Kingdom, Power, and Glory

by Mephit James

In the standard timeline, the metahuman team of the Irish Republican Army called Glóir does some significant damage… But, let's face it, they could do a lot more. This mini-setting increases their actions until they turn Ireland, Britain, and eventually Western Europe into a warzone long before the Metapocalypse hits. As Michael Sepponen empowers Irish nationals in Northern Ireland, Lin Wen inadvertantly creates her one and only progeny named Adam Milliard. As Sepponen's Glóir and Millard's Court of England square off against each other, they push each other to further and further acts of violence and atrocity until it boils over and takes many people down with it.

Major Metahumans

Major characters found in the Kingdom, Power, and Glory mini-setting include:

Tier Four

Tier Five

Tier Six

Tier Seven

1972

Suspicion 2 | Technology 2 | Economy 0 | Warfare 2
Chronology of the Troubles in 1972

January: Deionne Bright empowers Michael Sepponen with dark energy at a concert. The Tier Four IRA member returns to Ireland and carefully spreads his powers to other members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army including Luke Kinsley, Matthew Mac Eoghain, Jonquil Miles, Terrence O'Shay, and Lillian Garnet. After the events of Bloody Sunday, recruitment to the metahuman task force was not an issue.

April: On April 13, Michael Seponnen, Luke Kinsley, and Jonquil Miles undertake their first mission for the IRA since gaining their powers. They release a warning to the government of Ballymoney two hours ahead of time then Sepponen overran Main Street with great oak trees that toppled several buildings. Jonquil and Luke defend him against police who were utterly confused and unprepared for a metahuman attack. The mission was a success despite five civilian deaths from people who refused to leave the area.

May: When out for the evening with other non-powered IRA members, Terrence O'Shay helps to surprise and beat an off-duty police officer unconscious on Flax Street in Belfast. While the others are content to leave the man senseless in the gutter, O'Shay went farther and burned the man alive with his power.

July: On Bloody Friday, Terrence O'Shay and Matthew Mac Eoghain launch attacks that kill thirty people in downtown Belfast and injure nearly two hundred others, including 41 children from a nearby primary school. While a dozen other IRA members were with them as support, the two metahumans carried out the tasks almost entirely by themselves with Mac Eoghain's wax constructs flipping cars and O'Shay lighting the pools of gasoline on fire. Witnesses described the scenes with horror like the battlefields of World War II and the city is filled with smoke for days. Bus depots and rail stations were especially targeted in an effort to shut down the commercial interests of the city. This incident is the first time that photographs of O'Shay and Mac Eoghain are printed in newspapers, earning them their press nicknames of Holocaust and the Puppeteer.

Later in the month, Operation Motorman is launched, the largest British military operation since the Suez Crisis in 1956. In addition to 12,000 soldiers and battalions of tanks and bulldozers a low-powered British Zipperman goes with the group as metahuman support. While the mission is initially successful in clearing IRA "no-go zones," the Claudy bombings just a few hours after the operation's conclusion mean that the situation is far from resolved.

August: Partially as a reprisal for Operation Motorman, the IRA launches a large-scale bombing campaign throughout Derry, destroying British military targets and supplies. The attacks culminate in the Shooting of Shantallow, a rural area of Derry where British soldiers and Northern Irish partisans clash in a largescale firefight. Dozens of injuries and several deaths are the result on both sides but the most publicized is the death of the British Zipperman soldier at the hands of the Glass Man. Several IRA metahumans fought on the separatist side to scatter the better-disciplined British troops but Kinsley and the British metahuman had a duel in the midst of the shooting with bullets rebounding off both men. Despite lacking the power of flight, Kinsley's superior power level won out and he killed the Zipperman with his bare hands. A photo of Luke Kinsley with the dead and crumpled body of the British metahuman in his hands ran on the front page of every newspaper in Europe and America, terrifying the English populace and galvanizing the IRA to bolder moves.

November: In the last week of the month, Evangeline "Lady Smoke" Gladwin attacks British Army security posts in a series of attacks by sending clouds of choking smoke eight posts throughout Northern Ireland. When soldiers flee the fumes, IRA snipers are waiting to fire on them. In total, some four dozen soldiers are injured and three die of their wounds but the damage to british military morale in the face of these seemingly unstoppable attacks is immeasurable. At the end of the week, IRA forces throughout Northern Ireland launch rocket attacks on a dozen different military and police targets, some of them the same sites attacked in previous days by Lady Smoke. The largest of these assaults is on Shackleton Barracks in Ballykelly where IRA volunteers launch five different rockets and cause significant damage. British Army soldiers fire back at the volunteers but find them protected by the Ice Queen's powers. Ten soldiers are injured in the attacks but no injuries are reported among the IRA volunteers.

1973

Suspicion 2 | Technology 2 | Economy 1 | Warfare 1
Chronology of the Troubles in 1973

March: In the "Border Poll" of March 8, Northern Ireland votes to remain in the UK. The Provisional Irish Republican Army responds with bombings in London outside the Old Bailey, which kill one person and wound over one hundred and fifty others. They also give Michael Sepponen the go ahead to start planning his own missions with his metahuman team.

