Westbrook Academy for Metahumans: Forums

Crey official info ( Copied from the City of Heroes official website):

Countess Crey was born Clarissa van Dorn and grew up in Paragon City. The orphan heir to a modest family fortune, she spent most of her high school and college years at various private schools in Europe. She first came to the public's attention when she married Count Alphonse Crey, a man widely recognized as the world's wealthiest and most eligible bachelor. At the tender age of twenty-three, she joined together with her new husband to form Crey Biotech, a pharmaceutical company based in Switzerland. Just a year after their marriage, Count Alphonse fell into tragic coma, a condition that still persists fourteen years later.

The Countess moved her business back to her hometown of Paragon City, along with the corporate headquarters for the still growing Crey Industries. She publicly swore to devote her company's resources to finding a cure for her stricken husband, but proceeded to use her amazing and daring business acumen to expand her company at an astonishing rate. Through a series of buyouts, hostile takeovers, and key personnel acquisitions, the countess turned her small research firm into an economic juggernaut.

Malta Group official info ( Copied from the City of Heroes official website):

Secrets within secrets. Black helicopters and balaclavas. Shadowy agencies with limitless slush funds, and black-hearted agents with licenses to kill. Hushed conversations on internet chat-rooms that mysteriously vanish. Men in black with blank identities, and deadly women with a dozen passports. A high-tech paramilitary force divided into clandestine cells and dispersed around the globe – this is the Malta Group.

Midnight Squad info (from paragonwiki.com)

A team of mystics, magicians, and scholars, the Midnight Squad originally banded together in 1933 to defend Paragon City from evil occultists like the Circle of Thorns. Unlike other hero organizations, the Midnight Squad typically operates in secrecy and shadow.

On Monday, July 11, 1932, Nemesis was stopped by the Freedom Phalanx during a massive street battle in Steel Canyon. After Statesman, Maiden Justice, The Dark Watcher, Elementar, and team Vambrace uncovered a web of influence through a company named “Southern United”, Nemesis unleashed hundreds of steam-powered killing machines in an all-out attack. People witnessed the Prussian Prince's metal-clad troops flooding the streets of Steel Canyon in a show of force not seen since the waning years of the Civil War.

Rallying the authorities, Statesman battled back Nemesis' forces. Eventually, the hero confronted Nemesis himself and forced the villain to retreat. As the first super-powered human to receive massive national exposure, Statesman became the leading symbol of the potential good that super-humans could contribute to society. Police forces became more cooperative towards masked crime-fighters, which in turn led many super beings to use their powers more openly. This growing public support eventually culminated in the passage of the 1936 Citizen Crime Fighting Act.

Emperor Nemesis

Nemesis had been hiding in the United States for decades. Thanks to years of patient plotting, he secretly controlled much of America's arms and war material manufacturing capability. Through his agents and minions, he had access to not only the latest military equipment, but also to vast sums of money that he used to build his own secret army. While America slept off its hangover after celebrating VE Day, Nemesis played his hand.

In the predawn hours after the celebration, Nemesis assembled his silent horde of fanatic robotic followers within striking distance of Washington, D.C. As the sun rose over the Capitol Dome, it brought flights of jet powered strike bots, the arcs of rocket-rifle fire, and devastating atom ray blasts. Nemesis and his clockwork troops quickly overran military and super powered protectors alike. President Truman only escaped thanks to a well-placed hero with teleportation powers. Nemesis now held most of Congress and the entire Supreme Court hostage. He staged an elaborate ceremony on the Capitol steps, and forced the Chief Justice to swear him in as Emperor of the Americas.

Heroes came flooding back from across the Atlantic to face this unanticipated threat. By the time the first heroes arrived, led by Statesman and the Freedom Phalanx, they found the situation even more dire than they could have imagined. Nemesis had hidden nerve gas bombs throughout the twenty largest cities in America. With the touch of a button he released the deadly toxin, ensuring a painful death to tens of millions if they did not receive the antidote within 24 hours.

