Overthrow
Overthrow, the fanatical terrorist cartel, is a secret wing of SHADOW. Whereas SHADOW tends toward colorful costumes, huge operations, and grand schemes, Overthrow agents have no costumes, no huge plans, and want to cause havoc and disrupt society. Under the leadership of Dominic Ashe, a European left-wing terrorist of the 1980s, Overthrow views modern society with dismay. Modern day anarchists, they use high-tech weapons (particularly explosives) in their fight against the corruption of 21st Century life. Once society is destroyed, Ashe promises that Overthrow will emerge from the ashes and rebuild the world in a “purer” form.
When his movement wavered in the 1980s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ashe received an offer from SHADOW to back his cause. Overshadow told him that he shared Ashe’s concern over the direction of society, and promised that if Ashe cooperated, SHADOW would help reorganize the scattered splinter cells of Europe’s left wing terror cells and bring them under his command. Ashe agreed to the deal.
In 1991, the revitalized Overthrow made its first attack, destroying a monument in Paris to the French superheroes of WWII. This was the first stroke in a bombing campaign that swept across Europe. Throughout the 1990s and the early years of the new millennium, Overthrow was responsible for hundreds of acts of violence: assassinating generals, cabinet ministers, and college professors, setting bombs and luring European superheroes into traps, as well as numerous kidnappings. It was the breadth of their activities that attracted UNISON's attention; clearly, Overthrow was more than just another small band of extremists.
In 1998, Overthrow expanded out of Europe in a big way, planting a huge cache of explosives under a globalization conference in Freedom City that might have killed hundreds of people, except for the intervention of a plucky novice hero. Since then, Overthrow (with SHADOW’s blessing) has established a cell in the mighty metropolis, and attacked commercial interests around the city.
There are dozens of Overthrow cells around the world, and while the press sometimes exaggerates their threat, there is no question that Overthrow is dangerous. Overthrow cells are small, typically consisting of between 6–12 operatives (or a single brainwashed suicide bomber carrying explosives). They prefer stealth, sabotage, and surgical strikes to flamboyant commando raids (that’s SHADOW’s style—Overthrow is for tense, grittier espionage adventures). Overthrow Prime, the organization’s headquarters, is based in Munich, hidden inside the political studies department of a small German university.
Cells communicate with each other through coded communications or secure Internet chat sites. Overthrow cells rarely use a central headquarters, though they will often rent space to store equipment. Overthrow does control several shipping companies and telecommunications networks. Eschewing typical superheroics, the group has only one melodramatic touch; at the scene of each of their crimes, Overthrow likes to mark their crime with a “circle T” symbol spray-painted on a convenient wall or floor section.
Ashe’s closest confidante in Overthrow is Rebecca Ward, a former European terrorist with links to the Russian Mafia and various terror cells in the former Soviet Bloc. Ward is Overthrow’s recruiter, seemingly able to find willing volunteers at a moment’s notice, be they a competent Russian ex-special forces agent or a fanatic willing to blow himself up. Ward is looking for new recruits: those who wish to enter the elite ranks of Overthrow Prime must commit three acts for the cause: a kidnapping, a murder, and an act of terror.
In addition to Ward’s superb recruiting skills, even regular Overthrow operatives are surprisingly well trained due to Overthrow’s think-tank device, which inserts useful knowledge into the subject’s short-term memory
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