Agents of Freedom Design Journal #3: the STAR Squad
This week our Agents of Freedom Design Journal takes a look at the STAR Squad chapter of the book with the expanded history of Freedom City’s top-cops.
History of the STAR Squad
Freedom City’s history of war on super-powered crime dates back to WWII when Commissioner Bachle’s Special Committee Against Sabotage aided the Liberty League against saboteurs and criminals like the original Crime League. This included a small band of cops who called themselves “the Science Brigade,” former adventurers of the 1930s who hadn’t quite abandoned their old habits (they field-tested a number of special weapons that were developed by Dr. Dingle, one of Freedom City’s great eccentric inventors). Both the Committee and the Science Brigade were disbanded at the end of the war (though a few of the inventions, now long forgotten, still sit in the basement of FCPD headquarters).
Over the years, several attempts were made to put together a unique squad of cops to battle super-criminals, from Mad Dog Rae’s “Dog Pound Squad” in the 1960s, to the infamous POF-SWAT (The “Price of Freedom” Special Weapons and Tactics Team) during the Moore administration. The latter was a bad time for superheroes and the FCPD, as Mayor Moore’s corrupt regime took its toll on local law enforcement as it did everything else in the city; from small malignancies do terminal cancers grow, and the POF-SWAT was a tumor, giving the city police a well-deserved reputation for excessive violence. Sadly, as crime rates hit record heights, so did public tolerance of police excesses.
The nadir of the FCPD was 1991, when POF-SWAT murdered a defenseless teenaged super-criminal, a street gang member called “Captain Blood.” AEGIS had captured him in a raid in Southside when POF-SWAT showed up, took control of the prisoner, and he died, allegedly in an “escape attempt.” When secretly shot film footage turned up that showed the Squad torturing and murdering him, the members of POF-SWAT were put on trial. They were eventually cleared of all charges; it is widely believed Police Commissioner Roy Alquist bought their acquittals, as Mayor Franklin Moore often used the team as his personal enforcers. Only an unlikely alliance between AEGIS, local vigilantes, and a few honest cops prevented a major riot in Southside.
Within twelve hours of Moore’s electoral defeat, POF-SWAT was officially disbanded, and the officers quietly resigned and slunk away from Freedom City (a common pattern with Moore’s stooges). The city still had to deal with a high crime rate and deep public cynicism toward local cops. It required a dramatic event to turn around this malaise, but then came the Terminus Invasion. It was (as one often criticized pundit said), “the wrong tragedy at the right time.”
As the city rebuilt from the disaster, Mayor O’Connor was forced to take a good hard look at the FCPD. He uncovered much graft and corruption, but there were still many fine officers who were doing good work despite public distrust and potential abuse from their corrupt comrades. One of the bravest of these officers was Barbara Kane, a police lieutenant who caught O’Connor’s eye when she led a squad of police against a pack of Omegadrones and kept them from panicking despite the nightmarish conditions. Giving Kane a long-deserved promotion to captain, he appointed her as the head of a task force to reform the FCPD.
One of Kane’s chief recommendations was the establishment of a new organization to directly confront supervillains. O’Connor agreed and immediately began to put together an elite team, but Kane persuaded him the city needed something bigger than just a squad like the old Dog Pound; it needed enough men and women that they could police themselves as well as the city. AEGIS objected to the idea; Director Powers told the mayor AEGIS could perform all of the duties proposed for this new squad, but Mayor O’Connor said he believed in local solutions to local problems. On July 4, 1996, Freedom City’s STAR Squad was officially activated.
The STAR Squad faced its first big test soon after its inception, when Fear-Master turned the population of Freedom City against superheroes. Using an experimental device to shield against Fear-Master’s technology, the STAR Squad managed to rally enough of the citizenry to fight their fears that Fear-Master was forced to retreat.
The official complement of STAR Squad has always been twenty-three officers, including three squads of 6 troopers (use the SWAT Officer archetype from Mutants & Masterminds, Chapter 11) and five on-call specialists (a HAZMAT expert, a demolitions specialist, a psychologist/profiler, a communications specialist, and Gary, “the magic guy”). The original leader of the squad, Leonard Upton, proved one of Kane’s poorer choices (capable administrator, poor field commander), and Upton left the positi0n after two years.
By that time, now-Commissioner Kane realized she needed someone who would provide a shock to the system, and she found it in Bill “Bulldog” Maddicks. Although Maddicks grated on everyone’s nerves except for Kane, he was the perfect man to shape STAR Squad into a fighting force that would rival the finest professional teams. He was assisted by ASTRO Labs, which loaned the team amazing pieces of technology like the STAR Squad Decombustion Cannon.
STAR Squad’s first big test under Maddicks came when they fought Hades himself. The dark god decided to celebrate the winter solstice by kidnapping Persephone (not the mythological Persephone, but a vapid pop star psychically linked with Hades’ beloved). STAR Squad couldn’t defeat the villain with force, but used cunning and psychology to hold him at bay long enough for the Freedom League to show up and drive him away.
Mr. Infamy and the Game Master presented the team with its greatest challenge when the two wagered to see whether the STAR Squad could beat AEGIS in a fight. The STAR Squad won the contest and, though they later teamed up with AEGIS to turn the tables on Mr. Infamy, they’ve never let their rivals forget it.
The rivalry between AEGIS and STAR Squad—a polite tension in the case of Director Powers and Commissioner Kane, or concealed contempt between Commander Maddicks and Administrator Bonham (who’ve come to blows on three occasions)–is as intense as any rivalry in Freedom City. Maddicks’ style is responsible for most of these headaches; he never minces words: the press, the mayor’s office (though never the Mayor himself), the Freedom League, and AEGIS are all frequent targets of criticism. Kane usually plays “good cop” to smooth over the differences, but quietly approves of Maddicks’ tirades and refuses to rein him in so long as he gets the job done.
