A brief history of the Agency

The Agency is often disregarded as a rumour. An old tale told around a bar table. Or a catch-all excuse for a mission gone wrong. But, like with every rumour and legend, it contains a grain of truth.

The Agency has existed for an indeterminate time before the First Age. It’s origin is shrouded in secrecy, but Agency assets have been recorded in operation since before Sol was fully colonised.

The true nature of Agency assets forms the crux of the legend. Some people describe these individuals as talented solo operators, humans (mostly) operating at maximum efficiency and deadliness. Other reports describe individuals with fantastical abilities to resist damage, to walk through walls or to create chaos without even picking up a gun.

These individuals are described in Agency files as ‘GD’: genetically different. The mechanism by which they are created is a closely guarded secret, but all of these assets have a wide array of capabilities leading some to describe them as ‘superpowered’, like heroes of pulp fiction. Or – as is often the case – the villains.

The vast majority of the human population know nothing of The Agency. A tiny proportion are aware of rumours and heresay. An even smaller section of the human race (high level government/military figures, CEOs of megacorporations) know how to contact the group and what it is capable of. In this sense, the Agency effectively forms the most expensive and effective mercenary company in existence and is contracted for the most delicate and difficult of jobs.

Agency assets have worked in the background and the shadows of several major events through the modern Ages, including the Far Planet Revolution and the Pan-Eurasian War. Their missions are clandestine and their presence covered up as to prompt as little suspicion as possible.

The closely guarded secrecy has prompted its share of curiosity and animosity. Most notably is the American Atlas Project (dubbed the ‘Super Soldier Solution’). A long-term experiment in production of GD soldiers and operatives for the American military. The programme itself started in ignominy and bloodshed as the original director, Dr. Hans Zimmerman, made a unilateral decision to kidnap an Agency asset to experiment on. In the days after this brash move, the secret American base went silent. The teams who arrived to investigate found a stark message in the form of every member of base personnel dead in the Director’s office. This was the first and last time Atlas attempted to access an Agency operative.

The tiny group of individuals who have (often explosively) left the employ of the Agency are labelled XA. Their old employer places the highest of bounties on these individuals: for live capture only. Their motivations, like most things about them, remain shrouded in mystery.