Belgium & European Organization

Belgium is a paradox. Its geographic location has made it “the battlefield of Europe” for more than 300 years, and the century-long linguistic quarrel between the French-speaking Walloons and the Dutch-speaking Flemish make the country difficult to govern. Yet today the country is considered one of the political centers of Europe: Brussels plays host to a number of international organizations and is rivaled only by Geneva.
Modern Belgian paranormal history starts in the 1940s when the Greek goddess Harmonia “allowed” Jacques Greindl, a Belgian resistance fighter, to find the legendary Ring of Gyges in order to oppose her sister, the goddess of strife, Eris. The ring gave him the ability to turn invisible and cast realistic illusions. So empowered, Greindl became Commander Nemo, scourge of the Nazis in Belgium. Nemo enjoyed good relations with the Allies of Freedom but refused to be part of the team in order to maintain his independence. In truth, Commander Nemo had no time, as he was busy fighting an underground war against Eris and her followers, who thrived in the chaos of the war. What happened to Nemo after the war is unknown. He was not at Ustka and was not heard from after 1945.
DRAWING A SWORD In 1961, SHADOW launched Operation Inundation and was able to seize several national capitals, including London, Berlin, and Paris. London was quickly liberated by English heroes, and Paris was freed in a matter of days by the French army and NATO troops, but Berlin had to be liberated with the help of Warsaw Pact super-operatives.
This did not please the Western nations of NATO, who felt humiliated by the whole turn of events. With the Berlin crisis later that same year, the high command of NATO understood that it needed its own superhuman response force. It could not rely on American super-teams or UNISON for a global response (since the USSR has veto power in the UN Security Council) and the European Economic Community was still an administrative entity with no real concept of common military operations.
The NATO Military Committee initiated the Special Western Operations for Reconnaissance and Defense (SWORD) directive, mixing teams of superhumans and trained specialists for specific operations in Western and Central Europe and overseas European territories.
In 1966, NATO high command moved to Belgium, as did SWORD headquarters. Since then, the composition of SWORD has changed many times in response to crises like the second Operation Inundation of 1979, the Grue and Terminus Invasions, and other super-menaces. In 1992, an agreement was signed between the European Union and NATO, allowing SWORD to operate in all EU nations (even those not part of NATO) provided the organization contributes to the protection of the union.
SWORD operations in Europe mostly involve putting down SHADOW and OVERTHROW cells, thwarting MENACE (see under Austria, later in this entry) operations, fighting mundane and super-powered terrorism, and occasionally assisting police agencies like Europol in their investigations of super-crimes. SWORD is composed of four “teams,” each including two to four super-powered operatives, ten highly trained specialists (some trained by AEGIS), and twenty to thirty support operatives.

• Team Caliburn: The front liners and the heavy hitters.
• Team Tizona: The urban guerrilla specialists. Team Tizona is deployed whenever operations take place in a major city or heavily populated area. It is also charged with protecting the European Parliament in Brussels.
• Team Balmung: The extreme environment specialists. Team Balmung has been deployed in places like the Arctic, subterranean caves, and deep sea Atlantean outposts.
• Team Thyrsus: The relief and rescue team. Mostly composed of field medics, it specializes in disaster response and other emergencies where civilian casualties are expected.

For many, SWORD is the European AEGIS. The organization also benefits from very good relations with its American counterpart, UNISON, and ECHO. These agencies have even created an exchange program that allows heroes to swap locations for a while.
DIAMONDS ARE A WOMAN’S BEST FRIENDS The presence of SWORD has made Belgium—Brussels in particular—a rather safe place. The city was targeted in the second SHADOW Inundation in 1979, but the threat was quickly quashed. And while MENACE has periodically tried to take hostages, kidnap relatives of the powerful, and blackmail members of the European Parliament, the resulting super-battles have been well handled by SWORD teams.
This doesn’t mean that the rest of Belgium is free of super-crime and superheroes. The city of Liege can be quite dangerous, but its residents can count on the mysterious vigilante Nemo to harass criminals and bring them to justice. It is not known whether the current Nemo is related to the Golden Age hero Commander Nemo, but witnesses claim to have seen him turn invisible.
Beautiful Antwerp, Belgium’s second largest city, is the European capital of diamond trade. It should not be surprising that it is the also the birthplace and home of one of the most feared jewel thieves in the world: the famed Countess Carat.

Type

Geopolitical, Country