UNISON

The United Nations International Superhuman Oversight Network—UNISON—is the world’s front line against supervillains and similar global threats. In the United States, AEGIS may get all of the press, but in other parts of the world, it’s UNISON that takes the risks, putting their lives on the line against supervillains, often without well-stocked arsenals and bases (or even a good medic) at their disposal.

Structure

UNISON is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and reports to the Global Special Security (GSS) Sub-committee of the United Nations Security Council. This committee, composed of members of the Security Council, reviews major mission proposals from UNISON staff, approves funding, and reports on UNISON activities to the Security Council and the General Assembly. Because UNISON receives much of their funding from “outside” sources like Daedalus, they have more autonomy than one might think; the Security Council, generally understanding the complexities of UNISON’s task, rarely raises a fuss.
Members of the organization come from two sources: military forces from member states who volunteer for peacekeeping and security duties, and so-called “extranationals,” people who volunteer for UNISON duty in a way not unlike the French Foreign Legion. This “floating force” allows UNISON far more flexibility in mission deployment, but is controversial in the western world. In an effort to help UNISON, Dakana has generously agreed to sponsor these troops so they may avoid the bulk of the controversy, even though Dakana does not permit them to enter their nation unless they remain in the UNISON Earth Defense HQ, the largest UNISON military base in the world, located in Mt. Mgava on the nation’s southeastern border, leading some to question the policy’s legitimacy.
UNISON has three service branches: Military, Investigation, and Command. The Military branch works in conjunction with UN peacekeeping forces to deal with alien or supervillain threats. The Intelligence branch fights terrorist threats and gathers information on “humanity’s common enemies.” The Command branch oversees the bureaucracy and works toward meeting the supply needs of UNISON.
The current Director-General of UNISON’s operations is Col. Jennifer Ellis.

Public Agenda

UNISON’s duties include peacekeeping in areas where there are active supervillains and the local authorities can’t handle things, preparation for battles against global threats like the Terminus, and controlling dangerous paranormal sites.

ALIEN DIPLOMACY

The United Nations Extraterrestrial Liaison Organization (UNELO) is a UN agency set up to allow communications between extraterrestrials and humanity and protect the rights of law-abiding aliens on Earth. UNISON serves as an enforcement arm of the organization, providing security in first contact situations and performing rescue operations when aliens are endangered by human xenophobia—which, after the last several alien incursions, is a more frequent occurrence than most would like to admit.

BORDER CROSSINGS

UNISON’s most politically delicate tasks are missions involving supervillains who cross over a border, attack a neighboring state, and then retreat back across the border. Most times, it’s up to the supervillain’s home country to capture him and extradite him to justice. However, some nation states don’t have the resources to handle them, and the supervillain becomes a major threat to life and liberty.
In this situation, the home country can admit they aren’t equipped to handle the situation and request UNISON assistance. This is far from a perfect system, as no nation likes to admit they can’t deal with their own problems, and neighbors get understandably angry at being victimized. This is why UNBIT exists, the United Nations Border Intervention Treaty, which allows UNISON freer access to their country. During supervillain incursions, when both nations are UNBIT signatories, the complaining nation may take its case directly to the Security Council and get approval for UNISON forces to deal with the threat. These missions are often the worst part of UNISON’s job, particularly when the “supervillain” is actually a covert military operative for the bordering nation and has their home country’s backing.

INVESTIGATION

UNISON is far more likely to deploy its forces in an investigative capacity. When they are assigned to investigate an international terrorist agency or “border-crosser,” they contact local authorities and request to be brought into a case on an advisory capacity. When the request is approved, the UNISON agent joins the officer on the case, and is supposed to work as their subordinate, allowing the local officer to lead the investigation, coordinate gathering of evidence, conduct interviews, and so forth, while UNISON observes. Other times, the local officer attempts to obstruct the investigation. Frequently, however, the UNISON agent’s superior training puts them in charge of the case. At the end of the investigation, the UNISON agent prepares a private report for the Security Council.

ASSASSINATION

The most devastating UNISON secret is the H-Treaty, a pact between members of the Security Council authorizing solos, freelance assassins, to “sanction” enemies. These missions occur only with the unanimous consent of all members of the Council, to deal with threats of a worldwide scope while maintaining plausible deniability. These missions usually target terrorist leaders or dictators who, unsurprisingly, are not supported by any of the major world powers. Freelance mercenaries and top-secret agents are the usual choice for this assignment.

