A YJA Moment - Between Life and Death

Drifting between the states of alive and dead is against all the laws of nature but it's something Anti-life enables and revels in.  Though there are many versions of the walking dead, the most threatening to humanity was one that was never intended to imbue unlife.  It has been called many things but its official designation was the T-Serum.

The origins of the T-Serum lie with the Progenitor Compound which was discovered by doctors Oswell Spencer, James Marcus, and Edward Ashford.  It's unclear where they got the compound from, but there are many rumors that they came from tainted fauna or microbiological life underground. The goal was to develop life-saving medical compounds, but soon they saw a far more lucrative venture.

The Umbrella Group was a collection of companies founded by Markus, Spencer, and Ashford which worked to create the B-Serum, an alternative to the more renowned Super Soldier Serum.  Recipients were unstoppable, healing damage within seconds and regrowing lost limbs within minutes.  They were, however, prone to fits of mindless rage, which limited their application on the battlefield.

Things were progressing well until disaster struck.  At a research facility somewhere in Raccoon Township, Illinois, a sample of the T-Serum was released.  This version of the Compound was designed to be aerosolized in order to enhance large groups of soldiers but turned out to be highly toxic. However, even the researchers didn't realize that the compound still had regenerative properties and soon those the serum killed were walking again.

These Zombies were mindless creations instilled with boundless aggression.  Following some perverse facsimile of biological function, they sought to consume the flesh of anyone that crossed their path. Even worse, their saliva contained enough T-Serum that anyone bitten would die and also rise as a zombie.

With hundreds of people infected with the T-Serum, it took a clandestine effort by the Office of National Emergency, Covert Action Team Shield, and elements of United States Special Forces to stop the spread.  Afterward, intelligence agencies started to discover the horrifying experiments undertaken by Umbrella and by noted doctor Albert Wesker in particular.

The Umbrella Group was shut down but Dr. Wesker escaped.  Since that time, the rogue doctor has attempted to revive the T-Serum program, only to be stopped by an array of heroes.  One such action by Rip Hunter created an alternate timeline where the Serum turned the world's heroes into zombies and ended civilization.

A YJA Moment - The System Lords

 Far beyond the Dynasties, the Imperium, or even settlement of the Core Worlds, the species called the Goa'uld ruled the stars.  Calling themselves the System Lords, they had discovered the Celestial wormhole network they called Stargates and used them to invade and conquer numerous star systems.

The Goa'uld are small worm-like beings that require a symbiotic relationship with an intelligent species in order to be fully mobile.  In the early days, they did not have an optimal host until they found humanity on a backwater world known as Earth.  They conquered some of the ancient empires of that planet and took slaves, leading to the establishment of Ancient Egyptian mythology and culture.

Within the human body, the Goa'uld worms would take over control of the host, sundering their mind.  One a few million symbiotes would evolve into Royal status, gaining a huge leap in technology and emitting some sort of signal which caused the other Goa'uld to obey them as gods.  This new System Lord would then have to survive against the other royal worms, as they attempt to carve out an empire of their own.

Over the millennia, the System Lords have lost their influence and territory to the other races in the galaxy.  They still remain in the darkest corners of Known Space, using Stargates to access the more inhabited sectors.  Though their technology has lagged behind those of other nations, they are still a formidable foe.

In order to increase their effectiveness, they genetically engineered humans, known as Jaffa, to be stronger and more capable hosts forming them into huge armies. These Jaffa added Ma'Tok energy staves to their traditional Zat'nik'tel energy pistols and wore heavy plate armor that protected them from attacks.

For the first time, they constructed starships in which to launch larger attacks.  Their most common vessel, the Ha'tak possessed a hyperdrive similar to those commonly utilized Known Space and could hold thousands of troops and dozens of Death Glider fighters.  They also utilized a Transportation Rings system similar to Vulcan Transporters, though it can only teleport someone between two ring sites.

A YJA Moment - The Infinite Empire

Thousands of years ago, during the time of the Old Imperium, there was a rival alien government that spanned the stars.  Technologically superior to any of the other Young Species in Known Space, they managed to control over 500 systems at their height.  They had no name for their government, but those who observed them called them the Infinite Empire.

The Infinite Empire was ruled by the Rakatan, a now-extinct amphibian species which grew from the planet that is now known as Lehon.  Known to be highly intelligent and devoted to science, they developed a version of the hyperdrive and began aggressively colonizing the stars.  Soon they were rivaled by the Imperium in the Core Worlds and Mid-Rim of the Galaxy

The heart of the Infinite Empire's strength was its matter-energy-conversion technology, the ability of a machine to construct organic and inorganic products with nothing more than a power source.  The Empire utilized this technology to do everything from synthesizing food and tools, all the way to constructing starships and terraform planets.