When Sepponen's new team, made up of Matthew "Waxwork" Mac Eoghain, Lillian "Brightmist" Garnet, Maela "Tuatha" O'Hannigan, and Caroline "Surge" Everett, attack several populated areas in London, injuring over 300 people and killing 15. The attacks are an unequivocal victory but they have the critical effect of prompting the London government to hire Lin Wen and Paige Rampling to defend the city against further metahuman attacks for an undisclosed salary.

This event also sparks the British newspapers' policy of assigning nicknames to unidentified Irish nationalist metahumans. While it makes reporting on them much easier, it also builds up cults of personality for the metahumans and makes them folk heroes to many. It also prompts the IRA to assign a nom de guerre to Michael Sepponen's metahuman team: Glóir.

October: Members of Glóir attack Mountjoy Prison in Dublin, freeing many IRA partisans held by Republican government. Lin Wen races across the Irish Sea carrying Paige Rampling to meet the attack, surprising the Irish metahumans and nearly foiling the jailbreak despite being outnumbered. Wen's speedy abilities are challenged by the crowd of minions summoned by Glóir rookie Zelda Estillõn, quickly dubbed "the Spanish Lady" by the newspapers, and Lady Smoke's cloud of smog. The battle between the World's Fastest Woman and the Two Lady Terrorists is widely publicized but it is another participant in the attacks who would have a bigger impact on the Troubles.

When Wen successfully disperses the smog cloud with a mini-cyclone, a panicked escapee grabs a gun from an unconscious guard and fires at her. Lin Wen runs circles around him, laughing, but she stops laughing when a stray bullet hits a bystander in the chest. The man collapses to the ground, and Wen scoops him up to run him to a hospital feeling wracked with guilt and gripped by uncertainty. Sometime during the run she transfers dark energy to the man, though no one is sure quite how, and creates her lone offspring: Adam Milliard.

While Wen and Rampling prevents many inmates from escaping, the battle severely damages the prison grounds. On top of this, they didn't get permission from the Republic of Ireland before responding to the incursion, which sours relations between England and Ireland and complicates the situation in the British Isles immeasurably. There are consequences on the IRA side as well as Matthew Mac Eoghain and Luke Kinsley are both deeply affected by the bloody fight and disenchanted with the number of civilian injuries.

November: Amidst diplomatic furor, Lin Wen holds a press conference to announce that she will henceforth limit her activities to the greater London area as her contract states. She makes allowances for actions by ID/EA but refrains from getting involved with international incidents by herself. Notably, Paige Rampling holds no such press conference.

December: After recovering from his wounds remarkably quickly, Adam Milliard leaves the Dublin hospital where Lin Wen delivered him and returns home to England. He begins to quietly spread his dark energy to others in a recruitment drive.

1974

Suspicion 3 | Technology 3 | Economy 1 | Warfare 1
Chronology of the Troubles in 1974

January: When August Derby comes to the aid of Adam Milliard while the metahuman is stopping a band of muggers, Milliard thinks he's found a kindred spirit and uses his time-stop ability on Derby until the man develops powers of his own.

Lillian Garnet leads her "Garnet's Group" in an attack on Portsmouth. While no one is killed, over a dozen people are seriously injured. More critically, the women manage to completely destroy the town's waterfront and render the port inoperable for the rest of the year.

February: August Derby and Adam Miliard part ways on bad terms. Milliard continues to Manchester where he saves (and empowers) Seraphina Brewer.

In Northern Ireland, a bus is bombed by IRA volunteers near the town of Birkenshaw. Twelve people are killed in the blast and when a British Army unit is sent in response it is completely destroyed by the combined powers of Lady Smoke and Holocaust. The scene is horrific and Matthew Mac Eoghain, who was supposed to part of the secondary attack as well, decides that enough is enough. He leaves Glóir along with Luke "Glass Man" Kinsley.

March: Traveling together, Seraphina Brewer and Adam Milliard stop a Blight riot in Stokes. Benjamin Hampton is injured in the riot and the pair use their powers to save his life. At the same time, Hampton gains his healing abilities. British Prime Minister Anthony Eden establishes the Urban Agitation Select Committee to address the growing number of cities affected by seemingly random instances of mass hysteria. While this is a purely civilian endeavor in the public eye, Eden does appoint a military liason for the Committee should it become necessary.

April: At the end of March, Sera and Adam arrive in Birmingham where they encounter Matthew Reese and Tawnee Merle. In helping them quell a food riot, Milliard gives them dark energy powers.

Later in the month, Milliard is in Coventry by himself and empowers Gina Renaud. He is surprised when she easily tracks him down but listens to her plans for a British metahuman team to counter Glóir.

May: An IRA bombing on Donegall Road in Belfast kill two British soldiers and an American metahuman offspring of Lyndon Baines Johnson. The incident draws the attention of Andrew Colt who takes an active role in American surveillance of the Troubles.

In the English city of Northampton, Adam Milliard gathers Seraphina Brewer, Benjamin Hampton, Matthew Reese, Tawnee Merle, and Gina Renaud as well as Gilbert Varnham, his last power offspring and newly empowered. Milliard officially forms then into the Court of England and heads for London.