Assets

Like other UN agencies, UNISON operates largely on the charity of its members. UNISON’s private benefactors do give the agency some flexibility and allow it to maintain a few secret bases around the globe; most of its members rely on the host country to provide its needs. As a result, the resources available to a UNISON agent vary from assignment to assignment and the place where they are stationed.

PERSONNEL

UNISON agents come in many shapes and sizes. While heroes are more likely to meet basic agents, those who travel widely encounter a greater variety.

UNISON AGENT

The basic UNISON agent is an investigator, often on detached duty from a national law-enforcement organization, although some work full-time for the agency.

UNISON SOLO

“Solo” is a euphemism for an assassin. While UNISON does not—officially—call upon their services often, UNISON solos travel to any part of the world to complete their mission. They are no-nonsense killers ostensibly on the side of the angels. Equipped with the latest spy-gear, the solo eschews flash and dazzle in favor of subtlety—and getting the job done.
UNISON MEXICO Mexico is a signatory of many United Nations treaties, including the one that allows UNISON to operate in Mexican territory with full cooperation from Mexican authorities. UNISON has no office of their own in Mexico City, but are assigned space in two local headquarters: Administrative and investigation duties are carried out from a suite inside the Center for Investigation and National Security (Centro de Investigacion y Seguridad Nacional, CISEN, which is basically the Mexican NSA), with a permanent staff of 12, and space for more if a mission warrants it. UNISON armed forces are hosted at the headquarters of Mexico’s 2nd Mechanized Cavalry Regiment, but there is no permanent staff there. UNISON escalated operations in Mexico after the Silver Storm and the unexplained increase of superhumans in Mexican territory at around the same time, in addition to the spike in SHADOW’s attempts to enter the territory, and the appearance of Ghostwalker. However, UNISON agents are not allowed to operate solo; they must partner with Mexican military or federal police if they wish to investigate anything.
UNISON CENTRAL AMERICA Panama is the only Central American country to allow UNISON to have their own bases in their territory, ceding it rights to an abandoned U.S. military base near the Canal. Due to Panama’s importance to international trade and SHADOW’s historical influence over Central America, UNISON keeps public administrative offices in Base Carter, but conducts their actual operations from the secret Base Santiago, disguised as a shipping company office in yet another former U.S. base. UNISON keeps a standing force of 30 operation controllers and one response regiment, and also has a small UNICORN command to keep tabs on the activity in the N.C.C. Nexus.
The Torrijos-Carter treaty included a secret clause to allow AEGIS agents to operate in Panama, but the military regimes reneged on that clause. Panama’s democratic governments were reluctant to enforce it again, but reached a compromise, allowing AEGIS back into the country, but under UNISON’s supervision, something that doesn’t sit well with either agency.
UNISON HEADQUARTERS, STOCKHOLM As UNISON’s largest base in Northern Europe, the Stockholm headquarters should be in much better condition than it is. Currently manned by Major Allen Haglund and a skeleton crew, the base is responsible for co-ordinating almost every mission that takes place in the area. The current state of affairs is due to a series of massive losses the base suffered at the hands of the villain team known as Menace, and then when a dimensional tear swallowed an entire village as well as all the agents sent to investigate it.
With Hagland waiting for his new officers to be assigned to the base, villains have been taking advantage of UNISON’s lack of resources by staging more outrages schemes. This hole in security has also allowed SHADOW to plant their own agents in UNISON, but none have (yet) managed to gain access to the UNISON security network. It is only a matter of time before one is able to do so, and when it happens, Northern Europe and possibly the world may have to suffer the consequences.
Hagland himself is a veteran UNISON officer, having served for nearly 20 years, but the base’s current situation is a serious burden. His guilt at the loss of so many agents has caused him to question his judgement, and his fear of making the wrong decision again could endanger the lives of the very people he is sworn to protect.

