H.E.R.O

H.E.R.O or Human Evolution Research Organization is a politically unaccountable branch of the central government created and sanctioned by Vernon Loxley. They were initially founded and lead by the original members of M-Division, Tarnic Miliken, and @Bramon Xante. They have facilities in every Sector, for a total of 61.

Headquarters

H.E.R.O Base

Member count

600+ (Superhumans)

10,000+ (Human Auxiliaries and Support)

Status

Active

Allies

Central Government

Enemies

@S.I.N

Background

When monsters were first encountered in the Pre-Unification War days there was little to no information about what they were and why they were on this planet. However, through the agents of M-Corp who survived monster infections and the research of Bramon Xanthe, the M-Division was able to build a team of superhumans and begin studying monsters in a concerted fashion. After The Unification War, Tarnic Miliken and Vernon Loxley worked together to create a secret government department that could leverage government resources to research monsters and superhumans. This agency was called H.E.R.O. The agency would be led by a managing council made up of the original members of M-Division, Tarnic Miliken, and @Bramon Xante. As Tarnic aged and died, his seat passed on to his son Dexter Miliken.

H.E.R.O was just one of the factions that researched monsters and superhumans in a systematic fashion over the years though they were the most well-funded and powerful. @Bramon Xante genius coupled with Henrick Bendrix and Bernhardt Gunvald's ability to understand the monster language gave them a significant edge over most other parties. Unfortunately, the agency's focus was quite myopic; the research's main focus was to weaponize Monster abilities and manufacture superhumans. Xanthe actively sabotaged groups trying to research more pacifist avenues. For example, he contracted Markus Alderman to steal a valuable monster corpse from a group that was trying to reverse monsterification and then had the group destroyed - calling their research "Regressive". Eventually H.E.R.O undertook a highly unethical social eugenics project: genetically modifying vast swathes of the human population to make them more compatible with monster infection. The side effects are known to have caused sterility in huge numbers of people, but this was seen as an acceptable price to quickly increase the superhuman population in the world to combat the growing monster threat.

All the while H.E.R.O was - behind the scenes - maintaining the social status quo by quietly eliminating monsters whenever and where they appeared. Through Henrick Bendrix and Zack Zaman's powers, they were able to cover up any large-scale incidents and generally keep knowledge of superhumans and monsters out of the public view. They also sometimes interfered in political matters to ensure that there was no disruption to the central government and the funding and social engineering projects it enabled. For example, a civil war in Sector 25 was mysteriously ended when strange "earthquakes" destroyed rebel positions, enabling government forces to rapidly retake the sector.