The World

Trinity's Children is a world of mutation and superpowers. We call it "leather and kevlar" supers, as opposed to "tights and spandex". Unlike four color comic book heroes, Trinity's Children is a world where people's motives are rarely pure, fear and hate are more powerful than truth or justice, and metahumans and mutants are ruled by the same petty emotions as the rest of us. All in all, the characters that make the world are nakedly and unimpeachably human, and driven by human drives, not just a sense of justice and greatness, but out of fear, greed and hunger for power. And the default reaction for someone with unspeakable power over their fellow man is not 'crime-fighting' by a long shot.

The year is 2011, but history diverged from our own beginning in 1945, when the metahuman phenomenon first occurred. But in the beginning, there were only a handful, easily found, easily controlled. But one atomic war in Asia later, a new much larger wave of mutations has rocked the world.

Newspeak
The words of the metahuman world

Terms

A-Rating - Akizuki Scale Rating, gauge of approximate mutation power
Genoterrorist - A metahuman who uses its powers to engage in terrorist activities or violently confront normal human society. Used mainly by anti-mutant columnists and pundits.
MES - Metahuman Exposure Syndrome. A now debunked degenerative syndrome that was supposedly caused by exposure to metahumans. Over 40% of the American population still believes it exists.
Metagenetics - The study of the biological origins of metahuman powers.
Metahuman - A person who has a mutation that grants him abilities beyond that of a normal person.
Psipressant - a drug intended to suppress psionic abilities, usually accompanied by various deleterious mental and physical effects.
SCU - Special Criminals Unit, an unit in local police made of normals specializing in metahuman crimes, known for monitoring and spying on metahumans without justification.
Wildcard Gene - The various unclassified rogue genotypes that indicate a metahuman. Can be detected with a full genetic test.

Slang

Blaster - a Kinetic or Dynamic metahuman whose abilities are mainly destructive.
Brute - A Herculean metahuman, specifically one who has great strength.
Captain Spandex - a metahuman who tries to emulate comic books.
The Craft - Portmanteau of 'compulsory' and 'draft'. Coined during the 70s, the Craft now refers to any situation crafted to make metahumans serve the State by law or by necessity.
Dosed - On a psipressant regimen. Required in some states and nations for convicted psionic criminals, or for all known psychics.
Edgar Hyde - Ex Humanitas, used in front of norms by cautious metahumans.
Fake Shakes - Contempt name for MES.
Fire Drill - A Promethean act against authority, or a similar act of chaos.
Going JR - Going underground, dropping off the normal's radar. Named after J. Robert Oppenheimer and his disappearance after the Cuba debacle.
Hellion - Helix member.
Megaman - An Omega Force enforcer or strike force member.
Merehuman - Normal human, contrasted with metahuman. Preferred by metahuman elitists like Helix.
Mindbender - Psychic in general, or specifically a mind controller.
Mucker, Muck - Metahuman. Derogatory.
Norm - Normal human.
Redhat, Redhead - Omega Force youth corps member, named after their distinctive red berets.
Scum Squad, The Scum - Metahuman slang for the local SCU.
Slowbrow - Anti-metahuman "pro-humanity" activist. Derogatory.
Sniffer - A Narcissist that can detect other metahumans. Highly sought after by Omega Force for surveillance.
Strays - Someone who joins Omega Force then goes AWOL.
Throwback - Anthromorph.

Living in America
You have the freedom to be normal

America has passed into the darkness of another era of fear, doubt and uncertainty. After the destruction caused by the Ex Humanitas Civil War, the already broad powers given to the government to crack down on metahuman terrorism were expanded even further. While the nobler souls have decried the actions of President Royce's administration as a 'new apartheid' and questioned whether being metahuman voids someone's civil rights so easily, the political teamsters have successfully crafted enforcement and a metahuman security state as the only solution to the growing 'metahuman problem' - and President Royce is the only one who can possibly fight them.

The Royce Administration and The Government

President Royce was elected in 2008, promising an uncompromising platform of law and order. The fear and mania created with the rise of mutant superiority groups like Gladius and Ex Humanitas fueled his campaign to new heights. He cemented his role as 'the great law enforcer' by passing sweeping laws giving law enforcement an almost completely free hand in dealing with mutations, called the Freedom For All Act. Coming into an election year, President Royce continues to play up the image of an enforcer president, while counting on the support of strong 'pro-family' groups like the Safe Tomorrow Coalition, which advocates strong restrictions on metahumans and compulsory testing for wildcard genes so potentially dangerous metahumans (read as: any metahuman) can be removed from the school systems as early as possible, before "they hurt anyone".