History

UNISON is an outgrowth of the UN Peacekeeping forces established in 1956 to deal with the Suez Canal crisis. At the same time as the first peacekeeping forces were established, many wondered about forces to battle “extranational security threats” such as the Killer Kaiser, a madman who threatened Germany in the early 1950s. Though supervillains were less common in those days, they were still a concern to international authorities, and when the first peacekeeping forces were established, a provision was added for the creation of a task force to coordinate and hunt supervillains who traveled across international borders, criminals having little regard for international sovereignty.
The task force was inactive for six years, until 1962, when the Leopard King decided the newly independent nation-states of Africa were ripe for takeover. Establishing an army of “Leopard-Men” (brainwashed members of various local tribes), he launched an attack on several states, including Dakana. At the request of King M’Zale, the United Nations sent a peacekeeping force to intervene. This was the first recorded use of United Nations troops to fight supervillains.
In 1962, the appearance of SHADOW in the first Operation Inundation posed a worldwide threat, and when AEGIS director Jack Simmons called upon his friends in the military community to battle them, one of the first people to receive a phone call was Edmond Stahl, the Danish head of the Dakana task force. Thanks in large part to Stahl’s efforts, many European capitals were spared a SHADOW assault.

INVASION OF THE MALFIDIANS!

In 1965, the United Nations dealt with a new menace: the Malfidians, an expeditionary force from Farside City. They operated out of a small gravel quarry in Central England. Their mission was to procure certain rare elements and assess the planet for conquest. Uniforce (as it was then called) learned of the menace, and with the help of a mysterious pair called the Associates—time travelers from the future who could possess the bodies of people in the present and work against threats that originated from outside Earth’s timestream—the Malfidians were defeated, and the Associates exposed the influence of the time tamperer Zeitgeist, who possessed the body of Lady Lunar’s chief advisor. With her Malfidian Guard defeated, Lady Lunar pledged peaceful coexistence with the Earth.
Unfortunately, Lady Lunar had her own ambitions toward Earth that fit entirely within the normal confines of the timestream. Nonetheless, the incident solidified the standing of Uniforce to guard against alien threats. The Associates made periodic reappearances in England over the years, explaining it sits on a “dimensional fulcrum,” making certain temporal incursions more likely to occur there.

THE THREAT OF MENACE

In the 1960s, a number of terrorist and anarchist groups sprang up around the globe to threaten human freedom and the rule of law. SHADOW is the most infamous of these agencies of evil; however, the original incarnation of MENACE (Mobile European Network Acquiring Control of Earth) was an organization of European lunatics that stole plans for the Inexistence Gun, a weapon that altered causality. This brought about the creation of Team Alphabet (inspired by an offhand comment by the Associates that “you’d need a special agent for every letter of the alphabet to stop MENACE and their super weapon!”). Team Alphabet was an elite team of 26 super-spies who boasted that if they were given a suicide mission, they could solve it “from beyond the grave.”
After several years of cat-and-mouse in every corner of the world (and beyond), Team Alphabet managed to cut off MENACE’s access to the Arsenal Outside Time, where they had stolen their fantastic weapons, and put an end to their threat.
Although its name often makes eyes roll, the team has always fielded a top-notch contingent. The second-incommand of Team Alphabet, Agent E (Anthony Ellis) is the father of current UNISON chief Colonel Jennifer Ellis. During his mercenary days, Jack Wolf spent a year on the squad as “Agent W” (which, until then, had a reputation for being the “unluckiest letter”).

CONVERGENCE

Thanks to the wonders of bureaucratic compartmentalization, Uniforce and Team Alphabet were not the only UN agencies investigating superhuman threats. By 1970, the bureaucracy of the United Nations had developed no less than six different agencies to handle matters relating to aliens and superhuman threats. Clearly, a more unified approach was needed to coordinate these agencies into an effective force.
For years, two sub-agencies, the United Nations Science Advisory Council (UNSAC) analyzed alien technology and the United Nations Paranormal Enclave Committee (UNPEC) advised on dealings with places like Atlantis. Enemy agents interested in sowing dissent had infiltrated both agencies. As a result, convergence of all United Nations concerns did not occur for another 25 years, though the other agencies moved closer to cooperation.
In 1993, everything changed. The Terminus Invasion was a clear signal the world needed to organize a response to alien threats on a global scale. Major Jennifer Ellis of Great Britain and Major Jahal Daliwhal of India, both experienced Uniforce operatives, again proposed an umbrella organization. When UNSAC opposed the measure, Team Alphabet went undercover and discovered that UNSAC had been infiltrated by a race of alien parasites. With this threat exposed, there was nothing keeping the proposal from going forward. UNISON, a name meant to signify the single-mindedness of the agency to protect humanity, was formally created in 1994 with Spain’s Carlos Santiago as its first director.
Despite being created in a favorable world climate, UNISON is not particularly welcome worldwide. Their standard operating procedure is for all national governments to approve their mission before entering. UNISON is supposed to share all intelligence with local authorities and national security agencies, and provide them with regular updates. For the most part, they are allowed to enter a country like the United States only when they are on an intelligence-gathering mission to investigate aliens or supervillain threats with a worldwide scope, but they require a special permit to carry weapons.
Fortunately, the fact that Harry Powers and Jennifer Ellis worked together on numerous missions in the past has lowered barriers between AEGIS and UNISON, though their agents often have a more intense rivalry. In Europe and Canada, they have good relations with most law enforcement agencies, and they are more active in the field. In particular, they have a good relationship with Interpol. In much of Africa and parts of South America, UNISON almost acts with impunity. UNISON has never been granted permission to enter the People’s Republic of China, except for a few private meetings between Ellis and Chinese officials.
There is also one worldwide threat where even Harry Powers defers to UNISON’s expertise: Overthrow.