June: The whites-only National Front holds a march on June 15 through London's West End to finish at Red Lion Square for a rally. They meet with police cordons, however, and a group of the National Front marchers charged the cordon to attack the assembled police. Things might have come to violence if Lin Wen were not on the scene to quickly contain any violent protestors. The show of force provokes other National Front members to action but this time they are met by Time Lord who freezes them all in place. He and Lin Wen don't seem to be working together and the papers speculate wildly about who the man might be with authorities offering no comment on any of the theories. Privately, Lin Wen realizes that the man is Adam Milliard and worries about the repercussions of her offspring's powers and politics.

Two days later, Glóir attacks the Houses of Parliament as they infiltrate to plant a bomb. Lin Wen meets them along with Barbara French and several other allies, but the bomb is planted by Fern Tash and detonates as planned, causing extensive damage and injuring 11 people. The real damage happens outside, however, as metahumans clash in the streets and collateral damage ensues. While injuries are likely inevitable, deaths might not have occurred if not for the intervention of the Court of England making the battle between three groups instead of two and much more vicious. Jonquil Miles and Maela Coline O'Hannigan are killed along with three of Wen's defenders. None of the Court are so much as heavily injured, however, and the day emboldens them. For everyone else, however, the loss of life and tens of millions of pounds in damage are sobering.

August: Since the bus bombing in February, Waxwork and Glass Man have been lying low with Kinsley's cousins on Rathlin Island off the northern coast of Northern Island. They are found in the summer by Colin Hatheway from the Republic of Ireland with a proposition to create a haven for Irish metahumans not wanting to use their powers for violence.

November: Riots grip Birmingham in the wake of a series of bombings in pubs throughout the city. Although they are initially blamed on the Blight, they are actually the work of Gavin Burroughs who sets up a base of operations in the city along with Fern Tash, Nuala Dyer, and Jerrold Vincent to bring the city to rubble.

December: On the winter solstice, December 21st, Matthew MacEoghain, Luke Kinsley, and Colin Hatheway announce the Rathlin Island is henceforth a Free Zone where neither the IRA or the British Army are welcome. Reactions are mixed across the British Islands but the few residents of Rathlin Island seem content to go along with the proclamation.

1975

Suspicion 2 | Technology 4 | Economy 1 | Warfare 2
Chronology of the Troubles in 1975


January: Ten days into the new year, British soldiers cross the border into County Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland to kill an IRA volunteer at his home in Castleblayney. The fact that the soldiers crossed out of Northern Ireland angers many Northern Ireland partisans and brings on a series of bombings throughout Belfast and a Glóir raid on the Territorial Army reservist center in Belfast left fifteen dead and several dozen injured.

February: Dermot Wickham's Elite Battalion (or Cathlán Saineolaí) begins to patrol the border. They are on hand the following month when Glóir metahumans raid Portlaoise Prison in an attempt to free two dozen IRA volunteers held there. The attempt is stopped by the Battalion, though three prisoners and two guards are killed in the fighting.

March: The first Blight riot occurs in Ireland, in the city of Waterford. Furious Irish citizens smash storefronts and burn vehicles, destroying much of the downtown area before Gárda forces can contain the crowds. The Elite Battalion empath Warrick O'Hara is called in to assess what is going on but the effort puts him in a coma for a week. When he awakes from his nightmares, Warrick is driven to understanding who is behind the riots.

May: Zelda Estillõn and Marcus Collins capture a half-dozen nonpowered IRA volunteers in Belfast who are allegedly planning to betray Glóir to the British. When two of the volunteers attempt to escape, they are killed by the two metahumans. While repurcussions are avoided when evidence of their betrayal is confirmed, this is the first of many black marks that will follow Collins and Estillõn through their careers.

August: Jacob Parker, dream clairvoyant of the Court of England, anticipates a bomb threat targetting a pub in Caterham, Surrey, England and the Court intercepts them. The vigilantes excute the bombers, releasing pictures to the local papers to publicize their response in the hopes that it will deter further IRA attacks.

Rather than stopping violence, however, the executions spur the largest attack by Gavin Burroughs' team in Birmingham since their initial assault on the city. A large mob, dominated by Olympus, overruns police barracades and burns the city hall to the ground. In a publicized statement, Burroughs directly blames the Court of England's actions in Surrey to the destruction in Birmingham.

1978

November: On November 10th, a day that would become known as Red Friday, Glóir and the Court of England clash in Leeds. Large numbers of metahumans are present on both sides and huge amounts of the city's downtown are destroyed in the clash as well as over two hundred fatalities. The day is a turning point in many ways. First of all, members of both groups are appalled by the teammates' disregard for civilian casualties and many strike out on their own as independent operators. The event also pushes the remaining group members to concentrate on erradicating the other side's metahumans in order to gain the upper hand.

1982

September: War comes to the rest of the world as the Israeli-Lebanese escalates with syntergenes, mind control, and other weapons that have been used in Europe for some time. The Metapocalypse is on.

1984

Zelda Estillõn sold out to the police and escapes with the help of Ulster loyalists, only to wind up dead on the shores of Atlantis.

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