As far as actually dealing with the problem, sweeping laws have been passed in most states separating metahuman teens from the rest of their peers in all public education, laws which were upheld last year by the Supreme Court in 2010 by Weyland v. Gregory. Special isolated schools (called Special Academies), controversially built in some communities, provide the legally required separate and isolated equal education.

The government has two tiers of defenses when handling metahuman instances. Every police department or Sheriff's department has a Special Criminals Unit, basically a SWAT team with training dealing with metahumans, or in smaller departments, several regular officers with SCU training. Should this be ineffective, the FBI Special Task Force employs members of the government metahuman division Omega Force to deal with the situation. And they usually do so, brutally, though they failed to do so in notable instances such as the Battle for Manhattan in 2009. Deaths of suspect metahumans at the hands of police or Omega Force members routinely go unquestioned or only trivially investigated. So far, attempts to create special hardline courts for metahumans have failed, but many believe it is only a matter of time.

The Media Machine

With the lock-step attitude of the country following the metahuman crackdown and the Battle of Manhattan, the American media has responded in their traditional manner since the McCarthy era - cowardice. A few voices for metahuman rights are heard for those who care to read them, but the central viewpoint of a society under siege by legions of dangerous metahumans is the central talking point of the day.

Seeking high ratings and the favor of an increasingly 'pro-human' FCC, minor events of metahuman misconduct are exploded into massive affronts to the law. Metahuman manhunts are given 24 hour news coverage, and every rumor or statement supposedly made by Ex Humanitas is splattered across the headlines and evening news. If the truth can set the metahumans free, the media has not seen fit to promote it.

A fervent underground media for metahumans and their sympathizers has developed over the years, starting with the underground newspapers of the Sixties, and continuing into the web sites and indy media outlets of the digital revolution. The Torch, a publication by the metahuman front Phoenix, borders on respectability and employs metahuman reporters who have been blacklisted from major publications, and is the premiere source of information for metahumans both in print and online, though their reports have been under increased scrutiny by the Royce Administration. They have been threatened several times with the new 'incitement' charges created by the Freedom For All Act. Independent blogs, local 'zines and other underground sources make up the 'real story' for mutants around the country.

On television and in film, metahumans are treated mainly as criminal factors and dangerous radicals, unless they are the bright and shining boys of Omega Force. Fictional detective shows, including the new hit Baltimore: Special Criminals Unit, often deal with tracking down and convicting metahuman criminals. While some directors like Oliver Stone has challenged the metahuman prejudice to the appreciation of intellectual audiences, such efforts have been decried by the news and editorialists around the nation. Several news networks are known as blatantly anti-metahuman, such as the United News Network (UNN), a cable network launched in the early 90s.

The Association of Metageneticists, a vaguely pro-metahuman group, publishes the Journal of Metagenetic Studies, a collection of scientific and analytical articles on the metahuman phenomenon. Their research has disproved several allegations of mutations being linked to causing cancer, debunking the phony Metahuman Exposure Syndrome, and other allegations of groups calling for metahuman elimination. Their attempts have been so effective against establishing a real scientific reason for limiting metahuman activity, Operation Humanity has attacked their publishing offices and labeled them as 'genoterrorist collaborators'.

The Rest of the World
New nations and old problems

In addition to the rise of metahumans, the world outside of the United States has been rocked by a bitter geopolitical rivalry between Russia and China, an apocalyptic atomic war in Asia and the violent collapse of the Soviet Union. While most of the Western World has made it through those dark times unscathed, many other places have not.

As for the metahuman phenomenon, the reaction of most nations was similar if not harsher than the American one - or at least, those countries organized enough to have a reaction. Many countries, especially authoritarian regimes, force all metahumans into service and brutally indoctrinate them into state service.

The Americas

Much like our world, the American continents are dominated economically, militarily and politically by the United States. Outsider states such as Venezuela and Cuba still exist, with even stronger anti-American rhetoric as the nuclear craters in Cuba attest strongly to 'American aggression'.