At some point before the foundation of the Galactic Republic, the Infinite Empire faded away.  From the scant records of that time, it seemed to be a civil war that erupted within the nation but Imperium reports indicate that some sort of plague also swept through their planets, causing the death of billions of Rakatan.

Whatever the case, little remains of the culture and technology of the Rakatan or the Infinite Empire in the modern-day galaxy.  Early in the Galactic Republic history, a Sith managed to find a Star Forge, a Rakatan satellite capable of manufacturing hundreds of robot-crewed starships at a time.  Darth Revan used this device to create a vast fleet to attack the Old Republic, sparking their first real crisis since their foundation.

A joint effort between the Republic and the Jedi Order was able to destroy the Star Forge and end Revan's insurrection.  The remains of the Forge were lost to scavengers and over the next millennia, they have floated through DarkNet auctions and personal collections.  The Vulcan used the knowledge to create their Transporters and are looking at furthering it to developing full-blown Replicators.

A YJA Moment - Extraordinary Leagues

 In the 19th Century, the government of the United Kingdom was facing great changes in the dominion.  Beyond the regular insurgencies were the emergence of strange phenomena and even stranger individuals.  People who could fly and strange beings from elsewhere were not easily dealt with by the British Armed Forces or the Constabulary. In order to deal with the extraordinary threats, the Prime Minister created the Special Defence Service (SDS).

Because secrecy was the key, all key members of the group were only referred to by a letter, with the leader being referred to as the initial M.  One of the first orders of business was to deal with the threat of the Fantome, a mastermind who pretended to be the famous Le Fantôme de l’Opéra from the Paris Opera House.  In order to counter this threat, M gathered together a group of strange individuals who would become the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

The League was composed of adventurer Alan Quartermain, nautical crusader Captain Nemo, immortal dilettante Dorian Grey, the vampire Mina Harker, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and his behemoth alter-ego Mr. Edward Hyde, Hawley Griffin the Invisible Man, and American secret agent Tom Sawyer. In their first mission that had to suffer a betrayal by none other than M himself and Dorian Grey.  It was revealed that M was Professor James Moriarty who had survived the Reichenbach Falls and was using the Fantom to steal extraordinary artifacts, including those of the SDS and League

The team survived their betrayal and the death of Alan Quartermain, going on to defeat Moriarty and recover his stolen loot.  In the years that followed the League would continue to deal with extraordinary threats such as Robur the Conqueror and Xu Wenwu the Mandarin.  During the Martian Invasion of 1898, the team was instrumental in turning back the Cydonians but contact was lost and presumed dead.

With the loss of the entire League, the government downsized SDS operations, and the agency had significantly fewer personnel and active agents at its disposal.  It still conducted operations throughout the shrinking British Empire, seeking out cases the regular authorities couldn't deal with.  Eventually, M was transferred to the newly-formed Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the SDS was made a covert department within its ranks with the same budget restrictions as before.

During the 1960s another crisis would spark the formation of another team, this time code-named The Establishment.  It was composed of British superhero The Baron, MI6 agent John Steed and his polymath assistant Emma Peel, the alien trio The Golden, the metahuman alchemist Mr. Pharmacist, the ghost Christopher Truelove and his channeller Bertrand Bulman, and the magically empowered Templar.

The Establishment was rather short-lived, falling in battle to another alien threat.  In the aftermath, the latest M shut down the SDS in favor of his other project, the exceptional but unpowered 00 Section also within MI6.  What remained of the department was spun off into a worse funded agency called MI13. While their mandate was to investigate the paranormal, in practice they were shut out by their rivals in MI5 and MI6.

In 2021 in order to counteract the influence by groups such as Checkmate and Stormwatch, MI13 joined an alliance with the American Office of Nation Emergency, the French Le Bureau Discret, and dozens of other special agencies around the world.  This combined-intelligence network would eventually be sanctioned by the United Nations and coalesce into the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D).

After the Apokolips Invasion,  the British branch of S.H.I.E.L.D. established a group the code-named Excalibur, composed of the newly-empowered Captain Britain, his metamorphic wife Meggan, his metahuman sister Psylocke, sonically-powered Banshee, Jon the Skrull, unaging warrior the Shining Knight, special agent Pete Wisdom, and the Joseph Chapman the latest super-solder Union Jack. Excalibur was folded into the Global Avengers Initiative in early 2022.