The Office of National Emergency was founded soon after the end of World War 2. While publicly United States government had labeled Communism as the greatest threat to the country, secretly it was super-powered individuals that had the power-players in Washington concerned. A rogue metahuman with radical ideologies could literally wipe out Congress and establish themselves as rule of America.
Helmed by war-hero Jack Fury, the O.N.E. was tasked with investigating the "Emergency" that was the metahuman threat. Given a blank check drawn from numerous black operations budgets, they were provided with personnel and equipment to make their mandate happen. They were not sanctioned for directions operations and as such co-ordinated their activities with various groups within the Law Enforcement and Intelligence communities.
Over the next few decades, subsequent Directors took the agency down a darker path. The O.N.E. started monitoring various agencies, confiscating any information about known-metahumans and their secret identities. Such information was compiled into the Metahuman Database, a giant repository of personal information.
Inspired by other Covert Action Teams and not content with the lack of field operatives, Director Ross formed The Sword. These group of exceptional normals and loyal metahumans conducted officially unsanctioned operations against metahuman threats. Numerous super-powered individuals mysteriously disappeared, winding up dead or imprisoned in unregistered prisons such as Belle Reve.
In the modern era, Nick Fury, son of Jack Fury rose to prominence. Since becoming Director of the O.N.E, the agency was put through a massive reorganization. As a long-standing agent, Fury had worked with many of the heroes which had existed prior to the emergence of the Justice League. He had developed a working relationship and friendships with heroes such as Spider-Man, Luke Cage, and even Daredevil. When he came head of the O.N.E. he was appalled at the agency directives and immediately to reform them.
One of the major changes was the scrapping of the Metahuman Database and the retasking of all resources focused on discovering secret identities. That information was then deleted from all agency databases, with an only copy uploaded to a secure drive code-named The Toolbox. The Toolbox could only be accessed by Director Fury and would be used for emergencies.
Secondly, in the aftermath of the Reach Invasion, Fury convinced his government handlers to allow the agency to go public and field their own super-team. The O.N.E. was the most knowledgable agency to handle such a task, but it was still a hard sell. In the end, Fury was allowed to create his super team, The Shield, as well as the "Hammond High" education and research center. However, he was forced to put shadowy individuals like Henry Gyrich into positions to serve as a check on Fury's power.
When UN General Secretary Lex Luthor halted all League operations after the scandal involving Batman in Sokovia, Fury gathered his international contemporaries and the greatest heroes of the world and met in the Watchtower to come up with a new global solution to heroism which bypassed United Nation mandates.
Sadly, Fury died with the rest of the gathered individuals in the attack that vaporized the Watchtower. The Directorship has passed on to Maria Hill, which has to contend with a world without its most powerful metahumans.
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