more fine hours than any other person alive. At the dedication of the Sentry Statue, the surviving members of the Freedom League shook hands with Stewart Bonham (Luke Bonham’s son, himself a novice AEGIS agent), symbolically bridging the gap between AEGIS and the superhero community. Since then, AEGIS and the world’s superheroes have enjoyed (for the most part) a positive, mutually supportive relationship.AEGIS Today
With the nightmare of the Terminus Invasion behind it, AEGIS used its reservoir of public goodwill and federal funding to rebuild itself into a position of strength. The 1990s were good to AEGIS and Powers, who while not respected in some circles, made a surprisingly positive impact as Senior Director. Unfortunately, the good times were not to last, and today AEGIS faces many new challenges. Foremost among them is the “Midnight Invective,” the codename for a mysterious wave of assassinations targeting AEGIS agents; over the last three years, an as yet unidentified culprit has murdered nearly fifty agents. Not only is the loss of life appalling, it is a direct challenge to the organization’s ability to defend itself. It is also forcing AEGIS to recruit new agents more quickly than they would like. SHADOW’s inactivity poses a second, unexpected problem. SHADOW always justified a reasonable share of the federal budget for the AEGIS organization, but with their archenemy gone for so long, it is becoming harder to finance the agency at the levels it needs to remain effective as America’s watchman. There have been signs of SHADOW’s reemergence with Nacht-Krieger as the new Overshadow, and AEGIS’ Think-Tank continues to warn of a major attack, but they are largely a voice in the wilderness, and some accuse the agency of inventing a new SHADOW threat so it can increase its budget. AEGIS’ independent attitude has never made it popular in government circles. There have been rumblings of folding AEGIS into other government agencies to regulate it more heavily or replacing it entirely with a new organization called Project: America, directly answerable to the top brass at the Pentagon. Whether anything will develop out of this proposal remains to be seen. So far as Director Powers is concerned, administrations and congresses come and go, but threats to America remain constant, and therefore so will AEGIS’ vigilance. As far as he is concerned, he spends far too much time wrangling with pencil-pushing bureaucrats and not enough time doing his job (and he’s increasingly coming to the disturbing realization that dealing with the bureaucrats is his job). Presently, AEGIS enjoys good relations with the general public and with the superhero community at large. Harry Powers worked with a number of the most prominent superheroes and hero groups, and continues to do so. While some AEGIS agents bristle at the idea of being relegated to a “support” function, they mostly toe the agency line on the matter. Even relations with UNISON have improved, although AEGIS still jealously guards its jurisdiction over superhuman matters in the United States.
IN THE FIELD
There are two types of AEGIS agents the public is likely to meet: Plainclothes and Full-Dress. Plainclothes are more common, particularly for situations in which the agency wants its people to blend in and not intimidate civilians. These agents are indistinguishable from the generic federal agent—dark suit and tie, sunglasses, earpiece comm, and a light pistol. Directorate division personnel are the most likely to be encountered in this attire (minus the comm and firearm), though Command Division Analysts frequently choose to be as unobtrusive as possible when conducting field investigations. Full-Dress is the traditional image of the AEGIS agent popularized in the media—armorweave jumpsuit with AEGIS insignia and a prominently-worn blaster sidearm. Base Security are always in Full-Dress.
A third type of agent most members of the public hope not to meet are Combat-Dress agents. Outside of ceremonial duties, when encountered off-base the Active Response Teams are always in Combat-Dress. This consists of combat body armor, integrated Ops Helmets, and either Light or Heavy Assault Weapons.
Founding Date
June 24, 1960
Type
Government, Law Enforcement
Alternative Names
American Elite Government Intervention Service
Leader
Subsidiary Organizations
Notable Members
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