What followed was the most desperate hour America's heroes had ever known. World famous champions of freedom fought deadly robots and atomic armored shock troops in the streets of our nation's capital. Finally, the heroes faced down the evil genius himself on the steps of the Capital building. Nemesis was ready for them, unleashing his atom-ray upon the assemblage, instantly killing dozens of heroes. However, in the chaos, Sister Psyche managed to use her telepathic powers to pick the location of the antidote from Nemesis' mind. The rest of the heroes fell back before the metal clad monster's onslaught.

Wounded but still mobile, Sister Psyche escaped the scene of the carnage and got word out to the Army. Within hours, Dr. Mnemonic had synthesized an airborne version, and the air force and flying heroes were spreading it across the infected cities. Nemesis' poison was neutralized, and Washington surrounded. Hundreds of heroes converged on the capitol and joined together for a second march on Washington. They fought through the remainder of Nemesis' forces and thought they had defeated the evil genius himself, only to find that all they had captured was a robot duplicate. Nemesis had escaped once again.

Although Nemesis lost, he had done great damage and, more significantly, ushered in a new era for super powered villains the world over and in Paragon City particularly.

Still stinging from his defeat all those years ago, Nemesis plots in the shadows, waiting once again for the perfect opportunity to bring the world under his heel.

Rikti (information from paragonwiki.com)

The fact that the Rikti Invasion is over for the time being does not mean that the other-dimensional invaders are cleansed from the city. In fact, quite the opposite is true. No one knows for sure how many Rikti still lurk beneath the streets of Paragon City and other great battleground cities like Rome and Kuala Lumpur. Some estimates put the number at a few thousand. Others suggest that there are ten or twenty times that many still menacing the planet. While the danger of total worldwide enslavement to an alien race seems to have passed for the time being, the Rikti still present a daily and ever-growing threat.

The affect of the Rikti on human culture and society has not been entirely negative. The world they come from is quite a bit more advanced than our own, technologically speaking. During the war and in subsequent raids on Rikti cells, heroes have recovered literally thousands of tons of Rikti technology. From spaceships to handguns, the Rikti brought a startling array of weapons and other technology with them. Ever since the first alien energy rifle fell into the hands of a human scientist, we have been learning from their scientific discoveries.

Rularuu the Ravager menaced Paragon City back in the roaring '60s. Luckily, before his interdimensional plundering could properly commence, Rularuu was defeated by a group of superheroes.

During the Rikti War, shortly after the initial Rikti attack, The United Nations Security Council, led by Great Britain and France, formed an emergency umbrella organization to help coordinate hero resources in the worldwide war against the invaders. Called the Vanguard, this group was composed of some of the world's best and brightest heroes.

The Vanguard initiated a plan to strike back at the Rikti using a plan by Dr. Science. Leaving only skeleton crews to man defenses, the Vanguard was split into two teams. Alpha Team was led by Statesman and Omega Team was led by Hero 1. Alpha Team was much larger and consisted of over 1,000 heroes which launched a frontal assault on the Rikti. It was a costly attack and 800 of the heroes lost their lives. While the Alpha Team attacked the main body of Rikti troops, Omega Team slipped into the main Rikti portal base, through one of the portals and after a huge explosion from the other side, the portal was shut down. Only one hero, the utterly invulnerable Ajax, managed to survive the blast on this side of the portal. It is presumed that the heroes that went through the portal have perished.

Thanks to the heroics of the Vanguard, the Rikti War was over, or at least the first phase of it was. Both sides were nearly shattered in the process. The Vanguard and the other great hero organizations of the world scarcely existed anymore. With the exception of Statesman and a few others, all the world's greatest heroes had died in the war. Trillions upon trillions of dollars of damage had been done to the majority of the world's most populated cities. Paragon City was the worst hit of all. Once a shining beacon of light and prosperity, now much of it lay in ruins. It didn't take long for criminals to start reasserting themselves, and new heroes were needed. It was the beginning of a desperate time that would last for decades.

Today, the Vanguard objectives are the same that they were years ago during the Rikti War. The organization opposes the Rikti wherever they show up, and so, the Rikti War Zone is a primary concern for the group, where they keep a strong presence encircling the downed Rikti starship.