MEDUSA

If you're wondering, it stands for Metahuman Enforcement Department, United States of America. The U.S. government formed MEDUSA during the 1920's (before the coining of the term variant) with the dual goals of keeping track of the country's scattered more-than-human members and possibly recruiting those individuals into government service. When it formed, MEDUSA was very small: a handful of bureaucrats and field agents charged with tracking the activities of people like Stingray and Captain Tomorrow, and Captain William Cavalry, USN (ret.) in charge.
    Cavalry was a master organizer, and would stay at the helm of MEDUSA through the end of WWII. Under Cavalry the handful of people became a much larger department, with its size and ability growing along with the US variant population. It is known that he recruited several variants into MEDUSA during the lead-up to WWII, but their names and abilities are unknown. Unlike their brethren, MEDUSA variants didn't go in for flashy costumes and strange code names. Instead they wore standard issue suits (admittedly, usually black) and kept to the shadows. Since the variant and non-variant agents dressed in the same fashion, it was impossible to tell one from another. Cavalry played on that, mixing and matching teams of trained normals and variants as the mission required. This eventually led to the formation of the standard MEDUSA five-man squad, which consists of four trained agents and one variant, maximizing the in-field effectiveness of the organization's limited number of variant resources.
    During WWII, MEDUSA blossomed. FDR set Cavalry and his people in charge of coordinating variant and counter-variant activity. This proved to be a larger task than expected, because variants of all sorts came out of the woodwork to aid in the war effort. It is assumed that he had well over fifty variants active during the war, and perhaps five times as many trained field agents. They performed dangerous duty at home and abroad, and FDR expanded MEDUSA's permanent mandate to deal with variant threats to the US of any sort, anywhere in the world—working with the FBI and the OSS as necessary. This remains the case to this day, and MEDUSA agents work overtly and covertly across the globe.
    Cavalry was the type of man to take whatever was handed to him and put it to best use. He wasn't about to let any of these potential agents of liberty go tearing off half cocked, nor would he let any languish on the sidelines. While he wasn't happy with his new recruits insisting on code names and costumes, he let it go. (Just as well, because wartime security would require code names regardless: code names, if not costumes, became the norm for variants and top-line field agents alike.) He was also a New England Democrat in his politics, pro-suffrage and against the segregation of the army. When the war department insisted on having two or three key US variants to focus publicity on, he picked the best candidates—powerful, hard to kill and visually flamboyant. That Snapdragon and Black Thunder were a woman and a black is said to have amused him endlessly.
    When the war ended, Cavalry stepped down, saying that he had seen enough of the game, and of the blood of the agents he had sent to their deaths. Despite his best efforts, more than 75% of his variant agents and over half of his field agents died during the war. That they had tipped the balance and stymied the Axis variants was without question. But they were still dead. He died quietly in his bed two years later of a brain aneurysm. After a contentious battle with congress, Truman appointed General Franklin Parker, US Army (ret.) to replace Cavalry, and the nature of the organization changed drastically. General Parker was an avid anti-Communist, and simultaneously refocused the organization against the Red Threat and purged his own ranks of those suspected of Communist ties. Given Cavalry's politics, this included most of the former leader's support staff. MEDUSA strengthened its ties with the FBI and CIA, and many agents were put on near-permanent loan, forming variant shadow cabinets within those organizations.
    Parker was the nominal supervisor of the Great Hunt, and was a member of the pentaverate of government, congressional and military figures that the Hunt answered to. The circumstances surrounding the Hunt's existence and sponsorship were flagrantly out of bounds, but the power of the men involved and the nature of the time made it possible. (For more detail, read any of the several books claiming to expose the Great Hunt. The best is probably The Hunt and Its Masters by Thomas Quincy Neilsen.) During the era of the Great Hunt, the recruitment of other variants slacked off, and many of the variants on staff either died in the field or retired.
    When the Great Hunt died, MEDUSA took stock and realized that they had no field-worthy variant agents. Parker had a hard time explaining this to congress and the president, and quietly retired in 1954. He vanished two years later. No one has ever succeeded in finding out what precisely happened to him. A death certificate is on file in Buffalo New York, death by self-inflicted gunshot wound. Parker's successor was from within the MEDUSA ranks, Hal Coward.
    Coward had a hard time of things during his early tenure; variants had practically vanished off the face of the Earth. If that was the case, where was the point in maintaining an organization to keep watch on them? Coward hyped up the fact that the Russians no doubt had some variant agents in hiding (true as far as it went, but there weren't many there either), and there were still the remnants of variant presence in the form of extreme technologies. Plus, if variants did return, it was better to be prepared. Coward succeeded in keeping the organization alive, streamlined its operations, dealt with its budget cuts and did his best to recruit scientists and engineers to study and analyze what variant technology remained, confident that the Soviets were doing the same thing.