NEW THREATS

In the late 1980s, a new terrorist threat surfaced to trouble the world in the absence of SHADOW and MENACE: Overthrow, an alliance of European terrorist cells organized into a terrorist super-organization. This misfit collection of anarchists and political extremists began a campaign of bombings and assassination in Germany, which soon spread to France, Spain, Italy, and Greece, and eventually reached Eastern Europe and even America.
Vehemently opposed to globalization and other market forces driving economies together, Overthrow’s skill in hiding itself from sight was matched only by the viciousness of their attacks. In 1999, Overthrow assassinated UNISON Director Santiago, and the following year they assassinated his successor, a capable Jamaican named Harry Smith. In 2002, the UK’s Jennifer Ellis was appointed director of UNISON, and has managed to avoid Overthrow bombs and assassins’ bullets—though not for lack of trying on Overthrow’s part.
In addition to the Overthrow threat, UNISON aided in fighting off the Grue invasion of 2003, fielding UniStorm, a fleet of ten space-capable heavy fighter craft UNISON commissioned after the Terminus Invasion.
The existence of a small independent space fleet came as something of a shock to members of the Security Council and sparked intense debate on UNISON’s role in planetary defense. So far, Ellis has managed to defend her organization from attempts to cripple its independent military capacity, thanks in part to close friends of UNISON like King M’Balla of Dakana (who secretly backed the Uni-Storm program), the Atom Family, and the Freedom League.
Atlantis has been a problem for UNISON, as the major world powers realized years ago the Atlanteans would only accept UNISON as an independent monitoring agency. After long and grueling negotiations with the Atlanteans, they finally agreed to allow UNISON to maintain three monitoring stations within 50 kilometers of claimed Atlantean territories.
Due to Atlantean technology, these stations have proven nearly useless in tracking Atlantean activities, but this hasn’t prevented them from being targeted three times by Atlantis or unaffiliated Atlantean barbarians during recent standoffs with the undersea empire.
Another big test for UNISON came in 2004, when the West African nation of Côte de Liberté attempted to get UNISON involved in controlling its civil war. UNISON went in as an advance force for UN Peacekeepers and became involved in firefights with a number of rebel groups.
However, UNISON refused to press the attack or otherwise become involved in a civil conflict. After the death toll mounted, UNISON was heavily criticized, but behind the scenes, they managed to negotiate a cease-fire that has held to this day. The effective combination of restrained force and diplomacy has been one of the hallmarks of Ellis’ term as director, but even she admits that she is only one misstep away from a major disaster.

UNISON TODAY

Today, UNISON has something of a split personality.
Because its objectives vary depending on the part of the globe in which they are operating, UNISON is much more aggressive in areas of the world that don’t have a strong military presence or central authority. Elsewhere, they are investigators who deal with international threats like Overthrow. Their record is excellent; however, they are under intense scrutiny from nearly every quarter.
Overthrow has proven a major source of frustration. UNISON has broken up numerous small cells and stopped dozens of plots, but they have failed to hit the leadership of the organization or discover the secret behind their funding. Years ago, Jennifer Ellis figured Overthrow had to have a powerful player in the world scene supplying it with goods and intelligence. After a long investigation, Ellis has ruled out major world government backing, but has no evidence, except for the possibility of a connection with Dr. Sin. Defeating Overthrow has almost become an obsession with her, but she is as yet unaware of the greater threat behind Overthrow.

Founding Date

1994

Type

Military, Special Operations Force

Alternative Names

United Nations International Superhuman Oversight Network

Leader

Col. Jennifer Ellis

Subsidiary Organizations

• UNIQUE