Epoch Society

What eventually became integrated into SIVIC and ultimately was responsible for their more reprehensible actions. Sort of. Not really. It's complicated.

Integrated

The primary difficulty I have in describing the Epoch Society is that it is rather like Schrodinger's cat. It both existed and did not exist before a certain point.
As a specific organization with a name and internal structures, it did not exist before it was ousted from SIVIC around ten years ago. But that organization did not exist as itself yet either, because certain elements remained integrated with SIVIC in secret, thus still leaving them as the same organization.
However, the organization existed before SIVIC even properly existed itself, in that a loose coalition of scientists and soldiers and other such entities came together with a common purpose and constructed the Empyreal Seat, which for a long time formed the center of their organization. I imagine figuring out the exact details of their founding would be a nightmare. Who really founded it? When did they do it? Why? And which time are we talking about again?

Motives

They're a surprising mix of un- and superpowered individuals, considering that their stated goal is to ensure that all people have superpowers. This is a lie. They're not averse to taking away the powers of those who have them, simply to give it to themselves, so the true answer is that they want to ensure that they have power, which in this modern age requires superpowers (at least to their feeble minds).
They've already got more power than they should, with ties to most major political parties across the globe, and a number of key members who used to be prominent agents of SIVIC (see Jude Markos and Evil Scientist.