    In 1963 Dolphin appeared, and the public presence of variants was again a reality. Coward moved quickly, securing increased funding and staff and preparing to deal with the new situation as it arose. He was stymied when the Army took control of the US's first major variant "asset," Sargent Master Stryker, but quickly recruited several others in the 60s and 70s. MEDUSA's study of technology had paid off as well, and MEDUSA agents were equipped with cutting edge near-variant technology, making five-man teams, now standard policy, especially effective. Coward was an effective leader, and led the agency for 22 years, retiring in 1976.
    A significant event during Coward's tenure was the development of MEDUSA's secretive sister-agency, CHIMERA. When variant activity continued to rise in the 70s, Coward organized a split of activities between the operations/ enforcement arm and the research/technology arm, called CHIMERA (Central Headquarters Investigating Metahuman Environment, Research and Armament). CHIMERA's job is to monitor, track and control variant technology, and does so quite rigorously within the bounds of the law. There are rumors of CHIMERA strike teams, similar to MEDUSA five-man teams, outfitted with classified variant technology to destroy dangerous technology and halt attempts at mass producing "classified" materials, but these have never been proven and are vigorously denied.
    Michael Zimmerman was the next chief of staff, and his tenure brought about a whole new ream of changes. He was in control of the organization until late 1984, and had some remarkable successes and spectacular failures. It was during his watch that MEDUSA recruited several very effective agents, assumed a degree of authority over Ground Zero, organized scores of successful actions in foreign countries, and helped coordinate the US response to the Plovian Invasion. In those terms, he was a success.
    His tenure also included: setting CHIMERA and MEDUSA against the Host, a move still regarded as blatantly non-productive; the official splintering of CHIMERA from MEDUSA by Congress, drastically and painfully segmenting the organizations' capabilities; the growth of the Brazilian Liberation Front and other international terrorist organizations; MEDUSA's loss of control over the government's variant assets, leading to the development or full revelation of the Navy's MJ12, the US Army Variant Division and the CIA's Kitchen Staff department; the woeful unpreparedness of MEDUSA when the Plovian invasion came, despite the Host's warnings; and the infiltration of MEDUSA by agents of both the BLF and the Sidari.
    Given this record of peaks and troughs, it's difficult to provide an objective evaluation of Zimmerman's period in control of MEDUSA. He stepped down in 1984 after the Sidari affair, and was followed by John Smith, the man who had been Ground Zero's contact and supervisor. Smith was an excellent choice, since the variant team was still the administrations golden boys, and his nomination was assured. Smith still heads MEDUSA, and has by all accounts done an excellent job of smoothing out the rough spots. Policy dictates that the agency maintain its adversarial position with the Host, but Smith is notoriously slow to follow up on leads in that direction. The organization has apparently cleaned its ranks of double agents and alien influence. Most remarkably, Smith used the wake of the Daemonwar to force the official closing of the non-MEDUSA variant organizations in the government, restoring his agency's primacy as the coordinator of US variant operatives.
    Since the funding for the New England States Variant Initiative comes from the funds that the government provided ground Zero, technically MEDUSA has oversight over all the NESVI teams. The organization has been very hands-off so far, focusing its efforts on coordinating its new assets, international prevention and recovery from the war. Still, they allow these teams access to MEDUSA files via computer, and one would have to be naive to think that they do not have some agents in place to keep track of the situation.

Doublecross
One of the few variants on the planet possessing self-replication abilities, he is a former Secret Service agent and a devout Mormon. Doublecross' powers appeared late in life; he spends most of his time as part of the president's security team, though he is technically still a MEDUSA agent. (Heck, he's his own five-man team!)

Orion the Omenbringer
Another long time member, see his personal entry for more details.

Rapidfire and Impulse
Brother variants, Smith personally recruited them in 1980. For more information, see their personal entry.

Seraph
One of MEDUSA's oldest field agents, Seraph the were-dove has been active since 1971. In addition to his dove shape, Seraph's human form has wings and an agility that places him among the true pillars of variant speed. Cunning, quick-witted and experienced, he'll often carry cutting-edge conventional weaponry to augment his powers.

Wyld
A teleporter of phenomenal ability, Wyld was revealed as a BLF agent in 1987; she had been turned in 1979. Despite warnings by the Host previous to that, Wyld remained an active double agent until revealed by Rapidfire in 1987. Her powers make her near-impossible to capture, and she is still at large.

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