Mexico and Canada have strong "anti-genoterrorist" treaties with the United States, and both nations have passed similar laws restricting metahuman travel. Other less-developed nations like Columbia or Peru might have such laws on the books, but lack the resources to enforce them, instead recruiting metahumans into government service haphazardly to police their own.

The Caribbean, however, remains a strange free-for-all when it comes to metahuman politics. Haiti saw several metahumans violently seize power in the early 2000s, only to be deposed by Omega Force and US Marines. There are rumors of secret Trinity bases throughout the various small islands, following Trinity's abandonment of their base on St. May's Island after the Cuban fiasco.

Europe

Europe's recent history has been defined not only by the metahuman phenomenon, but by the violent collapse of the Soviet Union following the disastrous One Day War. Western Europe has followed closely with the American model for metahuman containment. Britain maintains the Extraordinary Services Group, a more civilian enforcement oriented metahuman division, under the auspices of MI-5 and MI-6. France and the rest of NATO generally employ a military model like Omega Force.

The weakened Red Army after the One Day War led to an explosion of democratic revolts throughout Eastern Europe, and left a fracturing landscape of new countries in their wake. Germany was reunified, while many Eastern European states fractured. Some nations were briefly carved out into dictatorships until international action brought them to heel - others remain so. All in all, Eastern Europe and Russia are in a state similar to our world today. The metahuman divisions set up by the Soviets in their former orbit remain largely intact if missing many former members, and laws maintain a required testing and drafting program. All in all, Eastern Europe and Russia are considered to have one of the most oppressive metahuman laws in the world.

Africa

Africa is a bloody mess, more so than in our world. Apart from Asia and Oceania, Africa was considered the 'third front' of the Sino-Russian conflict that built into the One Day War. Governments were overthrown, rebels were backed and chaos was seeded as the Soviets and the Chinese fought for influence in the Dark Continent. With the fall of both their great patrons, Africa has fallen to. Many poorer African nations are little more than gangland, and African metahumans often dominate small warlord kingdoms as bodyguards or warlords themselves.

Asia

No other continent deviates so fully from our world as Asia. Ravaged by civil war, atomic weapons, famine and destruction, much of the Asian continent is devastated. There is no great economic boom in China, a fractured nation struggling to feed its own people on radiation poisoned lands while still locked in an outdated struggle for power; while Pakistan, Afghanistan and Mongolia are nuclear wastelands.

China is forever changed. The United Republic of China, the former Soviet-backed rebel state, maintains a grip on southern and western China, but is barely able to support itself. A poor nation, it maintains a large but ill-equiped military armed with leftover Soviet equipment. The People's Republic of China fares little better, as it maintains only a ceasefire with its rebel neighbor and conducts brutal purges to silence advocates for peace talks, Korean independence and other internal strife, expending thousands of hours of work that could be spent feeding its millions of people.

So fractured was China leading up to the end of the century, Macau and Hong Kong declared self rule rather than take sides in the ongoing stalemate in their homelands, and joined together in the Joint Alliance. Officially, the Joint Alliance will dissolve once a clear victor with a valid claim to China's ancient agreements with Portugal and Great Britain over these colonies presents itself. For now, the Joint Alliance is one of the few islands of wealth and prosperity in the chaos of China.

This is luxury compared to the state of the Sino-Russian border, Mongolia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. These have been reduced to lawless wastelands of radioactive duststorms and lifeless desert after the One Day War. While isolate tribes exist, having learned a complex and deadly lore of safe zones and radioactive survival, the death rate from cancer amongst men and animals is still abnormally high and Russia accuses Red China frequently of intentionally using dirty weapons during the One Day War.

Japan has persevered through the initial fallout and problems of Chinese refugees through their usual method - innovation and isolation. Japan continues to have great economic prosperity, and is one of the leading countries in metagenetic research. Japan is considered one of the few developed nations to have a pro-metahuman majority, helped by early advocacy by respected figures like Dr. Akizuki who developed the Akizuki Scale.

India is currently in a major economic boom, as Western nations move production and jobs to the emerging economic power. Fearing growing tensions with Iran, India announced the first successful test of its atomic program several years ago, and maintains a large military presence on the Iranian border.