The First Capes

In 1993, a meteorite fell and landed in the New Mexico desert near Los Alamos, the site of the Manhattan Project. After several weeks of investigation, it was found that the meteorite was mostly made up of a mineral that had never been seen before. This mineral, later named alamite, has had knowledge of its properties suppressed to the public as it was seen to reproduce itself under lab conditions. Of the researchers on the original teams who investigated this mineral, almost a tenth were discovered to be suffering from alamite poisoning, which doctors claimed appeared incurable. However, exactly thirty three days after presenting with symptoms, ninety percent of the patients made a miraculous recovery. The remaining ten percent were rendered comatose for another thirty three days, after which they awoke refreshed, many with old injuries healed.

These were the first capes. Granted fantastic power by exposure to this strange mineral, they felt what many of them described as a compulsion to use their powers. They could resist using their abilities no more than a fish could spend its life on land. They spent years fighting crime and being seen to the public as being unstoppable forces of justice. Until they began to die.

In 2001, a piece of alamite was released from the lab it was contained in and fell into the hands of members of the public. Following the same pattern as before, when people began awakening from their comas, they had the benefit of anonymity and the choice of what they would do with their powers. Many of them, seeing little or no benefit to a life fighting criminals, decided to become the criminals and use their power to create criminal enterprises more vast than any mere mortal could create. This would ultimately lead to superhumans, now known as the Enhanced, fighting against each other, and eventually led to the death of the first true superhero, Knight,

Following these conflicts, the Enhanced community made a set of agreements. The first and foremost of these agreements was that lethal force would only be used in retaliation for more lethal force. Additionally, they agreed on a standard of behaviour that would be seen as a breach of the agreements, including that they would respect the right to a secret identity and would make no effort to discover or take advantage of an enemy's civilian life.